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Senator Wyden is the hero this week, as my ambivilent-streak concerning the Democrats may be coming to an end quite soon.  The profits have been obscene for oil companies for a while already now, and in spite of this, Republicans continue to give them billions in “tax relief” to supposedly encourage exploration.  Reverse Robin Hood on steroids and methamphetamine, this arrangement is the kind of thing ‘small government’ conservatives would be talking about if Republicans weren’t in power. 

Here’s a paragraph I lifted off of ‘Preemptive Karma’

Senator Wyden is currently holding the floor in filibuster, in order to gain a vote on his amendment to eliminate royalty relief (ie subsidies) for oil companies whenever the price of a barrel exceeds $50 $55. Not only the GOP leadership, but certain corporate-beholden Democrats do not relish such a vote. Good on Wyden for making the stand now, as the oil companies release their 1Q profit statements and nearly everyone in the country sees a ‘3’ at the front of the price of gas in their area.

Democrats are slowly realizing strengths they never knew they had. 

Source – MSNBC

McCarthy has contributed a total of $7,000 to Democratic political causes over her lifetime, including $2,000 to the Kerry 2004 presidential campaign. Her husband is a landscaper, and they live in Bethesda, Md.

This, in and of itself, is certainly grounds for demotion, perhaps even mega-demotion, but to get shitcaned for being a Democrat, well…that’s probably not fair.

“A CIA officer has acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with the media, in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information. I terminated that officer’s employment with the CIA,” Goss said.

OK, now it makes sense.  Unless you consider this:

Fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy has “categorically” denied to NBC News through her lawyer that she leaked classified information. In addition, McCarthy’s attorney tells NBC News that she did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking. The CIA has said that the officer — whom the agency wouldn’t identify — had “confessed” to leaking.

A defense source tells NBC News that while McCarthy may have failed her polygraph on the issue of having unauthorized contacts with reporters, she did not fail the question about leaking information on the secret prison system.

FINE…she didn’t fail the polygraph test on the question of whether she leaked the information.  Take that and run with it if you want to, but she DOES know the reporter, AND she donated money to Democrats!  I say, polygraph schmolygraph – this is America, and the day a government agency can’t fire someone for voting a certain way, it’s all over for us I’m afraid.  I mean, do you want the guy working next to you believing something different than you when it comes to politics or religion?  To hell with that mess!  We have terrorist hethons who are perhaps days away from breaking into my house and raping every one of us hour after hour until we finally fall in love with Allah, actually MEAN IT, which is vital considering how skillfull they are at knowing whether or not someone’s lying when they say it. 

It’s the Mike Tyson “I’m gonna fuck you till you love me” method, and I’m afraid that if we don’t start getting as good at this as the terrorists already are, it’ll only be a matter of time before we’re all booze-free, eating sand burgers…so with that in mind, how about we don’t just fire every Democrat working for the government, but for the sake of national security, let’s chop off their heads as well.  You video tape Mary McCarthy being decapitated, run it on the news, uncensored on the internet, and I guarantee all this talk about what the President did or didn’t do will go away pretty damned quick!

Who’s with me?  I’ve got an axe, chainsaw and hodgepodge collection of kitchen knives here in the house.  Can someone donate a machette? 

On Cheney and Rumsfeld orders, US outsourcing intelligence tasks to terrorists in Iraq

The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say. 

One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months.

One former counterintelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, describes the Pentagon as pushing MEK shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The drive to use the insurgent group was said to have been advanced by the Pentagon under the influence of the Vice President’s office and opposed by the State Department, National Security Council and then-National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. Continue reading →

My boys are 9.5 months old as of today, so I arranged for them to get their union cards yesterday, took them down into the coal pits for an up close look at where daddy goes for 12 hours every day but Sunday.  Continue reading →

Here’s what the President had to say about the resignation of his press secretary:

“One of these days, he and I will be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the Press Secretary, and I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now that I can say to Scott: job well done.”

