Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?

"You can do everything with bayonets, but you are not able to sit on them."

That was good.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Great pix, courtesy of The Poor Man.

"This one's personal."

There's nothing fucking "Italian American" about being an ultra-far-right conservative jackass. You will not drag my heritage into this like you shoved Alito's well-groomed hand up Rosa Parks' corpse, or I will bury you, you loathsome little egg-humping fucker. And unlike most of the victims of your only-like-a-minority-when-they're-dead corpse huggings, I'm still very much alive.

Hunter is on a rampage!

Quarter Counted As A "Vote" In Local Election

This is an unbelievable story, and an absolute MUST read. Courtesy of Hoffmania.

It doesn't matter what office republicans run for, their wins are almost always ill-gotten and procured by unsavory conduct.

It's the same game, with different players -- a close election and the GOP using their weapon of choice, by fighting to ensure that votes are not counted.

And for Democrats, the song – and the lesson -- remain the same: Whether it is for the presidency, a senate race or a part-time job paying $4,800 per year to be the mayor of Irvington, the Republican apple seldom falls far from the tree. And, if push comes to shove, the GOP will always – always – reach for their trump card of tossing legitimate votes if it serves their agenda.

Meanwhile, Erin Malloy says that the Republican tactics of this race are entirely consistent with the way they operate at any level.

"OK it's not Gore/Bush, Florida 2000, or Kerry/Bush, Ohio 2004, but the tactics are the same," said Malloy. "Attack on the ground at the polling place, disenfranchise voters; finish the job in the courts."

A BLADE INVESTIGATION: Bush Fund-raisers Reap Millions In Contracts, Corporate Subsidies

They were executives, lobbyists, evangelical Christians, political veterans and rookies, and a rare-coin dealer from Maumee. They bankrolled a president.

Thirty Ohioans collected at least $4.1 million for George W. Bush's re-election campaign last year - exceeding Sen. John Kerry's entire take from the state. They raised $2.4 million more for the Republcan National Committee.They are Ohio's "Pioneers" and "Rangers," President Bush's most prolific fund-raisers. Most Ohio voters have never heard of them, but the White House knows them well.

They have sat on crucial policy committees and won choice appointments. In the last five years, their firms have conducted more than a billion dollars of business with the state and the federal government.

One was Tom Noe.

Prepare to meet the rest.

More than One Billion dollars.

Over the next four days, The Blade will introduce you to the 29 men and women who engineered a fund-raising landslide for Mr. Bush in Ohio and helped deliver him a narrow victory in the state. The series will show:

How several of those fund-raisers tied their fortunes to government spending, sometimes through unbid contracts.

How Republican leaders, including future Pioneers and Rangers, built what was a ragged state party into a rich, well-tuned machine. The GOP has dominated Ohio politics for a decade and a half and laid the groundwork for Mr. Bush's 2004 victory.

How a half-dozen Democratic fund-raisers in Ohio corralled at least $750,000 for Sen. John Kerry's losing presidential bid, and what they stood to gain if he had won.

How the increased mingling of money and politics raises questions about the electoral process, and what experts call Americans' best hopes for influencing public policy without writing or collecting large checks.

This is a must read. The Blade is the paper that had the balls to uncover and write about CoinGate, which has led to the indcitment of Tom Noe, one of the Republican power players in Ohio.

'Oh, no.'

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.' "

2,000, And Counting

OK, So, Shoot Me For Jumping On The Bandwagon!

MERRY FITZMAS!

The Myth Of The Decreasing Gas Prices

I live across the street from a gasoline station, and from the kitchen sink window you can view the entire station, including the gas price sign. As a result, I have unwittingly become aware of how often, and by how much, gas prices go up and down regularly.

I first noticed a significant drop in the price around the period just before the 4th of July weekend this year, from about $2.63 a gallon, to $2.47 a gallon. Then, for the next sixty days, up until September 4, 2005, gasoline prices rose an average of one cent a day, or 60 cents for that period, from $2.47 to $3.07. I have been keeping track of the price shifts on my recurring post entitled "Take A Bus, It's Cheaper."

