March 9, 2008 archive

Bush administration touts tax rebates at your expense (of course)!

Well, here is another GREAT idea from the Bush Administration.  They are going to be sending out letters through the IRS to Americans to remind them of the tax rebates that will begin being mailed in May of this year.  

It will only cost $42 million of our tax dollars to send these little love letters!  Just a drop in the bucket in BushWorld.

Weekend News Digest

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Democrat wins Hastert’s seat in Illinois

By DEANNA BELLANDI, Associated Press Writer

Sun Mar 9, 9:00 AM ET

CHICAGO – Nearly two years after taking control of Congress, the Democrats have claimed another prize by capturing former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat – a development that Republicans say is not a harbinger of things to come.

The longtime Republican district fell to the Democrats Saturday when wealthy scientist and businessman Bill Foster snatched the seat in a closely watched special election.

While Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen predicted Foster’s win would send out a “political shock wave,” Republicans were quick to downplay its significance.

I’d Just As Soon Be A Rattlesnake

pfiore8 writes this morning in her essay God loves you and, btw, sex is filthy… about the dangerous disease-like spread of religious fundamentalist fanaticism through evangelical christianity (uncapitalized purposely, btw) in the body politic, the government and the military since the wackjobs installed George Bush in the WH.

…the crises we face in this country and the world are symptoms of a power structure gone wrong. Way wrong.



Theocrats are foot soldiers of the corporatists, a relationship that delivers a one-two punch. Social control satiates theocrats, while corporatists run everything else. And they all want it run brutally. Until the only thing left for us is the desperate hope that God will save us in the next life… as long as we subscribe to certain behaviors in this one. What a fucking set up.

But this is a problem that has been growing for much longer. Last April 2007, one of the most prolific and insightful social commentators I’ve ever had the pleasure to read passed away, and the world lost one of it’s great literary masters and treasures, in my opinion.

Kurt Vonnegut had much to say about religious fanaticism and it’s power to corrupt and pervert in his writings.

Women and War

Yesterday, March 8th, was International Women’s Day.

To often when reporting on War the women involved, from those living in the invaded conflict countries to those who are serving in greater numbers and rolls, combat included, are not mentioned enough.

Nor is it brought up enough of the effects of Conflicts on these women involved.

Seeing what isn’t there

A few years ago I watched a documentary about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It had a huge impact on me because after watching it, one question hung in the air: How is it that these women could see so clearly what needed to change when most other women had been accepting the status quo for centuries? We have names for these kinds of people…pioneers and prophets.

A few months later I heard a woman speak about leadership. She said something I’d never heard before…that leadership requires seeing what isn’t there. I immediately related that idea to the lives of Anthony and Stanton. They had a vision of what the role of women could be that did not yet exist. And they fought with everything they had to make it happen.

I began to wonder what I wasn’t seeing yet.  

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective rerun

The Point!



Everything’s Got ‘Em

Docudharma Times Sunday March 9



There’s a joke and I know it very well

It’s one of those that I told you long ago

Take my word I’m a madman don’t you know

Sunday’s Headlines: Bush’s Veto of Bill on C.I.A. Tactics Affirms His Legacy: Influential Democrats Waiting to Choose Sides: Vote to foil Eta, family pleads: Serbia in crisis as PM quits over Kosovo: How a tiny West African country became the world’s first narco state: Sir Bob Geldof’s travels with George Bush : Saudis offer pioneering therapy for ex-jihadists: Secret plan to let Japan resume whaling: Malaysia opposition win shows power of cyberspace: Colombian rebel’s slaying boosts Uribe

Survey Says Iranians Favor Free Election Of Their Top Leader

As Iran’s brief election campaign for parliament heats up, a new public opinion poll shows that the vast majority of Iranians would like to directly elect their supreme leader in a free vote — and be able to replace him.

The power of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has long been at the heart of political debate in Iran, because the supreme leader can veto legislation, presidential actions, judicial decisions and candidates for office. Iran’s top political position has basically become a lifetime job, even though a panel of 86 religious scholars elected every eight years has the right to dismiss him. Khamenei has held the job since 1989.

Quote for Discussion: Craigslist edition

From Craigslist Omaha:

To the guy doing my wife. You know who you are. Yes I know. No I am not angry, I would just ask a few things of you. After all you are giving it to my wife.

1.Please stop leaving the seat up, I keep getting blamed and it is starting to get old.

2.You may be giving me a chance to go fishing more often but please stop drinking all my beer. It is fine if you have a couple while you visit(god knows

I drink plenty before I find her attractive), but please leave me a few as I have to be there longer than you.

3.If you do drink the last one buy more or leave money on the counter I will pick some up.

4.Please replace the toilet paper when you use it all. For some reason my 5 year old son belives if its not there he does not have to wipe. We keep it under the sink, unless you can recomend a better spot?

5.After doing my wife please use something disposable to wipe off with. The basket of clothes on the right is mine and the clothes are clean as my wife does not do my washing, Irun out of time rushing to work. Last week my sweatshirt was crusty(thanks).

6.Please do not tell my children that you are their uncle, they are young not

mentaly challenged.

7.Please stop turning the heat up, You pay nothing and MUD is putting it in my ass, my wife may like it but I think it hurts.

8.When she asks “do these pants make me look fat”, say no. You may think giving a different answer will make her think twice about eating a gallon of ice cream a day but all you are doing is giving her a reason to go buy more pants that she will look just as fat in.

9.Stop eating the baked goods. The brownies you ate were from my mom for my birthday. My wife has not cooked anything that good for years and if she does she will not share.

10.Try shifting your weight when you sit on my chair. The recliner that I rarely have time for (soccer games and practice, basketball camp for the kids takes much of my time and I try to help with school work too)has a grove in it that forces me to roll to the left.

Lastly I would like thank you for taking her to lunch on Valentines Day. She was not as hungry as usual and only orded one meal.I may be able to use the money I saved to take the children to a movie. I hope you can help me with these items, it may become ackward if I have to confront her. If you can do this for me I will give you a heads up on when I will be gone and for how long so that you don’t feel rushed.

P.S. I am going to take the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge on the 3rd of April for four days, I have abottle of vodka above the fridge if you find yourself low on beer.

Thanks This was not writen by anyone named Jack S.

Midnight Thought on the Coalition Change Strategy

This is excerpted from Burning the Midnight Oil for the Coalition Change Strategy, on the Burning the Midnight Oil blog hosted by the Daily Kos (thought to the best of my knowledge with neither the advise nor consent of kos).

In tonight’s thought, I continue thinking on the coalition change strategy, and in particular on how to expand the base of the coalition. The focus is on one particular dimension of building the coalition that is close to my heart, after my experience in working on this essential dimension of a green transport policy fight.

Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 39

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

He passed like a summer storm. She watched him go ……..and then with a deep amusement at herself, she realized that while she had obeyed ‘orders’ and had kept walking no matter what her stride had decreased to the point where she was almost tripping over her own feet, trying to ‘keep walking’ as slowly as humanly possible.

She shook her head to clear it…but something of him lingered within her, deep within her. Next thing she knew she was practically skipping down the lane! And next thing after that came a thought of her husband. She stopped skipping and started shaking her head again.

God loves you and, btw, sex is filthy…

Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.

Butch Hancock

The way I see it, the crises we face in this country and the world are symptoms of a power structure gone wrong. Way wrong.

We, the citizens, need to reconfigure the power structure. In order to do that, we need to understand how the invasion of theocrats, outsourcing of essential governmental functions, mega media ownership concentrated in the hands of corporatists, and global corporate domination/trade agreements have shaped the world right now: the war in Iraq, health care, education, taxes, war, poisonous industrial processes, environment and climate change, energy, et al. While all these issues are, on their own, daunting and urgent, none of these issues will be resolved without repairing our governmental infrastructure. Period. The story tonight is about the theocrats’ impact on our deteriorating social structures.

Divine Transmissions

PhotobucketWhat is most disturbing… about the Bush administration, is not merely its devout corporatism, but the way in which it uses religion in the service of the corporatist agenda.

It does so in a way that explicitly identifies the Bush agenda with God’s, and suggests that Bush’s every step is divinely inspired. Bush asks his followers to stick with him as an act of faith — he’s a good man with good advisors and he prays and he’s not Clinton, so he must be right.


It became apparent early on in George Bush’s presidency that he was facilitating the infiltration of our government by theocrats. Theocrats: evangelicals, but ramped up and with one looming objective: to legislate their version of control Christianity.

Theocrats are foot soldiers of the corporatists, a relationship that delivers a one-two punch. Social control satiates theocrats, while corporatists run everything else. And they all want it run brutally. Until the only thing left for us is the desperate hope that God will save us in the next life… as long as we subscribe to certain behaviors in this one. What a fucking set up.

Inflation or deflation? We live in interesting times

The western financial system is caught in a trap. On the one hand, there is an urgent need for clearing prices to be established for impaired assets to restore confidence; on the other hand, if this is done in a mark-to-market world, there is a risk that some banks will run out of capital.


(Gillian Tett, Financial Times)

Bank bankruptcies are a realistic prospect in the coming months. And yet, this is not even the worst…

The global economy is facing twin shocks. Natural resource markets are delivering a supply shock of 1970s dimensions, while the financial system is delivering a shock comparable to the bank and thrift crises of the 1988-1993 period.


(Tim Bonds, Barclays Capital, in the Financial Times)

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