The Gainesville Report

Dissing Dissent

2005-12-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

Mark Vonnegut, in a Dec. 27 column in the Boston Globe: "The outcome in Iraq will not depend on what we believe and how hard we believe it." Vonnegut, a pediatrician in Massachusetts, was writing in defense of his dad, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who has been criticized as pro-terrorist for saying on national TV that suicide bombers are not crazy people but rather people willing to die for a cause.

The pro-war crowd has been consistently ironic in its denuciation of any dissent as anti-American and pro-terrorist -- ironic because these same people claim we are fighting this "war" to preserve our freedoms, which one can assume includes the First Amendment's freedom of speech and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Connecting "anti-war" with "anti-American" is wrong, of course, but it serves a useful purpose for the pro-war propagandist. And we all know that this tactic has been largely successful, considering how the media so compliantly repeated, without independent investigation, all of the administration's assertions about Saddam's threat to the US.

The problem is corporate control of the media and the consequential focus on profit over reporting. These media companies are so worried about their bottom lines that they aren't about to rock the boat. Hell, much of the mainstream media is owned by companies that profit from war. For a network to be called anti-American simply means the possible loss of customers for some of the network's advertisers. So they do what needs to be done to prove their support for the war.

Sure, now that the invasion has become such a horrible mess that only gets worse, the media is starting to contest the president, somewhat, but Bush can still drop the "9-1-1" nuke-lar bomb of justifications whenever he wants without any protest from the media.

Robert Fisk, a British journalist who probably knows more about Middle East politics and history than any reporter, had some interesting comments about the use of propaganda here. I suggest you read it. He gives interesting insight into how the media can be twisted over time into abusing language to serve a political agenda. Understanding how this works is the one of the most important things any of us can do in these odd times.

I Just Lost My Lunch

2005-12-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

I'd like to see Larry Flynt being interviewed about this.

Pass The Gravy

2005-11-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

Robert Jensen doesn't eat Turkey Day dinner, and he's got a point. Here.

Always Run From The Owners

2005-10-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

In the US, this would be considered sooooo French.

Maybe we should consider this tactic here, specifically for SUV drivers who have those annoying "W" stickers in the window. Of course, unlike in France, deflating the tires on a Hummer in any red state would lead to bloodshed. Which is why I like the quote from the activist group's leader: "Our rules are to never run from the police. And always run from the owners."

I once read the term "FUV" on A Tiny Revolution. An apt name for a vehicle mostly driven by people who will never get it dirty, who drive it knowing that it wastes gasoline and money and that it pollutes more heavily than other vehicles, all because they want to appear important, show off their wealth, or compensate for some other inadequacy. Which is another reason we should always run from them.

I Feel This Way About Republicans

2005-09-30T06:13:00.000-05:00

Bill Bennett shows his naked rear end.

I'm Feeling Jumpy Myself

2005-09-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

NBC's Brian Williams had this interesting anecdote about the power returning in the French Quarter for a few hours, during which President Bush's motorcade rode through:

The "entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions."

White Makes Right

2005-09-16T19:18:00.000-05:00

American compassion at its best.

Music For My Ears

2005-09-15T18:59:00.000-05:00

James McMurtry's "We Can't Make It Here" could well join the list of great anti-war songs.

Of Monkey Butts and Ski Boats

2005-09-15T18:34:00.000-05:00

Steve Bell once again shows why he is so brilliant. He also nailed it with this one.

Bell's wit, honesty and artistry put most American political cartoonists to shame.

Hmmmmmmm

2005-09-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

"The guy kind of reminds me on a state level what Bill Clinton was in 1992 on a national level."
-- St. Petersburg attorney Ken Blackwell, a registered Republican who also given campaign support to state Sen. Rod Smith, a Democrat running for governor.

Methinks someone slipped some LSD into Mr. Blackwell's martini.

Now We Know Where Dubya Gets His Smarts

2005-09-05T23:02:00.000-05:00

Former First Lady Barbara Bush proves that you can take the woman out of Kennebunkport, but you can't take Kennebunkport out of the woman. Barb, from Editor and Publisher:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

May A Bat Suck Your Blood

2005-09-04T21:26:00.000-05:00

Anne Rice offers a compelling finger wagging to America for dismissing New Orleans' victims. She's absolutely correct.

...Because We Were Too Busy Playing Golf

2005-09-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

CNN: In comments on Thursday, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

A Real Mission To Accomplish

2005-08-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

Hey, I've got a good idea. Let's bring the troops home from Iraq to help with the Katrina hurricane relief effort. President Bush has said both situations will take "years" to address, and I think it's more important to rebuild all of those communities, as well as deal with the seeming destruction of New Orleans. Most Americans would prefer to end the war, and this is more than ample justification. And Dubya wouldn't need to use a string if lies and attacks on our personal freedoms in order to accomplish this mission. Just a lot of hard work, which he claims to know about.

Gotta Keep Your Priorities Straight

2005-08-31T10:46:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness our fearless leader decided to cancel his historically long vacation to deal with one of the biggest crises our nation has faced. Of course he took time to do this first.

If I recall, President Clinton was heavily criticized for getting an expensive haircut on Air Force One.

This Sounds Strangely Familiar

2005-08-29T22:16:00.000-05:00

Stafford Jones got a political hand job from The Gainesville Sun today. That's the nice way to put it.

Jones, the chair of the local Republican Executive Committee, announced that he has a plan to boost growth in the community. That the "plan" was merely worn-out anti-regulation rhetoric was of no consequence -- The Sun gave it tons of ink, never mentioning that every pro-development candidate for city or county government in the past three decades has had this same plan.

Jones blames zoning regulations, government interference with business and "progressives" for preventing "the area from growing and attracting young families and retirees who would help shore up the local economy."

"When my children grow up I don't want them to have to leave this community to find jobs," Jones said.

Sigh. For a marketing plan, I give it low marks on originality, and even lower marks on the likelihood of success. Growth management regulations and zoning laws have a purpose -- to prevent some nasty business from locating next to your house or church or whatever. Development review takes time because developments have major impacts on our community, and citizens have a right to look after their community.

There's been so much growth in Gainesville, Alachua, Newberry and Alachua County, with large employers, large retail centers, and bountiful housing developments, that you'd think the growth-at-all-costs side would be satisfied. But they never are.

Every election year, one or two candidates raise and spend tens of thousands of dollars to promote this message -- the "anti-growthers" don't want the poor to have jobs or for anyone to have lower taxes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. It worked the best when The Sun's publisher was John Fitzwater, a rabid anti-regulation activist. He constantly portrayed growth management as "terrible" and promoted candidates like George Dekle, Bobby Summers and Jim Painter.

Fitzwater pretty much saved the anti-regulation crowd's butt after the Chambergate scandal, where the muckity mucks were caught on tape conspiring how to discredit UF professors and politicians who fought their growth plans. Fitz squashed the coverage, the Chamber wrote a public apology, and Fitz declared the issue closed. His staff stopped covering the damaging story, and Fitz followed with a decade of political attacks on any group or elected official who stood in the way of any development proposal.

Fitzwater's gone, but we still have folks like Stafford Jones to remind us that old ideas never die, they just become GOP talking points.

If This Had Been Al Gore, Entry No. 1

2005-08-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

OK, so normally this series is about how Bush supporters would be trying to impeach President Clinton had he been president and done the things Dubya has done. Not this time.

A web site called Absurd Theatre has done me one better and published a fake news article about the GOP-controlled Congress filing articles of impeachment against President Al Gore, Jr., for ignoring clues about the impending 9-11 attacks and for his illegal invasion of Iraq, etc.

When anyone claims that Bush has done wrong, his supporters immediately accuse the critics of "just hating Bush" or, as some are so bold to say, "hate America". They rationalize and justify every one of Dubya's decisions, no matter how strong the evidence is for lying, corruption and incompetence.

Clinton was impeached because he lied about a blow job. Never forget that.

Assassination Call Strengthens Chavez

2005-08-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

And that's a good thing. Chavez is the type of leader we should be praising, if we actually cared about people and human rights, at least as much as we can about getting rich.

If Venezuela follows the pattern of previous US takeovers in Central America and South America, a lot of poor people will be massacred, all to ensure the profits of oil companies (strange, but it seems like I've heard this story somewhere before).

In the 1950s through the 1980s, the US government was able to meddle in the affairs of Latin American governments, to back coups of democratically elected governments, and to support vicious tyrants -- all without much concern from the US people. We oversaw much repression, torture and death -- hundreds of thousands murdered because they did not support the government the US wanted them to.

Sure, there was some attention, notable in the 80s with Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Iran Contra scandal. Did you know that Nicaragua won a verdict against the US in an international tribunal for damages caused by US war crimes against the nation. The crimes including bombing of facilities and mining a key harbor. At any rate, many of not most people regard US actions as a response to a communist threat that we now know was never there.

This war continue today with Columbia and Venezuela. In Columbia, the US has a pliant partner in control, but in Venezuela, the US has opposition. Hugo Chavez, widely popular and overwhelmingly supported in two campaigns and a recall (with the opposition funded by the US and the oil industry).

The Independent published a great article on the situation, which I suggest you read. I also suggest you more closely learn about this issue, but it portends to be a future hostile takeover attempt by our country.

The Oil Wars blog has several recent posts that are informative and link to more resources.

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Bush/Cheney 2004 Sign

2005-08-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Republicans can't agree on how much hate is too much. (Thanks to Atrios for the link.)

Anti-Gay, Pro-al Qaeda?

2005-08-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

I wonder if these wackos voted for Bush? If not, then who?

Let Them Eat Low Prices

2005-08-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

Apparently, if you opposed a proposal to trade Northside Park with Wal-Mart for a new park, you are an elitist that could care less about the poor and a racist who doesn't care about East Gainesville.

At least, that's how the losing side of the debate tried to spin it Tuesday. And let me stress – the losing side of the debate.

There were many reasons to oppose the idea – the neighbors didn't want to replace its park with a mega-sized retail center; the location is a poor choice for a supercenter, and it has drainage problems; and many people just have cognitive disconnect when you mention giving Wal-Mart a park, no matter what the retail giant has put on the table in return.

I opposed it purely because government has no responsibility to use tax money to confer massive financial favors to corporations, because the taxes are needed for real public purposes, because the companies don't need the money, and because incentives to corporations are never doled out fairly, but rather in a pattern of political favoritism.

