I’ve mostly been too depressed about the election to post links to serious stuff about voting irregularities, but this one was interesting enough to be worth passing on… check it out on DailyKOS.
Category: Politics
It would’ve been a Wonderful Life
Sunday’s Maureen Down column in the NY Times:
RUMMY, dyspeptic: Holy mackerel! Take me to Dick!
CLARENCE: Dick and Lynne run a bait, tackle and baton-twirling shop in Casper, Wyo. You didn’t exist, so you never gave him those jobs in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and he never ran for Congress or worked for Bush 41 or anointed himself 43’s vice president. W. chose Chuck Hagel as his running mate. So without you and Dick there to dominate him, he was guided by his dad and Brent Scowcroft, who kept Condi in line. Colin Powell was never cut off at the knees and the U.N. and allies were never bullied. There was never any crazy fever about Iraq or unilateralism or “Old Europe.” Here’s Colin now, heading for the Oval Office.
Yep, it’s an “It’s a Wonderful Life” parody. Worth reading, and get it while it’s hot since it’ll disappear into the pay-only archives soon. (Requires login 🙁 ) Via AMERICAblog
Today’s blatant shilling:
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
It’s a Wonderful Life the classic film.
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
“Did you know….
“1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.“2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
“3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
“4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
“5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
“6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
“7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush’s vice-presidential candidates.
“8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
“9. Diebold’s new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
“10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
“11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
“12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
“13. Jeff Dean, Diebold’s Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on Diebold’s central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
“14. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a “high degree of sophistication” to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
“15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
“16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold’s claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here .)
“17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
“18. All — not some — but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
“19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President’s brother.
“20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida — again always favoring Bush — have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.”
from Angry Girl at NightWeed.com (with links to references!) via Idle Thoughts
The FCC Song
Old news, but I was just reminded of it, and it remains funny as heck… from the Python Online site,
Eric Idle presents… The FCC Song.
“Here’s a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge… It’s a new song, it’s dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars.”Download Here (3.1MB)
“Big” Dick Cheney?
See this article and then this photo and decide for yourself.
via AMERICAblog
Red-state vs. Blue-state Christmas movies?
Santa Claus is strictly a red-state hero
MSNBC Commentary by Erik Lundegaard
The best part is at the end:
Finally, for Democrats everywhere, I’d recommend those Christmas movies whose message is more cynical than simply putting aside common sense to have faith in Santa Claus. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey wishes he’d never been born; in “A Christmas Story,” Ralphie wishes for an official Red Ryder range-model air rifle; in “Home Alone,” Kevin wishes his family would just disappear. Each gets their wish. Each doesn’t like the results. You don’t have to leave the Christian faith to find the lesson here. It’s St. Teresa of Avila: More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers. Hopefully, over the next four years, 51 percent of the country won’t have to realize the wisdom of her words.
34 Things to do before Bush’s second inauguration
Taken directly from AMERICAblog
I didn’t write this, don’t know who did. But it’s good. Feel free to add your own:
Some things to do Before the Inaugural:
1. Get that abortion you’ve always wanted.
2. Drink a nice clean glass of water.
3. Cash your social security check.
4. See a doctor of your own choosing.
5. Spend quality time with your draft-age child/grandchild.
6. Visit Syria, or any foreign country for that matter.
7. Get that gas mask you’ve been putting off buying.
8. Hoard gasoline.
9. Borrow books from library before they’re banned – constitutional law books, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Tropic of Cancer, National Geographic.
10. If you have an idea for an art piece involving a crucifix – do it now.
11. Come out – then go back in – FAST!
12. Jam in all the Alzheimer’s stem cell research you can.
13. Stay out late before the curfews start.
14. Suck up to your neighbors now, BEFORE they turn you in to Homeland Security.
15. Go see Bruce Springsteen before he has his “accident.”
16. Go see Mount Rushmore before the Reagan addition.
17. Use the phrase, “You can’t do that – this is America!”
18. Have that last drink with your Muslim friends.
19. If you’re white, marry a black person; if you’re black, marry a white person; if you’re gay, get married in Massachusetts; if you’re transgendered, move to Canada.
20. Take a walk in Yosemite, without being hit by a snowmobile or a base-jumper.
21. Enroll your kid in an accelerated art or music class.
22. Start your school day without a prayer.
23. Pass on the secrets of evolution to future generations.
24. Learn French (it’ll help you learn German later on).
25. Take a factory tour anywhere in the US.
26. Take photographs of animals on the endangered species list.
27. Take photographs of Democrats.
28. Visit Florida before the polar ice caps melt.
29. Visit Nevada before it becomes radioactive.
30. Visit Alaska before “The Big Spill.”
31. Visit Massachusetts while it is still a State.
32. Download a copy of the Constitution on an encrypted CD-ROM and hide it.
33. Play with a dreidel.
34. Masturbate, before Chief Justice Scalia makes it illegal.
Also found via AMERICAblog today: School sued for awarding cat with MBA
More on Fascist America
The Project for the Old American Century site identifies 14 points in common between fascism and the current administration
Oh, and have a look at this animation linked to from the page above. It’s an interesting take on the military budget — you can also have a look at the WRL “pie chart” for more of a “radical left” view of the military budget. The War Resisters League main page may be worth a look as well.
It’s official. We’re finally fascist.
I ran across this, which does a good job of examining where the U.S.
stands on ten distinct features of fascist nations.
From a posting on RASFF by Mark Reichert.
Bush is such a playa’
See articles on Daily KOS and AMERICAblog and more to the point, the photos.
Totally evil sexist Nate adds: Margaret Spellings looks sorta cute in the shot with the glasses, so I can understand Bush’s leer, but really… aren’t they the family values party?
Conservatives support secession too…
F— the South?
So says the rather bluntly named FuckTheSouth.com:
Fuck the South. Fuck ’em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they’d stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves – yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We’re the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
It goes on from there. An entertainingly cathartic rants. (Errr, I can spell, really I can.)
(via AmericaBlog)