Puhhlease

I saw a new ad for Major League Baseball last night, and I believe they were trying to position the game as America's historical pasttime, hoping to use the game's deep history as a selling point.

That's pretty funny considering MLB was more than willing to allow its current players to erase history by cheating.

Asked whether use of steroids was cheating, McGwire said: "That's not for me to determine."

Apparently there are two different sets of legal systems: The American and Major League Baseball's.

Compassion

Here it is:

The Senate also approved, 66 to 31, a proposal by Senator Coleman that restored $2 billion in proposed cuts to urban development grants, over the objections of the White House, which called for trimming back the program. "I'm thrilled," Mr. Coleman said afterward.

The amendment striking the Medicaid cuts, sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, was by far the most troubling to the Republican leadership. Seven Republicans joined with the Senate's 44 Democrats and one independent to approve the proposal. Mr. Smith, who had been under intense pressure from party leaders to either change or withdraw the measure, said afterward that he thought it sent a strong message that his colleagues were uneasy about the reductions.

"I think a lot of us have trouble just looking at a ledger," Mr. Smith said, "while ignoring some of the most sensitive needs of the poor."

The issue brought forth such passion that Senator Judd Gregg, an ordinarily taciturn New Hampshire Republican who, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, proposed the $14 billion in spending reductions, addressed Mr. Smith in deeply personal terms on Thursday on the Senate floor. He said Mr. Smith's amendment would "gut the only thing in this budget" that would help tame the deficit and enforce fiscal discipline.

"And it's being done by Republicans," Mr. Gregg added. "You know, you just have to ask yourself how they get up in the morning and look in the mirror."

Buddy, I've been wondering about that for a long time. How do you do it. Senator Gregg wonders how Mr. Smith can look at himself in the mirror because he's providing money to the poor!

He's Your Son

George H.W.:

I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one.

Of course it is.

Dave Davies Jam During "Australia"

Somewhere between insanity and rationality I’m wondering.

If a carrot could talk, and if a tomato could talk, would you eat it? A cow can’t talk, but they eat it, I’m sure. I’d even bet some of them hunt things they’d never eat. Yet a life form of practically lesser value than the latter, and certainly less productive has value beyond what it had when completely able. That makes sense.

As I walk through Jersey City I make sure the napkin covering my eaten donut ends up in the trash. I do this because I want the streets to be clean. I’m positive there are many people who do it because of a trade off for all the things they do wrong. That’s right, I’m talking to the people who commit so many selfish acts, but do throw out their trash! Throwing out trash is easy, and it’s even easier if you use it for yourself as something to balance out all the crap you create.

Something as simple as throwing out your trash means so many things I can’t even begin to number them. Imagine doing it as part of a balancing act? Your mind must be really fucked up if part of the rationale resides in that act, and it does for many.

Here’s one to grow on: There are so many conservatives investing energy in something as absurd as Terry Schiavo, and these same people don’t seem to really care about environmental problems, relative to Jesus, of course. I think that puts on display the differences between blue and red: The blue care about things that provide them no physical benefit today, but actually benefit a society hoped for. The red take advantage of something that provides no benefit other than one that pertains to themselves currently, and all the while abusing love and family to do it.

You should be proud. Go wave your flizzag, scumbags.

Normal

Is our country.

Nothing like a country and a family that accuses a husband, who has essentially lost the love of his life, of being a liar.

It's also nice to see the conservatives in America looking down on Mr. Schiavo for forming another relationship. I love how these people need to know everything about other peoples' relationships.

Where else but in this country does this crap happen? Can you say, "Moving Backwards?"

Final Faux

Illinois
------------ Illinois
Wake Forest

------------------------ Illinois

UConn
------------ UConn
Oklahoma

I really do like Gonzaga, but I gotta go with my boy C Paul, and the Big Ten pride.

Maybe?

I find it funny that the selection of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank is viewed as a move to rein in the bank's liberal spending policies.

Does anyone have a clue what Wolfowitz's thoughts on spending, and fiscal policy are? From what I've read Wolfowitz is an advocate of removing dictators, and creating democracy wherever possible. There's no trail that leads us to believe he's going to rein in anything. The only thing we do know is he's a loyalist, but why wouldn't he be?

