9-1/2 Weeks ... No, Not Bush's Deadline!

One of the sexiest scenes in a movie not rated X.

I'm At The Senate Slumber Party, Are You?

I actually thought more blogs would be live covering the Senate all nighter, and had I known that no one was really going to live blog this thing in any fashion worth reading, I would have done it myself.

That said, this has been a very interesting night so far. I am curious to know whether or not C-Span2 recieved any spike in viewership because of this Senate session.

To hear, so dramatically, the opposed viewpoints regarding this amendment, is amazing. We need more of this type of coverage just to combat what national media does to misdirect their viewers as to what really happened and what the real issues are.

I did, however, have to pour a drink when Lieberman took his turn to speak.

Reprieve For Internet Radio

Wired's indispensable digital-music maven Eliot Van Buskirk reports some good breaking news: Internet radio stations will not shut down this Sunday.

Before I started blogging, even before I created a hockey website, I wanted to have my own internet radio station. One of my friends was already doing that and I had been amassing song titles. Then, the recording industry lobbied for the Copyright Royalty Board to step in and end internet radio by hiking the price it had to pay per song streamed.

A ruling on March 2 from the Copyright Royalty Board, an arm of the Library of Congress, imposed strict new terms on the licensing of copyrighted songs for Internet broadcast that may doom even the best-run, best-funded webcasting operations.

We can thank the million that telephoned Congress for the reprieve.

The negotiations between SoundExchange and the webcasters now center on these rates -- and they're taking place, Westergren notes, "under the watchful eye of Congress." And that, he says, is the main news today. "The reason this deal is happening is because of congressional pressure, and congressional pressure is happening because of people calling in. Everybody needs to know that. A million people in the last three months have called Congress about this. And Congress has said, Look, if you don't solve this, we will. That's very explicit."

All along, it's been the Saudis who are the enemy. P.S., My 1,250th Post

BAGHDAD — Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

It still amazes me that we are even in Iraq. The Saudis are our enemy, not the Iraqis. The 9/11 attackers were Saudi, not Iraqi. Bin Laden is Saudi, not Iraqi. The Bush family has been in bed with the Saudis from day one. If not for the Bush family, the Saudis, including Bin Laden's family, would not have been so quickly evacuated from the United States after 9/11.

Now that the Bush family has their war in Iraq, they keep trying to blame Syria and Iran so they can invade their countries and make their war profiteer friends more money off the bleeding of the United States Treasury. But, all along, it's been the Saudis who are the enemy.

If Only We Could Weed Out The Bad FDA Guys Like China

I know this is harsh, and I am not exactly an unabashed fan of China or its policies, but after reading this, and then thinking about the incompetence and dangerous decisions made by the partisan Republican party leadership over the past eight years, I sure wish there was the equivalent punishment for the crimes here in the United States.

BEIJING: China executed its former top food and drug regulator on Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicine, as the Beijing leadership scrambled to show that it was serious about improving the safety of Chinese products.

[snip]

The country's Supreme Court has recently made a highly publicized effort to show that it carefully reviews all death sentences and that it has restricted the power of local courts to impose that penalty. But Zheng's case appears to have served a political purpose, allowing senior leaders to show that they have begun confronting the country's poor product safety record. Shoddy or dangerous goods, including drugs, pet food and car tires, have damaged its reputation abroad, especially in the United States.

Hell, we can't even get our guys on this side arrested for their wrongdoings, let alone prosecute them or send them to prison. But China has set the bar, and it's time to let our own FDA know!

I'll Make My Commitment, Will You?

Like millions across the globe, I watched bits and pieces of Live Earth yesterday. And also like millions across the globe, my feelings were ambivalent. Not toward the concept or reality of global warming, just why do we need another gigantic musical event to press this point.

I was reading this article, and I think the author(s) did an excellent job of dealing with the cynicism about the greenness of the event vs. the awareness factor of the event.

Live Earth's success will be measured not by the number of trees the initiative plants or the number of energy-efficient light-bulbs sold as a result, but by whether it motivates concertgoers to make climate-change their generation's political priority, and press their leaders to act on it. Al Gore and company deserve credit for putting forth a 7-point pledge for concertgoers that includes a demand that countries join an international treaty mandating a 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That will only happen if voters reward politicians who fight to cut carbon gas emissions, and punish those who don't. "It's not what we do today that matters," says Live Earth Tokyo's Nakajima. "It's what we all do tomorrow, and all the next days after. That's how we'll know how successful Live Earth really is."

The 7-point pledge is

Demand that my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth.

Take personal action to help solve the climate crises by reducing my own C02 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral.”

Fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the C02.

