At Least Someone Doesn't Have Their Head Up Their Ass!

God, I love Molly Ivins.

I couldn't have said it better:

BUSH WANTS TO PURGE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THOSE DISLOYAL TO HIM

Wow, two posts in 1 day...what's wrong with me?

Look! The Monkey Cheated! Surprise! Surprise!

According to PRNEWSIRE.COM:

BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released astatistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e-voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W.Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate. The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predict a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush's support in Broward County; machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes - a net gain of 81,000 for the incumbent. President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He shouldhave gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 -a difference of 19,300 votes. "For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting -someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida," says Professor Michael Hout. "We're calling on voting officials in Florida to take action." The research team is comprised of doctoral students and faculty in the UC Berkeley sociology department, and led by Sociology Professor Michael Hout, a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and a member of the NationalAcademy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.

For the full story go to:

http://www.prnewswire.com/ type in "Berkeley" in the "Search by Company or Organization" field.

I'm completely amazed this has yet to be even mentioned by the Washington Post or CNN!!!

Military Dictatorship indeed!

Maybe we should start calling the WP by its new name: PRAVDA.

It was 30 years ago today...

My iPod playlist this AM was all about the early 70s...the time of my birth, and interestingly enough, also a time when our country was going through a contentious war overseas that was dividing us at home, and we had a cantankerous Republican divider in the White House who had just snatched a 2nd term (Nixon)...BOO! BOO!...so lots of parallels to 30 years later. Amazing how cyclical things are. Amazing I can spell cyclical without the aid of spell check!

My early 70s iPod playlist for Tuesday morning:


One Monkey Don't Stop No Show, Honey Cone
Who Could Be Lovin' You Other Than Me?, Dusty Springfield
It Doesn't Matter Anymore, Linda Ronstadt
I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton
Through The Memory of My Mind, Freda Payne
Lady Marmalade, LaBelle

Ah, the good ol' days...I have to admit it makes me feel a bit better about today to know that our country has gone through all this before and we made it through ok. I was really bitter yesterday, and angry...and I guess lots of us are.

But sometimes you just have to try to be more positive and hope for the best. I need more of that in my life anyhow.

Oh and BTW, I just added a "Media List" to my Blog...something I've been wanting to do for quite a while. So, if you scroll down and look on the left sidebar, you will see a list of Books, Movies and Music I recommend for my readers. I'll try to update it at least once a month.

Of course, Miss Dusty Springfield is on the first list I made...I chose her very unique 1983 album called White Heat to recommend. It's really an album like no other you will ever hear in your life!

Dusty takes on such a different persona, and she even sings heavy metal! ("Blind Sheep") One of the songs is penned by Elvis Costello ("Losing You (Just A Memory)") and another features lyrics by none other than Sting ("I Don't Think We Could Ever Be Friends"). The whole affair was produced in Canada with the help of Carole Pope (Dusty's girlfriend at the time) and the Canadian band Rough Trade. It has a decidely rock n'roll meets BPM feel to it, nothing like anything Dusty had ever recorded or would record. It's credited by many music critics as the first authentic BPM album, the great-grandfather so to speak of Techno and House music and it has the distinction (if you can call it that) to be the very last album recorded on the famous Casablanca label before it went under. Very interesting indeed! My favorite tracks are "I Am Curious", "Donnez-Moi" and the final track, "Soft Core".

Definitely worth a listen.

Shock The Monkey! Shock The Monkey!

Remember that Peter Gabriel song "Shock The Monkey"..with it's slightly zany video and chorus chanting, almost ordering us to "shock the monkey! shock the monkey!"?

Well I do. And that's all I've been able to think about since November 3! I want to SHOCK the MoNKEY! Shock the m-f**ker! Do it! Yeah!

Ok, the closest thing we've had is that poor soul who set himself on fire in front of the White House today in protest of the Monkey's insane policies. He tried to "burn the monkey" I guess, hey at least he was close!

I mean, the street in front of the White House has been re-opened to the public for like what? 4 days? And now it's surely going to get closed down again.

I mean really...how crappy of a president do you have to be that you can't even open up the street in front of your office?

I feel we are living in Nicaragua or Uganda. Our leader is just a petty despot sitting behind a large fence, shielded by the Secret Service.

And now 4 of his cronies have resigned! 4 more after 2 last week! The man is losing staff members faster than he's losing brain cells! You can see all the rats abandoning the ship.

You'd think that'd be a sign of some sort of problem don't you think?

Meanwhile, soldiers are dieing in Iraq daily...and nobody is mourning. Nobody even seems to be noticing!

I watched an amazing HBO documentary last night (it was a re-run, originally it aired on Veteran's Day), called Last Letters Home. What an intense experience! I don't think I've cried this much in a long time. I recommend at least having a complete large box of Kleenex by your side when you watch it. Basically, the filmmaker has put together footage of families of soldiers killed in Iraq, reading the last letters they received from their loved one before they perished in the war. It's really presented in a sensitive light and the filmmaker is clearly aware of the delicate nature of the subject, so he does his best to protect the families from being over-exposed or used in any sort of manipulative way. He succeeds at basically allowing us to mourn for them and with them.

I heard an interview on NPR with the filmmaker, Oscar®- and Emmy® Award-winner Bill Couturié, and he basically said his reason for making the film was to help America start the process of mourning.

