politics

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (R) has proposed an Senate bill 385, an modest amendment to USDA appropriations that would cap federal subsidies to corporate farms at a quarter-million dollars per year and thus leave more funding for protecting hungry people and the land itself. You can write your Senator to support this bill through OCA's website.

Originally saw this on the Daily Show. Seems VP Dick Cheney was touring the second Gulf region he and George have helped to destroy, and while the cameras were on him, one of the locals summed up the resident's feelings for him with the same invitation Cheney delivered to Patrick Leahy a while back: "Go fuck yourself, Mr Cheney!"

I want to buy that man a beer.

Nothing quite like Google for reading the thoughts of the world as expressed on the web. Try a Google search on the word "failure" and what's the first entry? The official White House web site's biography of the George W. Bush.

That would be a lot funnier if it wasn't for the thousands of people left dead, maimed, or destitute because of Bush's criminal and incompetent behavior. But hey - a Google search for "impeachment" brings up www.VoteToImpeach.org, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark's organization devoted to giving W the treatment he has so richly earned.

You know, it occurs to me that in a few months, after all the Katrina refugees have at least been fed, families reunited, and have roofs over their heads again, the impeachment of George W. Bush would make a great Christmas gift to them.

A federal appeals court has ruled that all the government has to do to make inconveniences like due process go away, is label you a "suspected enemy combatant". They can then hold you indefinitely without charge, even if you are a United States citizen.

Yet another bold step forward by our government in freeing itself from hindrances like the Constitution.

Forwarded to me by our good friend Mike Gurklis:

LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services (EMS)
workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker. They were
attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck.
They spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding--and the martial
law cordon around the city.

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's
store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked.
The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was
now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk,
yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The
owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and
prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents
and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

So let's say you're a Katrina refugee - sorry, that's not PC, evacuee, but that's another story - and you've found refuge at a friends' house. And let's say said friend has a computer. Can you go to register for aid from FEMA on-line? Only if your friend does business with a corporate criminal, Microsoft. MSNBC (ironically, a Microsoft - NBC joint venture) reports:

The good news: If you've survived Hurricane Katrina, the government will let you register for help online. The bad news: But only if the computer you're using is running Windows.

The Baltimore City Paper printed my letter, along with a response from Brian Morton where he defends his old boss Barry McCaffrey as a kinder, gentler sort of prohibitionist. (I originally posted the letter here.)

Well, we can see where George W. gets it from. The Nation reports:

Commenting on the facilities that have been set up for the evacuees -- cots crammed side-by-side in a huge stadium where the lights never go out and the sound of sobbing children never completely ceases -- former First Lady Barbara Bush concluded that the poor people of New Orleans had lucked out.

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," Mrs. Bush told American Public Media's "Marketplace" program...

It's been said that those who love sausages or the law should never see either being made. As a vegan and an anarchist (a Zenarchist on a good day), I think that lovers of either should be forced to become intimately familiar with their origins, in order to cure those unhealthy loves. Rolling Stone takes us to the floor of the slaughterhouse of justice in Four Amendments & a Funeral: A month inside the house of horrors that is Congress. Depressing but necessary reading.

For those who came in late: for years now, tech and media companies have been trying to use copyright and patent law to restrict your freedom to share information, or modify or explore the devices you buy, or generally do anything that might decrease their profit margin. The two latest examples: