Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over

Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over provides an excellent commentary on the benefits provided by learning to play video games, as well as the dangers of an activity that no one really seems to take notice of anymore:

I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I'm talking, of course, about high school football.

LA Weekly: News: Minuteman Divisions

LA Weekly: News: Minuteman Divisions does an excellent job of summarizing the racist nuts who are in charge of the Minuteman Project.

Favorite quotes:

“I’ve been in many firefights,” Chase explained. “If I’m down there and I’ve got my pistol and they start popping my people, well, I’m going to have to start popping back, and I won’t have the range with a pistol.”

In his press release, Ramirez denounced Turner’s “racism and neo-Nazi thuggery,” pointing to an earlier Internet posting in which Turner wrote, “Bring your bats, fellas. If we are lucky, we are gonna need them. PING!”

What lovely people.

DeLay's abuse of power continues unchecked

Found in my mailbox this morning from the Center for American Progress:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed that Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) slipped a $1.5 billion giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas, into the energy bill. DeLay snuck the provision in after the conference had ended, thereby preventing members of the committee the opportunity to review or reject the measure.

Well, at least his corruption gets his constituents something, unlike Cunningscam who rips of his constituents and doesn't bring in a single job from his defense contractor buddies.

U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War - New York Times

U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War - New York Times (free reg. req'd). Instead of "global war on terror", now it's a "global struggle against violent extremism." Or rather, a "jihad against jihadists" if you prefer. Or maybe a "struggle against strugglers" to get way too meta about the whole thing.

But apparently "war on terror" is a little too...military for the Bush administration. See, they want to turn their attention to solving this problem through diplomacy and law enforcement; you know, the strategy Clinton used to keep us safe for eight years. Oh, but I thought the liberals wanted to send terrorists into therapy... No, we just want to send conservatives into therapy. Terrorists we'd rather bring to justice.

Oceanside fire chief gets walking papers

This happened last week, but I thought I'd take a moment to comment on it. The Oceanside city manager asked the fire chief, Robert Osby, to leave, saying that it was something that they had previously agreed to. Osby claimed that Mayor Wood was behind it.

My sources tell me that Osby had indeed come in to fill a vacancy on a temporary basis, and that his agreed-upon tenure had come to an end. Apparently Osby is an old crony of Terry Johnson's, and was well known as one of those "10-2 manager" types who rolls in late, kicks his feet up, reads the sports page, and then takes off early, a job well done. Who wouldn't want a gig like that, right? So now that the city manager Steve Jepsen has finally decided enough is enough, Osby makes a stink, and makes it sound like Wood is behind the whole thing. A little political payback for his good buddy Terry Johnson.

Oceanside Councilman criticized for comment

Cletus the slack-jawed Councilman strikes again. Jack Feller, well known for his mouth that gets him into trouble, has struck again. This time for restricting his hiring practices to Conservative Christians. News flash, Jack: that's illegal. So of course Feller backpedaled as soon as humanly possible, saying only that he wanted someone who shared his "conservative values", because, "I would not pick a left-wing liberal to work with me because it's a different philosophy. It means bigger government and I'm for smaller government."

Jack, seeing as how you're in government, aren't you part of the problem, rather than the solution? The Oceanside city council could easily do with one less member.

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Reader Bohemia writes:

maybe the guy who asked walmart to pull GTA:SA off the shelves should have asked them to hand out pool safety training dvds instead:

Total drowning deaths in north county area this past week: 2

Total GTA:SA deaths in north county area this past year: none.

Rove wrap-up

The Washington Post (free reg. req'd) has an excellent article summarizing Karl Rove's continuing legal problems. Looks like Bush's Supreme Court nomination hasn't distracted from Rove's treason the way they were hoping it would.

Heavens

And the outrage continues over Rockstar Games' latest creation (which has been out for almost a year) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Never mind that the game features murder, carjacking, theft, random violence, and pimping as a way to advance. No -- once it was discovered that those rough, low-polygonal, low-detail characters simulate a sex scene, well, that was beyond the pale. Kids who have this game purchased for them by their parents (it was already rated M for Mature), and have access to an unmonitored internet connection (so that they could download the mod required to unlock the scene) must be protected!