The trick pulled by Wal-Mart and former Gainesville City Manager Wayne Bowers was to attach a second supercenter to the trade – give Wal-Mart the park, and the city will get a bigger park and a supercenter in East Gainesville. It was a rather large bone to throw the East Side, but a bone nonetheless. Wal-Mart is willing to bring its low prices close to home, as long as it get something in return.

So when the trade for the park was nixed Monday night, the trade proponents tried to make it into a civil rights issue. This, despite the fact that the commission also passed a resolution – unanimously, mind you – in support of Wal-Mart developing on a specific site on Waldo Road. Still, the elitism and racism accusations have been repeated, and will be again I'm sure.

It is an absurd accusation, especially the racism part. Helping locate a Wal-Mart in East Gainesville is not a significant public service – it is a commercial development with a store that has lower prices, so they say. Wal-Mart is free to locate a store at several locations in East Gainesville, whether the city likes it or not.

Any work the city does to entice Wal-Mart is corporate welfare. Let the so-called free market be free of government involvement and my tax money.

Spam, Comments and Spam

2005-08-23T21:33:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I now have an easy way to publish my writing and random spam advertisements.

I have deleted the ones I saw, but you might have caught a few of the advertisements posing as comments on a few posts. "Great blog! Click here to learn about penis enlargement." That sort of thing.

So now if you want to leave a comment, you'll have to take an additional 4.6 seconds off your life and fill in a verification field. That way spambots cannot leave advertisements on the blog.

Is Smith Off (His Party) Base?

2005-08-22T19:44:00.000-05:00

I actually agree with state Sen. Rod Smith's comment, from an idealistic standpoint. Judges should pay attention to law and precedent and not to ideology.

Maybe Smith is playing to the soft conservatives, trying to get them to switch if he wins next year's Democratic gubernatorial primary. Whatever his reason for taking this position, he has now put the issue of abortion into the race, because choice advocates obviously oppose Roberts for the Supreme Court in fear he will make abortion illegal.

It'll be interesting to see how (or whether) Smith defends a woman's right to choose -- because he'll be asked, and real soon. With his comment seeming to support Roberts nomination, Smith will be under pressure from pro-choice groups to strongly support choice, else alienating a large voting block that also happens to be very politically active.

He will make some sort of statement in support of choice in the next few days, if he's smart. Opposing choice might help Smith in a general election, but it will likely cost him the nomination.

Meow! Reow! Hisssss!

2005-08-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

Florida Dem gubernatorial candidate Scott Maddox took a rather accruate pot shot at state Sen. Rod Smith, an Alachua resident who is one of Maddox's two opponents for the Dem nomination next year. He said:

"Rod Smith has a Republican voting record. And while he votes with us on some of our things, on lots of them he doesn't, like the living wage. And I think he's going to throw a screen pass. He's a good speaker, he'll run an inventive campaign, but when he gets in the end zone, even though he's wearing my uniform, I ain't sure he's on my team."

According to the St. Pete Times blog, The Buzz, Smith shot back that Maddox was not a factor in the race.

Alternative blog post headline: Nanny Nanny Boo Boo, Stick Your Head In Doo Doo.

Swift BS

2005-08-21T11:32:00.000-05:00

Frank Rich writes in the NYT about how the right-wing personal attacks on Cindy Sheehan didn't work, but I think he is being too enthusiastic about the political damage Sheehan has done to Dubya. I read many such articles at this time last year about the torture scandals, the poor economic news, the mess in Iraq, etc., that pronounced Dubya's agenda DOA. Yet there he still is, re-elected.

HST WMD?

2005-08-20T15:20:00.000-05:00

Considering all that he injested in his life, this might be considered a chemical weapons attack.

His Jokes Are Improving

2005-08-20T10:08:00.000-05:00

Rod Smith on his name recognition: "When I first got into this race, nobody knew my name. I saw one poll that had me with 4 percent. The problem was, the poll had a 5 percent margin of error."

Sounds about right.

And I am glad he said this:

"We know we have a class size problem, but we can't have a second class education system," Smith said. "Folks, we know we can do better."

Oy . . .

2005-08-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

Bush shatters record for vacation by a US president.

Bush won't interrupt his current vacation to meet with the mother of a fallen soldier (citing a need for balance in his life) but he interrupted a previous vacation to fly to D.C., to sign special legislation to help Terri Schiavo.

. . . vey.

Jeff Foxworthy He's Not

2005-08-18T22:23:00.000-05:00

State Sen. Rod Smith said this about his hometown of Alachua Thursday, when speaking to the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club:

"It's hardly a great base to run from politically, but then again neither was Pensacola (which produced Gov. Reubin Askew) years ago or Lakeland before Lawton Chiles walked out of it. The town of Alachua is so small that I tell folks all the time that we have a weekly newspaper and it's readership is always greatest when we have a divorce notice involving the sale of a bass boat.''

Unfortunately, the Alachua he describes is somewhat a thing of the past. City officials have sold the farm, literally, to a group that wants to transform Alachua into the state's largest truck stop – home to literally thousands of semis that travel in and out every day. The town's political and business leaders have refocused the attention from Main Street to the newer retail businesses close to the interstate. The city has annexed so much land that it is the size of Gainesville, with a fraction of the population. City leaders are all too willing to rural lands for commercial and industrial development, and to spend tax revenues making development cheaper for the developer.

The city is heavily in debt, for a city its size. Taxes are above average, and utilities are expensive. The city resells electricity from GRU, at a higher price.

The city commission, financially supported in their campaigns by people who make money from real estate development, promises that these new businesses will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the annual tax revenues, which would mean tax relief for the citizens.

The problem is, the city has never truly estimated the costs of this growth, on top of the money already spent on it. There's reason to believe that the costs will outstrip the revenue -- every city in Florida is that has a lot of growth has higher rates of taxes, crime, poverty and pollution than Alachua. You want cheap taxes? Move to Gilchrist County.

Of course there is also the promise of jobs, and that is certainly true. You can debate about the quality of those jobs, but they're better than shoveling fast food. However, the vast majority of those jobs are going to people who not only live outside of Alachua, they live in other counties. Counties where the taxes are cheaper.

Alachua residents are paying higher taxes and utilities to ensure these warehouse distribution centers are built, yet a small percentage of them work there, loading and unloading 80-pound pallets of Chinese-made goods bound for Wal-Mart or Dollar General.

The town is already dangerous. Each of these warehouses will have several hundred trucks entering and leaving daily. The I-75 interchange at US 441 is already choked at critical hours, and trucks are routinely seen using County Road 235 as a detour, right through the heart of town, right past the elementary school and high school.

Already, a group of Alachua moms has complained to the Alachua County School Board because kids who live within two miles of the schools don't get bus service.

It'll only get worse. Another warehouse is moving in. More will follow. The best situation is for the I-75 interchange to be rebuilt to accommodate the truck traffic, or for a new one to be built on County Road 235. Each project would cost millions of dollars. Factor that in and the cost to the taxpayers far exceeds the new tax revenues.

Smith has been supportive of this change, and as governor he would be in a great position to use his influence with the feds, who would have to build the interchange.

He probably shouldn't act so small town.

The Baghdad Tea Party

2005-08-18T20:52:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else see the irony in this?

The Washington Post:

The vice president cited the darkest days of the American Revolution, when the war was going badly and ragtag rebels were ready to go home until George Washington rallied them. "They stayed in the fight, and America won the war," he said. "From that day to this, our country has always counted on the bravest among us to answer the call of duty."

So, to justify keeping US soldiers in Iraq fighting against rebellion that wants to oust a foreign occupier, Cheney points to the American revolution – in which we were the insurgents fighting an occupying force – as the reason to stay.

He's got gigantic balls, that's for sure. Well, that, or he's insane.

Turn A Blind Eye, Then Poke It Out

2005-08-18T20:30:00.000-05:00

Thank goodness we got rid of Saddam. Without that, we wouldn't be hearing this kind of good news:

(From the Times UK) IRAQI security forces, set up by American and British troops, torture detainees by pulling out their fingernails, burning them with hot irons or giving them electric shocks, Iraqi officials say. Cases have also been recorded of bound prisoners being beaten to death by police.

In their haste to put police on the streets to counter the brutal insurgency, Iraqi and US authorities have enlisted men trained under Saddam Hussein’s regime and versed in torture and abuse, the officials told The Times. They said that recruits were also being drawn from the ranks of outlawed Shia militias.

Counter-insurgencies are rarely clean fights, but Iraq’s dirty war is being waged under the noses of US and British troops whose mission is to end the abuses of the former dictatorship. Instead, they appear to have turned a blind eye to the constant reports of torture from Iraq’s prisons.

Thanks to Occupation Watch for this -- yet another story destined for the dustbin of history, I suppose.

If This Had Been Bill Clinton, Entry . . . Hey Wait, This Was Clinton

2005-08-18T18:05:00.000-05:00

I always like to remind Bush supporters that they defend Dubya for acts that, had President Clinton committed them, would have sent them into a shirt-biting rage.

Well, it seems like the GOP leadership was against war before they were for it.

Nod to the Daily Kos blog for collecting these quotes, regarding President Clinton's decision to send troops to Bosnia:

"You can support the troops but not the president."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years."
--Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
--Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
--Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
--Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
--Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

It's Been a Fabulous Year

2005-08-17T21:48:00.000-05:00

I think one reason Bush is losing the PR battle with Cindy Sheehan—other than her being right about the war and Dubya being a lying weasel—is that she's a mom. If Bush is Mr. All American, as he claims, then how can he butt heads with a mother? He can't. He'll lose no matter what.

Come to think of it, Bush has a mixed record when it comes to all three pillars of Americanism: mom (described above), baseball and apple pie.

Bush vs. Baseball—When he was part owner of the Texas Rangers, he made a lot of money for not doing much work. He was the ownership's public face, and the notice helped propel him to governor. You might be surprised that there are financial scandals associated with these events, too boring to mention here. In the end, he certainly got the best of baseball.

Bush vs. Apple Pie—Physically, the pie's no match, although Dubya did get his ass whupped by a bag of pretzels. Mentally, that’s another story. For example, I've never heard of an apple pie saying this:

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

Or this:

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

Or, of course, three months after the Sept. 11 attacks, this:

"But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me."

I bet it was.

I Love It When Politicians Make Sense

2005-08-17T20:07:00.000-05:00

I'd like state Sen. Rod Smith for governor a lot more if he'd admit that the Florida Legislature is "desperately in need of adult supervision."