He's right. NOBODY is mourning our dead soldiers! Except for the families themselves, nobody seems to give a rat's ass about the over 1,100 American soldiers who have given their lives--and for WHAT? What a total waste of human life.

I wish the Monkey (the one that needs to get SHOCKED!) would suffer 1/100th of what these poor men and women have been suffering over there for 1 second. I bet the coward (who has never seen a day of combat in his privileged silver spoon up his nose life), would quake in his boots and call it all off immediately and run home to Mommy and Daddy. (Shit, he does it whenever he's scared...the fool.)

If any of the members of Congress had to send their sons or daughters over there and risk losing them, I'd bet we'd come home soon too wouldn't we?

America...land of the free...my ass.

Sorry to be so bitter, but it's been 2 weeks since the worst and most humiliating Election in U.S. history and I'm still licking my wounds. I just can't believe that Monkey is still our leader.

What a horrible message we sent to the World. What a disgusting display of insulation, of an inability to see past our own navels.

We will pay dearly for it too. The next 4 years will be hell on Earth for all of us. For the small boy in Iraq who just wants to grow up to become a doctor, for the teenage girl in North Korea who dreams of one day becoming a teacher, for the young man from Iowa who just wanted to make his way through college to become an architect and has no idea when his unit will be called up...they will all pay dearly...and for what? I ask you? For what?

Actually, I ask the Monkey. For what, Monkey? For what?

You see, we DO need to SHOCK the MONKEY. Big Time.

Can I Change Citizenship? Please?

I am deeply ashamed to be an American today.

After everything that has happened in the past 4 years in this country, with 9-11, the stupid, unnecessary loss of lives in Iraq, and the ridiculous lies told to the American people to take us there, the total overpowering of free expression by this administration, which I have come to call "Military Dictatorship Light" or the Junta, the total collapse of the economy...I didn't think I could ever be more ashamed to be American than I already was.

Well I am today.

I simply refuse to believe that 58 million Americans think that Monkey should continue to be our leader!

Kerry blew it. He blew it big time. He did NOT do his best, the DNC did NOT do their best...they were too sure of themselves! They were SURE they could win.

They underestimated Karl Rove once again! How dare they! That man could run a Chimp (and he has!) and make him President. Once again, the DNC was too disorganized (shifting leadership every couple of weeks), too cocky and too out of touch with Middle America to see the writing on the wall.

The DNC were even touting a Kerry win on the afternoon of Election Day..saying the return polls were very high for Kerry. Well, they are ALWAYS high for Democrats at the beginning of the day...that's always been a trend. Why instill the false hope and sense of security only to see it be dashed a few hours later?

The mood at the HRC party, where I went to "celebrate" what I hoped would be a Kerry victory, went from bad to worse in a few hours and by 11pm nobody was there. It was worse than 2000.

I came back to my place and watched in horror and disbelief as Bush carried Ohio. It was truly a sad day in our country's history. A day that will live in infamy indeed!

Of course, now the media outlets are having a field day, spinning everything..."What will Bush do now!", etc...

I didn't sleep much at all last night. It was 4am before I got to bed, and then I had CNN on all night in my room. Got up at 7am to go to work and was like a zombie all day.

I wasn't alone..all my colleagues at work were the same..it was very quiet, very somber. My boss was crying when I arrived. I felt so bad for her (she's from Ohio, and she volunteered for Kerry in Ohio and PA.). Here was this 55 year old woman, sobbing..I was just hugging her and telling her it would be ok...

Being an Environmentalist..of course she's terrified of what the Monkey will do with the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve (drill for oil!-of course!), and the rapid degeneration of environmental conditions in this country. Kyoto Protocol? What's that?

And to top it all off...referenda against Gay Marriage in 11 states passed. That is, prejudice is now alive and well and needless to say, the climate for Gay people in this country has just gone from ok to bad. I suspect by the end of the Monkey's term, it will go from bad to worse.

Now that the Republicans have shown they can win by appealing to the Religious Right..and by using minorities (in this case us) as a wedge, then that's exactly what they are going to do time and time again. And the Dems (I fear) will try to re-gain the South and Midwest by doing the same.

Who does the Democratic party have to offer now? Other than Barak Obama (very promising..maybe in 2012) and Hillary Clinton (too divisive-albeit quite shrewd), I don't see any true leaders with Bill Clinton's charisma emerging. 4 years after his retirement as President, he's still the emotional leader of the Democrats! We need to stop thinking in the past--move forward! Edwards might do, but now he has the Kerry albatross around his neck. That won't help.

The only consolation I can think of, is that after 4 more years of the Junta, the Reps won't have anyone as right winged as the Monkey to run either...it'll be Giuliani or McCain (though he's a bit old and will be practically decrepit by 08) or Pataki..all pretty centrist.

In any case, time will tell what will happen. The lack of a majority in the House and Senate is really the most disturbing thing in my view. And to think! The choices the Monkey will make for Supreme Court Justices and Judges across the land. Bye bye Roe V. Wade, bye bye civil liberties of any kind, bye bye to all sorts of wonderful things that make this country worth living in.

And Daschle's loss is incredible..stupefying really. They purposely targeted him..the sons of bitches.

Well, I have to hope that everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is the way it should be...so things get so bad that in 2008 Democrats will have to prevail. Maybe it'll force the DNC to take a good long hard look at themselves and re-organize properly.

But for now...at least for the next 4 years, I prefer to tell everyone I'm Uruguayan.