The concepts he espoused in the late 80s and early 90s were put to work two years ago, aka, the Iraq War. When he initially advocated these things is probably when they should have happened, but didn't. The Idiot-in-Chief, and his select bunch of morons decided now was the time, regardless of the political climate. Again, as if 9 years of Clinton and one year of "we're not nation builders" didn't happen. As for Wolfowitz, his career, his plans, all he has advocated was being put to use as Under-secretary of Defense. What does he have to complain about? This guy, as far as theorists goes, is on Kissinger's level at this point. What is there not to be loyal about?

Now things are different. Now he is no one's puppet. Sure, the guy may want to work for other Republicans, or get a nice cushy, Cheney-like job in the private sector, but everyone knows he's the brains. It's not like he would suffer by advocating, again, his own beliefs, but now at the World Bank. He is pretty much set regardless of who he pisses off. Cheney is looking at his last gig, and everyone knows Bush is an idiot. Neither are going to lead the party in 4 years.

I'm not saying Wolfowitz isn't conservative on certain levels, but we can't assume he's a fiscal conservative, regardless of the fact that he looks like Al Greenspan's younger brother, one butt-uglier than the other.

Wolfowitz is all for intervention, and not based on oil, necessarily. He's an advocate of democracy, a theorist, a man whose ideas were used at the wrong time, under the wrong pretenses, and possibly for the wrong purposes. Intervention was not a Republican thing in 1999, in fact they were wholly against the concept.

Lets not make any assumptions about a man we know little about, and lets not pretend the World Bank is really affecting our lives in some meaningful way. It's likely there will be clashes between Wolfowitz and the real conservatives if he chooses a path to fix world problems. Of course, this is assuming he gets a set of balls because as of now you won't be reading about him in this book anytime soon.

Jordan's House

If anyone needs a tax cut, it's this guy. 

A Jewish Banker.

The audacity:

"We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock boxes' around the trust fund real," Greenspan said, referring to suggestions in the late 1990s of finding some way to prevent Congress from spending surplus Social Security revenue.

This from the man who was all for cutting taxes based on the money that was supposedly in those "lock boxes." What a dick.

Kudos to Senator Clinton for letting him know it.

Living on the Edge

With Dick Vitale.

This jackass picked the Top 4 teams, AGAIN.

NEWSFLASH: The Big East has won the last two.

Drilling

Let the games begin.

Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.

The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

Fitting in neatly with their "constituents don't care" policies, Republicans can give these kickbacks to their supporters. Their constituents don't care since they a) don't really care about the environment and b) don't plan on traveling to Alaska.

Also keep in mind every Alaskan gets over $1000 a year from the federal government because of projects like this, so essentially they too are being bought.

Cost of a barrel is up. Price of gas is up. So Republicans are doing this FOR YOU! No, REALLY, it's FOR YOU!

Cute

Sent by a friend:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the
country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the
country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like
their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running
the country - if they could find the time - and if they didn't have to
leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a
seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running
the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably
while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country
but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure
there is a country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they
oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the
leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also
happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy provided,
of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the
grocery store.

12. None of these are read by the guy who is, in fact, charged with
running the country.

If Republicans Had Known!

How the Iraqis felt about religion they would have helped them ages ago!

More Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction and fewer think it's going wrong than at any time since the U.S. invasion two years ago, according to a new poll.

The poll, by the International Republican Institute (IRI), due to be made public Wednesday, also found that nearly half of Iraqis believe that religion has a special role to play in government.

I wonder if Iraqis know how little these same Republicans care about their future outlook?

Remeber

When some person was sending Anthrax to liberals? Thank goodness we caught that dude, or didn't.

B'Bye

Idiot.

This Guy's Great

Can't say he doesn't believe:

"Quite to the contrary," Bush said when asked if the coalition was falling apart. "I think the coalition has been buoyed by the courage of the Iraqi people."

:)

The Coaliton of the Willing to Let You Handle It

Obligatory

I know it's a day late, but I cannot let this pass. If you have been watching your local news I'm sure you have no idea that Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton has robbed you, and its employees have taken kickbacks throughout the Iraq War.

Of course, the Bush White House shelved the report which was completed in October, right around the time Cheney was debating John Edwards. Your government at work for you!