US Rep. Jim Davis, Smith's main obstacle to securing the Democrat's gubernatorial nomination in 2006, said exactly that, and of course he's correct. In a story by The St. Augustine Record's Peter Guinta, Davis said many encouraging things, including: "What's my toughest job? Keeping (Rep.) Tom Delay from imposing his family values on your family."

Haven't heard anything remotely like this from Smith. He likes to mention that he's "tired of watching Democratic candidates go down in defeat," as well as his "pro-gun position and a tough-on-crime, pro-death penalty stance." His campaign web site also gives considerable space to articles about his campaign fundraising prowess.

Yikes.

Thanks to the Florida Politics blog for pointing this one out.

Shoulda Thought Different

2005-08-16T21:23:00.000-05:00

Being a long-time Mac user, I completely understand this.

Mac users are often nuts about their computers – I know one dude who admitted that, after receiving a new Mac via postal delivery, he sat in his living room for hours staring at the box, without opening it, just to admire its packaging.

Does This Mean Smith is Roadkill?

2005-08-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

Wausau's annual Possum Festival (unofficial motto: It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken) has become a rite of passage for gubernatorial candidates, with possum cooked many ways, arts and crafts, games and music.

Noticeably absent this year was state Sen. Rod Smith, of Alachua, one of the three main Dems running to fill the seat Jebbo will vacate next year.

Come on, Rod, you gotta eat some possum to get Panhandle residents to vote for you. This is a crucial issue to them, right behind gay marriage and raising Terri Schiavo from the dead.

You have one more chance before the 2006 primary. Don't screw it up.

On the Left End of the Dial

2005-08-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

Gainesville's Civic Media Center received approval recently for a low power broadcasting license, on 94.7 FM.

The non-profit group is trying to raise money for a studio and an upgrade to its transmitter. Considering that Gainesville's radio market is otherwise dominated by corporate giants that care only about profits, anything we can do to foster more independent voices is needed.

This is especially true when it comes to talk radio in Gainesville, which now has only right-wing nutjobs (or is it nutbags?) like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.

The CMC is an independent library and reading room, and its goal with the radio station is to provide independent news and commentary about the world. The group also wants to broadcast a wide variety of music.

You can read more about it here and here.

Yeah? Well . . . You're Notably Unhelpful, Too

2005-08-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

It's not like US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has lied before, so we can believe him when he says Iran allowed explosives to cross the border into Iraq, to be used in suicide bombs.

Rumsfeld has already prepared an alibi in case he is quoting "bad intelligence." While he wouldn't say the Iranian government was directly involved in the shipments, he did say "it's notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to be crossing the border."

Dang straight, hombre. However, I would warn you, Rummy, that your comment might sound hypocritical if any of the following were true:

The US was the world's largest arms dealer.
The US had a history of supporting totalitarian regimes in the Middle East, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, and of course Saddam Hussein during his most violent and murderous years.
The US had not secured the ammo and weapons left behind by Saddam's military and had instead allowed the weapons to be stolen for use in suicide bombs and attacks on soldiers and civilians.
The US had tortured and killed Iraqi detainees not charged with any crime, often photographing the detainees in humiliating positions.

All of those things would have been "notably unhelpful," had they been true.

Rummy also said: "What you do know of certain knowledge is the Iranians did not stop it from coming in," he said.

We also know for certain that the US military, which controls Iraq, did not prevent it from coming in. Normally it is the job of a nation to prevent the entry and not exit of its borders. Can we say for certain that some person or business in the US has not sent weapons or explosives to Iraq?

When asked if Rummy was threatening to invade Iran, now, he replied, with his usual undebatably clear candor: "I don't imply threats. You know that."

If I was an Iranian leader, I'd be inferring a threat, that's for sure. And let me be the first to say that invading Iran, in the effort to defeat terrorism, would be, as is the current conflagration, notably unhelpful.

Sounds Familiar

2005-08-10T09:22:00.000-05:00

Britain's conservative leader, Michael Howard, is complaining that the country's human rights law is undermining the nation's effort to fight terrorism. Using an amazing but oft-used piece of propaganda, Howard writes:

"Aggressive judicial activism will not only undermine the public's confidence in the impartiality of our judiciary. It could also put our security at risk - and with it the freedoms the judges seek to defend. That would be a price we cannot be expected to pay."

We heard this repeatedly in the US when the Patriot Act was being debated – we must give up our freedoms in order to protect them. When and if we get those freedoms back is of course not defined and tied to our victory in the war on terror, which realistically means "never", especially is Bush and Blair have anything to do with it.

What really got Howard's ire was last year's ruling that the indefinite detention of foreign terror suspects without trial – allowed by the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act – violated the UK Human Rights Act.

Bummer, those human rights protections. Always getting in the way of denying human rights.

Howard is not claiming that the ruling allowed the suicide bombers of July 7 to accomplish their mission or that sans ruling Scotland Yard would have prevented the bombings. So why believe that his proposed course will make Britain any safer in the future?

In Iraq, soldiers are allowed to search every house and person at will, whenever they like, and yet they cannot slow the tide of suicide bombings. If people are motivated and willing to die for a cause, you simply cannot stop all of them.

Which is why I, like many people, have been saying for years that we must address the motivations of the bombers. Think of it as preventative medicine. Remove the hatred and you remove the inspiration for suicide.

Bush and company, with the compliant mainstream media, responds to this idea with silly claims that terrorists just hate our freedoms, or some such nonsense, when the terrorist leaders themselves say their effort is to get the US to leave Muslim holy lands and to stop meddling in the affairs of their governments.

I think many Americans actually believe we are in Iraq to spread democracy. Strange. We've been actively involved in that region for decades, overtly and covertly, overthrowing democratically elected regimes and bolstering totalitarian regimes that are willing to allow foreign companies to get rich off the oil wealth that lies beneath many Middle Eastern countries. We overthrew the Iranian government and installed the Shah. We support Saddam for years, through his most evil years. We keep the Saudi king in power. We prop up Israel with our financial and military resources, which Israel uses to mercilessly crush the Palestinians. And on and on and on.

These lessons are not lost on Muslims, who see the latest outrage (the invasion and occupation of Iraq), as a major threat and have responded by turning our invasion into a massive rebellion. Most of the foreign fighters are Muslims who say the US invasion has "radicalized" them – made them willing to die fighting the Americans.

Any notion that suspending the rights of prisoners in the UK will make Britain or any place else more safe is absurd, although I suppose if you believe that the terrorists just hate our freedoms, then getting rid of those freedoms might sound like a good plan.

And a Very Merry Christmas to You All

2005-08-09T22:04:00.000-05:00

Watching the movie Brazil recently, I was reminded of a TV interview that takes place almost in the background during the opening scene. Mr. Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of Information, is being interviewed, and the exchange sounds frighteningly familiar:

INTERVIEWER: Deputy minister, what do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings?

HELPMANN: Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seems to have forgotten certain good old fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game, instead of standing on the touch line heckling –

INTERVIEWER: In fact, killing people –

HELPMANN: In fact, killing people – they'd get a lot more out of life.

. . .

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that the government is winning the battle against terrorists?

HELPMANN: Oh yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs, we're fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game.

INTERVIEWER: But the bombing campaign is now in its thirteenth year . . .

HELPMANN: Beginner's luck.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much, Deputy Minister.

HELPMANN: Thank you, David ... and a very merry Christmas to you all.

Don't Worry, Smallpox Blankets Are Still OK

2005-08-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

FSU fans, as well as fans at other schools with mascots named after Native American tribes and their stereotypes, are upset that the NCAA has banned "the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments, but will not prohibit them otherwise."

FSU President T.K. Wetherell called the move a "complete lack of appreciation for cultural diversity" He was apparently also speaking for the presidents of the Southeastern Oklahoma State "Savages" and Carthage College "Redmen." And you can't get more appreciate of other cultures than by calling them savages and redmen.

OK, so the Florida Seminole tribal authority says it is cool with them to have FSU be the Seminoles, but Seminole tribes elsewhere say it's not. And of course the tribal resolution doesn't mean all Florida Seminoles agree with it.

Heck, those injuns should feel proud that we've repaid the near destruction of their people and the theft of the lands with the honor of a non-Native American cheerleader riding around Doak Campbell stadium in constume and carrying a spear.

Here's a suggestion -- change FSU's mascot to the Hillbillies, with a straw-chewin' slack-jawed yokel with a huge grin painted on the 50 yard line and a similar mascot hanging in a hammock behind the bench, drinking beer. FSU fans would be re-naming their dogs "hillbilly", and Gators fans wouldn't know what to do -- how could they make fun of their own kind? It would be an interesting situation.

If This Had Been Bill Clinton, Entry No. 471

2005-08-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

Whenever Bush supporters complain that liberals "hate" Bush and are just looking for reasons to criticize him because of our "hate," I like to reply: Would you say the same thing if the same criticism was made against President Clinton?

The main answer is silence, of course, which is fine because I know the answer. We witnessed eight years of lies and distortions about Clinton from the right-wing media and Republican party. Heck, they made a humongous deal about Clinton getting a hair cut on Air Force One. He and his administration could make no comment or take no action without the right-wing nutbags acting as if the world had just ended.

Doubt me? Then read this and ask yourself how Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay or any of those knuckleheads would be acting if Clinton had spent most of his first nine months in office on vacation, and while on vacation had ignored the importance of a memo that said Osama bin Laden wanted to attack the US using planes as weapons, just weeks before OBL carried out said attack.

So, how does Dubya respond to a video of terrorists threatening worse attacks against the US?

Come on, you know the answer.

Here's a Different Idea

2005-08-04T05:41:00.000-05:00

If "people ought to be exposed to different ideas," as President Bush states (see post below), then I think we need to require Christian private schools to offer some equally valid alternative viewpoints to Christianity. This is especially true if we continue to give public funds to private schools in the form of vouchers.

For example, I'd like to see the Gaia Theory taught. Gaia encompasses a wide range of thought, from looking at the earth as "a self-organizing system which works in such a way as to keep its systems in some kind of equilibrium that is conducive to life," to viewing the earth as "a single unified organism; in this view the Earth's biosphere is consciously manipulating the climate in order to make conditions more conducive to life."

According to the Internet, which is never wrong: "Much more speculative versions of Gaia theory, including all versions in which it is held that the Earth is actually conscious or part of some universe-wide evolution, are currently held to be outside the bounds of science."

The last bit sounds like Intelligent Design.

Suggested Campaign Bumper Sticker: Me So Horny

2005-08-04T05:25:00.000-05:00

Former Alachua County GOP Chair Travis Horn has officially joined the race to fill outgoing state Sen. Rod Smith's seat. I doubt he has much of a chance, considering that many in the local GOP don't like him, and recently replaced him as chair.

