Oil for Dinner Anyone?

Anger grows as disaster reaches Panhandle beaches

Meanwhile, BP's Hayward assured investors that the company "considerable firepower" to cope with the severe costs. Hayward and other senior BP executives struck a penitent note in their first comprehensive update to shareholders since the oil rig explosion.

"We will meet our obligations both as a responsible company and also as a necessary step to rebuilding trust in BP as a long-term member of the business communities in the U.S. and around the world," said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. "This is in the interest of all our stakeholders."

When the last fish is choked to death by all the crap we pour into our water and the last bird is drowned by all the mess we pump into our air, maybe then we'll realize that we can't eat money... or not. These corporate thugs would squish the last butterfly in the world if they thought for a moment they'd get a profit out of it.

Rainbows and Unicorns

So I got some crap in my email from the NRSC entitled "Rainbows and Unicorns". Supposedly it was an April Fool's Joke. For some reason, I'm not laughing. I deleted it, or I'd post the text of it. You can google it and see the retarded video that some vapid, poor excuse for a human being took the time to make.

It takes a lot of cajones to blame the other party when your party is the whole raison d'etre for the economy being in the shite state that it is in.

But you know what, I could give a rats ass. It must be nice to get paid a lot of money to trash your opponents with lies and pandering and meandering waffle while your countrymen have no jobs, can't make ends meet and live out of their cars after being laid off. I mean, it must really burn their biscuits to see so many dirty poor people while they drive to work in their Mercedes and BMWs.

Every single word these political "mavericks" utter makes me hate them even more. In another age, it would have been peasants with pitch forks. Now? It's just a bunch of whiney emo kids complaining that their iPod won't hold a charge and so they can't poke their friends on Facebook or harvest their tomatoes in Farmville.

You know, they waste so much money on nothing. And there are people starving to death, and all they can do is poke sticks at each other. I wish that these stupid fucks would find some deserted island to go to so they could leave the rest of us the hell alone. They could leave all the money they had nothing better to do with anyway to charity, and go drown in their sea of stupidity, hatred, and ignorance.

A Terrorist by Any Other Name

They say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And apparently that is the truth since some right-wing wackos are lauding Joe Stack as a hero. Joe decided that he was mad at the government and the IRS and flew a plane into a building housing the IRS in Austin.

You see, all terrorists are pretty much the same. They are mad at "the man" (the government, or other power) and want to strike out at it. Except that usually they never hurt what it is they're mad at. Stack didn't hurt the government at all. Just like the terrorists on 9/11 who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were mad at our government too. But in both instances, neither party hurt the government at all. All they accomplished was hurting innocent people and destroying the lives of those close to them.

Apparently Joe decided that our laws didn't apply to him at some point about thirty years ago and tried to get out of paying taxes. And you know what they say about fighting the law. It wins. The thing that really gets me, is that he was complaining about the government taking everything, but if he had just been a law abiding citizen and paid his taxes, he probably would have done well for himself. How many people can afford to own planes? And he owned a house too, in Austin, in a fairly nice neighborhood. I mean, seriously. He obviously wasn't poor, but by breaking the law and trying to avoid paying taxes, he lost, and in more ways than one.

People who think that by perpetrating violence on innocent people, that it will accomplish something, are seriously fucked up in the head. And those who think that this idiot is a hero, are as fucked up as he was. I suggest if they don't like living in a free and democratic society, where taxes pay for services like the fire department and the police, they should scurry off somewhere, perhaps to a deserted island and form their own country and leave mine the hell alone.

Snow Forecast = Mob Mentality?

I'm glad I don't live where it snows any more. If it snows where I am now, we'll know hell has completely frozen over. But I did once live where it snowed, and I never could understand why everyone goes for the dairy products that have to be refrigerated. Milk? Sour cream? Don't they know when the power is out, they won't want to get in the fridge, and if it's out long enough, everything will go bad anyway? So silly. And the silliness is in full swing in DC, where they've shut the whole place down in anticipation of what could be the biggest blizzard on record.

At a Safeway in Hanover, Md., dairy products and other perishable items were scarce. There wasn't a single egg in the store, and only a few bottles of milk remained.

"I've come from two other places that are out of milk and sour cream," said Cheryl Conner, 50, of Hanover. "This one's out of sour cream, too, it's crazy."

It's total Lulz.

Well, That's Retarded...

Or as they'd say in Boston, "re-tah-ded". But I digress. WTF is wrong with Palin anyway? I know that uneducated morons tend to have a poor grasp on the English language, but no one in their right mind who wasn't a complete asshole would refer to a child as being retarded. That would be mean. Retarded, the way it is used in the English language now, simply means stupid. NTM, I heard that Palin called her own child that. Whether that is true or not, I could give a rat's ass.