I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.  Of course, you know that this is an ongoing investigation.  I think the President has been clear that the administration is not going to comment on this because the investigation is ongoing. 

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Hope everyone has a great weekend.  Blog’s on hiatus until Monday…new posts at least.

Fungal Keratitis – Take a peek at this mess

I had this happen to me more times than I can even remember.  Blasting through soft contact lenses in half the time they’d normally last, while using the enzyme tablets to clean them almost religiously.  In 2002 I was driving to work and the headache I woke up with got more intense every minute of the drive.  Eventually I had to pull over because of the pain.  In my left eye (if I remember correctly, don’t have the medical records handy), there was this dark red dot in the white part to the outside with blood colored tentacles going every which way from it.  Diagnosed as a corneal ulcer, I worked that week with sunglasses on indoors, goop on that eye, and a headache that would only get better when I closed my eyes indoors (if the sun was out, it still kicked my ass whether my eyes were open or closed).

So from that point on, if I could go without contacts for a part of the day, I’d hold off on putting them in.  Everywhere I went, in my pocket was another set in solution.  After having what I had, you don’t ever want to go through it again.  Because until your sight is threatened, a person doesn’t normally ponder life without it all that often.  Kind of like pushing someone’s wheelchair, helping them to do things you usually just take for granted.  A sense of fear mixed with elation, knowing you’re not there yet, but also that the clock could very well be ticking.  So you look extra hard both ways before crossing the street from then on.

The worst stretch came just before we moved to the new house.  Still living in Braintree, about a month or two before the twins are born, for at least 45 days my eyes would look like those pictures in the link above.  Van Helsing can vouch for that.  Again with the headaches, but not as severe this time.  Instead it was an unbearable stinging until I got the contact out, and for a couple days afterwards I’d look like the living dead, people telling me it looked like my eyes were going to fall out or explode at any minute.  A truly wonderful ailment to experience without health insurance, everyone became convinced that it was the actual lenses causing me the problem.  I figured as much and haven’t worn them a single day since my sons were born.  

Now comes a story about people using the saline solution I always did, and widespread breakouts of those insanely gross pictures at the top of this post.  Go figure.  I can finally close the case on that mystery. 

Outsourcing saves less than claimed

(Reuters) – Outsourcing of information technology and business services delivers average cost savings of 15 percent, a survey found on Thursday, disproving market claims that outsourcing can reduce costs by over 60 percent.

After professional fees, severance pay and governance costs, savings range between 10 percent and 39 percent, with the average level at 15 percent when contracts are first let, according to outsourcing advisory firm TPI.

“This research proves that the promise of massive operational savings is unrealistic when you take into account the costs of procurement and ongoing contract management,” Duncan Aitchison, TPI’s managing director, said in a statement.

“In our experience, outsourcing arrangements which focus solely on delivering huge savings often fail to meet client expectations,” he added.

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It occurs to me that not only haven’t I been writing and posting often enough, but the standard topics I do feel compelled to write about don’t really matter to me at all.  Do I bleed from the heart whenever greed takes an innocent man, bends him over and fucks him up the ass?  Of course, but through the use of blood thinners and an internal monitor, the effects have been rendered harmless.  At least that’s what the information booklet says.  Come to think of it, since I had the procedure done, the clinic has been relocated.  But for that I’ve got beer along with an adamant belief that all people in this world are inherently good.  Call me clueless…I prefer to think of it as something else, something smart and positive.   

I’m not sure who’d be interested, but I recently finished an enormous download (11.7GB) of Phil Lesh and Friends – Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, John Molo, Rob Barraco – Beacon Theater, NYC – 10/9/00

They open with Imagine…as it would have been John Lennon’s 60th…the first of six from the Beacon on this run. Probably the best camera work I’ve ever seen on a bootleg video. I’ll send this to any deadissue reader for free, 3 DVDs. Email me at caustin34@yahoo.com.

On the constant lookout for karma, I’ll throw in a show off of this list w/ the Beacon show:

http://db.etree.org/www.deadissue.com

All I ask is that if one day one of my sons runs in a campaign you hold a vote in, that you’ll cast it for either Max or Sam, perhaps another child by the name of…Pedro, Manny, Curt, David, Venus, Amarillo, Shirley, Abigail, Jerry, Muhammad, Brady, Tedy, Antoine…it’s the right thing, in such obvious ways, not only for America, but whoever else is over when this is viewed.

I’m not kidding. It’s free, and it WILL cure all of society’s ills…once science is able to turn it into a vaccine.

If the end result is a mess like this, then someone leaked inappropriately. Perhaps Libby was put out on a raft at the end of the boat, tied to a long rope, a sacrifice to the gods. Somehow believing this man would turn into Jack Ruby for their sake, just as Abramoff and Cunningham begin long sentences… you might as well write up all this to the true differences between organized crime and national politics over time, there aren’t nearly as many murdered rats and there’s practically no one involved from top to bottom in the DC machine, not wearing a military uniform, who won’t cop to their crime in five seconds once the whiff of a possible deal enters the interview room.

Let’s not tiptoe around this thing… these are not the kind of men best suited for prison life. Not to say that Libby is going to be bunked with a horny 300 pound Samoan, but his days of feeling proud of himself are most likely over. Instead of the cyborg programing Tom Delay is operating on, most of these guys have absolutely no stomach for that aspect of the public life. Delay on the other hand, ex-aides insist that his body actually extracts nutrition from public criticism, showing not only in his mood and demeanor but during his most combative periods in Congress, his cholesterol level would drop.

Of course, I’ve heard a lot of this second hand, and for five days it’s been a nonstop frenzy of beepers, cell phones, reporters all the way from Moscow to Miami calling with the same blathering idiot tone, a fax machine that runs out of paper a mere 4.5 hours after the shit storm first descended on all the poor schmuck reporters who had planed on having fun hundreds of miles away this weekend. Instead of that, it’s a frantic explaination of why the trip is suddenly over, resulting in 34 threats of divorce already, hundreds of speeding tickets, and bouts of deep and serious depression having descended on the Capitol, only to find tumbleweeds, tears and two double cheeseburgers for a buck at McDonalds.

And they’re not the only ones hurting, you can be sure of that! As a couple people have mentioned to me the reality that once in jail, when a minister “saves” them again, redeems them, it’s only half as strong as the first time… and some of these crooks have diped their bucket in that well once too often already for it to even matter. And this brings me to my closing point, the most important thing to remember in all of this, and that’s to slow down with accepting Christ as your personal savior when you’re young, because you never know when you’ll need that juice in the future. A society of overindulgence we’ve become, indeed… what could be the only thing worse than that is if we become habitual liars at the same time. No courpses, but in terms of blatant ignorance and total dishonesty, this caper puts us right around ‘China or Russia on a good day’.

As Walter Soucheck would say, “he’s a pederass”.  Busted for all the nasty things he typed and porno movie files he sent to an undercover agent pretending to be a 12 year old girl.  Funny thing about this, and something I’m sure the press will ignore, the agent who scored this bust is somewhat of a hero around the office building. 

Ray is his name, and the fine art of seduction is his game.  Devoted to the unit he was assigned to out of training, the amount of convictions as result of his work in the last 2 years is an astounding 8,293.  Smooth talker in a chat room, complete with photos of missing Romanian girls, Ray’s mission is to “walk the cyber-track, see who’s in the market”. 

“It’s a growth industry, no doubt.”  Ray’s senior vice-supervisor was overheard saying this more than once to someone on the phone.  When asked about what life would be like around the office without Ray, “we wouldn’t even be here right now, probably be chasing down names on NSA lists, maybe I’d have landed into drugs…”

At the age of 58, Ray is hard at work everyday making sure that doesn’t happen. 

There’s a Brady Bunch episode where Bobby brings a toy gun to school.  I remember this thinking it would be one of those moments, kind of like the instructional video in Dodgeball, when you realize how gullable/innocent our society was at one point. 

So here’s a kindergarten student who was suspended for 10 days after bringing a gun to school.  The story was forwarded to me with two discussion topics:

1. Parenting-responsibility-guns in the home? 
2. 10 days?!?!

Kindergarten student brings gun to school

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The British haven’t been as ruthless in classifying documents pertaining to the pre-Iraq War negotiations as our government has.  Bad for President Bush and the tens of thousands who have already died, as intent is no longer a question.  Documents now prove that our President even proposed painting an American surveillance plane in UN colors in hopes that it would be shot down by Saddam, hence providing a clear cut justification for what was inevitable from day one of his first term.  His mind was made up long before 9/11, and that fact alone makes him a criminal in my opinion. 

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H. RES. 717  Resolved, That the Secretary of Commerce is directed to transmit to the House of Representatives, not later than 14 days after the date of the adoption of this resolution, a copy of the final draft report, produced by the professional staff of the Technology Administration, entitled: `Six-Month Assessment of Workforce Globalization In Certain Knowledge-Based Industries’.

Congress requested this assessment, spent $335,000 to have the analysis done, and the result was a 200 page report.  The administration did not like what the report had to say, so they cut it down to a 12 page summary, which the analysts say misrepresents their findings.  This resolution is up for a vote tomorrow morning. 

Taxpayers are concerned about the outsourcing of jobs overseas, so we urged our leaders to find out more about it.  We paid for the study.  The truth concerning the state of our economy shouldn’t be something so easily ‘classified’.  That is…unless our leaders are taking notes from Russia and China! 

In the Texas thread an interesting discussion broke out over the correct punnishment for a DUI.  Personally, I think hard time should be handed out for crimes where there’s a victim, but when the victim is oneself, society is basically wasting time and money by throwing years at the problem.  It’s a fact that prison teaches people how to be better criminals, and like a child receiving a spanking, if the punnishment doesn’t fit the crime, remorse isn’t the result…instead it’s anger. 

How about these crimes, generic, but ballpark what you think is an appropriate sentence:

• Possession, 1 ounce of pot
• Possession, 1 ounce of methamphetamine
• DUI, 1st offense
• DUI, 4th offense
• Vehicular Manslaughter (driver was impaired)
• Vehicular Manslaughter (driver was on their cell phone)

To understand how the finest military in human history could continue to fail in this war, one could create a list or perhaps listen to Donald Rumsfeld speak on any topic for a few minutes, only to be informed afterwards that the man speaking was in charge of the operation.  However you go about it, the end result is normally confusing, and for the ‘just tell me the good news’ crowd, anything more complicated than ‘O’Doyle Rules!’ simply won’t work. 

No, it’s not a topic one can remain positive about for long if any of the pre-war quotes are matched up with what actually happened.  Yet there’s a good contingent of hard working Americans who insist on believing that our reason for being there is just, and that the lack of results simply makes no sense.  It’s the American who’s sick of hearing about how much life sucks for the Iraqi. 

This American most likely hasn’t gone three days without electricity, nor have they gone out for their morning walk to find twenty decapitated bodies on the side of the road.  These ‘details’ of what life is like for those living in Iraq come to us daily, and whether we like to acknowledge it or not, over 80 journalists have already given their lives to bring the news to us.  Heroic indeed, but a scapegoat is needed, so for political reasons, it’s just 80 dead liberals.  Good for them. 

I’d like to go around all of that and instead focus on the question of ‘why’ hundreds of billions of dollars in equipment, training and expertise hasn’t gotten us anywhere versus the insurgency.  Books have been written on this topic, many in fact, because Vietnam presented the exact same situation and provoked the same lame excuses from those in charge.  I’m going to sum it up for you in one paragraph…

One ring, two fighters.  The insurgency has great footwork, speed, and despite lacking that one punch that can turn the entire fight around, it’s jab is constant and damaging over time.  The US military is slower to react, often chasing it’s opponent around the ring, launching haymakers that hardly ever land, yet always draw a positive response from the crowd.  Over time the wear and tear shows, and even though the judges’ scorecards are unanimous, the beast continues to stand up and fight the next round. 

