Swamp Elective

The Senate voted on a bill Tuesday making it a crime to transport a teenager across state lines to get an abortion. It also makes traveling across state lines to bomb an abortion clinic tax deductible.

English jockey, Paul O’Neill, apologized on Tuesday for head-butting his horse after being thrown from a mount prior to a race. The horse in turn apologized for sleeping with his wife.

Republican Senator Arlen Spector is set to sue President Bush in federal court over signing statements that are claimed to subvert constitutional role of congress. Although most observers feel the case has merit they feel it will ultimately fail because nobody got a blow-job in the Oval Office. 

The House voted on Thursday on a bill to renew the voter rights act, a key piece of 60’s civil rights legislation. Of the representatives voting against Rep. Diebold said, “allowing everyone to vote puts unfair pressure on Republican’s to figure out how to not count those votes.”

Within Lebanon today Israel continues to carry out what it calls “pinpoint tactical military strikes” because the term full-scale shit storm is in a copyright dispute between Afghanistan and Iraq.

Columnist Robert Novak said publicly for the first time Tuesday that White House political adviser Karl Rove was a source for his story outing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. He also said he’s starting to believe that there are no WMD in Iraq.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has arrived in Kabul for talks with President Hamid Karzai amid a resurgence of Taliban violence. Rumsfeld is expected to explain just how well things are going and how it’s just the press that makes it seem bad.

The US House of Representatives is voting this week on a bill that aims to limit gambling on the Internet. Royal Flush dot com is taking 5:1 odds that the bill fails.

In an interview this week Pamela Anderson talked about how she loves beach living, a suntan, and being a soccer Mom… as long as it doesn’t get in the way of being a big whore.

The Grateful Dead has licensed Rhino Entertainment to manage exclusively all of the band's intellectual property which according to sources is more than two Guatemalan knit bags full of scraps of paper with “cool stuff” written on them and a big glass bong.

The Bush administration has agreed to apply the Geneva Conventions to all terrorism suspects in U.S. custody leaving open the possibility that some detainees may sue to get their spleens back.

During a recent trip to Spain Pope Benedict XVI discovered that infallibility does not preclude heckling.

A massive accident that left one dead in Boston’s big dig took the city by surprise and has caused a flood of finger pointing. The only thing Bostonians are used to collapsing this time of year are the Red Sox.

One of England leading papers the Independent published an article claiming that Sir Keith Joseph the economist most responsible for “Thatcherism” was autistic. Not to be out done the US revealed that Ronald Reagan was retarded.

“A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.” John Kifner NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/washington/07recruit.html?ex=1309924800&en=1be0e7d4e2aac8d3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Which reminds me the so-called ”War on Terror” is not making us any less likely to be attacked today than we were on say, 9/10/01. And here’s why it does that. While everyone debates what size glass monolith and steel ornament is the suitable beacon of hope (assuming of course the beacon of hope argument has been settled between all concerned parties) to mark the spot where the twin towers once stood. And most citizens think that we are “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.” There seems to be some conveniently placed amnesia concerning the second deadliest terror attacks in US history namely the Oklahoma City bombings. Carried out by two (or more) grain-fed homegrown anti-social (and here’s the tie in) ex military nut jobs. Massive militarization movements and unending manufacture of hatred spills out all over the place. And as Malcolm X said at some point those chickens are going to come home to roost.

Let me clarify that I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for innocent people who are victims of hatred whether that hatred is fostered by Osama bin Laden or Ann Coulter. 

First, I am naive and idealistic, that is a given. But walk with me in this direction. North Korea has a couple of nuclear warheads and likes to demonstrate that they have them as frequently as possible. They also have a large very poor, and depending on your source of information, fairly hungry population. So if Jesus is really the favorite philosopher of the current administration as they claim why not help the poor? Here’s how it goes, the United States says, “We don’t need to talk about those silly nuclear weapons right now there are people that are hungry why don’t you let us distribute some rice? No big deal just free rice for anybody who wants it. And each 5 pound bag of rice has a little American flag on it or a picture of a smiling little boy waving” Because I think Jesus was a radical he would “think outside the box” And I don’t think he was a confrontational guy if Jesus were alive today I don’t think he would say “Do what I say or I’m going to have to nuke your ass.” Not even in Aramaic.

And then the people of the United States and the people of North Korea can get to work because I’ve got no beef with most of them nor they with me it’s just the dildos with all the power and money and things that blow up that can’t get their shit strait. We’ve got to figure out a way to work around them. Sure it’s overly simplistic but has anybody tried it?

Later, I’ll tell you about how I think our only foreign policy should be to get everybody on earth clean drinking water.

    Get a press agent, hire a sports therapist but do something about the penalty kicks! Penalty kicks are a lousy way to end a soccer match. I’m referring of course to today’s result in the World Cup. Which was decided on penalty kicks. It’s just a shit way to end an athletic contest. If every NBA game ended with each side choosing members to throw free throws no one would watch that here either.

    According to the New Yorker George Bush in one of his more grandiose over reaches of comparison said of Winston Churchill, “Seemed like a Texan to me he wasn’t afraid of public opinion…. and the world is better for it.” Now my next question would be “And seeing that you are from Connecticut and you never traveled oversees until you were President and you are proud of the fact that you don’t know much about history, why is that comparison in your speech?” But alas the press corps not only has no balls but a very limited sense of irony. 