The largest allegations of overcharging involve Halliburton's hiring in early 2003, without competitive bidding, of a Kuwaiti company called Altanmia to buy and deliver fuels from Kuwait. Critics say Altanmia's prices were exorbitant, and Pentagon and other Federal investigators are still trying to discover which parties benefited from any excess or illegal profits. Under its "cost plus" contract with the Pentagon, Halliburton could pass along Altanmia's fees, then receive awards for itself ranging from 2 percent to 7 percent beyond its actual costs.

In 2003, officials of Altanmia asserted that Halliburton executives demanded kickbacks for the awarding of the lucrative fuels contract. Halliburton denied the charges.

This is all part of the $100 + million the company has overcharged US taxpayers.

Now lets look at the Vice President's role in all this.

Sure, he wasn't employed by Halliburton during the Iraq war (well, not directly), but who do you think made sure Halliburton, and subsidiary KBR, received NO BID contracts? Hmmm, tough call there. Do you think the company reinvented itself 10 minutes after he left, OR, do you think they've always been like this, so when they needed a CEO they got someone who they could fish with?

Companies have personalities, and usually it comes from the top down. This company sought out Dick Cheney to run the show, a man who had never run a company in his life. Now we hear stories OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER about what a poor job Halliburton has done in Iraq, and how they received contracts without competition. There's a reason this company sought Cheney, and that reason is he is no different from them. When I hear stories about how they accept kickbacks, and rob US taxpayers, I don't think to myself, "Damn, if only Dick was there to right that ship..." No, I think, "Of course they commit crimes and fraud, look who they chose to steer the ship!"

This isn't an overnite sensation, but rather it's par for the course for people like this. It's a culture. It's top down. And the top was Dick Cheney. What he has brought to government the last 5 years is no different. This is the man responsible for finding a VP candidate and found himself! He represents all that is wrong with humanity.

There's a report detailing Halliburton's illegal acts, it is finished in October, during the Presidential election. The Vice President previously ran the company. He is due to debate the issues on national tv. This is an issue Americans need to know about. Somehow, the report never makes it to the American people, or to their elected officials, and yet to the people who won the election, it doesn't really matter. Conservative leaders like Tom Delay, Denny Hastert, and Bill Frist seem to care less than anyone. Democracy is irrelevant to them, for they know better than you do.

As long as they get their taxes cut, they'll cheat, steal, lie, and deny.

If you walk into Borders, Barnes & Noble, or any other bookstore, you'll notice on the Best Sellers list a handful of conservative authors deriding "liberals." Why are they on the BS list? Well, for all these people who lie, cheat, steal, and deny, they need ammo to support their selfish beliefs, and there's a whole industry out there willing to provide it. They have to because Americans must be duped in order for conservatives to succeed.

How in the world does a Republican support an administration that "nation builds", bilks the government of millions, and deceives the American public by hiding facts within the bureaucracy?!?!? I'm sorry, but I don't think going to church quite gets you off the hook this time.

Where's the one Republican writing a letter to the White House?

A Jewish Banker?

That's a novel idea.

The President has such little confidence in himself that he's only willing to put people in high positions who have already shown loyalty. God forbid someone from outside the tight circle was placed into a high level job the President would actually be at the mercy of someone who may have independent thoughts.

This is why Condi Rice becomes Sec. of State with no experience, Josh Bolton who is against the UN becomes Ambassador, and grand Mid East designer Paul Wolfowitz now heads to the World Bank.

Ahhh

I've returned.

I see nothing in the world has changed.

I did get stiff reading about how Bush's Mid-East policy is now working! That's thrilling. The only problem is it's not. Not to say things won't workout in the long run (highly unlikely), but to pretend the situation in Lebanon is actually a result of what we've done in Iraq is really absurd.

If a war broke out in Lebanon again do you think the United States would be anxious to send in the troops?

Lets just hope it works out for those people so they can get on with their life's work of killing jews...Oh, did I say that out loud? My bad.

I came across an interesting read in the March issue of Atlantic Monthly discussing the problems of militant Islam. It's worth a gander.

I'll be back when my head is slightly more alligned.

Still Gone

Til wednesday.