Work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation.

Fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal.

Plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests.

Buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crises and building a sustainable, just and prosperous world for the 21st century.

Two of the above I can do already without altering my lifestyle much. I can also, given my habits, search out earth friendly business, and I am pretty sure I can plant a tree somewhere. The hardest, but most import part, is the first pledge ... demanding that my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide. Given this administration's stance, it's just been impossible. However, I do feel that with a Democrat in the White House after 2008, I have faith in one thing the new president will be able to do -- bring this country up to par with the rest of the world's concern about global warming, putting this country at the forefront of a commitment to Earth.

"Where's Yous Going?"

I was reading this New York Times article about tourist reaction to the massive subway system, and their complaints as tourists that it is too hot at some stations, too noisy, too dirty, to hard to figure out, etc. I remember the first time I was staying in NYC as an adult, (I went with four other friends) and we took our first subway ride. Although this was back in the early '90's, the subways were simply not threatening to us at all. We did, once, end up in Brooklyn when we were trying to get to Harlem, but that mistake never happened again! I love the subways in New York City. I realize that bad shit happens on them from time to time, but that stuff happens in all mass transit systems, whether in New York, D.C., or L.A.

Anyway, what used to amaze us all the time in NYC was how often people would come up to us and offer help anytime we would stand around looking confused, especially when you come up from the subway onto the street and can't figure out which is north, south, east or west. I used to tell my friends in L.A. that if you stood on a corner in NYC lost, it would take just a minute before someone would approach you and ask if you needed help. And then I'd say that if you stood on a corner on Sunset and Vine for two days, no one would have approached you asking if you need help! And, therein lies one of the differences between the two cities' occupants. So, when I read this article and it proffered advice for those confused in NYC with the subway system, the very first one made me laugh out loud.

Plan your route You've journeyed back in time to pre-G.P.S. navigation. Get a map from the token booth attendant; it's free and comes with citywide technical support. New Yorkers have an entire lobe of the brain dedicated to calculating subway routes, and a soft spot for tourists who can't find their way. So stare at the open map, express confusion loudly, and 9 times out of 10 someone will magically offer to help. And though that person who comes to your aid may have an Indian accent, she won't be talking to you over a scratchy line from Bangalore.

That was, and has been, my experience in NYC, down to the T.

Elevating The World's Opinion Of America Will Take Years And Years And Years, And Then More Years

So much of the intensity and anger driving the criticisms of the Bush presidency -- certainly my own, and much of what I read (as exemplified above) -- is grounded in a fervent belief in American political values, its political principles and its constitutional framework. The anger comes not from a belief that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt entity, but from the opposite view. It comes from witnessing the all-out assault on these vaunted political principles and values and the complete corruption, close to the destruction, of our country's national character that has made the U.S. such an important and admired presence in the world for so long.

But those who focus on America's flaws to the exclusion of its virtues are but the opposite side of the same Manichean coin from the American exceptionalists who believe that we can do no wrong, that America is inherently Good independent of our conduct in the world. What the Pew poll demonstrates is that the face America has shown to the world during the Bush presidency -- at least insofar as the world perceives it, a vitally important metric -- is a fundamentally different one than they saw previously.

In the last six years, America's brutality, unrestrained aggression, and violation of our own professed values have been transformed from destructive aberration into our defining attributes. And the world's population sees that transformation quite clearly and, as a result, their view of America has transformed along with it.

Greenwald says in three paragraphs what I've been struggling in my mind for months to get out in a post.

I don't see or feel much hope for the near future for this country, either. Despite the obviousness that a Democrat will be the next president, it's not like he/she can just walk into the job, wiggle his/her nose, and undo what the Bush administration solidified these past eight years.

What about the permanent bases in Iraq, the ones that this government is paying for with American tax dollars? I don't expect the next president to be able to unravel or ungrease all the damned palms it took to keep this thing hush hush for so long.

What about all the private contracting that's taken over most of the federal government's business, to the benefit of only a few large corporate CEO's, that are raking in the dollars in inflated contracts for poor to non-existent services? Think about the new embassy in Baghdad, and the "building and safety blunders in a new facility to house the security guards protecting the embassy." Nothing works, but millions have been spent anyway. A new president isn't going to be able to just cancel these bad contracts with a snap of his/her finger.

What about all the destruction of independent press? The damn Wall Street Journal will soon be under the thumb of Master Rupert Murdoch. A new president is not going to simply change FCC rules that got us to this drastic point in time. I mean, come on, that there are still, what, over 40% of Americans still buying into the Iraq-9/11 connection, definitely indicates something is inherently wrong with our news disseminating department.