I know where they are coming from. I've written about this knucklehead here, here, here and here.

Of course, his website's front page displays his picture of an American flag and has what appears to be an American soldier drinking from a canteen. I say "of course" because it would be more surprising for a Republican political candidate to NOT drape himself in the flag. It makes such a good cover for all of the evil deeds that the party really stands for – endless war to support corporate profits, torture, killing babies, running massive deficits so we can make the really rich even richer, preventing Americans from getting health care, opposing free speech, helping polluters foul our air and drinking water, forcing Christianity down out throats, and on and on and on.

But at least gay people won't be able to have real weddings. That's what really matters.

I Thought Sleeping Bags Were for Sleeping

2005-08-04T05:23:00.000-05:00

Apparently that is but one use, if you are an American "interrogator" in Iraq.

Zeynep Toufe, of the esteemable Under the Same Sun blog, is getting tired of pointing out the grim truth:

It seems that we have almost made peace with being a nation that systematically tortures, and doesn't even bother with serious slap on the wrist for those that kill prisoners while torturing them.

It's hard to find an original comment to make, something new to say. Yes, we are torturing them to death. Yes, nobody is getting punished. Yes, it is happening again and again. Yawn.

I Just Pray There Was No Pictorial

2005-08-02T05:47:00.000-05:00

And people say they don't read porn magazines for the articles.

No worries -- the above link is NOT to a porn mag.

Intelligent Design: The Ultimate Oxymoron

2005-08-02T04:46:00.000-05:00

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said at a press conference Monday. " You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

The different ideas to which he is referring are evolution, which is already taught in public schools, and "intelligent design," which is an alternative viewpoint developed by people who just can't understand the science behind evolution and therefore reject it in favor of divine intervention. In other words, there's no way evolution could explain the many changes in life from its origin to now, so it must be the work of God.

What kills me about intelligent design are its many logical flaws, the main one being the ability to reject evolution because of its complexity but the ability to believe that there is a supernatural force able to control all of the forces of nature, from the origin of life to the movement of solar systems, a far more complex task. It is just impossible for proponents of intelligent design to believe evolution can explain how one-cell organisms became the complex creatures we are today, yet their substitute explanation proposes something much more complex, and something lacking any scientific basis. No wonder Dubya got re-elected.

One of the staple arguments of intelligent designers is that evolution is a "theory," which to them means it is just conjecture of liberals who hate God, or whatever. I've posted on this ignorant argument before. Allow the esteemed and now late evolutionary biologist Steven Jay Gould to explain it:

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Gould points out that debate on the mechanisms of evolution do not disprove the fact that our species has evolved. Even Darwin agreed. Gould writes:

Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."

But such concepts rarely enter the public debate, because they require too much thinking and reasoning for many people, especially those who rely on their faith as the guiding principle of life. Or, as Gould put it:

"Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science.

President Bush should be aware of some other alternative explanations to the origin of life: panspermia, in which the seeds of life came here on comets or in space dust; aliens planting DNA here; and that life travels the universe on beams of light. Those theories have as much scientific merit as intelligent design, if not more.

Lord Knows He's Never Wrong

2005-08-01T05:32:00.000-05:00

Dubya on Bolton: "He is the right man for the job."

A Little Journalism Humor

2005-07-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

An actual lead sentence in an Associated Press article in today's The Gainesville Sun:

This definitely ain't no refrigerator magnet.

Considering that this story is about a new, 15-ton supermagnet, I think it is safe to say that the writer's use of southern slang is a sign that he or she just couldn't think of a lead. Normally, journalists employ such devices in situations where it is appropriate; in this case, had the story been about a redneck who, while rewiring his kitchen accidentally magnetized his refrigerator and subsequently became stuck to it because he couldn't remove his tool belt, then "This definitely ain't no refrigerator magnet" might have worked.

And, yes, I realize that "journalism humor" isn't that funny.

Someone Wake Up Dick Cheney and Give Him The News

2005-07-29T21:47:00.000-05:00

The American-led terror campaign in Iraq is apparently in its last throes.

Mars is After All the God of War

2005-07-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

Another great Steve Bell cartoon.

Happy News About Iraq

2005-07-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

If you're one of the sick and deranged that support this disaster.

The Dumb Leadership Council Eats its Own

2005-07-26T05:54:00.000-05:00

If you wonder why the Democratic Party has been so unsuccessful in politics lately, here is a good example of one major reason. The Democratic Leadership Council, run by Clintonites, including 2008 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has obvious disdain for anything liberal, which sounds exactly like the rantings of the Republican Party.

Peter Ross Range, writing for the DLC's Blueprint magazine, basically parrots Dubya's explanation of the US and British terror attacks by calling it "a calculated attack on all that liberals hold dear: tolerance, diversity, women's rights, the fundamental freedoms and protections of democracy, even trade unionism. In short, liberal values. That's why the liberal left makes a profound mistake if it concedes this war to George W. Bush and the right."

Range added that the attacks in New York were because it is "one of the most liberal-minded cities in the world."

Did this guy use Pat Robertson as a ghost writer? From OBL's own words, the attacks against the US have to do with our foreign policies, both political and economic. The World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the White House (which was targeted but not hit) were attacked because of their symbolism of those policies.

Yes, the London bombings were aimed at locals and not the seats of power, but I could hazard to guess that mass transit is an easier target, considering the security measures taken to protect government buildings and other major institutions of power.

Range ends his rant by saying that the violence in Iraq is aimed at Iraqis, mostly, and not American soldiers, which is proof that the insurgency is not about Iraqis wanting the US to withdraw. It is because they hate democracy, he says.

In a way, Range is right. But it is not the concept of democracy, but rather the US-imposed version that includes American companies controlling Iraq's economy, stealing the profits from its resources, and planting a dozen military bases throughout the country. And of course every single poll of Iraqis shows a massive opposition to our continued involvement in Iraq post-Saddam, even among Iraqis who want the bombings to stop.

Americans need to understand that the terror attacks against the US were not, in OBL's mind, the first shot in this war. His complaint, from what he has said is against US involvement, overtly and covertly, in the governments of Muslim nations, which he believes should be run by Muslims. OBL opposes our decision to dominate the region because of its oil supply, which is an official part of our national security plan, added by President Carter. OBL opposes authoritarian governments like Saudi Arabia that oppress its people. OBL opposes the way the US backs Israel while it commits vicious acts of terror against Palestinians.

To say that the attacks against the US happened because we have trade unions and women's rights is, at best, a giant load of horseshit.

Worse, to attack the liberal wing of your party so viciously and in error can only serve one purpose – to drive people away from the party.

I do not condone OBL's attacks and have said from day one that if the nations of the world, under the auspices of the UN, should have gone after OBL immediately. He should be tried, convicted and punished.

Instead, Dubya half-heartedly went after OBL, who escaped, and then decided to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with the terror attacks. The gruesome effects of that war and our inability to provide security, food, medicine, housing, water or electricity turned the liberated Iraqis against us. As they began rebelling, we responded with massive might, destroying towns and killings thousands of civilians, leaving many more homeless and penniless. Now Muslims from across the region are streaming in to Iraq to fight us, to get us out, and two recent studies of such fighters show that they were not anti-US before the war and became radicalized by our actions in Iraq.

In essence, many Muslims feel that the US response to 9-11 proved OBL was right about us.

As I have always said, the easiest way to end terror attacks against our nation is to stop sponsoring or committing acts of terror against other nations, and to use our economic and military might to make the world a better place for the people of the planet and not for the corporate interests that are driving our foreign policies.

It is obvious that the DLC, which does not control the Democratic Party but certainly has a weighty influence, is not interested in changing those policies. If successful in getting Hillary the Democratic presidential nomination, I will not be supporting her.

His Parse is Stuck in His Arse

2005-07-25T20:37:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I voted for this guy.

3,814 Miles from Hanoi

2005-07-25T20:32:00.000-05:00

The right-wing nutjobs won't notice this.

Thank God the Insurgency is in its Last Throes

2005-07-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

"The hatred of the Americans has increased. I myself hate them."

-- Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit, after being shot by US soldiers who mistakenly thought he was carrying out an ambush.

US war planners call this "winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis."

Of course, this problem has nothing to do with the thousands of unregulated private mercenaries the US has hired to help with "security" . . . right?

From the LA Times:

One contractor who works for the U.S. government and saw a colleague killed in a suicide bombing said it was better to shoot an innocent person than to risk being killed.

"I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six," said the contractor, who insisted that he not be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Now We Go Home

2005-07-24T22:53:00.000-05:00

After learning that the "terrorist" they had gunned down was actually an innocent Brazilian man, Scotland Yard announced that such mistakes are justified in the war on terror.

The man was shot five times in the head at close range aboard a tuba train in south London Friday. Police had followed him to the station and tackled him when he boarded the train. Witnesses described the shoot as "execution-style."

Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the "shoot to kill" tactic was necessary against suspected suicide bombers and that cops had to "shoot suspects in the head if it was feared they might trigger devices on their body."

"The Metropolitan police accepts full responsibility for this," Blair said. "To the family I can only express my deep regrets. What we have got to recognise is that people are taking incredibly fast-moving decisions in life threatening situations. There is no point in shooting in someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be. There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it. The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head."

The last sentence reminded me of a great line from the movie Miller's Crossing, where one character is being told how to perform an execution. A veteran mobster tells Gabriel Byrne's character: "Your first shot puts him down, then you put one in his brain. Then he's dead, then we go home."

Did I mention that the War on Terror is getting really, really, really fucked up? Now we have to be afraid of both terrorists and the cops mistaking us for terrorists.

Orange! Blue! Kaboom!

2005-07-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

I had no idea Gator football games had such a political undertone.

From Salon.com:

"Israel is divided these days by colors. Orange belongs to the right-wing opponents of prime minister Ariel Sharon, protesting his "disengagement" plan to remove the Jewish settlements from the Gaza strip and northern West Bank next month. They appropriated the color from Ukraine's pro-democracy camp, which successfully overturned a sham election. The pro-disengagement crowd took blue, or blue-and-white like the Israeli national flag, as its emblem.

Driving up the hills to Jerusalem, with its heavily religious population, one sees an abundance of cars with orange stripes tied to their radio antennas and external mirrors. Down in secular Tel Aviv, there are more and more blue stripes. The war of colors is the public expression of a deeper debate, centering on Israel's direction and the ability of its democracy to absorb an act as deeply divisive as Sharon's disengagement."

