|
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
| 2015 © KickAss Gear | |||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
| KickAss
Gear News Archive: October 2005 October 30th The White House Versus the CIA It almost sounds like a new computer game, but it is instead, unfortunately, reality. The White House has been at war with much of the CIA for over 2 years now, and the end result is the disaster in Iraq, and an unprecedented loss in world prestige and credibility. We also have rising resentment, and increasing terrorism around the world, the exact opposite of what Dick Cheney, the de facto president, told us would happen when we attacked Iraq. What caused this internecine fighting between the executive branch and it's intelligence agencies? Dick Cheney, our unelected president. George Bush doesn't know enough, or care enough about anything to be president, which is perfect for Dick, who hates to be in the spotlight. Scooter Libby took the fall for Dick Cheney, there is no doubt about it. Cheney ordered Libby to go after Joe Wilson and his wife. This gives Cheney "deniability". The charges against Libby don't get to the the heart of the matter; the leaking of a covert CIA agent's identity to the press. That is because the players in this game all continued to lie to the grand jury. Judy "Little Miss Run Amok" Miller said she couldn't remember who told her. Let's hope she now becomes "Little Miss Run Out of Town". She should never be allowed to work at any news organization for the rest of her life. The reason Scooter was only charged with obstruction, perjury and lying is because everyone at the heart of the case refuses to tell what they know; they conveniently "forgot". I'll make a prediction. Scooter will bellow and yell that he is innocent right up until the time he pleads guilty to a lesser charge. If Cheney and Co. have to get up in front of a jury and lie again, there will be a chance that they will get caught up by an email or note in the prosecutor's hands. They can't afford to let this come to trial, and they will go for some type of plea bargain that keeps Scooter out of jail. But I also predict that if the Democrats take control of the House in 2006, there will be hearings into the false intelligence used by Cheney to justify his war. This isn't going away, even though the Republicans still think they can silence all of their critics. All of this comes from the fact that Cheney was going to take us to war, no matter what. When the CIA gave Cheney intelligence he didn't like, he would say "wrong answer", and tell them to do it again. The resultant erosion of trust and respect between the White House and the CIA, which was eventually destroyed by the Plame affair, has ill served the American people. You can thank Dick Cheney for all of the problems the country finds itself facing now, and some day, he will be held accountable. October 27th Spilt Beans in a House of Cards The Special Prosecutor in the White House CIA leak case has been talking to many people. It appears that some of them may have spilt the beans, so to speak, on the perpetrators of the leak within the Bush administration. The frustrating part for the White House is that in the past, they have been able to come down on the bean spillers like a ton of bricks, thus keeping a lid on the story. For example, when Paul O'Neill, the Secretary of Treasury, was critical of the White House economic policies and how they were formulated, he was charged with leaking classified information, and was "investigated". We all know what happened when Joe Wilson publicly said that Iraq had not tried to acquire uranium from Niger. The White House was not used to letting people get away with criticizing them. Normally, Dick Cheney could just pick up a phone, and inflict pain at a distance. But now, they have no choice but to sit and wait. They have no control over the Grand Jury hearing the case, and no control over the prosecutor. For once, they are helpless to smear or intimidate the bean spillers. Some of the bean spillers are in fascinating positions to create havoc if they tell all that they know. One such person is Susan B. Ralston, who works as Karl Rove's chief assistant. In a bizarre twist of irony, Ms. Ralston also worked for Jack Abramoff, who is connected with Tom Delay, and is currently under investigation in a case that even involves murder. Ms. Ralston has testified in both investigations. What I am wondering is how many other potential bean spillers are out there who know about the many details of the criminal activities in the Bush administration and the Republican controlled congress. Now that the Bush house of cards is teetering on collapse, and their ability to crush dissent is diminished, I can only hope that more bean spillers will help turn a hill of beans into the downfall of the Bush regime. October 26th (mp3 audio version) Why It Matters As the Special Prosecutor prepares to conclude the Grand Jury looking into the CIA leak, the question of indictments looms large over a wary White House. Despite the Republican noise machine's constant din to the contrary, any indictments that might be handed up in this case are critically important for our Democracy. This case is about the reasons for going to war, not about politics. The Republican spin meisters have been floating trial balloons all week to see which ones might resonate with what little of the public remains behind George Bush and Company. The most amusing was Senator Hutchinson's suggestion that perjury was a "technicality", not a crime. That is the exact opposite of what she said when it was Bill Clinton who was accused of perjury, of course. No honor, no shame. We know now that there is at least one, and possibly two indictments that