June 2004 Archives

Been busy moving into our new apartment. As such I've been offline for quite a bit too. Which is frustrating, but doable.

Biggest story blown over by the media: Cheney being an ass. Think about it, if you walked onto the Senate floor and cussed out a Senator, you'd probably expect to do time, wouldn't you? This blowhard thinks it's just an everyday event, "These things happen" being a quote from the White House. EvilNed appropriately tackled the issue by passing along the following NSFW image. Seriously, do we really want this class of idiot running our country. Not Ned, Cheney and Blunder Boy.

Speaking of EvilNed, I'd like to thank him for passing along one of his free G-Mail invites. I'm moving over all site mail references to that account so I can get some of that spam out of my Yahoo account. That, and it's my new sign-up email for stuff.

I'm trying not to focus on politics but this stuff literally just lands in my lap. Our troops - in a combat zone, sent by a president who lied to get them in harm's way (have I set this up enough? - have at some time been asked to fill out a form and pray for the guy getting them shot at. Seriously, how mental are these people? Granted, the source is odd for this story, but here is the original. Bonus article on the semantics of linking Al-Qaeda and Iraq.

I'm letting Ned gloat about Fahrenheit 9/11. I just hope Moore does what he's never been able to do and get his facts straight. May even eventually see it. I mean, it's not like I need to be convinced that George Bush is bad for this country.

Now for odd news. Your cell phone may be sterilizing you. The ultimate Bryan Adams fan - and her ex-husband. Iraq's internet naming woes - courtesy of a pack of felonious Texans - no, not that one. Sex and the Republican Senate candidate (now somewhat dated since he's pulled out of the race....Cue: rim shot). And one giant "Oops" from the world of firefighting.

There's a lot of talk (and at least one ad) equating Bush with Reagan. I'll skip over the blatant conspiracy theories about the Bush family being involved with the Hinckley's and let Reagan's son and various other pundits discredit that notion. Indeed, one has found another president Bush is more like. Other than Hoover of course.

Did you know? Over 82 million of us went without medical insurance at some point over the past two years. Guess that's going to just be written off by some compassionate conservative phrase like "the poor must have deserved it" or some such crap.

What else? Oh, yes, we still have segregation laws on the books in the southern states. Frankly, this doesn't surprise me unfortunately. Meanwhile, rappers can run around our jails are tape videos without fear of being caught. Though we can sink to the level of those we are fighting in Iraq and actual hide the fact we hold some prisoners. Nothing like giving psychotic terrorists more possible reasons to justify harming our soldiers. Who's driving this bus anyway? And can we please try to play cause-and-effect once in awhile?

Flying in the face of the 9-11 Commission he had to be forced to allow in the first place, the research involved by said committee is unconvincing to the president. He swears that the already flawed intel he led us into war on is still valid when it comes to a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection. Somewhere I'm sure someone is collecting data on a Saddam-Bush connection based on all the meetings his administration had in the past with the guy. Should one come up, I'll link it just to show you how ridiculous this line of argument is.

Last week, some nitwit bowled over a 4-year old to catch a fly ball. He was eventually shamed into giving the ball to the kid - three days later. Just wanted to share human stupidity to you in it's finest.

But hey, for all my doom and gloom, at least we don't all live in Cambodia.

Granted, it is small fries (more on that in a sec) compared to the major problems in the world, but I sat and enjoyed the Pistons whupping the daylights out of the Lakers tonight to win the NBA Championship 100-87. Considering you have a suspected rapist (Bryant), an egotistical thug (O'Neal), and a horse's *ss mercenary (Malone) sitting on the losing bench, it couldn't have ended any better as far as I'm concerned.

Remember when the government tried to make ketchup a vegetable in the '80s? Well, they are at it again. This time its frozen fries being labelled "fresh vegetables." (Use Membername: lvtribune and Password: lvtribune) Oh, in case you missed it - I did - salsa has been a vegetable since 1998. Bonus article that takes the idea seriously.

For the record, if you get as annoyed with those newspaper registrations as I do, go to BugMeNot and type in the URL of where you want to read the stories. Or just use the generic ones I occasionally give to ya.

Other health type news: growing up bilingual keeps your mind sharp as you grow older. Now I find out.

Recent historical date ridiculed here and here. And yes, OJ still got away with murder.

Speaking of kooks, some Branch Davidians still remain.

One fun thing and an interesting slice of life from Baghdad. The first is what you get for a Yahoo search for "incompetent" (check the third entry). The second is a story concerning Baghdad mailmen.

*NOTE: The 4-5 ADA site has listed the Galva Guard subsite as the main link for Foxtrot Battery. While I am honored at the attention, it has brought heat down on Tom because - go figure - the powers that be do not approve of the politicized nature of this page and others on the domain. Look, I do not speak for my brother, his unit, or the Family Readiness Group in Galva. I have never implied nor intended that message to come across. I have also done my utmost best to keep anything of a blatant politicized message off the Galva Guard part of the site.

To those in charge, please respect my right to an opinion, my attempts at conforming to the better nature and presentation of the subsite, and to the integrity of the information I pass along within that part of the site. I pay for this, I work hard at it, and have always tried to keep the lines between this and the Galva Guard part distinct and unblurred. Plus, if you could, if you have a problem with me, kindly send me an email regarding your complaint. Thank you.

Now back to the regularly scheduled ranting and raving....

We start off with "Things You Have to Believe to be a Republican". Not too far off base actually for a partisan write-up. Here's a story on how Cheney tries to play up the concept of Bin Laden as a Democrat. And who bought him his first Stinger missile, Mr. Wizard?

Continuing with the whole Reagan thing. Some - a few of you anyway - have asked for a less-than-fanboy approach to his passing and legacy. You can find that here. I also provide the more extreme version, in both censored and non- flavors. Seriously though, don't even link to those if you just want to let bygones be bygones.

I said the other day I wouldn't comment much on it myself but it was a reader-requested subject; which I do try to acknowledge and act on. If you don't like it, counter the requests or suggest other content yourself.

In another vein, this whole move to put him on the $10 bill needs to be stopped. Read more about it and weigh in over at Doonesbury. And let's put the kibbosh on the whole Mt. Rushmore thing too please.

Paris is trying to ban SUVs. Now, the knee-jerk reaction here is to call it another French oddity. But, I think there's something to this. Why ruin your century's old city at the expense of someone's conspicuous consumption. If we can ban cell phone use in cars as a road hazard, surely we can attribute the same to a monstrosity on a narrow city street.

Wrapping up a story covered a long time ago: an Oklahoma court has decided that a Muslim girl can wear her headscarf to school. Good for them. Let's remember that we are allowed to be different in this country folks.

In another story by Ellis, involving the dangers of hosting a website. I haven't seen his kind of traffic yet, but wouldn't be too surprised if it happened someday.

Slate covers the passing of Ray Charles. To be honest, that death affected me a tad more where it counts than the other major passing this week.

More collected Boondocks coming this week. Tom has some pictures on the way that I'll hope to get up for ya. And a shout out to Mooney and his pal. Glad you are enjoying the show.

I'll tip-toe around the obvious news story. My dad once said that you don't talk bad about someone once they've passed on, regardless of the ill they brought to the world. So that's what I'll do.

For those among the living, we have Republican Survivor. Another game is Presidental Knockout. Guess whose butt I chose to slap down. Also, I didn't make this up, so bear with me. In trying to con African-American voters into backing him, Mr. "There is no such thing as a hate crime" Bush has recruited the good graces of...wait for it...Don King.

In non-political bashing, let's take a page from Minnesota - no, not in electing ex-wrestlers - but in combating gas price gouging. We might not be able to fight OPEC or Big Oil, but we can hit the hometown thieves.

Kobe's lawyers, finks that they are, have gotten permission to have the potential rape victim not labelled as a victim. Seriously, have we all lost our minds at this point?

Two technology articles to pass along. One is a Popular Science story about a guy who spent some time this year trying to emulate life in 1954. Kind of a revelation on how much tech we've gotten used to. Another article covers the measure of a death penalty in a tongue-in-cheek way concerning virus writers and other filth. The last covers the modern music industry and how we end up with the crap bands we do when better music never gets heard by larger audiences.

We spent last weekend out of town, specifically hiking, dining and relaxing in Payson, AZ. Got to catch a D-Backs game in there too. It was much fun. This week I'm out of town in Carson City on work assignment. Have a good one.