text:
Who's losing Iraq?
Karl Rove has got to be nervous.
The man who last year advised Republican candidates to "focus on war" is finding out that the Bush doctrine of pre-emption cannot pre-empt anarchy.
Now, General Rove will have to watch Democratic candidates focus on war.
- - Maureen Dowd.
Posted by maru at 8/30/2003 10:50:00 PM 19 comments Links to this post
The GAO's final Energy Task Force Report reveals that the VP lied to Congress
Dick 'Chicanery' Cheney and his cronies/ 'big-dollar contributors' in the Energy Task Force -
The straight arrows at GAO were no doubt horrified that the Vice President of the United States, who is the Constitutional presiding officer of the U.S. Senate, would deliberately mislead the Congress with such blatant misinformation.
Being nonpartisan, they refrained from accusing the Vice President of this crime. But as their Report shows, they included evidence that makes the crime evident for all to see. They also provided evidence of what the motive for the crime was.
The Report quietly - but tellingly - notes that the Vice President's team "solicited input from, or received information and advice from nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists." (Emphasis added.)
In other words, if the Vice President is not trying to cover up the fact that he met with big energy interests - including past contributors - and allowed them a large role in settling our nation's energy policy, why all the secrecy ? That is what other observers have suspected - and what has been rumored from the beginning. Thanks to Cheney's obfuscation, we still can't know for certain. Yet thanks to GAO, we do now know for certain that he lied to Congress to cover up something, and there is little doubt in my mind as to what he is hiding.
- - John Dean.
Posted by maru at 8/30/2003 12:11:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Man dies after attack on testicles
Sap snuffed after sac squeezed
A woman in Cambodia has given herself up to authorities after accidentally killing her husband in a scuffle in which she squeezed his testicles until he fainted, a newspaper reported Friday.
Saut Chin, 46, was fed up with physical abuse from her husband when she grabbed his testicles until he passed out in the incident Tuesday, the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported.
Fearing that her husband, Ouch Yan, 52, might regain consciousness and start beating her again, Saut Chin tied his neck with a scarf to a bed, the newspaper said.
The exact cause of Ouch Yan's death was not known.
Ohhhh...kay.
Posted by maru at 8/30/2003 11:55:00 AM 0 comments Links to this post
I don't have a rich daddy to fix me a job, you punk
Lying bungler Smarmy McGolfcart plans to travel to three states next week to talk about job growth and the economy.
After spending nearly all of August partying and golfing at his Texas hideyhole, Bunnypants will travel next week to three Bush-friendly states - Ohio, Missouri and Indiana - to discuss his job growth agenda.
On Monday, the vacuous smackhead will be in Richfield, Ohio, to speak at an operating engineers training center. After a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday to sign free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore, the smirking boob will visit Kansas City on Thursday to talk about the economy. His week concludes with an economic speech in Indianapolis.
Then it's party time!
Meanwhile, this week we were told that our company is going to be sh*tcanning a few thousand employees, that we can kiss raises and merit increases goodbye, and that a good part of our benefits have gone down the crapper. So excuse me if I think the fascist lying punk is blowing happy-smoke out of his ass.
Hello, Newman
Please welcome Nathan Newman back to the blogroll!
Caddy day at Bushwood
BLAZING HELLHOLE, Tex., Aug. 28 - Indolent dictator-tot Emperor Snippy invited the White House presstitutes to his arid fleapit, Rancho Fabricato, Wednesday night for a poolside barbecue and a tour. The catch? The White House required that the conversations be off the record. So we may never know who the flaming dipsh*t was who bleated "I miss you!" to the lying fascist punk.
- - WaComPo.
Dumberer and dumberest
Why Americans are ill-informed and why Bush loves it that way
The American people may not all be as sophisticated as, say, Brit Hume, but they're smart enough not to sit still while someone force-feeds them a daily dose of b.s. Why even bother tuning in for McNews when you know it's all lies? It's no surprise that statistics show 270 million of us don't play along, whatever our reasons. Some of us are blissfully apathetic, others too dumb to realize how bad things are. But that still doesn't satisfactorily explain these 270 million people -- nearly 10 times the number who do tune in.
I suggest that a large, and growing, core of that vast majority are not tuning in because they've become completely disenchanted with the media and political system. Further, they are finding more reliable places to get their news besides a daily newspaper that offers 4.5 pages of it or a TV newscast that rewords White House press releases. The old huckster's adage works: If people aren't getting what they want (in this case, honest journalism), they seek it elsewhere.
- - from Alan Bisbort's column.
Mad cowboy disease
"Well, my message is that -uh- what your loved one is doing is the right thing for the country. We -we- are called upon to defend the United States of America. I take that oath and every soldiers (sic) take that oath and -uh- on 9/11 our world changed. And we realized this country is vulnerable and we better do somethin' about it. And the best way to secure the homeland is to get the enemy before he gets us."
- - War deserter/lying phony pReznit Privilege takes a break from partying to talk with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services, 8/03.
Gassing his own people
According to last week's report from the agency's own watchdog, the White House began pressuring EPA scientists to soft-pedal their concerns days after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Political considerations trumped credible scientific concerns. The draft EPA news release for Sept. 13, 2001 warned that "even at low levels, EPA considers asbestos hazardous in this situation." But by the time it passed through the White House, it soothingly declared that this "short-term, low-level exposure is unlikely to cause significant health effects." Another draft, for Sept. 16, was similarly rewritten to say asbestos levels were "not a cause for public concern."
- - from the LA Times.
"President Bush's economic team is now on their 'Jobs and Growth' bus tour all across America. I think the only job they created so far is for the guy driving the bus."
- -Jay Leno.
Fistfuls of dollars
"[E]ven the government of a superpower can't simultaneously offer tax cuts equal to 15 percent of revenue, provide all its retirees with prescription drugs and single-handedly take on the world's evildoers - single-handedly because we've alienated our allies. In fact, given the size of our budget deficit, it's not clear that we can afford to do even one of these things.
"Someday, when the grown-ups are back in charge, they'll have quite a mess to clean up."
- - Paul Krugman.
"You can't keep the Democrats out of the White House forever!"
- - Sideshow Bob
I got this the other day -
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
Thanks, whoever you are.
"Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German."
- - Bill Maher, on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
(thanks to Susan!)
Dear Clear Channel:
[Toby] Keith took a long pause to consider his words, and then added: "I was for Afghanistan, 100%. We got struck and the Taliban needed to be exterminated, but this war here, in Iraq, I didn't necessarily have it all worked out. It didn't work out for me. I know a tyrant is gone and all of that, but whether it was our duty to go do that, well, I haven't figured that out."
Am I still allowed to listen to Toby Keith now that he is a traitor? I mean, if I listen to him, don't the terrorists win?
- - thanks to MWO.
A frantically spinning White House
"Plainly, no matter how White House political guru Karl Rove spins it, the administration doesn't know what it is doing. It doesn't understand the Middle Eastern people or their history. It doesn't know how to pay for a war that will be much longer and more bloody than they projected in their arrogance. It doesn't know what to say to American soldiers stationed indefinitely as sitting ducks. Now that terrorists have answered the call of the president to "bring 'em on" it doesn't know how to stop them."
- - from an editorial in the Berkshire Eagle.
Schwarzenegger's sex talk
Bringing honor and dignity to the CA governor's mansion
Orgies, drugs, and homosexuality - a 1977 interview, at The Smoking Gun.
A condom stuffed with walnuts
Computers were out all morning again.
Blah.
Bush Cartel blaming Saddam for providing the misadministration with "false arms information."
"It wasn't our fault!": Bushies still refuse to take responsibility, blame for WMD lies
Frustrated at the failure to find Saddam Hussein's suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have launched a major effort to determine if they were victims of bogus Iraqi defectors who planted disinformation to mislead the West before the war. - - LA Times.
Fun fact: Lying bungler Smarmy McBombypants is expected to ask Congress for $11 billion-$15 billion to continue reconstruction in Iraq.
The Bush Cartel Crime Family
Halliburton, Dick 'dick' Cheney's "former" company, could make hundreds of millions more dollars than earlier disclosed for services such as maintaining Iraqi oil fields under a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract, according to documents surveyed by the newspaper. - - CNN.
"September 11th was the biggest security failure in American history and it was George W. Bush who neglected the issue and was the president that failed. The right is trying to blame President Clinton and Democrats generally for the lapses of the Bush administration. Bush has spent his whole life ducking responsibility, having his father's friends cover up his escapades and advance his career and portfolio, and having a political machine blame others and make excuses for his incompetence while hailing him as a great leader. But it's Bush who bears the responsibility. The buck stops there."
- - Sidney Blumenthal, from The Weekly Standard vs. BuzzFlash.com and Sidney Blumenthal: Part I, at BuzzFlash.
Great moments in television
Aaron Brown interviews Al Franken on CNN:
BROWN: For example, do you really believe the president lied about weapons of mass destruction?
FRANKEN: I believe that there's questions to be asked about that.
We have to ask, what did the president know? And if not, why didn't he know it?
Did the president understand his intelligence briefings? And if not, why didn't he ask someone to explain it to him?
And if he didn't understand them, did he know that he didn't understand them?
I mean, there is just, it's -- yes, I think that the White House was lying.
- - CNN Newsnight.
Graven images, continued
"Get your hands off our God, God haters!"
- - microcephalic douchebag, to workers moving the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building to an "undisclosed place" in the courthouse this morning.
"At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words." - - Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
'Bring 'em on!' Bunnypants vows to send your children off to fight and die
While he vacations, raises millions of dollars for himself in champagne shakedowns.
Vietnam war deserter/callous, partying fundraiser Smirky McAWOL vowed Tuesday there would be no retreat from Iraq, even as the toll of dead U.S. soldiers since May 1 rose to 141, surpassing the number killed during the six weeks of major combat.
The stakes, the gutless simpleton said, "could not be greater for the American people," adding: "Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York or St. Louis or Los Angeles."
Yeah, thanks. What a complete and utter tool. Iraq had NOTHING TO DO WITH TERRORISM until he went in there with guns blazing and left the country in ruins. Meanwhile, he's still alienating the UN and the countries that could be helping us. Good call, dipshit.
When fascist punk Simian Stinkysox declared an end to major combat on May 1, during an outrageous photo-op on the aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego, the American toll stood at 138 killed during the invasion of Iraq.
By Tuesday, 141 more had died, bringing the total to 279 troops killed since the war started on March 20.
Unprepared for peace in Iraq
"The president's stubborn insistence that much of the world be shut out of real participation in the rebuilding effort in Iraq is obviously costing lives. In addition, it is costing the United States credibility in Iraq and around the globe. We promised to improve the quality of life, yet so far we have failed to deliver. As a result, increasing numbers of Iraqis see the United States only as occupier, not liberator.
"Instead of giving the young people of Iraq a reason to turn away from the violence of terrorism, we have, through failures and unkept promises, fed the seeds of discontent. The inability of the United States to secure the peace in Iraq virtually guarantees al Qaeda a fertile field of new recruits." - - hero/patriot Sen. Robert Byrd, Tuesday, August 26, 2003.
Heros and patriots
Moveon.org has raised almost $1 million via the Internet and within days will launch a national ad campaign featuring the Texas senators, said Glenn Smith, spokesman for the Internet group. He said the TV, radio and print ads will be different outside of Texas. There will be a broader national message accusing republicans of trying to steal elections (thanks to MikeB, via email).
Lights, camera, exploitation
That's Our Bush! The pResident's re-election campaign kicks off with a shameless 9-11 docudrama
by J. Hoberman, in the new Village Voice:
In the end 9-11 turned out to be a made-for-TV movie, or rather, the basis for one—a shameless propaganda vehicle for our superstar president George W. Bush.
The upcoming Showtime feature DC 9/11: Time of Crisis is a signal advance in the instant, ongoing fictionalization of American history, complete with the president fulminating most presidentially against "tinhorn terrorists," decisively employing the word problematic in a complete sentence, selling a rationale for preemptive war, and presciently laying out American foreign policy for the next 18 months.
And it's NOT A COMEDY!!
Iraq: cakewalk enters fifth month
Fox News copywrites 'objective, impartial, unbiased, accurate and correct'
England: spin doctors rushed to Blair's bedside
Cheney: 'secret plan' to solve energy crisis
Schwarzenneger: hasta la vista specifics
Commemorative stamp to honor berserk postal workers
Consumer Sentiment Falls Unexpectedly in August
Cautious pessimism gives way to guarded despair
Stocks Surge to 14-Month High
Thanks to small investors buying securities with unemployment checks
Russian Gov't Takes Over Polling Firm After Poll Shows Russians Don't Trust Putin
Bush following story closely
- - Ironic Times.
Feds to profile all U.S. air passengers
Wake the fuck up, America
In the name of security, the government intends to create database profiles of all American air travelers and could blacklist some from commercial flights without recourse, civil libertarians warned Monday.
Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr said ''very, very serious threats to the Bill of Rights'' are posed by the measures proposed by the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security.
''It could create a blacklist of airline passengers, who for whatever reason, have a scarlet letter of 'potential threat' forever imprinted in their commercial and government data fingerprints,'' said Laura Murphy, director of the legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union. - - link.
Top N Korea official to spend more time with his family
A top State Department expert on North Korea who advocated a policy of incentives as well as penalties to persuade the nation to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons has resigned.
Jack Pritchard, the special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, is departing at a critical moment, days before six-nation talks begin in China to pressure North Korea to drop its efforts to reprocess spent fuel rods for weapons. He was criticized last week by a senator for being out of sync with the administration's policy.
Mr. Pritchard has long been involved in an ongoing argument with more hawkish officials in the Pentagon and the White House over how to deal with the North. He did not say why he had resigned, saying it would "be inappropriate for me to speak at a moment when talks are just beginning."
Philip Reeker, the State Department's deputy spokesman, denied today that Mr. Pritchard had been forced out and praised him for his years of service, but North Korea experts said Mr. Pritchard was known to be uncomfortable with the "evolving American policy." - - from the NY Times.
Albuquerque exiles tell DeLay's lackeys to back off
"Stand down from this pointless redistricting. Stop wasting tax dollars in your attempt to steal, through partisan redistricting, what you could not accomplish in legitimate elections." - Leticia Van de Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, to Tom DeLay's boytoy Gov. Rick Perry. The special session of the Legislature ends today. - - link.
Faux Nooze: Wholly without merit
"Fox News is an oxymoron, and Cheech and Chong would have made a more credible team of war correspondents than Geraldo Rivera and Ollie North. Neither Saturday Night Live nor the 1976 film Network could even approach the comic impact of Geraldo embedded, or of Fox's pariah parade, its mothball fleet of experts who always turn out to be disgraced or indicted Republican refugees."
Fox slants the news "for the Bush administration as faithfully as if they were on the White House payroll. Fox serves - voluntarily - as the propaganda arm of a controversial, manipulative, image-obsessed government. I swear I hate to stoop to Nazi analogies; but if Joseph Goebbels had run his own cable channel, it would have been indistinguishable from Fox News."
- - columnist Hal Crowther.
BTW, Fox News dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken on Monday, three days after they were laughed out of court.
Dick stiffed energy probe
Dick 'Chicanery' Cheney refused to turn over key documents involving energy cronies, campaign contributors.
"The White House collaborated heavily with corporations in developing President Bush's energy policy but repeatedly refused to give congressional investigators details of the meetings."
