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November 29, 2007

Unbearable in Sudamn

Unbearable in Sudamn

"She got a very light punishment...Actually, it’s not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated."

Thus spake Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman referring to the conviction and sentence of British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in prison and a deportation. She could have spent months in jail and been lashed 40 times, after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils name a class teddy bear Muhammad.

Call me multiculturally insensitive, but isn't lashing a woman forty times just slightly more offensive than naming a stupid teddy-bear Muhammed?

On a similar note, an Associated Press report on the resignation of Richard Roberts from the scandal-plagued Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, casually noted that God had told him to resign, just days after God told him to deny the allegations revealed in a lawsuit accusing him of lavish spending, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel aboard the university jet on a trip to the Bahamas.

Usually people who hear voices are institutionalized. Roberts sounds genuinely disturbed and should be sent to a psychiatrist, not to an evangelistic healing ministry. How long will it be before we hear that God told him to molest the children he's off to heal?

People are entitled to whatever religious beliefs they want, but it's time to stop demanding respect and accommodation when lashing teachers and blaming imaginary voices are done in the name of religion.

November 18, 2007

Rupert and Rudy

He is as corrupt as the day is long. As he censored art he deemed offensive, innocent men were brutally tortured with plungers shoved up their asses. As he preached sanctimonious drivel, he carried out a sleazy affair with another woman in the Mayoral residence, while his wife and children slept under the same roof. His conduct toward his wife, his second, at the time was so appalling his son doesn’t even support nor speak to him. He represents the absolute worst of everything that stinks about politics.

After September 11th, where he was thrust into a leadership role for a couple of days as the President cowered in panic, he stole the goodwill borne of people who died in that terrorist attack and used and manipulated it for his own personal and political gain. It has all been said before.

The only word his name evokes is disgust. Yet he could just be America’s next President if American media has anything to do with it. And, tragically, it does.

In a scathing lawsuit filed against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the hypocritical, family-values touting, sleaze media baron, who has tainted journalism the globe over, recently fired publisher, Judith Regan, points some damning fingers, and the Giuliani stench permeates its essence.

Regan was fired from HarperCollins on December 15, 2006 over anti-Semitic comments she’s alleged to have made, in addition to the controversial O.J. Simpson faux confessional, “If I Did It,” which was distasteful enough to cause a collective public apoplexy. At the time, Regan was so maligned by virtually everyone (including by me) that even the liars at Fox News, another News Corp. subsidiary tarred and feathered her, with none other than Bill O’Reilly leading the charge.

I didn’t pay him, so did nothing wrong
But a third party to whom rights belong
Goldmans, Browns, not a dime
But they’ll thank me in time
I bring closure to make everyone strong

As altruistic as Timothy McVeigh
Blowing mothers and babies away
Regan’s self-centered whining
And her impeccable timing
If she did it, it was for JonBenet


The lawsuit, however, suggests that Regan’s downfall was quite possibly a craftily engineered preemptive strike to discredit her, so that by the time she opened her mouth to reveal the things she has, no one would pay heed. They badly underestimated her.

Wikipedia sums it up perfectly:

“In November 2007, Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against News Corporation protesting her dismissal. Her lawyer, Brian C. Kerr said, ‘We are fully confident that the evidence will show that Judith Regan was the victim of a vicious smear campaign engineered by News Corporation and HarperCollins.’

Her allegations include that she was ordered to lie to federal investigators regarding the controversy over Bernard Kerik, with whom she was having an affair, to protect Rudy Giuliani's bid for president. According to the New York Times, ‘The assertion that the News Corporation has sought to protect Mr. Giuliani appears in the opening page of the filing. The document later revisits aspects of the assertion without providing a full account of what is alleged to have occurred or how it might be substantiated in court.’

There’s no doubt about what kind of lady Judith Regan is. I’m certainly not a fan. To be working for Rupert Murdoch and fucking Bernard Kerik, she definitely ranks among the Linda Tripps and Lucianne Goldbergs of America’s tawdry history.