In late September, I read a headline entitled "U.S. Retail Gas Prices Drop 20 Cents," which caught my eye. According to the article, the claim was that price had dropped an average of 20 cents, to $2.84 a gallon. I didn’t pay much attention to the article at the time, but bookmarked it for future reference. The price drop did not reflect what I was seeing in my area, but I was not going to conclude that it did not apply elsewhere.

And then I read today, under the headline entitled "Average U.S. Gas Prices Drop 25 Cents," that the price had dropped an average of 25 cents in the past two weeks, to $2.69 a gallon. That would indicate that the price of gasoline has dropped around 45 cents over the past two months, and that simply is just not true. On its face, if you simply subtract $2.69 from $2.84, that’s only 15 cents, and the article does not specify that the price of gasoline increased by 10 cents a gallon first, in order for it to have dropped 25 cents.

In fact, my little survey shows there has been no significant shift, in either direction, with the price of gasoline at a steady $3.07 for nearly two months, give or take a drop of 2 cents here, and increase of 4 cents here, back down 2 cents, etc.

The time period referenced in the Lundberg Survey, Inc.’s press release on September 25, 2005, where the alleged drop of 20 cents occurred, is from September 10 - September 23. By my tracking of gasoline prices in Los Angeles that for that same period show that the price stayed pretty much the same until Hurricane Rita hit, and then the price dropped 2 cents, from $3.07 a gallon to $3.05. The price dropped again on the September 26, 2005 to $2.99, but went right back up to $3.03 on September 30, 2005, and up again to $3.07 by October 5, 2005, the same price it was the entire month of September. Clearly not a 20 cent drop. More like it stayed in place.

The time period referenced in the Lundberg Survey, Inc.’s press release on October 24, 2005, where the alleged drop of 25 cents occurred, is from October 6 - October 20. Again, by my tracking of gasoline prices in Los Angeles for that same period show that the price went down 2 cents on October 10, and another 6 cents on October 14. That’s 8 cents anyway you count it, and clearly not 25 cents.

I went to their website, to see if I could figure out how they came to this conclusion, and I found the following:

Q. How does LSI obtain the survey data and information?

A. By primary research of oil industry sources. Some data are gathered on-site in the field, while others are established by telephone.

When you read the articles, as put out on AP services, you, at first, get the impression the prices are dropping, even if the prices in your area do not exactly reflect that fact. If I wasn’t tracking the prices since July, 2005, I too, would have thought that the prices were dropping. As I noted above, the prices went up a full 60 cents from July 4, 2005 through September 4, 2005, and have hovered at that 60 cents increase, dropping only a few cents at a time before going right back up. The price of gasoline has not dropped 20 cents in September 2005, and it has not dropped an addition 25 cents in October 2005. The reports put out by LSI are misleading, by a long shot.

That sort of denial is commonplace among criminals.

If there are indictments, I expect them to be of the obstruction of justice or perjury variety. You know, what they got that horrific criminal Martha Stewart on - not on a crime, but on how she answered questions to the cops investigating the crime that, hey, didn't actually happen. We keep indicting people because they slipped up in their grand jury testimony, then we're going to find 100% of grand jury witnesses taking the 5th.

What is going to flabbergast future generations is how this Plame issue was kept alive for so long - no crime was committed, the only liar is Joe Wilson...and Karl Rove, who did nothing wrong at all, is under the gun. Fitzgerald is an honest man by all accounts, but the fact that we got to this point must be laid at the feet of leftwing Democrats who are determined to criminalize conservative behaviour. It is not whether Rove, et al committed an actual crime; they are guilty of the crime of beating leftwing Democrats in democratic elections...for this, they must be punished. I still hope for a change in the Democrats - a purging of the hate-filled left so that we can engage in political debate without one side trying to utterly destroy the other...but if this is the way it has to be, then so be it.

When people opine that I was wrong to jettison my Republican ex-best friend, I read stuff like this which just confirms that I made the right decision.

I remember how vehemently he argued with me over Clinton being guilty of perjury, and I remember telling him that in depositions in family law, just about every man lies about having extra marital affairs. It is par for the course, and I found nothing criminal in that fact. But, Republicans were absolutely sure it was a crime in Clinton’s case, where the house went on to impeach him (although the senate failed to convict him). But, of course, now that the shoe is SO FUCKING OBVIOUSLY ON THE OTHER FOOT, perjury is no longer a crime, it is just politics as usual. And the new meme is that democrats are simply "criminalizing" politics!
If lying was good enough to get Clinton impeached by one part of our government’s ruling body, then lying is good enough to get Bush administration individuals indicted.

This "it’s a non-crime" attitude and approach by the right wing crybabies is just the sort of whining you see when the criminal is incarcerated, all the while protesting he/she is innocent of the crime convicted of. That sort of denial is commonplace among criminals.

Friday Night NYC WebCam Blogging, With FRT

Dedicated to the offspring who is vacationing this weekend in NYC. For those newbies, the numbers represent the song number in my MP3 file. I have over 9,000 song titles.


5330- Lonnie Mack - Cocaine Blues
3317- John Klemmer - Rain Dancer
463- Chuck Berry - Little Queenie
3599- Lee Ritenour - West Coast Blues
3217- Jill Scott - One is the Magic Number
2813- Frank Sinatra - Let’s Fall In Love
3488- Junior Brown - 409 (with The Beachboys) psst, this is a must have for any collection.
1608- Aretha Franklin - Do Right Woman
4596- Santana - Lowrider
2651- Eva Cassidy - Easy Street Dream
Bonus Track: (pouring that special drink)
5645 - Charles Brown - Please Come Home For Christmas


Cross-posted at Feministe.

Our Senators' Spending Spree

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) proposed a bill in the Senate today that attempted to block funding on two of the energy bill's pork projects in Alaska, the Bridge to Nowhere and Don Young Way, and divert it to the reconstruction work to repair the Twin Spans Bridge over Lake Pontachartrain which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It was defeated 15-82.

That is simply not acceptable as a citizen of this country. Those senators that voted against this amendment need to be held accountable for their failure to properly reign in silly and useless spending in this time of Katrina reconstruction debt.

Fiscally irresponsible, that's our Senate.

Read more here.

Amerika, Home Of The Free?

And while we're at it, how about this little ditty:

On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps blocked all access to commercial e-mail services, such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, America Online and Google, from overseas government computers.

And not just at office workstations.

The block includes access to e-mail services from computers at base libraries and liberty centers that are connected to an official government network.

This administration is such a mess. Civil liberties? Hell fucking no! And the first ones to lose them are those serving in the military. They don't want the military to have outside real time information, so let's just cut them off from the internet. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Looking more like Amerika every day.

Sorry Guys, No Bonus From This Administration. But, Thanks Anyway For Reinlisting!

The Pentagon has reneged on its offer to pay a $15,000 bonus to members of the National Guard and Army Reserve who agree to extend their enlistments by six years, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle).

The bonuses were offered in January to Active Guard and Reserve and military technician soldiers who were serving verseas. In April, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for eserve Affairs ordered the bonuses stopped, Murray said.

Read more here.

The bonus offer was part of the Pentagon’s effort to retain Guard and Reserve members at a time of declining enlistments in the regular Army.

In a two-paragraph reply to Murray, Donna Warren, the National Guard Bureau’s congressional liaison, said the bonus program had been scrubbed by order of the Office of Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. Warren said it had been discovered that Defense Department regulations prohibited such bonuses, but she offered no elaboration.

This is how this government treats the military. Lie to them, cheat them, steal from them, then let them die. Here, sign up and we'll give you a bonus. There, thank you for signing up. OOOOPs, we don't have that money to give you, oh well. But, thanks again for signing up!

And they call those of us who oppose this administration and their war, unpatriotic? You have got to be kidding! There is not a single act by this government that supports those troops in any fashion. No armor to protect themselves, not enough bullets, etc. The list goes on. But, of course, the good people of Haliburton, et al. are treated royally. The government can give money away to its cronies in the private sector involved in this war. But god forbid they give anything real to the soldiers that are actually fighting and putting their lives on the line for this president and his administration.

Lies, lies and more lies.

The Angels' New Curse

I predict they will never win a world series as long as they go by the name Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. With such a misnomer for a name, they will be the new perennial losers.

West Coast FRT

The West Coast Edition to Friday’s Random Ten. Loaded up the MP3 player [all 9395 of my song titles
:-) ] and these were the first ten that played.