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry groups may have influenced the task force's 2001 report because the administration withheld important records.
"This report is a sad chronicle of the efforts of the office of the vice president to hide its activities from the American people," said Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The task force issued a report to Smarmy McOilfield in May, 2001. The administration announced an energy policy shortly afterward, calling for more oil and gas drilling and a revival of nuclear power. The policy bogged down in Congress.
Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club are pursuing a separate legal battle for the energy records. A federal appeals court panel ruled last month that the groups could be entitled to documents from Cheney's staff. The unscrupulous neonazis in the Justice Department has asked the full appeals court to review the ruling, or else. - - WaComPo.
Under fire, Bunnypants to address doubts on Iraq
"America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one." - Harvard lecturer and former national security official Jessica Stern.
Blazing Hellhole, Texas (Reuters) -Mendacious smackhead Smirky McAWOL will take a break from his golf game on Tuesday to bolster support for his policies in Iraq amid a mounting U.S. death toll and public doubts.
The vacuous liar, who is in the last week of a month-long August vacation at his Texas flea-pit, will travel to St. Louis to make the case for sustained involvement in Iraq despite calls to either pull out or reinforce U.S. forces, and for continued engagement in the Middle East despite new violence that has stalled the peace process.
The Empty Flight-Suit-in-Chief was not expected to announce any new policies. Nor was he expected to show any new willingness to expand U.N. authority in Iraq, a move demanded by Security Council members France, Germany and Russia as a condition for a new mandate to expand recruiting of more foreign forces to support the U.S. occupation, officials said.
He is expected, however, to loll about on a podium in front of a backdrop and spout the usual inanities and bromides, such as "they hate freedom" and "the Amurkin people are patient," with a smirk on his insufferable, vapid phiz.
Fun facts: Estimate for maintaining electricity in Iraq = $2 billion. Estimates for repairing and improving the oil facilities = $5 to $10 billion. Estimates for repairing and upgrading infrastructure = $16 to $30 billion. The US is currently providing 95% of total aid, 90% of the troops, and suffering 90% of the casualties (Newsweek, 9/1/03 edition).
Muscling in on the competition
Repug candidate/chunkhead Arnold Schwarzenegger launched his first attack on Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on Monday, and specifically urged other GOP candidates to drop out of the race because it would be bettuh for the pahty.
"It is something they have to decide for themselves," he said. "It would definitely be better for the party and it would be a better chance to win because those votes would come to me and they would help."
Quoting from a description a Republican consultant gave to a newspaper, Schwarzenegger said the lieutenant governor is "Gray Davis with a receding hairline and a moustache." - - link.
Reads a script pretty well, does Arnold.
Fellow pubes Ueberroth and McClintock have thus far refused to withdraw from the race, which only means they're waiting for a better offer from Karl Rove.
Fun fact: ARNOLD AHEAD IN TACO POLL! screams the lead headline at drudge right now.
Must-see TV
Hesiod is reporting that Joe Conason will be appearing on Crossfire this evening, with guest host Al Franken, 4:30 EDT.
Protests at KB Toys today
Bush lied about Iraqi drones
U.S. weapons experts in Baghdad have concluded that despite the Bush misadministration's public assertions, the unmanned drone aircraft weren't designed to dispense biological or chemical weapons.
In building its case for war, senior Bush administration officials had said Iraq's drones were intended to deliver unconventional weapons. Sec. Colin Powell even raised the alarming prospect that the pilotless aircraft could sneak into the United States to carry out poisonous attacks on American cities.... But the Air Force, which controls most of the American military's UAV fleet, didn't agree with that assessment from the beginning. And analysts at the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said the Air Force view was widely accepted within their ranks as well. Instead, these analysts believed the drones posed no threat to Iraq's neighbors or the U.S., officials in Washington and scientists involved in the weapons hunt in Iraq told AP."
- - link.
Bush lied about NYC air quality after 9/11
"On September 12, 2001, EPA administrator Christine Whitman directed that all information to news media be cleared through the National Security Council in the White House before release. The White House then made sure that what the EPA told the public was scrubbed clean of honest information.
"The White House deleted cautions for asthma patients, the elderly, and people with respiratory problems to stay out of the affected area.
"A warning that homes and offices should be professionally cleaned of contaminates was deleted." - - The Mahablog
"I did not feel well for two months. I never said anything because I was too embarrassed. A couple of thousand had died. So many others were scorched and broken and maimed. I had no right to open my mouth, I thought. Besides, from the first day, the government's Environmental Protection Agency had announced that air was remarkably clean. Work on. Breathe on. You're fine. They lied. They lied because the administration did not want people not going to work. They lied the first week and they lied the week after that and they have lied every day of the past two years to the people of this city... I sit here in New York and I don't believe one single solitary word of what the government says. Can you believe anything Bush says? Only if you're a rank sucker." - - Jimmy Breslin.
Bush lied about Iraq WMD
A Weapons Cache We'll Never See, by Scott Ritter.
Why aren't the Bushies sharing what Tariq Aziz and others have told them about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction? - - link.
Used QTip to get its own show?
Freakish, maladjusted harpy skank mAnn Coulter told the New York Observer on Friday that her trip to the 'Left Coast' this weekend had two purposes; to appear on Bill Maher's "Real Time" HBO show and to "meet with people" about the possibility of getting her own television show. "She declined to give details other than that she'll be the host," the Observer said.
Possible titles include:
Wingnut Weekly Wankfest
Meet the Clenis
Ann's Weekly Discharge
Coulter's Conservative Circle-Jerk
Life at Rancho el Bunco
An unbelievable piece of fawning nincompoopery from USA Toady Today:
Bush's ranch time signals voters who don't own tuxedos and didn't go to Ivy League schools that he has something in common with them. So he wears grubby jeans, a battered cowboy hat and scuffed boots and drives a pickup around his land. Country music, he says, always plays in the truck even though Aaron Neville and Van Morrison are more often playing in the house.
Aides describe his days as filled with manly and mundane activities, always with Secret Service agents nearby.
Something in common.....Like the Boob of Kennebunkport's privileged background, his ultra-rich oil buddies, his Yale edjumacation? Or that when he isn't playing golf he's riding around the Lazy W in a golf cart because he's afraid of horses?
Saving face, losing a war
"Bring 'em on," the man said. He is not a brave man, but he plays one on television.
When it came his turn to fight in a war, he hid behind Daddy. Then he had another drink and hid from the National Guard. Then he had another drink.
When our nation was attacked on Sept. 11, he hid in an airplane, flying to and fro around the country. While our nation was crying for leadership, he was making sure the coast was clear.
He later had his minions blame the Secret Service.
"Bring 'em on," the man said, and a nation of sheep baaed in unison.
- - Harley Sorensen.
While Nero fiddled
As I write, 26 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq since President Bush began his August vacation.
The President has been busy during his vacation. He's traveled to several fund-raising events, for example, and played a lot of golf. However, he has yet to attend a single funeral or speak to even one widow or orphan or mother of our dead soldiers.
- - from A BuzzFlash Reader Commentary by our friends at The Mahablog.
Scandalously inept
Misled and misread. That pretty well sums up America's growing disaster in Iraq.
First, President George W. Bush, VP Dick Cheney and a coterie of neo-conservatives led by Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle misled Americans into an unprovoked, unnecessary war by claiming Iraq was about to attack the U.S. with nuclear and biowarfare weapons. This was a grotesque lie that anyone with knowledge of strategic weapons knew was arrant nonsense, but few had the courage or honesty to refute.
Next, the White House gravely misread the strategic situation by swallowing neo-con assurances the "liberation" of Iraq would be a cakewalk and oil bonanza. Last week, Iraqis responded to Bush's foolish challenge, "Bring 'em on," by blowing up UN headquarters in Baghdad and inflicting serious sabotage on Iraq's oil infrastructure.
These attacks show the U.S. has got itself into a truly awesome mess in Iraq. Far from easily plundering Iraq's oil wealth, U.S. occupation troops - almost half the U.S. Army's combat forces - are now under siege, at a cost of $1 billion US weekly.
- - Eric Margolis.
Dueling headlines
Bremer: More U.S. Troops Not Needed
Poll: Most See U.S. Bogged Down in Iraq
Whole Lotta Hobbit Going On
Two weeks before The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King wraps things up on December 17, New Line Cinema plans to unleash in theaters special extended editions of the first two installments in director Peter Jackson's epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy.
Cinephiles who couldn't get enough of The Fellowship of the Ring special edition DVD, which clocked in at 208 minutes and included scenes not in the theatrical version, will be able to see the epic on the big screen in all its glory starting on December 5 in about 100 movie houses in the U.S. and 20 in Canada.
A week later, on December 12, New Line will unspool the special 214-minute extended edition of The Two Towers. That version is slated to premiere as a DVD first on November 18 (the DVD of last year's "official" theatrical release is due out on Tuesday).
But wait! There's more!
For those with serious Hobbit habits longing to venture into Middle Earth for more than a few hours, New Line plans to screen all three films back-to-back-to-back on December 16 in a daylong marathon that will carry over with The Return of the King's global release on December 17. - - from here!
Is 'Perfect Storm' brewing for Bush?
As the 2004 election nears, unelected idiot Smirky McAWOL could face an international "perfect storm" -- more attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, an overextended deployment of U.S. troops eager to come home and blackening clouds over the Middle East, North Korea and Iran.
The confluence of world events will test lying bungler Napoleon Bonehead's foreign policy "leadership "even as he must concentrate on the U.S. economy and other domestic issues that could determine whether he steals "wins" a "second" term. - - link.
The 50 worst artists in music history
As compiled by US music magazine Blender
1. Insane Clown Posse
2. Emerson, Lake and Palmer
3. Michael Bolton
4. Kenny G
5. Starship
6. Kansas
7. Asia
8. Vanilla Ice
9. Lee Greenwood
10. Air Supply
11. Latoya Jackson
12. Tin Machine - "really, really bad"
13. Mick Jagger - a "tone deaf six-year-old"
14. Yngwie Malmsteen
15. Yanni
16. Oingo Boingo
17. Benzino
18. Pat Boone
19. Dan Fogelberg
20. Howard Jones
21. The Alan Parsons Project
22. Primus
23. Creed
24. Bad English
25. Jamiroquai - "the white, talentless Stevie Wonder"
26. Celine Dion
27. Colour Me Bad
28. Crash Test Dummies
29. Skinny Puppy
30. Richard Marx
31. Arrested Development
32. The Hooters
33. Japan
34. Live
35. Paul Oakenfold
36. 98 Degrees
37. The Doors - "terminally adolescent views on the wider world"
38. Nelson
39. Bob Geldof - he "should have stuck to saving the planet"
40. Blind Melon
41. Whitesnake
42. Rick Wakeman
43. Mike and the Mechanics
44. Manowar
45. Gipsy Kings
46. The Spin Doctors
47. Goo Goo Dolls
48. Master P
49. Toad the Wet Sprocket
50. Iron Butterfly
Puh - no Ratt? No Steve Miller? No Grand Funk Railroad or the Singing Senators?
Injuries and usurpations
'The generosity of this once great country (of which I am now a product) is being obscured by a political fervour derived from something akin to the parody of the Communist manifesto that was around in the Sixties - "What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own." I see a "dauphin" in the White House while powerful figures range in the background, making resource theft a way of life... Meantime, I will stew in the poisonous atmosphere Karl Rove slides under my door each morning. I'll write a song or two, turn up the volume and bury my dead.'
- - Farewell America
Bush made Osama deal with Musharraf
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has struck a deal with the US not to capture Osama Bin Laden, fearing this could lead to unrest in Pakistan, according to a special investigation by The Guardian.
It is believed an agreement was reached between Musharraf and US authorities shortly after Bin Laden's flight from his stronghold Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001.
The Pakistanis feared that to capture or kill Bin Laden so soon after a deeply unpopular war in Afghanistan would incite civil unrest in Pakistan and trigger a spate of revenge al-Qaida attacks on Western targets across the world.
"There was a judgment made that it would be more destabilising in the longer term. There would still be the ability to get him at a later date when it was more appropriate", Mansoor Ijaz told The Guardian.
The Americans, according to Ijaz, accepted the argument, not least because of the shift in focus to the impending war in Iraq.
So the months that followed were centered on taking down not Bin Laden but the "retaliation infrastructure" of al-Qaeda.
Time to replenish supplies of bottled water, batteries and duct tape
Callous, unspeakable liar Golfy McSimian's approval ratings continue to decline. His current approval rating of 53 percent is down 18 percent from April. And for the first time since the question was initially asked last fall, more registered voters say they would not like to see him re-elected to another term as president (49 percent) than re-elected. - - MSNBC.
And in LaLa Land
California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante holds a wide lead over Arnold Schwarzenegger in the race to succeed Gov. Gray Davis, according to a new Los Angeles Times Poll.
As the sole major Democrat running to replace Davis, Bustamante enjoys the support of 35 percent of likely voters.
Schwarzenegger received 22 percent support, followed by three fellow repukes: Sen. Tom McClintock with 12 percent, Peter Ueberroth with 7 percent and Bill "Karl Rove's Pussy" Simon with 6 percent.
Simon abruptly quit the race Saturday, after the poll was completed.
Attack of the Stepford People
With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'
I could be another Lincoln
If I only had a brain.
"In George W. Bush, people see a contained, channeled virility," said Erica Walter, identified as 'an at-home mom and Catholic writer.' "They see a man who does what he says, whose every speech and act is not calculated." [Ed.: Oh my GOD.]
Yeah. Nothing calculated about a president's delaying the troops from getting home and renting stadium lights so he can play dress up and make a movie-star landing on an aircraft carrier gussied up by his image wizards, at a cost of a mil.
David Gutmann, a professor emeritus of psychology at Northwestern, notes that Mr. Bush "bears important masculine stigmata: he is a Texan, he is not afraid of war, and he sticks to his guns in the face of a worldwide storm of criticism."
Stigmata, schtigmata. Shouldn't real men be able to control their puppets? The Bush team could not even get Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraq Governing Council to condemn the U.N. bombing or feign putting an Iraqi face on the occupation. The puppets refused because they didn't want to be seen as puppets.
Shouldn't real men be able to admit they made a mistake and need help? Rummy & Co. bullied the U.N. and treated the allies like doormats before the war, thinking they could do everything themselves, thanks to the phony optimistic intelligence fed to them by the puppet Chalabi. No wonder they're meeting with a cold response as they slink back.
Shouldn't real men be reducing the number of Middle East terrorists rather than increasing them faster than dragon's teeth?
EPA watchdog rips White House on NYC air after 9/11
At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.
Callous, indolent liar Chimpy the Pinhead's senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.
For God's sake. Wake the fuck up, America.
Amazon.com's Top 25 bestsellers
...and none are by rightwing "authors"
1. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
by Al Franken
4. Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
by Joe Conason
17. Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country--And Its Time to Take It Back
by Jim Hightower
21. Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
by Molly Ivins
23. Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations
24. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters
by Greg Palast
Hero Sandwiches
Troops get death and pay cuts while Bush gobbles barbecue, rakes in dough
by Alan Bisbort:
Not since the days of Marie Antoinette, or at least Nancy Reagan, has there been such a disconnect between the ruling elite and what Marie and Nancy might call the unwashed masses. A potent symbol of this cynical detachment is provided by George W. Bush's month-long vacation, during which his only forays among the unwashed masses have been to whack his little white balls around a golf course -- and to host a "down-home" barbecue to shake down rich donors for another run at the White House. The cover charge for barbecue with the Bushes? Each of the 350 "very special guests" paid $50,000 to nibble on those Republican pig and cow carcasses.
