Tuesday, August 24, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Lord, I Apologize.

Remember the Titans For you sports fans out there, here's an interesting list of the most overpaid players in the NFL, courtesy of Fox Sports. Points for including Peerless Price among the worst investments.

I'll Never Buy a Gracie Rosenburger Record Again! Everyone knows that one of the best things about the Democratic National Convention is the famous people: you couldn't swing a dead cat in July without hitting Ben Affleck, Andre 3000, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Moore, Moby, or, sadly, the Black-Eyed Peas. It's fair to say that the Republican National Convention is going to be a little less star-studded. The "top celebrities" confirmed so far: Country duo Brooks and Dunn (who I've seen live, oddly, and who have the gentle, loving chemistry of a long-term gay couple), country singer Lee Ann Womack, country singer Daryl Worley (have you forgotten?), old softcore porn star Bo Derek, and Alec Baldwin's cracked-out brother Stephen, who became a born-again Christian after nearly dying from "hard living." Even their celebrity sycophants suck; can this administration do nothing right?

Although He Doesn't Know Latin, He Knows the Meaning of "Post Facto" A week after those sleazy ads by the "Swift Boat Veterans" stopped airing, "President" George W. Bush finally got around to condemning them. Meanwhile, Bob Dole apologized (sort of) for casting doubt on Kerry's three Purple Hearts. Anyone who can tell me why what happened in the Mekong Delta 36 years ago is playing such an important part in this presidential election gets a prize.

Republican Senators in "Good Idea" Shocker Wow. Eight GOP Senators have come out with a plan to reorganize the nation's intelligence that would essentially eliminate the CIA, place the NSA more firmly under civilian control, and remove the Pentagon entirely from the business of gathering intelligence. I'm certainly no expert, but anything the White House (including Donald Rumsfeld) says is a bad idea has to have some merit.

I Will Never Get Tired of Gloating Over This Arnold Schwarzenegger, the "governator" elected in the undemocratic recall vote by all those Californians eager to thumb their noses at us snobs "back East" (with all our highfalutin concern over "qualifications" and "basic competence"), has once again rewarded those voters who believed his campaign promise not to cut any funding for education or children. The Children's System of Care, a 20-year-old state program that provides therapy, case management, and emergency intervention for thousands of children with mental illness and emotional disorders, has been obliterated by Schwarzenegger's line-item veto. Such a bold and courageous decision, the muscle-bound molester announced, was "necessary to help build a prudent reserve and bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources over the long term." In other words, "I have sold my soul to Satan."

-Consider Arms

Monday, August 23, 2004

Dole Demands Blood Sacrifice Like An Old Testament God

COINTELPRO 2.0 An Indymedia film showing in New York City on Saturday was busted up by a multi-agency taskforce including the police, the Department of Health and the Department of Buildings. What was their big crime? Having holes in the ceiling and not posting a sign that warned pregnant women about the dangers posed by drinking alcohol. I'm sure the upcoming RNC and the fact that Indymedia has been on the forefront of documenting political protests and police brutality has nothing to do with the raid... Check out the Indymedia site here.

Kerry Smear Watch Bob Dole mocks John Kerry's war wounds by declaring, "I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds." Meanwhile the only Swift Boat Veteran who was actually on the boat with Kerry has come out in this piece giving his support to the Senator.

-The Sikh Geek

Friday, August 20, 2004

Sit The Fuck Down Joe Piscapo.

Above All, Do No Harm Fuck you Hippocrates! Military doctors were complicit and in some cases actively participated in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Doctor Miles from the University of Minnesota has cited evidence that "doctors falsified death certificates to cover up murders, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured."

Adbusters Jumps The Shark And Then Prints An Oblique Post-Situationist Critique Of "Sharkness" In Our Consumerist Culture Years ago Adbusters was a nice Leftist magazine that picked apart advertising and did spoofs on major ads. Then it started getting VERY concerned with its layout and design and became a Vogue-aspiring sychophant to Guy Debord. Now, the Canadian magazine has wandered off the reservation and is inviting their readers to join them in a journey into a "radical new world" after the collapse of civilization as we know it. According to AlterNet, "The next issues of Adbusters, they tell us, is going to be compiled as if it were being published 6 months after this supposed crash. The editors, in their request for so-called Post-Crash submissions, say they can see 'a chance to create the new world that we've always dreamed about.'" What is this dream world? It's a magical place where "Violent gangs and bandits roam the streets. People move to the country – if they can. Supermarket shelves are half-empty, power is intermittent, gasoline hard to find..." Is it safe to say that Adbusters, like others on the extreme Left, are armchair nihilists who would love to see the collapse of our world, but will still use their iMacs and drink lattes until it happens? Or did the dudes at Adbusters watch Fight Club one time too many?

You Can't Spin This Too Well, Karl
Where will the Bush twins be on September 11th? At a gay wedding celebration in suburban Maryland, of course.

Swift Midfielders For Truth Already in one of his campaign ads, Bush is using the presence of Afghani and Iraqi Olympians in Greece as proof of his success in the "War on Terror." Who disagrees? The Iraqi Olympians. Members of the Iraqi soccer team, who have been stunning in their recent successes resent being used by Bush as a re-election tool. Said midfielder Ahmed Manajid, "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes." Anothe said tha he would be fighting with the resistance in Iraq against American forces "for sure" if he wasn't playing soccer.

Iraq? How About I-ROCK! A profile from the Wall Street Journal of the only heavy metal bands in Iraq, Acrassicauda, or Black Scorpion to you unLatinate bitches.