Taliban and US Military Find Common Ground

2005-07-23T18:17:00.000-05:00

A US military commander announced today, with a little smugness, than the Taliban is recruiting kids because its forces are depleted.

"They have been hit so hard they now have to recruit more fighters. They are recruiting younger http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifand younger fighters: 14, 15 and 16 years old," Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya told The Associated Press in an interview. "The enemy is having a hard time keeping its recruit rates up."

An odd boast, considering our own country's problems filling the ranks of its armed forces. The problem is so bad that the US military is reaching out to younger and younger kids, using video games to make the military seem fun, and using deceptive and intimidating tactics to convince people to sign up.

On either side, bring kids into this conflict is a crime against nature. We shouldn't criticize their side when we do the same thing.

Mack the Dull Knife

2005-07-23T16:51:00.000-05:00

The indispensable Oil Wars blog had an interesting post recently that revealed that Congress, at the urging of Florida Rep. Connie Mack, amended the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2005 so that it allows the US to "initiate radio and television broadcasts that will provide a consistently accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news to Venezuela."

An example of this sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif-called objectivity, and what a load of crap that description is, can be found in Mack's own comments, which include:

“The United States has sent a message that we will not turn a blind eye as Hugo Chavez continues to snuff-out freedom and hijack Venezuela from its citizens.”

…and…

“Hugo Chavez is an enemy of freedom and of those who support and promote it. He is a threat to the United States and stands to undermine the balance of power in the Western Hemisphere. Today America has sent a message that we will not turn a blind eye as Hugo Chavez continues to snuff-out freedom and hijack Venezuela from its citizens.”

Undoubtedly, Mack, like his brethren in the White House, prefer the temporary government set up during the US-backed coup several years ago, which failed when the people demanded Chavez be re-instated (he has since won re-election by a wide margin). The coup government immediately suspended the constitution and closed the nation's elected legislature – that's the type of democracy the imperialists love.

Chavez is loved by his nation because he has taken back some of the oil profits and spent it on education, job-creation and health care for the poor, which is just about everyone. By all measures, the standard of living has improved under his presidencies, and by golly the oil companies are still making money hand over fist.

Such success bothers the US because it is what Noam Chomsky calls the "threat of a good example." Already other Latin American and South American nations are noticing and are rejecting the US-imposed economic reforms that have failed so wildly for everyone except the corporations that make money from these nations' natural resources.

Spend some time on the Oil Wars blog and check out some of the Venezuala resource web sites listed there.

Damn Those Crazy Liberals

2005-07-23T16:30:00.000-05:00

The Gainesville City Commission, deemed "radical" and "ultra-liberal" by the local GOP and land development crowd, is considering reducing "chances for citizen input" into the local development review process.

The Plan Board, appointed by the lefty wackos, voted 4-1 to send the proposal to the commission. Hopefully their hate America instincts will kick in and defeat this bad idea. The last thing we need is less review of proposed developments. I'm not saying we need fewer developments, because generally I support infill development. But the people who will be impacted by these projects should have every chance to review and give input.

Nothin' But Net

2005-07-22T05:54:00.000-05:00

The Basketball Hall of Fame announced this week that my Uncle Marty will receive the 2005 Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award at its enshrinement festivities in September.

Congrats, Marty. The link says it all about your career, but let me add this – I of course know your three kids well, and they are all outstanding individuals in every way. You and Marcia should share a lifetime achievement award for the excellent job you did raising them.

Colin

I Feel So Insignificant and Contemptible

2005-07-22T05:42:00.000-05:00

I admit it -- I'm a twerp. When anonymous writers on an anonymous blog pass judgment on my inner being, how can I argue? What can I say when such an august body of people afraid to attach their names to their opinions decide to respond to my critique of their blog with such damning comments as "alachuapolitix rules" and "alachuapolitix rules"?

All that is left for me is either seppuku or registering as a Republican, which in the grand scheme is pretty much the same thing.

Don't Crack Me Up

2005-07-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

Gainesville police staged a high-profile bust of 18 street-level drug dealers Tuesday, in an East Gainesville apartment complex. Such events do nothing to reduce crime or drug use and abuse and serve only as media spectacles designed to make people believe the cops have a handle on drug dealing, which they do not.

This of course is not the first time such a bust has been made, and likely not even the first one at this apartment complex. When crack and powder cocaine are involved, the business of supply and demand are in control. When the cops arrest a dealer, he or she is either back on the street within hours or days, or, if the dealer is actually locked up for a long time, he or she is quickly replaced by someone else willing to risk prison time to make money as a crack dealer.

I first covered this type of press event in 1988, in Bushnell, when the Sumter County Sheriff's Office made a series of busts in the same neighborhood, where drive-through drug dealing was common.

I took the list of people who had been arrested and followed their progress through the courts, and I researched their prior arrests and adjudications. What I found was that the vast majority of them had been through this dog-and-pony show multiple times, only to return to the street and to crime.

I also talked to neighborhood activists, who seriously wanted something done about the drive-by drug store. They told me that after each bust, there was a brief lull and then the sales resumed.

I agree that we need to address drug abuse, but solely as a public health issue, not a crime issue. GPD does call this bust part of its "Comprehensive Drug Plan," but it is a rather useless appendage. Cops locally and nationwide have been going through this routine for two decades, with no appreciable decline in drug use.

Countries that focus on rehabilitation and treatment, such as the Netherlands, have fared much better with the effects of drug abuse on society. The illegality of drugs will deter people who are addicted to cocaine, so why spend money on it. Instead, divert that money into rehab programs that treat addicts, many of whom want help but are afraid to approach anyone because of the illegal nature of their addiction. Alcoholics aren't treated as such.

Don't agree. Check out this quote from one woman busted in the GPD sting, who thanked the cops "because I wasn't doing nothing but killing myself anyway."

Hopefully she'll receive more than time in a jail cell.

How to Irritate Fox News Republicans and Laugh About It

2005-07-20T05:47:00.000-05:00

During my hiatus, a new local blog started by an anonymous writer. The blog is called Alachua Politix, and while its comment section is mostly a vent for Fox News Republicans who read "liberal" and see "evil," the main blogger (who goes by the handle "Politix Junkie") has a somewhat more even-handed approach.

I tried to get Politix Junkie to reveal his identity, but he refused. It is apparent that it is someone inside local politics, likely at the campaign organization level, if not a current or former elected official himself.

His posts are the blog's least interesting aspect, in my opinion. More fun are the comments, which revolve mostly around smug ha-has that the Democrats are in disarray and jabs at the evil liberals, almost always some talking point heard either from Rush Limbaugh or on Fox News.

The vast majority of the people posting comments do it anonymously, although I don't. Obviously, I am not afraid to attach my name to my opinion. I have been taking the knuckleheads on the site to task for their blind loyalty to Bush and the GOP, which has accomplished nothing and made the world worse in almost every possible way. The responses to my posts are always personal attacks that avoid the issues, which is fine with me because I see that as conceding my argument because they have no counter-argument.

It is obvious that when you challenge Fox News Republicans on their viewpoints, they have little to say except "you're a liberal." Says a lot about the reasons for the party's recent successes.

Anyway, if you like my blog, you will find my back-and-forth with "anonymous" amusing in this post.

Mission Accomplished, I Suppose

2005-07-20T05:06:00.000-05:00

CNN ran a pair of important articles this morning about the July 7 London terror bombings and their connection to Dubya's invasion of Iraq and to Western imperialism in general.

In one article, the father of Mohammed Atta (the pilot of one of two planes that struck the World Trade Center towers) praised the London bombings and says many more such attacks will happen because of the US and British slaughter of Muslims around the world.

In the other article, London's mayor blamed the bombings on "governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy."

This, on the heels of an investigation by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank that found most foreign fighters in Iraq "are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself." The investigation "painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States."

"To say we must fight them in Baghdad so we don't have to fight them in Boston implies there is a finite number of people, and if you pen them up in Iraq you can kill them all," Peter Bergen, a terrorism specialist at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, told The Boston Globe. "The truth is we increased the pool by what we did in Iraq."

Which is exactly what the CIA said would happen before the invasion, but no one would listen. Most Americans were so shocked by the 9-11 attacks, and rightly so, that they agreed to anything that Bush wanted to do, including the Iraq invasion. Our pain and fear made it possible to swallow the lies about WMDs, even when the real experts were telling us Iraq was no threat and was not connected to the 9-11 attacks – facts now no longer in dispute.

Bush's credibility is slipping fast. Even the National Examiner is starting to pile on. The latest issue, which I saw in the grocery store check-out aisle, leads with "Bush Family Feud Explodes!!!" The cover pictures Barbara Bush and Laura Bush and alludes to Barb being upset about the Bush twins' partying escapades.

It's safe to say that a large percentage of the Enquirer's subscriber base is also part of Bush's political base. If the Enquirer's publisher feels it OK to parody the Bush matriarchs on its cover, it is a bad sign for Dubya. Next he'll be nominating an alien to the Supreme Court or chasing Bat Boy on his Crawford ranch.

I Have Awakened from My Blogger Somnambulism

2005-07-20T05:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry about my blogging hiatus, but I needed to take a mental break from writing. I'm back.

In Canada They Just Call Them Fries

2005-06-08T05:16:00.000-05:00

Just returned from a vacation in Canada, and I was surprised I didn't catch any flak at the border crossing, considering my history of subversive writings, protests against the government and blatant disregard for so many laws. Until today, I had figured that my two sleeping kids in the backseat had provided some cover, but then I read this.

When asked why a weirdo carrying multiple weapons, including a blood-stained chain saw, could be allowed into the US, a customs spokesman said: “Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up.”

Of course, as Jon Stewart pointed out last year, at least homeland security "finally got the guy who wrote `Peace Train.'"

Anyway, it turns out the dude may have committed some bizarre and heinous crimes involving . . . you guessed it, a chain saw. He was arrested in Massachusetts wandering along a highway wearing what appears to be a blood-stained sweatshirt.

Not that we need any more maniacs in this country, but isn't it apropos that one of Canada's scariest people thought America was the place to be? We do have a culture of death here, despite what the right-wing nut jobs claim. Our murder rates, execution rates and incarceration rates are rivaled by no other nation. We rob from the poor and give to the rich. We refuse to provide health care to millions of people. We allow companies to poison our air and water. We wage war on helpless nations, killing tens of thousands of the innocent people we claim to be liberating, many of them children. We endorse the use of torture and rendition.

And not satisfied with our global military dominance, we almost spend as much on our military as every other nation on the planet combined, and under the current regime we're spending more and more each year. Last year, America spent almost a half trillion dollars.

Canada, on the other hand, spends about $11 billion dollars on its annual military budget.

I felt much safer there, anyway.

Ingenius!

2005-05-20T05:53:00.000-05:00

I think it should be obivous to the government that fighting wars does not work like an election campaign, but I am obviously wrong. From MSNBC:

LONDON - The U.S. military acknowledged Friday that a photo of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his underwear, which a British tabloid newspaper published on its front page, was real and said it was "aggressively" investigating how it could have been taken and by whom.

. . .

Those sources, the Sun stated, said they were handing over the pictures “in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.”

Now if we can only get the Weekly World News to publish photos of aliens advising Osama bin Laden, maybe we can win this war.

Clark Butler: Nobody Likes Me

2005-05-17T05:59:00.000-05:00

The Independent Florida Alligator has a good editorial today on the frivolity of "shopping mall tycoon" Clark Butler's lawsuit against The Gainesville Sun. Butler claims "intentionally and recklessly portrayed him in a false light" by publishing articles about his close personal and political connections with local and state politicians who were voting on projects that would financially benefit Butler.

I don't often defend The Sun, but I have to in this case. Butler has no case. The Sun has reported facts and, apparently, Butler's defense is not that the facts were false, but that he's really a honest, nice dude that does not deserve such scrutiny.

What I find ironic is that The Sun has actually gone out of its way not to make a huge case out of the ethical imbroglio involving Butler, state Sen. Rod Smith and Alachua County commissioners Cynthia Chestnut and Paula DeLaney. Butler stands to make millions if the county will build an expensive four-lane road that is otherwise not needed, yet The Sun has not found the space in its editorials to condemn the situation. Sure, there have been a few small news articles in which facts were reported, and one lousy cartoon by the paper's right-wing knucklehead, Jake Fuller. But otherwise The Sun has treated Butler with kid gloves.

Doubt me? Well, if this situation involved different people – say, County Commissioner Mike Byerly or another elected official that The Sun loves to hate – then the paper would have treated it like a crime against humanity. Such was the case when Byerly defeated a Democrat opponent last year, and the loser made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud without presenting any evidence. The paper ran repeated stories with large headlines, despite the fact that it was an obvious case of sour grapes that went nowhere. In fact, the paper continued running articles about the "case" even after state ethics officials had promptly refused to even consider it, lacking any proof.

But when it comes to the rich, powerful good old boys like Butler and his buds in office, The Sun is relatively apathetic. That must make Butler's suit sting the most, if you're the publisher. I mean, how much ass do they have to kiss to keep Butler's lawyers at bay?

Our Man in Uzbekistan?

2005-05-17T05:23:00.000-05:00

In the 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations did all it could, until 1990, to support Saddam Hussein's murderous regime, even helping supply him with technology, hardware, biological and chemical agents and military intelligence that he used to make war with Iran and use massive amounts of chemical weapons on the Iranians and Kurds. At one point Reagan successfully lobbied Congress not to enact sanctions for gassing more than 5,000 Kurdish villagers.

Now of course Saddam has been placed next to Hitler on the Reaganites list of bad guys, and America's collective memory has flushed all relevant history regarding our support for the crimes with which he is now charged.

In Uzbekistan, however, we have an ally whose repression and bloodthirst rival that of pre-1990 Saddam, and surprise, surprise, Bush and Co. are doing little but expressing slight concern and encouraging President Islam Karimov to play nice. Otherwise, he remains a staunch ally.

Read this Reuters article to see how little attention Karimov pays to freedom, human rights and life. In response to protests, he unleashed a massacre at least equal to if not worse than the Beslan school massacre.

Jonathan Schwarz, consistently one of the funniest and insightful bloggers out there, drives the point home with this sickeningly hilarious photo illustration.

One wonders how Americans can believe Dubya is sincere when he squints his little angry eyes over Saddam's atrocities, which were quite real, yet smiles and shakes hands with an equally repressive and dangerous leader. Dubya should come right out and admit that his administration's working motto is "Ignorance is Strength."

Know Your Rights: While You Still Have Some

2005-05-16T19:52:00.000-05:00

The Satellite has a good article this month on a short film called Busted: Citizens Guide to Surviving Police Encounters. Created by Flex Your Rights (flexyourrights.org) and narrated by Ira Glasser, former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the film "aims to take the fear and uncertainty out of run ins with the law by dispelling law enforcement myths and providing citizens knowledge of their basic legal rights," according to the article.

You can read the article on the indy monthly's web site here.

And don't forget The Clash song, Know Your Rights. I appaerntly forgot this line: "You have the right to freeeee Speech as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it."

Go Go Citgo

2005-05-16T19:49:00.000-05:00

If we have to live with high gas prices – and, yes, many people like myself have no choice but to drive to work – we might as well be sending the money to a good cause. And by good cause I certainly don’t mean ExxonMobile or any of the other friends of Dubya.

In this case I mean Citgo. Sure, it is a US refiner – but it is also “a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company,” says Jeff Cohen in an article published today at CommonDreams.org.

If you believe that government should share the wealth with more than the already rich elites and that the government should provide health care and a good education to all people, regardless of their tax status, then you’ll likely appreciate Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and the reforms he has been instituting, using the proceeds from state oil money.

And if you hate Dubya, as I know many, many of you do, then you’ll really love Chavez. Using worldwide forums and having ample media attention, Chavez regularly calls Bush (rightly) an imperialist and dangerous war criminal. And Chavez doggedly reminds every other Latin American nation that Bush’s government helped stage a three-day coup of his government that was brushed back by the masses of people who support Chavez and his pro-peasant reforms.

If you don’t know much about Chavez, his reforms or the state of affairs in Venezuela, you should check it out. Venezuelanalysis.com is a good site with lots of news and links. Chavez is leading a continent-wide reforms by setting such a positive example of neighboring nations and by sharing some of his country’s vast oil wealth.

Anyhow – if you live in Gainesville, there’s a half-dozen Citgos spread across town, so stop by and fill up. You can click here for a list of Gainesville-area Citgo stations and here for an online tool for finding a station near you.

At Least He Didn't Call Them Jigaboos

2005-05-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

On Friday, Mexico President Vincente fox told a trade group: “There’s no doubt that the Mexican men and women — full of dignity, willpower and a capacity for work — are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States."

In response to the negative reaction to the comment, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary told The Associated Press (via MSNBC) that Fox's comment Friday was not motivated by racism but rather a desire to show that Mexican migrants have "a positive role” in the US.

I consider this a profound insight into the elite view on economics and society. Certain jobs, such as collecting our trash, are beneath whites and instead are relegated to minorities, who often have no choice in life but to do our dirty work.

I've always felt that a major reason why the rich do not properly fund education and health care in our country is because they need to have a class of poor people who have no options. In the US, blacks are an obvious candidate because of the historical chains we have shackled to them – slavery, followed by a long period of discrimination that prevented freed slaves from advancing in any sector of society. Now that civil rights has made inroads against institutional racism, the elites look to the poor in Mexico to take over.

We Didn't Want His Support Anyway

2005-05-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

When told that Bob Graham, a former US senator and Florida governor, had endorsed Rep. Jim Davis for the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary, state Sen. Rod Smith's rival campaign responded by saying that "endorsements from politicians aren't going to be a big factor in this race."

Yeah -- having the most popular living Democrat in the state endorse your opponent, who is already trouncing you in the polls, is meaningless. Just keep telling yourself that, Rod.

But remember, Rod, if you lose this race, no more free rides in Uncle Clark's yacht.

Defining America, Part I: The Wonder Bride

2005-05-14T20:23:00.000-05:00

This is my first installment from a new series titled, Defining America.

From The Associated Press, via CNN: "A man who auctioned off a slice of toast carved with his drawing of the runaway bride feels burned because the winning bidder has refused to pay for the item."

Here's the skinny -- A New Jersey bloke carves the "likeness" of Jennifer Wilbanks, the now infamous runaway bride, on a slice of Wonder Bread, bids it for sale on e-Bay and gets a winning $15,400 bid. He goes on national TV to exchange the slice for the dough, and the buyer renegs.

You can guess what will happen next, but I'll let CNN fill in the blank: "The purchaser reneged on the sale," (bread artist Perry) Lonzello told The Star-Ledger of Newark, adding that the man was no longer returning his calls. "He said he was goofing around. I think some legal action will be coming out of this."

Runaway bride = media circus = cheap white bread portrait = high-tech contract for purchase = lawsuit. Now, if only Congress will step in to complain about the activist judge who presides over the case, the event will serve as a socio-political snapshot of America as it stands, as long as it remains standing I suppose.

Dems Misunderstand Impact of Military Recuitment Woes

2005-05-09T04:27:00.000-05:00

News that the US military branches are having trouble recruiting new volunteers has Democrats atwitter, but for the wrong reasons. They claim that the recruiting woes might make America "weaker", or, as Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it today, could mean trouble for "the Army's long-term ability to perform its duties worldwide."

Bookman quotes poll numbers that show only 41 percent of Americans think the war is worthwhile, with 57 percent saying it is not. "And if Americans do not believe the war worthwhile, they're not likely to sign up to fight in it," Bookman writes.

Dems are always looking for an opening in Bush's armor, but this is not a Dem vs. GOP issue. The problem with the Iraq invasion is not that it is bogging down our military or hurting military recruitment goals – the problem is that the invasion was based on a campaign of deception to mask its true goal of ensuring corporate profits and power worldwide.

Imperialism is not, unfortunately, the sole domain of Bush and Co. Remember it is the Carter Doctrine that cemented our national interests in Middle East oil, and that President Clinton presided over the sanctions and bombings in Iraq that killed as many or more than has Bush's invasion.

And recall that Sen. John Kerry, during the presidential debates, promised only to fight the so-called "war on terror" harder than Bush and to stay in Iraq until the job was finished, without outlining what that meant.

If the media would focus harder on the real reasons for the invasion – say, at least with the same vigor and scrutiny it used covering the Terri Schiavo case – then popular support for the Iraq invasion would be even less.

More important, if the government would be less concerned with using the military to support US corporate interests across the globe, then we wouldn't need so many new volunteers. Currently the US spends as much on its military as does every other nation on the planet combined. It is not because we're more threatened or face invasions or attacks. Our forces are stationed all over the world, not defending America at home.

If anything, fewer military recruits might force the US to delay its invasion of Iran. Better still, it might force the government to institute a draft, at which point Americans will ask (loudly I hope), "why?" It's one thing when volunteers get sent to die for a lie, but it's quite another thing when your kids are being forced to do it. If it gets to that point, maybe people will start re-examiinng what Bookman called America's "duties worldwide."

How Many More?

2005-05-05T04:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, in which US troops fired on anti-war protesters, killing four. The needless bloodshed was one of many events that helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.

The Treadmill Goose Step

2005-04-22T05:46:00.000-05:00

I recently bough an iPod, mostly to use at the gym while running on the treadmill. Little did I know that I was buying a Nazi propaganda device, but apparently that's what I did. At least, that's what the good folks at the National Review want me to believe. Daniel P. Moloney, writing in the conservative magazine's online editon on Thursday, said this about liberal democracy:

"In this regard, the consumerism and relativism of the West can be just as dangerous as the totalitarianism of the East: It’s just as easy to forget about God while dancing to an iPod as while marching in a Hitler Youth rally. There’s a difference, to be sure, but hardly anyone would contest the observation that in elite Western society, as in totalitarian Germany, the moral vocabulary has been purged of the idea of sin. And if there’s no sense of sin, then there’s no need for a Redeemer, or for the Church." (emphasis added)

Upon reading this, I immediately reconsidered my playlist, and by God he's right. James Brown is an obvious Nazi, as are Ben Harper and (please don't alert the authorities) Bonnie Raitt.

Then it hit me. Our president has an iPod! Now the conspiracy is crystal clear.

So what does our fuhrer, er, president listen to? George Jones, Van Morrison and The Knack. Yes, you read this right, boys and girls, the leader of the free world taps his feet to "My Sharona," which includes this line: "Never gonna stop, give it up. Such a dirty mind. I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind."

It's good to know that Bush appreciates songs about sex with young women, because it demonstrates his commitment to his deeply religious conservative base of supporters.

Meanwhile, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, has penned an interesting article on suggested songs for Bush's playlist. Eminem's "Mosh" and Kid Rock's "Pimp of the Nation" are the top of her list, but what I liked most were some reader suggestions. This was my favorite:

Jean McIntosh from Lawrence, Kansas writes in: "On behalf of all blue staters who happen to live in red states, I'd like to nominate 'Hound Dog' from the late, great Elvis. Because of W's whining about the 'hard work' of the job which he stole from Al Gore; because of the lies of the so-called liberal media (SCLM) who said anyone who belonged to such a 'distinguished family' couldn't possibly be such a sleazy crook; because of his enthusiasm for hunting which is as great as his incompetence at it; and most of all, because 90 percent of the time, he looks as clueless as a lost dog which has just been hit over the head with a large club. "When they said you were a high class/that was just a lie…you ain't ne'er caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine." And the song's pretty catchy too.

I'm not sure how "Hound Dog" relates to Hitler, but I'm sure that Daniel P. "Baloney" Moloney does.

Up is Down, Black is White

2005-04-20T05:31:00.000-05:00

Someone wake me up, please. I know I must be dreaming. In The Gainesville Sun this morning, the paper actually printed the following words in its lead editorial: "Byerly was right."

My wife is still cleaning up the coffee I spewed across the dining room table. Understand that my shock and awe is justified, because The Sun has gone out of its way in the past four years to print negative comments about Alachua County Commissioner Mike Byerly, much the same way it did with former Commissioner Penny Wheat for her many years on the commission.

Both Byerly and Wheat were reviled by the newspaper because they argued for sound growth management that protected the public rather than for policies that allowed developers to do whatever they pleased. The Sun cannot really argue Byerly and Wheat's logic, so they instead chose to falsely label them as anti-growthers who oppose job growth for no good reason.

Luckily voters have seen through this ruse – both Byerly and Wheat have won every election in which they've run. Wheat retired last year.

So what happened today? Maybe Ron Cunningham, The Sun's chief propaganda writer, got some nookie before breakfast. Who knows? Whatever the reason, he decided to applaud Byerly's lone dissenting vote on a charity funding issue, when usually Cunningham would have used the vote to show how out of step Byerly is with the majority, or how he is always opposing good efforts, or some such nonsense.

Instead, Cunningham called the vote for what it was – a stand for principles, which is something Byerly does a lot. He votes to do the right thing, to follow procedures and laws, and to not show favoritism to special interests.

In the case with this vote, special interests were certainly the issue. County Commissioner Rodney Long is also the director of a local charity group, and Long convinced three of the other four commissioners to approve a special request for $15,000 that the charity used to offset the cost of last weekend's Clinton Portis charity fundraiser.

Byerly voted against the request because it came months after the county's regular process for groups to request that kind of funding, meaning that it went against the rules the county requires every other charity group to follow to request money.

I suspect Byerly also had a problem with the fact that Long is both a county commissioner and head of the group receiving the money. The Sun certainly thinks it is a problem – at least it does now. When the vote happened, there was no mention of this in its editorial pages.

So what changed? The event was an unqualified disaster. I'll let you read The Sun's coverage of the event, but in essence it was a mixture of low turnout to most events and immature, arrogant behavior by Portis, who pissed off most of the people who did show up, to say the least.

Although The Sun was hard on Long, I felt the paper focused too much on blaming his "ego" while downplaying his conflict of interest:

"Indeed, some might even call that a conflict of interest. But to suppose that would be to underestimate Rodney Long's ego. Simply put, there can be no conflict between Commissioner Long's duty to protect the public purse and President Long's obligation to advance the Portis Foundation because both roles are overshadowed by the politician's ego."

A politician with an ego? I'm not sure why that surprised anyone. I am more concerned with the fact that Long pushed through a funding request for something in which he has a personal stake.

But the fact the The Sun printed the words "Byerly was right" is amazing enough for me to let that one go.

Killing Two Birds With One Bill

2005-04-15T05:06:00.000-05:00

Florida state Rep. Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala, is enough of a self-caricature that I have not addressed his shenanigans, to date. He's known for two controversial proposals – one to expand the castle doctrine so that you can shoot someone outside of your home or business if you believe your life is threatened, and the other to prevent university professors from espousing controversial (translate: liberal) positions in the classroom.

I've been wondering why he didn't combine the two ideas and allow university conservative students to shoot professors when they felt threatened by their liberal opinions.

Smith Does a Lap Dance for Agri-Business

2005-04-14T05:54:00.000-05:00

You can count on our local intrepid newspaper sniffing out the real story behind the news (I said sarcastically).

The Gainesville Sun today ran a story about state Sen. Rod Smith's gubernatorial campaign coffers, which have swelled to about $400,000. The brief article focused on one angle – that Smith's campaign had returned $4,500 from the owner of Café Risque because Smith "wasn't comfortable" with the source.

What the article failed to mention were the many sources of campaign cash with which Smith is comfortable – namely, the powerful special interests that control state government in the name of greed.

Thanks to the St. Pete Times for doing the heavy lifting. Adam Smith (no, not The Adam Smith), the Times political editor, published a cogent examination of Smith's contributors, which he notes are "raising red flags among environmentalists."

Smith had a large haul from agricultural interests, which these days are bent on shaping growth management policies to ensure that farmers can stop farming and sell their land for development of strip malls and gated communities. In fact, as a political entity it is more often called agri-business these days.

As Mary Barley, president of the Everglades Trust, told the Times: "They don't give money unless they get something in return. I've dealt with sugar for a long time, and they're not giving money for better government."

Although Smith told the paper, "I have a good environmental record," environmental groups who monitor state lawmaking do not agree. In 2004, the Florida League of Conservation Voters said Smith had the second worst environmental voting record of the 40 senators.

As far as I know, there is no group ranking lawmakers on their titty bar voting record, but if there was, you can bet The Sun would have reported on it. That paper never misses a thing (I said sarcastically).

Hopefully He Preaches Better Than He Practices

2005-04-13T17:43:00.000-05:00

A Baptist deacon in Texas developed potty mouth, and worse, when he wrote the Center for American Progress about its Drop the Hammer campaign against US Rep. Tom DeLay.

When is a Terrorist Not a Terrorist?

2005-04-13T05:37:00.000-05:00

If Eric Rudolph's crimes do not fit the definition of terrorism, then what does? He pleaded guilty this week to bombing abortion clinics, a gay nightclub and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

These apparently were not personal grudges against any particular person, which would put the crimes purely under murder. Instead, they seem politically motivated. Rudolph is "a follower of a white supremacist religion that is anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-Semitic," according to MSNBC.

The FBI defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

Likewise, the Defense Department defines it as "the calculated use, or threatened use, of force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."

So why hasn't Rudolph been charged with terrorism? Violence against pro-choice clinics that provide abortions has been a tool of the right-wing nutjobs for years, and considering Rudolph's affiliations, it is not hard to see how the government could call his acts terrorism.

A possible answer: calling Rudolph a terrorist would not please Dubya's "base" of support – that is, the right-wing nutjobs who share Rudolph's opposition to gays and abortion but who have enough sense not to go on a killing spree to terrorize people who work at abortion clinics or visit gay nightclubs. Rudolph was just acting on impulses they all share.

Doubt me? The consider what would happen if Rudolph had been a member of Greenpeace or some other environmental activist group and had, say, blown up several offices of oil company executives. Dubya and Co. would have slapped a terrorism charge on that person faster than you can say "pandering to the right".

UPDATE (4-20-05): See what I mean?

Special Interests Get Major Woody

2005-04-13T05:15:00.000-05:00

I wonder how long it will take Democrats and public school activists to notice that Tuesday's announcement of a $2.2 billion state revenue windfall takes the guts out of Jebbo's argument that voters should repeal the 2002 class size amendment because Florida can't afford it.

Of course, Jebbo and the GOP-dominated legislature won't admit that and will instead spend the windfall on pork projects benefiting big business and special interests. To wit:

"Those new revenue estimates have sent a shiver of excitement down the spine of this capital," John Thrasher, a former House speaker and one of Tallahassee's most powerful lobbyists, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Trivia Question

2005-04-12T05:23:00.000-05:00

Q. Why did the College Republicans choose a Snickers bar as the reward for UF students who supported Dubya's Social Security reform plan?

A. Because they're chock full of nuts.

Watch Where You Step

2005-04-12T05:04:00.000-05:00

A major reason many Americans do not oppose the many US military interventions around the world is because the mainstream media refuses to show them the reality of its consequences. Iraq is a perfect example because the damage we're causing to Iraqi civilians is immense and violent, and many of the innocent victims are children – little kids just like the ones we raise here in America.