To the ruling elite -- like the Crawford pig-nibblers -- the men and women in uniform are useful members of the unwashed masses. They served their purpose as of May 1, when Bush -- who went AWOL from military service during the Vietnam War -- dolled himself up with codpiece and flight helmet for his campaign photo-op aboard the aircraft carrier. "Mission accomplished," he trumpeted, and the media played along with the charade. Since then, at least 126 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and thousands have been wounded, physically and psychologically.
You knew it would happen
Chickenshit republican Bill Simon has dropped out of the California gubernatorial recall race amid calls from party leaders to consolidate support behind the front-running candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth and state Sen. Tom McClintock.
Karl Rove Republican leaders, worried about too many candidates splitting the party vote and giving Democrats the edge, stepped up pressure this week on the Republicans trailing actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the polls. - - -link.
"Fair criticism"
A federal judge in Manhattan told Fox News yesterday that it had to learn how to take a joke.
Judge Chin said the case was an easy one, and chided Fox for bringing its complaint to court. The judge said, "Of course, it is ironic that a media company that should be fighting for the First Amendment is trying to undermine it."
"I never really had any doubt," Al Franken said in a telephone interview, calling the ruling "a victory for satirists everywhere, even the bad ones. In addition to thanking my own lawyers, I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life."
Talk about mudflaps, my girl's got 'em
Thailand's government has banned three racy new love songs it deems obscene from the country's airwaves, a state official says.
The country-style songs -- "I Fear No Sins" and "I Do Fear Sins", which allude to extra-marital affairs, and "Big, Flabby Buttocks" -- were forbidden from being aired on radio and television stations this week.
Fifteen older love tunes -- including classics such as "One Woman, Two Men" and "I Love Her Husband" -- had been condemned but not banned. - - link.
Vacuuming while naked
The secret language of doctors:
UBI: "Unexplained Beer Injury"
PAFO:"Pissed And Fell Over"
ATFO: "Asked To F... Off"
Not to mention Code Brown, referring to a faecal incontinence emergency.
Then there is DBI, for "Dirtbag Index." This is a formula which multiplies the number of tattoos on the patient's body by the number of missing teeth to estimate the total of days he has gone without a bath.
Relatives of patients on the critical list may blanche if they knew what CTD, GPO or Rule of Five mean on their loved-one's records.
The first means "Circling The Drain", the second signifies "Good for Parts Only" and "Rule of Five" means that if more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance.
A patient who is "giving the O-sign" is very sick, lying with his mouth open. This is followed by the "Q-sign" -- when the tongue hangs out of the mouth -- when the patient becomes terminal.
General practitioners may use LOBNH ("Lights On But Nobody Home") or the impressively bogus Oligoneuronal to mean someone who is thick.
But they also have a somewhat poetic option: "Pumpkin positive", referring to the idea that the person's brain is so tiny that a penlight shone into his mouth will make his empty head gleam like a Halloween pumpkin.
If a doctor is stumped for what is wrong with his or her patient, they may record GOK, for "God Only Knows."
As for genetic quirks or inbreeding, FLK means "Funny Looking Kid" and NFN signifies "Normal For Norfolk," a rural English county.
In Brazil, physicians use the acronym PIMBA for what can be translated as "swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar."
"The use of medical slang helps to depersonalise the distress encountered in doctors' everyway working lives," specialist Adam Fox told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) last year.
"It is a way of detaching and distancing oneself from patients' distress through loss, grief, disease, dying and death. Often someone else's pain is too much for us, so we cut off."
Graven images
The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court was suspended Friday pending an ethics investigation for his defiance of a federal judge's order that he remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the state judicial building.
Roy Moore's actions next face a hearing before the state Court of the Judiciary after the Judicial Inquiry Commission found merit in a complaint by Montgomery lawyer Stephen Glassroth that Moore violated ethics rules by ignoring U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order.
Moore, who was suspended with pay, had no immediate comment.
Twenty-one protesters were arrested and taken to the Montgomery County Jail, where they were charged with trespassing. About 40 supporters of Moore kept vigil from their sleeping bags and bedrolls strewn outside the courthouse. - - link.
Actual quote from a fretard at RimJob's bushmoonie site:
"TYRANY !"
Really, who's the better role model for kids? A bloated, sybaritic rock star? Or a president with a so-so National Guard record and a weak grip on the facts, dolled up for a photo op?
Daryl Lease, editorial writer for the Herald-Tribune, discusses the new rage in "action figures," and comes up with a few of his own.
He forgot the Rick Santorum doll, complete with chastity belt, gaydar, and Milk Bones.
"War foes were right"
The French were right.
The liberals were right.
The peaceniks were right.
True conservatives were right.
Veterans opposed to the war - I hear from more of them than you might imagine - were also right. They said this war was based on lies, and it was. They said this war, like most wars, would lead to more chaos and killing, and it has. - - conservative Don Williams, in the Knoxville News.
I think my email's working again.
Fed to Fox: f*ck off!
NEW YORK - A federal judge on Friday denied Faux Nooze's request for an injunction to block humorist Al Franken's new book, whose title mocks the Fox slogan "fair and balanced."
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said Fox's claim was "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
"Just like your whole damn channel!" he should have added.
Chin pointed out that the word "Lies" in the title is printed in large red letters next to a photo of human gasbag Bill O'Reilly. He said that there was no likelihood that book buyers would think that the sponsor is Fox or O'Reilly.
"We are talking about relatively sophisticated consumers here," he said of those who would be buying Franken's book.
"As opposed to those cretinous mouthbreathers who watch Fux Nooze," he should have said.
Poland to withdraw troops from 'high-risk area' near capital
Poland scaled back its military commitment in Iraq yesterday in response to Tuesday's devastating attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Under a hastily agreed new formula for the occupation, Polish troops will withdraw from a "high-risk area" near Baghdad, leaving the territory to come under the command of US forces, Polish Foreign Ministry officials revealed.
- - from the UK Independent.
Action Figures For Imbeciles
It's the G.W. Bush "aviator" doll, just in time to degrade every notion of heroism, ever
Mark Morford kicks ass:
Country's in shambles and economy's gutted and schools are shot and Iraq's a violent bloody mess and joblessness is rampant and it's a proud time indeed to be an American, and hence you might be asking yourself, what, pray what, can I give the hardcore lockstep pseudo-Christian homophobic Republican on my gift list?
What can you give the one who just loves bogus wars and BushCo's lies and thinks SUVs are way bitchin' and believes every bile-filled opinion crammed down their throats via Fox News and Hannity/Coulter/Limbaugh et al., hates them damnable gays and libs and environmentalists and has one hand over his heart while the other gropes the cat?
There he is, all faux manly and squinty and artificially buffed up, his gull-wing ears toned down and the thin-lipped brow-furrowed monkey confusion so common to his scrunched little face apparently erased by expert doll craftsmen and/or a drunken 50-cents-an-hour sweatshop employee somewhere in China.
There he is, all fierce and makeshift macho and ready to be flown a handful of miles offshore to land on a carefully positioned photo-op aircraft carrier and make an entirely staged entirely bogus internationally embarrassing speech announcing the end of the Iraq war, hee hee suckers whoops sorry about all the dead U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians, every day, ever since.
WH towelboy Dobbs has hypocritical hissyfit
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark may still be a CNN analyst while he contemplates a run at the White House, but there's one network show he has been barred from: Pillowtalk with Karl Rove Lou Dobbs Tonight. The reason? Repug toady Dobbs "believes" that when Clark came on his show during the Iraq war and teed off on the Pentagon, the possible Democratic candidate was pushing his personal political agenda, not providing straight military analysis.
- - US News.com.
Lights stayed on in bunker, says Cheney
Motive still being sought in Iraq war
White House: Iraq Iran Has WMDs
Could launch attack within forty-five minutes.
Equal Time Provision Forces Schwarzenegger Movies, "Diff'rent Strokes" Reruns Off TV
First good thing about the recall, say experts.
Dolls Depicting Bush in Flight Suit Go on Sale
Part of new "Photo Op" series of action figures.
- - IronicTimes.
Kerry to use carrier as campaign launch
Big "f*ck you" aimed at rethug chickenhawks, lying AWOL resident.
Senator John Kerry is planning to stand before the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Sept. 2 to publicly declare his candidacy for president.
The Yorktown, which is docked off Charleston, S.C., was selected both to gain publicity in the politically important state as well as to counter the trip war deserter pReznit Privilege took to an aircraft carrier May 1 to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq.
Recently, Kerry has challenged the gutless liar's supposed strength on national security matters by highlighting his stature as the only current presidential candidate to have fought in a war.
"I have worked with aircraft carriers for real," Kerry has said, mocking Chimpy McCodpiece's photo-op on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The senator will be joined at his announcement by most of the members of the two boat crews he commanded while in Vietnam, his aides said. He will be introduced by former US senator Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat who lost both legs and an arm while fighting in the war. - - from here.
And speaking of national security....
Four 9/11 moms battle unscrupulous blockhead in WH
"This is a stonewalling job of far greater importance than Watergate. This concerns the refusal of the country's leadership to be held accountable for the failure to execute its most fundamental responsibility: to protect its citizens against foreign attack." - - read more at the NY Observer.
Security may not be safe issue for Bush in '04
The wave of violent death this week in Iraq, Israel, Gaza and Afghanistan brought to the fore a reality that incompetent, lying bungler Smarmy McGolfcart has been reluctant to discuss: Peace is not at hand.
A confident, chirpily lying Bunnypants stood in the Rose Garden less than a month ago, saying, "Conditions in most of Iraq are growing more peaceful," boasting of "dismantling the al Qaeda operation" and pronouncing "pretty good progress" toward Middle East peace and a Palestinian state within two years. More proof that he is either an incredibly ignorant nincompoop who never reads a paper, or a callous, unspeakable liar who thinks the rest of us are morons.
One presidential adviser said the suicide attacks hours apart in Iraq and Israel made Tuesday "by far the worst political day for Bush since 9/11."
They ruined a perfectly good game of golf!
Independent experts see more political trouble than advantage for Bush in Iraq. "There is a substantial potential for the occupation of Iraq to become a deep political problem for Bush," according to Ohio State University's John Mueller, an authority on public opinion and war. If things go well, people will lose interest, but if things go badly, "people are increasingly likely to see the war as a mistake, and starting and continuing wars that people come to consider mistaken does not enhance a president's reelectability." - - WaComPo.
Terrorism is becoming the principal threat facing coalition forces in Iraq and the Iraqi people, the commander of the U.S. Central Command said Thursday. "Clearly, it is emerging as the No. 1 security threat, and we are applying a lot of time, energy and resources to identify it, understand it, and deal with it," Army Gen. John Abizaid said at a Pentagon briefing.
Woman patriot uses her obituary to slam Bush
When Sally Baron's family wrote her obituary, they described a northern Wisconsin woman who raised six children and took care of her husband after he was crushed in a mining accident.
She had moved to Stoughton seven years ago to be closer to her children and was 71 when she died Monday after struggling to recuperate from heart surgery. Her family had come to the question of what might be a fitting tribute to her.
"My uncle asked if there was a cause," her youngest son, Pete Baron, said.
Almost in unison, what her children decided to include in the obituary was this: "Memorials in her honor can be made to any organization working for the removal of President Bush."
"She thought he was a liar," Baron's daughter, Maureen Bettilyon, said. "I think his personality, just standing there with that smirk on his face, and acting like he's this holy Christian, that's what really got her."
- - from here, thanks to blm at the BC Forum.
Ohhhhkayyyyy
Appeal for 'dwarf-tossing' case thrown out - - BBC.
Holy vision in toilet saves woman from suicide - - Yahoo News.
Palestinian terror groups revoke cease-fire, vow bloodshed in response to Israeli response to the bus bomb that killed over 20 civilians - - Reuters.
Buk buk buk buk BUK!
At the last minute, loathsome harpy skank/neonazi recruitment-poster model mAnn Coulter canceled her appearance opposite best-selling "Big Lies" author Joe Conason on CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer - this after having programmers change the debate to fit her schedule.
One might think the roundtable, which featured Wall Streeter James Cramer and Reaganite Lawrence Kudlow, would be a breeze for Coulter. Could she have been afraid of facing Conason, whose book presents evidence that her arguments are ill-researched and calls her lifestyle hypocritical?
Meanwhile, we hear fellow right-wing tough guy Bill O'Reilly won't even let Conason on his show.
- - from the NY Daily News, via Atrios.
My comments don't want to work, the tagboard is f*cked up, and even email is screwy today.
We keep losing computer access. I'm trying to stay busy by sorting through a rubbermaid container of cherry tomatoes, chucking the squishy wrinkly ones and the mutants that look like they've grown tiny tomato penises.
My garden scares me sometimes.
I've also read through the "C"s in the dictionary. Fun facts: crapulent is a real word that does NOT involve feces, and cowslips are technically the same as marsh marigolds.
Government union elects new president with promise to fight misadministration
The largest union of federal government employees ousted two-term president Bobby Harnage Jr. in a surprise vote that reflected frustrations that the union wasn't fighting hard enough against the Bush administration's labor policies.
More than 1,200 delegates at the American Federation of Government Employees' national convention in Las Vegas denied Harnage a third term and elected his challenger, John Gage.
"We're going to be more aggressive -- I don't think there's any question about that," Gage said Thursday. "People need to understand what's happening."
A 'morally ambiguous situation'
Government weapons scientist David Kelly feared he might "end up dead in the woods" if a U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq, a colleague testified Thursday at a judicial inquiry into his suicide.
Kelly, identified as the source of a BBC report that questioned the integrity of the government's case for war, was found dead July 18 at the edge of a clump of woods near his rural home.
The judge directing the inquiry, Lord Hutton, also announced that Prime Minister Tony 'Piddles' Blair would give evidence Aug. 28, a day after an appearance by Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon.
Veterans plan to exact action at polls
GOP-led House reneges on pledge to pass $3.2 billion for VA medical care
Veterans are condemning House Republicans' failure to deliver a $3.2 billion boost for the Veterans Affairs Department that would have shrunk the agency's waiting list for medical care.
"A shameless betrayal" is how AMVETS sums it up.
"A moral outrage," the American Legion said.
"Abominable" is the word from the Non Commissioned Officers Association.
"Veterans have been pushed to the limits," said Joe Violante, national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. "They're being lied to, and they're not tolerating it."
The broken promise -- the second time in a year Congress has reneged on a pledge to veterans -- has veterans vowing to remember at the ballot box.
Last month, House Republican leadership, bowing to Bush administration pressure to curb spending and their own desire for hometown projects, cut the promised $1.8 billion.
"We have the money to pay for a statue of the Roman god Vulcan in Birmingham, Ala. We have money to pay for a bike trail in North Dakota. We have money to fund a Nevada helicopter company that performs Elvis impersonator weddings," American Legion national commander Ronald F Conley said. "And yet we have neither the heart nor the will to ensure that all United States veterans receive the medical care they earned and we owe them."
Blackout Bush
"We got no help from the federal government. In fact, when I was fighting Enron and the other energy companies, these same companies were sitting down with Vice President Cheney to draft a national energy strategy."
- - from Gov. Gray Davis' speech at UCLA, 8/19/03.
"If the premise of the recall of Gray Davis is due to economic incompetence, if you will, the deficits and job loss, what do you say to the fact that the Progressive Majority Coalition will announce their recall of George Bush tomorrow at BushRecall.org for the 2.6 million jobs lost since he entered office, the $455 billion deficit and the $48-billion-a-month price tag for war? Do you think that's fair for that recall?
- - Janeane Garofalo, on last night's Crossfire.