And Bush Has Been Crowned "Soul Brother Number One" The newly established People of Color United (they don't know their initials are the same as that Jeremy Piven frat movie?) have launched a series of ads on the radio that challenge John Kerry on "helping and hiring Blacks." And by "People of Color United" they mean "People United Under A Rich, White, Republican Insurance-Company Owner Named J. Patrick Rooney Who Provides Half Of The Entire Funding." But I Guess PUUARWRI-CONJPRWPHOTEF doesn't have the same ring to it.

Only A Minor Accounting Glitch For Neo-Athens Maybe they can check under the sofa. Almost $9 BILLION is unaccounted for in Iraq after the US Coalition Provisional Authority handed the money over to the new Iraqi government. Some highlights of the "lax stewardship" are listing 8,206 people on a workroll even though only 603 people doing the work could be counted and paying for 74,000 guards even though the real number could not be validated. And in a completely unrelated sidenote, Texas-based Haliburton was paid $1 billion out of those shady funds.

-The Sikh Geek

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Nader on the Ballot in West Virginia. Boo, West Virgina.

This Sounds Like the Punchline to a Joke At the North American Anarchist Convergence in Ohio this week, the participants agreed (well, not all of them: it was a room full of anarchists, after all) that this year, despite scorning the electoral process as part of their basic creed, the anarchists should suck it up and vote against Bush. This stunning display of political good sense from the extreme left should discomfort no one more than Ralph Nader, who is finding fewer and fewer compatriots on his journey to chart the furthest outreaches of being discredited.

Red Wedge '04 Perhaps the ultimate satire of a previous generation's version of "radical art" was in the early scenes of the film "The Adventures of Barton Fink," where the protagonist is watching his successful proletarian play close its run in New York, silently mouthing the unintentionally (to him, anyway) hilarious final lines of the play: "Come to bed, it's late," "No, ma, it's early!" The joke here was that, despite the essentially well-meaning politics of the Odets-like protagonist, political art is almost always hopelessly smug and ineffective. Don't tell that to the denizens of New York's ultra-hip art scene, though, because they're gearing up to protest against the coronation of King George II next month with a series of short films, puppetry displays, readings of Elektra, and something called "guerrilla comedy."

The Iraqi "Government" Dons the Bad Idea Jeans The Iraqi "Defense Minister" today announced that his "military" might raid the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf as early as this afternoon in a bid to deliver a knockout blow to the Mahdi Army. This would perform the nifty double trick of deepening the rage against the American occupation among Iraqis while simultaneously totally discrediting the Iraqi "government." Imagine if the Italian government invaded Vatican City, and you're still way off.

It's Time for the Greatest Generation to Perform One Last Mission You've no doubt heard about the IRR's "in" the US military: these are people who have long since left the armed services, are not paid and do not attend training, but who - because of special skills like computers or intelligence work - can theoretically be drafted back into service at any time. With our resources stretched thin because of our desire to rid the world of WMDs, "theoretically" suddenly means "right now." The army is activating reservists UP TO THE AGE OF 60 to go and fight in Iraq, like the gentleman prominently featured in this story; he's 57, deaf, and is suffering from high blood pressure and cancer. Still, he's being called up to go to Iraq, and if he refuses, he goes to jail. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pound two Miller beers with Def Leppard on the can in the name of freedom.

We Must All Emulate the Successors of Pericles Now Leading Afghanistan to a New Golden Age! In our semi-regular "Remember Bush War I?" feature, we present a snapshot of the process of voter registration in Afghanistan, the first benighted Islamic territory liberated by the glorious armies of freedom. Although the voter registration process has been hampered by Taliban atrocities, poll workers have managed to pull off quite a coup: they have so far issued 10 million voter registration cards, despite there being only 9.8 million eligible voters in the country. Perhaps the warlords' practice of paying $150 per registration (in a country where the average income is $2 a day) had something to do with this remarkable success. I'm sure, though, that when the election eventually happens, it will be a model of freedom and fairness that the Western world would do well to emulate.

-Consider Arms
The Entie MLWL Staff Wears All White When Posting


It's not unusual for a nutcase to crash a sporting event (remember parachute man coming into the ring during the Evander Holyfield fight?) and it's not unusual for security at a major event like the Olympics to have holes in it. The following quote from this Yahoo piece on the retarded clown ballerina who crashed the synchronised diving event in Athens however, is totally fucking bizarre. "He stayed in the pool for several minutes before officials at the Aquatic Centre realised he was not supposed to be there and pulled him out."
Several minutes?!

Alan Keyes Is Crazy Like A Fox. A Paranoid Schizophrenic and Delusional Fox Note to Mr. Keyes, telling the voters of Illinois that we "asked" for 9-11 and that ending abortion is part of your anti-terrorism strategy probably isn't going to get you votes.

Don't Worry, Alex Jones Says That Kerry Will Win It
But only because everyone's favorite internet conspiracy theorist says he's related to everyone who was royal in the history of humanity.

The Best Metaphor For Our Current Foreign Policy

-The Sikh Geek

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Viva Hugo!

Rocknroll: Still Safe for Whitey Miller Brewing is celebrating "the 50th anniversary of Rock and Roll" (a date totally invented by RCA Records) with a commemorative series of beer cans featuring some of your favorite all-time rockers. Why, there are such legends and innovators as: Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Blondie, Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard. Some of your favorite all-time rockers who won't be featured: Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown...in fact, none of the images (taken from Rolling Stone covers) will feature black people at all. Now that's rock and roll to me, as Danny and the Juniors once sang.

The Free Speech Zone Just Got Smaller In the finest tradition of trannie fascist J.Edgar Hoover, the FBI has been visiting prominent anti-war folks around the country in an effort to intimidate them into not protesting at the Republican National Convention in Nueva York. Since the Department of Precrime is still a figment of Philip K. Dick's imagination, there have naturally been a lot of questions from uppity civil liberties types about whether this is kosher. Fear not. The FBI insists it is: "Violent acts are not protected by the U.S. Constitution, and the FBI has a duty to prevent such acts and to identify and bring to justice those who commit them," FBI Assistant Director Cassandra M. Chandler said Monday. Careful observers will note that no one has committed any "violent acts" yet. Don't let that stop you, though, boys.

No More Moderates I've been joking that if Bush wins re-election, he won't have to worry about appeasing voters in four years, and so that means he can clean out the moderates in his cabinet like John Ashcroft. According to the Boston Globe, the cabinet chumps who plan to leave if Bush wins in November include Ashcroft, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ridge, Feith, and Wolfowitz. Can't wait to see what kind of mutants replace them.

Eventually, Only Hooters Will Have an Airline As I've been saying since 9/11, private airlines simply can't work in the marketplace anymore. United and American are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and now Delta has announced plans to file for Chapter 11. How much longer does this go on before we wake up and nationalize airlines like the rest of the world?

Buyer's Remorse, Part 873245 When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran in the undemocratic recall election, he promised that he would never, ever do anything to cut state spending on education and would cut taxes. Guess what: In one fell swoop, he's reneging on both promises, as he's signed into law a bill that eliminates tax breaks for teachers who buy classroom supplies with their own money.

-Consider Arms, Back from El Sur

Monday, August 16, 2004

LA Times Headline- "Bin Laden Trail Still Cold"



For All Of You Who Doubted The Existence Of The God Of Justice And Mercy... A fire broke out in the studio the Black Eyed Peas were using to record their new album, destroying half a million dollar in gear. The best part? They only hav their lame-ass candle-lighting selves to blame.

Still Crazy After All These Years
An excellent piece from AlterNet detailing the insanity of Alan Keyes. My favorite passage is the following: "During a campaign appearance in Bedford, N.H., in 2000, Keyes asked a class of fifth-graders, "If I were to lose my mind right now and pick one of you up and dash your head against the floor and kill you, would that be right?" He then went on to tell the children that some courts and politicians think it's OK to murder 6-month-old children."

The Unavoidable "Post Married Gay Affair Resignation" Two-Point Bump The people of New Jersey have spoken after the resignation of their governor, and it is a resounding "We could give a fuck." Public opinion of James McGreevey is virtually unchanged as compared to two weeks ago, before his scandals and resignation.

We Were Getting Worried A few months had passed since PETA came out with their last offensive ad campaign. The wait is over. The animal rights group is launching a campaign with an image of recently deceased Ronald Reagan and the tagline "Win one for the Gipper! Animal fats DOUBLE your risk of Alzheimer’s."

How About "Bullshit The Greed Weasel?" Something called the "Business Software Alliance" has launched "Play It Cybersafe," a bullshit campaign to scare schoolkids away from downloading mediocre music on the web. Their sketchy as hell ferret mascot looks much more like a mascot for piracy and semi-legal offshore websites than a pet of Jack Valenti's. I'm already printing out MC NO Shame's "Cyber-Ethics Champion Certificate" to congratulate him on his brave stand to no longer download pirated BBW porn via Grokster.


-The Sikh Geek
Is It Monsoon Season Or Something?

Venezuelans: So Much Smarter Than Californians
Now that election observers, including Jimmy Carter, have certified the results (hey Jimmy, what cha doing in November? I hear FL is real nice during that time of the year...) it's official: Venezuelans have resisted the urge to become the Californians of Latin America by voting down a right-wing recall effort against lefty president Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who survived a coup in 2002 that some believe was orchestrated by the US, proclaimed from the balcony of the presidential palace, "Hopefully, from this day on Washington will respect the government and people of Venezuela." Why all the playa hating against Chavez? Well Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and Chavez likes to use oil profits to fund such progressive social policies as health care, education, and food subsidies. Which when you translate them from Spanish into English spells "Communism."

This Is What You Get For Performing Under The Name "DJ L-Train"
A 26-year-old Williamsburg woman was injured by a scalding hot manhole (although not the kind the Sikh Geek usually injures himself with) when she fell off her skateboard in the E. Village. The cover was so hot that an imprint of it was branded into her skin, with the "O" and "N" from Con Edison visible in her flesh. Don't worry sweetie, as much as it hurts right now that sucker is gonna make a boss tattoo. Expect to see branded hipsters ALL up and down Bedford Ave. this fall.

If Snuggling Is A Crime Then I'm Guilty As Charged
Hold me, CA.

--MC No Shame, all warm and fuzzy inside

Sunday, August 15, 2004

The Weblog Of Choice For Terrorists, Dictators And Rogue Regimes


Hitting The Bottom and Bouncing With Flat Rate Shipping It's hard to believe that Metrospy is not a slick and subtle parody from the Left, like whitehouse.org but for merchandise. But sadly, the company that asks its customers to "Display Their Conservatism Proudly" looks legit, even down to the smugly offered John Kerry urinal targets and the "Give War A Chance" bumper stickers. I will never call a crusty punk wearing a "Keep Warm, Burn The Rich" t-shirt ridiculous ever again.

Ain't Karma A Bitch, Banchote An Indian man facing 24 counts of molestation and rape was murdered in a Nagpur court by a group of women and children who quickly fled the scene.