Please. If these kids are savvy enough to download and install the mod, they're savvy enough to bittorrent "Weapons of Ass Destruction IV". There's no substitute for parental responsibility, Ms. Clinton.

And in national news...

US Senators are coming out saying that just because John Roberts' (recent nominee to the Supreme Court) wife works for anti-choice groups doesn't mean that he feels the same way. Kennedy (D - Mass) and Santorum (R - Nutcase) both said that Roberts' wife's work for Feminists Against Women's Rights Feminists for Life is irrelevant to his nomination.

I'll buy that. Just because the man is a conservative Catholic and just because his wife volunteers for anti-choice organizations does not mean that he will want to overturn Roe. *cough* But it's obvious that we know more about his wife's opinions than we do about his; so what does Roberts himself believe? The Bush Administration doesn't want you to find out.

Guns + Crazy Militias = Bad

Just thought I'd spell that out for everyone. Apparently there was a shooting of two Mexicans early Saturday; it just so happened to take place around Campo, where the so-called "Minutemen" have set up. What a coincidence. Of course, "officials" are saying that it was bandits, although one of the men who was actually shot, said that the man never asked them for any money. "If he were a bandit, he would have grabbed us and taken everything. He only shot at us and ran."

Back from Vacation

Time to do a little catch-up:

Dateline, Oceanside: At Mayor Jim Wood's apparent insistence, George Barrante and local nut Lawson Chadwick were both thrown off their respective commissions -- Barrante from the Planning Commission, and Chadwick from the Police & Fire Commission. Lest we forget, Chadwick was the one who accused Oceanside Police of giving traffic tickets to Wood's political enemies (an investigation turned up no evidence to support such an accusation). Taking over on the planning commission is local nut Lawson's wife, Nancy Chadwick, who began her tenure in a positive fashion by lending her vote to bring upscale alcohol retailer Beverages & More to the Fire Mountain shopping center.

Dateline, Vista: Vista's Assistant City Manager, Rick Dudley, is poised to jump ship to the City of Poway; that is, if they bother hiring him. Dudley was quoted as saying, "I think it's inappropriate to speculate on the list of candidates this early in the process. There are fewer important decisions (than selecting a city manager) that a city council can make, because the manager has a direct impact on the community. That person carries out the council's directions either effectively or ineffectively, and I don't want to do anything that might compromise that process." I guess "No comment" didn't quite cut it. To quote The Bard, "Brevity is...wit," and Mr. Dudley would do well to remember that, because right now he appears quite witless.

Dateline, Whinytown (population: Mark Belgen): An aide to Bill Morrow accused a UC professor of kicking him in the shin while visiting a Minuteman encampment. The alleged incident caused no injury, but the aide, Mark Belgen, decided to press charges when he learned a week later that it might possibly be construed as assault. Belgen needed no medical treatment, though apparently he was taken away by the waaaaaaahmbulance.

Repercussions

From Daily Kos:

Soto hasn't forgotten:

Lastly, as Tony Blair oversees the carnage and anger in his country, he may want to ask his good buddy George W. Bush why his administration crippled Blair's domestic anti-terror efforts to track down and stop Al Qaeda cells inside Great Britain by exposing a known Al Qaeda asset at a time when the Brits were very close to nailing a ring of Al Qaeda cells inside the country? With today's tragedy in front of them, don't you think that British intelligence would have wanted to finish their work last fall in smashing London's Al Qaeda cells before the Bush Administration blew a covert operation just so Bush could be reelected?

More info on that blowing of that operative:
On 2 August, the Bush administration blew the cover of double agent Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had announced a new alert against an Al Qaeda plan to attack financial institutions in New York and Washington. When the New York Times pressed certain administration officials for more information, they disclosed to the newspaper that the information regarding the Al Qaeda plot had come from a recently arrested man in Pakistan named "Khan." The New York Times published his name on Monday. The later editions spelt out the full name.