The latest drive to make sure malignant microcephalic pResident Evil serves just one term takes a page from the effort to oust a Democratic governor in California, calling its web site "bushrecall" and garnering support through petitions.
A new committee called the Fair and Balanced PAC plans to launch its www.bushrecall.org Web site Thursday. The PAC's founders include Joe Lockhart, press secretary to President Clinton, and Mike Lux, a Democratic political consultant.
The Constitution provides no way to recall a president through a ballot initiative, as California voters have a chance to do to Democrat Gray Davis in October. Instead, the PAC will work to defeat the serial liar/bungler in next year's election, building lists of supporters through a petition drive and raising money to run ads against the snivelling fuckwit.
- - from here.
The BFEE United States and Britain will try again today to get suckers countries to help with security in Iraq, hoping that the devastating bomb attack against the United Nations would draw wider support for Halliburton's U.S. efforts in Baghdad.
The Bushies are preparing a new Security Council resolution that would urge other nations to send troops and aid to secure Iraq. The new resolution would allow the American military to maintain control over any international forces.
Along with the debate over troops, United Nations officials say wealthy countries in a position to provide assistance to Iraq are also reluctant to contribute without more authority being given to the United Nations.
"Who do we write the checks to, Halliburton? I don't bloody think so," said an envoy from a country under pressure to make a large contribution.
And from an editorial in the Toledo Blade:
Consider the central role of private U.S. firms such as Halliburton, Bechtel, and at least eight other companies in carrying out the contracts that absorb the bulk of the $4 billion per month cost to the U.S. taxpayer of America's involvement there. One has to wonder how much channeling that money to those firms influences the administration's decision to keep other potential international partners out.
U.S. requests to the Dominican Republic, Mongolia, and the Philippines, for example, are pending. U.S. firms with big contracts in Iraq, awarded by the U.S. government without competitive bidding, are flourishing.
Halliburton, Vice President Cheney's former firm, showed a 2003 second-quarter profit of $26 million, as opposed to a 2002 second-quarter loss of $498 million, a major turnaround. Bechtel was awarded a $680 million contract.
If that evolution of the problem of Iraq is being delayed to increase the profits of Halliburton, Bechtel, and other U.S. companies, there is definitely something wrong. If those companies and their leaders are playing a role in campaign financing, the whole thing starts to get really smelly.
Dying Over Something That Never Was
Incompetent, blithering smackhead Smarmy McAWOL was interviewed by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, last Thursday at 1:55 p.m. Pacific Coast time.
Q: The families of America's fighting forces, they make huge sacrifices in the name of freedom, just like the service members. You touched on it earlier. You touched on it in your speech today. For months at a time, they give up their service members, they don't know where they are, they don't hear from them; they don't know if they're safe; they don't know if they're dead or alive. What message do you have for these families today?
Chimpy McGolfcart: Well my messages is that what your loved one is doing is the right thing for the country. We are called upon to defend the United States of America. I take that oath, and every soldier takes that oath. And on 9/11 our world changed and we realized the country was vulnerable and we better do something about it. And the best way to secure the homeland is to get the enemy before he gets us. At least that's my attitude. And so I — first of all, the commitment that their loved ones have made, the families of the service members have made, is in line with this business about winning and fighting war. Every person is a volunteer in our military. They've chosen to defend the United States of Amerca. And therefore they need to get the best — if that's their attitude, and they made up their mind that's what they want to do, then my job is to get them the best equipment, the best pay, the best training possible, so if we ever have to send them in, they'll be able to do the job.
Bring 'em on! Let's roll!
The true world gets on without this sort of wandering, delusional language.
- - From a column by Jimmy Breslin.
I think we're back.
Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're an asshole
Indolent, ineffectual lummox Napoleon Nutbar was interviewed with his stepford wife-like first lady, by Reagan cum-kwat Peggy Noonan for the October issue of Ladies' Home Journal:
"When you realize that there is an Almighty God on whom you can rely, it provides great comfort," the former Texas murderer governor, war deserter and serial liar told her. "That's why I read every morning, the Bible and scriptures and Charles Stanley devotionals. It matters a lot to me personally."
Also in the interview:
"All the things that might've irritated me, like not hanging up his towels, I don't have to worry about anymore. Someone in the White House hangs up the towels." - vacuous ninny Pickles Bush.
Not pissed off enough yet?
Go read "Destroying Our Infrastructure 101" at Bohemian Mama.
Truck bomb kills chief U.N. envoy to Iraq
17 dead, 100 injured by explosion at U.N. headquarters
Sergio Vieira de Mello was among the 17 killed and 100 injured when a truck bomb exploded beneath the window of his office in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad at about 4:30 p.m. [8:30 a.m. EDT]. He was trapped in the rubble for several hours before he died. - - CNN.
"These killers will not determine the future of Iraq," The Unspeakable Sap-head told reporters from the putting green at his fake ranch in Crawford, Texas, Casa Catalepsia. "Now watch this drive." - - link.
What the pink tutu'd Dems have to do in order to beat fascist/liar pResident Evil:
For any Democrat to take advantage of Bush's waning popularity and overcome his vast campaign finances, however, he must have something to say. There needs to be some clarity, on all fronts. The other day, the same edition of the New York Times carried stories saying that neither young African-Americans nor the Boston Irish could any longer be counted on as part of the core vote. Is this heresy surprising when nobody knows with any certainty what Democrats stand for? If a party can't fire up its core vote, it will be deader quicker than if it can't draw in people who've never voted for it before. Watching what Bush has done to both the economy and the constitution, it should be easy for a Democrat to come up with soundbites and articles of simple faith to inspire a few more than the millions of Americans who voted for Gore last time.
- - from the UK Guardian.
Meanwhile, Rovian patsy/clueless droner Joe 'GW Lite' Lieberman is running as the republican wing of the pink tutu party.
Democrats worry that Lieberman is essentially doing Bush's bidding by painting the party as soft on security and stale on domestic policy. "It's right out of Karl Rove's playbook," said Howard Dean spokeswoman, Patricia Enright.
"It's a bad strategy in a primary where Democratic activists are sort of on a shopping spree for someone who will fight and defend party principles in 2004," said Donna Brazile, the campaign manager for Gore-Lieberman in 2000. "Alienating a large segment of the Democratic Party base will not bode well for the future. How do you bring [liberals] back [if] during the primary you made them feel like they were unwanted and unneeded?"
"That boy needs a good kick in the ass," she should have gone on to say.
My God! It's going to blow!!
It certainly did. We had a global system emergency - the computers at work were taken down at 9:00 this morning.
How I spent my day:
Reading my thesaurus
Wondering how many blogs there are with the word "poop" in the title
Who knows if this is going to work. The systems here have been unstable since yesterday afternoon.
Fair and balanced! Fair and balanced!
O'Reilly, unable to face a real 'no-spin zone,' has petulant, unmanly hissy-fit.
Arguments will begin Friday in federal court as the Faux Nooze Nazi Network seeks a preliminary injunction against distribution of Al Franken's new book, Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
During the weekend, irony-impaired humorless Fux gasbag Bill O'Reilly attacked Franken in his syndicated newspaper column.
"It is simply a sorry joke to see a political activist like Al Franken labeled a 'satirist' by the New York Times. Attempting to smear and destroy the reputations of those with whom you politically disagree is not satire," he wrote, adding later, "It makes me sick to see intellectually dishonest individuals hide behind the First Amendment to spread propaganda, libel and slander."
What the…. weren't those titles of mAnn Coulter books??
People familiar with the background between the two believe that O'Reilly pushed Fox to pursue the lawsuit because of his "intense dislike" of Franken and that O'Reilly was "irate" that his picture appeared above the word "Lies" on the book's cover.
Great stuff at MWO today, including the new GW Bush AWOL action figure.
Another great idea from Crusader Bunnypants
In a campaign set to start on Monday, U.S. forces plan to put up posters around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit showing his face superimposed on Hollywood heroines and other stars in an attempt to enrage his followers and draw them out.
As well as Saddam dolled up as a slinky Zsa Zsa Gabor, there is a busty Rita Hayworth Saddam, a grooving Elvis Saddam and even Saddam in the guise of British-born rocker Billy Idol.
One of the posters shows Saddam's head on Elvis's dancing body, a gold crucifix hanging around his hairy chest. Given fears in the Arab world that the invasion of Iraq was akin to a Christian crusade, some Iraqis say U.S. forces would do well to think twice about leaving the cross hanging around Saddam Elvis's neck. - - Yahoo News.
Geez, wasn't putting AWOL McBungler in a flight-suit bad enough??
"It was coming right at us!"
Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, 43, a Palestinian who has worked for Reuters for a decade, was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison when he was shot, witnesses said.
Reuters soundman Nael al-Shyoukhi, who was working with Dana at the time, said Dana was shot by a U.S. soldier on a tank.
"I cried at the soldier, telling him you killed a journalist. They shouted at me and asked me to step back and I said 'I will step back but please help, please help and stop the bleeding'," Shyoukhi said. The soldiers tried to help but Dana died.
The U.S. military acknowledged on Sunday that its troops had "engaged" a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought his camera was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Those poor guys. Dehydrated, demoralized, in the midst of a guerilla war, never knowing where the next attack will be coming from.....while the Empty Flightsuit-in-Chief continues his month-long vacation, broken up by the occasional $1000-a-plate airconditioned shakedown of hyper-rich campaign contributers. Jesus wept.
Bush's not-ready-for-primetime players
US News writes a fawning puff POS on the "craftiness" of Buckeroo Bonehead:
George W. Bush says he isn't interested in spin or stagecraft. But that doesn't mean he won't try to outfox the White House press corps as often as he can--as he did at last week's press conference in the Rose Garden, his first solo run in nearly five months. Bush and senior aides, including new press secretary Scott McClellan, had been planning the encounter for weeks, and Bush had gone over possible questions the day before in the Oval Office. (His staff predicted nearly every one.) To leave nothing to chance, the team decided in advance which journalists Bush would call upon and created a crib sheet of their names. And White House officials gave reporters only 90 minutes' notice--a ploy to prevent them from preparing their questions too carefully and generally to keep them off balance. Bush seemed to enjoy the give-and-take, aides say, but America shouldn't expect a repeat performance anytime soon, and certainly not in prime time. Bush thinks those events tend to become media spectaculars in which reporters preen for the television audience and try to play "gotcha" with him.
Translation:Idiotic fuckwit Hopalong Noodlehead, looking doped to the gills, finally screwed up enough [Dutch] courage to face the media for the first time in months, the little chickenshit. His panicky nursemaids had been drilling him for weeks, and even put together a cheat sheet of blatantly fawning asslicking toadies for the yellowbellied little snot to call on. Petrified with fear that the situation could still spin out of control, the WH nannies only gave the wet-crotched stenographers reporters 90 minutes' notice, to prevent them from preparing questions that the bungling boob would have trouble with. America shouldn't expect a repeat performance anytime soon, though. Not only does the prospect frighten the bejeesus out of the lying bungler, but Karl Rove gets the shits for weeks.
Bunnypants blamed for blackouts
18 Aug 03: The Bush administration rushed to defend itself yesterday from accusations that reluctance to upset its friends in the energy industry was to blame for the regulatory chaos leading to last week's massive power blackout across the north-eastern United States and Canada.
The lights may be barely back on and the cause of the electricity failure still subject to preliminary investigation, but that has not prevented finger-pointing from beginning in earnest. And it is the White House - 18 months after dodging a bullet over the collapse of Enron - that is finding itself in the hot seat.
"Just two years ago, [President Bush] and his allies in Congress blocked a Democratic proposal to invest $350m in upgrading America's electrical grid system," said the Florida Senator Bob Graham. "The blackout is further evidence that America needs to invest in its infrastructure." - - Andrew Gumbel, in the Independant.
FirstEnergy, the utility responsible for the downed Ohio lines, said it did not become aware of the problem fast enough because it was too busy writing checks to the republican party.
Oh good CRAP. Another damn thunderstorm is rolling in.
'Popular' pReznit's polls in pooper
Bush Re-Elect Drops to 42%-47% - Tied with Unnamed Dem
A Zogby poll released today shows that when asked if lying bungler Smarmy McGolfcart deserves re-election, only 46% of Americans said yes and a narrow majority, 47%, said it is time for someone new.
The poll, with a margin of error of +/- 3%, on a generic 2004 ballot between Bush and a Democratic candidate, Bush received 47% of support, and a Democratic candidate received 44%, putting the Bush and a Democratic candidate in a statistical dead heat still a year before the Democratic candidate is selected. The second poll, released yesterday by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics and published in National Journal's Hotline showed should the 2004 election be held today, those planning to reelect Bush had dropped to 42%.
- - Zogby.
Dissatisfied customer
Bush toy was not much fun
Dear Blue Box:
With great disappointment, I am returning the George W. Bush 'action figure,' which you will find enclosed in this package. I am seeking a full refund for this defective toy for the following reasons:
• Despite its billing as an action figure to pair up with my GI Joes, it was obviously not made to be a soldier. Never mind the lack of any scar on its face. The bigger problem is that I cannot find any weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the box. Heck, I can't find any weapons at all!
• When I pull the string to make it talk, the results are muffled and unintelligible or make no sense at all. Is this supposed to be some kind of rotten joke on your customers?
• Every time I turn the doll upside down and shake it, white powder comes out. What's with that?
• Even worse, my GI Joe dolls don't seem to like this one at all, and I'm beginning to understand why:
All last week, during the grueling sandbox battles in my backyard between my GI Joes and the hideous armies of Grog, the GW Bush doll was missing. I thought it was lost for good. But then, after my GI Joes won the day and made the sandbox safe again, there the Bush doll was, front and center, looking splendid and unruffled in pristine army fatigues. Evidently it'd been playing dress-up all week with my sister's Ken doll but was right there to take the credit for the GI Joe's victory.
My GI Joes are all saying that the GW Bush doll is stealing money out of their pockets and giving it to my sister's Ken and Barbie dolls. I didn't believe this at first, but this afternoon I spied a nice, new dollhouse in my sister's room and now I'm thinking it must be so.
- - from the Kansas City Star, via Blah3!
US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower
According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to "plant" WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by "friendly fire", the Environmentalists Against War report.
Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq.
The information that is being leaked out is information obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the DoD and/or the CIA.
- - Daily Times Monitor, via Bartcop.
The Mahablog is reporting that the CEO of the company that caused the massive NE blackout was a "Bush Pioneer."
The blackout began in a power transmission line in suburban Cleveland. What should have been a local problem spread so far because the Ohio power company that owned the line failed to separate itself from the grid as it was supposed to and as Michigan did. Thus the cascade of problems was sent on to New York.
"The system is designed to isolate itself to protect that area, to have the area go down and have the rest of the system survive. And instead it spread further and longer than it should have," said Michehl R. Gent, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council.
A spokesman for the Ohio power company, FirstEnergy Corp., said it had followed all proper procedures but would not comment specifically on whether it had triggered the huge blackout by failing to separate.
The President of First Energy, Tony Alexander, is a Bush "Pioneer," meaning he raised more than $100,000 in individual contributions for the 2000 Bush presidential campaign. Alexander was also a major player in the Bush Energy Transition Team, according to the National Resources Defense Council.


