Athletes And Doping

Part 2 of an article in the LA Times appears today, with the slant on how hard it is for athletes to fight doping charges.

The article mentions a couple of "innocent" contaminations from glucose tablets, and one case where finasteride for baldness prevention registered as a steroid.

It seems the doping panels are, well, a bunch of dopes, but it also appears that athletes will get as close as possible to the line for illegality, and occasionally will cross it, if no one is watching.

Here's the simplest way to avoid being caught up in a doping scandal: don't use performance enhancing drugs. Shocking, that, I know. Athletes who use these steroids, EPO, etc., are cheats. Sporting competitions are a joke if boths sides are using different rules.

Who gives a flying fuck about Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire? Obviously they're juicers, but they should also be labelled CHEATS, LIARS, and ASSHOLES. Me, I hate baseball, so there's no love lost there, but if you look at any of the big American sports, doping is rift. Where is the model to follow?

England's Football Association, the FA, prohibits drug usage, performance-enhancing or otherwise. There are no gray areas. You dope, you're out, as it should be. FIFA, the world soccer body, also bans drug use, but somehow loopholes exist, like the one that let Adrian Mutu get banned and kicked off Chelsea, but allowed him to play for his new club in Italy without repurcussions.

What has this "harsh" system created? It has created the purity of the sport. It has created conditions where anyone, with talent and practice, can achieve the highest level. The steroid pumping freaks of the NFL are nowhere to be seen, the 75 inch biceps of Barry Bonds are nowhere to be seen. On Manchester United, the star midfielder, Paul Scholes, is only 5'7" tall. On (one of) the best soccer team in the world, the controlling player is 5'7" - because he's fucking amazing and he practiced his ass off and some natural talent.

That gives hope to every kid everywhere. Someone like Bonds and those other assholes caught up in the BALCO scandal (and others) actually rob hope from kids because the message is, if you don't use these dangerous drugs you have no chance. They also pervert the sport, ruin the contest, and cheat everyone.

Fuck those cheaters.

Medevac Helicopter Crashes

Yesterday a Mercy Air Services Inc. medevac helo crashed near the El Cajon pass and all 3 crew members were killed. They had just taken a patient to a hospital and were flying in fog, which probably led to the crash.

My neighbor 3 doors up the street, "Dr. Vince," is also a medevac doctor. He rides along with the pilots to go pickup patients, all children, and stays with them during the flight back to the hospital. Dr Vince recently flew on one mission to collect a girl in Costa Rica. Dr Vince knew the pilot and says he was a really great guy. The whole company is in mourning today and all flights are grounded.

It's a damn shame when anything crashes, and especially poignant one when the people who died have dedicated their lives to saving people. There are many ways to save people, and most of them do not involve pointing guns at other people.

Take a moment today to thank any of these people you should happen to cross paths with.

The Snake Turns And Bites

Three young children of a Palestinian intelligence minister were murdered along with their adult chaperone in a botched assassination attempt today. The father, Baha Balousheh, was not in the vehicle, as gunmen came alongside and pumped over 60 bullets into it.


Balousheh is part of the Fatah party, and although Hamas has denied involvement, the government has stopped just short of officially blaiming them. What, Hamas kill innocent people? Never! Hamas responsible for civilians and children being murdered? No way, not Hamas!

The shooting came a day after gunmen opened fire on the motorcade of Interior Minister Said Siyam of Hamas. Siyam's car was not hit and there were no injuries.

Retaliation. Cycles of violence begetting more violence.

You simply cannot allow vipers to live in your midst. Parties of terrorists to run the government, what did anyone expect but scores of innocent dead children?

Chelsea 1 Arsenal 1

In a London derby today (any time both teams are from the same area, it's called a "derby" but pronounced "darby"), North London team Arsenal nearly beat the moneybags of Southwest London, Chelsea.

Arsenal controlled the game and were far more cutting in their play, while Chelsea just consistently seemed to have 10 men behind the ball on defense, snuffing out every Arsenal attack. Every one until Matthieu Flamini dinked one in from near the 18 yard box. It looked like the winner until Michael Essien crushed a perfect shot from about 35 yards out and curled it into the upper corner of Jens Lehmanns' goal.

I used to loathe Arsenal, but all those old time assholes are not on the team anymore: Patrick Vieira went to Juventus, Martin Keown and Ray Parlour retired (they should've gone to prison), Sol Campbell is God knows where, and Ashely "I'll suck anything for a buck" Cole moved to Chelsea. Cole was unhappy and insulted when Arsenal offered him a paltry $110,000 per week wages. He had no choice: he had to move to their crosstown rivals. Good one, Ashley, you're a real inspiration for all the young kids out there watching footy.

The only person left to hate on Arsenal is Jens Lehmann, the big, arrogant, occasionally brilliant, generally cheap-shot specialist. Lehmann is the only keeper to have been sent off 6 times! I don't hate Arsenal anymore, and today I was actually cheering them on, hoping to cause Chelsea's title ambitions further derailment.

Joseph Palermo On Kirkpatrick, Friedman and Pinochet

I was still fuming over the distortions and lies being written about Pinochet and Kirkpatrick, about how some of their ideas and policies were really benevolent and far-sighted, gifts to the people of the world, instead of the excessive rapaciousness or pure heartlessness that they were.

In the Huffington Post today, Joseph Palermo nails those two alongside that old gasbag Milton Friedman, here.

Soon after the coup in Chile, information began to leak out that the Nixon Administration had ordered the CIA to engineer the coup that toppled Allende and installed Pinochet, and that ITT corporation had given the Nixon White House $1 million toward this end. The Church Committee report of 1976 exposed the embarrassing details of the operation, which included economic sabotage, political meddling, assassinations, financing of street gangs, and military coordination between the Chilean armed forces and the CIA.

Palermo sums it up with:

Friedman was responsible for the Pinochet regime's economic theories, Kirkpatrick created the geo-political framework, Kissinger engineered the coup, and Pinochet provided the muscle. They were a great team that will not be missed.

Fuck Castro, Too

Soon old Fidel Castro will also be a memory. Who knows what will happen in his wake, but if the Cubans don't rise up and demand a democracy after his death, then maybe they don't deserve to have one.

Small human rights celebrations/vigils/protests occured today in Cuba, and were predictably busted up by government goons.

Let's hope that when Castro is finally worm food, the democracy that will spring up will be a little bit better than ours, which until this last election, appeared to have been as bankrupt as Castro's own rule.



I had a Margarita for lunch and it's affecting my sentences, apologies!

Pinochet Dead

All the great war-criminals of the 70s and 80s are dying, providing some measure of satisfaction to their victims. We had Jeane Kirkpatrick last week, and Augusto Pinochet today.

Pinochet seized power from the democratically elected Salvador Allende, a leftist leader long opposed by us free-trade, free-speech types in America. The CIA claims their hands are clean, that they had nothing to do with overthrowing Allende, and if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell ya!

Why would the US get involved in Chile's politics? The Cold War, don't you remember? We couldn't have any country elect their own leaders if those leaders were not going to bend over and take it in the ass from US business. It evidently did not matter to anyone how many people were tortured, murdered, or "disappeared" by Pinochet's goons.

But it does matter. It boggles the mind that people were mourning Pinochet's death, just like it staggers the mind that people support Bush or any other fascist who trammels civil rights. Don't these fuckwits see their own names on the list, albeit a little further down?

Soon after Pinochet's seizure of power, soldiers carried out mass arrests of leftists. Tanks rumbled through the streets of the capital, and many detainees were herded into the National Stadium, which became a torture and detention center. Other leftists were rounded up by death squads, and the "Caravan of Death" to Chile's forbidding Atacama desert left victims buried in unmarked mass graves.

Chile's government says at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during Pinochet's rule, but courts allowed the aging general to escape hundreds of criminal complaints as his health declined.

Epitaph for Jeane Kirkpatrick

Former US Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick died at home recently.

She was famous for not only being the inamorata of Bill D. Cat of Bloom County, but also for switching from being a "liberal" Democrat to a Reagan Republican.

What did that meann in practical terms? This article on her passing casually sums up a cornerstone of her legacy thusly:

In the Reagan years she played a quiet role in cutting off U.S. aid to a leftist government in Nicaragua and supporting a military junta in El Salvador.

A quiet role? Maybe it should have read,

"Kirkpatrick siphoned away money from a legitimately-elected government seeking to rid their country of foreign oil oligarchs who had been exporting Nicaragua's wealth for decades while the local population grew poorer, hungrier and ever-increasingly backwards. Her support of a military junta in El Salvador created the notorious Death Squads that raped, pillaged, burned villages and murdered with almost no self-control. Kirkpatrick's actions caused one government of the people to collapse, and another run by military dictators to flourish, while on all sides, civilians, children, nuns and other non-combatants were raped and murdered."

Wonderful work, there, Mrs Kirkpatrick. That's really the legacy one would hope for, as a "lifelong Democrat" and "champion of human rights."

[switch Irony OFF]

Neal Stephenson Was Here

Super giant cruise ships may become the wave of the future. An article by AFP today notes the head of the French Cruise Federation is planning a new line of cruise ships:

The next generation of liner will contain 1,700-seat theatres, shopping malls and even wave pools for surfing and be up to about 410 metres long.

A floating city...what a novel idea. Except of course Neal Stephenson wrote about such things in his 1992 novel "Snow Crash." Stephenson also went to great lengths to try and explain how in the "future" people would lead most of their lives in "virtual reality" rooms and would socialize through a giant web of interconnected computers.

Sounds like hooey to me.

NYC Banker Is Meth-Head

An article in the NY Post today details how a Citibank executive built a meth lab in his spendy loft.

Here's my question: what is so wrong about manufacturing your own drugs? This guy, Knibb, made only enough for his own use. He bought the chemicals on the "internets" and made the meth himself, assuring it was at least as pure as could be expected, no criminals/gangs/drug dealers got any money, no street crime was enhanced. In short, what's the difference between making beer at home or making meth?

Man Utd 2 Middlesbrough 0

Okay, let's call a spade a spade: Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd) was not touched by Mark Schwarzer (MBoro), so it was clearly a dive. Ronaldo went down without any contact whatsoever, Louis Saha converted the penalty, and United sealed their win later on with a Darren Fletcher header. These things happen.

My question is, if the FA can go back and review match tapes to determine if players should have been red-carded or merely yellow-carded, and if they go back to review incidents missed by match officials (which they do all the time), why can't they go back and at least issue a booking to Ronaldo?

True, my team benefited from this referee error, but diving has got to be kicked out of the game. Sometimes Ronaldo is brilliant, and sometimes he reminds you he's just a spoiled 21 year old brat.

Uh... Mr. Bush, Your Ignorance Is Showing

Today the AP reports that comically-mustachioed obstructionist goon John Bolton will "resign" his position as "ambassador" to the UN. The Bush Death Cult clearly mistook the term "ambassador" to mean "stooge," when Bolton was given a recess appointment (i.e., an end-run around Congress).

Well, Bolton, let me give you the facts, since you are as clueless as your erstwhile employer. First, you were never truly an ambassador because you were not sent with the approval of your country through the Constitutionally approved method of having the people's representatives (i.e. Congress) agree to send you to do their work. Instead, you were sent as a purely vindictive gesture, a slap in the face to the minority party and the 50% of America they represented, and to the concept of the UN itself. Bolton, you miscreant, you were the only "ambassador" ever sent to the UN without the support of Congress. Ever.

Bush read a statement expressing his barely-controlled rage at the audacity of Congress to question Him. In part, it read:

"They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time," Bush said. "This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation."

You got that half right, Bush! What you should have said was:

"I realize now that I am only an elected President, and not an anointed King from the Old Testament whose every whim shall be obeyed without question. My disruption of the US's diplomatic work ill-served this nation. My stubborn refusal to allow the minority party to have a seat at the table has certainly discouraged men and women of talent from serving their nation, as they could no doubt fail to want to serve under such a reprehensible leader as myself."

Freddy Adu And Manchester United

17 year old American soccer phenom Freddy Adu has completed his 2 week training spell with Manchester United. The result? Due to UK labo"u"r laws, United will have to wait until June, when Adu is 18, to sign him.

Some commentary on this, from me, is that Adu is nowhere near the talent he's let on to be. Bear in mind Adu was training with the youth academy, not the first team. There have been several American players who've had similar signings and have not broken into the first team or even the reserves.

Two Americans who did see some first team action were Tim Howard (gk) and Jonathan Spector (defender). Howard is now on loan at Everton, and Spector is on loan at bottom-of-the-table Charlton.

Adu is good, sure, but he's more marketing than anything else. He has never proven influential in a game for DC United, is not their match-winner, is not their playmaker, and does not have any sort of record for goals/appearances. In short, they call this "hype."

More power to Freddy and to US Soccer, but the early hype has gone to his head. He will never break into the first team at United. Never. He is too small, for one, and just doesn't have the vision or touch. Stature is not that much of a problem when you're a striker (witness Zola, for example) but as an attacking midfielder it's a total liability. Paul Scholes, Man Utd's holding midfielder, is only 5'7" but he's made of steel and bricks compared to Adu's 5'3" frame. And Scholes is a complete master of football. Hate to say it, but Adu is not fit to clean Scholes' spikes.

If Adu was not good enough to make it to the US World Cup camp, how good can he be? For fuck's sake! Did you see some of the guys in our camp? Yikes.

'nuff said.

World AIDS Day is December 1

AIDS has killed over 40 million people. Parts of Africa and Asia are up to 70% HIV infected. Condoms could prevent millions of deaths but religious "leaders" refuse to advocate their usage.

Children are born with AIDS.

Babies have been raped in Africa through the fucked-up belief that this will cure AIDS.

Families have been decimated.

Communities have been torn apart.

Do something. Make a donation to an organization that helps these children living with HIV, SOS Children's Villages.

Mostly, speak out. AIDS can be stopped. If you ever hear anyone say AIDS is some kind of divine retribution, or you hear someone say condoms are bad - SHOUT THEM DOWN. This is ignorance that is killing people. This is ignorance that has killed millions of innocent people.

There should be no tolerance for this type of head-in-the-sand stupidity, as preached by Bush and his idiotic minions. I have actually heard people say sex education and condom usage promotes promiscuity. Even if promiscuity was the only net result, so what? Promiscuity is not pregnancy, and it's not disease (life-threatening or otherwise). The Bush doctrine would rather have you die than allow you to have sex.

It's hard to be rational when you are presented with such colossal ignorance. Add to the list of idiots the Catholic church and their ban on birth control. Middle Ages were great, but come on, Church, GET WITH THE FUCKING TIMES.

Robert Dreyfuss' Epitaph On Bush, Cheney, Iraq and the Neo-Con Agenda

Writing in TomPaine.org today, Robert Dreyfuss explains the importance of the Iraq Study Group's findings, which will be formally announced on Dec. 6. Among some of his observations:

Stripped of its diplomatic weasel words, the ISG’s recommendations are a stunning blow to the administration of George W. Bush and everything it stands for.

Adding insult to injury, the policy will be carried out by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, a former member of the ISG, who will purge the Pentagon of neocons, Rumsfeld loyalists, and assorted other extremists.

And the final coup de grace:

It is, however, too late to stop the bleeding in Iraq. Six hundred thousand dead Iraqis later, the United States will depart from Iraq leaving behind a nation whose citizens will be struggling to rebuild their society for decades. The U.S. invasion of Iraq is a war crime of the first magnitude, an illegal war that destroyed a nation that had never attacked the United States, that did not have any weapons of mass destruction, that did not have any ties to al-Qaida, that had no connection to the September 11 attacks, and which—at the start of the war—was a small, impoverished country with a decimated army. The civil war in Iraq may indeed get worse, and it may last for years. Each and every one of those deaths will be on George W. Bush’s conscience—if, in fact, the Bible-thumping hypocrite has any conscience left.

Kiana Alford Is A Hero.

This 18 year old woman is the star witness in a hate-crime beating that occured in Long Beach on Halloween.

Ms. Alford is testifying to put up to two dozen teenaged black girls and one boy behind bars for their unprovoked, vicious assault on three white women (aged 19, 21, and 21). The three victims were going to a haunted house, when they were suddenly pelted by lemons and pumpkins and then jumped. At least 8 assailants beat each victim, hitting them in the chest and face with skateboards and causing broken bones.

The assailants are charged with 3 felonies each with a hate-crime enhancement, which should mean an additional 10 years.

When Ms. Alford was scheduled to go testify, she found 6 black gang members sitting on her car, prompting police escorts. The defense shitheel/ass-licking/soulless/cowards/attorneys refused to allow Alford to testify anonymously. So this young woman has the courage to testify against these horrible people who nearly killed 3 innocent women for no reason. How easy it would have been for Alford to "forget" what she saw, but Alford is no coward, unlike the assailants. Ms Alford has placed her own life in jeapardy (sp?) so that these victims will see justice.

Ms. Alford is an inspiration, God bless her.

Nice Going, Assholes!

The LAPD responded to a gun/hostage complaint and ended up shooting to death a 19 month old girl. She was being held in the arms of her deranged father, Jose Pena. No doubt the LAPD had a tough call here, but the subsequent investigation has showed that one officer fired on his own authority at the retreating Jose, and that created a turkey shoot with 13 officers emptying their weapons at him.

Shouldn't a bit more caution have been exercised to save the life of the baby?

I know it's ridiculous to suggest the LAPD uses excessive force, or that cops, for that matter, are trigger-happy.

It's even more ridiculous to bury a 19 month old baby with bullet holes in her.

Bye Bye First Amendment!

As far as the Amendments to the Constitution goes, the First is kind of a namby-pamby one, and who's going to miss it when it finally utters its last death rattling gasp and collapses into a grave freshly-dug by Newt Gingrinch?

Gingrich gave a speech in Manchester saying that "we" will need to "re-examine" First Amendment freedom of speech rights in an age when terrorists might exploit our rights (huh?) to harm us.

All we can say is, it's a good thing Newt's current wife isn't sick with cancer, because he might run out on her too, the way he ran out on his first wife, yes, while she was dying of cancer in hospital. Newt Gingrich: stalwart of American values and decency; a role model for our children. As far as we're concerned, Newty-newt should shut the fuck up about telling others how to live, go find a hole somewhere, crawl in, and die.

Also, the Supreme Court has helped paved the way for further trammeling of reporters' right to keep sources confidential. This allows the government (ours) to go through reporters' phone records and emails to determine who they were speaking to, in violation of the law that allows reporters to refuse to testify, and in so doing, forcing the issue to be decided by a court whether the information they are protecting warrants more threats (jail time) or not.

An end run around the Constitution! Nice play, Supreme Court!

Christians Say: "Screw the Poor!"

Okay, not exactly, but the Christian Coalition recently decided to "part amicably" with their president-elect, Rev. Joel C. Hunter, because he was trying to bring an agenda including reducing poverty and fighting global warming.

Both of those are ridiculous ideas out of step with American Christians, as everyone knows, because it's well documented in the Bible how Jesus loathed the poor and spent all of his time instead lounging around posh hotels in Damascus, worrying about his stock portfolio and glad-handing bankers and capitalists.

At least Rev. Hunter is on the right track, hats off to him.

Cannavaro Wins European Footballer of the Year


Do we have to rehash the 2006 World Cup? Yes, the Italian blues won but with displays that were neither inspired nor inspiring. Cannavaro captained this lacklustre side to victory, capped off memorably by shitbird Matterazzo goading Zinedine Zidane into nutting him.

So cut to Cannavaro playing for Juventus, but then Juventus ensnared itself in a match-fixing scandal and was relegated, and bye-bye to Cannavaro. Yes, he captained them to two Serie A championships, but those were fixed matches! - as evidenced by Juventus being stripped of its titles, fined and relegated! Don't cry for him though, Italy, because he landed on his feet at Real Madrid.

Yes, Real Madrid, where he's been unspectacular in every match and has seen himself get subbed off to avoid complete humiliation.

And he won the European Footballer of the Year award. The main cool thing about this is that he's a defender and they almost never win the award.

Donkey King!

The Democratic donkey is back on top after taking it from the man for the past 12 years.

Prognosticators gave a cautious guess at possibly retaking the House and making inroads in the Senate. The actual result was nothing short of the Republicans being handed their asses to wear as hats.

The Senate is the big win, however, as Democrats will now chair all committees, which means they will set the agenda. Do you think the Republicans will get away with whitewashing Bush's legacy now? And how pleasurable was it in the immediate aftermath to see Bumsfeld thrown out, especially after Chimpy swore that Rummy was there for as long as he was? Priceless!

The most disturbing things about this election were:

1.) Cheney stating in an interview that torture is a "no-brainer" if it can save lives.

2.) Bush saying that a victory for the Democrats is a victory for the terrorists.

The first comments just shows what a soulless ghoul Cheney is. Tortue is simply inhuman and unAmerican.

The second comment was laughed off after the election by Bush who said words to the effect of, "that was just campaign talk." So, during a campaign, the leader of the government can categorize the entire opposition as terrorists? Now that Bush and his bunch of fuckwits have caused a tidal wave of animosity against their neo-fascist agenda, how about some apologies?

Let's see some investigations happen, with Fitzgerald at the wheel. That guy takes no shit. Let's get an independent counsel to datamine the Bush family, the way Ken Starr raided the Clintons. Let's see what mass graves he can dig up.

Bush is looking more and more like Nixon 2.0 as the days go by.

Fox Pulls Back From the Brink of the Abyss

Unable to withstand a huge public outcry, despite how much money they would have made, Fox has agreed to pull the plug on the 2 part OJ special: "How I Cut My Ex-wife's Head Off, Oh, and Killed Some Random Guy Who Took An Interest In Her...Not."

The one thing that really struck me as bizarre was the fact that all 4 of OJ's children were okay with him writing this book and filming this "special."

Truly distasteful.

American Cars Still Suck

Imports won all 13 spots on the "safest" list this year. Is it any wonder Ford is going tits-up?

Want to know how to save an ailing car company? Build a hybrid/electric car that looks cool. They will sell like gothcakes.

G.O.P. To Be Handed Own Ass

Republican leadership is bracing for a severe ass-kicking in Tuesday's election. Optimistically they admit that losing 12 seats in the House and 4 or 5 in the Senate would be a good thing. However, a former lieutenant to Newt Gingrinch said recent polls show the GOP will lose more like 25 seats in the House.

With this election, 12 years of Republican dominance will come to an end. This era of two-faced moral hypocrisy will be over. The NRA will be banished from doing their death business in the Oval Office. The public lands will again belong to the public.

Seriously, if all the polls show the Dems making huge gains, and when the votes are tallied these gains had better happen. If there is some sort of black box Diebold shenannigans this time, our country has been stolen and we are living in a dictatorship. There's no other way to put it.

An excerpt from a New York Times article:

Joe Gaylord, who was the political lieutenant to Newt Gingrich when he led the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, said that based on polling he had seen in recent weeks, he expected his party to lose 25 seats to 30 seats on Tuesday.

Bloody Hypocrite

Why do so many closeted gays spend so much time railing against homosexuality? Why do the closeted gays in Congress vote against themselves and their friends? And why do preachers sermonize on the evils of being gay, when, like Ted Haggard, they (are alleged to) have secret gay affairs? Ted Haggard is the nominal head of New Life Church ministries (14,000 members) and is president of National Assoc. of Evangelicals (30 million members) and he is GAY GAY GAY. Admit it. Ted Haggard had a 3 year homosexual relataionship with a prostitute and did meth while having sex.

60 or 400 or 12,000?

On the way to my underground bunker this morning, I heard a report on NPR that in Iraq, 60 US soldiers were killed and 400 wounded this month alone. And today is only the 18th.

This goes well with that really awesome Army ad, where the dough-faced father sits his buzzcut son down and says, "today when you got off the train you did two things you've never done before, at least not at the same time..." You know, it's selling the idea that the Army can take some young punk and turn him into a MAN. Well, for 60 sets of parents this month, maybe having Junior shake your hand and look you in the eye isn't such a big fucking deal after all, is it?

No one is belittling the cost of war, least of all people like me who have been dead set against it from Day One. The thing that makes me nauseous is these pernicious, shitty little TV ads that keep selling the idea of a glorious military career to impressionable kids.

Don't join.

Let the rich send their sons and daughters.

Let them reinstate the draft.

Watch what happens when the powerful as well as the weak have to watch their children return home in bodybags.

I guarantee you this war would be over in a fortnight, the minute people like Bushie would actually have to fight and risk their lives, not just report (or not) for duty at an Air National Guard unit.

This war, like all wars, is being fought for the interests of the privileged elite (private contractors, oil companies, Halliburton subsidiaries, war profiteers on Wall Street, et al) yet the ones who pay the costs are the poor.

Mom and Dad can't afford college, and Junior has aspirations, so maybe enlisting in the military will get him/her that college education... It's just way too sad.

Think of the 2 and 1/2 billion dollars a month we spend on the Iraq war. What would our country be like if we had decided to spend that money here, fixing this place? We'll never know. The Dow Jones IA went above 12,000 today, proving again that war is good business.

Don't for a second believe that those in power give a shit about anything other than money.

60 killed. 400 wounded. 12,000 on the stock market.

Republican Ties To Mordor Exposed

The GOP is in some serious deep-shit lately.

Disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham, shady lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Machiavellian hitman Scooter Libby, disgraced Congressman Bob Ney, sex offender/disgraced Congressman Mark Foley, disgraced Congressman/Sauron's righthand man Tom DeLay etc., and all this right before an election.

There's getting to be so many of 'em, I have to write their names down to remember 'em all.

The GOP is falling apart. They are literally imploding under the gravity of their own two-faced bullshit. And who is this cocksucker who compared the sexual predation by Mark Foley to Chappaquiddick? (Isn't that some dumb Harry Potter game?) Is this shit for real, they really expect the Democrats to cower over an incident 37 years old? Republicans: you're cooked, done, finished, kaput. November will see you shitbirds lose control of (hopefully) both houses of congress, and gone will be Sauron's dominion over America. (You've done it, master Frodo!)

2007 will be the year we start Congressional Hearings on Impeachment, and the year in which US troops pull out of Iraq.

To quote D. Boon and the Minutemen: "dreams are free, motherfucker."

Terry Lloyd, British Journalist, Killed By US Forces

A coroner's report lists the death of journo Terry Lloyd as a war crime. Read it here, from an AP story. In short, Lloyd and 4 wounded Iraqis were loaded into an ambulance, which was then fired upon by US forces, and Lloyd was shot in the head and killed.

ITN cameraman Daniel Demoustier, the sole survivor of the incident, told the inquest ITN's two four-wheel drive vehicles were overtaken by a truck carrying Iraqi forces and that gunfire erupted.
Demoustier, a Belgian, said he jumped from the flaming car and lay in the sand, waiting for the shooting to stop. Demoustier said he tried to stand to signal U.S. tanks in the area but they resumed firing at the clearly marked ITN vehicles.

This incident goes next to the one where another journalist was shot and killed on live TV while delivering a report, by US forces in Iraq, and down a bit from the incident of US forces murdering a girl's family so they could rape her and then kill her too.

Possibly the critics are right, when they say the troops are behaving like drunken cowboys. I say, who the fuck is in charge over there? Someone needs to be held accountable for this shit, and fast. These heinous incidents tar all the troops with shit.

The situation continues to go from bad to worse. Read the American Friends Service Committee's (named by Borat?) "10 Reasons Why The U.S. Must Leave Iraq," here.

Particle Decay Penguin

The standard model (SM) of physics predicts that the B meson mixing phase should be measured at nearly the same rate using different decay modes. The well-known "penguin" diagram that shows the movements of the quarks, "proves" this. However, recent measurements have shown a huge discrepancy, so what the hell?! Read it here, from PhysOrg.

From the article:

"Without making any hadronic assumptions, we have shown that it is impossible to explain within SM the observed discrepancy in [the B meson] mixing phase measured using the [two] modes," Sinha et al. wrote in their study.

Saturn Looks Foxy!

The Cassini spacecraft has taken a series of new photos of Saturn that show the gas giant looking hot and dressed to the nines.

England Get Stuffed

Today in a qualifier for Euro 2008, England got stuffed by Croatia 2-0. This is the new and improved England side under Steve McClaren which was supposed to shake off the cobwebs and passionless displays that had become the norm under Sven Goran Erickson. So far, England went goalless in the first match and now suffered a loss. Not too auspicious.

The Euro Cup is largely a better competition to watch than the World Cup, aside from the usual towering displays from Argentina and Brazil.

The problem with England's side, then as now, is that both managers have picked "star" players and then given them non-starring roles. You can't have Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) and Frank Lampard (Chelsea) in the same midfield because they both play the hero role for their clubs. On England, they just get in each other's way.

At least Scott Parker (Newcastle) has finally gotten a richly deserved call-up to the England side. Anyone who has seen a Newcastle game recently or even last season (prior to his injury) knows that Parker is one of the hardest working and most creative midfielders in the land. I would have also selected Kevin Nolan (Bolton) and Kevin Davies (Bolton). And yes, Peter Crouch (Liverpool), the "giraffe on roller skates," has potted 11 goals in something like 14 games, but why not inject some pace? I would have selected Andy Johnson (Crystal Palace) to the side to replace or sub with Wayne Rooney (Man Utd), who seemingly can't find the net with a map. Like a gambler on a cold streak, Rooney's mojo is just down. Get him on, then get him off the pitch before desperation takes over.

A lot of England's frustration comes from their belief that the English Premier League is the greatest football league in the world. Since the rules were changed in the early 1990s and foreign players were allowed in, the league has become far more competitive, but at a cost: there are fewer teams lead by Englishmen. For instance, the north London team Arsenal fielded a team made entirely of non-English players in 1999. And they were great. But when you take away the foreign stars like Henry, Drogba, Shevchenko, Ballack, Mido, Saha, Reyes, Fabregas, Morientes, Garcia et al, you are left with...

2-0 to Croatia.

Norwegians Bring Ancient Sea Monster Back To Life!

Well, not really, but they did find the remains of a short-necked pliosaur that had a head 2 meters long and teeth the size of bananas. They have some great artist renditions of what this monster would look like gobbling up prey, just go here.



Billy Bragg - Man For Our Times

The Bard of Barking is on tour and graced Hollywood last night with his fiery set. As Billy said, he's been coming to California for 22 years now, can it really be that long? During his set, he said how getting together a crowd of like-minded people can recharge everyone's batteries and how it can defeat cynicism. Billy Bragg fans are out to change the world. If you are even a casual fan, go see him. His show was incredible. Funny, disarming, engaging, fiery - what a show.

Thanks to Hector at Epitaph for hooking us up!

The only new material Billy Bragg has is a hardback book called "Progressive Patriot," a look at being English in a time of multiculturalism. There is also a pair of box sets with remastered albums and bonus tracks for $70.

Oh, Now You've Convinced Me, Condi Rice

The poor, sad, deluded, intellectually dishonest Right wingers have their panties in a twist over Clinton telling a Fox interviewer, basically, to go suck it. Read about Rice's counterattack, here, which would have made a disinformation specialist like Dr. Goebbels particularly happy.

The only problem with Rice's comments is they are completely false.

Total fabrications. It's a documented fact that Bush held zero (0) meetings of his terrorism advisory board in the 8 months prior to 9/11.

The Faces of Evil

Today in the News, former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers is heading to prison, and former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow got handed a 6 year prison sentence stemming from his indictment on 98 charges. 98 is kind of a pussy number. Two more crimes and he could have had a respectable triple-digit indictment, but it just helps prove the point of what an incompetent asshole Fastow is.

Read about these faces of evil here (Ebbers) and here (Fastow).

I think it's more than telling that Fastow was denied the chance to turn himself in "at a later date" and was immediately taken into custody. What were they worried about, another disappearing act like the one pulled by Ken Lay? Lay either killed himself or they buried a coffin full of rocks, but either way, Lay did not die of natural causes.

Remember to quote those two shitbirds above whenever anyone is talking about American capitalism. Is that fair? Of course not, but is it fair when the other side cites Marx and Stalin everytime someone mentions universal health care? Two wrongs do not make a right, momma used to say, but that second wrong can be sure be a kick in the pants.

Marijuana, Part II.

[taken from a NORML newsletter]

Marijuana Arrests For Year 2005 -- 786,545 Tops Record High Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 40 Seconds

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 786,545 persons for marijuana violations in 2005, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 40 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent some 696,074 Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

"Present policies have done little if anything to decrease marijuana's availability or dissuade youth from trying it," St. Pierre said, noting young people in the U.S. now frequently report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.

The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2005 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since the early 1990s.

"Arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade. During this same time, arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, implying that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

St. Pierre concluded: "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers between $10 billion and $12 billion annually and has led to the arrest of nearly 18 million Americans. Nevertheless, some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals for their use of a substance that poses no greater - and arguably far fewer - health risks than alcohol or tobacco. A better and more sensible solution would be to tax and regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco."

YEAR MARIJUANA ARRESTS

2005 786,545
2004 771,608
2003 755,187
2002 697,082
2001 723,627
2000 734,498
1999 704,812
1998 682,885
1997 695,200
1996 641,642
1995 588,963
1994 499,122
1993 380,689
1992 342,314
1991 287,850
1990 326,850

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500. For a comprehensive breakdown and analysis of US marijuana arrests, please see NORML's report: "Crimes of Indiscretion: Marijuana Arrests in the United States," at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6411.

Willie Nelson Smokes Pot

73 year old stoner Willie Nelson got busted by some supersleuth cops down in Louisiana. On board Nelson's tour bus they found 1 and 1/2 pounds of marijuana, and 2/10 of a pound of mushrooms, according to this report.

My first question is, how long does 1 and 1/2 pounds of pot last Mr Nelson? That guy sweats pure THC. Still, a normal college stoner would buy an eighth of an ounce, and that would last a couple weeks. So imagine 8 of these baggies equalling an ounce, and then multiplying that by 16 just to make a pound. That's a lot of weed.

Second question, who measures mushrooms in tenths?



R.E.M.

REM are officially sanctified, read it here.

REM are legitimately one of the greatest bands, ever.

"What A Week I'm Having!"
---Dr. Kornbluth, Marine Sciences/Crypto-zoologist

Just like Eugene Levy's character in "Splash!" I've had a rough week. Has it really been 5 years since I was woken up by my mom with an early morning phone call and told to turn on the news? I remember watching the 2nd plane hit the WTC live, and I remember feeling like suddenly the fabric of "reality" had been ripped away and I had seen something that couldn't exist. It would have been like suddenly seeing the sky disappear and seeing a giant man with a white beard tinkering with clockworks that powered the universe revealed.

My mind stopped working. I was dumbfounded. The feeling was only exacerbated when the first tower suddenly folded in on itself and I watched (what I thought was) 10,000 people die in an instant. When the 2nd tower went down I remember thinking, "this is the Apocalypse."

Do you remember those first days and weeks after the attacks? I remember crying for those New Yorkers, for those travellers on the planes, for those shlubs at work who were murdered. Only later when I learned of the cops and firemen who knowingly charged up the stairs of doomed buildings and were killed by falling debris, falling bodies, roiling smoke - did I realize I had underestimated the calamity.

Yet the bravery of those people stood out the most in my mind. I never, for even a moment, thought that whoever was behind these attacks had "beaten" us. I never for a second believed that this would be a catalyst to drive further wedges between Americans. For a few days, maybe even weeks, America felt like a family. I wondered about the futility of working in Hollywood, of writing fiction, of caring about silly new bands, of honking at slow cars, of not registering that all of those people around me were actually real with real lives.

September 11th changed all that.

I also remember feeling united. I felt we were at an historic moment and if we had been asked as a nation and as a people to participate in a Great Plan to right the wrongs of the world, I think we all would have done it. If Bush had gone on television and announced that every American needed to send in a check for $10,000 to help the suffering of the world, we would have done it. We would have had the Will, and that would have shown us the Way.

Instead, Bush squandered his golden moment. He blew our good will. He whored out our sense of duty and patriotism. He fucked us. He turned us against each other more than any other president ever had done. He made us hate each other like no one else has ever accomplished. He manipulated and used the events of that day to propagate an agenda that had nothing to do with the attacks.

It was if someone had walked up and punched a friend in the nose, and someone said, "give me your car keys, I'll chase that guy down and get him." So you handed over your car keys and waited. Later on, you found out that instead of catching the guy who socked your friend on the nose, the guy who borrowed your car actually went out and got drunk then went drag racing and finally drove your car into a drainage ditch. And then sent you the bill for the tow truck.

For 5 years I have been fighting this boiling rage when I think of those attacks and then what Bush has done with our sense of unity. We are spending over 8 billion dollars a month on this war in Iraq. It's a war that we know was based on multiple lies. The people who killed those New Yorkers and Washingtonians on 9/11 are still at large. We know for a fact that Bush's reluctance to commit the right number of troops allowed the murderers to escape in the siege of the Tora Bora compound.

He fucked us again. Now Bin Laden exists like an Orwellian bogeyman. He is trotted out any time Bush's poll numbers sag. He is used to cow us, to frighten us into being We The Sheeple. Fear is our daily dosage.

I spents some time watching all of the video links of 9/11 footage on the Truth Dig website, which is here. Of particular merit are 3 links on that page: 1.) David Letterman's speech on his first night back after the attacks, 2.) Jon Stewart's speech on his first night back, and 3.) a quad-split assemblage of images happening in real time of the WTC attacks with the real time footage of Bush arriving to read to that elementary school class.

As you watch this footage, you must remember that Bush was told by a Press Aide as his limo caravan pulled up that a jetliner had crashed into the WTC. As he got of his limo, Bush was pulled aside and Karl Rove repeated the information. So before Bush even went inside he knew that horrific loss of life had just happened. This is not the 7 minutes that he sat there looking like a deer in the headlights, as documented in the "Fahrenheit 9/11" movie. Watch this clip. It will make you boil with anger.

This clip demonstrates why you don't elect a moron to be your leader. It shows why you don't allow someone with a negligible intellect to be commander in chief of your armed forces. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you need to have a leader who is capable of grasping the meaning of events and knows how to sort information and make decisions. Bush clearly, obviously, painfully was demonstrated not to be this person.

Listen to the other clips, and hear a man trapped on the 105th floor beg for the fire department to hurry up and rescue them and then watch in horror, as the tower begins to collapse and you hear the man scream and then the call is cut off. The man had young kids at home. Watch other people leap to their deaths. My friend Alex has a friend who lost his father on one of the planes that crashed into the WTC. Where is justice for this son? Watch horror beyond comprehension and then recall that Bush's incompetence allowed these murderers to go free. 5 years later and Bin Laden is still a free man, the hunt for him given up so that he could settle a score against Hussein.

I have not lost that sense of belonging to something large and beautiful. The concept of an America with shared values still lives, despite the Republican efforts to tar their opposition as cowards, appeasers, terrorists, Nazi sympathizers, and traitors. Republicans have used all those terms to describe Democrats, and I'm not talking about the man on the street; these are elected congressman and senators who've used this rhetoric. I for one am sick of this bullshit. It's no longer acceptable to allow these lies to fly around unchecked. Any time someone defends the Bush record or attempts to label a critic as unpatriotic, remember those thousands of dead killed on 9/11. Remember the families they left behind. And when you remember, let that anger boil up and then rip the veil of delusion from those person's eyes and explain all of the ways Bush failed, lied, fucked up, and botched the job he was trusted with.

This November, turn the Republicans out of office. Our democracy has been attacked. Not by Bin Laden but by the Bush cult who have sought to strip away our freedoms and liberties, who have engaged in torture, hiding suspected militants in illegal overseas prisons, illegal wiretapping, paying the press to write favorable stories which is the same as censoring the press, curtailing free speech and intelligent debate by labelling the opposition as traitors and so on. They have not won. They have not succeeded in turning this America into a free-market version of a totalitarian theological society. We are better. We are stronger.

It's now your duty to use your democratic freedoms to bring this country back from its strange delusion.

Read the following piece by Keith Olberman and try to use his example.

Thanks,
Paul


Keoth Olberman - 9/11

This hole in the ground

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

Sept. 11, 2006 | 3:19 p.m. ET

The Passing Of Jeff Corwin

Who would've thought that the Crocodile Hunter would have gone down to anything but a crocodile finally having had enough of his antics and deciding to snap the good-natured Aussie in half. Corwin died last week from a stingray barb to the heart while filming "Oceans' Deadliest" which, from the title alone, you'd think would require a certain amount of caution. Corwin's avuncular good-guy persona was also a bit of a show-off and constantly trod the line between animal science and stunt show tomfoolery.

Would people have tuned into "Animal Planet" without Corwin's personality and hard work? Have these same viewers, his audience of millions, learned something about animals and the planet that they will use to, say, save the planet? Was his show about an outdoorsy Aussie wrestling crocs or was it science? Was Corwin completely unable to tell the difference? I mean, after all, this is the guy who nearly 3 years ago held his infant son in one arm while feeding a fucking crocodile chicken with the other. That is just plain fucking stupid. Maybe this stupid streak was wider than we expected.

Either way, Corwin's passing is noted with sadness. I was always uncomfortable with Corwin's propensity for molesting animals in the wild and getting right up in their grills with no safety gear. To me it always seemed to be about Corwin, not the animals, which is probably the exact opposite effect he was hoping for. Like that psycho in "Grizzly Man," you knew a bad ending was around the corner anyone who starts thinking these wild, dangerous animals are cuddly toys.

Hopefully Corwin's legacy will be one of conservation and environmentalism.

Hey Rumsfeld: Suck It!

Do you feel sad for the mummy? Keith Olbermann delivered one of the most impassioned, articulate and deadly accurate excoriations of Rumsfeld's poisonous leadership. It's been the talk of the liberal pussy Hollywood town I willfully live in. If you haven't watched this yet, here's the link, from Crooks And Liars.

Keith Olbermann is the sort of person that makes the GOP sheep tremble in fear. If you've been losing faith in journalism, KO might restore some faith.

That stinking rotting corpse on two legs, the undead Rumsfeld "reached out" to top Democrats in Congress in a letter trying to mollify them for remarks comparing war protestors (or those opposed to Bush's shitheadedness) to the appeasers of the Nazis. The Democrats' response? Suck it, Rummy. Read it here. They are planning a no-confidence vote to force his resignation.

Just keep it together, Democrats, all the way to the November elections. We regain the House, make gains in the Senate, and then we impeach Bush & Cheney, force Rumsfeld to resign, throw Bolton to the wolves, toss Wolfowitz to the boltons (eh?), and instigate criminal charges against this gang.

Unless Osama Bin Laden shows up right before the election... What a split decision that would be! Obviously we all want him brought down but can you imagine the GOP crowing about it? YIkes.

80* at Midnight

Last night on the way home from Spaceland it was 80 degrees outside, at midnight! Now imagine yourself inside Spaceland with 400 of your closest hipster pals with no A/C... It was like wrapping up in a wool blanket and sitting in a sauna.

The occasion? To watch Midnight Movies in their new lineup and then close with Darker My Love. Midnight Movies now features the drummer/singer as a singer with a new drummer (good move) but their show seemed firmly rooted in early 80s Siouxsie & The Banshees territory, a la "Juju." Not necessarily a bad thing, but, ah, familiar.

Darker My Love did not look the part. Their music is a garage cacophony of psychedelic noise. When a guy walked on stage with a knit hat and a foot long beard, looking like the captain of a fishing trawler, it caused puzzlement. Not against the beard, though. A knit hat in 120 degree heat? That's fucking maniacal. The drummer also needs to sort it out, pronto. He can choose 1 of the following options he was rocking: 1. horn-rimmed nerd glasses, 2. beefy tattooed arms, 3. knit hat, 4. long stringy hair. And the final snarky comment goes to the singer: dude, get a clean shirt! I don't want to start thinking about laundry when I'm watching your band. He was rocking an inside-out dirty "white" v-neck shirt, and the thought that the dirty side we were seeing was the inside of the shirt, uh, hey man, Cobain's fucking dead, and so is the dirty junkie thing.

Anyway, Bryan, Charles, and Marcus, critics all, seemed generally chuffed on the show. Both Midnight Movies and Darker My Love are the resident bands Monday nights at Spaceland this month, get off yer lazy asses and go.

THE FUCKING WORLD CUP IS OVER.

After so much hope and expectation, the 2006 World Cup has at last ended, new winners have been crowned, new heroes and new villains have been minted, and the cup itself ended not with a bang, but a headbutt.

The Cup was not without its controversial moments. Take your pick. Was it the un-fucking-believable 16 yellow cards handed out in one match by some dickless referee who mistakenly thought everyone was there to see him reach into his pocket?

Was it the head-hanging shamelessness Portugal displayed in every match? They earned more yellow card cautions than any other country. Don't forget to add that clip of Holland's Arjen Robben getting a cleated boot in his chest that spun him around - and no whistle! - when you tally up Portugal's crimes. The funny thing was Holland was the side that got dinged for being so thuggish. Just goes to show you that when the partisan knives are out, no one is safe from being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Or was the most controversial moment when Wayne Rooney stomped Carvalho's nuggets into the ground and THEN had his Manchester United teammate Cristiano "Someone Fucking Punch Me In The Face" Ronaldo ran 30 yards to beg the referee to give Rooney a straight red card? Rooney's play sunk the Good Ship England. It was some consolation when Germany dismantled the hapless, diving, cheating Portugal side in the 3rd place match.

Sticking with the Portugal theme, was it the headbutt delivered by Luis Figo that went unpunished (although spotted on replay, just like Zizou's famous sending off moment), or was it Big "Idiot" Phil Scolari not starting Figo in his final match but then subbing him in at the 75th minute, coincidentally the exact moment Portugal looked like a real team?

There were plenty of fucked-up moments to go around, including entire matches stifled and bungled by over-zealous or incompetent referees. The USA v. Italy match comes to mind, when 3 players were sent off. How is this shit possible? If you watch an entire season at club level you might witness 2 or 3 red cards in 40 matches. This World Cup was showering reds and yellows like there was a bounty paid each time a card was flashed. Ridiculous!

Or what about the Togo dipshits refusing to play unless they were paid $34,000 each? They made it to the World Cup finals and then held their country hostage. What a bunch of shits. Glad to see them crash out.

Don't forget English referee Graham Poll giving one player 3 yellow cards. That was rad. I remember Poll sucking mightily from some of his performances in the EPL last year. That dude never saw a foul on a United player, isn't that odd?

The England Hype Machine crashed to an ignominious end, and with it, Beckham's hopes of every lifting the Cup. For all the bullshit thrown around by fans of the EPL, it became obvious pretty fast that the England side did not have the bottle when they squeaked out victories due to Beckham freekicks and Peter "Bambi" Crouch yanking some rastafarians' dreadlocks illegally. Michael Owen broke his shit yet again, and is anyone surprised and does anyone care? For his remarkable goals tally, Owen sure is one boring-ass player to watch.

Last but not least, President Zizou pissed away millions of dollars and hearts full of love by headbutting the (clownish goon) Materezzi. Go to YouTube and watch a clip reel of Materezzi being a violent thug. What caused Zidane to lose his shit in the biggest game of his career? Who knows, but that little shitweasel Materezzi got to lift the trophy at the end of the match, so that's all that really matters. Zidane was getting fitted for his alcove in the church of football, and now he's out on the sidewalk with the rest of the punters, although, if "Cokey" Maradona can be lionized, why not Zidane.