will be put on the court docket, meaning that there will be trials coming up sometime in the future. We don't know how high up the indictments will go, but everyone doubts they will go above the level of Chief of Staff. They are important nonetheless. People who broke the law to justify an illegal war in Iraq will be held accountable for at least one thing; their conspiracy to cover up their lies and smear campaigns that were used to maintain support for the war. When applied to the White House, there is nothing I can think of that fits the definition of "high crimes" more than deceiving the American people about the need for going to war. Many people have been killed, our national credibility is in shambles, our national debt has been dramatically inflated, and the Middle East is more unstable and chaotic, rather than more democratic and peaceful. George Bush and Company said they were going to bring honor and dignity back to the White House. They sure have a funny way of going about it. October 25th (mp3 audio version) The Fall of the Fourth Estate The corporate-controlled media organizations that are charged with the constitutional duty of government and corporation watchdog have instead joined forces with those same power brokers to reshape our country. A sickening entwinement of corporations and their lobbyists working hand in hand with legislators to write pro-corporate, anti-consumer legislation is joined by corporate-owned media outlets that extol the virtues of every nefarious collusion to an unwitting public. The journalistic profession is said to be "The Fourth Estate"; acting to compliment the three branches of government with additional checks and balances on those in power. But as our corrupted political system flees from Democracy and plunges toward Corporateocracy, the Fourth Estate has been co-opted by the very same powerful people that are supposed to be the subject of media scrutiny. Indeed, the major media outlets, from cable TV news to the NY Times, have now become un-indicted co-conspirators in the cabal that blurs the lines between government and corporations. The media have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. As they have colluded to keep the public misinformed on important issues such as the reasons for going to war, the plummeting pole numbers for the Bush administration have been mirrored by the crumbling public confidence in U.S. journalism. The government and media are chained together at the ankles now, and will sink or swim together in the eyes of the weary public. The watchdogs can't easily turn on their current masters, lest they expose their previous journalistic malfeasance to scrutiny, further eroding their own credibility. Because major media outlets have been cheerleaders for an illegal war, unwise tax cuts and the chipping away of civil liberties, they are in no position to right the wrongs that they helped perpetrate. Two thousand brave young soldiers killed in Iraq, and no outrage from the media about the lies that led us here. Such is our fate after the Fall of the Fourth Estate. October 24th The Ever Shifting Bar The Congress investigated everything Bill Clinton and his administration did. They lowered the bar on what constituted an investigateable action so far, that an official could get investigated for taking tickets to a game. Mr. Clinton himself was investigated for a land deal he personally had nothing to do with, which occurred 10 years before he became President. How did this happen, and how did the bar get lowered so far? Republicans controlled Congress, and decided to use investigations as political attack tools, rather than as a means to investigate political malfeasance. So in fact, they were not lowering the bar, they were tossing it out altogether. They removed any bar to investigation of the Clinton administration. They could get away with it because they controlled the means to initiate and prosecute any investigation. They also knew that once Dubya the Dunce was in office, and Dick and Don were running the show, that Republicans could get away with anything, because now the bar would be raised so high again, that no crime was sufficient to initiate an investigation. If we look at the list of high crimes and misdemeanors that should be investigated, and would have been investigated by the very same Republican Congress under Clinton, it is clear that our government has become totally corrupt. Some of the offenses on the list that should be investigated include: 1) Investigation into false intelligence used to justify an illegal war. 2) Investigation into the dismantling of FEMA, and the total irresponsibility of its officials during hurricane Katrina. 3) The second 9/11 investigation that was promised, but never initiated. 4) The complete mismanagement in creating, staffing and management of Homeland Security. 5) The investigation into which high level officials in the Defense Dept. ordered torture as part of prisoner interrogation. 6) Investigations into the billions of taxpayer dollars that went missing in Iraq, and the corruption in Defense Dept. procurement. 