text:
How Family Tried to Keep Suspected Neo-Nazi From Their Daughter — Then He Allegedly Killed Them
Hours before Buckley Kuhn-Fricker was allegedly murdered by her 16-year-old daughter's boyfriend, she posted a brief quote to Facebook, her mother says
By Adam Carlson and Wendy Grossman Kantor December 27, 2017 12:40 PM
Hours before Buckley Kuhn-Fricker was allegedly murdered by her 16-year-old daughter's boyfriend, she posted a brief quote to Facebook, her mother tells PEOPLE.
The Thursday night post, an aphorism by philosopher Edmund Burke, read: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
It's a line that is more chilling by the day, as details continue to be revealed about a conflict in the family that may have motivated the double homicide of Kuhn-Fricker, 43, and her husband, 48-year-old Scott Fricker, in their home in Reston, Virginia, early Friday.
The suspected shooter, a 17-year-old boy from nearby Lorton, Virginia, then turned the gun on himself, county authorities tell PEOPLE.
buckley-fricker
He remains in critical condition at an area hospital and will be charged as a juvenile with murder, pending his medical recovery, according to a police spokeswoman. Officers responded to the Fricker home around 5 a.m. Friday and found both bodies as well as the injured teen, who remains under guard.
Police have declined to identify the boy, citing his age, or to comment further about a possible motive or other details about the shooting.
However, according to Kuhn-Fricker's mom, Janet Kuhn, as well as friends interviewed by local media, Kuhn-Fricker had become concerned that her daughter was actually dating an "outspoken Neo Nazi," and she pushed for the pair to break up — recently staging an intervention, which the family thought had been successful, Kuhn says.
(The suspect's relatives have reportedly declined to comment to other reporters and PEOPLE could not immediately reach them. A police spokeswoman declined to discuss Kuhn's version of what happened.)
• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
On Thursday, a day before the slayings, Kuhn-Fricker texted a friend to say her daughter was no longer dating the boy, according to the Washington Post. The breaking point appears to have come after Kuhn-Fricker found out that her daughter's boyfriend was allegedly posting and reposting racist and inflammatory messages on Twitter, including pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi and anti-semitic and anti-gay content.
"I just want to talk about the Nazi hatred and the evil that it prompts," Kuhn tells PEOPLE. "This kid is 17 years old and obviously he got all this hate from somebody."
"My daughter and her husband found out about a lot of the Nazi stuff just this past week, and they forbid their daughter to see him again," Kuhn told local TV station WRC.
fricker-2
From left: Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and Scott Fricker
| Credit: Facebook
A History of Troubling Behavior?
On the Sunday before the shooting, Kuhn-Fricker sent screenshots of the Twitter account to the principal of her daughter's private school, which the boy also attended, the Post reports.
"I would feel a little bad reporting him if his online access was to basically be a normal teen, but he is a monster, and I have no pity for people like that," Kuhn-Fricker wrote to the principal in an email shared with the Post by one of her friends.
"He made these choices," Kuhn-Fricker wrote. "He is spreading hate."
PEOPLE has been unable to independently review evidence of this Twitter account or to verify if the suspect is connected to it. Kuhn-Fricker reportedly discovered the account after looking at her daughter's phone.
She feared her daughter's boyfriend was trying to proselytize her with his beliefs, Kuhn told the Post.
Kuhn-Fricker wrote that her daughter — who reportedly began dating the boy in June — had asked her at one point, "Did you know that Jews are partly to blame for WWII?"
A friend who spoke to the Post remembered Kuhn-Fricker as saying, "We can't allow her to see someone associated with Nazis. We don't associate with hate groups in our house."
In a message she sent to the boyfriend's mother, Kuhn-Fricker reportedly wrote that the boy "was sneaking into our house at night … and is an outspoken Neo Nazi. These things render any legal redemption void."
• For more compelling true crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard.
According to another report in the Post, the boy's behavior had already raised red flags in his own neighborhood, in Lorton: Residents there say he had apparently mowed a large swastika — about 40 feet wide and 40 feet tall — into a community field about two months before the shooting.
A group of neighbors got together and one of them went over to the boy's family, where his parents said he had been the one to make the symbol and that he was receiving treatment, one local resident told the Post. (A message to the neighborhood association was not immediately returned on Wednesday.)
"They were going to take care of it," neighbor Penny Potter told the Post of the boy's parents. "They were aware of it."
The neighbors did not call the police.
On Friday morning, according to Kuhn's account of the shooting, her daughter and her son-in-law went to check on the girl in her bedroom when they found the teenage boy. Police say he was confronted by the parents and then allegedly shot them both.
Kuhn, citing a detective, told the Post that Fricker told the boy to leave and then the teen allegedly pulled a gun.
Afterward, he shot himself in the head, Kuhn said.
Fricker home, Reston, VirginiaCredit: Wendy Grossman Kantor
A memorial outside the Reston, Virginia, home of Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and Scott Fircker
| Credit: Wendy Grossman Kantor
'Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful People'
Four other family members were at the Fricker home at the time of the shooting, according to police. Among them were Fricker's parents, Kuhn says, who were in town for Christmas.
Kuhn, a retired attorney, remembers her daughter, who owned an elder-care company, as "beautiful inside and out." Kuhn-Fricker's work involved helping older local residents without support — who didn't have a child like her, her mother says.
Fricker worked as a senior research psychologist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to the New York Times.
"They were wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people and beautiful in every way outside and inside," Kuhn says.
The children — including Kuhn-Fricker's teenage daughter, who is her child from a previous marriage, and the couple's younger son, 10 — are now with relatives, Kuhn says. Kuhn-Fricker is also survived by an adult son, who like her daughter is from her first marriage, according to the Post.
The site of the shooting, meanwhile, has become something of a memorial to the family it shattered. Outside their home sit candles, bouquets of flowers and a sign: "Hate has no home here."
By Adam Carlson and Wendy Grossman Kantor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Look perfectly peachy in a classically styled Silk Kimono maternity top with our pretty all-over print, ideal for a lunch date or meeting.
Not just any print, this is Tiffany Rose bespoke Peach Blossom print, created for us here in the UK, on finest sheer silk stretch fabric for the perfect drape throughout pregnancy or long after.
For an immaculate finish, edges are bound with soft silver satin bias trim.
Beneath the cross over neckline, softly gather the fluid fabric at the waist with this top's self-coloured ties for definition between bump and bust.
Sold with a soft jersey cream camisole and works beautifully with our Slimfit maternity trousers in comfortable stretch cotton sateen.
Main: 90% Silk, 10% Elastane.Dry Clean Only."


