The webcam is back! I kept having some sort of problem that would force me to reformat my hard drive and I got too lazy to put everything back up the way I had it. Today I got all my little ducks in a row and managed to get that sucker setup again.
Monthly Archives: June 2002
02
Jun 02
Crimmins quips
I love Barry Crimmins too. He’s the king of incisive one-liners.
- Marijuana is a very dangerous drug. Some people smoke it just once and go directly into politics.
- The Pentagon’s so greedy it has an extra side on its building.
- An angry audience member asked, “If you don’t love this country, why don’t you get out?”
Barry replied, “Because I don’t want to be victimized by its foreign policy.”
- There’s a nickel’s worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans. If you put a nickel on the table, a Democrat will steal it from you.. and a Republican will kill you for it.
- What a coincidence, Kaiser Ashcroft endorses the FBI de-emphasizing white collar crime right when the court-appointed Bush Administration is up to its armpits in charges that it consists of nothing more than fixers and apologists for obscenely corrupt corporations.
- Look at the bright side, if Bush and Cheney wrap themselves any more tightly in the flag, they’ll suffocate.
- On Memorial Day John Ashcroft is going to lay a wreath at the grave in which he recently buried the Bill of Rights.
- What’s more shocking? The fact that Bush knew something or the fact that Bush knew anything?
- Bush’s shamelessness is boundless. He lectures Cuba, speaking from a stolen office in which he stonewalls vital information, is at the beck and call of nefarious special interests and works as a cheesy hawker of photos commemorating a disaster that might have been averted had he half a brain, even a mild work ethic or a staff interested in doing anything but furthering his corrupt regime’s dastardly assault on peace, environmental sanity and human rights. Yet he feels not an inkling of embarrassment as he browbeats a country he’s trying to starve about how it can become moral enough to find its way into his good graces. Trouble is, George W. Bush is neither good nor gracious.
- In a Sunday FOX NEWS appearance Cheney said, “I’ve got a real problem with the suggestion that somehow my president had information and failed to act upon it to prevent the attack of Sept. 11.” Well at least he finally admitted to whom Bush belongs.
02
Jun 02
More great Al Martin
If you don’t read Al Martin’s website you should. He’s a former government insider turned crusader. I try to drop by once every few weeks. He doesn’t update very regularly, but its always wonderful and ironic.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, the TNT channel had what they called the “Salute to George Bush Movie Marathon.” Included in the list of movies they played as a salute to George Bush was “Enemy of the State,” Conspiracy Theory,” “Air America” and “Double-Crossed.” The over-arching theme was that TNT was obviously trying to be tongue in cheek. The underlying message is that George Bush is linked to all sorts of nasty illegal covert deeds. Here are the movies, in other words, that portray the Bushonian form of government — movies about the surveillance society (Enemy of the State), mind control (Conspiracy Theory), State-sponsored drug trafficking (Air America) as well as fraud and backstabbing (Double Crossed).
02
Jun 02
Intelligence failures
According to Newsweek, the CIA tracked hijackers around the world and into the US before September 11 suggesting that the CIA should have done something to stop the hijackers. I agree with this, but is the point to criticize the police state in order to give it greater power and authority? I hope not.
02
Jun 02
The Politics Of Wealth
From The Connection radio program:
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Guest: Kevin Phillips, author of Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
- Listen to the show here in Real Audio
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and a fat wallet too. The American dream has always included the right to invent or to invest oneself into the well-padded life of the moneyed class. But now, author Kevin Phillips argues, the dream has turned to nightmare, and democracy itself is at risk.
The last twenty years has seen one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in history, and it didn’t happen by accident. Government has been seduced and successfully bedded by corporate interests.
The result is a dangerous love child called Plutocracy and a system that bends over backwards to provide the rich with tax breaks and special concessions, while leaving millions of poor Americans hanging without a safety net. Free markets, free reign, free people?
01
Jun 02
Sounding like a true fascist
In his speech before the graduating class of Westpoint, George Bush eerily echoed the dynamism of his Fascist and Nazi predecessors: “We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge,” Bush told the cadets, who listened pensively on West Point’s football field as their parents applauded robustly from the stands. “In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.”
I live for the day when Bush is gone, like Clinton before him, relegated to the dustbin of history. Where are the real leaders? That is one of the things I most object to about Bush, his spinelessness and lack of character. Everyone pretends he is not completely worthless. How much can you really believe in someone who doesn’t write any of their own speeches and who reads off of a teleprompter? He is nothing but a fraud.
01
Jun 02
Did I mention I love trivia?
I love this one the most:
- Rene Descartes, the French philosopher, speculated that monkeys and apes have the ability to speak but stay quiet to avoid being put to work.
But these others are good too.
- Hero, a greek engineer, invented a primitive steam engine about the time of the birth of Christ. It is used today as a rotating lawn sprinkler. (Who knows how history would’ve turned out differently if it had been developed further?)
- The female anglerfish is six times larger than her mate. The male anchors himself to the top of the females head, which is where he will stay for the rest of his life. The fish quite literally become one. Their digestive and circulatory systems are merged. Except to two very large generative organs and fins, nothing remains of the male.
At first, male deep sea anglers are free swimming, with large eyes, no rod or lure, and no digestive tube. Their skin is smooth. When a female and male meet, the male grips her skin with his teeth as usual. From this moment he begins to degenerate. His eyes grow smaller and are eventually lost. His skin becomes spiny and around his jaws it fuses with the female’s skin leaving a small hole on each side of the mouth which water is drawn for breathing. His blood vessels join with those of the female and he is fed from her blood circulating through his body. Meanwhile, the male grows in size and he grows a large testes. The rest of his internal organs disappear. He is now a part of the female deep sea angler!
- Charles Magne, early King of France, was the greatest warrior knight of his time, stood 6 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighed almost 275 pounds. He had extremely muscular arms and legs, was the finest hunter and rider at his court, and could kill a man with a single blow of his fist. Yet he spoke in a voice so high and squeaky that his contemporaries compared it to the voice of a twelve year old.
01
Jun 02
Biker rally
This weekend hundreds of bikers and Harley enthusiasts have descended on our city for the Republic of Texas Motorcycle Rally. I’m enjoying the sight of bikers rolling zooming around Austin in groups of varying sizes. Whenever I see groups of people on motorcycles it always makes me think of the Mad Max movies. I enjoy that.