Sad state of Nancy Pelosi's ethics

So I'm reading Raw Story and I see this link called "Pelosi slams plans for Iraqi PM to address Congress"

So I click through! Hey, maybe she's dissing him for being a part of a sham puppet government!

Like, NOT!

She's doing it because the Iraqi PM is calling Israel a big bully. And she's outraged.

"Unless Mr. Maliki disavows his critical comments of Israel and condemns terrorism, it is inappropriate to honor him with a joint meeting of Congress."

What the hell is that??? I've been reading about how the Israeli government's PAC, AIPAC, is in control of US politics, but I was surprised to see that the House Democratic leadership is spewing this line. I guess their claws are sunk that deeply into US politics. Even Kucinich's call for a ceasefire goes out of the way to say he ain't laying blame.

This is what you get when you have armed client states. Viva l'Empire!

Doha goes south - WTO failure is a good thing

So the World Trade Organization, who radicalized me another step in Seattle in 1999, is failing.



Doha trade talks collapse

Five years of talks aimed at making global trade freer were on the brink of collapse last night after a make-or-break meeting between six of the leading players ended in acrimonious failure.

With the hardline stance adopted by the United States being blamed for the breakdown, the head of the World Trade Organisation said he had no choice but to suspend the talks, with no immediate prospect of them being resumed.

"Some say" (OK, the Guardian) that this might mean bad things for the poor, since they were counting on rich nations stopping their evil ag policies. Yeah, right. That may have been the official frame of the negotiations, which, since Seattle, have been paying lip service to the poor, but that's it.

So the idea is that little nations will get pushed around by local trade policies; since it's easier for the US to push around Costa Rica, and it's easier for the EU to push around Cameroon, then the little guys will get screwed.

Like this isn't what happens anyway.

The WTO is the vehicle of global capitalism. It's supported by the Western industrial powers, with the US having a lion's share of the power, and it has been screwing the global poor since neoliberalism took over.

So instead of mass global capital screwing the poor, chunks of big capital will screw the poor. Furthermore, some of the poor will be in countries where the governments don't allow mass screwing. (Like the Venezuela-Brazil-Argentina-Equador constellation.) I can't see this as a bad thing.

It also shows how the US has fucked up the situation in the global capital sense, probably by being imperialist creeps and refusing to play nice. I mean, John Bolton at the UN??? So the EU is done with the WTO, now: earlier, in the Mexican round (whatever that's called) the enforced consensus of the rich West was foiled by China, India, Venezuela and the rest of left South America, and Africa.

The WTO is becoming less relevant; the supposed consensus is being enforced. I'm sure that the secret trade court is still operating - the next target, perhaps? - but times have changed. The decision by the neocons to make America's Army a frequently used tool of power diplomacy threatens the international system. Putin turns on Bush's mike at the G8. Israel's invasion of Lebanon isn't being supported.

I think the WTO was killed in the streets of Seattle. We Win.

Big ol' right wing radio host has a hissy

This is brilliant - one of those right wing radio yahoos is put up with a lefty with spine who gets that the Bush administration has ripped the constitution to shreds with their spying - and the right wing radio host can't stand the heat and runs away.

On Crooks and Lairs, which says

UPDATED: This is hilarious. The topic was the NY Times and the financial transactions story. Bernie Ward asked right wing talk show host Chris Baker if he thought the government should determine what the media reports. As they debated, Baker got so upset that he hurled insults at him and then stormed off the set. One of the new techniques to these types of debates now is to call your opponent fat and then walk off.

The topic was the New York Times publishing the Bush Regime's 'Swift' plan, that has Belgian bankers turning over access to financial databases. The Nazis burned books. The Bush Regime gets their mouthpieces to foam and howl, while the Freeper crowd begins with the death threats. Jawohl, mein Fuerher!

Listening to Albums...

I just hooked up this cool second-hand Technics turntable and brought down the record collection - recently collected at thrift stores. And then my buddy Braniac4 comes over. So here's the listening for tonight...