text:
Reaping the Whirlwind may refer to:
 "Reaping the Whirlwind", a song by Buckethead from Funnel Weaver
 Reaping the Whirlwind, a novel by Rosey Dow, winner of a 2001 Christy Award
 Reaping the Whirlwind, a 1908 play by Allan Monkhouse
 Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History, a 1976 book by Langdon Brown Gilkey

See also
 Reap the whirlwind (disambiguation)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
December 16, 2019 8:52am Tushar Mehta
Vivo launches X30 and Vivo X30 Pro with 5G, Exynos 980 SoC, 64MP cameras, and FuntouchOS 10
Vivo might be alien to a lot of users in the west but it is fairly popular in parts of Asia. In fact, it is the second most popular smartphone brand in homeland China and occupies the third position in India. The company is also renowned for its design innovations like the first smartphone with a pop-up camera, multiple phones with AMOLED displays on both sides, or "waterfall displays" with >100% screen-to-body ratio. All these smartphones belong to the premium Vivo NEX series but today, they have launched two new smartphones in the X-series, which holds their affordable flagship smartphones. The successor to the Vivo X27 – Vivo X30 series – has just been launched in China and its exciting features include a 60x digital zoom, a minuscule hole-punch camera, 5G support, etc.
The camera is one of the primary features that Vivo focussed on while introducing the smartphone. The superior of the two – the Vivo X30 Pro – comes with a quad-camera setup on the back including a 64MP primary camera, a 13MP periscopic telephoto setup with up to 5X hybrid and 60X digital zoom, a 32MP camera with a 50mm focal length for depth sensing and better quality portraits, and lastly an 8MP wide-angle sensor. Additionally, there's a LASER auto-focus on the camera module for faster and more accurate focusing.
On the other hand, the Vivo X30 comes with a triple-rear-camera setup but lacks a dedicated telephoto camera while retaining the remaining sensor, as they are. This means the zooming capabilities are limited to 20X on this smartphone but buyers will be able to capture DSLR-quality portrait shots, as claimed by the company, and capture a 112º wide field of view with the dedicated 8MP camera just like the Vivo X30 Pro.
Vivo announced that special camera features on the Vivo X30 and the X30 Pro include eye-tracking, Super Night Mode 2.0, and Hyper HDR for great shots irrespective of lighting conditions.
The Vivo X30 and the X30 Pro devices are identical in most other respects and in terms of the display and come equipped with a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display. This display is being called an XDR display by Vivo for its claimed peak brightness of 1200 nits, HDR support, and a contrast ratio of 2000000:1. The display also houses a tiny, 2.98mm hole punch for the 32MP selfie camera. This hole-punch is the smallest we've seen so far and is less than 60% in diameter compared to the smallest hole-punch we'd seen before this.
When it comes to the performance, Vivo X30 and the X30 Pro are powered by Samsung's Exynos 980 chipset. With this chipset, these smartphones also get support for NSA as well as SA modes for 5G. The maximum download speed for the modem on the Exynos 980 is 3.55Gbps.
The two smartphones come with 4350mAh batteries and support Vivo's FlashCharge technology with a fast charging rate of 33W. To keep the phone from overheating due to demanding 5G connectivity, performance, or while fast charging, there is a gel-based cooling solution inside a flattened conduit.
The Vivo X30 series comes in three attractive colors – lilac-ish silver, peach, and black – all of which have a reflective gradient surface on the back.
In terms of software, both of the smartphones come with the latest version of Vivo's custom Android skin – FuntouchOS. irrespective of the numbering, FuntouchOS 10 is based on Android 9 Pie but we can expect a version based on Android 10 when it launches for markets outside of China.
Vivo X30 5G and Vivo X30 Pro 5G: Pricing & Availability
Both the devices come with 8GB RAM as standard and options between 128GB and 256GB for the storage.
The prices for each of the models are:
8GB + 128GB – CNY 3298
The prebooking for the Vivo X30 starts today and the 8GB/128GB model of the Vivo X30 Pro goes on sale on December 24th. The 8GB/256GB variant of the X30 Pro and the 8GB/128GB variant of the X30 will be available December 28th onwards. Lastly, the launch date of the 8GB/256GB model of the X30 will be announced later.
FuntouchOS 10
FuntouchOS comes with a more minimal design include lighter backgrounds, fewer separating lines, and a coherent, pre-dominantly white color theme. We can also see improved symmetry in icons besides subtle animations. Along with these changes, there are new live wallpapers as well as animated always-on lock screen animations.
FuntouchOS 10 also bring some new gestures to view and quickly access notifications from favorite apps. Furthermore, there are several improvements to Vivo's smart assistant Jovi. The interface will also be available for other Vivo devices starting Feb 2020.
Tags vivo
XDA » News » Vivo launches X30 and Vivo X30 Pro with 5G, Exynos 980 SoC, 64MP cameras, and FuntouchOS 10
Tushar Mehta 485 posts see posts >
Tushar's love for tinkering with different forms of consumer tech brings him to this front. Besides technology, he likes to keep a tab on the political climate and trade bouts that make things expensive, and in turn, peeve him. Email him at [email protected]