The issue at hand, however, is the dimension she adds to Rudy Giuliani’s repulsive history. Fox News has clearly placed its bets on a Rudy Giuliani presidency, and will do everything it can to ensure it, just as they called the Florida result for Bush in the 2000 election.

Maureen Dowd at the New York Times slyly contemplated a Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani showdown as if their candidacies were a foregone conclusion. The more you see of this kind of story, be it print, television or the Internet, the more self-fulfilling the prophecy becomes. Polls start to reflect what people have been seeing in the media, and before you know it, a Clinton Giuliani contest is at hand.

Meanwhile, Giuliani’s response to the Judith Regan suit was to dismiss it as sounding like a “gossip column story,” and one not worthy of his response. That strategy might have worked for George Bush Senior when asked about his adulterous affair, but Giuliani might not be so lucky. For one, even his Republican opponents are already all over it, and more importantly, it’s not only a gossip column story, it’s a lawsuit alleging criminal conduct on behalf of News Corp. executives in the name of protecting the presidential ambitions of Rudy Giuliani.

It makes sense really. The smutty programming produced and aired by Fox coupled with the smutty lifestyle exemplified by Giuliani is a match made in heaven…or hell.

The only thing worse than a world run by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would be one run by Rupert Murdoch and Rudy Giuliani.

November 14, 2007

Di Hard Democrat

Di Hard Democrat

Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales. In our confirmation hearings (and subsequently, in writing), Judge Mukasey's answers to hundreds of questions were crisp and to the point, and reflected an independent mind. That's why I intend to vote to confirm him to be our next attorney general. I truly believe he will be a strong advocate for the American people.[...]

[...] The bottom line is this: I hope that Judge Mukasey will fairly and evenhandedly represent the American people and direct the Justice Department wherever the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates.

--Senator Dianne Feinstein, The Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2007

She hopes. And I hope that one day all politicians won't prove to be sycophantic, self-serving morons that ignore the will of their constituents. I hope that my next Senator won't vote to greenlight a war on obviosuly faulty intelligence, or vote in favor of a blatantly unconsitutional bill such as the Patriot Act without having the common decency to bother reading it first (or the temerity to vote against it, had she actually read it.)

Unfortunately, Senator Feinstein will continue to masquerade as a "liberal," and frankly, any Democrat in California that still votes for her, or supports candidates that fawn for her endorsements, deserves every last crumb she so consistently delivers.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce...Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

November 07, 2007

Drowning in Hypocrisy

California's Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision to join Senate Judiciary committee Republicans in approving the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General is nothing short of disgraceful.

Much like her decision to sponsor legislation that would desecrate the constitution by criminalizing flag burning, Feinstein has shown her true colors yet again.

Waterboarding, a torture technique that Mukasey refused to state unequivocally was just that, despite calling it "personally repugnant," has been considered a war crime for over a century under the United States and international law.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, refused to vote in favor of Mukasey, stating that: "The president says we do not torture, but had his lawyers redefine torture down in secret memos in fundamental conflict with American values and law."

By contrast, Feinstein claimed to be "troubled" that Mukasey wouldn't call a spade a spade -- or a torture technique a torture technique. Troubled? How did she feel about the torture at Abu Ghraib prison? Uncomfortable, perhaps?

According to NPR's Eric Weiner, the Nazis apparently did not use waterboarding because they didn't give a damn about public opinion and simply used harsher interrogation techniques that left scars or killed their victims. Since waterboarding causes extreme physical suffering it conveniently leaves no marks. I wonder if Ms. Feinstein would consider lightly sprayed shower gassing a torture technique if they turned the gas off before the victims die. And guess what? No scarring!

But Senator Feinstein is better than that, isn't she? She'd probably find it a tad "disconcerting."

No scarring indeed. Fortunately the same can't be said about Feinstein's legacy.

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