Archives November - December 2003

29 December - As the media focus on international terror, a Texan pleads guilty to possessing a weapon of mass destruction.

Those people with any sense of history, politics or intelligence have long thought, felt and believed that the Bush-Ashcroft war on terrorism is misplaced. As this article from the Christian Science Monitor shows, domestic terrorism is a very near and real threat to America. And what have Bush and Ashcroft done about it? What do you think? It is ironic that this case occured in the president's adopted home-state of Texas and is, "The very top of all domestic terrorist arrests in the past 20 years in terms of the lethality of the arsenal," according to Daniel Levitas, author of "The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right.

As the article recounts, "The fact is, the number of domestic terrorist acts in the past five years far outweighs the number of international acts, says Mark Pitcavage of the fact-finding department at the Anti-Defamation League. "We do have home-grown hate in the United States, people who are just as ill-disposed to the American government as any international terrorist group," he says.

There are approximately 25,000 right-wing extremist members and activists and some 250,000 sympathizers in the US, the article says. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 708 hate groups in 2002. If this Texan had been from the Middle East, the Ashcroft justice department would have been all over this case like a bad smell.

Patriot Act II is signed by Bush - he just doesn't call it that. See here.

On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday.

17 December - Weapons of Math Instruction Discovered at Airport

At New York's Kennedy Airport today an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, and a calculator. Attorney General John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of a the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is being charged with carry weapons of math instruction.

Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like "x" and "y" and although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns", we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every angle, and if God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes.

Therefore, I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line.   

These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex. As our Great Leader would say, "Read my ellipse."   Here is one principle he is uncertainty of---though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks.

[thanks to KJ for bringing this to my attention]

15 December - scandal, scandal, who's got the scandal?

This site has a wonderfully well-organized list of links that will take you to articles from our liberal press as they take GeeDubya and his toadies to task for various scandals. This administration is evidently the most moral presidential administration since Clinton left office. Also, see this link [from the same people] for Bush's broken campaign promises. OK. I'll let Bush slide on this one. Well, of course he lied. Oops, I mean told a fib. Err... What I mean is, who expects a politician to keep their campaign promises?

12 December - Bush: Boy Toy

Check out the new Bush Doll from the makers of Mad Magazine! WOW!

08 December - Gorby vs Bushie

That commie pinko bastard Mikhail Gorbachev had this to say in an interview with Amitabh Pal in the December issue of The Progressive. Beware Limbaugh lovers. You won't like this.

"What happened to the Soviet Union happened mainly for domestic reasons. The rejection of freedom and democracy, the decision-making monopoly of one party, and the monopoly of one ideology all had a chilling effect on the country. That model turned out to be incapable of making structural changes. It did not open up ways for initiative and was overly centralized."

He continues, speaking in the Papal "We," with, "When it became clear to us that the one-party model was mistaken, we rejected that model. A new generation of more educated people started to be active."

On consumerism, Gorby said, "One of the reasons why this country [the good ole USA, home of the free, land of the brave] undertook military action in Iraq was that there are quite a few problems here, and perhaps attention needed to be deflected from those problems." [emphasis added].

It should be noted that the Republicans would be happy to adopt the Soviet model of one-party rule. This is what they have been working so hard for since the Reagan "Revolution" and what Gee-Dubya and his toadies represents so fully. In America this has historically be termed "Tyranny." In other countries it is known as "Fascism."

26 November - they got a hand full of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged.

Well. Another giveaway from the Bushies to their cronies - this time in the health insurance business. Medicare will now be open to competition, no doubt to the benefit of insurance companies and the detriment of the people who require the service. Why is it so important for the Republicans to privatize everything, as if public ownership and control is somehow un-American, antiGod or just downright evil. As Jim Hightower points out in the September/October 2003 issue of ORION, the Bushies and their minions are only interested in government giving them plenty of police and military protection and, "I'll take care of everything else myself." Since Reagan, Americans want to believe in the ethic of separatism. Their guiding light is to say, "I've got mine. Now you get yours." As if providing for the public good is somehow wrong.

Look, or hear, what is being said on the public airwaves by the so-called liberal media as represented by FOX "News," or Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and all those radio call-in shows. These are the people who clamor for smaller government and getting government out of our lives while pushing for a larger military and a larger police presence in order to snoop in our bedrooms, our library records and our banking records.

These rugged individualists are the ones who are pushing for government to get out of providing any public services. And how do they do it? By using the public airwaves to make their point about going it alone in life. As Hightower writes, "Also, unless they can levitate, they most likely drive on public roads and highways. I would guess that quite a few of them went to public schools and universities. The probably deposit money in publicly protected accounts, shower in water provided through public pipes and purification systems, count on the public fire departments and EMS to respond to their emergencies, gladly accept the annual public subsidy of their home mortgages [including vacation homes], fly out of publicly built airports under the well-trained guidance of public air-traffic controllers, enjoy the public splendor of our national parks and seashores, take medicines developed by public research, eat at restaurants that meet public health standards," and so on. Not to mention that the citizens who listen to these "self-made" foghorns spend their weekends and Monday nights watching millionaire sports heroes cavort in a publicly built stadium.

Hightower is a good writer. The one thing he doesn't acknowledge is that the whole premise behind the Bushies and their toadies in the Congress and in the "liberal media" is to privatize everything. They will do this legislatively, as they have succeeded today with Medicare. They will do it by rescinding executive decisions as Bush did his first week in office to kill Clinton's protections for wilderness in Utah. They will do it by subverting laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts by not enforcing infractions. But the most insidious way they will do it is by strangling the governmental budgets so that government will have no choice but to enter in to "public-private partnerships." These are partnerships where the public pays for everything [first with their tax dollars and then with user fees] and the private reaps the monetary rewards.

On the federal level the Bushies are impoverishing government by spending the public's money on military projects designed to benefit American corporations with interests overseas. Examples? Can you say Afghanistan? Can you say Iraq? While the US rebuilds the infrastructure of these countries destroyed by American bombs, our own schools, national parks and forests, bridges, clean water and air and an endless host of other public services go wanting. And eventually they must, will, be privatized in order to continue functioning and providing services for citizens of the US. You must already pay a fee in order to take a walk on your public lands. What is next? A fee in order to breathe?

Today's approval of the Bush Medicare plan is only one more small step in the usurpation of the American Dream. Does Bush care what the people of America think or want? Why should he? He was put into office by five Supreme Court Justices. He has no one to answer to but the Magnificent Seven.

21 November

John Hess is a journalist who wrote at the New York Times for 24 years. He has this to say about the "liberal" bias at the Times.

12 November

Read this about our compassionate conservative president. If Bush seems oblivious to the affect his policies have on real people, he comes by it honestly. The good ole boy talk comes from a privileged Texas-Andover-Yale background and has remained, throughout his life, uninterested in how the other half lives. You have to love a guy who wants to cut medicare, welfare, Social Security and food stamps because they foster dependency. Whereas inheriting millions of dollars and having your whole life handed to you on a platter is good for your immortal soul. If Bush's hypocrisy wasn't so damaging to so many lives it would be pathetic.

Here is an interesting photo of Bush in a position he appears to love the best.