EzineMarketingCentre.com promotes sleaze

This really pisses me off. It gives all web marketers a bad name when sleazy people get into the business to rip people off or mislead them. It's one area I wish would be policed better, although I cringe at too much government interference with the web.

I subscribed to a newsletter from ezine marketing centre .com because I like to stay up-to-date on what is out there. I pass along the information to a lot of webmasters who are new to the web to help them stay up-to-date on the newest marketing techniques as well.

I only pass along information that is worthwhile. I don't pass along scams and won't accept ad dollars from scammers on any of my websites. I know by doing so, it means I am participating in the scam then.

Ezine Maketing Centre wants to say that they are not responsible for what their advertisers do. Legally, that is true. But when you claim to be someone who helps others market their websites, then build trust so your subscribers will click through to your advertisers, then your reputation is connected directly to that advertiser.

At ezine marketing centre I clicked one of their advertisers. http://affiliatemarketersroadmap.com/jv/go/110/ If you go to that page, it offers something completely free. It says no gimmicks. Free. It asks you to fill out the info like email address, name, etc. then click to get your free gift.

You guessed it. No free gift. The second page tries to sell you other products. If you buy these products, you might get your "free" products as well, but that is not what the first page said!

That is called a comeon and is illegal in most states in the US. Wherever these guys are based it may be illegal. I will be finding out.

The reason they do this, first is to try to sell you product of course, but now they have your information you filled out. They end up with a lot of email addys and names they then sell to spammers. Thats how the scam works.

By accepting advertising from sleazy outfits like this, you become just as sleazy. Claiming you are not responsible doesn't change that or get the smell off of you ezinemarketingcentre.com

More things that just piss me off

Impeach Bush Logo

If you would like to add the logo up in the right hand corner of the blog to your blog or website, add the following script right after your body tag;

<script src="http://www.thosebastards.com/impeach_bush.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

Bush is the man your forefathers warned you about

One of the worst government farces is the Federal Election Commission. Not that the FEC is a bad idea. No, it's a good idea. There needs to be a commission that oversees elections in the US. One that makes sure elections are held fairly and that politicians don't use federal money to campaign with, that makes sure the campaign laws are followed, and one that has some teeth to enforce those laws.

The problem with it is that the President gets to "appoint" the people who are on that commission. This president has appointed four of them and of course while congress is out of session.

Bush, again wants no interferance with anything he does. Time and time again, he flaunts laws and procedures or simply "goes around" them. This tendency to "walk the line" of criminality is troubling to anyone who believes that a president is there to serve the people and that the checks and balances put in place by the founders of this country so that no one person would ever have too much power.

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Watergate Law Disputes Bush's Claims

This is not complicated law. Two days before the Watergate break-in in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in the Keith case that, "The freedoms of the Fourth Amendment cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch without the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate."

The Nixon administration argument rejected in Keith was quite similar to the Bush argument: that a threat to national security existed (in this case, posed by the White Panther party) and vague language in a crime control statute (since superseded by FISA) gave the President the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance.

(Justice Rehnquist did not participate in the case because he had been part of the Nixon team crafting the rejected argument.) Keith does not deal with foreign threats, but the fact that a foreign threat may require domestic surveillance is exactly why FISA was enacted.

There is no way, with that court decision, and with FISA, that anyone with half a brain can believe GW Bush did not abuse his power and break the law with these wiretaps.

Things That Just Piss Me Off

Bush caught with his pants down

Well, not in the same way Clinton's pants were down, but nonetheless, methinks he has crossed the line too far this time and there might actually be an impeachment call for this one.

WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (MASNET & News Agencies) - The Justice Department has opened a probe into the leaking of classified information which revealed that President George W. Bush had authorized a secret government wiretap program, an official source said.

"We have opened an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information related to the NSA [National Security Agency]," said a Justice Department official who requested anonymity.

Speaking anonymously . . . is that like . . . a leak?

The probe was opened after Bush earlier this month urged a "full investigation" into who leaked information about the secret government wiretap program, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Earlier this month, Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure to the New York Times "a shameful act." He said he presumed the Justice Department would investigate who leaked the NSA eavesdropping operation to the newspaper, reports Reuters.

Shameful act? . . . as in spying on US citizens without a warrant or probable cause? . . . without going to a Judge?

White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters that Bush was informed on Friday about the Justice Department probe. He said the decision to conduct the investigation was made by the department - it was not requested by the White House, the news agency reports.

As in . . . yeah, right.

"The leaking of classified information is a serious issue. The fact is that al-Qaeda's playbook is not printed on Page One and when America's is, it has serious ramifications," Duffy told reporters in Crawford, TX, where Bush was spending the holidays, reports the Associated Press (AP).

The leaking of classified information is a serious issue . . . as in leaking the name of a CIA agent like Valerie Plame by Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff?

The Justice Department's investigation was being initiated after the agency received a request for the probe from the NSA, the news agency reports. It is unknown who was behind the leak revealing the secret program, although media reports have suggested that some NSA agents were concerned about the program's legality.

Ahhhh . . . as in someone at the NSA who can read the constitution?

The president's call for a probe came after U.S. media reported that Bush had authorized the NSA to engage in an operation to monitor massive volumes of domestic telephone and internet communications.

Domestic spying is a sensitive issue for Americans who guard their civil liberties. Similar revelations concerning domestic spying led to legislation in the 1970s allowing the federal government to wiretap, but requires government agencies to obtain a special court warrant for it.

war·rant n.
An order that serves as authorization, especially:
Law. A judicial writ authorizing an officer to make a search, seizure, or arrest or to execute a judgment.

I add that in just to be helpful to President Bush, who may not have access to a dictionary.

However, Bush and his aides have stressed that the eavesdropping order was limited to those suspected of ties to al-Qaeda, as part of the administration's "war on terror".

Okay . . . So here we go guys . . . All we need to do is "suspect" a US Citizen, or say we do, then we can do search and seizure and wiretaps without a warrant. Cool hunh? Yeah but Mr. Bush, that's unconstitutional. If they are an American Citizen, you must show probable cause to a Judge before you are allowed to do that. Ahhhh, hogwash. Probable cause my ^&*! I can PROBABLY do it CAUSE I'm the prez, got it?!

Rights groups have criticized the White House in the wake of media reports about the clandestine NSA program, which was initiated on a secret 2002 order from Bush.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has urged the government to name a special counsel to determine whether Bush violated federal wiretapping laws by authorizing illegal surveillance, reports Reuters. In a statement on Friday, the ACLU criticized the Justice Department's investigation.

"President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens," said ACLU executive director Anthony Romero.

"But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss," he said. "Our nation is strengthened, not weakened by those whistle-blowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law."

RuhRoh! . . . The ACLU . . . is . . . actually on the right side this time? Say it ain't so!

The White House has sought to play down the impact on civil liberties, saying the program was narrow in scope and that key congressional leaders were briefed about it, reports Reuters.

Again, Mr. Bush, let me type this real slow for you. It's a JUDGE you have to get PERMISSION from before you wiretap US Citizens. Telling a few congressman that you're going to do it isn't quite the same thing.

The president's order enabled the NSA to monitor, without a warrant, international telephone calls and electronic mail of U.S. citizens suspected of ties to al-Qaeda.

Wouldn't it be a hoot to put up a website that sells ties to Al-Qaeda? The domain name TiesToAlQaeda.com is available to register. hmmmm. Since Bush thinks everything has ties to al qaeda and uses that phrase so much, I bet the website would do very well. Do Al Qaedans wear ties though?

The Times reported that the "data-mining operation" by the NSA - often in cooperation with major telecommunications firms - included surveillance of phone calls outside the United States that pass through U.S.-based telephone "switches" or gateways.

The newspaper said it was asked by the White House not to publish an article about the program because it could jeopardize investigations and alert potential terrorists that they were under scrutiny, reports Reuters.

Not to mention alerting the American Public that he was authorizing ILLEGAL wiretaps.

The Times, which declined to comment on the investigation, said it delayed publication for a year and omitted some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists.

A year? . . . And all those republican-bush-lovers at redsate.org said the media was always against poor GW.

U.S. media also reported that the government runs a secret program to monitor the homes, workplaces and mosques of Muslims in six U.S. cities for signs of possible nuclear radiation.

Both programs involve surveillance without search warrants or court orders, and agents who questioned the legality of the practice were allegedly rebuked, according to the news magazine US News & World Report.

How many other SECRET programs are going on that we don't know about yet? Enquiring minds wanna know. It all started with that secret decoder ring george junior got out of his rice crispies. He was 35, but me and Barb could tell that little ring had changed junior's course in life.

Critics have charged that the unprecedented move is an abuse of power and a violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires a warrant to conduct wiretaps and electronic surveillance.

Critics? have charged? How about IT IS A VIOLATION OF THE 1978 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT? How about IT IS AN ABUSE OF POWER? If you read the law, read the bill of rights, it's spelled out almost easy enough for even George Bush to read.

The act established procedures that an 11-member court used in 2004 to oversee nearly 1,800 government applications for secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage, reports the AP.

The surveillance program, which Bush acknowledged authorizing, bypassed the nearly 30-year-old secret court, the news agency reports.

Okay, that's plain enough for me, how about you Vern?

News of the covert domestic spying program sparked outcry by Democrats and Republicans, with many lawmakers and rights groups questioning whether it violates the Constitution, reports Reuters.

Uh . . . Here's the Fourth Amendment:
Amendment Article 4
Right of Search and Seizure Regulated.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Congressional leaders have said they were not briefed four years ago, when the secret program began, as thoroughly as the administration has since contended, reports the AP.

Say it ain't so! Bush said he told you guys. You probably just forgot.

Several lawmakers have backed a planned hearing on the issue by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, reports Reuters.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said in an article printed last week on the op-ed page of the Washington Post that Congress explicitly denied a White House request for war-making authority in the United States, reports the AP.

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.

Would have given him that power? . . . Right here in the US? . . . Um, did you guys tell George he couldn't do that? You know, it's like with a puppy. If you don't show them exactly what they did wrong, you can't punish em, because they won't understand.

Daschle was Senate Democratic leader at the time of the 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington.

Does that mean he has ties to al qaeda? And where were you, my loyal readers? hmmmm?

The White House has fired back that the program is legal under the Constitution's war powers provision and a congressional resolution following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan.

Uh . . . pssst! George! . . . This isn't Afghanistan. Remember that round thing in your office? Yes, George the globe, the thing you like to spin around. Remember how I showed you where we are and where Afghanistan is?

The leak probe was opened after Bush assured Americans wary of expanded anti-terrorism powers that tapping telephones required a judge's go-ahead. Bush has repeatedly argued that the controversial Patriot Act package of anti-terrorism laws safeguards civil liberties because authorities still need a warrant to tap telephones in the United States.

Okay, who wrote those speeches for George without telling him what they meant. I've told you guys time and time again, you have to let him in on the jokes, otherwise he'll throw a tantrum or end up doing the exact opposite of what he promises people. I thought after the whole Iraq having wmds fiasco, we'd gotten that straight.

"Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order," he said in April 2004 in Buffalo, New York.

Damn, it was hard for junior to spit that sentence out while keeping a straight face.

"Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so," the president said at the time.

Yup, we're TALKING about it, but we ain't a gonna do it!

This is the second recent high-level investigation into the leak of classified information to the media, reports Reuters.

After a two-year probe into the disclosure of a covert CIA operative's identity, which ran into delays from the White House, a special prosecutor in October indicted Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby on perjury and obstructing justice charges.

Ran into delays? . . . but bush said earlier that leaks like that were very serious and called for an investigation. . . . ohhhhh . . . I get it. The leak we're talking about here was FROM the whitehouse. The leak about the wiretaps was ABOUT the whitehouse.

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

To all those kids who survived!

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1920's,1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored,lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

Things That Just Piss Me Off

Whose side is Bush on anyway?

First, Bush won't classify prisoners as prisoners of war to avoid adhering to the geneva convention which has caused these same prisoners to now have access to US Courts. If Bush had classified them as prisoners of war, they would not have ended up in our courtrooms with a chance for these terrorists to walk away scott-free.

Now this:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 - Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

Now, since bush decided to use wiretaps without getting a warrant, more terrorists will end up going free, due to technicalities.

Is GW Bush on our side or on the side of the terrorists?

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Bush Spying - Opposing View from Redstate.org

Click here to read the Bushist's side of the story on Bush's illegal wiretaps on US Citizens.

As usual, the people at Redstate.org are trying to defend a president and are finding it extremely difficult. Their big claim here and their justification is that "Other Countries are doing it too!".

Well in China they jail people who disagree with the government. They use torture in many countries. In Darfur, they are committing genocide, killing thousands of innocent women and children. Would that be justification for doing those things here as well?

According to Redstate.org's writers and the Bushists, yes.

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Bush says Following the Law is Inconvenient

The snippets I include below are from an LA Times Article. If you wish to read the whole article, click the title of this post.

By Richard B. Schmitt and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — Since Sept. 11, 2001, an obscure but powerful tribunal — the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — has been a solid ally of the Bush administration, approving hundreds of requests allowing government agents to monitor the conversations and communications of suspected terrorists.

So why did the administration go around the court in devising its most secret surveillance program?

Top Bush administration officials said Monday that a controversial domestic eavesdropping program they ordered up after Sept. 11 without the court's permission reflected the "inefficiencies" of going to a judge and the need for a more "agile" approach to detecting and preventing terrorist attacks.

Inefficient? It's more efficient to break the law? If I consider it inefficient to get a driver's license, I'll still get a ticket for not having one. The law is the law and GWBush should not be above the law. The checks and balances requiring court approval are in place for a reason. No president can have absolute power to do as he pleases, not even during wartime. Absolute Power Corrupts, Absolutely.

But they also indicated that they had a more fundamental concern: the tougher legal standard that must be met to satisfy the court. The 1978 law creating the secret tribunal, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, authorizes intelligence gathering in cases in which the government can establish "probable cause" that the target is working for a "foreign power" or is involved in terrorism. Those judgments were made not by a court, as the law provides, but by shift supervisors at the National Security Agency.

Tougher Standard? Tough in that he needs actual "PROBABLE CAUSE"? Guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and a fundamental right of every US citizen, that the police must have probable cause before they can search you or your home, probable cause before they can tap your phones or your email. That President Bush calls the bill of rights an inconvenience or inefficient should alarm everyone.

The plan, which surfaced in media reports last week, has allowed the government to monitor, without warrants, hundreds of people in the U.S. communicating with people overseas.

Just reread that sentence one more time. Now, read it again. Are you ok with the government spying on AMERICAN CITIZENS without even getting a warrant?

In a news conference Monday, Bush asserted that as commander in chief, he could bypass the 1978 law, citing a broad claim of executive power that has not been upheld by the Supreme Court.

"Do I have the legal authority to do this? …. The answer is absolutely," Bush said. "The legal authority is derived from the Constitution…. As president and commander in chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and constitutional authority to protect our country."

He actually believes he has absolute power to do anything he wants, whether legal or not. Read his own words there. Don't take my word for it. Read his words and tell me he doesn't think he is in absolute power. Tell me he does not believe he can do anything he wants without the congress or supreme court interfering. Tell me this president believes in the Constitution he says gives him this power. He must have read a very small portion of the document.

Last year, the high court rejected, 8 to 1, Bush's claim that he had the power as commander in chief to hold and detain Americans without a hearing, even if they were captured on foreign battlefields fighting for the enemy.

"We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in the case of Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld. The Constitution "most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches [of government] when individual liberties are at stake," she said.

Not according to GW Bush. He thinks the constitution grants him absolute authority and the other branches of the government are just inconvenient to his role as supreme poobah.

In the fall of 2001, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee worked on the Patriot Act and debated giving the Bush administration more leeway to conduct surveillance on terrorism suspects. But the latest disclosures suggest that the administration didn't believe it needed permission and thought the president could go around the limits set by the law.

As always. Herr Bush believes the law to be beneath him, just like back in college where "He of the White Powdery Nose" held court.

by Chris McElroy
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Music Industry Hypocritical

Clicking on the title to this post will take you to the original article. My comment on it, is just that while the music executives will sue 12-year-old children who download any music through file sharing programs, they have no qualm about price-fixing, which is illegal to a much greater degree than downloading free music.

That is part of what is wrong with allowing these white collar crooks to get away with whatever they want while they push to prosecute the little guy to the fullest for the slightest infraction.

They believe themselves to be above the law. They know that even if they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, the government will just give them a fine that is far less than they made on the crime. To them, thats just a business expense.

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Colin Powell Says OK to Illegal Wiretaps

First, Colin Powell was against the war in Iraq. Then, he was for the war in Iraq. Now he says, that if he had known that intelligence suggesting that Iraq had WMDs was false, he would not have been for the war in Iraq.

Now he says this;

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 - Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday that it would not have been "that hard" for President Bush to obtain warrants for eavesdropping on domestic telephone and Internet activity, but that he saw "nothing wrong" with the decision not to do so.

If it would not have been that hard to obtain warrants as the LAW in this country suggests, then why did Bush not get them and instead choose to act illegally with those wiretaps?

He didn't get them because no judge would have allowed him to spy on conversations between two american citizens, on US soil, who were not part of any terrorist organization. Thats why.

Bush is using the NSA to monitor tons of conversations by email, phone, and fax, targeting keywords. If you use one of the keywords they are monitoring, bush feels they have the right to spy on you and he believes that he needs no warrant to do so.

I hope my blog is lighting up their switchboard!

keywords: terrorism, cell, al queda, osama, bin, laden, iraq, iran, syria, bombs, airplanes, world, trade, center, new york, bush, cheney, redstate.org, hijacker, dumb dubya, cocaine, booze, stolen elections, bribery, conspiracy, illegal wiretaps, spying, NSA, CIA, FCC, FTC, FEC, Homeland Security, Hitler, The Third Reich, Hitler Youth, ranch, texas, assassinations, russia, missiles, north korea, china.

Just want to make sure they have something to do.

By Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

US won't turn over detainees to Iraqis

Regarding the torture of prisoners, From an article in the NYTimes:

By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 - The commander of American-run prisons in Iraq says the military will not turn over any detainees or detention centers to Iraqi jailers until American officials are satisfied that the Iraqis are meeting United States standards for the care and custody of detainees.

"Bottom line, we will not pass on facilities or detainees until they meet the standards we define and that we are using today," the commander, Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner of the Army, said in a telephone interview this week from Iraq.

The issue of Iraqi detainees raises complex legal and diplomatic questions. The United States has pledged to conduct itself in keeping with international conventions, including one regarding torture that precludes handing prisoners to any country where they would face the likelihood of torture.

3 words come to mind; pot-kettle-black.

While our own Vice President dick cheney advocates the use of torture for detainees/enemy combatants, we are against the Iraqis torturing prisoners. We accuse them of torture. We say we will not turn prisoners over to a country who will torture them. Yet we torture them. No one can see anything wrong with this picture?

More things that just piss me off

Wallstreet Gambling on Gambling

Some people think I'm too critical of corporations and that my claims that corporations run this country are not true. Let's examine the following from the NYTimes about gambling.

Blue-chip investment houses like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Fidelity now hold hundreds of millions of dollars in shares of online casinos and betting parlors, which are publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange and headquartered in places like Costa Rica or Gibraltar. To be sure, it is not uncommon for Americans to invest in overseas companies whose operations may be considered illegal or unacceptable here, from sweatshop manufacturers to European energy producers that do business in Iran.

Representative Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, an opponent of gambling, said that the federal government had essentially given up enforcing laws against offshore casinos. He noted, for example, that casino operators now travel freely within the United States, gathering at trade conventions even though, he said, prosecutors would be within their rights to arrest and bring charges against them.

He said that the involvement of investment firms could be part of a pattern of laws being flouted. "It's very bad, and the Congress ought to investigate it," Mr. Goodlatte said, adding that it may turn out that the investment houses are knowingly supporting and promoting illegal enterprises.

For their part, the investment houses have taken the position that they indeed know there are legal risks involved in investing in offshore casinos, but that the risks are outweighed by the benefits of owning shares in growing, highly profitable businesses. Those shares can give a lift to mutual funds and other types of investments sold by the investment houses, meaning bigger returns for clients.

The ownership rolls of offshore casinos read like a Who's Who of America's top investment firms. For example, public filings show that tens of millions of shares of SportingBet, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange that allows people to place bets on sporting events, are owned by Fidelity, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

The bottom line, according to casino industry executives and some financial analysts, is that the opportunity for profit may be too good for the investment houses to pass up. Over all, Internet gambling is projected to reach almost $12 billion in business this year, up from $8.3 billion in 2004, according to Sebastian Sinclair, a gambling industry analyst with Christiansen Capital Advisors.

Now, then. It's an illegal activity, acknowledged as so, even by those corporations who are investing in it. The government does not do anything to stop it. What's next? The Columbian Cocaine Industry is huge. Let them form a company and go public and these same corporations will invest in the drug trade. After all, it's not like they are controlling the drug trade, they are just passive investors. Whats the harm in making some money from illegal enterprises?

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

Bush's NSA Spying Is Not What He Claimed. What a Shocker.

I'm going to comment here on excerpts from an article in the NYTimes. If you want to read the entire article click the title of this post. You may have to subscribe.

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: December 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

What a shocker! Something Bush said he was doing, turns out not to be what he was actually doing?

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The phone companies comply with the government and what isn't mentioned is what they get in return. Do they get tax breaks? That means more tax burden on the average citizen. Do they get industry-friendly laws passed that benefit them in return for their cooperation? Or do you think these multinational corporations just help because they are patriotic Americans?

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter.

"There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that."

As they should be. Carnivore was/is a program used by the FBI to monitor traffic going through your ISP. They said they ignored all the messages they intercepted that they did not have warrants for. Yeah, right. Now they don't need that pesky warrant, thanks to ol' GW.

Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

This executive order is in direct conflict with the Bill of Rights.

The fourth Ammendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Illegally seized evidence cannot be used in court. The exclusionary rule in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is bolstered by a statutory exclusionary rule in the federal wiretap statute, making evidence obtained from illegal wiretaps useless in court. (The Clinton Administration proposed weakening the statutory exclusionary rule, to make the introduction of illegal wiretap evidence easier.)

The wiretap law states that the court cannot approve an interception request unless it finds that "normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous." Law enforcement officials regularly contend, as FBI Director Freeh did in 1994 testimony, that this provision of the law permits electronic surveillance "only when all other investigative techniques will not work or are too dangerous" (emphasis added).

What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.

That's called "fishing". They want the ability to monitor all communications to see if "anyone" might be breaking a law. That is the long term goal and outcome of laws that allow this behavior. You might think, "Well, if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about." If you think this way, then you do not understand what this country was founded on and what was intended by the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Those laws were written in for a reason. That reason was to protect you and I from an abusive or oppressive government that might use your information against you to force you to comply with things to which you do not agree.

Your medical records, the books you check out in the library, the clubs or organizations you belong to, what you do in your personal time, your conversations over whatever medium they occur, are none of the government's business. But gathering all of that information, then creating a profile on you, as marketers are doing right now on the Internet, and our government is doing as well, can be used to influence you in the future.

The current and former government officials who discussed the program were granted anonymity because it remains classified.

Bush administration officials declined to comment on Friday on the technical aspects of the operation and the N.S.A.'s use of broad searches to look for clues on terrorists.

Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.

In other words, this administration will continue to break the laws, until we discover it and cry foul. They face no reprisals for their actions. They just create a new way to do whatever they want, until once again they get caught.

It's the same with the war on terror. They claim it's a war, yet the prisoners taken are not prisoners of war, therefore the geneva convention, nor the laws of this country apply to them. Bush and Cheney just do whatever they want and place them in another country and continue to break US Laws with the claim that since it isn't on US soil, it's not illegal.

Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.

So, since the existing law doesn't fit in with what they want to do, it's okay to just ignore that law. You know, I don't like the fact I can't just go down to the bank and take other people's money. I should ignore the law about robbing banks then. That make sense?

A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.

"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.

Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as eavesdropping on the calls themselves, the former manager said.

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully addressed by 1970's-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.

Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.

This pattern of behavior by this administration should be troubling to every American citizen. If you give up your rights because the terrorists attacked, then you give them the exact victory they wanted. Bush is intent on giving them that victory. Preventing another attack is not victory. Preventing the terrorists to alter our way of life and preventing them from making us give up our rights is victory.

Commentary by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

America's Most wanted All About Entertainment

It's funny. America's Most Wanted claims to be so serious in catching dangerous criminals. John Walsh in his book, "Public Enemies", talks about how the show and staff take every case seriously. That it's personal. That they are there to help victims, blah blah blah.

If you look at the Trademark for America's Most Wanted, it is described as an "entertainment" television show.

America's Most Wanted and John Walsh claim they would like to air all parent's cases where their child has gone missing, But they claim that they just can't air all of them. This is probably true.

However, I know a lady, who's child, Gayle Marks has been missing for years. She wrote to AMW and to John Walsh many times, asking them to air her child's case. In one of the letters, they told her, "Your case does not have enough twists and turns to put on our show."

Can you imagine how she felt? No, you cannot, unless your child is missing.

Yet, AMW can air the case below;

A man who helped make famous the songs `YMCA` and `In the Navy` will soon be featured on the television show `America's Most Wanted,'' after failing to appear in a San Mateo County courtroom for his sentencing in October, according to San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

According to Wagstaffe, a crew from the criminal-busting TV show has taped a segment on Victor Willis, 54, the original policeman from the musical group the Village People.

Willis was pulled over around 11 p.m. on July 11 in Daly City for an unspecified traffic violation in the area of Bayshore Boulevard and Geneva Avenue, according to police reports.

After being stopped, Willis was found to be in possession of 3.23 grams of cocaine. When questioned by officers, Willis reportedly gave a false name -- his brother's -- and had a fake license, the district attorney's office reported.

Willis previously accepted a plea bargain with a maximum 16-month term in state prison, and enrollment in a drug and alcohol treatment program, according to Wagstaffe.

According to Wagstaffe, America's Most Wanted staff indicated the show featuring the segment on Willis would air sometime in February.

Because this guy is famous, they will be featuring him, yet do not have time for someone's missing child! parents whose child has been featured on the show will certainly defend them and tell you how great they are, but ask those parents whose child is missing and AMW has told them that their case cannot be aired, what they think of this feature on one of the Village People.

This guy is wanted because he's a drug addict who didn't show up for court. Big deal. Not a dangerous criminal where we need to get them off the streets right away. Not a child sex predator that might harm children if he is not caught right away.

Instead, this segment is about ratings, even though the guy isn't much of a celebrity and it's doubtful he will increase their ratings much.

So, in February, the mother of Gayle Marks, who still has the letter from AMW telling her that her daughter's case isn't good enough material for their show, will be watching them air the case of the missing village idiot instead.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Dick Cheney, our Fuhrer

füh·rer also fueh·rer ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fyrr)
n.
A leader, especially one exercising the powers of a tyrant

Everyone likes to blame George Bush for all the things that are being done by his administration. Thats kind of like blaming Kermit the Frog or Big Bird for what they say and do. There is always somebody behind the puppet. In the case of the Prez, it's probably easier since his brain is smaller than Big Birds due to years of alcohol and drug abuse. There's a joke: President Bush vowed to get cocaine off the streets of America!, One 8-ball at a time.

Back to the topic, though, Dick Cheney. Here are some things for you to consider about ol' Dick.

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Dick Cheney held closed door meeting with Oil and Energy Company executives, including Ken Lay of Enron, just after the first election, to formulate this country's energy policies. No other groups were represented at these meetings. Mr. Cheney gathered people who agreed with him, and allowed them to write national policy for an industry in which he had recently amassed a fortune. He allowed only comments from those companies who stand to benefit the most from those policies. Since Cheney used to work for Haliburton, which makes money from those policies as well, this would seem to be improper, don't you think?

Before 9/11, Dick Cheney tried to undermine the institutional and legal structure of multilateral foreign policy: he championed the dismissal of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to build an antimissile shield that doesn't work but makes military contactors rich.

Dick Cheney used 9-11 to promote the war on Iraq, when in fact he, along with Rumsfeldt, and Wolfowitz, were advocating an attack on Iraq in the mid 90s when Clinton was still in the oval office screwing his secreataries. But he says publicly, that the war on Iraq was a necessity after 9-11. Does this mean he knew about 9-11 in the 90s, when he was trying to get the US to attack Iraq?

Dick Cheney has said publicly that we should not acknowledge the geneva convention with prisoners of the war on terrorism. They claim it's a war, then they take prisoners in that same war, then they claim they are not prisoners of war. That makes sense to you? The US lead the process to create the geneva convention and urged other countries to sign it. Dick Cheney must believe that was a mistake. But, by the Leading country in the world, The USA, ignoring the geneva convention, we place our own troops at risk when captured in other countries.

Dick Cheney has publicly advocated for the use of torture. He believes that it is our right to torture prisoners. His team was central to writing the legal briefs justifying the abuse and torture of prisoners, the idea that the president can designate people to be "unlawful enemy combatants" and detain them indefinitely, and a secret program allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants.

When Senator John McCain introduced a measure to reinstate the rule of law at American military prisons, Mr. Cheney not only led the effort to stop the amendment, but also tried to revise it to actually legalize torture at C.I.A. prisons.

Dick Cheney publicly says that he supports the government's right to spy on US Citizens. He believes your medical records, the books you check out in the library, the websites you browse to, the email you send and receive, the phone calls you make and receive, should be monitored to see if there is any way to link you to a terrorist group.

The president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11 attacks.

unimpaired

adj : not damaged or diminished in any respect [ant: impaired]

Dick Cheney believes the President should be able to do anything he wants. A King can do anything he wants. A dictator can do anything he wants. However, in a democracy, it is supposed to be a government by the people, for the people. The President is there to serve us, not the other way around. In this country, there are checks and balances like the senate, the congress, and the supreme court, to make sure that one person does not have too much power. Dick Cheney seems to think these things are just minor obstacles to get around so they can do as they please.

"Absolute Power corrupts, Absolutely."

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have insisted that the secret eavesdropping program is legal, but The Washington Post reported yesterday that the court created to supervise this sort of activity is not so sure. It said the presiding judge was arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges and that several judges on the court wanted to know why the administration believed eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants was legal when the law specifically requires such warrants.

by Chris McElroy
http://www.newsandmediablog.com
More things that just piss me off

King Bush backs down on the Patriot Act

Article excerpt from "The Nation" as posted on Yahoo News;

As the December 31 deadline for reauthorization of the act approached. Feingold and his allies offered to accept a short-term extension, so that the Patriot Act could remain in force while senators of both parties address Constitutional concerns.

But President Bush was not in the mood to compromise.

To the very end, the president -- doing his best King George immitation -- attacked Democratic and Republican senators for seeking to reform the act, which was hastily approved after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Dismissing attempts to reconcile the need for security with the requirements of the Constitution, Bush attacked the Senate's refusal to reauthorize the act in the form he demanded as "inexcusable" and said that Feingold and his allies were endangering America.

"The senators who are filibustering the Patriot Act must stop their delaying tactics, and the Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," grumbled Bush in one of a series of public rejections of any talk of a temporary renewal.

But, for all his bluster, Bush had to back down.

The Senate deal that ended the filibuster threat extends the act only for six months and provides critics with clear openings to debate contentious provisions, particularly those that permit the FBI to conduct "sneak-and-peak" searches of private homes and businesses, to wiretap telephones and examine of emails, and to obtain secret warrants for library, medical, business and personal records of Americans who are not suspected of committing crimes.

One thing is clear - what happened in the Senate over the past few weeks shows that (long-term reauthorization of the Patriot Act in the version favored by Bush) is dead."

And the Bill of Rights is alive and kicking.

End of article excerpt

Now those staunch Bush supporters will come out and say that anyone who didn't vote to renew the patriot act is unpatriotic and a terrorist sympathizer.

To question your government is to be a true patriot. Someone who believes you should always back your president and your government is a nationalist, not a patriot.

To not allow the government to infringe on rights guaranteed to us by the constitution and the bill of rights is to be a patriot. To claim the need to infringe upon those rights in the name of security is to deserve neither rights nor security.

Terrorism attacks may occur again. Infringing on our rights is not going to stop them. Think just a minute. You are not a terrorist. But if you were, how many things can you think of, in just 60 seconds, to do to cause panic and deaths here in the Us if you were of that mindset?

I know you thought of more than one and you are not a trained terrorist, at least I hope not. The terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 are trained. They are of the mindset to cause panic and deaths. They are organized and they have the resources to do so.

The FBI checking your medical records and what library books you check out is not going to stop them.

The Patriot Act was a declaration of Victory for the very terrorists Bush claims to be fighting with it. By attacking us on 9-11, they got our government to pass the patriot act, taking away our privacy and our rights. The terrorists achieved all they wanted to achieve. Not only did they kill thousands of Americans and cause widespread panic, they took away some of our rights they despise us for.

Bush and those who voted for the Patriot Act are the ones who aided the terrorists and helped them achieve their goals.

More things that just piss me off

Police Undercover at Protests

Bush supporters claim that the patriot act and other police powers implemented since 9-11 are necessary and don't violate the rights of American Citizens.

This translates to; They don't know what prinicipals this country was founded on, they don't believe the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are important, and they don't believe there is any right to privacy, which, while not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, it would be a stretch to think that our forefathers were for any type of government monitoring of your email, telephone, or other private conversations.

They certainly would not condone our government sending undercover police into legal gatherings such as protests to gather information on American Citizens who participate in the protest.

The following is an edited down version of an article in the NYTimes; You can click the title above and see the entire article if you wish to.

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, "I am a shameless agitator." She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.

Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed their opinions was among the most tightly limited of police powers.

President Bush acknowledged last Saturday that he has secretly permitted the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant on international telephone calls and e-mail messages in terror investigations.

In New York, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg persuaded a federal judge in 2003 to enlarge the Police Department's authority to conduct investigations of political, social and religious groups.

The standard for opening inquiries into political activity has been relaxed, full authority to begin surveillance has been given to the police and federal courts no longer require a special panel to oversee the tactics.

That's all I'll reprint of the article, as I said, to read the whole article click the title of this one.

The excuse for these tactics is that they need to use them to catch terrorists, yet, it is not terrorists they are using these tactics on. They are using them on protesters, religious groups, and other American Citizens, expressing their basic rights as guaranteed by the constitution and the bill of rights that people have fought for and died to defend.

Bush's secret NSA taps have snared conversations between American Citizens where both ends of the conversation were located in the US. They were only authorized, supposedly, to monitor conversations where at least one end of the conversation was on foreign soil.

They claim they "accidentally" snooped on these conversations and don't have the technology to determine where some of the calls originated from or were made to. Give me a break.

To keep allowing GW Bush and his administration to violate the rights of American Citizens is to condone it. The comparisons to Hitler are not very far off. Hitler did all the things described in this article, yet republicrooks cry foul when you compare the two.

Republicans also say blatently that if you are protesting the war, you deserve to be spied on and that you are a traitor to this country.

For exercizing your rights as an American Citizen you are a traitor?

For disagreeing with something your government is doing you are a traitor or a terrorist sympathizer?

NO! IT MEANS YOU ARE A TRUE PATRIOT AND LOVE THIS COUNTRY SO MUCH YOU WILL FIGHT DICTATORS LIKE GW BUSH WHO ARE TRYING TO DESTROY IT!

More things that just piss me off

Immigration Reform

This is taken from an editorial in the NYTimes;

President Vicente Fox of Mexico has said it best: the immigration bill passed last week by the House of Representatives is "shameful" -a reflection of the power of xenophobic politicians who want to fence in America, lock up illegal immigrants and send them back where they came from.

Study that sentence for just a moment. "They want to lock up ILLEGAL immigrants and send them back where they came from." DUH! When you do something that is ILLEGAL, you can be locked up or deported! What a concept!

This shortsighted approach to the nation's growing immigration problem will not work. Cracking down on immigrants and their employers will succeed only as part of a comprehensive solution that includes a guest worker program and some path to longer-term legal status for those who are already here. The House bill, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and Peter King, Republican of New York, is just about "playing to the cheap seats," as Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat, put it.

Again, DUH! There is a comprehensive solution to immigration already in place that many immigrants have gone through. It's called applying for citizenship. If you want the benefits, the jobs, and the freedoms this country has to offer, then apply for citizenship. To grant those same rights to people who sneak across the border instead of going through the legal process is a slap in the face to those immigrants who became citizens of this country legally.

As far as going after those that employ illegal immigrants, it will work, but only if you pass harsher laws for hiring illegal immigrants.

The only real hope is for the Senate to counter with a real package that deals with the whole complex problem, and the best starting point so far is the reform proposed by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

But that kind of bill-making takes time, and Republican leaders in the House have apparently decided that anti-immigration will be a good theme for them in the 2006 elections. Indeed, there are polls that show most Americans are concerned about 11 million illegal immigrants. But bashing the people who take the hardest construction work or the dirtiest jobs cleaning hotels or changing diapers for middle America is not just inhumane. It could backfire, especially with Hispanic voters who might sense an undercurrent of racism in the keep-them-out talk. In a recent race in Virginia, the anti-immigration candidate lost.

It is not about race. That is such an old tired argument. This is about laws. There are laws on the books that allow people to immigrate to this country in a legal process. Many people have successfully become US Citizens in this manner. It is an insult to them, that people are proposing that others shouldn't have to go through the same process they did.

The other old tired argument is that these immigrants do jobs americans are not willing to do. That is such a crock. Americans are unwilling to do those jobs at less than a living wage. That is the fact and the bottom line of this issue. Big companies want cheap labor so they can make a bigger profit. Without this source of illegal labor, they would be forced to pay americans a living wage. They give large campaign contributions to politicians to make sure that immigration isn't controlled and that when a company gets caught hiring illegally, they are fined very little.

By Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Dupont pays fine

This is such a joke. We have government agencies like the FAA, FCC, FTC, SEC, FDA, and the EPA. Each of these agencies are supposed to look out for consumers. Most of them simply serve the corporations they are supposed to police. The EPA is what I'm going to discuss today.

I used to be an Abestos Inspector. After finding contractors guilty of breaking safety rules in regards to asbestos removal, I learned that the EPA response is to call that company to let them know they will be coming by for coffee and donuts in a couple of weeks and we hope everything will be in order by then.

They really do that. They give advance warning before inspections of hazardous sites. Then when they still find violations, they fine the company a lot less money than it would have cost to do the project legally. This article I quote below gives you an idea of what I mean.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it had reached a $16.5 million settlement with DuPont, which it had accused of failing to report information about the health and environmental risks of a substance used in making Teflon and other plastics.

The settlement includes $10.25 million in fines, which the agency says is the largest administrative penalty it has ever imposed, and a commitment by DuPont to spend another $6.25 million for two environmental projects in lieu of more fines.

"This settlement sends a strong message that companies are responsible for promptly informing E.P.A. about risk information associated with their products," said Granta Y. Nakayama, assistant administrator for the agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

Do you seriously think a 16 million dollar fine will slow DuPont down for even a day? How much do you think they saved by not complying with the rules? These companies know they can break the rules and just pay the fines. They know they will make more money by breaking the rules and if they happen to get caught, they can just pay the nominal fine. 16 mil might seem like a lot of money to you and I, but to DuPont, it's nothing. How many projects do you think they have, where they also broke the rules, but were never caught or fined?

The bottom line is that these government agencies are weak. They are run by presidential appointees. These corporations helps each president get elected through contributions. Do you think ANY president is going to appoint someone to run one of these agencies that won't be friendly to his benefactors?

Corporations now run this country. Get used to it or start to raise some hell about it. If you choose to do nothing then you condone this behavior.

More things that just piss me off

Redstate.org Writers are totally Brain-Dead

These idiots at redstate.org are so far out in right field they can't even see home plate. They claim democrats are the conspiracy theorists when it's the neocons that spout bs conspiracy all the time.

First, they say anyone who is not for the war in Iraq are committing treason and now all of the media that does not support the4 war are all connected to AlQueda.

This is one of todays articles at Redstate.org

But it seems that this particular nominee, one Dorrance Smith, a former television producer who was an adviser to former ambassador Paul Bremer in Iraq, once said that extremists like Osama bin Laden (On the Web) have "a partner in Al-Jazeera, and by extension, most (television) networks in the U.S."

Senator Levin objected that Smith's article, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal in April, was "really over the top, unfair, and not something which I believe should be the attitude of the representative of the Department of Defense."

Well. No wonder the Democrats are complaining that they aren't being let in on the good secrets. Carl Levin is the leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he doesn't even know that the U.S. television networks are in cahoots with Al-Jazeera, airing videos of hostages fed to them by terrorists trying to make a name for themselves.

So he has gone off to "consult with his colleagues" about whether to put a hold on the nomination, which would delay it a week until Bush can make a recess appointment when the Senators go home for Christmas.

Total fantasy land for these guys. I continue to be amazed by the sheer lack of intellect all gathered at one website.

More things that just piss me off

Ahmad Chalabi

The three Iraqi political leaders considered most likely to end up as prime minister after nationwide elections this week - Ayad Allawi, Ahmad Chalabi and Adel Abdul Mahdi.

You remember Chalabi, right? This was GW Bush's Iraqi source that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He gave Bush just what he was looking for, confirmation that there were WMDs in Iraq. Unfortunately, Chalabi lied. It didn't matter to Bush and company, because he, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney had been planning the Iraq war since the 90s, when Clinton was in office.

There are letters signed by some of them, urging Clinton to attack Iraq in the 90s, so any claim that the Iraq war is somehow related to 9-11, is just bogus and anyone that believes there is a link is just not paying attention.

So, this Chalabi, who we know was passing information to Iran, while he was advising GW Bush on Iraq, not only was never prosecuted for passing along sensitive information to Iran, we are now supporting him for Prime Minister of Iraq. What is it that he has on Bush and company that would not only keep him out of jail, but would help him become Prime Minister?

An article by Andrew Cockburn, contains a more complete account of Chalabi's history.

To make it brief. Chalabi went to Jordan after being exiled from Iraq. He started a bank in Jordan. His brothers opened banks in Washington and Geneva. When the Jordanian government went to audit that bank, 1.5 billiuon was missing and Chalabi had "gone on vacation.

He formed the INC (Iraqi National Congress) in the US. His associates said he bragged about how good he was in business and that politics was just another business. He said there was money up for grabs for supporting the ouster of Saddam Hussein and that they should go after it. They did. The CIA gave them funding for "intelligence gathering".

Chalabi had ties to Iran, even opening a INC headquaters there. The documents that outlined the nuclear weapons program of saddam hussein that bush used to promote the war in Iraq, was found by scientists who examined it, that phrases in the documentation, while in arabic, were ones that only the Iranians use. Chalabi's ties to the Iranian Intelligence Agency and those phrases add up to fraud, but who cared in the Bush administration that wanted this evidence so they could attack Iraq?

Now Chalabi controls the Iraqi Finance Ministry, the Iraqi Central Bank, and his associates run the two largest banks in Iraq. Bush still hasn't brought him to justice for trading information to the Iranians. So this is what GW Bush meant about instilling democracy in the region. This is what he means about a more stable Iraqi government. Putting a criminal in charge of Iraq's finances will make it much easier for bush and his oil cronies to control Iraq. That is exactly what they mean by stable.

More things that just piss me off

Typical Redstate.org BS

----2.5 Million Reasons to Run
By Augustine, 2005-12-07 21:07:12
Section: Democrats, Topic:

Forget the New York TV pundits. The big name in these parts isn't Edwards, Bayh, or Clinton: it's Mark Warner who's gunning for 2008.
Article referred to by this author, Augustine from Redstate.org He just launched a new national PAC, Forward Together: "I need your help, your ideas, your energy, your resources," Warner told the crowd. "Together, we can shake things up. Together, we can find leaders who see a little farther down the road. This nation can, and must, do better. If we can do it in Virginia, we can do it in America." Presumably, he means: raise taxes, raise taxes, raise taxes. Warner will run as Mr. Red State, friend of business, the guy who got it done and popularly so in a southern state. But with his stiff, nasal, Connecticut Yankee voice, and without the charm factor of the south, it's going to be hard for him to pull off a masquerade as The Bill. But get used to hearing a lot of this Forward Together crap for the next few years. With his governorship ending, Warner's campaign for the Democratic nomination has already kicked off, and he really doesn't have much else to do in the meantime.

My comment; It's funny how the article he refers to in his post doesn't mention the word tax at all. Funny how nowhere does it mention anything related to raising taxes. Funny how the author tries to spin this candidate into someone who will raise taxes before the candidate himself actually brings the topic up.

But this is exactly the kind of bs that is acceptable at redstate.org. It doesn't matter if what you write has any basis in fact. It just matters that it further the conservative republican right-wing agenda. Much like bush bribing the press in both the US and Iraq. It doesn't matter if that is ethical or not, legal or not, just as long as they win elections.

Click here to let me prove my point even more.

According to redstaters, according to that article, it doesn't matter that Bush's political speeches, where military personnel are required to attend and "encouraged" to be supportive of bush, are illegal. He's George Bush. It's ok to break laws. Thos ole laws are just stupid anyway. We should not have laws that tell our beloved GW Bush there are things he can't do.

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

Would Jesus use Torture?

I have a couple of questions for those in the Christian Right who backed and still back President GW Bush. I'm a Christian asking these questions to other Christians.

1. Did religious leaders in this country back bush because they truly believed he was saved or was that wishful thinking or justification used to back him for other reasons?

2. Did the fact that bush proposed freeing up federal money for religious institutions have anything at all with church and religious leaders backing him for president?

3. Do you believe that GOD, through the church has the purpose of teaching people what is right and what is wrong, so that people can come to Jesus willingly, as he stated his desire in the bible?

4. Can you find passages in the new testament that say you should let the government regulate GOD's Law? Or do the passages state that people are to choose to worship GOD willingly and that Christians were to spread the word and educate everyone so they can make their own decision?

5. Did Paul lobby governments to pass laws so that people would not sin or did he teach the people right and wrong and teach them about Jesus so they would choose to follow him?

6. Do you believe that you should be different from Paul, that you should get the government to pass laws that regulate what people should do rather than teach people why they should follow GOD?

7. Do you believe GOD so weak that you need governments to do his work for him?

8. Are you saying that the church, with GOD's support cannot get people to follow the teachings of Christ, so you must get governments to do it for you? Or is it just too much of a bother to take on the task of spreading the word and much easier to just get the government to regulate it?

9. Do you believe that Churches were built with the purpose of advocating for or against politicians? Do you believe the Church or the Temple was created so that it could get involved in governments? When you read the old testament about the building of the Temple for the LORD, which verses say the priests or the congregation should get involved in the politics of the country in which the Temple is located in?

10. Do you believe the Church is confined to US Law or do you believe the Church is not bound by any country's borders?

11. Do you believe Man's Law is above GOD's Law? GOD had the churches built to teach people about GOD's Law, right or wrong?

12. Do you think that getting the government to pass a law against something we know to be a sin will save people's souls, or do you believe that GOD's Law cannot be regulated by governments?


13. Considering how Jesus was tortured, then crucified, would he advocate the use of torture, even for those who sin against you? If your answer is no, Jesus would have said "Forgive them for they know not what they do", then how can you support a President who advocates torture of those who sinned against the US?

I'm asking you to think. That's all.

Last question: Do you believe in what Jesus taught us to do and what GOD created the Church for, or do you think that we should leave our hopes for humanity in the hands of a government?

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

Backing a President

In America, we have a syndrome called; "We love to defend the underdog". It seems that whenever we can, we as Americans like to defend someone who is under attack. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong, but it's that attitude of defending the little guy that defines part of what it is to be an American.

This extends to a social phenomenon that people may not be aware of. When one party or the other has chosen a presidential candidate and that candidate wins and becomes President of the US, the party is supportive of him.

Of course the opposition party is less than supportive of him and in fact attack him on every issue. This is nothing new. It happens to every president. The opposition will attack him regardless of the kind of job he is doing.

But when there is real evidence that a president is doing a terrible job, it gives the opposition even more ammunition to attack him with, therefore the attack on a bad president becomes more intense.

The problem that occurs here is even though there is evidence that this is a bad president, the more the opposition attacks him based on that evidence, the more that president's party rises to his defense.

Conclusion; The worse a president is, the more those that helped him get elected will defend him. This is on both parties, not just the republicans currently in power.

Reasons;

1. The supporters of any current president don't want to admit they are wrong. That's human nature.

2. They are afraid if they admit they were wrong to choose the current president that they won't be able to get someone from their party in office next time there is an election. They use that reasoning to justify supporting one that is in office doing a poor job.

3. They hate the opposition so much that they will defend almost anyone as long as the opposition doesn't like them. The old "If you're the enemy of my enemy, you are my friend" syndrome. Again human nature.

4. The person being attacked becomes the underdog, the little guy, and we all love to back the underdog as Americans. The more he is attacked, the more they will defend him.

So, when you wonder why people defend a terrible president even more than they do a good one, don't be shocked. Thats just how it works.

by Chris McElroy
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Redstate.org run by cowards?

It just amazes me that because I stood up for freedom of speech on Redstate.org, they banned me. They didn't like something Ted kennedy said about being against the war in Iraq. They said that he committed treason for for saying it.

I posted back that while someone may not agree with what someone says, you have to support their right to say it. If not, you are not a patriot and you do not believe in the US Constitution.

For this, they banned me from posting at their conservative republican blog. Not only did they ban me, they refuse to answer my emails asking for an official reason for banning me.

They have the right to ban anyone they want. But that does not allow them to say they run an open forum where opinions are welcome. The reason they don't allow dissenting opinions at Redstate.org is that, in my opinion, they are too cowardly to confront an intelligent argument.

They are all welcome to come post their comments here, even though they deny me the same right on their website. I will not delete posts or ban themn for their comments, even if I don't agree with them.

Be men. Recognize the right to free speech. Stand up for what you believe. Don't hide the fact you don't have an intelligent argument by banning people who disagree with you. The staff there has acted childishly, unpatriotically, and cowardly.

by Chris McElroy

PS: Yes this is a direct challenge to Redstate.org to either lift the ban on me posting there, post their comments here if they have anything intelligent to say, or just admit they are cowards. I am emailing them this post.

WINFIXER the VIRUS PROGRAM

Now, I know a lot of people are pissed off at this one. You go to a website. It offers to scan your computer for free for registry-related problems, etc. It installs a ton of files onto your computer, including about 185 registry entries.

Some of the websites install the program just by you visiting their website. Some when you click no, it really means yes, install the program. Then they disable the browsers back button to trap you there.

These people at winfixer claim to be legitimate businesspeople. No legitimate businessperson would or should ever use these tactics to sell their product.

Anything that "tricks" a user into downloading malicious programs should be illegal and probably there are laws that can be applied. Law Enforcement is just not tech savvy enough yet to apply them. Then you have the problem that many of these companies are located in countries where we can't touch them and those countries are not going to cooperate or they are even less tech-savvy.

What I believe some of these programs are doing is this; You click a link to go to website.

The program slows your browser down to send the info about the website to the software vendor and their clients.

Using keyword technology, it scans the website before you get there and using keywords from that website, creates a popup to sell you something.

They don't want you to buy from the website you are going to, they want you to buy something through them so they can receive a commission.

The people that run kazaa got caught doing that very thing. They claim is was installing their affiliate code into links by sheer accident. They never meant to do that.

Based on the keywords you type into a search engine or the keywords on a webpage you are going to, it gives you a popup when certain keywords are matched in their system to sell you something.

They call this trageted marketing and claim it's a legitimate way to market products.

Companies are being allowed to gather more private information than you would even allow your government to collect. Because they are google, microsoft, AOL, or other big names you trust them more than you do the government? I don't trust either one being able to know any more about me than I directly tell them about me.

Private companies are no more trustworthy than the government. What would you say if you knew the government was monitoring each website you go to? Would this alarm you? But it doesn't alarm you that you are allowing these companies and individuals, some who are in foreign countries, to monitor you? If not, you should be.

I urge people to write their congressman and push for legislation that prohibits the gathering of user information in the background on people's computers. Also that it push legislation that ANY website or software that installs tracking software or malicious programs onto your computer be criminally and civilly liable. And that there are laws passed that make these software companies use plain language and upfront, easily understood disclaimers about everything they are about to do to your computer.

Don't ignore this one. You really need to write your congressman on this one. You email people everyday. Make just one to your congressman. If you don't want to type a long message, urge them to read this article. Better yet, encourage them to go to winfixer.com and try it out. When their computer gets infected, they may pay more attention.

Click here to find out who represents you in congress and how to email them.

The link to send them is winfixer.com, but don't go there unless you are willing to risk having a problem with your computer.

If you have winfixer on your computer and want to know how to remove it, there are some instructions here that can help you.

More things that just piss me off

9 Things I Hate About Everyone BUT WE ALL SEEM TO DO IT NOW AND AGAIN!

Got this from a friend. Thought it fits well into a website that's titled "THINGS THAT JUST PISS ME OFF!"

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?


2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.


3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?


4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!


5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.


6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.


8. When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?


9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?

Is Osama Bin Laden in a Secret US Prison?

We now know that the CIA under the Bush Administration is holding secret prisoners in secret prisons located in other countries. We also know this administration has advocated torture of prisoners related to terrorism. Cheney has asked that laws be drafted and passed to allow them to torture prisoners. We have seen the pictures from the prison in Iraq that were all blamed on low-level soldiers, who were most likely doing the bidding of their superior officers and of private contractors hired to do interrogations.

Bush doesn't believe these terror suspects have the right to access US Courts. I agree with him there. He calls the Iraq War a part of the War on Terrorism. If these are WARS, then any prisoners taken during them are Prisoners of War. That should be plain and simple to understand even for the staunchest Bush supporters.

But Bush has also chosen to not call them prisoners of war and has made up a new category called Enemy Combatants. He doesn't believe they fall under the Geneva Convention. He believes that international law does not apply to what he is doing. He believes that torturing these prisoners is his right. Nevermind the FACT that torture is an unreliable means of information gathering. People will tell you anything to keep you from drowning them, which is a tactic they have admitted to and they also said is not really torture.

I don't feel sorry for terrorists who get tortured. I don't care if they are killed. But I do care that our president advocates torture and believes he is above the law. I do care that he has increased the hatred other countries have for the US, which leads to more terrorism.

The question I put to you, is if the CIA is holding secret prisoners, is Osama Bin Laden one of those prisoners. Think about it. W#ho benefits if it is know that bin laden is dead or captured? There is no benefit for the terrorists to admit his death or capture. A live spiritual figurehead, even if he isn't seen, is more motivating than a dead or caprtured martyr.

The bush administration doesn't gain anything by announcing his death or capture. They might get a quick rise in the polls, but it would be short-lived. But as long as bin laden is "out there" somewhere, supposedly plotting his next attack on the US, the bush administration can continue to use him to play on american citizen's fears. That fear is the only thing keeping his approval rating at 37%. Without the bin laden threat, his numbers might dip into the teens.

Below is the story from the NY Times about secret prisons in europe;

Rights Group Lists 26 It Says U.S. Is Holding in Secret Abroad

By IAN FISHER
Published: December 2, 2005

ROME, Dec. 1 - Human Rights Watch has released a list of 26 "ghost detainees" it says are being held incommunicado by the United States at secret foreign prisons.

Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for the rights group, said the list was the most complete possible, based on news media reports and government documents, of the number of people arrested and held without due process outside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The list, released late Wednesday, includes many of the top suspects arrested in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 and the nightclubs in Bali in 2002. "One thing I want to make clear is we are talking about some really bad guys," Mr. Garlasco said. "These are criminals who need to be brought to justice. One of our main problems with the U.S. is that justice is not being served by having these people held incognito."

The list was released amid heightened debate in the United States over possible torture of American-held detainees overseas and rising anger in Europe about possible secret American jails on the Continent, kidnappings of suspects and transfers of ghost prisoners on European soil.

The Bush administration has said it will respond to inquiries from European nations about the transfer and detention of terror suspects, insisting that American actions have complied with international law. Mr. Garlasco said, "Our concern is that if illegal methods such as torture are being used against them," trials may "either be impossible or questionable under international standards of jurisprudence."

About 100 people are being held without charges in prisons outside the United States, experts estimate. The Human Rights Watch list includes Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and suspected of being a top operative in Al Qaeda behind the Sept. 11 attacks; and Hassan Ghul, alleged to have been a courier for Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant in Iraq.

More things that just piss me off