7) Investigation into the lack of equipment for troops on the ground in Iraq. Currently, only the CIA leak is being seriously investigated. Tom Delay has been indicted by a Texas prosecutor, and the SEC is looking into Bill Frist's illegal sale of stock that he claimed he never had, and which was supposed to be in a blind trust. The Republicans that lowered, and then threw out the bar for what rises to the level of "investigateable" under Clinton have now raised the bar so high again that most Republican criminals can relax, and laugh at the whole situation. Notice that the same Republicans that used investigations to politically attack President Clinton at every turn now say "don't play the blame game" whenever anyone suggests government malfeasance. If that fails, they viciously attack any reporter or person who challenges them, or the rare prosecutor that is actually assigned to a case. Next time you hear someone say, "don't play the blame game", you can assume two things: they are a Republican, and they are guilty. October 23rd Two Years Too Late; NY Times Figures It Out The 'Newspaper of Record', the NY Times, has finally decided to stop being George's lap dog, and has started printing some very damaging information. Of course, if they had assigned any other reporter besides Megaphone Miller to the WMD case, they would have figured out 2 years ago, like most of the rest of us, that the administration lied us into a very unwise war without a plan for exit. The Times also seems to have finally figured out that George is and has been a puppet of the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal in the administration. Colin Powell's former chief of staff gave a speech saying that Bush was not interested in foreign affairs, and that Cheney and Rumsfeld, along with people like Wolfowitz and Libby, were the ones that led us to war on false pretences. George was mainly on vacation or bike riding. It was also Cheney's office that leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame. The Republicans and the staff at the NY Times will all have to live with the fact that they were involved in so many people being killed, and so much money being wasted, and so much good will around the world being squandered. Hope all you Republicans are happy with your "team", as you seem to think of this dysfunctional bunch of war criminals. October 22nd Saturday Night Massacre Version 2.0? If Patrick Fitzgerald attempts to indict Dick Cheney, and/or charge President Bush as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the CIA leak case, will George Bush fire the Special Prosecutor as Richard Nixon had Robert Bork do in 1973? That is the question being asked now by ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Mr. McGovern says that there is probably enough evidence to take down Dick Cheney, the guy who has actually been running the country for the last 5 years. But if Dubya is named in the conspiracy to smear Joe Wilson and then cover up who leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press, McGovern fears there will be a rapid response to have Alberto Gonzales act as the modern day version of Robert Bork, and remove Fitzgerald from the case. Yesterday, Fitzgerald's office posted a new website with information on the case, a sure sign that things are coming to a conclusion. One thing is clear to me after reading about this case for over 2 years. Cheney was behind it all, with Scooter and Turd acting as hatchet men. Further, it is clear that the tactics they used put them at serious odds with the entire intelligence community, especially the CIA. You can't run foreign policy if you've pissed off your eyes and ears around the world, but that's exactly what Slick Dick did. Remember, Dick was the one who ignored all the information from the CIA and Joe Wilson that their story about uranium from Africa was bogus. Dick made sure that the infamous 16 words were in the President's State of the Union Address, and then when it was found to be suspect, Dick and Co. pointed their fingers at the CIA and said "it was their fault, they gave us bad intelligence". Dick sure knows how to make friends at the agency. Well, now it is all coming back to bite him in the butt, and it looks like the chicken-hawk neocon war cult may finally get called on their treasonous actions. So my question is: will Alberto Gonzales be called on to fire Patrick Fitzgerald, or will they bring Robert Bork out of retirement to reprise his role in the Saturday Night Massacre? October 21st New NVidia Graphics Drivers NVidia has released new WHQL certified drivers for GeForce cards, and the new drivers do offer additional performance. A quick check with my dual GeForce 7800 SLI setup showed an increase in 3D Mark 2005 of approx 800 to 900 points, and in 3D Mark 2003 of about 3000 points. You can get the new drivers here. October 19th My Printer Spied on Me If you own certain newer color laser printers, you might be correct in assuming that your printed documents will always point back to you personally. According to one of my favorite organizations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), many color laser printers put a tiny series of yellow dots near the edge of all printed documents, and this code contains the date that the document was printed, and the printer's serial number. The code is only supposed to be readable by the CIA, who worked with printer companies secretly to install the spying system. But now the EFF has decoded some of the dots, and has posted a link with all of the printer models so far discovered to have the spying system installed. The good news is that so far, only color laser printers have the spy system, suggesting that counterfeiting was the primary concern of the CIA. If they wanted to track every document ever printed, this would be in all types of printers, not just color laser printers. I Want All Politician's Brains Scanned... NOW! Especially the Republicans in charge of botching everything over the last few years, and who lied us into war in Iraq. Why? Because scientists have just used magnetic resonance imaging to show that pathological liars have 21% to 26% more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than normal people do. This is exactly the opposite of autistic people, who have more grey matter than normal people. What the hell are white matter and grey matter? Those describe the two major