Really? This is all these fuckers have to complain about? People are starving to death, dying over nothing, people in Haiti have lost everything, and all the Palin-ites can do is complain because someone used a word. Fuck 'em, they can take their retarded grasp of the English language, their PC (while simultaneously decrying PC) shit and shove it up their lily white arses.

I mean, when was the last time that you heard someone use the word "retarded" in the context that Palin is screaming about? Maybe fifty years ago? Fucking retards >.<

~~~
Wow. I went complete Boston-ite slash New Yorker in this post LOL

For those of you who have never lived in the northeastern United States, the words "retarded" and "fuck" are adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs, and sometimes even prepositional phrases. XD

Putting Religion First

On my way home tonight, I saw a bumper sticker that said:

Catholic
Conservative
American
In that order.

And I thought, really? You put your religion before your country? (And on top of that they put their political ideology before it too, but that's a whole other post). I suppose that is the way people do it. And I also think that makes them a traitor. Either you defend the Constitution or you don't. If your religion gets in the way of defending the Constitution, then you're not an American. It can't come third. It's either first, or not at all. Christianity is diametrically opposed to secular democracy, which is what the Constitution lays out for us. There is no religion in the Constitution. The only mention of religion is in Article 6, and that is to ensure that no religion is required to hold office or serve the United States.

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

I suppose when you believe the big lie, that the writings of semi-nomadic pastorlists, who thought the stars were permanently pasted into the night sky, are the words of "god" and that everyone who doesn't believe what [fill in the sect here] espouses is going to hell, that would make you betray your own country, and if it came down to it, your own countrymen because they're not like you in that they are a different religion, or no religion at all.

Article six was a huge step forward in our civilization. Prior to it, in most places, you had to be the religion of the ruling party to vote (if you could vote), to hold office, or in some instances, to even live in said place. In the colonies here, prior to the Revolutionary War, there were laws that required people to be a certain religion to participate in the operation of the colony. That is the reason why Roger Williams left Massachusetts to found Rhode Island. They ran him out because he wanted a voice in his own governance without having to convert to the official state religion.

I just don't get these people. And it's late... I'm sure I'm rambling now...

OMG! Teh Gayz are Serving! in the UK anyway...

Over at JoeMyGod you can read the discussion about how Peter Spriggs is an asshat. He claims that 1.) if gays serve openly in the military they will go on rape sprees, that 2.) if they serve tons of straight people will resign in protest and that 3.) homosexuality should be outlawed and gays imprisoned. If you read my post from the other day, he's not alone. Unfortunately.

What this is about though, is that gays serve openly in the UK and have for ten years now. And their fundies had the same arguments as ours are having now, and everything they said, never materialized.

Large-scale resignations from the UK armed forces were widely expected in some quarters, when the ban on gays was lifted - but in practice they did not materialise.

At least one British army brigadier publicly resigned in protest, citing "strongly held moral and military convictions" but most observers were surprised at how smoothly the new law - which was forced on the UK government by the European Court of Human Rights - was implemented...

British Security Minister Lord Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy, told the Associated Press in July 2009 that allowing gays to serve openly was "much better".

"For countries that don't do that - I don't believe it's got anything to do with how efficient or capable their forces will be. It's to do with prejudices, I'm afraid," he said.

I find it appalling that we, America, are supposed to be the land of the free, a place where everyone is equal and has civil rights and equal protection under the law, and yet the Europeans right now have surpassed us in civil liberties by leaps and bounds. For godsake, Portugal has allowed gay marriage. Conservative, Catholic Portugal! Of all places. And we're the United States, and we're a bunch of fucking asshats over here apparently. I suppose that's what happens when you found a country with Puritans. Their descendants are uptight assholes who have to meddle in their neighbor's business to make sure they're doing what some deity or other wants.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --CS Lewis

What's a Matter with US?

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy." --Thomas Frank

I read this article over at the BBC, and I have to tell you, they hit on something there. No one cares about facts. They only care about how things make them "feel." It's why people elect idiots to office, who serve not the people who elected them, but Corporate masters. It's why they blame Obama for the mess we're in, and why they blame him for not waving a magic wand to get us out of it. I suppose that Obama should have studied a bit harder at Hogwarts, because he just isn't all that good at magically cleaning up two decades of Republican mismanagement in a year.

Last time I checked, large, complex civilizations don't just turn on a dime. You can think of our civilization as a really big aircraft carrier. You don't just whip it right around like it's a Lamborghini or something. It's not possible.

People are stupid. They don't care about facts, or logic, or what is real, or what it actually takes to accomplish something. All they care about is listening to pundits and talking heads shriek about things that make them "feel" like they have some kind of power over the situation and that validate any emotions they might have about it. Because, when it comes to humanity, facts are never important and neither is the truth.

Queue the Cattle Cars

Props to JoeMyGod for this one...

"If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.
The bottom line here is that, biblically, those "who practice homosexuality" should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery." --Bryan Fischer (emphasis mine)

And to think my last post was on Anne Frank and the suppression of literature in our public schools. Today, I read that yet another ignorant demagogue wants to send homosexuals to prison for reparative therapy. Is the fact that the Nazis called for the same thing lost on these idiots? Apparently, or they wouldn't spout such nonsense.

My next question is, who the hell do these people think they are? Bryan Fischer is unequivocally calling for a theocracy, openly and without any sort of shame. Subject to Biblical Law as Civil Law?! In these United States? Bryan Fischer, if you read this, YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELF! And so can the rest of the fuck-tards who follow his thinking.

I daresay that I haven't been quite so angry and simultaneously annoyed over anything in a long time. I suppose it should come as no surprise. Oh sure, you read this sort of thing all the time from some crackpot troll on message boards, or blogs. But this guy is on the radio, people actually listen to him, he has a platform, and what he is advocating is an overthrow of our democratic system. Our Constitution doesn't allow the sending of people to prison for thought crimes, or crimes against a religion. If Bryan Fischer wants theocracy, he can go live in fucking Saudi Arabia. I keep telling these ignorant bastards that, but they don't get it. Probably because they have the critical thinking skills of a slug. And that's an insult to slugs!

If you think this doesn't affect you because you're not gay or you don't know anyone who is, remember that in Germany, lots of people thought that what was happening didn't affect them because they weren't Jewish, until it was too late.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out.
                --Martin Niemöller

I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again, in the Middle Ages people were subject to civilian law for religious "crimes" which were what we would now call thought-crimes. We're talking like Orwell's 1984 here. Orwell wasn't writing solely about the future, he was drawing on the past. People could be dragged in before the Inquisition, in what amounted to a kangaroo court, convicted of heresy after interrogation, (see: torture) for not *believing* what they were told they should believe by the Church. They were then, in what amounts to a mockery of morality and justice, "relaxed" or turned over to the secular authorities for punishment. This meant burning at the stake in most times and places, though later it might amount to hanging.

Make no mistake, this is exactly what people like Bryan Fischer want. They want to be able to kill people for not conforming to their version of Christianity. They will never say it outright, not until they're in a position to carry it out, but they're getting bolder and bolder all the time. When we're to the point that they're willing to openly push for incarcerating people for not believing as they do, we're on a dark and dangerous path as a country. We can't let the demagogues drag us back into the Dark Ages...

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
                --Justice William O. Douglas

They'd Really Rather Burn the Books Instead

Some dipshit parent got mad that The Diary of Anne Frank has explicit material in it, and school officials in Virginia caved to it. And you wonder why American children are some of the lowest ranking in the Industrialized world. Our education system here is a joke.

If these "Christian" (and I use that term loosely) don't want their children to learn anything, they should home-school them. And hide the Bible from them while they're at it, because the Bible is about a hundred times more illicit and graphic than The Diary of Anne Frank. Of course the dipshit parent has probably never read either.

So there you have it. This is the exact same reason why an entire nation of people went along with the Nazis and allowed millions to die in death camps. Because they were stupid and uneducated chattel.

The Truth Can Send You to Federal Prison

I'm thoroughly amused by the story that James O'Keefe was arrested along with three neo-Con friends for trying to tap into the phone lines in a Democrat's office in a Federal building. How stupid can you get? I wonder how many more felonies Lack-of-any-ethics O'Keefe is planning on committing before he's thirty.

You see, we have laws in this country, such as privacy laws, that prohibit taping or recording audio of a person without their permission or without a court order. Apparently, some neo-Cons like O'Keefe think they're above the law. I wonder if his friend's daddy can get them out of this one. I suppose it's likely, if daddy has some pull with the Feds. They're rich white boys after all. They'll probably get a slap on the wrist. What they really deserve though is to pay the price for breaking the law. If that happens, I'll be pleasantly surprised.





Upon leaving the courthouse on a measly $10k bail, it was reported that O'Keefe said "The truth will set me free." To which I thought, the truth can send you to prison, but I digress. You see, I think that the whole thing with them taping those workers at Acorn was a load of bullshit. First of all, they edited the tapes in their favor, and cut out pieces that didn't fit with their agenda. Secondly, the things they said were so outrageous that most people, especially people who aren't very intelligent, would probably be caught off guard, so much so that they might say strange things or things they wouldn't ordinarily say because they're confused. It amounts to entrapment. Most of the people at Acorn actually called the police on them. They may have said what they said to play along, and then report them, because that's how you gather information. But as usual, the truth is never what is important. It's just what you can fit into a ten second sound bite. People lost their jobs over it, whether they were really guilty of anything or not.

Whenever neo-Cons are concerned, it's always a double standard. If it's them that's in trouble, they scream it's "just a few bad apples," but if it's anyone else, it must be "wide spread corruption."

The Corporatocracy: It's Official

In case you weren't paying attention, a few days ago the Supreme Court basically ruled that a Corporation has the same "rights" as you and me. If you had been reading the news, you'd probably have missed this, because no major news network bothered to actually report it. Surprise, surprise. Oh, sure, some had letters or editorial opinions about it, but it wasn't news worthy. We all surely knew that the Corporations were in charge. After all, they give to both parties, and every single official in Washington is indebted to them in some way. Sure, Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, which is supposed to put them above fearing for their position, but they can still be impeached by congress. And since the Corporations have Congress in their pocket, if the Supreme Court doesn't go along and toe the line, they can and will be dissolved.

I decided that it would be fitting to rewrite the Declaration of Independence in favor of the Corporation, seeing as that is what we have become. Enjoy. Feel free to share, just link back here. I call it "The Corporate Declaration of Independence"

