posted 09-25-2003 08:35 AM            

On second thought, I wouldn't want to pollute the air.

Oh, ever get a look at her close up, without her 5 pounds of make-up.....Uggghhh!!

posted 09-25-2003 09:26 PM            

Amazing that as this book hits the stands, and makes the best seller list thanks in part to the free publicity generated by Fox trying pathetically to claim a foul on the use of the term "Fair & Balanced"...laughed out of the courtroom by the judge...anyway, as I was saying amazing that as this book comes out and people are actually getting facts not presented in mainstream corporate owned media, that the approval of the Bush junta sinks to all time lows.

posted 09-25-2003 09:44 PM            

It's time that the needs and concerns of the MAJORITY of the citizens of the country were represented rather that small MINORITY of the wealthiest.

It's time we had a government that we could trust, instead of an illegitimate JUNTA.

It's heartening to see that every day more and more people are standing up to express this urgent need.

This won't be the first King George we've had to deal with in the history of this nation.

posted 09-25-2003 09:50 PM            

No mystery here, folks

By Molly Ivins

Among the more amusing cluckings from the right lately is their appalled discovery that quite a few Americans actually think George W. Bush is a terrible president.

Robert Novak is quoted as saying that, in all his 44 years of covering politics, he has never seen anything like the detestation of Bush. Charles Krauthammer managed to write an entire essay on the topic of "Bush-haters" in Time magazine, as though he had never before come across such a phenomenon.

Oh, I stretch memory way back, so far back, all the way back to -- our last president.

Almost lost in the mists of time though that is, I not only remember eight years of relentless attacks from Bill Clinton-haters, but I also notice they haven't let up yet. Clinton-haters accused the man of murder, rape, drug-running, sexual harassment, financial chicanery and official misconduct, and his wife of even worse.

For eight long years, this country was a zoo of Clinton-haters. Sliming Clinton was a sure road to fame and fortune on the right, and many an ambitious young right-wing hit man -- like David Brock, who has since made full confession -- took that golden opportunity.

"The puzzle is where this depth of feeling comes from," mused the ineffable Krauthammer. "Whence the anger? It begins of course with the 'stolen' election of 2000 and the perception of Bush's illegitimacy."

I'd say so myself, yes, it would. I was in Florida during that chilling post-election fight and am fully persuaded to this good day that Al Gore actually won Florida, not to mention getting 550,000 more votes than Bush overall.

The night that Gore conceded the race in one of the most graceful and honorable speeches I have ever heard, I was in a ballroom full of Republican Party flacks who booed and jeered through every word of it.

One thing I acknowledge about the right is that they're much better haters than liberals are. Your basic liberal is pretty much a strikeout on the hatred front. Maybe further out on the left you can hit some good righteous anger, but liberals, and I am one, are generally real wusses.

To tell the truth, I'm kind of proud of us for holding the grudge this long.

Normally we'd remind ourselves that we have to be good sports, it's for the good of the country, we must unite behind the only president we've got, as Lyndon used to remind us.

So George Dubya becomes president, having run as a "compassionate conservative," and what do we get? Hell's own conservative and zilch for compassion. His entire first eight months was tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich.

Then came 9/11, and we all rallied. Country under attack, most horrible thing, what can we do? Ready to give blood, get out of our cars and ride bicycles, whatever.

Shop, said the president. That and more tax cuts for the rich.

By now we're starting to notice Bush's bait-and-switch con.

Make a deal with Ted Kennedy to improve education, and then fail to put any money into it. Promise $15 billion in new money to combat AIDS in Africa (wow), but it turns out to be a cheap con -- no new money. Praise a job-training effort, then cut the money. Bush says AmeriCorps is great, then cuts the money.

Gee, what could we possibly have against this guy?

Then suddenly, in the greatest bait and switch of all time, Osama bin doesn't matter at all, and we have to go after Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11. But he does have horrible weapons of mass destruction.

So we take out Saddam, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the Iraqis are not overjoyed to see us.

By now quite a few people who aren't even liberal are starting to say, "Wha' the hey?"