types of brain tissue; grey matter is packed full of neurons which are responsible for processing and generating information. White matter contains neuron fibers (axons) that transfer signals from one part of the brain to other parts. The scientists don't know why extra white matter might be associated with pathological lying, but my guess (as a neuroscientist who specializes in white matter) is that there may be too many fiber connections, and that some are not normal. The brain of an infant has many more nerve fiber connections than are needed. A major part of brain development involves the selective pruning of improper connections in the brain, so that the final circuitry works as well as possible. If that process is interrupted or faulty, improper connections could remain into adulthood, resulting in personality disorders such as pathological lying. So I reiterate; I want all politicians brains scanned right now. Anyone with 20% excess white matter or more in the prefrontal cortex should be given a pink slip, or at the very least, sent to work in Dick Cheney's office, where we at least know everyone lies. October 18th A Bolder Approach Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice loves
to connect the war in Iraq with the terrorist attacks in 2001. Can’t you
hear her in your head saying; “We don’t want the wakeup call to be a
mushroom cloud”? But of course there was no connection between terrorism and
Iraq. Now Condi has taken up the extremely tired refrain “we have to fight
them there, so we don’t have to fight them here”. One thing you can count on
from Condi is she doesn’t stray far from the Republican’s daily talking
points, and she loves to use their quaint little sayings. The Un-United States George Bush says he is a uniter,
not a divider. He has pursued that goal just as incompetently as he has led
our country to war, and spent us into a massive deficit, while all along
dismantling the federal government at all levels. Just as his war in Iraq
has made the world less safe, and his dismantling of government has made the
U.S. less safe, his divisive governance of the country has left it
politically divided more than any other time in my lifetime. October 16th Wink Wink; Nudge Nudge
October 14th Samsung WAS Guilty Many years ago, I was writing news posts about the absurdly high prices attained by SDRAM memory modules at a time when all other computer parts were dropping in price. At one point, we were paying over $600 for a 256MB stick of RAM. Compare that with about $70 now, a nearly 10 fold drop. I and many others speculated back then that some price fixing hanky panky was going on, and now Samsung has admitted such, and has been dealt a $300 million fine as punishment. Of course that money will probably never make it back to the bilked customers, or the PC shops that were hammered with hiked prices. I for one would love to see a class action lawsuit leveled against the memory industry to compensate the many injured parties. October 13th Will They All Get Off Scott Free? A Republican friend of mine says that all the Republicans currently under investigation or indictment will get away with their crimes without justice being served. Considering that Republicans control almost all of the governmental instruments which initiate and prosecute political investigations, there is at least a chance that some of these investigations may fade away without indictments. What I don't see at all, in great contrast to how Republicans behaved during Bill Clinton's Presidency, is a Democratic attack on the targets of these investigations, or any gloating by Democrats about the Republican party meltdown. Most Democrats are simply too cautious, as usual, to add their two cents. The split between evangelical and corporate conservatives is widening, and this is a greater threat to Republican ambitions than any Democratic countermovement could ever be. Whether the Democrats can regain their voice, and offer clear alternatives to the culture of corruption and cronyism that the Republicans have given us is still a matter of question. My guess is that the Democrats will gain seats, but will not regain control of either the House or Senate in 2006, even though that would be the best hope for stemming the tide of Republican mal-governance before even more irreparable mistakes are made. October 12th The Real Slick Willy Republicans
used to call Bill Clinton, their favorite whipping boy, “Slick Willy” to
intimate that he was corrupt. That of course turned out to be nonsense, and
not one charge stuck to President Clinton except the perjury charge in the
Monica Lewinski saga. But the Republicans in the White House have been busy
for almost 6 years now building their scandal portfolios as profoundly as
they have padded their stock portfolios. The two are inextricably linked. Now we find out
that Slick Willy had his brother, the CEO of the family hospital company,
hold onto additional stock for him, and also had that stock sold when he got
insider information (from his brother/CEO). We are talking millions of
dollars worth in conflict of interest, while Slick Willy oversaw tons of
health care legislation that benefited his family company. Compare this with
a $30,000 land deal done by a friend of Bill Clinton’s 10 years before he
was President. That was called White Water, and it hounded Bill Clinton for
years. Republicans still attack Bill Clinton to this day; they really miss
their favorite whipping boy. October 11th What's a Crony? The synonyms for Crony include chum, buddy, pal, and sidekick. With that in mind, ask yourself how much independence of thought will Harriet Miers bring to the Supreme Court? We have no idea, but from what we do know, it seems likely that she will be in George's back pocket. If we look at the evidence available so far, Miers is an unabashed Bush fanatic. In correspondence to George, she has actually used phrases such as "You are the greatest!", and other such suck-up phases that make it obvious she is a yes-woman, always trying to flatter the boss. We also know she has been George's lawyer for years, and has been in charge of keeping his AWOL and drunk driving charges out of the news. Harriet Miers is not only a less-than-independent thinker, she is a Bush groupie of the highest order. How would this fact affect her performance on the court? First of all, there are many issues of presidential prerogative that will come before the court, including the never-ending detention of terrorist suspects without charges or access to lawyers. Further, it is even possible that Bush and company may face charges in several different ongoing investigations, including the Fitzgerald investigation into the White House CIA leak. How independent would Miers be if confronted with an appeal of such a case? Miers is much like other Bush appointees and nominees, just the right mix of loyalty and compliance, while not having enough background or expertise to make her own decisions. The Bush dynasty has had too much political power in this country for the last several decades, and in my opinion, it is time for that stranglehold to be broken. Having Harriet Miers on the highest court for the next 20 years will ensure that the dynasty will continue to wield unwarranted political power for a long time to come. When it comes
to describing the pitfalls of cronyism in the appointment of Supreme Court
Justices, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 76: Thanks Alex; that's what I call a truly strict constructionist. Sony Cameras Have Faulty CCD Chips A very disturbing announcement from Sony describes a flaw in many of their digital camera and camcorder CCD chips, the chips that record the image. The chips were apparently made with an epoxy that is susceptible to moisture, and when the seals fail, the image becomes cloudy, or fails altogether. Many models of Sony cameras and camcorders manufactured between October 2002 through March 2004 have this problem. Also, many other camera makers, including Cannon, Konica-Minolta and Fuji, use the same chips. Sony is promising to replace the chips at no charge, which is certainly appropriate considering the prices on some of these cameras and camcorders. Intel's Attempts at Dual Core Fizzle Intel did an "on-paper" release of new processors based on the so-called Paxville core, but few if any chips could be found anywhere on the web. Not that many folks will actually want these things anyway, because rather than being a fully redesigned dual-core processor like AMD's X2 chips, Intel simply slapped two P4's together with an MCM bridge, and added extra cache. Very Intel in execution, and very unimpressive to boot. I guess that means AMD has another year to kick Intel while it's down. IBM Drops Case Against SCO IBM is getting very tired of SCO's attempts to stall the legal case over Linux/Unix in court. Noting that SCO is almost out of cash, and couldn't pay any settlements anyway, IBM decided to speed the litigation proceedings up by dropping all counter charges against SCO. Now SCO will basically not have any more excuses to delay the case, and that means we should have a ruling much sooner. SCO hasn't got a chance. October 7th Bush Admits Torture is Part of US Toolkit Republicans tried for 8 years to scandalize the Clinton administration, and failed miserably because there weren’t any scandals of significance. George Bush has been far more successful at creating real scandals in the White House, from altering intelligence reports to support an unnecessary war, to revealing the name of a CIA agent, and compromising all of her contacts overseas. But one of the most insidious scandals has been simmering below the surface of the larger swirling scandals; the torture and murder of prisoners held by the US. Only low level soldiers have taken the fall for this despicable chapter in US history, but the orders came from the top, despite administration denials. How do we know this for sure? Well, of course there were all those memos, including the one about “taking the gloves off”, and the one about “Gitmo-izing” Abu Graib. But now we have confirmation from the White House that torture not only was sanctioned at the top, but that they still want to be able to torture prisoners if they think it will get them information. This confirmation came in the form of a White House threat to veto the Defense Authorization Bill in Congress that has an amendment added by John McCain which would explicitly prohibit any form of torture being used on any persons held in US custody. This would be the first and only veto from Mr. Bush, and the threat is directed straight at the no-more-torture statute. That means that the White House is willing to kill an entire defense spending bill for one amendment that prohibits torture by US soldiers and officials. So there you have it, not only did the orders to torture detainees come from the top, including Bush and Rumsfeld, but they are so fond of this technique, they are going to fight to retain it despite 90 out of 100 Senators voting for the amendment. That is a huge, veto-proof margin. October 5th Are You Ready for High Def DVD? No You're Not I'll just start with the bad news right up front. Most existing monitors and HDTVs will not support the copy protection scheme in new high definition disks, so when you try to play them, you will see a message that your "monitor is revoked". That means you'll have to replace your monitor/TV when you buy a high definition DVD player. Could it get any worse? Oh yes. On your