Saturday, December 31, 2005

How to Act Around Sushi

A few brushup reminders when going to a sushi restaurant. Like never asking the sushi chef about his secret past. Or batting an eye when you are served endangered species. (Bad manners, don't you know..) And remembering to say 'toh-toh-toh-toh' while someone pours beer for you.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Secretary of State Powell's Chief of Staff

Alone among those who surrounded Mr. Powell in the first term, he is speaking out critically, assailing the president as amateurish, especially compared to the first President Bush, and describing the administration as secretive, inept and courting disaster at home and abroad. Nor has he spared his former boss, whom he says was overly preoccupied with "damage control" for policies set by others.

"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made," Mr. Wilkerson said in a well-publicized speech at the New America Foundation in October. "And you've got a president who is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either," he added in the speech.

Mr. Wilkerson has also attacked the Bush administration for allegedly condoning torture and setting lax policies on treatment of detainees that led, he charges, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the black eye they gave to the United States Army.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Ex-Nixon Administration Members Get it On

"That someone...Don,...It's you."
"What?"
"Yep," Cheney peeped, "I-I....I love you. ...There I fucking said it!" Cheney felt rather awkward saying it but he knew that's what he believed. Rumsfeld was speechless. He blushed a deep red and let out a faint laugh.

Cheney then looked up at Rumsfeld. His dark gaze leered at Rumsfeld, hypnotizing him to overcome a feeling of lust. A desire.
"Oh, Dick..." Rumsfeld nudged Cheney against a wall and stared deeper into his dark eyes. Rumsfeld couldn't help but touch Cheney's lips with his.

“Holy mackerel...that’s funny! I had a similar feeling about you!” Rumsfeld giggled as he kissed the side of Cheney's mouth hysterically. Rumsfeld let his tongue go for Cheney's ear.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Perpetual "War" for Indefinite Power

"The result is that the president's wartime powers, with its armies, battles, victories, and congressional declarations, now extend to the rhetorical "War on Terror": a war with no fronts, no boundaries, no opposing army, and -- most ominously -- no knowable "victory." Investigations, arrests and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain "at war" for as long as he chooses.

This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law."
------------
"This is not a partisan issue between Democrats and Republicans; it's a president unilaterally overriding the Fourth Amendment, Congress and the Supreme Court. Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush. You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to see as president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter.

Laws are what give us security against the actions of the majority and the powerful. If we discard our constitutional protections against tyranny in an attempt to protect us from terrorism, we're all less safe as a result."

Monday, December 19, 2005

Eat My Shorts

An interesting approach to lowering alcohol levels.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Bush Violates Fourth Amendment

It was revealed today that court-appointed White House resident George W. Bush has been violating the Fourth Amendment since 2002 by "authorizing" the National Security Administration (NSA) to wiretap phone lines in the United States without a court order, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America which specifically prohibits illegal (non-court ordered) search and seizure by the United States government.

Many in the NSA refused to carry out this blatantly illegal and unconstitutional order to "search for terrorists". The chief judge of the 11 on the FISA surveillance court abruptly quit. My hat goes off to these defenders of a basic tenet of the Bill of Rights, while our purported Commander-in-Chief breaks the oath of office. How is this abuse of power different from McCarthy's tyrannical search for "Communists" at every corner? Did we learn nothing from J Edgar Hoover's blatantly illegal activities? Or Nixon's?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was developed specifically as a response to Nixon using the NSA to spy on the American people. It's role is to emphasize the constitutionally mandated check by the judicial system on the executive branch by creating a court to review each case of surveillance including wiretapping for approval or rejection.

This is not at all ironic when you consider that Cheney, a former Nixon administration official (along with Rumsfeld) placed himself on the short list for Vice President. His most recent comment demonstrates both his pining for the Nixon administration-era power grab mentality, while also implying as an ex-Nixon employee that illegal wiretaps were probably his idea: "Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday called for "strong and robust" presidential powers, saying executive authority has eroded since the Watergate and Vietnam eras."

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Fabio


Ok, did everyone already know about this except me? Fabio riding a rollercoaster and a bird flies into his face? And his publicist said "Oh my god! Think if his mouth was open!"

How did I miss this?

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Plant a Seed

Talk to it, watch it grow. Online.

80's Commercials You Forgot About

China and the Rule of Law

I've long disliked the 'government' of China for one main reason - the concept that there is an elite that is 'better' and tells people what to do and justifies it, simultaneously blaming their actions on the people they are treating as individuals without humanity - while never looking at or discussing their own foibles. No one is better than anyone else. Period. I loathe all people that do this; especially politicians, and the fattest of them all: Karl "the Ass" Rove. He'll push any guilt/blame button he can think of while simultaneously repositioning himself as innocent to force any agenda through - simply because he has the power, and idiot judicially appointed clientele to do so.

Anyway - this fair and balanced article I thought was interesting - discussing the reality of the rule of law in-depth against the hypocrisy of the Chinese government. True successors of Deng Xiopeng - where have you gone?

Sunday, December 04, 2005

The Comic Adventures of Lethem & Chabon

Two vaguely (un)interesting authors that appeal to the Norman Mailer set team up as superheroes.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Chris Whitley, Wesley Willis, Daniel T. Johnston


Growing up I listened to Daniel T. Johnston in High School thanks to Adam - with a happy smirk. I could never figure out if his music was tongue-in-cheek or if he was truly nuts. After checking out a biography of him from the library I realized he was brilliant and insane - like Dali or Blake. Years later Kurt Cobain discovered him.

Wesley Willis certainly is one of these - and if you need an irreverent Christmas tome that will get you through the next few weeks (don't go to Wal-Mart - that will help quite a bit..) listen to 'Kris Kringle was a Car Thief' on this site. And then listen to everything else when you have time. Unfortunately Willis and Whitley are no longer with us, but their music is.