We got no Osama; we got no Saddam; we got no weapons of mass destruction; the road map to peace in the Middle East is blown to bits. We're stuck in Iraq for $87 billion just for one year, and no one knows how long we'll be there.

And still poor Krauthammer is hard-put to conceive how anyone could conclude that George W. Bush is a poor excuse for a president.

It is not necessary to hate George W. Bush to think he's a bad president.

Grown-ups can do that, you know -- decide that someone's policies are a miserable failure without lying awake at night, consumed with hatred.

Poor Bush is in way over his head, and the country is in bad shape because of his stupid economic policies. If that make me a Bush-hater, then sign me up.

posted 09-25-2003 10:01 PM            

For those who merely get their junk food media jones from Reality TV or Eminem or video game violence, you are missing one of the great purveyors of grandiose stupidity on the market today; Ann Coulter. Noted author, and celebrated carnival barker; Coulter is the living embodiment of modern pop culture genius, well-dressed freak show merchants masquerading their commentary with bombastic rhetoric, mixed daringly with a waft of jingoistic perfume.

Coulter's efforts are noble and sound. She knows well the avenue of history has long been open for armchair revisionists to sidle up to the microphone and trump hyperbolic issues and hot-button names in an ostentatious peddling of merchandise. Having pitched a book for the past few months, I bow to her prescient supremacy.

Mostly, Coulter is a wonderful siren for our greatest attributes, the inability to understand rudimentary ideas beyond our own prejudiced hallucinations. No other social or political essayist possesses more of a keen eye for P.T. Barnum's vast audience of ravenous lap dogs in the American heart.

Coulter is a wonderful siren for our greatest attributes, the inability to understand rudimentary ideas beyond our own prejudiced hallucinations. No other social or political essayist possesses more of a keen eye for P.T. Barnum's vast audience of ravenous lap dogs in the American heart.

This is a sorely needed talent in today's politically correct world of pusillanimous frauds. She is a maverick among sheep, but Coulter is often vilified for this, while she should be lauded as a hero for our most precious national resource: The Dumb.

In the grand tradition of Jerry Springer, Colonel Tom Parker and Joseph Goebbels, Coulter is merrily plugging her new cantankerous volume entitled, "Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War To The War On Terrorism" with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And from recent quotes, the book appears to brilliantly reveal how Americans understand history and its effects on today's social fabric.

For instance, last night on MSNBC, Coulter wildly defended Senator Joseph McCarthy as "a misunderstood American hero whose sacrifices preserved America's sovereignty for thirty-plus years." This is the very same McCarthy whose incredible ride to infamy included an historic monopoly of world-class fear mongering this democracy has ever had the displeasure to endure.

Understand Coulter's genius here. Aside from Hitler or Manson or Nixon or Liberace, the very name McCarthy, attached as it is to a period of madness called McCarthyism, is notable for its enviable shock quotient. A monument to hate bating and paranoia run amok, McCarthy's legacy is nothing if not noteworthy. He was a tremendous brute of his times, clinically insane and furiously malevolent, a true celebrity monster. But apparently in Coulter's luminous tome we relearn that McCarthy's savagely clumsy attack on basic democratic liberties was "bravery" and that "The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times."

On the heels of Hillary Clinton's fantastically successful, "Living History" - an embarrassingly potent political manifesto wrapped neatly in a package of scrumptiously infantile musings - Coulter's grandstanding is sublime, painfully striking, and a clear roadmap to 21st century thought. Clinton's book aimed to put distance between her and her ass of a husband. Coulter's work puts a loving stamp on what her president's dissenters have dubbed "fear-mongering" in the guise of patriotism. But Clinton is a politician, and nothing politicians have written has really meant anything binding since "Mein Kampf".

Coulter is different. She is a pro, in every brutal sense of the word. Coulter writes: "Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie."

This is excellent hyperbole, with just the right amount of stern recognition, but having not read the entire thing, I can only assume she gets to the bottom of these lies about McCarthy; lies which are a matter of overly analyzed public record for half a century. But the book, or the childish assumption that only Liberals held, or hold, McCarthy contemptible, is not the issue here. It is the use of McCarthy as a notorious figure, and an effigy of politics gone frightfully awry, as a weapon against Coulter's enemy, The Left.