Monty Python - Contractual Obligation

I had this when I was like 14 to 17. I was in the middle of my lifelong Python love affair, and while it's kind of lame in some ways, there's some brilliant crap on it. Like the Henry Kissenger song - and I can't believe that evil fuck was on the TV the other night, shilling his advanced imperial crap. The bastard's a war criminal!! He can't go into several European countries because they want to hold him for questioning!! What the hell are they doing? Reaching that far back on the bench to bring out the old Nixonian retreads??

Anyway, the bookseller sketch on Contractual Obligation is killer. The review at allmusic pans it, and I'm like it's not that bad, but it's not their best.

Again, Allmusic says one thing, and Wikipedia says another.

Stranglers - Gospel According to the Men In Black (Beware - the link totally pans the album. I heartily disagree)

A great hit with the two of us in the basement at the time. This sci-fi dark new wave album I first encountered in the mid-80s, before the Men in Black movie made it comic. The first SF convention I went to had these evil-businessmen posters from the Church of the Subgenius, and the Men in Black were just cool. And the Stranglers rocked.

I'm also tickled pink to have this on a playable medium - I've looked for it in vain before at CD stores.

Oh - and this Wikipedia Stranglers entry has a commentary I agree with more.

Repo Man -various artists

Brainy and I went through the 'good box' of things that I'd picked out from sorting the stuff from the pile upstairs (where my sweetie wanted them out) and he picked this one.

This was the album that introduced me to punk rock. Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Pablo Picasso - and the movie made me a huge Emilio Estavez fan, which I guess wasn't cool. Fuckit.

At this point, things became a little confusing. My roommate and a friend of his (a former free radio DJ) come down into the basement. And now there was four of us.

Brainy and I had gone to college together, did college radio together, had a big joint birthday party... our musical tastes ran down several well-known tracks.

The younger crowd - the roomie and the DJ, also have definite ideas on music, so if we're going to be hanging out in the basement, we might as well get everyone in on it. I put on my next choice - after the roomie said he didn't like the Ministry album () and that Bowie album was his least favorite (Young Americans), I figured I'd put on...

The Police - Ghost in the Machine

Which was Brainy's choice between that and the Bowie, but since I'd asked the DJ to pick the next one, we only played through to Invisible Sun, which was one of my favorite young teen angst songs.

This was about the point that the DJ picked her album:

The Beatles - The White Album

Ahh - a classic. I've also got that Led Zepplin album with Stairway to Heaven on it (the one that's all symbol-y) (roomate says it's commonly known as 'Four') and that fit in the same 'this is cool that I have this' category. A big fave in my Beatles phase, which was around college and a bit after. Love 'em. Great band.

She picked it because Blackbird is one of her favorite songs of all time, and it was on there. A brief discussion about record sides, and whether the rest of the White Album should be played. (It was - sides number 1 and 2, not the second album.)

Neil Young - Comes a Time

This was the roommates' pick - and he said he only wanted to hear one track from one album - Lotta Love.

We're having discussions about the propriety of rules (i.e., I've been developing a rules set for taking turns. They include:
* Everyone gets a turn, one after the other.
* Everyone gets their pick played.
* Everyone is entitled to hear the entire album - which later became, hear both sides of an album, in the case of the White Album.)

and my roommate is calling me on setting rules. The phrase "Turntable Fascist" was being thrown around. (Setting, not telling, and being generally dictatorial about them - yeppers!)

He then puts on the cut, and lets it play. And then, I bet when we get to the point where the Technics restarts the album, he'll let it go play again. (He did.)

(Ooooh - a discussion of Battlestar Galactica. Did those of us who were watching TV when it came out fans? Was it creepy Mormon propaganda? I think the Cylons were cool.)

Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening


OK - this wasn't the album I thought it was. But it was the first arena concert I went to was BOC. (The first ever was in a gym, and it was Cheap Trick)


OK - enough of this for now.

Echidne does it...

So I'm doing it too. Selfish whining.

Why won't this blog write itself? Why am I too lazy to do much with it? For godds sake, it's not like I can't drop in a link to echidne or that damn Rolling Stone article about how the election was stolen in Ohio in 2004 - something which Minnesota Green Party US Senate Candidate (shit, that's a lot of capitalizing) Michael Cavlan talks about, since he was there for the Green/Libertarian recount and saw it with his own two eyes...

OK - here's a good one (whine over...)

St. Paul, Minnesota is supposed to be the bucolic smaller brother of Minneapolis. Quieter, more blue-collar, less big-city. Well, it looks like we gots us some good ol' cracker racism on the St. Paul police force...

Outside, a few feet from the picnic table, a single-speaker radio-CD player was on.

Quietly, life-size shadows appeared at the back gate and two men entered the yard. Only Zachary heard them say, “St. Paul Police. Turn off the radio.”

They startled us,“ said Nathan. “I saw their badge and thought maybe it was because of the radio, so I jumped up and cut it off. Then I saw them grab my brother in a way that scared me so much I went on the back porch and grabbed the house phone.” He dialed 911 and asked for Internal Affairs.

Within minutes, according to Nathan and Zachary, Zachary had been pulled to the side of the house, handcuffed, sprayed, slammed to the ground, kneed, kicked, and shot in the back twice with Tasers. More police ran into the yard — a neighbor counted 22 officers, including a canine unit — and they struck and sprayed Zachary, Nathan and the two wives. All four McGraws were arrested for “obstructing the legal process” and jailed for two days

So it looks like it's not only LA cops who get a racist hardon about black folks. Read the rest of the story if you like.

Happy June!

Tabbed browsing in the antichrist... no, wait, Bush is the antichrist...

This is what I read far too many times.

I start with my blog. A reminder to me, and here you are!

The local weather. Always need to see that. Your tax dollars at work. Today's high - 83 fahrenheit!

The dominant local corporate paper, the Star Tribune. Ahh, the so-called 'Red Star.' Which, by the way, is bullshit (calling it a commie rag) but they do occasionally have an editorial that's soft-left (which in the Fox News world makes you practically a Stalinist.) Anyway, I use this for local news (biased towards cops and developers) and to see what the corporate print media's take on the day's events are.

Followed up by the english-language dominant non-profit paper, the Guardian. Someone told me yesterday that the Guardian (like the Independent, the two lefty papers in the UK) is really bad on Ireland issues, but aside from that they're a great balance to FoxUSA crap.

Then there's the big blog of the Democratic Left, Daily Kos. And here's my page on Kos, which predates this blog by a bit. I read them for the mid-left blogosphere views on the news of the day (main balance to Strib) and a couple of the posters really get it. Kos himself reminds me of my days in the youth wing of the Democrats - enthusiastic, not well thought out sometimes, and missing a few important points (like we need deep structural reform in American politics, that corporations cannot be trusted, etc) but as a Democrat, he's fine, and I'm glad the site's there.

So there you have it - the first five tabs of the 30 or so that I'm currently 'opening in tabs' in my browser in the mornings.

Is fascism a problem in America?

A simple question.

I think it is. Christian, police state, authoritarian tendancies abound.

Comment at will.

Stadiums Suck

Why the hell do I hear Steve Hunter on the goddamn radio shilling for the fucking Twins stadium??

I met Steve before he was AFL-CIO, back when he was AFSCME. I think he was the guy who told me this about the building trades - the construction unions who are uniformly dumb about their class status (i.e., they're working class.) "If the contract came up for Auschwitz, those guys would say it's good for the economy and build it."

Stadiums are stupid fucking corporate welfare. The Gophers are a TINY bit different, because they ARE publically owned and they CAN'T leave the state, but the same bullshit alumni-sports-corporate booster crap runs there.

If the Minnesota AFL-CIO has Hunter, who is the #2 guy there, pushing the stadium, that explains why it's got a better chance this year - because the unions sold out. Again.

C'mon!

What?

Just one link. That's all you need.

Oh, OK. Try this then. Twin Cities Indymedia's back. Better?

Much.

Fuck Corporate Control of Internet - Free Media Attacked by Congress!

A total rip from the Save the Internet coalition

Don't Let Congress Ruin the Internet

Right now Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the First Amendment of the Internet -- a principle called "network neutrality" that preserves the free and open Internet. Congress needs to hear from you today or they will hand over control of what you do online to companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

Politicians are trading favors for campaign donations from these companies. They're being wooed by people like AT&T's CEO, who says "the Internet can't be free." Sign this petition to tell your elected representatives to protect Internet freedom now. When you fill out the information and push submit, we will automatically send it to your Members of Congress.

and the URL is... HERE