What about Katrina, where 1,836 people were killed and more than $81 billion in damages occurred? Here are some pertinent quotes from thefirst U.S. Social Forum, attended today in Atlanta by more than 10,000 people:

Jerome Scott of Project South said, "The whole question of the [U.S.] Gulf Coast and the response the government had... pulled the covers on all the evil things that exist in this country."

"They systematically performed genocide behind the guise of a disaster," (Mwalimu) Johnson said.

"The hurt that I feel for New Orleans, point blank murder," Sharon Harshaw of the Mississippi group Coastal Women for Change said at the meeting.

"If you're working in criminal justice, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about health care, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about housing, you're talking about Katrina. We're living in a nightmare called Katrina. The source is a backwards, capitalist, racist system," one audience member said in public remarks.

"We have sown the wind of mean-spiritedness toward the poor, and lack of humaneness toward the stranger at our door. There is something terribly wrong with our system of economics and values when we have disparities, when any handful of people have more than they'll ever need while millions have less than they will always need," (Joseph) Lowery said.

"We are torn asunder by the erosion of our civil liberties," he added. "We are damaged by the misconception that might makes right and that we can resolve every conflict by sending smart bombs on dumb missions."

No, as I sigh over and over again when thinking about how damaged this country has become, I just hope that I can still be alive long enough to see her recover, because it will be a long, long time coming. It is most certainly not around the corner, not even with a Democrat in the White House.

Alice In Chains & Gretchen Wilson - Barracuda (Rock Honors)

Well, I was watching the VH1 Rock Honors show, and this pairing of Gretchen Wilson and Alice in Chains singing Heart's "Barracuda" was just unbelievable. They hit the mark.

Enjoy before VH1 pulls the video!

UPDATE: February 23, 2008 -- found another one. Hope it stays up for a while before being pulled, since I get a lot of hits on this one.

Happy 231st, America!

The 4th of July holiday was never big in my family. I have seen countless fireworks displays in every fashion, from small to big, during my childhood and adolescence. The only part of the holiday I actually enjoyed was having the sparklers, and watching folks set off a few fireworks in the streets and backyards.

There are generally no parades here in Los Angeles celebrating the 4th. I remember a few growing up that were sparsely attended, but nothing like the Rose Parade or even the Doo Dah Parade. One year, when I was 19 or 20, I drove with a friend of mine to visit my soon to be boyfriend and later my first husband, who was going to college in Utah, Cedar City to be exact. What a small place, especially when college was out for the summer break. There was a 4th of July parade down the main street the year I was there. Pretty quaint, especially for someone from "the big city."

After most fireworks were banned in Los Angeles, other than staged displays, you had to "go" somewhere to view them. As an adult, I couldn't be bothered. I sort of participated in these events for a short period of time when my daughter was young. She tended to spend the holidays with her father, so I was spared having to go to these gawd awful events most of the time.

However, in my 30's, I developed an interest in the history of the United States, especially concerning the Revolutionary War and how the U.S. became a country that declared its independence. Ever since then, I've always enjoyed this day, not for any fireworks, or barbecue or parade, or even the television marathons (and why is it that television puts on marathons during a holiday, anyway?), but because it truly makes me proud to be an American after all our ancestors did to create this country's government and identity.

I'm not going to spoil this day by commenting on the current state of our very corrupt government, especially since it depresses me to no end.

Instead, today I wish America and all Americans a Happy Birthday.

When Will The Gas Price Sea Saw End?

In May 2007, gas prices hit $3.55 here in Los Angeles, and petty much stayed there until about two weeks ago, when it suddenly started dropping. Today, it's at $3.15, having gone down another four cents from the day before.

Back in 2005 when I started tracking gasoline prices here in Los Angeles, on the 4th of July holiday, the price of gas was $2.47. It went up over $3.00 up to, and through Katrina, but by the end of the year, with congress indicating it might consider a windfall tax, gasoline prices suddenly dropped that sixty cent increase and went back down to about $2.50 a gallon. But, slowly, the prices crept back up to over $3.00 throughout 2006, until election time. Then it dramatically dropped under $3.00, to $2.49 by coincidence, as low as it was over July 4th weekend in 2005. Unfortunately, by January 2007, it started back up, and was over $3.00 again. By March 2007, it was $3.21, and then back to $3.55 (the beginning of this post).

I do not have a clue how gasoline prices can rise and fall over one dollar, between $2.50 and $3.50, yearly, for no apparent reason. I also have no clue why more people are not pissed off.

But, then again, there are still approximately 30 percent of Americans that continue to believe Iraqis flew the planes on 9/11/01.