Delegates from the NEA, the nation's largest teachers union approved a plan Monday to aggressively lobby Congress for reform of the No Child Left Behind Act. Proposed changes to the law would allow teachers the discretion to, at least, leave behind some of the really stupid ones.

Joe Lieberman has told reporters that he is collecting signatures to run as an independent in the event that he loses to Democratic challenger Ned Lamont. According to staffers he is will represent the people of Connecticut whether they want him to or not.

    I’ve just seen a group of movies that all seem to support the idea that there are dumb, bad and even evil people in the world and they have more power than the rest of us. First off I didn’t set out to see all of these films to either depress myself or overwhelm myself with awareness it just happened. I tried to go see Superman at the Grove but it was sold out (Yet another reason for year-round schools.)
    So if you can’t see Superman check out the “Road to Guantanimo”! The story of three happy-go lucky British young men who take a wrong turn to a wedding in Pakistan and end up guests of the United States government at Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, hilarity ensues! (Cue the Benny Hill music)
    The story is recreated using actors and through all of the action the actual men involved are shown in current day interviews. The one mystery that doesn’t get answered through all of this is, “What the hell were you thinking?” They never come up with a good answer or even a very strong attempted answer for the $64,000 question. They do say a couple of times “We wanted to help” and when they decide to return to Pakistan they tell the guy who has been carting them around, “We want to go back we’re not doing anything, We’re just hanging around.” So these guys may just have hit upon the stupidest bachelor party idea of all times-Let’s see what a war zone looks like- or they might have had a vague inclination that jihad was an interesting adventure to spy on. But no matter how you twist the agreed upon facts there is no way they are A) the worst of the worst. B) Evildoers. C) People who hate our freedom.
    And judging from the footage of their treatment at Gitmo (The veracity of which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been contested) even if they were guilty the government’s tactics are desperate, inhumane and pointless.   
    An interesting little flick the feel good hit of the summer.
http://www.roadtoguantanamomovie.com/

    The other feature I saw was “Who Killed the Electric Car” a well made documentary that tells the story of the EV 1 GM’s electric car. If you like tales of corporate greed, auto company mismanagement and environmental degredation-for –profit you’ll love this little ditty! I suggest seeing it to mourn the passing of Kenneth Lay.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

    The other two were at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which I sadly saw very little of. The first “Rwanda: The Hills Speak” is by a Belgian director and attempts the very ambitious task of capturing three trials of the Gacaca tribunals that were charged with meeting out justice to more than 500,000 of the street level perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. It gets a little muddled in the who did what to whom, who is Hutu who is Tutsi realm but manages to capture, in intimate detail, the emotional scars of massive senseless violence of the neighbor against neighbor variety.

http://www.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/event.php?EventNumber=0856

    The other film was a short called “Journey into Sunset” it is a heartbreaking bit of filmmaking which has at it’s center Don Cheadle who travels to Northern Uganda where 30,000 children have been abducted to fight in a bloody conflict. The “night commuters” as they are called leave their villages every evening to find safety in the city and avoid abduction. The story was originally put together for “Nightline” and the short film version retains the informational skeleton of a news-based piece but the inclusion of the Chedle family within the story makes it thouroughly relatable.

http://www.journeyintosunset.com/

    Does the weather really affect a shuttle launch? I always thought that the space shuttle and other spacecraft were shot straight up really, really fast. Like so fast that they enter and exit the earth’s atmosphere (were the weather hangs out) in 7-10 seconds. So does a little bit of moisture make that much difference? They don’t really have to steer that thing on lift-off so what’s with the delay for weather? Unless it’s about lightning, that would be a thoroughly cruel spectacle to see a launch zapped out of the sky by a lightning bolt (though if you’re a CGI wiz I’d do something like that for your reel because it would look awesome!)
    I’m pretty sure most of these questions could be answered if I read past the “Shuttle Launch Scuttled Yet Again” headline but I’m a busy American. I need to get to the Star Jones news.

    And those that love it, football to the rest of the world, soccer to the waist-high true believers in this country. I am not amongst those Jim Rome disciples who swear that soccer is, at best, a second tier sport and will never have any draw here in the US, no that spot is occupied by Women’s Professional Basketball. 
    I appreciate it by default, I’m surrounded by people who love it so much that I revel in their enthusiasm. And perhaps it is a sign of maturity that unlike being a kid in a sea of Red Sox fans my immediate instinct is not to tell them how stupid I think their enjoyment is.
    I also love walking into a place of business that is transfixed by an exotic and semi-universal ritual. One of the joys of travel to me is brushing up against masses of people who respond to a wholly different set of cultural cues. And living in a city as diverse as Los Angeles I am given this opportunity daily. Being able to ask questions about the match and share what little I know about the games but enough to say “I am interested in this thing that fascinates you” is a little like making an effort to speak in a foreign language. I fell better for the effort.
    By way of the WNBA don’t know that that will ever "do it" for me but I did see a great documentary about a Seattle girls basketball team called, “Heart of the Game”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478166/
I recommend it highly.