Trashing The Left, like Senator Rodham's subtle forms of trashing The Right in her book tour, allow both to employ an important ingredient to mass appeal, consistency. No one wants their Bruce Springsteens jamming funk or Bill Bennetts strung out on cheap wine and loading up on seven-figure Vegas bets.

Some may find championing terrible goons as political martyrs for the benefit of ideology wrong.

Hardly.

Getting massive digs in on the enemy, while refiguring the legacy of a national embarrassment for personal profit has merit. This is what many books have done for decades, rediscovering the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War or the Nixon Tapes. It's good press, even in the face of complete and utter contempt for common sense and truth.

Another fine example from Coulter: "McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. Soviet spies in the government were not a figment of right-wing imaginations. He was tilting at an authentic Communist conspiracy that had been laughed off by the Democratic Party."

Beautiful craziness.

Did the overall manic dismantling of McCarthy's crusade have a tinge of backlash fanaticism? Of course. Were there Communists in the government? Sure. In the pall of a Cold War, was it a threat to national security? Correct. Was this why McCarthy was finally harangued by his contemporaries or forever noted as a criminally insane lunatic? No. It was McCarthy's methods of sidestepping laws, using media outcry and troubled times to promote a sick obsession to shamelessly self-promote his career.

Even Coulter sheepishly admits to McCarthy's famous lie about a list of 57 names in the US government with Communist ties. But you won't find that as a headline on the day I write this. You see, in a way, what Coulter is doing is a metaphor for McCarthy's greatest legacy: Say something completely shocking and outlandish, and make someone deny or address it.

Artistic grace.

And finally the second most successful slant on truth used by Coulter here is her assessment that the Democratic Party was more or less run by a radical anti-American Communist regime since McCarthy's public demise. This scoffs in the face of horrific mistakes made by Democratic administrations, not the least of which would be the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, instigated, by the way, by Democratic presidents, or the Bay of Pigs disaster, or blah, blah blah.

posted 09-26-2003 02:27 PM            

The Myth of "Big Government"

Barbra Streisand
Posted on September 25, 2003

What is "Big Government?" We've been conditioned to believe these are bad words - but when Hurricane Isabel ripped through the East Coast last week, leaving many homes and businesses significantly damaged in its wake, Bush told disaster relief workers and governors of the affected states, "If you need help, let us know." This was not Bush showing his "compassionate" side... this is what the federal government does -it helps people in need. Contrary to Republican slogans against "Big Government" or "Tax and Spend Liberals," if you look at the reality, government spending is a key part of what makes this country function and provides the services that Americans both depend on and take for granted.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency Bush extolled in the Southeast this week, is designed to help Americans in crises - be they victims of natural disasters, or victims of extreme poverty. Agencies such as FEMA are what make our country able to bounce back from tragedy and unforeseen events, just as schools educate our children, firefighters fight fires, police officers keep our streets orderly, a decent highway system allows us to move freely, national parks maintain our incredible natural resources, our military protects us from outside threats, the Center for Disease Control protects us from epidemics, and Social Security and Medicare programs insure that our seniors aren't thrust into poverty after so many years of hard work. These are just some of the basics of government. These are not entitlement programs. These are not excesses. These are not "special interests." This is what the government is supposed to do for you, the people.

So when Republicans, such as leading tax-cut proponent Grover Norquist, talk about reducing government to the size where they can "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub," we need to examine what that world without government would look like. Do we want to live in a country without a legal system, without a military, without free education, without safety net programs? Is this the future most Americans actually want for their country?

posted 09-26-2003 02:46 PM            

The Neo-Cons want to reduce government EXCEPT in the cases of morality. They think nothing of putting 500 billion toward a ridiculous drug war, RAVE Act, stopping abortions, putting covers on nude statues, or gay marriage battles.

posted 09-26-2003 03:54 PM            

The Neo-cons are the biggest government socialists around that make Bill Clinton seem like Ronald Regan by comparison.

Even Limbaugh has complained about how the Bush administration has actually enlarged government over the past 2 and a half years.

Its a pretty good indication that when even the Bush worshipping crowd starts turning its back on the Neo-cons that we were right all along.

I'm still convinced they are trying to make government here in the US based on the planks of the Communist manifesto.

They are anything BUT conservatives.

Was MC Carthy right? Absolutely.

Especially once he caught on to WHO was bankrolling and propping up Communism in the first place.

posted 09-26-2003 09:53 PM            

Professor Periwinkle hates us both!

Good golly Miss Molly!

We must be doing something right...Ha!

I'll take a Black Metal Gothic Fan, any day over a tight-ass-blue-nose-pseudo-religious-bushit supporter.

posted 09-26-2003 10:20 PM            

There's a hybrid, a bizarre combination of systems at work in the current Neo-Con junta ruling Washington now.

McCarthy was an avid nazi supporter in the early days 1939-1941, with Nixon as a backer, who also was sympathetic to The Reich. Of Course, the communists were the enemy of both the embryonic corporate feudal state America, and Nazi Germany. Labor unions especially in the US, were said to have been organized by communists in the 30's.

Nixon and McCarthy did an about face when Hitler was getting not so popular. Now the Russians/communists were the US's friend. Expediency.

I still believe McCarthy and Nixon kept their Nazi-loving roots. When Operation Paperclip took in all the ex-Gestapo, SS, genetic scientists, lawyers, and teachers starting in 1947, along came the Fifth Reich, alive and well noe in the USA, free to conduct their wretched experiments thru organizations like the CIA and military experiments.

Jews, socialists, communists, and liberals were the target of The New Inquisition. exactly as went on before in Nazi Germany, although with new sponsers.

In my opinion, what we have now is a combination of the following:

1) Corporate Feudalism

2) Neo-Friendly Fascism

3) Corporate Socialism

4) Trotsky Communism

5) Consumerism

6) State Sponsered Religion

7) Male/Female inter-gender conflict

posted 09-27-2003 05:16 PM            

Keep taking swings at me, I might just let you connect once or twice. Until then, whiff!!!......whiff!!!!....whiff!!!!! So far off base you are.

"I'll take a Black Metal Gothic Fan, any day over a tight-ass-blue-nose-pseudo-religious-bushit supporter"

posted 09-27-2003 05:25 PM            

Music does tell a lot of the person.

Personally, Goth, metal fans have always liked Noble Gas music, maybe because of it's "big" sound. I liked Sabbath in 1970 when I first heard "Black Sabbath" on WNEW -FM right here in New York. Always being a Vincent Price and John Carradine fan, there was something familiar to it. I love the costumes, the power, and the bravado of it. And most of the Metal-heads I know are cool people.

My favorite newer Goth band is "Sins of Thy Beloved" from Norway or Sweden.

posted 09-27-2003 05:47 PM            

Give a link, I'm always open to new music.

Meanwhile, check out these Daliesque people, around since 1969.

The Residents
http://www.residents.com/

posted 09-27-2003 06:29 PM            

http://www.opeth.com/

posted 09-27-2003 06:43 PM            

Opeth

To Rid The Disease

There's nobody here, there's nobody near
I try not to care, dead eyes always stare
Let these matters be, don't trust what you see
Take hold of your time, step into the line

There's innocence torn from its maker
Stillborn the trust in you
This failure has made the creator
So would you tell him what to do (would you)

Leave your mark upon the head of someone
Who'll cry for his state, we know it's too late
I turn round to see what was meant to be
Faint movement release to rid the disease

There's innocence torn from its maker
Stillborn the trust in you (I have lost the trust I
had in you)
This failure has made the creator
So would you tell him what to do
(I have lost the trust I had in you)

posted 09-27-2003 08:11 PM            

Here's some

If you like Salvador Dali, Captain Beefheart, Zappa, or Mummenschanz, you'll like The Residents.

BTW, they started Indy music as we know it today,back in the late 60's early 70's.

Still going strong. An inspiration to people in their teens, 20's, 30's, and 50's (well old as you wanna go), that you don't have to give in to State Sponsered Normalcy, a terminal disease.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/show/artist/Residents/

This is some of their older material.