Sergeant John’s 3-D Chiller House of Terror!

It was simply not possible that the Republican Party would face no consequences for the mountain of death, failure and corruption that is the Bush Administration. Despite television’s best efforts, new voters are showing some statistical awareness of Teh Suck:

In several states, including the traditional battlegrounds of Nevada and Iowa, Democrats have surprised their own party officials with significant gains in registration. In both of those states, there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans, a flip from 2004. No states have switched to the Republicans over the same period, according to data from 26 of the 29 states in which voters register by party. (Three of the states did not have complete data.)

In six states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the Democratic piece of the registration pie grew more than three percentage points, while the Republican share declined. In only three states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma — did Republican registration rise while Democratic registration fell, but the Republican increase was less than a percentage point in Kentucky and Oklahoma. Louisiana was the only state to register a gain of more than one percentage point for Republicans as Democratic numbers declined.

The news isn’t all good for the ineffectual Democrats:

Over the same period, the share of the electorate that registers as independent has grown at a faster rate than Republicans or Democrats in 12 states. The rise has been so significant that in states like Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina, nonpartisan voters essentially constitute a third party.

Swings in party registration are not uncommon from one year to the next, or even over two years. Registration, moreover, often has no impact on how people actually vote, and people sometimes switch registration to vote in a primary, then flip again come Election Day.

But for a shift away from one party to sustain itself — the current registration trend is now in its fourth year — is remarkable, researchers who study voting patterns say. And though comparable data are not available for the 21 states where voters do not register by party, there is evidence that an increasing number of voters in those states are also moving away from the Republican Party based on the results of recent state and Congressional elections, the researchers said.

The two-party system is showing signs of strain.

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

China’s legendary air pollution, a by-product of their rapid industrialization and failure to regulate, has been redefined as “mist” in what must be one of the most darkly amusing whoppers of the Beijing Olympic season:

But yesterday Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC’s medical commission, said he was confident that pollution would not harm athletes or visitors, and suggested media coverage had created a false impression of pollution levels.

“The mist in the air that we see in those places, including here, is not a feature of pollution primarily but a feature of evaporation and humidity,” he told the IOC’s annual session. “We do have a communication problem here. Once the misconception has become sort of established in the minds of people, it’s not that easy to get the right message through.

“I would not discourage athletes from wearing protection devices if they are concerned, but I do not think it is necessary. I would not wear one whether I was an athlete or not.” Two days of haze gave way to sunshine yesterday afternoon, but the official measure of air quality remained close to dangerous levels.

Official readings collated by Beijing’s municipal environmental protection bureau yesterday gave an air pollution index (API) of 91 for Beijing as a whole, and 87 at the Olympic stadium. The World Health Organisation regards an API of more than 50 as high, and a reading of 100 or more is considered unsafe. The authorities monitor air quality hourly, including levels of particulates, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, and take limited readings for ozone.

UPDATE:  So desperate is the cover-up for Beijing’s little air-quality problem that a US team has had to issue an apology for arriving in masks:

Four US Olympic cyclists who caused an outcry when they arrived at Beijing airport wearing smog masks have today apologised to Games organisers.

The four - Mike Friedman, Bobby Lee, Sarah Hammer and Jennie Reed - said that they were wearing the masks because of pollution fears, a touchy subject for the Chinese authorities.

As the Chinese capital remains shrouded in smog today, Jim Scherr, the chief executive of the US Olympic Committee, revealed that the four had said sorry.

Tags: Gaming, Politics, Science, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

When banks deplete, you lose.  Reuters reminds us who’s going to pay (and pay and pay) for the coming bank bailouts:

U.S. consumers, meanwhile, are “shopped out” and saving less, while the Federal Reserve’s performance in handling the crisis has been poor, [New York University Professor Nouriel] Roubini said, because it failed to see that the problem extended beyond subprime mortgage debt.

Now, Roubini told Barron’s, the government is overregulating, bailing out troubled participants and intervening in every market.

“The regulators should investigate themselves for bailing out Fannie Mae (FNM.N) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N), the creditors of Bear Stearns and the financial system with new lending facilities. They have swapped U.S. Treasury bonds for toxic securities,” he told Barron’s. “It is privatizing the gains and profits, and socializing the losses as usual. This is socialism for Wall Street and the rich.”

He said that sometimes it is necessary to use public money to rescue institutions, but in a way that does not bail out the people who made the mistakes. “In each one of these episodes, the government bailed out the shareholders, the bondholders, and to some degree, management,” Roubini told Barron’s.

As for the banks that will go bankrupt, they will include community banks that finance homes, stores, downtown areas, commercial real estate and other mainstays of U.S. towns and cities, Roubini said.

This is what happens when tax-and-spend conservatives are allowed to loot the Treasury on behalf of their wealthy contributors.  The dollar weakens, and Americans hurt.  Can you think of a primary cause?  One that rhymes with “Iraq War”?

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

Heh-heh.  Hee-hee.  BWAHAHAHAHHHHAHAAAAAAHHHAAAAAA! Heh-heh.

No one answered at Stevens’ Senate Office in D.C. and the answering machine recording said that the office was closed. In a call to his Anchorage campaign office, the staffer who answered responded, “What?” when asked for a comment on the indictment, followed by a long silence. The staffer would not give further comment on whether or not the office knew that the indictment was handed up today.

Hee.  Oh, yeah.  You can read the indictment HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH here.  Stevens was a corrupt fool, and not even very good at that.  It could only have happened to a nicer guy.

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

An EPA chief of staff issues gag order to employees:

“Please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” the June 16 e-mail said, advising staff to direct questioners to senior staff members cleared to answer questions from outside the agency.

Robbi Farrell, chief of staff of the EPA’s compliance assurance division, sent the e-mail to 11 managers in the department.

The e-mail was posted on a Web site of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The group, an alliance of state and federal environmental professionals, labeled the communication a “gag order”…

EPA press director Roxanne Smith rejected that characterization, saying the e-mail was about efficiency, not secrecy.

The memo was a response to a May 2007 audit by the Inspector General’s Office that found the EPA did not respond earlier to IG reports on problems with water enforcement and other issues, The Associated Press reported. The audit, however, did not make any recommendations governing communication between staff and the Inspector General’s Office.

The agency has become a toothless collection of aparatchiks in service to the Bush Administration’s relentless corporate cronyism.

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

The doggone voting machines, that’s what, when Republican voting machine CEOs secretly apply “special” patches to software only in machines used in heavily Democratic counties, patches that don’t do what they’re said to do:

Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower — who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation — said that he became suspicious of Diebold’s actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case…

Individuals close to Arnebeck’s office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program — and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

It’s the machines, stupid. Proprietary machines that can never be examined, which never produce hard-copy ballots, are certain to become political tools for their owners.

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

Teh stoopid, it burns. A theology professor has this whole violence-against-women thing figured out:

One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband’s God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar said Sunday in a Texas church.

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.

“And husbands on their parts, because they’re sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged–or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches,” Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

Commenting on selected passages from the first three chapters of Genesis, Ware said Eve’s curse in the Garden of Eden meant “her desire will be to have her way” instead of her obeying her husband, “because she’s a sinner.”

From the pulpit, he blames the victim, just as his Savior would have done. What can be done with people who think that male rulership is ordained from on high? What hope is there that an atmosphere of equality can ever flourish in such communities?

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

—e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

Former III Corps CSM Neil Ciotola has some hard words for us to hear about the consequences of endless war, which might sound familiar to those of you old enough to remember Vietnam:

KILLEEN, Texas — A three-decade Army veteran called a “steel spine” by the defense secretary says he and most other soldiers would prefer never to deploy and fight again because they are tired, undermanned and under-equipped.

“We, the Army, have been rode hard and put up wet,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Neil L. Ciotola, Fort Hood’s senior noncommissioned officer. “We’re catching ourselves coming and going. … In all honesty, ladies and gentlemen, I and the majority of us in uniform, and those that repeatedly support us are tired.”

Ciotola spoke at the Central Texas-Fort Hood Chapter of the Association of the United States Army where he was given an award for leadership Monday night.

Ciotola, who led III Corps in Iraq from late 2006 to early this year with Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, was called Multinational Corps’ “steel spine” during its 14 months in Iraq by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in February.

Ciotola said tens of thousands in uniform feel like he does about never wanting to deploy and fight again. Too many have “seen too much of death, sacrifice that cannot be measured on any scale, evil that cannot be comprehended by those who have not looked it in the eye.”

The neocons are breaking our Army, ensuring that it is less able to defend us against real threats, as they chase profit margins in Iraq.  America’s cult of militarism demands constant sacrifice of our “volunteer” forces and their families, but how many Americans actually benefit from our conquests and occupations?

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »

A Friday morning US Special Forces-led raid in the Iraqi city of Janaja resulted in the death of a man the Pentagon described as “a local security guard.”

Maliki is Janaja’s most famous son, but he’s been conspicuously silent in the aftermath of an apparent covert coalition raid Friday morning — finally acknowledged Sunday by the U.S. military — that killed one of his relatives and terrified the villagers, many of whom share the premier’s tribal last name and belong to his Dawa Party. Other senior Iraqi officials have not kept mum: They’ve demanded an investigation and say the incident could affect negotiations for a long-term U.S.-Iraqi security pact.

Janaja residents said the prime minister’s office privately has reassured them that Maliki is furious with his American allies but that he wanted to keep the ensuing diplomatic crisis out of the media spotlight. On Sunday, tribal leaders from throughout the south gathered under funeral tents to offer condolences and whisper about what went wrong.

The U.S. military broke its silence on the incident Sunday, releasing a vague statement confirming that coalition forces had shot and killed “a local security guard” during operations early Friday that targeted special groups, a reference to suspected Iranian-backed militant cells…

[T]he man described by the military as “a local security guard” was actually a cousin of Maliki’s and served as the personal bodyguard of Maliki’s sister, relatives and Iraqi officials said. Ali Abdulhussein al Maliki was killed at his guard post outside the villa belonging to Maliki’s sister, said the guard’s brother, Ahmed Abdulhussein al Maliki…

In a cruel irony, officials said, the crisis could strengthen the hand of Iraqi negotiators who are involved in the drafting of a Status of Forces Agreement, a long-term U.S.-Iraqi security pact to govern the conduct of American forces in Iraq. Two of the main sticking points are whether the U.S. military can conduct independent operations and whether to grant immunity for American troops or security contractors who are accused of criminal activity.

This is why they hate us. End the war. End it now.

Tags: Politics, Uncategorized by John
No Comments »