Lots of fighters never know when to throw in the towell, and unfortunately for them, often times their speech patterns remain altered forever.  The body never knows when to stop, but the brain has been sending it signals for years already. 

(Not the best one to date – but I’m getting over a case of food poisoning – I suspect Taco Bell is responsible)

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You can be staying in a Dallas hotel, drinking at the bar downstairs and if you’re having too much fun (judgement call), an undercover police officer will run you in.  The dragnet is an attempt to lower the amount of DUIs in the state, but of course, whether or not you drove yourself to the bar is inconsequential.  Texas Logic, it’s a state of mind, with this being just the first example…

Next month the state is planning a series of sting operations aimed at lowering the number of prostitutes operating within major cities.  They’re going to bust women purchasing condoms in bulk if they appear to be ‘skanky’ at the time.  Governor Rick Perry hailed the two initiatives in a recent speech, “if you plan on being sloppy or skanky ’round here, there is a place for you…and the name of that place is Oklahoma.”

Basically a bureau chief in Vermont submitted a column written by one its own, Senator Patrick Leahy, on the “growing threat to our democracy by infringements imposed by the Bush administration on America’s hallowed Freedom of Information Act”, and was abruptly fired after 27 years on the job!  The man’s name is Chris Graff, someone who was “easily the most respected voice in Vermont journalism, running the AP bureau here and hosting the weekly journalist roundtable discussion on Vermont Public Television”.  His grave sin apparantly was “moving an item written by a ‘partisan politician’ without including a rebuttal from a partisan politician of a different stripe”. 

So in America today, a state bureau chief cannot run a column written by his own Senator.  The man has to search out a counter-point to the piece or whatever the Senator has to say cannot be heard.  In other words, the voters of Vermont don’t deserve to hear Leahy’s opinions on government unless certain unstated conditions are met beforehand.  Either that, or whatever Leahy has to say angers a higher-up on a personal level, and in today’s US media market, that’s enough to warrant the termination of a career 27 years in the making.

The column wasn’t written by a liberal version of Ann Coulter, it was written by the US Senator these readers happened to vote for several times already.  Leahy’s chief of staff was quoted as wondering, “how open government could be partisan?”  Well, there’s a lot at stake at this point in our republic’s history, and the amount of criticism aimed at our President has become downright inconvenient!  The very notion of our elected leaders expressing their thoughts and ideas in opposition to the President wouldn’t fly in Russia, so why should it in the United States of America?

Indeed, what’s good enough for Russia is good enough for the USA!  Just like we all learned in school growing up.  If Senator Leahy wants to be heard, he just needs to fill out the proper form, get all the required stamps, say twenty “Hail Bushs” and it wouldn’t hurt to donate $10,000 to the Republican National Committee.  It’s the system our founding fathers fought for, and the tradition of freedom our soldiers are dying to protect at this very moment…in Iraq.

First, since former USA Today president and publisher Tom Curley took over the reins at AP in 2003, things have taken a turn for the worse. Graff isn’t the first veteran AP bureau chief to get axed recently. Curley’s new Gannett-style policies and guidelines are being imposed with an iron fist by his new team of managers. There are complaints the news is being dumbed down by corporate, and the AP gold standard is being turned into cow flop.

• Is illegal immigration responsible for higher energy costs?
• Is illegal immigration responsible for the escalating national debt?
• Is illegal immigration responsible for the Iraq War?
• Is illegal immigration responsible for low test scores in schools across the country?
• Is illegal immigration responsible for an increasing amount of household debt?
• Is illegal immigration responsible for global warming?

I don’t think 6 million out of 300 million represent the cause of most of our problems in America.  Continue reading →