If CNN, the New York Times and Newsweek – for example – were to publish the details of their usually gruesome deaths and painful injuries along with images of these children, more Americans might see through the patriotic filter. They might feel different about letting Dubya squirm from one justification for the invasion to the next as facts inconveniently disprove them. Seeing a baby with half of its head blown off, or a toddler missing a leg and an eye, forces you to consider how those children and their parents must feel as victims of our overwhelming military force.

But you won't see these images, for the most part. And it is not just Iraq. The UN is trying to air public service announcements about unexploded land mines that litter the world, largely thanks to the US military, but most media will not air the PSAs because they aren't pretty.

The ads portray a fictionalized account of a group of American school girls about to play soccer when an unexploded land mine rips into them. The ad asks viewers why they should feel any different if it happens in another country. Harsh? You bet, but far less harsh than for the real victims of such events.

According to the UN, there are land mines littering more than 80 nations, and they kill or injure more than 20,000 people each year, often kids.

From the MSNBC story:

"We felt that because children are victimized by the land mines more than adults, that it was important to make the parallel story as clear as possible," says Guy Barnett, creative director at Brooklyn Brothers, the New York City ad agency that produced the spot for the U.N. Mine Action Service. "We foolishly thought that people would think that the message … would be important enough to show."

Consider your consent manufactured.

Crude Thought

2005-04-11T23:13:00.000-05:00

I wonder how this summer's invasion of Iran will affect gas prices? Iran's only the world's fourth largest oil producer. No big deal I guess.

Confronting the Faith War on the Judiciary

2005-04-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

Awesome article in The Nation about a recent conference called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." Here is a sample:

"For two days, on April 7 and 8, conservative activists and top GOP staffers summoned the raw rage of the Christian right following the Terri Schiavo affair, and likened judges to communists, terrorists and murderers. The remedies they suggested for what they termed "judicial tyranny" ranged from the mass impeachment of judges to their physical elimination."

Read this, and give The Nation some money for a subscription. Damn fine publication.

Blog Shmog

2005-04-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

Eric Boehlert has a good analysis of the right-wing blogosphrere on Salon.com. It is called "Citizen journalists? Try partisan hacks."

I especially liked his observations about the mainstream media's use of blogs as primary news sources. To me that's insane. Except for the current and retired journalists out there with blogs, there's few doing any thorough research – most blogs are written by people with political agendas, armed with a superb sense of self-righteousness. They look for scraps of evidence that fit their preconceived notions of how things should be.

For CNN to use a blog post as a source for a story is further proof that the mainstream media ownership only cares about money, using ratings as the measure. They've replaced honest news with a form of news entertainment, designed to keep you watching, to keep you interested when the commercials start.

Reporting on a sensational blog headline serves one purpose – getting the viewer's attention. If the discourse could go any lower, it has.

Talk About a Red Scare...

2005-04-11T05:23:00.000-05:00

Some right-wing nuts are nuttier than others. Jonathan Schwarz points out one of the stranger nutbag accusations about the judiciary following the Terri Schiavo case. A lawyer at a recent conference referred to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as upholding "Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law." Why? Because he voted to strike down an anti-sodomy statute.

I don't have any reliable statistics on this, but I'm guessing that a large percentage of sodomites voted Bush/Cheney last year. Remember that sodomy is defined as "anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex".

Anyhoot, Mister Schwarz highlights the hypocrisy much better than I with a Venn diagram of Marxist, Leninist and Satanic sex. As far as I know he is the only blogger to use such diagrams for comical effect.

Kung Yowza

2005-04-07T05:52:00.000-05:00

State agriculture officials seized a truck recently that was carrying 16 tons of rotten, unrefrigerated meat headed to Chinese restaurants in Jacksonville. While, as someone who dines out frequently, I appreciate the catch, I wonder if the government would have better served the public by allowing the meat to be delivered.

No, you ninny, not because I want people to eat rotten food. Quite the opposite. As a former restaurant cook for many years, I doubt these establishments would have actually accepted the deliveries. The story makes it clear that the smell from the delivery truck was what alerted officials. Any decent restaurant owner or cook accepting the delivery would notice this and, unless they are sick bastards, refuse.

Of course there are some sick bastards out there more concerned with money than their patrons' health. Finding out who those people are, if there are any, would have done a greater service.

Which brings me to my favorite personal anecdote regarding this issue. I once had a boss who was not afraid to cut corners, and one morning while prepping for lunch, we noticed that a three-gallon container of chili in the walk-in cooler had a film of mold on top of it. My instinct, similar to other cooks there, was to pitch it and make more, but the boss was obviously thinking of all of the money he would make from the many, many bowls of chili that those three gallons would provide. He scooped off that mold and told us to heat it up.

Don't worry, there's a happy ending. As soon as the boss went back to counting beans and yelling at the wait staff, another cook and I dumped the chili in a garbage can and made a fresh batch. End of story.

I have a feeling you won't be eating Chinese or Mexican for a while.

Your First Mistake

2005-04-06T23:34:00.000-05:00

"I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid."

That's Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican, reacting to news that one of his aides wrote a strategy memo for other Republicans that explained how to use Terry Schiavo's case against the Democrats.

The aide has resigned.

From the Washington Post story:

"Martinez, a freshman who was secretary of housing and urban development for most of President Bush's first term, said he had not read the one-page memo. He said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the issue. After that, other Senate aides gave the memo to reporters for ABC News and The Washington Post."

Harkin told the Post that Martinez offered him the memo on the Senate floor and referred to them as "talking points – something that we're working on here."

Martinez should not feign stupidity because it insults our intelligence. It's not like we would be surprised by it – sickened yes, but surprised? Not a bit.

And while liberal bloggers are using this memo as a political bludgeon against their GOP opponents, there is no doubt in my mind that some Democrat staffer has written a similar memo. We may never learn about it, but you can be sure it is there.

Passion of the Soundbyte

2005-04-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Think Progress from pointing out a hilarious moment from CNN's Larry King's coverage of the pope's passing. When interviewing Jim Caviezel, whose main qualification for commenting on the pope is that he played Jesus in the movie, Passion of the Christ, King said:

"Jim, you think he's with Jesus now? We only have 30 seconds."

His answer is irrelevant. The question itself depicts the media's ability to ask important, even deep questions and expect answers that fit in 30 second or less.

Welcome to The Party

2005-04-05T04:34:00.000-05:00

I just finished re-reading George Orwell's 1984, having read it some 25 years ago as a middle school student. At the time I saw it more as science fiction (it was the 1970s) and missed most of the symbolism and political commentary on Russian communism, English socialism and totalitarianism in general.

The idea of re-reading the book had been on my mind for the past couple of years, considering the reaction in the US to the Sept. 11 attacks and the obvious parallels being drawn by many writers. But what spurred me to action was my discovery of a blog called A Tiny Revolution, the name of which is taken from an Orwell essay on humor writing and vulgarity. Orwell's writing style and subversive philosophy in the essay grabbed my interest, so off the shelves came 1984.

The book is a quick and easy read, but you can spend days pondering how closely his imaginary world resembles the world today. Of course others have spent major parts of their professional careers analyzing these parallels, but as a taste just consider the slogan of The Party and Big Brother that controls all aspects of life and thought in Orwell's book: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength."

Having finished 1984, I turned to his other works. Just last night I found this essay, "You and the Atomic Bomb," written in 1945 just after the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan. It's an exposition on how the bomb is a tyrannical weapon that only the superpowers would possess and therefore would be used to hold power over the rest of the world.

At the time of writing, it was not known publicly how far along Russia was at developing the bomb. Orwell writes:

"From various symptoms one can infer that the Russians do not yet possess the secret of making the atomic bomb; on the other hand, the consensus of opinion seems to be that they will possess it within a few years. So we have before us the prospect of two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds, dividing the world between them. It has been rather hastily assumed that this means bigger and bloodier wars, and perhaps an actual end to the machine civilisation. But suppose--and really this the likeliest development--that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless."

To say that Orwell – real name Eric Blair – was politically astute would be an understatement. Just put Bush's consternation over Iran and North Korea's plans to develop nuclear weapons into the above political context, and it jibes with the feelings of many global security and WMD experts. Small nations like Iran feel they need the bomb so that they are not automatically under the thumb of nations that already have nukes, namely the US and Israel. Iran and North Korea see themselves as the "subject peoples" that Orwell wrote about.

I suggest you read 1984 if you haven't, or at least have not read it in many years. Here is a tidbit, from Inner Party member O'Brien to Winston Smith, the main character, as he lay prostrate in the interrogation room, learning the reality of The Party's intentions:

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

And later, O'Brien adds:

"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'"

For ever.

Teacher Pay Hypocrisy

2005-04-04T05:45:00.000-05:00

The St. Pete Times has a good editorial on the hypocrisy of Jebbo's strategy to reverse the 2002 amendment that requires schools to limit class sizes. In it, the paper mentions something I've been saying about the elite opposition to voter initiatives like this one – that Jebbo and his friends in Tallahassee would rather spend that money on the special interests that put them there.

Jebbo's gambit is to pit the class size reductions against higher pay for teachers. He wants a special election this September in which voters will be asked to repeal the class size amendment and approve a higher minimum teacher salary statewide.

The St. Pete Times accurately points out that Jebbo and state lawmakers "already have that authority in the budget. Instead of increasing teacher pay, though, they have spent the past five years handing out $10.7-billion in tax breaks mostly to people and businesses that can afford to live without them."

Trivia Question

2005-04-03T12:51:00.000-05:00

Q: Why Was the Iraqi WMD Informant Called Curveball?

A: Because "Screwball" was taken.

Bush Nominates Tom DeLay for Pope

2005-04-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

It could happen. The US gets what it wants, for the most part, and Bush has got the balls, obviously, to nominate any knucklehead no matter his or her background.

Why Does Jebbo Hate Democracy?

2005-04-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

Life is tough in Shrub's shadow, I'm sure, but Jebbo is working on being just like big brother. He wants to have a special election this September in which voters will be asked to overturn an amendment lowering public school class sizes. The measure was overwhelmingly approved by voters, and for good reason, but Bush and many lawmakers oppose the plan because it means less money for them to dole out to the special interests that put them there.

Thanks to Blogwood for the details.

He Has One?

2005-04-01T20:10:00.000-05:00

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger undergoes a heart procedure.

I ask because he hasn’t shown a lot of heart in his life.