Prof. Juan Cole of the University of Michigan's analysis is more daring, "The announcement of Khan's name forced the British to arrest 12 members of an al-Qaeda cell prematurely, before they had finished gathering the necessary evidence against them via Khan. Apparently they feared that the cell members would scatter as soon as they saw that Khan had been compromised. (They would have known he was a double agent, since they got emails from him Sunday and Monday!) One of the 12 has already had to be released for lack of evidence, a further fallout of the Bush SNAFU (situation normal all fouled up). It would be interesting to know if other cell members managed to flee. Why in the world would Bush administration officials out a double agent working for Pakistan and the US against Al-Qaeda?

Maybe for the same reason Karl Rove outed a CIA agent: politics.

Wow. Just Wow.

Dateline: Somewhere beyond the rings of Saturn. Rick Santorum, right-wingnut and head of a troubled 2006 Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, is now claiming that the Catholic Church abuse scandal in Boston can be blamed on the Massachussetts Institute of Technology.

Specifically, here's what Santorum wrote about the church pedophile scandal on a religious website called Catholic Online. ''When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

''It's an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases," said Robert Traynham, the Santorum aide. ''I think that's what the senator was speaking to."

I think Sen. Santorum (R-Pluto) will find that folks at MIT are far too busy hosting Time Traveler Conventions than involving themselves in the workings of the Catholic Church.

Cheney bats 1.000

First it was his prediction that U.S. troops would be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq. Then it was his prediction that we were seeing "the last throes" of the insurgency.

Now we have this:

"Our military is confronting the terrorists, along with our allies, in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that innocent civilians will not have to confront terrorist violence in Washington or London or anywhere else in the world."

"In the Criminal Justice system..."

(Queue "Law and Order" music here...)

Cunningscam is going to the Grand Jury, and the indignities keep piling up. This after FBI agents raided his homes (and yacht), carting away boxes of documents.

Last week, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California who did not wish to be named said he believes there had to have been sufficient probable cause to believe relevant documents were at risk for a magistrate to authorize the raids, particularly when a target was the private residence of a sitting congressman.

Wow, they believed that "documents were at risk." Meaning, they thought that Cunningscam would have his grandkids working the family shredders overtime. "Less crying, more shredding! Stoke those fires with that pile of bank statements, little Susie! I said stoke those fires!"

Local nut claims Oceanside Mayor uses police for payback

Dateline: Coincidence. The Oceanside Police Department has dismissed a claim that ex-Mayor Terry Johnson and two of his political operatives were given traffic tickets as "political payback." Behind the accusation is local nut Lawson Chadwick, perhaps best known for paying homeless people to vote for him in the 2003 Oceanside-Carlsbad Democratic Club election.

You'd have to go all the way to Vista to find folks crazier than these guys.

Cunningscam reveals more suspicious documents; weary public yells "Resign already!"

This tidbit in the North County Times reveals that Duke Cunningscam claims that he owned the boat that he sold (to a New York bid-rigger looking for a Presidential pardon) for over $600k. Also suspicious is the amount of money he got for the boat:

A salesman with San Diego-based Cabrillo Yacht Sales says that used flat-bottom boats such as the Kelly C, which Cunningham purchased in 1997 from another congressman for $200,000, typically lose their value over time, leading him to question the $627,000 sale price.

"It might be worth a couple hundred thousand, maybe ----- but probably not," yacht salesman Dan Peter said Thursday. However, he added that if the boat has expensive amenities, it could be worth more.

"I would say that what he sold it for is a gross overestimate of value," he said.

To analogize: Let's say I bought a Saturn in 2000 for $20,000, and sold it five years later for $60,000, wouldn't you say that was suspicious? Especially considering that the only way a used Saturn would appreciate in value is if there were drugs stuffed in the trunk.

(On Edit: There are no drugs stuffed in the trunk of my car. Stop looking, already!)

London Tragedy

It's difficult to formulate a cohesive thought about the news from London; death toll up to 45, with hundreds injured, so you know more fatalities are on the way. No one can look at the pictures and reports and remain unmoved.

Reports say that last week in Iraq, upwards of 135 civilians were killed in these type of terrorist bombings, hundreds more injured, and American response to that is something along the lines of "ho-hum."

It's called Perspective, and that is yet another fatality of our media culture.

Californians back unions over Schwarzenegger

What a surprise, polls find that people generally approve of unions, while generally disapprove of the Governator who is attacking them. Maybe that's because unions are made up of your friends, family, and neighbors, and the Governor is a wealthy ego-maniac?

Donations pour in for Cunningscam's opponent

What a pleasure it is, in these days of "We're fighting the terr'sts in London so we don't have to fight them here," to see some good news for a change. Apparently Francine Busby's campaign is getting the support of hundreds of disgruntled North County residents who are disgusted by Cunningscam's behavior.

"His scandal really helped us in fund raising," Bilberry said. "But it wouldn't have helped as much if Francine hadn't been talking about issues relevant to ethics and honesty prior to those scandals."

Cunningscam is on the run

As Macromayhem points out, Duke Cunningscam decided to be a no-show at the July 4th event in Encinitas at which he was scheduled to speak. According to his people, "Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham is not interested in becoming a distraction from family and community events celebrating the Fourth of July... It is clear from all the advanced publicity that any Fourth of July celebration he is scheduled to attend will become a media frenzy."

Is that because he knew he'd have to answer questions about his sweetheart real estate deal with defense contractor Mitchell Wade? Or is it because of the new allegations raised that he sold his private boat for a $400,000 gain to a businessman, Thomas Kontogiannis, convicted of bid-fixing who was looking for someone to hook him up with a Presidential pardon? How does a New York businessman go about getting connected with a North County San Diego local representative? Does Cunningscam advertise his services? And what about the fact that he got his home loans through a mortgage company owned by relatives of this same businessman? And that the businessman himself paid off one of the mortgages? And why did this savvy businessman pay $600,000 for a boat that wasn't even seaworthy?

But the most telling line of the article is this: "(Members of Congress are are not required to list or provide details on their personal residences or personal property.)" Is it perhaps that Cunningscam was using all these transfers of private property, houses, boats, all these purchases for a bit too high and all these sales for a bit too low, as a way to hide a Congressional bribe?

And just because it's funny...

Reader Bohemia has this to say:

Call it "Queer Eye, the Presidential Episode." Not kidding, this was on the front page of the San Diego Union Tribune's web page tonight! So much for the emperor has no clothes ideology. It's more like he's wearing a dress!

Bush's top political advisor a traitor to the state?

So apparently Karl Rove (R-Hades), Bush's top political and policy advisor, is perhaps the one behind the leaking to the press of Valerie Plame's role in the CIA. In case you haven't been keeping up with this one, the story basically goes like this:

Joe Wilson, a diplomat with a long history in foreign service, was tasked to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase "yellowcake" uranium from Africa. In the course of his investigation, he discovered that the documents that were the foundation of this claim were poorly-done forgeries, and that there existed no evidence to back up this claim. The Bush administration, in trying to make a case to invade Iraq, quoted this forged evidence as gospel, claiming that Hussein was close to creating a nuclear weapon. Joe Wilson publicly disagreed with this claim, saying that it had already been debunked and that he was one of the ones responsible for debunking it.

So the Bush administration, in payback and an attempt to discredit him, leaks to certain members of the media that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is an undercover CIA agent in charge of monitoring weapons of mass destruction on an international scale.

Read that again, because outing an undercover CIA agent is not only illegal, it is also a betrayal of national security and possibly High Treason.

And apparently the person behind this leak is none other than Bush's right hand man, Karl Rove. Not only does he need to be held responsible for his actions, but there needs to be an immediate investigation called to see if this goes any farther up the chain. Was this the act of a renegade aide, or was Rove ordered to leak this information by Bush himself? Since when does a political aide get the security clearance necessary to even know this information about undercover CIA agents? Who was the one to give Rove the information?

Happy Independence Day!

Lest we forget the true meaning of Independence Day, that freedom and liberty are not a historical occurrence but are fought for in word and deed every day that our country exists, I present an excerpt from a speech Frederick Douglass was asked to give to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1852:

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

As the Statue of Liberty herself might say, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose."