Tag: US

What would the Republicans be without immigrants

These bigoted asses in the Republican party just can’t keep their mouths shut, can they?

It’s good that they can use us immigrants as a wedge issue and all, but Virginia Senator George Allen probably wished he hadn’t had the press there when he called a person of Indian ethnicity a monkey. It’s good to know we have people like him representing us in the US Senate.

After all, there’re way too many brown and yellow people in the country already. Right Mr. Bigot?

-TPP

What would the Republicans be without the terrorists

Ned Lamont, who is against the Iraq war, won the Democratic party primary for the Connecticut State Senator seat recently. His opponent was a fence sitter Joe Lieberman, who supports the war.

The Vice President felt compelled to comment on the primary results with the following:

The thing that’s partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.

It must be very stressful to constantly lie to the American public. No wonder the lying sack of shit has had multiple heart attacks.

The Washington Post has an excellent discussion on Cheney’s orchestrated propaganda campaign.

William Greiger writes in his blog:

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The “news” of terror–whether real or fantasized–reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

Paul Krugman writes in New York Times:

We now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited.

-TPP

Out-of-touch, insane jackasses in Minnesota

Yesterday a Federal District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum ruled that the Minnesota Restricted Video Games Act is unconstitutional. Specifically the judge ruled that the State of Minnesota has not proven violent video games lead to violent behavior. Here are some quotes from the ruling:

The State’s concerns are inchoate. It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games.

Further, there is no showing whatsoever that video games, in the absence of other violent media, cause even the slightest injury to children.

GamePolitics.com reports (via St. Paul Pioneer-Press) on the reaction to that ruling from various Minnesota legislators.

State Senator Sandy Pappas (D) had this to say about the ruling:

“The whole ruling defied common sense. I am so disappointed. The federal court said we don’t have a right to protect our children, but we protect our children from other things. We don’t let them smoke or buy liquor. You score points (in video games) for how many women you rape, how many cops you kill. How could that not affect them psychologically?”

Say what?

She’s, of course, talking about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the current favorite whipping boy of politicians and insane lawyers from Miami. The problem is that’s not what the game is about. You don’t get more points for raping women or killing cops. In fact, you get into quite a lot of trouble (in the GTA game world) for killing cops. Furthermore smoking and alcohol have known and PROVEN negative effects to the well being of children. Somehow she failed to notice the part of the ruling that stated there is no evidence that says video games are harmful to kids.

Maybe the good Senator would like to also introduce bills protecting children from the baby-eating monsters that live under every child’s bed. They are, after all, just as real as the video games she’s trying to protect children from.

-TPP

Dickishness aplenty

Dickishness is my favorite word (can you tell?).

It’s the perfect word to describe what the Republicans just did to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was designed to guarantee Republicans^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hracist bigots wouldn’t manage to keep minority voters (blacks) out of the polls come election day.

The act is set to expire next year unless it’s renewed.

Speaker Dennis Hastert was to introduce the renewal, but he was overrun by his fellow Republicans, who refused to support the renewal, because, apparently, it would encourage hispanic voting.

The Republicans couldn’t have said it any clearer: Republicans don’t want any brown people in the US.

And, if by any chance all of them illegal immigrants manage to con the US Government to give them US citizenship, by God, it’d be quite awful, if they all voted. They wouldn’t vote for us racist bigots, that’s for damn sure. So let’s make sure we don’t lift a finger to help making voting easier for Spanish speaking voters.

Democracy! Ah, such a wonderful thing.

-TPP

In Soviet US the Government spies on you, pt II

USA Today has managed to find out more about NSA’s domestic spying program.

Turns out our fearless leader, Chairman George Bush, lied to us again. In his radio address last December he said he’d authorized the NSA to capture international communication between terrorist suspects. He specifically said only international communication, i.e. calls coming in from abroad or going abroad, are spied on, as if that makes spying on your own citizens any better. He also implied that the spying program was only listening in on terrorist suspects.

Either his definition of terrorist suspect is a little vague, and includes every US resident, NSA went outside of their mandate or Bush is lying through his teeth.

As the USA Today information reveals the NSA has been collecting information about EVERY phonecall made in the United States. All calls. Not just international calls or calls made or received by terrorist suspects. Every single call.

With the help of telecommunications companies the NSA has been collecting information about US residents’ phonecalls for years. Citing legal implications only QWest has refused to comply with NSA’s request to hand over call information. AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth are happily letting the Government spy on you with no warrants in sight.

When will the Government stop lying to you? After the next election?

-TPP

Why do copyright holders and US legislators assume people are guilty until proven innocent?

Yet another bill making copyright violations incrementally more serious hit the news today.

Entertainment industry lackeys Senators Feinstein and Graham have introduced a new bill that would effectively ban devices that record streamed digital music, primarily through satellite radio.

Then there’s the new super-DMCA introduced by Conressman Lamar Smith, someone who is so completely in the pocket of the entertainment industry that he probably doesn’t even fart without asking them if he is allowed to do that. This bill is something else. Among other things it would make posting copyrighted material on the net exceeding a value of $1,000 punishable by a 10 – 20 year prison sentence. You gotta be fucking kidding me! I can kill someone and get a lower sentence. Be sure to check the working draft of this bill that reveals the kind of edits done to it before its introduction. It’s amazing.

When the fuck did the US legislators start assuming every US citizen is a criminal and therefore not to be trusted with such awful gadgets as satellite radio receivers with recording capability? And I’m not even going to go into the way copyrights have been extended so that the original work is basically covered until hell freezes over.

Why is the tech industry sitting with their thumbs up their ass and basically letting the entertainment industry dictate the direction of technological innovation? (Update: read below…)

With the introduction of such concepts as the Broadcast Flag it’s clear the entertainment industry doesn’t want the consumers to record anything digital. Not even if you legally own it. They don’t want you to back it up or transfer it to another device so that you can listen to it while jogging. And the reason for it is not so that you’d have to buy it sevral times (although that’s a consequence), but because if they allow it, then all of us criminals will be distributing digital content wholesale. And there’s where the assumption of guilt until proven innocent comes in. Why are the US legislators buying into this sort of thinking? It goes against everything this country is supposed to stand for.

Why are organizations such as the EFF the only ones that keep making any noise about these issues?

Just north of the border, there’s a revolution going on in the music industry. Six leading Canadian record labels left CRIA, The Canadian Recording Industry Association, over disagreements on how CRIA handles copyright issues. It has left some wondering just how Canadian the CRIA is, as it seems it’s more interested in protecting the “rights” of their southern comrades than advancing Canadian artists’ interests.

Fuck’em. Just fuck all of them. Simple as that.

Update: Right on cue, CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) has upped the ante:


Please also read the press release associated with CEA’s campaign against RIAA/MPAA. Awesome!

-TPP