And By "Making A Major Bust" We Mean "Shutting Down A Major Source Of Information" Wow, our administration has been dropping names like an indie-rock hipster in a Williamsburg bar. Remember the major capture of an al-Qaeda agent last week? The one that Tommy Ridge used to raise the Chicken Little Alert to orange? The one that was conveniently used to muzzle the afterglow of the DNC? The one that revealed stale four year-old information that somehow translated into a "specific threat"? Well, in addition to creating baseless hysteria, US officials also released the named of the captured al-Qaeda agent to reporters and thereby cockblocked a major sting operation Pakistan was conducting to track down terrorists around the world. Good one dudes.

That's Cool. I Just Won't Be Around Homes, Cars Or Food. From the UK's Guardian, "The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in less than 20 years, scientists have discovered. The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health. In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000. "

Blackmail And The Gay Male Another weird turn developed in the scandals surrounding New Jersey governor James McGreevey. It seems that the Israeli man who accused the governor of sexual harassment tried to get a $50 million cash settlement and approval for development plans for a private medical college in the state before McGreevey went public on Thursday. And in the typical restained GOP style, NJ Republicans called on McGreevey to resign immediately mostly due to their morally pure and principled outrage that the Democratic State Senate President would finish out the governor's term.
P.S. Isn't calling the governor of New Jersey "one of the most powerful politicians in the country" about as ridiculous as calling Coolio "a towering juggernaunt in the realm of popular music"?

As Matthew 5:38 Said, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. But if some punk-ass starts sparkin' up your church, you best be packing bitch."

-The Sikh Geek

Friday, August 13, 2004

No Charley Scared Me In Nam Neither

And By "Ridiculous Hearsay" We Mean "Solid Evidence On Videotape From The Man In Question" Republican Congressman Porter Goss was recently nominated by Bush to be the new head of the CIA. Goss was also interviewed by Michael Moore during the making of his documentary Farenheit 9-11 and was quoted as saying, "I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified..." See the clip of the Goss interview on Michael Moore's website here.

Alan Keyes Is A Spectator Sport Not only while carpetbagging his way into the Illinois Senate race did Alan Keyes declare that if he won "the victory is for God," but he also called for the end of electing Senators while running in a Senate election, pining away for the pre-1913 system of electing Senators because since its demise "there has been a steady deleterious erosion of the sovereign role of the states." That, and he also belts out a mean version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." Does Barak Osama have golden pipes like that?

John Edwards Smear Watch
Yep, totally sounds like everyday chit-chat from anybody's neighbor, especially if you live next door to a hack-writer for the GOP. "My neighbor made a lot of promises on his way to the Senate. He promised strong support for our military, but then voted against body armor, combat pay, and better health care for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He promised to support traditional North Carolina values, but then voted to the left of Ted Kennedy on partial-birth abortion, taxes, property rights, and a host of other issues. We in North Carolina feel betrayed. My neighbor John figuratively gave his constituents the middle finger while he ingratiated himself to Tom Daschle and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership."

It's Like That Caddyshack Movie, But British

WTF The last time I heard someone talk about German clowns and dead camels, MC No Shame was uncomfortably describing his sexual fantasies.

Holy Living Fuck! Someone's Made Dennis Miller Look Good! And that someone would be tennis malcontent John McEnroe, whose new show on CNBC has twice registered a Neilsen rating of 0.0 (about 39,000 viewers in a country of almost 300 million people). At least Mick Jagger doesn't feel so alone anymore...

-The Sikh Geek
Batten Down The Hatches, CA

We're All Gonna Die! Or Not.
Remeber the other week when terrorists were about to blow up financial targets in NYC, DC, and NJ? Remember the fear? The security? The approaching sense of sudden and bloody doom? Then remember how it seemed a little weird that it was all sparked by intel that was four years old? Well get a load of this: "the Bush administration has discovered no evidence of imminent plans by terrorists to attack U.S. buildings, a White House official acknowledged Thursday." Good thing I wasn't paying attention anyways.

It Sure Was Fun Being Middle Class While It Lasted
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Bush's tax cuts in 2001 (the same ones he wants made permanent) have shifted the nation's tax burden squarely on to the shoulders of the middle class. One-third of the cuts have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent, for an average savings of $78,460. While on the other hand, the lowest 20 percent saw their rate drop from 6.7 to 5.2, for a whopping average cut of $250. Middle class households actually saw their rate INCREASE one-tenth of a percentage point. I guess at this point I should note that Bush's approval rating just climbed to 50%.

Nader: Less Popular Than Scott Peterson
He's got no friends (unless you count the GOP), no support (unless you count the GOP), and no chance. Yet still Ralph soldiers on with this quixotic farce. Douche bag.

--MC No Shame

Thursday, August 12, 2004

God Help Us...

No posts from the Sikh Geek today.
Our beloved BlogSpot ate two of them this morning for no good reason.

-The Sikh Geek

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Mike Wallace Is Buggin'

Humans Rule, Animals Suck It!!
In a margin of over 2-to-1, Denver residents have soundly defeated a proposal to ban all circus acts involving exotic animals within city limits. Local high school freshman, 15-yr-old Heather Herman, had gathered enough signatures to force the issue onto the ballot for Denver voters. The campaign manager from "Keep The Circus In Denver", which received $175,ooo from Feld Entertainment, which operates the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, commented, "I think voters saw through the greater agenda of the animal rights activists and wanted to maintain their entertainment choice." Goes to show, one man's inhuman treatment is another man's "entertainment choice." Just ask Rush!

Robert Novak, Call Your Lawyer
Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper has been held in contempt of court by a federal judge in Washington for refusing to name his government sources in the on going Plume-gate scandal. Judge Thomas Hogan, who is also fining Time at a rate of $1,000 per day, wrote, "The information requested is very limited, all available means of obtaining the information have been exhausted, the testimony sought is necessary for completion of the investigation, and the testimony sought is expected to constitute direct evidence of innocence or guilt." Tim Russert, of "Meet The Press", and two Washington Post reports have also received subpoenas, but it is not know if Novak has. Note to the fuzzy slug: resign now!

Ever See "Cook The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover"?
This is kinda like that.

And It's Not Even In My Ex-Girlfriend

--MC No Shame


Why Are There So Many Dudes At This Barenaked Ladies Meetup? here

Urgent Report From General Chicken Little If you see it in 72pt type on the Drudge Report, you know you have good reason to be suspicious. But when a Washington Times article mentions a looming al-Qaeda attack (from the same endless reserve of captured intel that brought us the 4-year old financial center threat) and has huge ad in the middle that reads "10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Agree, Anybody But Bush," you have good reason to just not give a fuck.


The Thin Red Line (On Sale For $25.99) Nice article in the Village Voice about the Scientology of today, the Kabbalah Center. "They said, 'If you donate to somewhere else it's just perpetuating all the chaos in the world. Volunteering is good but money really makes the difference.' Disgusted, Green left the center and hocked his Zohar on eBay for $350."

Well, In Addition To Factchecking The News They DO Kill Minorities...
Derelict of dialect, Bill O'Reilly pushes the envelope of being hysterical in front of a camera and compare the Media Matters For America group to the Klu Klux Klan.

Like Rocky vs. Ivan Drago, But For Discounted Crap Slate piece on the partisan retail rivalry between CostCo and WalMart. I would be remiss in not mentioning that only people who hate their mothers and want to make out with Osama bin Laden buy their fu-fu French wine at CostCo.

-The Sikh Geek, giving Consider Arms the cosmic high-five from afar

Sunday, August 08, 2004

A Communist, A Fascist, A Muslim, Or A Mud-Wrestling Woman

Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure Here is a timetable of all the recent terror alerts and their miraculous correlation with unfavorable events to Bush and his administration. Massive terror alert based on four year-old information immediately after the Democratic National Convention? A quirk of timing, freedom hater.

For All The Other MLWL Readers Who Stay Up At Night Worrying About North Korean Nukes

Media Matters For America profile the co-author of John O'Neill's book "Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," Jerome Corsi, and holy fucking shit is this man insane in the membrane. Of Muslims he has said, "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together" and of Senator Hillary Clinton, "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?" And in this excellent article from The Smirking Chimp, Robert J Perry, the main money man behind the plan to discredit Kerry is profiled. Perry is the largest donor to the GOP in Texas, and he has personally provided two-thirds of all the money for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a shady group that has launched attack TV ads against Kerry's service.

The Arrest Warrants Fall Hard On Last Year's Man Fare thee well, man of cats. Iraq has issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Chalabi on counterfeiting charges, and his nephew Salem Chalabi, head of the tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein for war crimes, for murder.

Jack Valenti Daily Gem Of Wisdom
On Foreign Policy, 1984
"We hit Jamaica over the head with a two-by-four."
[After successful efforts to restrict U.S. foreign aid unless Jamaican studios began paying royalties].

-The Sikh Geek

Rest In Peace, Bitch

Worse Than You Could Have Imagined, Only Not As Good Rolling Stone gained access to secret annexes withheld from the Taguba report about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and in a horrible and ironic nod to Rush Limbaugh, the abuses they describe make the Lyndie England photos seem like a "frat hazing prank" in comparison.

Call Me Crazy... But if Bush is campaigning on "The War on Terror," isn't saying that Americans are "still not safe" an admission of failure in that war?

But, But The NY Times COULDN'T Be Behind The Curve?! This NY Times article runs into a tizzy about the most popular fable of our time: terrorists are going to "disrupt" the democratic process this November (presumably so that our government can take over and disrupt the democratic process itself). Citing the arrest of the Pakistani man that led to the Chicken Little "financial centers" warning of last week (wasn't that info at least three years old BTW?), the Grey Lady claims that the mysterious Pakistani man was also communicating with al-Qaeda to disrupt the US elections. But according to this MSNBC article, sources in Pakistan have been claiming that the captured mystery man, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, was one their undercover men.

It Don't Get More Jaded Than This From a NYT article about the huge costs for Republican fund-raisers to attend the convention in NYC: "The price of playing the game has risen dramatically,'' said Fred Zeidman, a Texas fund-raiser who has brought in at least $200,000. "I don't think anybody is happy about writing the check. But it's a cost of doing business.''

Hot Man-Love On The Brain Conservative radio wingnut/ ex-running buddy of Allen Ginsburg, Michael Savage (born: Michael Weiner), recently ranted about the San Francisco Human Rights Commission by telling his listeners, "When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. When you hear 'human rights,' think only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son. ... When you hear 'human rights,' think only someone who wants to molest your son, and send you to jail if you defend him. Write that down, make a note of it." And in other homoerotic conservative pundit news, the substitute host from the "Your World with Neil Cavuto" show on Fox, Stewart Varney, bizarrely steered a segment about Disney's new PC for kids into a rant about "Gay Days" at Disney theme parks.

Jack Valenti Daily Gem of Wisdom
On the nascent cable industry, in 1974
“[Cable will become] a huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair.”

Another Al-Qaeder For Nader! For the nihilists who believe that there is no difference between the Donkey and the Elephant this November, Naomi Klein wrote a compelling piece for the UK's Guardian about the neccessity of "Anybody But Bush."

Tackling That Pressing "Failure of Imagination" The CIA is now consulting with screenwriters and sci-fi hacks to dig up leads on future terrorist attacks. At least they aren't holding seances. Yet.

-The Sikh Geek has had his last THREE posts lost by BlogSpot

Friday, August 06, 2004

A WEEK IN AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

For the next week, Consider Arms will be on vacation, clearing brush at his Crawford, Texas ranch. Until August 16, he leaves you in the capable hands of The Sikh Geek, MC No Shame, Hakujinjoe, and disgraced former NY Times staffer Jayson Blair. Godspeed.

-The Management
TODAY'S TOP FIVE: I Much Preferred it the Other Way.

What Are You Grinning At? In an effort to make their drizzly, cold island seem even more grim, the British have now banned smiles. That's right: People getting passport photos will no longer be allowed to smile, apparently because of something to do with the war on terrorism. Who's in charge over there? Gargamel?

He Came from the Future to Wreck John Connor's Public Education Although economists keep talking about a recovery, that phantom phenom hasn't trickled down to state and local government yet. States in particular are facing massive revenue shortfalls (cuts in federal aid account for a significant portion of that) and are making due by raising taxes, which is the only solution available to them. Most states, that is, except for California. Even liberal Californians are so proud of their "transgressive" installation of pretend robot Arnold Schwarzenegger as "governator," just as a defiant five-year-old might be proud of shitting himself. But how's the governator handling his state's budget crisis? Essentially, by borrowing $16 billion this year alone - and putting the burden on future Californians to pay it back. Where do you think the money for that's going to come from - taxes? No. It's going to come from public schools, healthcare, social programs, roads, etc. Are you fools still proud of your moron decision to support the recall now?

Katherine Harris: We Stopped a Terrorist Plot to Blow Up Narnia Florida congresshag Katherine Harris - who democracy fans will remember as the hatched-face pointperson of the 2000 Bush coup in Florida - has disconcerted officials in Florida and Indiana by claiming that the mayor of Carmel, Ind. recently told her that a "Middle Eastern man" had been arrested with tons of explosives in that Indianapolis suburb. The mayor of Carmel says he has never spoken with Harris in his life, and both local and federal officials say they never made such an arrest. Since this broke, Harris has apologized, but not for lying: for revealing "sensitive information." Um, does it still count as sensitive information if you just make it up?

I Believe That's Called a "Freudian Slip" George W. Bush is known for his inability to properly speak his native language. Sometimes this results in malapropisms ("they misunderestimtated me"), sometimes in frankly bizarre imagery ("we have to make the pie higher"). Sometimes, though, you get the feeling that the truth of what he meant somehow just slipped out. Case in point: At the signing ceremony for the massive new defense spending bill ($417 billion - Bush said he would veto anything more than $290 billion), Bush proudly told the assembly, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." So you see, we CAN find common ground with the Islamists.

I Don't Mean "Raghead" in a Pejorative Sense Charlie Daniels, long an irrelevant boil on the ass of country music, is getting some flak about performing a song that calls Arabs "ragheads" at a municipal fair in Dearborn, Michigan, heart of the largest Arab-American community in the United States. Daniels, though, insists he isn't making fun of ALL people who wear turbans, just terrorists. Thanks for clearing that up, Charlie.

-Consider Arms

Thursday, August 05, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: In Defense of Internment Camps...for Conservative Columnists.

Racial Quotas, Republican-Style The Illinois Republican Party has asked Maryland resident Alan Keyes, one of only five black Republicans in the world, to run against favored Democrat Barack Obama for that state's open Senate seat. Following the pullout of Jack "Star Trek Sex Club" Ryan, the Republicans have asked a variety of people to run against Obama, all of who have declined. Keyes has not committed yet, and admits that running for Senate in a state that he has never lived in "is not a good idea."

Polls, Schmolls I don't normally post anything about polls, because I think they're all garbage, but here's an interesting analysis of a story that bugged me after the Democratic National Convention: the idea that Kerry didn't get a "bounce" in the polls. This was the story that a lot of mainstream media outlets pimped, but this analysis shows that by their own numbers, the polls that supposedly showed a lackluster response to the convention actually put Kerry in the driver's seat.

Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Roses Today, insurgents loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr shot down a US helicopter, while a car bomb in Baghdad killed at least five. Fighting between the Mahdi Army, loyal to Sadr, and US forces has imperiled a truce between the cleric and the occupation.

Oh, the Irony First Lady Laura Bush has made some cogent comments about the divisiveness and polarization in the country. Charging that the news media has now become increasingly full of opinion rather than fact, she says that the media has played a key role in falsely separating Americans from each other by not providing objective information. "I think there are a lot of reasons to be critical of the media in America," she said, voicing a concern of conservatives and progressives alike. Ready for the punchline? She voiced this criticism as a guest ON BILL O'REILLY'S TALK SHOW, BROADCAST BY THE FOX NEWS NETWORK.

With Friends Like These....Part 34523698 Yesterday, the Sikh Geek posted here about the report in Jane's Defense Weekly that, with the aid of some Russian submarines it purchased, the North Korean government is now capable of hitting the U.S. mainland with nuclear missiles. But how did they get these Russian submarines? Well, as the great John Gorenfeld has discovered, they bought the submarines from none other than the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, conservative tycoon, friend of the Republican Party, and self-proclaimed messiah. That's correct: A man who was crowned God by a member of Congress in March used a Japanese company he owns to provide an isolated Communist dictatorship with the capability it needs to hit America with nuclear weapons.