computer, high definition DVD players will not work with Windows XP, they will only work with Windows Vista. Notice that this means that there won't be any HD-DVD drives for computers until late 2006 (a year away), because that is the most optimistic estimate of when the new version of Windows will be out. So let's recap; you need a new computer monitor, a new HDTV, a new computer HD-DVD drive, and a new HD-DVD player for your TV, and you'll need to upgrade to Windows Vista. My recommendation is for everyone to stop buying any more computer hardware or high def TVs for the next year. None - unless something breaks. Anything you buy today will be obsolete in a year, and will need to be replaced again. My guess is that all of the layers of protection they are putting into HD-DVD enabled systems may have many unpleasant side-effects, including blocking some legal content, and slowing system performance significantly. You can thank copy protection for all of this. Believing Your Own Lies An ancient curse condemns liars to the unfortunate fate of beginning to believe their own lies. This precise fate seems to have befallen the Republicans running our country. In an article written by Cindy Sheehan, she describes discussing the Iraq war with several Republican Senators. When she asked them when the occupation of Iraq would end, they said it was a "liberation". When asked why we were in Iraq, they said "we need to fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here". They obviously studied their Republican talking points well, but my question is, do these people actually believe what they are saying, or are they pontificating simply to drum up public support? George Bush constantly states the opposite of the factual situation, for example when he says things are getting better in Iraq, or when he says "we are winning the war on terrorism". But the emphatic nature of their proclamations seem to indicate that they have repeated the lies so many times that they are beginning to believe them. The really disturbing part is that this is not a curse on Mr. Bush, it's a curse on America, Iraq, and the world. October 4th George in Wonderland Toto; we're not in Texas anymore! I wish someone would remind George that he's not in Texas, he's in the big league now, when he F's up, he can monkey-wrench the economy, or if he really blows it, lots of people might die. Today, Mr. Bush had a rare news conference where he actually answered questions for a change. When queried about the readiness of Iraqi troops after more than 2 years of training, George in Wonderland said that the Iraqis were progressing well, and that there were 30 battalions ready for combat. But General Abizaid, who is in charge of the Iraqi war, said there was only one combat ready Iraqi battalion. That works out to a whopping 750 combat ready Iraqi troops. Then when asked if George in Wonderland's newest pick for the Supreme Court was "the best candidate for the job", he said "yes", despite the fact that the nominee has never had any experience in constitutional law, and has never been a judge. What she has been is Mr. Bush's personal lawyer, and the person in charge of expunging George's records of any untoward references, such as a drunk driving incident. George in Wonderland proclaimed prophetically, "I know her, and she will not change". I wonder how he can know that, unless they did a pre-nomination lobotomy on her. Finally, George in Wonderland said that we would win in Iraq, and that Iraq would become a free and democratic country, and an ally in the "war on terrorism". That's not Wonderland, that's just plain nuts. October 3rd Bush's Lawyer Nominated for Supreme Court Sounds like one of those gag headlines, doesn't it? Alas, it is another example of Bush making political appointments and nominations, rather than seriously considering qualifications and experience. So what is the nominee's experience that qualifies her to be a justice on the Supreme Court? She has never been a judge, she's just George's lawyer. Damn, I don't even have to ridicule this one, it's ridiculous all on it's own. Got Propaganda? It's the American Way. The US General Accounting Office, at the request of pesky Democrats, looked into the allegations that the Bush administration used taxpayer dollars to produce pro-administration propaganda, disguised as news. Their findings? That the Bush administration broke the law that forbids the use of government funds for use in the production or dissemination of propaganda. You probably didn't hear too much about this report in the "news"; for example, you won't find this story in the NY Times today. They posted an article on Friday, and another on Saturday, but nothing today. Why? Because the Bush administration has insisted to all government departments that bad news be released on Friday afternoon only. That way, it might make the Saturday paper, but will be lost in the news cycle by Monday. My take on all of this is simple; you don't spend money to produce and disseminate propaganda unless your track record is bad... or abysmal. If you have been working hard at the people's business, and you are accomplishing good things for the populace, then you can let the news come out all by itself. On the other hand, if you are incompetent, and keep making major, disastrous mistakes, or are pushing programs that would never pass public scrutiny, then you really need a good propaganda campaign to carry you through. I wonder what Republicans think of the use of taxpayers dollars for propaganda purposes in America. Do you think they might complain more if it were Clinton caught doing this? Naaaa! That would suggest that they were disingenuous hypocrites, and we all know that can't be true.
Copyright 2005, KickAss Gear |