text:
German | English | | | |
Call us now: +66 (0)2 117 9131-2
The Sap-Ing-Sith – Is Thailand's New Property Right a Game Changer?
fdoppler
The Thai Land Code stipulates that – apart from a few exemptions – foreigners are not permitted to own land in Thailand. Many foreigners seeking to buy immovable property in Thailand, therefore, chose legal structures like leasehold, usufruct, or ownership of the property by a Thai company, to mitigate the restrictions. However, these legal structures have weaknesses and, if not set up properly, may even involve legal risks. To encourage foreigners to invest in property in Thailand, the Thai National Legislative Assembly on February 8th, 2019, passed the Sap-Ing-Sith Act. The Sap-Ing-Sith Act was published in the Royal Gazette on April 26th, 2019 and will come into effect on October 27th, 2019. The new law is aiming to encourage foreigners to invest in immovable property to boost the economy in Thailand. Requirements, as well as the rights and obligations of the Sap-Ing-Sith, are as follows:
Definition of Sap-Ing-Sith
The Sap-Ing-Sith grants its holder the right to use an immovable property and can be established on land with a valid Chanote (Land title deed), buildings placed on land plots held under a valid Chanote and condominium units as defined in the Condominium Act. It is possible to register a Sap-Ing-Sith for a period of up to 30 years. The Sap-Ing-Sith has to be made in writing and registered at the competent land office.
Registration of a Sap-Ing-Sith
After the parties reached an agreement, the registration of the Sap-Ing-Sith at the Land Department takes place in two stages; first, the Property-Owner has to register a Sap-Ing-Sith for the property. After registration of the Sap-Ing-Sith, the transfer to the other party has to be registered. The registration fee is 20,000 THB. If the land plot where Sap-Ing-Sith should be registered is subject to a mortgage, consent from the mortgage holder is required. After registration, the Sap-Ing-Sith holder will receive a certificate of the Sap-Ing-Sith from the Land Office, which he can use to prove his right. The Land Office will also keep a copy of this certificate.
Rights and duties in relation to the Sap-Ing-Sith
There are several rights and obligations in relation to the Sap-Ing-Sith, which are surpassing the rights of a standard leasehold. The most significant rights and duties are shown as follows:
Rights of the Sap-Ing-Sith holder:
Use the property as shown on the details of the certificate issued by the land office;
Transfer the Sap-Ing-Sith to a third party without the owner's consent;
Use the Sap-Ing-Sith as security for a mortgage (not registered);
The Sap-Ing-Sith is inheritable under statutory inheritance law; and
Make alterations/additions to the property without the owner's consent.
Duties of the Sap-Ing-Sith holder:
Has to return the property in an "as is" condition at the end of the period unless otherwise agreed; and
Liable for the property like an owner. Exception: the right to follow and recover the property from a third party that is not entitled to possess the land, and the right to prevent unlawful interferences from the property.
Rights of the Property-owner:
To transfer the ownership;
Use the property as security for a mortgage; and
Use the property security according to the Business Collateral Act B.E. 2558.
The execution of all rights mentioned above requires written consent by the Sap-Ing-Sith holder.
Obligations of the Property-owner:
Can't create other rights on a property with a Sap-Ing-Sith without consent from the Sap-Ing-Sith Holder;
Can't terminate the Sap-Ing-Sith before the expiration period if a right of a third party is affected.
As foreigners will be permitted to hold a Sap-Ing-Sith, it might become an interesting alternative to other legal structures that allow foreigners to possess land in Thailand. Also, when keeping in mind the advantages of the Sap-Ing-Sith, like the possibility to mortgage it, and the right to sell the Sap-Ing-Sith without consent of the owner, there are many scenarios where a Sap-Ing-Sith can be very useful. The Sap-Ing-Sith is not a game-changer, as the maximum period is still 30 years and thus the same duration as a normal leasehold. And most other rights that the Sap-Ing-Sith grants could also be granted with a standard leasehold agreement. But still, the Sap-Ing-Sith Act shows the ongoing liberalization of the Thai property market, which will certainly be welcomed by foreign investors. We expect that most foreign property buyers will likely prefer the new Sap-Ing-Sith over the traditional registered lease.
We will monitor the impact of the Sap-Ing-Sith on the Thai property market when it comes into effect and will keep you updated. If you have any questions regarding this matter, feel free to contact us at info@franklegaltax.com.
Market Entry & Licensing
Transactions / Contracts and Negotiations
Tax Advisory and Structuring
Immigration / Work Permits
Notarial and Certified Translation Services
Unit 1104, 208 Wireless Rd, Lumpini, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
BTS Ploenchit station
Tel: +66 (0)2 117 9131-2
info@franklegaltax.com
Link to Map
Palm Plaza, 55/1 Bandon-Cherngtalay Road, Cherngtalay, Thalang Phuket 83110 Thailand
Tel: +66 (0) 76 615906
Fax: +66 (0) 76 615863
phuket@franklegaltax.com
© 2015 FRANK Legal & Tax - All Rights Reserved