-Consider Arms
Has The Calypso King Gone Nuts?

Good News About Iraq The Liberal "Media" Is Too Chicken To Tell Almost the entire water supply of Bhagdad is tainted with sewage, creative a massive risk of typhoid and hepatitus E.

Environmental Collapse Watch
From Wired: A huge "dead zone" of water so devoid of oxygen that sea life cannot live in it, an annual occurrence caused by pollution, has spread across 5,800 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico this summer.The extensive area of uninhabitable water may be contributing indirectly to an unusual spate of shark bites along the Texas coast, experts said. A scientist at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium said measurements showed the dead zone extends from the mouth of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana 250 miles west to near the Texas border and was closer to shore than usual because of winds and currents.

Hitting The Bottom And Bouncing Could we make this up? The latest in the long line of conservative literary hack-jobs is Michelle Malkins new book "In Defense of Internment: The Case For "Racial Profiling." Yes, she actually defends the massive camps for Japanese-Americans and others during WWII, and tries to justify racial profiling, religious profiling and yes, internment camps during our current paranoid freak-out. Well, at the rate things in this country are going, there will soon be need for an internment camp apologist. Kudos, Michelle.

The Jack Valenti Daily Gem Of Wisdom
On the Internet versus Intellectual Property, 1996
"[If Congress fails to act,] the information superhighway ... will collapse the great wonder of intellectual property. The country will be the loser. Big time."

Who Doesn't Enjoy A Little Cindy Adams Bashing?

-The Sikh Geek

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Who's Afraid of North Korea? This Guy.

When Hell is Full, the Damned Will Publish Books John O'Neill, the phony veteran who has made a career out of smearing real Vietnam vets like John McCain, is planning to publish a book charging that John Kerry was, confusingly, not really active during the Vietnam War and an active war criminal. This is the sort of thing that made Dante envision a Hell where people chew on each other's necks for eternity.

Maybe Rumsfeld Had a Point Just how irrelevant has Europe become in world politics? This irrelevant: Spain and Britain are still fighting over Gibraltar, that godforsaken spit of land in the Mediterranean that Britain first occupied in 1704. As a snub to Spain for pulling troops out of the Iraq quagmire, Tony Blair allowed a British warship (the awesomely named HMS Tireless) to sail to Gibraltar and fire a salute, the first time in 54 years that a British ship has done so. Spain's prime minister called the insult "the lowest point" of his term in office so far. Hey, why don't you ladies take off the gloves and start slapping each other?

I'll Be Very Deep in the Cold, Cold Ground Before I Recognize Missourah The voters of Missouri have apparently overwhelmingly a proved a ban on same-sex marriage, with about 70 percent of them voting in favor of it. Although the state already has a law banning gay marriage, this amends the state constitution so that such bans are legal. One wonders if they will now pass a third law preventing state courts from ruling that the amendment is unconstitutional. The only thing notable about this, apart from the fact that there are some states where people really, really don't want gay marriage, is that Missouri is a key state in the presidential election. Does such a vote bode ill for Kerry's chances there?

Another Old-Fashioned Republican Let me tell you about James Hart, who looks like a lock to be the Republican nominee in the 8th congressional district in Tennessee (he's currently running against only a write-in candidate): He's 60 years old. He's a real estate developer. He campaigns door-to-door with a bulletproof vest and a gun and tells voters "I believe white children should have the same rights as anyone else." Most of his platform is based on eugenics, which he says has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with "favored races" from Europe and "less-favored" races from Africa. I bet I know some of the issues his Democratic opponent is going to bring up during the campaign.

South of the Border I've been wondering lately what happened to Bush's wacky proposal to confer quasi-legal status on illegal immigrants (to make their exploitation by American business all the easier). That seemed like a pretty left-field proposal; was I the only one who remembered it? Apparently not: Thousands of diehard Republicans in key swing states like Arizona and Nevada (where Republicans tend to loathe all immigrants, legal or illegal) are planning to vote for a protest candidate, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo instead of Bush (I'll give you a moment to savor the irony of a guy named "Tancredo" making a name by opposing immigration). Even better, there's a question on Arizona's ballot this year that would deny state services to illegal immigrants (like emergency health care - yes, they're a bunch of mean-spirited crackers), a move supported by an overwhelming 74 percent of Arizonans. That sentiment could possibly tip Arizona away from Bush and into Kerry's camp. So, to my Mexican-hating Republican countrymen: Please, vote for Tancredo or Grebo or Groucho or whoever. I thank you, and your country thanks you.

-Consider Arms
Too Early In The Morning For This

Apparently You Tightasses Don't Know A Good Time Prosecuters in the Lyndie England case are trying to dismiss claims that she was following orders from above by portraying Captain Thumbs-Up as "an out-of-control soldier who was photographed mocking Iraqi prisoners 'just for fun.'" I never thought I would root for the defense in this case...

Ted Turner Is To Indie Media What Pearl Jam Was To Fugazi Dude, you fucking run CNN. Come the fuck off it; you're nothing close to an upstart.

There's No Dignity In Getting Punked Out By A Puppet One of many people briefly locked out of the DNC was Fox's token Leftie Alan colmes, who couldn't get in moments befroe he was to broadcast. Luckily for him, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog was there to turn him into his bitch. "Thank God they just let the doormat back through the door," Triumph barked. "Get in there and get your butt kicked by Sean Hannity!"

Have A Nice Day! North Korea is now said to have the capability of striking the mainland US with their nukes. Good thing we made Iraq such a priority...

