Vacation From What?
NEW YORK - Britney Spears is enjoying her pregnancy. Spears, who announced her pregnancy last month, said she and husband Kevin Federline "ate at some amazing restaurants in Scottsdale" during a "peaceful and relaxing" two-week vacation in Arizona.

"Eating for two is so much fun; I get to eat lots and lots!" the 23-year-old singer says in a posting on her Web site.

~~

Vacation? Vacation from WHAT? Britney Spears has spent the last few months smoking, drinking, swimming, eating and getting pregnant. What exactly were you vacationing from? Being hot?

Speaking of which, remember when Christina was the skanky one? Back in the day nothing she did surprised us and now she's classed up her act and is even engaged to someone legitimate. That's right, I said it. K-Fed? Is a joke.

Afraid. Very afraid.
I’ve heard some words thrown out lately that I thought I’d share. First, though, let me note that I didn’t hear them in our mainstream media. No, these words were spoken on Air America Radio, possibly the only organization out there telling the truth.

Fascism: A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism.

Oligarchy: A system of government in which political power is exercised by a small group of people, usually self-selected.

Do these concepts sound familiar? If they don’t, they should.

Belligerent nationalism certainly fits the profile of a few power-mongers in Washington. And by writing the above I am aware that my own patriotism may at some point be called into question. The fact that questionable patriotism is something people worry about indicates the level of our problem.

Black voters were purged from the rolls in Florida, 2000. I’d call that self-selected, especially since Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush had a hand in the whole fiasco.

I guess it’s just a matter of time before we see exactly which of these oppressive dictatorships will come to pass in the U.S. The national I.D. program should certainly be a start in keeping track of our “undesirables”. Certainly no one would abuse this power of having all our information in one giant database. It’s not like anything like that has ever happened here before. Like during WWII for example when we used the Census data to get the addresses for every Japanese-American living in the U.S. so that we could put them in internment camps.

I’m really worried that no one seems to be paying any attention. The British memo came out a week ago and no one’s talking about it. This document proves – PROVES – that the Bush Administration decided to go to war and THEN created the evidence to support their decision. But no one knows, because the headlines are all about Michael Jackson and the Runaway Bride and Bush’s trip to Russia and the fucking Kentucky Derby and Paris Hilton’s next reality show and who’ll star with her.

Are Democrats Causing Delays in Court?
According to FactCheck.org:

Contrary to a pro-Bush TV ad, Republicans share the blame for "empty courtrooms," and delays are shorter now than they were before Bush.

Summary

A multimillion-dollar ad campaign blames Democrats for the fact that "courtrooms sit empty." In fact, there are now half as many judicial vacancies as when Bush took office. And of the 46 federal judgeships that remain vacant, Bush has named only 16 replacements.

The ad also says cases are being delayed in federal courts for "thousands of Americans." Actually, official statistics show cases typically being decided more quickly now than they were in 1999, when it was Republicans opposing Clinton's judicial nominees.

~~

So suck on that, all you 'Pubs who want the world to believe that we Dems are ruining the justice system. That's right, I said said suck on it!

Liberal Media? I don't think so.
If there’s one thing that frustrates me to the point of distraction, it’s the claim that we have a ‘liberal’ media in this country. Two events have recently occurred that not only illustrate how false this notion of liberalism in the news is, but also show the idiocy of America.

First event: This past Sunday, May 1, 2005, the Times of London printed a memo that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bush and Blair planned a regime change in Iraq and then created facts to fit this policy. The memo, written by Downing Street aide Matthew Rycroft, quotes Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 and Britain's chief intelligence officer as saying, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

My proof that the liberal media doesn’t exist? My Google search for “British Memo + Iraq + London Times” turned up nothing but some blog entries and British headlines. I couldn’t find a single U.S. newspaper offering information on this memo. Yet any search for the Runaway Bride was met with scores of articles and op/ed pieces.

Second event: The 13-year-old girl in Florida who was almost forced by the state to continue with her unwanted pregnancy. Her wish was to get an abortion; a judge in Florida first tried to block it, but later had to agree that it was in her best interest to go ahead with the abortion.

Once again, seeing the headline in an April 30, 2005 email from the BBC, I couldn’t find the story in a single U.S. paper. On the other hand, if I wanted any piece of information on the Michael Jackson trial, I would be hard pressed to chose exactly which article best fit my interest.

Are we really that stupid, America?

Sanity? In Texas?!
Judge throws out Abu Ghraib guilty plea

FORT HOOD, Texas - A military judge Wednesday threw out Pfc. Lynndie England’s guilty plea to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, saying that he was not convinced that she knew that her actions were wrong at the time.

~~

This just boggles my mind. How is it that we are past the one year anniversary of this horrific discovery and the only people who've been held responsible are the peons dumb enough to have followed the orders they were given?

Let's hope this judge starts a trend so that we can finally find out who England reported to and who that person reported to and up the chain of command until we get to the person who said the whole fiasco was okay.

Dopey reservists from West Virginia don't think up shit like this on their own. It took imagination and creativity the likes of which haven't been seen (possibly) since the Spanish Inquisition.

Fla. Court Refuses to Hear Limbaugh Appeal
By JILL BARTON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 28, 5:49 PM ET

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday declined to consider an appeal from commentator Rush Limbaugh claiming his privacy was violated when his medical records were seized for an investigation of whether he illegally purchased painkillers.

Prosecutors seized the records after learning that Limbaugh had received about 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors over six months, at a pharmacy near his oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach.

~~

Dear Rush,

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Can't you please let Jesus help you admit that there might be something wrong? Come on, let the Light come into your heart, you big druggie.

Slow Economy, Big Profits
Ever notice how Exxon stations are always a good seven to ten cents higher than others? I have. And I think I just found out why:

At last night’s prime time press conference, Bush announced that, "There will be no price gouging at gas pumps in America."

According to the Associated Press, “he spoke on the same day the world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., announced that its profit for the first three months of the year had risen 44 percent to $7.86 billion from the corresponding quarter a year ago.”

Forty-four percent! This in an economy that according to the New York Times is “expanding at its slowest pace in two years”.

It’s a load off my mind that at least the big corps can still make a buck.

Poor Russia
Putin calls collapse of Soviet rule a tragedy
President laments breakup of empire
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
BY MIKE ECKEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin lamented the demise of the Soviet Union in some of his strongest language to date, saying in a nationally televised speech before parliament yesterday that it was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

[Perhaps for the Soviet Union?for the rest of the world, especially Eastern Europe, it was a pretty good deal]

In his annual address to lawmakers, top government officials and political leaders, Putin also sought to reassure skittish investors about Russia's investment climate -- just two days before a ruling in the tax evasion and fraud trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

His statements on the collapse of the Soviet Union and its effects on Russians, at home and abroad, come as the country is awash in nostalgia just two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe -- a conflict Russians call the "Great Patriotic War."

[Ha! Any student of WWII history knows that Stalin was in league with Hitler. They entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact and Hitler was using Soviet land to practice with Nazi troops and equipment. When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941 Stalin went to bed for three days. He couldn?t believe he?d been tricked so badly. Did you hear me, Mr. Putin? The Great Patriotic War was only great and patriotic because your ally, HITLER, double-crossed Stalin and FORCED you into war.]

Putin, who served as a colonel in the KGB, has resurrected some Communist symbols during his presidency, bringing back the music of the old Soviet anthem and the Soviet-style red banner as the military's flag.

[Putin was a colonel in the KGB? I'm shocked!]

In the 50-minute address at the Kremlin, Putin avoided mentioning the need to work more closely with other former Soviet republics -- in contrast to previous addresses -- and he made passing reference to the treatment of Russian-speaking minorities in former Soviet republics.

[Wait. Hold on a second while my tears flow like a river into the ocean. Those poor Russian-speaking minorities in former Soviet republics. The indignity of it all. I can?t understand why a formerly captive people would want to treat their former captors badly?what is the matter with the world?!]

Click the link to read the rest of the article. Shame on the Associated Press for not telling the whole story. Giving Putin a forum to cry about the Soviet Union?s former glory is nauseating at best.

Headlines
US clears troops over Italy death
US military investigators have cleared American soldiers of any wrongdoing over the killing of an Italian agent at a Baghdad checkpoint, an official says. Nicola Calipari was killed by US forces as he travelled in a car near Baghdad airport after securing the release of Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena. Ms Sgrena, who had been held by Iraqi kidnappers, was hurt in the incident. The US soldiers were "not culpable" according to the US military report, which Italy has refused to endorse.

Read the rest of the article for why the Italian government won?t endorse the findings. The short version is that we can?t get the stories to come out the same. The troops say the car was speeding toward a checkpoint, the Italians say their car had passed a parked military vehicle on the road and were far ahead of it when it fired on them. Underground sources indicate that the U.S. was unhappy with Ms. Sgrena?s propensity for telling reporters how many Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start our occupation.

~~

US closes book on Iraq WMD hunt
The US chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has said inquiries into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have "gone as far as feasible". Mr Duelfer also said an official transfer of WMDs to Syria ahead of the Iraq war was not likely. The CIA adviser reported last year that neither expected stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, nor evidence of recent production had been found.

Please note, if you have not already done so, this guy is the US weapons inspector, not the UN. This is our guy ? a CIA ADVISOR ? going in there and saying, ?Dude, can?t find shit.?

Really makes me feel like the whole Iraq war-thing was worth it, huh?

And, damn, you know what I love? That our guys, the marines and the national guard and all our people over there STILL don?t have enough body armor, STILL have to be brought back as wounded at night so that no one will see them, Bush STILL hasn?t attended a funeral for any of the fallen soldiers, we STILL have an insurgent problem, there STILL isn?t a plan for getting out of there, the Iraqi people STILL see us as occupiers (and let?s face it, who?s surprised by this?) and Bush STILL can?t say that they were wrong about the WMDs and that maybe, just maybe it wasn?t that great of an idea to go into Iraq.

Bolton Bandwagon
Okay.

So let me get this straight. Tom Hubbard, a Bush-appointed and now retired ambassador to South Korea contacted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to express concern for the Bolton nomination.

In fact, When he heard Bolton?s testimony before the Senate panel on April 11, Hubbard said, ?I was not pleased? and he then decided to contact the panel on his own to correct the record.

In the first instance raised by Hubbard, Bolton erupted in anger and slammed down the phone when he learned that the ambassador hadn?t arranged a meeting for him with the president-elect of South Korea during a trip to Seoul in early 2003, according to an account Hubbard says he provided in recent days to staffers on the foreign relations panel.

That?s what you want: a man with the same ability to deal with disappointment and frustration as a toddler.

The second issue Hubbard has is with a speech Bolton gave in which he described life in North Korea as a ?hellish nightmare? and described ?Dear Leader? Kim Jong Il as a ?tyrannical dictator,? comments that prompted the North Korean government to denounce Bolton as a ?bloodsucker? and ?human scum.?

Now, do not assume that Kim Jong Il is my number one guy. However, it should be within the realm of a diplomat to, you know, not piss off any dictators who have nuclear ambitions.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary (a.k.a. dancing monkey), insists that Bolton has answered these allegations over and over again, but in fact, if you read the testimony, he keeps ?declining to comment? on anything.

And now we have Senator Frist trying to bring us back to the Reformation Europe. It may surprise some of you to know that we founded the United States based on the principal that Church and State should be separated. Why did we do it this way? Because zealots in Europe were trying to tell people that if they didn't believe what they were supposed to believe they would not only go to hell, but be unsuitable to hold any governmental power.

Sound familiar? Because some democrats feel that religious convictions have no place in government, somehow the Right has decided that those democrats are "against people of faith."

Senator Frist, the sentance is too short. We are not against people of faith, we are against people of faith running our lives.

The Founding Fathers were deists. What is the definition of a deist? "One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason."

Look it up if you don't believe me, but don't pretend that you have my best interests at heart.