Saturday's Poignant Lyrics

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see"

These lyrics from The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" perfectly describe your average Bush supporter. How ANYONE can still support this maniac after all that has transpired recently is beyond me. After the passing of the detainee bill it is even more obvious that we are living in a fascist dictatorship.

Friday funny

Cool way to copy and paste

Snippy is a cool way to selectively copy anything from your desktop and paste it into applications like Word, Photoshop, etc. It creates an image that you can email, paste into documents or just about anything you can imagine.

The image above was copied from AMERICAblog moments after our country turned into a fascist state. Goodbye America. It was nice knowing you.

Download Snippy

Putt's Law

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Gotta have it!

And I Feel Fine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 [COLLECTOR'S EDITION]

Dorothy Ann Richards

(September 1, 1933–September 13, 2006)



"Poor George, he can't help it...He was born with a silver foot in his mouth"

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

More Americans have now died in Iraq than died on 9/11

While President Bush and other Republican politicians spent the day exploiting the memory of those we lost five years ago, the nation overlooked a grim milestone: More Americans have now died in Iraq than died on 9/11. Iraq didn't attack us on that day, and our misguided policy there has now taken more American lives than Al Qaeda.

Here are the numbers: 3,015 Americans have died in Iraq as of September 9.

2,666 of these were military deaths and 349 were civilians.

Read on

Top 25 stories ignored by media in past year

Each year, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 socially significant news stories of social significance said to have been missed, underreported or self-censored by mainstream press in the US. Here are some of this year's picks:

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger

#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo

#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy

# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq

#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act

#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall

#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians

(Click the link above for more)

McDonald's Petition

Make your own Mickey D's sign!
Sign the petition!

Just when you think you've seen it all...

Chickenhawks killing Doves

What beter way for the GOP to spend the 5th anniversary of 9/11?

Do you get the feeling that they're leading up to something...

...and we're supposed to crap our pants on cue?

CNN's Henry: Bush speech quoting bin Laden "may help shake Americans out of any complacency they may feel"

Excellent piece by Garrison Keillor

It’s hard for Americans to visualize the collapse of our country. It’s as unthinkable as one’s own demise. Europeans are different: They’ve seen disaster, even the British. They know it was a near thing back in 1940. My old Danish mother-in-law remembered the occupation clearly 40 years later and was teary-eyed when she talked about it. Francis Scott Key certainly could envision the demise of the United States in 1814 when he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Lincoln was haunted by the thought. We are not, apparently, though five years ago we saw a shadow.

You might think from the latest broadsides that the republic is teetering, that it’s Munich again, the Nazis are on the loose, and the Current Occupant is Winston Churchill, and that to question him is treachery. The fury of the right wing is quite remarkable — to maintain a sense of persecution after years of being in power is like Donald Trump feeling overlooked — but life goes on.

We really are one people at heart. We all believe that when thousands of people are trapped in the Superdome without food or water, it is the duty of government, the federal government if necessary, to come to their rescue and to restore them to the civil mean and not abandon them to fate. Right there is the basis of liberalism. Conservatives tried to introduce a new idea — it’s your fault if you get caught in a storm — and this idea was rejected by nine out of 10 people once they saw the pictures. The issue is whether we care about people who don’t get on television.

Last week I sat and listened to a roomful of parents talk about their battles with public schools in behalf of their children who suffer from dyslexia, or apraxia, or ADD, or some other disability — sagas of ferocious parental love vs. stonewall bureaucracy in the quest for basic needful things — and how some of them had uprooted their families and moved to Minnesota so their children could attend better schools. You couldn’t tell if those parents were Republicans or Democrats. They simply were prepared to move mountains so their kids could have a chance. So are we all.

And that’s the mission of politics: to give our kids as good a chance as we had. They say that liberals have run out of new ideas — it’s like saying that Christians have run out of new ideas. Maybe the old doctrine of grace is good enough.

I don’t get much hope from Democrats these days, a timid and skittish bunch, slow to learn, unable to sing the hymns and express the steady optimism that is at the heart of the heart of the country. I get no hope at all from Republicans, whose policies seem predicated on the Second Coming occurring in the very near future. If Jesus does not descend through the clouds to take them directly to paradise, and do it now, they are going to have to answer to the rest of us.

Dubya sez...

"I said I was looking for a book to read, Laura said you ought to cry Camus. I also read three Shakespeares. ... I've got a eck-a-lec-tic reading list." --George W. Bush, interview with NBC's Brian Williams, New Orleans, La., Aug. 29, 2006 (Watch video clip)

"And I suspect that what you'll see, Toby, is there will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered. Houses will begat jobs, jobs will begat houses." --George W. Bush, talking to reporters along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, Gulfport, Miss., Aug. 28, 2006

"I would guess, I would surmise that some of the more spectacular bombings are done by al Qaeda suiciders." --George W. Bush, on violence in Iraq, Washington, D.C., Aug. 21, 2006

"The United States of America is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks." --George W. Bush, McLean, Va., Aug. 15, 2006

"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s**t, and it's over." --George W. Bush, chomping on a dinner roll while talking about the Middle East crisis with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 17, 2006 (Watch video clip)

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good." --George W. Bush, Strelna, Russia, July 15, 2006

"I've reminded the prime minister-the American people, Mr. Prime Minister, over the past months that it was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2006

"We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 27, 2006

"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

Penetration Well Done

A new brand of condoms may never make it to store shelves in Thailand because of its "inappropriate and ambiguous" name. "Tom Dundee" condoms are named after a popular Thai country singer, but "Tom Dundee" also has another meaning in Thai: Good Penetration.

According to an article in the Bangkok Post, the Thai Food and Drug Administration has asked the Culture Ministry to "investigate the name and decide whether it conforms to national norms and values." Ladda Tangsupachai, an official with the Culture Ministry said, "Although the name is not vulgar or rude, it is ambiguous, boastful and provocative. It could entice excessive consumption and lure children and youths with little maturity to start having sexual activities before their appropriate age."

Ah yes, the old "appropriate age" debate. Talk about a gray area; that will never get resolved to anyone's satisfaction. For certain, if the decision was left to most conservative religious fanatics (whatever their affiliation), the "age of consent" would be about 25 - and even that would come with stipulations.

Meanwhile, Puntiva Poomiprates, the singer who uses Tom Dundee as his stage name, says that the name has nothing to do with sex whatsoever. He chose the name, he says, after watching the movie Crocodile Dundee. On the subject of the condoms, he had this wise advice: "You can't stop human desire, no matter how old they are, so it is better to protect them."

American Troublemakers

A reader, R. Richards, had this to say in the Bangkok Post's "Letter to the Editor" section on Monday:

"One really has to wonder at what lengths the US will go to stir up unrest in other countries. Whilst the world is in turmoil with Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Sri Lanka on the brink of civil war, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tries to cash in on the deteriorating health of ailing Cuban president Fidel Castro by talking of "democracy" and making veiled references to regime change - as though the US didn't have enough trouble on its hands already!

A more diplomatic approach would have been a get-well message - this would have had more of an effect on the Cuban population. Since Rice holds a doctorate, I would have expected that she would add some intellectual strength to this US government's credibility, but alas she seems only able to parrot the well-worn and discredited script of her warring president George W. Bush.

My guess is that Rice is keeping in close proximity with her boss in order to make a run for the presidency in 2008. God help us all."

I'm not so sure about Rice making a run for the presidency in 2008, but I agree with what Mr. Richards says about the US and their eagerness to "help" the people of Cuba. Let the Cubans take care of their own matters without interference from the creepy American government.

More Tales of Bombs and Buildings

Kim Fay is a travel writer and photographer. She is the editor of the guidebook To Asia With Love, dubbed "the ultimate insider's guide to Southeast Asia." The following is an excerpt from "The Kindness of Strangers," an article she wrote (the entire piece can be found on her website: www.kimfay.com) in which she describes being in Luang Prabang, Laos when she first heard the news about the 9-11 terrorist attacks:

"Disoriented, we find our way to a TV in a new café. Surrounded by Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans hunkered down on a rough timber floor, we watch the small fuzzy image of our President as he addresses the nation. It's nearing midnight, and we're exhausted. And then, whispered under the breath: 'What did they expect?'

Not once this night do we hear how terrible or how sad or how tragic. Instead, we learn that somehow we might have deserved this assault, and that our president is a "wanker." I have never felt lonelier in my life than I do now in this room, but although we want to leave, we also need to know what's happening back home.

Finally, around one a.m., CNN cuts out and everyone drifts away. No one expresses a word of sympathy, and we return to the hotel, wounded. We lie in the dark silence of our hotel room, so tired we find it impossible to sleep. Another storm will come and go before the night is over, and when we wake it will be to a world irreversibly changed."

I find it quite ironic that she was in Laos on 9-11. The tiny landlocked country once held the distinction of being the "most bombed country on earth." Courtesy of - you guessed it - the American military during the Vietnam War.

Terminal Compassion

Death, however cruel and unfair, sometimes brings out the best in people. I was just sent a link to an online article about Beth Goldring - a New York native who quit her university teaching job to become a Buddhist nun - and the AIDS hospice that she runs in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

What Beth and her dedicated staff at Brahma Vihara are doing to help those who are suffering is nothing short of incredible. Beth is an amazing woman, and I can’t begin to fathom how she summons up the energy and strength to do what she does each and every day.

Please take some time to click on the link and read the article by Bennett Stevens, starkly illustrated by his superb photographs. This story makes my cry - but it also inspires me.

http://www.lensculture.com/stevens2.html

Towel Flicking Diplomacy

"I don't think he wants to hear anything outside the box of his prejudices. He's one of nature's towel flickers and he has turned American international policy into towel flicking. Polarism and neo-conservatism has seriously weakened the United States."

British diplomat Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong (1992-1997), commenting on George W. Bush and his lack of foreign policy expertise. The outspoken Patten is also the author of two political memoirs: East and West and Not Quite the Diplomat.