2821 - Frank Sinatra - South Of The Border
6878 - Five Keys - Deep In My Heart
3711 - Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner’s Daughter
382 - Lovin’ Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic
1060 - Clash - Rock The Casbah
3225 - Jill Scott - Slowly, Surely
2752 - The Flying Burrito Bros. - Orange Blossom Special
1387 - Nelly - E.I.
1229 - Bel Biv Devoe - Poison
437 - The Turtles - Eleanor

Bonus Track

2474 - Elton John - Candle In The Wind (original version)

Cross-posted at Feministe.

"Camp Amtrak" - Gitmo, New Orleans Style

For those that still deny the racial overtones (and undertones) associated with Katrina relief efforts in New Orleans, I bring you the latest chapter and verse. The story starts out about Robert Davis, the black man that was beat up by several white police officers in New Orleans, and which beating was caught on tape. The officers' official report claims the man was intoxicated in public, but the facts are that Robert Davis was alcohol free for more than 25 years.

So, what is up with the phoney baloney arrests? Read on:

But what did not make it into the tape or national attention was that Davis is just one of more than nearly a thousand people who have suffered in a horrific place the police call "Camp Amtrak," an improvised jail in what used to be the New Orleans bus terminal.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans authorities are arresting hundreds on minor charges such as breaking curfew or public intoxication, housing them in brutal conditions and then pushing them through a court process that forces most into working on clean-up projects at police facilities, according to numerous interviews and documents obtained by TNS.

At the converted Greyhound terminal, which now serves as a different kind of way station, no passengers arrive with luggage. Instead, police bring people in and book them at what used to be a ticket counter. In the back, where travelers used to board buses, police now push detainees into wire pens where they sleep on the concrete in the open air.

In interviews both inside and outside of Camp Amtrak, people who had been through the process told harrowing accounts of police brutality and harsh conditions. Some of them, like Davis, had visible injuries. Many said police had attacked them or others in their cells with pepper spray. All recounted trying to sleep on the concrete floor of the bus parking lot with just one blanket – or in some cases no blanket – to protect them from the cold and the mosquitoes which swoop in on randomly alternating nights here. None was given a phone call or access to an attorney.

"They treat us like shit," said one inmate through the wire cage. Others chimed in. One said he had not been given a blanket the night before because there were not enough to go around. Many worried that their family members did not know where they were because they had not been allowed to contact them.

Michael Resovsky was one of several men outside the jail yesterday waiting to be picked up for a shift of what the sheriff’s department calls "community service." He recalled the night he spent inside: "They threw you a blanket and they gave you those MREs – you know, those meals in a bag – and they take the heater part out of it and the little bottle of hot sauce so you have to eat it cold. And you sleep on the concrete with a blanket, and the smell is not too nice."

"They were coming in there and macing people, and people were hollering and I couldn’t get no sleep, and you know, it was pretty bad," said Resovsky, who is white.

Anthony Jack, another former detainee, added: "It was cold[inside]; I couldn’t sleep." Jack, a black immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, said police had arrested him on his own property and charged him with violating curfew, which in most neighborhoods here is still in affect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

"I was in my yard, and a young white guy came by the gate and I was talking to him and the police came and arrested both of us," he recounted. "He was outside breaking curfew; I was inside… behind the gate. The police broke my gate down with a pick-ax. They broke it completely off the fence."

Jack continued: "It makes me really angry, man. It made me realize that the law isn’t working the way it is supposed to."

Sandy Freelander, a relief volunteer from Wisconsin, was also one of the hundreds arrested. He said that he and two friends –one a New Orleanian widely known here for having helped rescue hundreds of people in the Seventh Ward during the flooding – were detained by police in a parking lot last Thursday. He said that they were on their knees with their hands behind their heads when a police officer attacked his friend.

"This middle-aged white [police officer] got real excited about kicking Reggae, Freelander said. "He came running across the parking lot and kicked [Reggae] in the hip while [Reggae] was down on his knees with his hands behind his head. [The officer] pushed [Reggae] on the ground and put his foot to the back of his neck and pointed his gun at him and said he was going to blow his fucking brains out if he moved again. This guy was really excited about beating up the first black guy he saw or something."

Even though Freelander said the three had permission from the owner to be in the parking lot, the police arrested them on charges of criminal trespassing.

Inside, Freelander said his friend was denied medical attention and that they witnessed police pepper-spraying other detainees police handcuffing a woman to a pole and leaving here for hours and other abuse. He, like all others interviewed by TNS said he was not permitted a phone call or legal counsel, even after repeated requests.

Major Troy Poret, part of a team that runs Camp Amtrak, was unapologetic about the treatment of inmates there. He stressed that the police have been working under extraordinary conditions since Hurricane Katrina and that many of the prisoners were from out of state.

"These poor police officers are stretched out as far as they can be and yet you’ve got to mess with a bunch of gourd heads like we have down here and we have to make a jail for these kind of people," he said. "That’s what’s really bad about this whole [situation]."

Poret, like many of the people working at Camp Amtrak, used to work at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a notorious jail among prisoners’ rights activists for its cruel conditions.

Asked whether police were pepper-spraying prisoners, Poret was again unapologetic. "I have randomly had to use it," he said. "We have to use it if they are endangering other people in the pen or endangering their [own] lives.

"Look up at the setup that we have," he said. "It’s an old bus terminal. It’s keeping the bad guys off the streets from harassing the poor people of the New Orleans district from worrying about their houses being broken into or worrying about some drunk laying on their porch…"

When asked why police were denying detainees phone calls, Poret said the station did not have any phones for them to use.

"I have a fax phone and I have one local line [here] and that’s it," he said, "I have a cell phone, but I can’t afford a cell phone bill for a thousand people."

But Freelander stressed how important access to the outside world was during incarceration. "The phone call was the biggest thing," he said. "I mean, how are you supposed to even find out what your options are talking to a lawyer? They’re steamrolling the whole process without giving you any legal representation."

Freelander, Resovsky and Jack all said that in the mornings after their arrest, they were taken to a courtroom upstairs where most prisoners were pressured into pleading guilty and accepting between 40 and 80 hours of unpaid labor.

A visit to the courtroom yesterday confirmed their accounts. In a stark, second-floor room of the Greyhound station, police brought in about 20 inmates who had spent the night in the cages. When they entered the room, public defender Clyde Merritt briefly explained the options while the defendants strained to hear him. In most cases, he told them, they could plead guilty and they would be sentenced to about 40 hours of "community service." If they wished the maintain their innocence, he said, they would be sent to Hunts Correctional Facility where they could wait as long as 21 days to be processed, no matter how minor or unsupported their charges.

Many of the defendants were obviously confused. They swarmed him with questions, but he held them off, telling them that he could not give them individual advice. For that, he said, they would have to retain their own attorneys.

Off to the side, the lone female defendant stood shyly in her pajamas and flip-flops. She later told the judge she had been arrested right in front of her house.

In the end, given the choice between unpaid work and continued incarceration, nearly all chose to plead guilty.

According to documents obtained by The NewStandard, most who pass through Camp Amtrak are brought in on charges of possession of stolen property, looting or violating curfew. But the vast majority of those interviewed or observed in court this week were arrested for alleged curfew violations or public intoxication.

"The situation down there is really bad," said Don Antenen, a prisoner support activist from Cincinnati, Ohio who has been monitoring Camp Amtrak and working to secure legal support for people whose rights have been violated. "It’s not isolated from the rest of the prison system in the United States," Antenen said, "but we’re seeing all of the worst elements of the United States prison system coming all to the forefront and being very concentrated in one location."

He continued: "The police are basically arresting people for curfew violations and public intoxication and just using it as a way to get free labor to clean up the prisons and court houses and the police stations. They’re just using it as a way to get people to do their dirty work for free."

Brandon Toussaint, a black 18-year-old who spoke to TNS as he was waiting to be picked up and taken to perform a day of punishment, said he was arrested going from the downstairs of is apartment complex to another apartment upstairs. Police charged him with violating curfew and public intoxication, and Toussaint accepted forced labor rather than a transfer to Hunts, even though he said he had been wrongly arrested. He said he was worried that he would now have a criminal record, this being his first "offense."

Toussaint said he had already done a few days of work for the police, cleaning up and painting their facilities.

"If they needed someone to clean up their city, they could have just asked," he said.