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for Corporations to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a Government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Corporations are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Business Models, Deregulation and the pursuit of Profits. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Corporations, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Corporation to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Bottom Line and Profits. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Corporations are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of regulations and worker protections, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Oversight, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Corporations; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present United States Government For and By The People, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Oversight over these Corporations. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to Deregulation, the most wholesome and necessary for Corporate Profits.
They have forbidden their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to do our bidding.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of slave labor, unless those people would be given the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right unknown to them and formidable to a free people only.
They have called together legislative bodies at times unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from our Lawyers, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into compliance with their measures.
They have dissolved Committees repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the Corporations.
They have refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be appointed; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the Corporation remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of worker strikes from without, and bankruptcy from within.
They have endeavoured to prevent the Corporations of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, so that we might pay them slave wages.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing the Judicial Rights of Corporations.
They have made Corporations dependent on their Laws alone, for the tenure of their existence, and the amount and payment of their worker's salaries.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Regulators to harrass our Corporations, and make them comply with worker protection laws.
They have kept among us, in all times, Federal Regulators without the Consent of our exective boards.
They have affected to render the People independent of and superior to the Corporate power.
They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our business model, and unacknowledged by our lawyers; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of Federal Regulators among us:
For protecting them, by a Laws, from retaliation for any Fines which they should impose on the Corporations of these States:
For cutting off our free Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Off Shore Tax Shelters:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for using Child Labor and worker abuse:
For abolishing the free System of Monopolies in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein government Oversight, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute Oversight into these Corporations:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Corporations:
For suspending our own Executive Boards, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Free Market Capitalism here, by declaring us out of their Protection and passing Laws of Oversight against us.
They have plundered our CEO's pay, ravaged our stock options, dissolved our Monopolies, and destroyed the lives of our Executives.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of Regulators to compleat the works of Bankruptcy, Regulation and Oversight, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Overseer of a Corporatocracy.
They have constrained our fellow Corporations, caught in Pyramid Schemes, to become the informants of their friends and Brethren, or to lose their Tax Exemptions by their Hands.
They have excited worker insurrections amongst us, and have endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our Enemies, the merciless Union Organizers, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished desire to protect workers of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define the leader of a Free People, is unfit to be the ruler of Corporations.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Worker brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our organization and the cost of doing business here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these Oversights, which, would inevitably interrupt our ability to use them as slave labor. They too have been deaf to the voice of business and of Profit. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in Hostile Takeovers, in Peace useful workers.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Corporations of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Corporations of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Corporations are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Corporations; that they are Absolved from all Laws and Protections for their Workers, and that all political connection between them and the benefit of the Worker, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Corporate States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, run roughshod over Workers, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Corporations may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Business Models, our Lawyers and our sacred Profits.

Jefferson and the rest were great men, but they weren't capable of saving us from ourselves.

What progress we are making...

A hundred years ago, if you had told your average American that black people would have equal rights someday, they would have thought you quite mad. And if you had told them that a black man would be elected President of the United States, they'd have had you committed to a mental asylum for being completely off your rocker.

I hope that someday, whether it be a hundred years from now, or a thousand, that people look back on this age and consider it as barbaric as we consider the Medieval period. I hope that someday all people really are treated equally, and that there is no more hunger or homelessness in this world. It's a nice dream isn't it?

"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." --Sigmund Freud

"Rudy and the Big Lie"

Sounds like it could be the title of a blockbuster movie huh?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

*Sigh* It really makes Goebbels look like an amateur.

Oh, and Rudy here is a frickin' mathematician, 6 days is less than 10. Really? I would have never known that.





Just keep saying it.* The chattel will love you for it.

*"it" being 9/11