text:
Дукато ди Фабријаго је насеље у Италији у округу Равена, региону Емилија-Ромања.

Према процени из 2011. у насељу је живело 370 становника. Насеље се налази на надморској висини од 7 м.

Види још
 Покрајине Италије
 Италијани

Референце

Литература

Спољашње везе

Насеља у округу Равена
Википројект географија/Насеља у Италији


text:
FROM andypetrella/spark-notebook:0.9.0-SNAPSHOT-scala-2.11.8-spark-2.2.0-hadoop-2.7.2
#FROM jkremser/spark-notebook:0.9.0-SNAPSHOT-scala-2.11.8-spark-2.1.1-hadoop-2.7.3

ADD blockchain.snb.ipynb /opt/docker/notebooks/
ADD addresses /tmp/addresses.parquet
ADD blocks /tmp/blocks.parquet
ADD transactions /tmp/transactions.parquet
ADD edges /tmp/edges.parquet
ADD entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh

LABEL io.k8s.description="spark-notebook Notebook with blockchain analysis." \
      io.k8s.display-name="spark-notebook Notebook with blockchain analysis." \
      io.openshift.expose-services="9000:http"

# /usr/sbin is needed because akka creates this /usr/sbin/.coursier/cache/v1/.structure.lock
RUN chmod ug+rw /etc/passwd \
    && chmod o+w /usr/sbin/ \
    && chown daemon:daemon /opt/docker/notebooks/blockchain.snb.ipynb \
    && find /opt/docker/notebooks/ ! -path /opt/docker/notebooks/ -type d -exec rm -rf {} + \
    && apt-get update \
    && apt-get install -y python \
    && apt-get clean all

USER daemon

EXPOSE 9000 8000
ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh", "/opt/docker/bin/spark-notebook", "-Dpidfile.path=/tmp/pid"]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: How to pass Spring context to Spark worker node I am very new to Spark and I have spring context(loading the xml in to application context using ClassPathXmlApplicationContext) that need to be passed to worker node . I am able to create the Spark context and trying to use the same with in my flatMap and its null. Is there anyway I can pass this to the Flatmap function ? I am calling another framework with in spark that needs this spring context.
Here is some code
ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring/rules-engine-spring.xml");

JavaRDD<Row> partitions = r.mapPartitions(
  new FlatMapFunction<Iterator<Row>, Row>() {
      public Iterable<Row> call(Iterator<Row> rowIterator) throws Exception {

          List<Data> factList = new ArrayList<Data>();
          while (rowIterator.hasNext()) {
              Row rw = rowIterator.next();
              Data fact = new Data();
              fact.setGrain(rw.getString(0));
              fact.setRoute(rw.getString(1));
              factList.add(fact);
          }
          Iterable itr = new Iterable() {
                  List l = new ArrayList<Integer>();

                  public Iterator iterator() {
                      return l.iterator();
                  }
              };
          return itr;
      }

  });
List result=partitions.collect();

when I am trying to use the context with in FlatMapFunction its null. Outside of this method , context has value . any help would be appreciated.

A: When you make a variable transient, it's not getting serialized and not available on the workers. That would explain the null inside the flatMap. You'll have to make sure the serializer picks up the class (and remove the transient). You might be able to use kryo to serialize the class even though it's not Serializable.
Via http://apache-spark-user-list.1001560.n3.nabble.com/Un-serializable-3rd-party-classes-Spark-Java-td7815.html:

There are a few options:

*

*Kryo might be able to serialize these objects out of the box, depending what's inside them. Try turning it on as described at http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/tuning.html.

*If that doesn't work, you can create your own "wrapper" objects that implement Serializable, or even a subclass of FlexCompRowMatrix. No need to change the original library.

*If the library has its own serialization functions, you could also use those inside a wrapper object. Take a look at https://github.com/apache/spark/blob/master/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/SerializableWritable.scala for an example where we make Hadoop's Writables serializable.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange