Thursday, December 11, 2003
Another day, and another story of Bush and his cronies corruption.
It's almost not even news anymore.
Brent Bozell in 2001:
Last August, representatives of six of the nation's top public health organizations signed a statement regarding the impact of entertainment violence on children which said unequivocally that "the conclusion of the public health community, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children."
Sadly, we are no longer talking about cold, impersonal statistics, or scientific theories. We are talking about the real lives affected -- or ended -- because the entertainment industry coolly, wrongly insists that its product does not influence children to behave violently. Following are just a few chilling examples of the real-life cost of Hollywood's "entertainment."
(what follows is a list of people who watched violent movies and then copied the behavior)
Brent Bozell on Crossfire tuesday:
BEGALA: Back on this question of damaging the culture, then. If Hollywood is polluting our culture, which Hollywood movie pollutes our culture more, right-wing Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie "Terminator," where he guns down at least 50 cops in cold blood, or liberal Steven Spielberg's movie "Saving Private Ryan"?
BOZELL: I think the president...
(LAUGHTER)
BOZELL: The politics is very different from the culture. Steven Spielberg's movies are fantastic. I love his movies. And it has nothing to do with his politics, which is very left-wing.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Schwarzenegger during the campaign:
Question: Will you have to cut education?
Schwarzenegger: No. We can fix this mess without hurting the schools. For me, children come first. Always have, always will.
Education would be cut "over my dead body"
Today:
Underscoring the severity of the state's budget crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested Tuesday that he might resort to suspending California's school-funding guarantee next year, a proposal that chilled education leaders.
Education would absorb $160 million in cuts this year and next under the proposal Schwarzenegger presented to legislative leaders.
-- The San Diego Union Tribune, November 25, 2003
You deserve it California. The mans entire campaign was based on how he was for "fantastic jobs" and promoting Terminator 3 on DVD (whcih sucked. Hard).
The porn star would have done a better job.
Unapologetic criminal oliver North has found out the root of our problem in iraq.
Our troops are being attacked because of the liberal media.
Also terrorists want Bush to lose, so we better re-elect him.
North makes no metnion of the possibility that Bush asking them to "bring em on" had any effect.
No, it was any part of the media that is critical of the president.
This man is an utter disgrace to his country, his family, and The United States Armed Forces.
In response to my recent “guests” in my comments section, I took a look at the “Media Research center”.
A laughable joke.
Last week their founder, Brent Bozell, was on Crossfire calling everyone who attended a recent celebrity fundraiser to raise money to defeat George Bush as “lunatics”.
The Media Research center’s goals are to reveal bias and unfairness in the media.
It gets better…..
Taking a quick look at some of his recent columns
.If there is anything lamer, it's Hillary Clinton charging that some
president other than her husband timed their military adventures on a
political calendar. Don't the network stars remember how Clinton hit
positively nothing belonging to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and
hit a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan to divert attention from his
Lewinsky grand jury testimony? Don't they recall how he bombed Iraq
just as House Republicans began considering impeachment charges?
Bombings done at the urging of his Joint Chiefs. But the man who,
excuse me while I stifle a laugh, researches bias in the media, just
states it as fact.
Speaking of facts, here's one:
Even Osama Bin Laden admitted that the strikes destroyed 6 of his
camps and killed some of his "followers"
Postively nothing Mr. Bozell?
Maybe he should go back to the histrionics and leave things like
facts to the grown up's
In a nutshell this is their methodology. If Hilary Clinton goes on a talk show and the guests, including Conservatives like George Will, don’t ask her Mr. Bozell’s set list of questions, like everything from Whitewater, to her Making 100k in cattle futures in 1978, etc, they are liberally “biased”.
This absurd methodogy can prove anything. I saw a report about Bush yesterday that made no mention of his alleged cocaine use! Damn conservative bias!
You get the Idea. At least FAIR uses actual incidences of concrete bias, not made up “It’s bias because they didn’t say this” nonsense.
Now, after actually spending 20 minutes at Mr. Bozell’s site, I need a shower.
Rush just keeps getting better:
“I haven't been to the grocery store in a long time. I have staff that does that for me. But I went to the grocery store recently, and they tried to over-prescribe me on all kinds of stuff. I know what Ozzy is talking about.”
SO many jokes in there I don’t know where to start. I won’t even touch the “it was the DOCTOR who tried to over prescribe me” line because that one speaks for itself.
But the part where man of the people Rush says he doesn’t buy groceries because “I have staff that does that for me”.
This is the same Rush who every day poo poo’s the hollywood “elitists”, and refers to the “rich Democrat presidential candidates” (notice the smear of choice these days by saying democrat instead of democratic. Delay does that a lot too) .
Don’t forget that this is the same guy who in an interview with Cigar Afficianado said he enjoys expensive , and illegal (but obeying the law when it comes to receiving illegal merchandise isn’t his strong suit), Cuban cigars and his favorite Bordeaux is Chateau Haut Brion '61 (but he’ll settle for the 82). These are of course 2 thousand dollar bottles of wine.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
What could have been....
WHEN some Republicans heard about Representative Tom DeLay's plan to house delegates on a chartered cruise ship during their convention in New York, the plan was abandoned for fear of reinforcing Republicans' image as staid suburbanites aloof from the city. But if they'd stuck with Mr. DeLay's plan to charter the Norwegian Dawn, they might have ended up with a different image in tabloid headlines: GRAND OLD PARTY ON GAY CRUISE SHIP.
Mr. DeLay, whose party's relation with gay voters has been awkward at best, happened to pick a ship with a great reputation among gays and lesbians. Rosie O'Donnell and her partner, Kelli Carpenter O'Donnell, have a travel company, R. Family Vacations, that has chartered the entire Norwegian Dawn next summer for what the company advertises as "the very first gay and lesbian family cruise" with "our very own special brand of gay and lesbian family-friendly fun."
The ship is also a favorite of Atlantis Events, a gay and lesbian tour company based in Hollywood that has advertised its trips with a different kind of marketing: "Three of the best gay D.J.'s spinning today will keep you dancing until the sun comes up." The company's president, Rich Campbell, said he was ready to help Mr. DeLay and his delegates dance the night away.
"I thought of calling Tom's office," he said, "and saying: `I'm with a gay cruise company. Let me tell you why this is such a wonderful ship. I'd be happy to provide entertainment and consulting service.' "
Monday, December 08, 2003
Update on Janklow. Just turned on FOX news hoping to catch a story on Janklow. I did. They never mentioned his political affiliation once, and just referred to him as "representative" Janklow.
Typical.
Everyone Knows FOX news is biased so this is kind of a moot point, but its still fun.
I remember when james Trafficant was convicted from the House FOX news Had his name with a HUGE "D" before it, to make sure everyone knew he was a democrat.
Now that Republican Congressman Janklow has been convicted of not something like corruption, but manslaughter, I wondered how they would handle it. Having an intelligence level above a chimp, I never watch the channel, so I checked the website.
FOX mentions the fact that Janklow is a Republican in paragraph 7.
The article on Trafficant's conviction reveals he is a democrat in paragraph 2
Not scientific I know. But If anyone watches that horrific channel, see if they have a big "R" before his name whenever he is on screen.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Sent an email to my friend asking how his Thanksgiving was. Here was his response. I hope he comes home soon.
(per Skips recommednation, I deleted names and places and some general editing to make sure he doesnt get in trouble, even though he isn't revealing any kind of classified stuff..)
No shit, there I was.....
I'm walking back to the COC ( Command Operations Center...you're such a civilian weenie) after dinner and a CPT from my battalion runs out and says " You want to be a shooter for me?"
"Where you going?" I ask.
"A Tractor Trailer carrying Thanksgiving Dinner broke down outside the wire." says CPT G. "We need to get a couple of HMMWVs and some guys together, drive about 4 miles outside the wire and secure the vehicle so the KBR (Kellog Brown and Root...a subsidary of Halliburton) guys can recover it."
Now, understand that it was pitch black out and I haven't been issued Night Vision Googles (NVGs). Going outside the wire for any reason at night is generally a no-go as the Iraqi bastards are all over the place and attack us frequently. Additionally, this is normally a mission for the Infantry who would take some heavy fire power with them. All we had were M-16s. But, it was Thanksgiving Dinner. What was I going to say?
And, like an asshole, I responded to the request with " Sure, why not?"
So we round up a couple of my buddies, some HMMWVs, and we prepare to leave relative safety to go on our merry way and rescue Thanksgiving Dinner for the base.
My Battalion XO came along and immediatly took charge. Guy is ex-SF. Gave us our mission briefing at the front gate:
His HMMWV would be the lead HMMWV (as he had the only set of NVGs.) I would ride in the rear HMMWV with three other CPTs. CPT (deleted name) drove, I sat behind him pulling left side security, CPT (deleted name) sat with me in the back, and CPT (deleted name) sat in the passanger seat.
In between us was the KBR civilians with their recovery vehicle.
The plan was for the first HMMWV to drive past the broken down tractor and secure the far side of the objective, 3 o'clock position. The recovery vehicle would drive up to the broken tractor, and we would stop about 50 meters behind it. CPT (deleted name) and CPT (deleted name) would go and sweep the tractor for booby traps and CPT Sach and I would pull security on the rear side of the road, 9 o'clock position. The KBR guys would get the vehicle fixed and we would roll away with my vehicle taking the lead back to base. All too easy.
So we are getting ready to leave. Before we go, we take off all the doors to the HMMWVs so we can get clean shots out if we were attacked. We all hop in our vehicles and that's when (deleted name) says, "I'm not scared of any Iraqis killing us, I'm scared of our own guys shooting us when we try to get back in." I have to admit, I hadn't thought aboout that one. And then we roll out the gate.
As we are rolling out, everyone locks a magazine into their weapon, we turn out the lights on the vehicles and we start scanning the country side looking for anything. So, first problem, its pitch black and I can't see my hand, nevermind someone shooting at me. Second problem, (deleted name) doesn't have NVGs so he can't see the road or any road blocks in the road. So now I'm thinking that I won't die because I get shot at, I'm gonna die because we can't see where we are driving. That's gonna make a great story back home.
As we are rolling out the gate we pass some Iraqi homes. This is my first time out the gate and I haven't really seen how these people live. All I could really see were a few porches with the little bit of light coming off of them. But even that looks crappy to the stuff we have back home. So we're rolling and I have my legs hanging out the door looking for anything and in the distance I can see blinking lights.
The broken truck.
So now I'm getting nervous. I really expected an ambush and I was wondering why I let myself walk into this. It seemed so obvious that this would be a trap. The truck had been there for hours. The Iraqis knew we would come for it. Perfect set-up. So now I'm trying to calm myself down. "I've jumped out of airplanes, this is nothing." "Stay focused, remeber your training." And, I have to say it worked. Army training is pretty good that way.
We finally pull up to the truck and everything goes to plan. (deleted name) and I jump out and immediatly secure the 9 o'clock. (deleted name) and (deleted name) sweep the truck and the XO and his crew secure the 3 o'clock. There was a built up irrigation ditch in front of Tom and I and he recommended we push up to it to give us a better defensive position. So we move out. Now I'm on this ditch, on the farthest flank, (deleted name) and I had seperated as to make a smaller target, and I start feeling alone. It was cold, dark, the ground was shitty and I was on a prickly bush trying not to make a sound and at the same time listen for someone making a sound. I tried to focus on my sector and realized that no one was securing my rear with (deleted name) and (deleted name) up at the truck. So now I'm covering the rear. Waiting. Seemed like it was taking forever to get that fucking truck up. And that's when I start thinking of all you guys at home and wondering again why the hell I'm out here securing a turkey truck. I wanted to be home. And that's when I saw the vehicle coming from the distance.
I run up to (deleted name) and we both go to the prone position, getting ready to cover the XO's crew. First time I've taken my weapon off safe with the intent to shoot something other than a practice target. And that's when problem three hit me..I can't see my gun sight because it's so dark. So I just planned to aim in the general direction of the car. And now we wait...forever. Finally I see the car going away and I return to covering the rear by myself.
The truck turns over and (deleted name) and I are off sprinting to the HMMWV. (deleted name) and (deleted name) jump in and we are off. Problem number four, (deleted name) can't see the road and we are in front. Again, I am sure I just made it through a potential slaughter only to smash into a road block in front of the gate at (hoem base) . And it took forever to get back...I know it was more that 4 miles. I'm scanning the sides again and finally we see the gate. And we are through. And I am happy.
So there is your typical Top Gun like high fives and grab assing going on afterward. We go back to the COC and debrief and that is really that. So how was the turkey you ask? I spent Thanksgiving in a guard tower. But that's another story from Iraq, or the IZ as those of us who have been here call it.