The final between France and Italy was anything but a classic. For the tenth or twentieth time this cup, the better team did not win. Anyone who says Italy outplayed France is Italian, full stop. France just couldn't put the fucking baguette in the basket. Not that the Italians were bad but they possessed none of the wizardry or beauty of past Cup winning Italian sides. To their credit, however, there were no Row Q shots from the penalty spot, a la Baggio.

The Italians were at times brilliant but mostly merely workmanlike. They ground out their victories by absorbing attacks and unleashing deadly counters, like in the match against Germany. Almost nothing is better than watching that prize-winning douchebag Jens Lehmann get scored on, and the 2 that got past him that night were real beauties. Luca Toni emerged as a new hero, as did Fabio Cannavaro who single-handedly kept the Krauts out of the net. Maybe this Italian side had the fewest number of bonafide stars but they did get the job done.

We also saw many countries get their first taste of the finals, including a plucky Australia who only got dumped out of the tournament through some blatantly shitty diving, Italian style. Tim Cahill famously came off the bench and netted 2 goals in a matter of minutes. Of course, pony-tailed shitbird Harry Kewell had to have a go at a ref, but that's primadonnas for you. They should be proud of how far they got and equally bitter that they were beaten by treachery, not talent.

The Asian powerhouses proved to be anything but, although when Japan was up 1-0 on Brazil it was a moment of awesome beauty, and you didn't even have to like sushi to feel pride in that accomplishment. Anyone who saw the Korea v. France game knows that France won that match by a shot on goal that was a good 2 feet over the line, but the modern technology of instant replay was unavailable, so they settled for a draw.

The weak showings by Asia and then the early exits of all South American teams is further grist for the mill that says Fifa should restructure their qualifying groups or something.

There were also some stinging defeats and general ass-kickings handed out, like Argentina's 6-0 rout of Serbia-Montenegro and the USA's limp-dick display against the Czechs. No one is going to fear us if we continue to play such boring, predictable, powerless football. Maybe that's as far as Arena can take a team, because he sure did not appear to know what the fuck was going on when it counted. Playing Jones with a yellow? Not using our subs when we were down to 9 men? What the fuck!

Now the Cup is over and I have no life. European leagues start up around August 19th, and unless C. Ronaldo is on his way to Spain, I'm not watching Man Utd this season - I can't bear the aggravation. A month with no football...

Iraq: We Are So Fucked

Hmm, let's see, which of the following statements is untrue?

1. The Iraqis will greet us as liberators.
2. The insurgency is in its last throes.
3. We have to fight the terrorists in Iraq so we don't fight them here.

Answer? All three are untrue.

To add to the growing glory of our impeccable reign in Iraq, last week a platoon of US soldiers raped an Iraqi girl then murdered her and her family, single-handedly demolished every last shred of good will we had engendered in our nation-building imbroglio. The wire services report that American soldiers cased an Iraqi family in a city south of Baghdad for a week,then broke into their home, raped the girl, burned her body to "cover up" the crime, and finished it off by slaying the other three members of her family, one of which was a child.

Spin this, you motherfuckers.

What's Brit Hume, Tony Snow, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly got to say about this? Will Rush say it's just another example of frat boy hijinks, like he said when the Abu Ghraib atrocities were finally brought to light?

It's over, folks. We have to get out of Iraq, now. We have had over 2,500 US soldiers killed and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 Iraqis killed. And for what? To "fight terror?" That's ridiculous. This must be repeated: Iraq and Hussein had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. Nothing.

The ones who were responsible, the Taliban in Afghanistan, are back in control of the country. We have abandoned the people of Afghanistan and have allowed those evil Taliban fucks to take over again. Heroin production is at record high levels, for those of you who are junkies out there, and you can thank Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld for the flow of horse.

As a footnote, this war debacle in Iraq has cost the US taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars now. That's like maxing out every credit card offer you ever got and suddenly, next month, the bill is due with a staggering interest payment. Goodbye and good luck to your future.

World Cup

Germany 2 Argentina 1

France 1 Brazil 0

England 0 Portugal 1

Italy 3 Ukraine 0

The healing power of foosbal was put to the test during the Germany v. Argentina match. And also during the England v. Portugal match. And a few others.

In particular, after Germany won on penalty kicks, a mob of Argentine players rushed the German coach and subs and fists and kicks flew. Sore losers. Although Germany did not have as much flair, the Argentines did not exactly "deserve" to win, nor was the match stolen out from under them. Rather, Argentina was undone by some crap coaching decisions. Pekerman decided to use up his subs and sit on a one-goal lead with 20 minutes to play, a strategy that proved catastrophic.

Germany equalised in the 80th minute and left Argentina with their thumbs up their arses because they'd taken off their playmaker and goalscorer (Riquelme) and put on a defender. During the pk shootout, Jens Lehmann came up with a couple of huge saves, which are now called into controversy because he had written notes on the Argentine kickers tucked into his socks, telling him which way to leap for each kick.

When England took on Portugal, it had high hopes of being an electric clash, since the 2006 England side had been touted as the "best since 1966" which was, incidentally, the only time England won the World Cup (in controversy).

In the 51st minute England skipper David Beckham had to come off after a shitty challenge from behind by Nuno Valente, which went unpunished. The only consolation for the teary Beckham is that he didn't have to be one of the penalty-takers who would later send England home on the next flight.

During the match Portugal again failed to do anything of note besides dive repeatedly. I've lost all respect for this Portugal team and I hope France eats them alive in the next round. A scoreless 120 minutes resulted in a pk shootout. England had a nightmare day as Ricardo stopped kicks from Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, and Jamie Carragher. Only Owen Hargreaves converted.

The match was marred by further controversy not only for the foul on Beckham, but then for a handball in the box that also was not awarded. Instead of thinking of it as a harsh decision, think of it as a harsh rule. But a rule nonetheless. The defender ran at Beckham and raised his hand into the flight of the ball. It's a penalty, plain and simple.

Minutes later, Wayne Rooney struggled through repeated fouls by 3 Portugal players and then stomped down on Carvalho, a curly-haired cunt who looks like Paulie Shore gone to seed. Cristiano Ronaldo immediately ran over to the ref to felate him to give Rooney a red card sending off, which he did. The 3 other United players on the pitch were not happy with the young twat Ronaldo. Rooney saw red and with him went England's hopes and dreams.

World Cup

More upsets. I am really doing poorly in my online pool. Where once I rode high in 2nd place, now I am not even on the first page!

Today's results:

Spain 1 France 3

Ghana 0 Brazil 3

Some have said Ghana outplayed Brazil in the first half, but that's almost like saying a hockey team should be graded on their pirouettes. Fuck Ghana. They lost, get 'em the fuck off the pitch and send 'em home! I am still incensed over their bullshit play against the USA. They did not deserve this match.

France has suddenly found form, however, and dumped heavily-touted Spain out of the Cup. Spain was playing beautiful football but as soon as it gets to the knockout stage, bam!, they get knocked out. France's talisman Zizu came through and led his team to victory. I don't think France is going to have the bottle to take on Brazil, although in '98 Zidane did knock two past the Brazilian goalie, so anything is possible.

And as I said before, my predictions have been wrong 6 out of the last 8 matches!

Impeachable Offense: Crimes Against The Constitution

The Senate Judiciary Committee today heard testimony regarding Bush's "signing statements" which have allowed him to ignore parts of laws he doesn't like. Their finding? Bruce Fein, testifying, said,

Citing Bush's behavior as "alarming," Fein suggested that the President could be impeached for "political crime(s) against the Constitution."

Here's the link, found by Buzzflash.

World Cup

Ghana 2 USA 1

Fuck Ghana. They played like a bunch of pussies. Their soccer team should be rechristened the Diving Team. Granted, USA did not show the form they were capable of and we just couldn't score, but Ghana goes through after a fairly shameful performance. The only solace will be watching them play Brazil, who will destroy them 5-0.