The Jack Velenti (MPAA head) Daily Gem of Wisdom

On the VCR, 1983
"We are facing a very new and a very troubling assault ... and we are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and its necessary companion called the blank tape. We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry ... whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine [the VCR]. [Some say] that the VCR is the greatest friend that the American film producer ever had. I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

-The Sikh Geek

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: For All the French-Speaking Socialists from Boston.

The Director of Homeland Security Who Cried Wolf According to military and intelligence officials, the "shocking information" that have led to Orange Alerts in New York and Washington is three to four years old, hatched before September 11. So why would the government make such a big deal out of all this? Perhaps to get people used to cops with machine guns everywhere, and video cameras on every street corner. Remember: the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be permanent.

One Wild and Crazy Guy At last, Bill Clinton is doing what every ex-President should do: Using the prestige of his office to have an awesome time. Tonight, he'll be going on the David Letterman show, and there are persistent rumors that he will host "Saturday Night Live" this season.

Bush Backs Incremental, Symbolic Gestures Meant to Placate Public In other words, he supports the creation of a "national intelligence director" as recommended by the 9/11 commission. The post would theoretically coordinate all the intelligence from the country's dozens of info-gathering agencies and would have power over all of them. The only problem with this is that a similar post was created for "Homeland Security," and anyone witnessing the tragic uselessness of Tom Ridge has to wonder exactly whether we want to replicate this experiment with crucial intelligence.

He's Rich, Bitch! Dave Chappelle has signed a $50 million deal with Comedy Central, ensuring that the funniest show on television will continue for at least two more seasons and that there may even be a movie made about Rick James starring Chappelle. Note also that the average viewership for Chappelle's Show in its second season, 3.1 million viewers, is 400,000 more viewers than the average audience for The O'Reilly Factor, which is the highest-rated show on Fox News.

Scenes from a Robust Economy Hilariously, the Bush campaign announced that the "president" plans to run for re-election on his record. War, recession, and graft? Por ejemplo: Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity, has hit a three-year low, prompting concerns that the much-discussed "recovery" has yet to fully take hold. That's some record, Mr. President.

-Consider Arms
A Gay Porno Of Truth Sent To A Fan Club Of Falsehood

At Least He Didn't Lose To A Dead Man But Ralph Nader, GOP operative and enemy to the homeless, did lose the California Peace and Freedom Party nomination for president to a man in prison for murder.

The Horrible Opposite Of Looting Why were there so many casualities in the supermarket fire in Paraguay? The store's owners reportedly told their security staff to lock all the doors to keep shoppers from leaving the blaze with unpaid merchandise. Any Dante scholar want to give me the specific level of Hell for this?

And Keep A Good Eye On The World Trade Centers While You're At It... Several government officials are now saying that the recent Chicken Little scare about financial buildings in New York and DC was based on information that was three years old or older (read: pre-September 11th).

-The Sikh Geek

Monday, August 02, 2004

TODAY'S TOP FIVE: If You Smell What Barack is Cooking.

Ugly The Iraqi insurgents continue to be more proficient at killing their fellow Iraqis than at "resisting" the "foreign enemy": over the weekend, they attacked the quiet, apolitical Christian community with bombs at church services that killed 12 people.

Republicans for Kerry "Welcome back to the fight. This time, I know our side will win."

Trent Lott: I'm Not Too Loathsome to Notice Trent Lott is out on the stump in Mississippi, hilariously calling John Kerry "a French-speaking Socialist from Boston, Massachusetts." Is that better or worse than being a race-baiting failure from Jackson, Mississippi?

Another Outstanding Exemplar of Republican Values JonBenet Ramsey's creepy dad, John, is running for the Republican nomination for a state representative election in rural northern Michigan. Next: Scott Peterson for Modesto City Council.

Only a Truly Honest Man Would Rip Off the Homeless Another snapshot from the parade of integrity that is Ralph Nader's Republican-backed campaign: In the city of Philadelphia, the Naderites promised to pay homeless people if they went out and got signatures needed to get Darth Nader on the Pennsylvania state ballot. The homeless duly complied, but when it came time to collect their pay, the people who are working to restore justice and honor in national politics refused to make good on their promise. Initially, Nader's campaign chairman in the city would only meet with the homeless when accompanied by armed guards; after an ugly scene at headquarters, the Naderites abandoned the building altogether and hightailed it out of town like Lyle Lanley fleeing another shoddy monorail. Predictably, the Naderites blame the Democrats for their own mess.

-Consider Arms
I'm So Bored With The USA

And You Thought "The Village" Was Bad Hot on the heels of the literary hack job "Michael Moore Is A Stupid White Man" comes the developing film "Michael Moore Hates America" directed by Michael Wilson and funded by an internet entrepreneur, "whose early career was associated with Internet pornography, and who appeared as a defendant in an early cybersquatting lawsuit." The film compares Moore to Osama bin Laden and is being written in part by a comedian who boasts, "I did an impression of Bill Clinton as a Child Molester." Nothing says "comedy gold" more than jokes about child abuse.

Really? You Were Working On THAT Line For Awhile? While speaking in Mississippi, Senator Trent Lott told the crowd tha`t John Kerry is “a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts, who is more liberal than Ted Kennedy.” The article said that "it was a line that Lott said he’d been working on for a while." He also called the Kerry/Edwards ticket "waffle and grits." At least the audience didn't have to sign oaths to hear such wit.

We're Not All Monsters Yet A recent survey found that the vast majority of Americans are against the US government using physical torture.

-The Sikh Geek