This is just one example of the abusive behavior going on in New Orleans. Round up the locals on trumped up public intoxication or curfew violations, confine them to a pen with no outside legal assitance to advise them of their basic rights, and then force them to work for a few days instead of being locked up another 21 while awaiting a trial. What's so sad is that many of them, if they did wait, would probably have the case dismissed, but would have spent that time in a pitiful jail. So they choose to plead out and work a few days in the toxic environment of New Orleans.

Ain't our government just grand?

Mother fuckers.

When did America become the Land of the Imprisoned and Home of the Cowardly?

This used to be a country where your personal beliefs were allowed, as a matter of law. You were supposed to be hired based on your credentials and qualifications, and not be refused the job because you were either female, a minority, or of a different religious or political persuasion.

Today, K-Street mandates all lobbyists hire only Republican staff - hire a Democrat and you won’t get anything done in Washington. Religious leaders are using the pulpit to dictate god’s desire you vote only Republican, as your soul will burn in hell if you support Democrats.

If the T-shirt you are wearing states an opposing view concerning this administration, you are ejected from whatever venue (or airplane) you are at/on. Even the Pentagon’s alleged march for freedom was completely free of freedom, from having to register and provide personal identifying information to be allowed to participate, to the erection of a ten foot barricade along the parade route, an area that is normally free for all to walk through, in, or about.

Instead of exercising your free right NOT to watch any particular television show that offends your sensibilities, people now demand their "right" to dictate what everyone else should be allowed to view over the airwaves, because of the offended sensibilities.

The government has finally won the right to imprison someone without ever having to charge them with a crime, and hold them indefinitely under the newly created term "enemy combatant." And, the government can secretly invade your personal residence and look around, and never have to tell you they were there. One by one, they toss out our rights ... say good-bye to the Fourth Amendment.

When did America become the Land of the Imprisoned and Home of the Cowardly?

Threat Discounted, New York Eases Subway Alert

"There was no there there," one senior United States counterterrorism official said of the possible threat that surfaced publicly late last week.

From the outset, some federal officials, including those with the Department of Homeland Security, questioned just how real a plot against the subway system had been, and while some supported the city's measures, at least one official said he was astonished by how the city had reacted.

Geeze, ya think?

Remember all the terror alerts we had just prior to the November 2004 presidential election? It seems we have the same control here, now that Bush's approval ratings have tanked. He did so well terrorizing the rest of America to vote for him that he's hoping he can terrorize his popularity back up.

Yawn.

Friday's Random "Crying" Top Ten

My Friday Random Ten, The Crying Edition.


The Earls - Cry, Cry, Cry
Tony Bennett - Don’t Cry, Baby
Etta James - Cry Me A River
Mandy Barnett - I’ve Got A Right To Cry
Willie Nelson - Blue Eyes Cryin’ in The Rain
Elvis Presley - Cryin’ In The Chapel
Beau Brummels - Cry Just A Little
Vonda Shepard - Crying
Joss Stone & Melissa Etheridge - Cry Baby
Meatloaf - For Crying Out Loud

Bonus selection:

Barbra Streisand - Cry Me A River

Cross-posted at feministe.

FEMA TO REVISIT NO BID CONTRACTS

Washington (AP) - Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts that were handed out with little or no competition will be re-bid to prevent any waste or abuse, FEMA chief R. David Paulison said Thursday.

"I've been a public servant for a long time, and I've never been a fan of no-bid contracts,'' Paulison told a Senate panel investigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the hurricane.

"Sometimes you have to do them because of the expediency of getting things done. And I can assure that you we are going to look at all of those contracts very carefully.''

"All of those no-bid contracts, we are going to go back and re-bid,'' he said.

It's about time, although I'm not sure if they will actually follow through on this, or if this is just some publicity stunt. Some of those guys would have to give back money if they are not the ones that eventually get the contracts that they've already been paid for. And we all know THAT'S not gonna happen in this lifetime!

On behalf of those with ovaries, we thank you for your consideration.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A state senator has changed her mind about sponsoring a bill that would prohibit homosexuals and unmarried people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

Senator Patricia Miller of Indianapolis says the issue has become more complex than she thought. So she is withdrawing it from consideration.

Miller said earlier this week that state law does not have regulations on assisted reproduction and should have similar requirements to adoption in Indiana.

She acknowledged when she proposed it that the legislation would be "enormously controversial."