The USA did at least show up for this game. We had a blinder of a goal, Beasely pounced on some slack Ghana play and ran down the left flank, whipped in a cross left-footed all the way through the box, and Dempsey ran onto it and volleyed it into the back of the net from 18 yards. It was a tremendous goal. Because this game was a must-win for the USA, we needed 2 goals to advance. Seeing this, Ghana just sat back and played the ball around the back. And herein lies the difference between true sport and pussies. A country like Brazil or Argentina will continue to attack the goal even when ahead, because that is what makes soccer beautiful. That is what the world expects. Ghana sat back and tried to run down the clock. Any time a USA player came near them, they fell to the grass clutching an ankle/shin/foot as if shot by a deer rifle. On replay you could see that there was minimal, if any, contact.

It seems all Ghana wanted to do was advance even if it meant playing without any honor and showing the world they're a bunch of shitty players. Brazil will destroy you, and you will deserve it.


Portugal 1 Holland 0

This match was a spectacle of poor sportsmanship and pathetic refereeing. Fuck Portugal. My, how they celebrated after their win, but anyone who watched this match without Portuguese blood in their veins will have seen a bunch of bloody cowards running about the pitch who would stop at nothing to win. Holland dominated, but, as is so often the case, football is not about possession and only the goals tally really matters. There were half a dozen blatant fouls on Arjen Robben that went unpunished. The Dutch coach does have a lot to answer for, despite playing a bunch of jackasses. At the end of the match, there stood Ruud Van Nistelrooy, one of the finest strikers in the world and one of the most clinical of finishers to have ever played the game - in a substitute's vest. Why play Kuyt ahead of Van Nistelrooy, who has proved himself at every level of this game? Holland is out, I guess the plan worked like a charm.

World Cup

Man, it has been tough to get any work done since the World Cup started, with there being 3 matches per day. Soon there will be 4 matches per day, and it's all I can do to avoid knowing what the results are before I get home at night to watch them on the DVR.

So far things have gone mostly as I predicted. As proof, I am #3 out of about 50 in a football pool. The ones I got famously wrong so far have been the USA v. Italy match (had to give our boys the psychic nod), and I expected a couple of wins that turned into draws, including today's England v. Sweden match.

England 2 Sweden 2
With this result, England finishes top of the table and Sweden finishes 2nd, so both advance to the round of 16.

What have we learned so far about England's play? First, they have taken 3 matches to hit anything approaching top gear. Joe Cole has emerged as the only bonafide star so far in the squad.

We've also seen England cheat twice. Once when giraffe on ice skates Peter Crouch pulled the braids of the guy marking him, which allowed Crouch to get a head on the ball and score a goal. That's cheating. Twice when Jamie Carragher used his hand in the box to deflect a goalward bound shot, which would have given the Swedes a 3-2 win. Both teams would have qualified, so cheating in this match seems just lame.

USA v. GHANA
We have our 3rd match on Thursday, kick off at 7am. In our group, Italy is on top with 4 points, then the Czechs with 3 points, and we've got 1. If we beat Ghana, that will give us 4 points, and if Italy beats Czech Republic, that will result in:
Italy 7
USA 4
Czech Rep 3
Ghana 3.
We will advance to the 2nd round with Italy under this scenario, but Ghana will surely be fighting for pride and won't give us an easy match.

Other amazing matches so far:

AUSTRALIA
has really emerged as the best of the new boys, totally surprising some of the more skeptical soccer fans, although I had them pegged as making it out of their group. This could still happen. They lost only 2-0 to Brazil, a team comprised entirely of superstars. No easily done, so hats off to the Aussies.

WORLD CUP UPDATE

CZECH REP. 3 USA 0
The big match so far was Monday's matchup between us and the Czechs. We haven't played them since 1990, and that match ended in a 5-1 drubbing. We did better, but only by fractions in this 3-0 rout. It would be cause for despair if the USA had played their best game and really taken it to the Czechs and still lost by 3 goals. Instead, the USA looked slow, lethargic and uninspired. We got beat to many 50-50 balls, no one slidetackled or got stuck in, we never exerted ourselves or imposed our fitness and physicality on the opposition. Key players like Brian McBride, Bobby Convey and Landon Donovan were all but missing. There was one breakaway chance when Donovan had only 1 person to beat and he was pulled down cynically. Besides that chance, Donovan was invisible. Eddie Lewis had a few good shots and even captain Claudio Reyna had a chance screw wide and hit the post - any of which would have turned the momentum of the match and given us a needed lift. This is not the time to hang our heads. We still have 2 more matches, against Italy on Saturday and then Ghana a few days later. The USA team knows they didn't show up. They know they are a much better team than what the world saw on Monday. Let's give our lads a boost and keep believing.

Go USA!

World Cup

USA v. Czech Republic
At 9am on Monday, the USA will take on the Czechs in their opening match of the World Cup. The only other time we have played the Czechs was in 1990 when we were shitty and they drubbed us 5-1. That is not going to happen this time, as we are a different squad with different tactics. We're a lot better. I predict a 2-1 scoreline where the USA emerges as winners.

I have an extremely cool employer who has allowed me to show up for work after the match - thanks Amy!

Other matches:


England 1 Paraguay 0
England were balls in their opener. They won on an own-goal created off a David Beckham free kick. England, who is being touted as the team to beat, barely overcame a draw and did it on a free kick. They looked sluggish and were unimpressive aside from the excellent Frank Lampard who tested the keeper a couple of times with long range efforts.

Mexico 3 Iran 1

First, it must be said, the Mexican national soccer team is not very good. They had our number for decades as the only team in North America that could qualify for the World Cup, but we've been kicking their asses for the last 10 years, and that shows no sign of abating. They played a lacklustre Iran who couldn't figure out how to string 2 passes together. It was an easy match but even so, Mexico still gave up the ball far too often in non-pressurized situations. It would be great to knock them out of the tournament again, as we did last time, but I doubt Mexico is going to make it out of the group stages. Second, I hate the Mexican team because their fans are assholes who hold up photos of the Twin Towers burning and chant "Osama" during matches, so fuck 'em.


Portugal 1 Angola 0
The best player on the pitch was Luis Figo, 33 years old. He showed the other stars like Pauleta, Tiago and Ronaldo how it's done. Figo is a world apart. Ronaldo was pants, showboating like a trick pony, as is his wont. He did have a header bounce of the crossbar, to his credit, but how many wasted crosses does it take? Portugal's couch took Ronaldo off the pitch at the 59th minute, something Ronaldo's club coach, Alex Ferguson, never has the balls to do.

Holland 1 Serbia 0
Holland simply outclassed the Serbs. Van Nistelrooy, Van Persie, and Von Bommel just kicked ass over the likes of Mateja Kezman. Holland has always brought tons of skill but just can't seem to get it together in the tournament. I'd like to see them advance.

Sweden 0 Trinidad & Tobago 0
Okay, Swedes, you really fucked this one up. T&T acted like they'd won the World Cup by getting a point off you. Larsson and Ibrahimovic need to practice placing their shots, as they fired about 6 straight into the arms of Shaka Hislop, making him a God back in his home country. The Swedes looked a whole fuck of a lot better than England did, though, so when the two nations face each other my money's on Sweden.

Argentina 2 Ivory Coast 1
It's easy to get warm and fuzzy over Ivory Coast since the decades-old civil war has been temporarily called a truce since they qualified for the World Cup. Granted, soccer has the power of true healing. That said, Ivory Coast's entire plan consisted of lobbing the ball over the top to Didier Drogba, famous for recently admitting he dives when he can. Eric Cantona would kick his ass if he could! Drogba did well for himself and netted IC's only goal. Argentina had a number of chances turned aside. I don't know if Argentina has the squad this year or not, but I doubt it. They do have the cocaine fiend Maradona in the stands, so they've at least brought moral support. Argentina will advance.

Poland 0 Ecuador 2
The Poles fucked up and underestimated their opponents who have only been to the World Cup twice before. Ecuador made the most of it and made the Poles pay on set pieces. I pegged Ecuador as taking this match so I was not surprised. What is surprising is that this Poland team beat England in a friendly. Ecuador will advance.

Reminder: USA plays tomorrow. I predict us taking it 2-1. Bobby Convey and Landon Donovan will get on the score sheet. Go USA!