The bill defined assisted reproduction as causing pregnancy by means other than sexual intercourse, including artificial insemination, the donation of an egg or embryo and sperm injection.

Well, thank goodness for small favors, eh?

RIP Nipsey

He wasn't all that big, in the scope of the comic success world. But, I liked him. He was funny.

Nipsey Russell, 10-13-24 to 10-2-05. Rest in peace, honey.

Where Are The Huey Newtons, And Why Aren't They Acting?

WASHINGTON - Minority-owned businesses say they're paying the price for the decision by Congress and the Bush administration to waive certain rules for Hurricane Katrina recovery contracts.

About 1.5 percent of the $1.6 billion awarded by the Federal Emergency Management has gone to minority businesses, less than a third of the 5 percent normally required.

On Tuesday, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Donald A. Manzullo, R-Ill., asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether small and minority-owned businesses have been given a fair opportunity to compete for Katrina contracts.

Andrew Jenkins doesn't think so.

Once Katrina's destructive waters receded, he began making calls in hopes of a winning a government contract for his Mississippi construction company.

Jenkins, who is black, says he watched in frustration as the contracts went to others, many of them larger, white-owned companies with political ties to Washington.

"That just doesn't smell right," said Jenkins, president of AJA Management and Technical Services Inc. of Jackson, Miss., noting the region has a higher percentage of blacks and minority-owned businesses that other areas of the country.

To speed aid, many requirements normally attached to government contracting were waived by Congress and the administration. The result has been far more no-bid contracts going to businesses that have an existing relationship with the
government.

There also was an easing of affirmative action rules for contractors and a suspension of a "prevailing wage" law that black lawmakers and business people believe will hurt the disproportionately large number of black hourly workers in the region.

"It sends a bad message," said Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. "What they're basically saying to the minority in New Orleans is, 'We'll make it harder for you to find a job. And if you do, we'll make sure you get paid less.'"

Read more here.

When are you going to wake up? BushBoy and his administration could give a shit about minorities or their small businesses. This is a government free give-away to the rich, and richer. It's all about their money. Get used to it. Or do something about it.

Where are the Huey Newtons and why aren't they acting?

Did You Get Your Certificate Of Satisfactory Completion?

An interim legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

Sen. Patricia Miller (R-Indianapolis) said state law does not have regulations on assisted reproduction and should have similar requirements to adoption in Indiana.

Miller is chairwoman of the Health Finance Commission, a panel of lawmakers that will vote Oct. 20 on whether to recommend the legislation to the full General Assembly.

The bill defines assisted reproduction as causing pregnancy by means other than sexual intercourse, including intrauterine insemination, donation of an egg, donation of an embryo, in vitro fertilization and transfer of an embryo, and sperm injection.

It then requires "intended parents" to be married to each other and says an unmarried person may not be an intended parent.

A doctor cannot begin an assisted reproduction technology procedure that may result in a child being born until the intended parents have received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill. The assessment is similar to what is required for infant adoption and would be conducted by a licensed child placing agency in Indiana.

The required information includes the fertility history of the parents, education and employment information, personality descriptions, verification of marital status, child care plans and criminal history checks. Description of the family lifestyle of the intended parents also is required, including participation in faith-based or church activities.

I'm afraid. Very afraid.

Any two idiots can get married and procreate, generating unwanted offspring. But, god forbid, individuals who actually want to get pregnant and produce a baby, and are willing to pay that high dollar amount for invitro fertilization, will have to GET A CERTIFICATE THEY ARE QUALIFIED?

This preoccupation with the sexual habits of others is so unbelievable.

Is It Your Weather Or Is It Their Weather?

I thought this was funny, at first. I still think it's funny, but I'm also annoyed at the lengths this administration goes to in attempting to control what information American cititzens have access to.

Given all the bad publicity BushBoy and his Troup have had over Katrina, they now demand that any and all requests for weather information from NOAA be approved first by Department of Commerce.

According to a leaked Sept. 29 email memo sent out to NOAA staff, including employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) -- both of which are under the Department of Commerce -- employees must collect information from reporters and forward it to the Department.

What the hell is that all about?

Which Reality Are You In?

"There is actual reality in which we're winning the war, and then there's the manufactured reality of the MSM plus leftwing polemics."

Reality, courtesy of ButtsForBush!