190. DATA MINING WHILE RULING WITHOUT RESTRAINT

From the Archives

(February 2006) All this talk about NSA’s illegal data mining exploits reminds me of Mud’s bright yellow textbook that had the words “DATA MINING” splashed across it in huge block letters. I remember it well because every time I saw the thing I started humming we are miners, hard rock miners. To the shaft house we must go ... and I feel like I’m dying from mining for gold. Yes I feel like I’m dying from mining for gold.

But hey! Let's turn lemons into lemonade, shall we, and make this West Virginia’s new post-regulation theme song now that miners seem to be getting trapped or killed on a daily basis.

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So don’t you find it odd that President Bush has suddenly discovered science and now says he wants to recruit 30 thousand math and science professionals into our public classrooms?

Hasn’t he made the connection between scientists leaving public education and his party’s Dark Ages attempts to force scientists to teach myth-based bullshit?

And why does he refer to Social Security as a so-called entitlement program when I’ve paid into it every month since I was sixteen years old?

The man talks about our nation falling behind in technology and scientific knowledge, then refers to the federal student loan program as an entitlement program too (as opposed to an intelligent investment in the future—one that gets paid back with interest, as I know all too well).

And does it strike anyone else as depressingly humorous that Bush actually bragged about his party’s “spending restraint” with a straight face yesterday?

Anyone with a brain can see that taking another scalpel to already lean social programs while hemorrhaging money in a war fought on false evidence while operating under the faith-based notion that the dollar will remain the exchange rate while handing even more money to the super-rich is not exactly showing fiscal restraint.

Maybe he meant to say the Republicans are restraining from paying home health-care providers and the working poor adequately (which seems more like ethical restraint to me).

When yesterday’s policy—clearly written by special interest lobbyists from the insurance and drug industries—passed, even Republican party members were acknowledging that this administration’s reverse-Robin-Hood approach is unsustainable (although they didn't always get the reasons right).

Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) said “the present course is unsustainable. We can’t keep cutting taxes and cutting revenues, while cutting programs to protect the most vulnerable in society.”

John Dingell (D-MI) said “the stench of special interests hangs over the chamber.”

Is the administration oblivious to the burgeoning lobbying scandal or do they believe that no one will make the connection to this special-interest butt-kissing and even more civil and criminal complaints that have just been announced against former insurance executives for apparent financial inproprieties?

Meanwhile, NPR ran an interesting show last night about health savings accounts, during which a guy from the Wall St. Journal said that each GM car has about $1,800 dollars in health-care costs rolled into its cost. These benefits makes it hard for US corporations to compete with overseas sweatshops.

The Republican solution is to quit offering health-care benefits to employees.

Why doesn’t it occur to these people that we can refuse to do business with overseas sweatshops instead and force human rights issues onto the table?

(Wouldn't be prudent?)

Remember that bumpersticker: The Labor Movement. We’re the folks that brought you the weekend?

Meanwhile, these corporations are raking in profits and getting tax breaks hand over fist right now.

For instance, if you want to get really pissed, take a look at the record oil company profits that occurred as we paid outrageous gas and heating bills.

The climate is right for corporations to shit on laborers and customers right now though.

Here’s another quote that references yesterday’s bill (that passed): “A vote for this bill is a vote, literally, to take away health care from our children so we can give more money to the super-rich” (Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY).

Where’s the goddamn outrage?

But, as Tom at tomdispatch.com notes, “This disconnect between the garnering of potentially staggering powers to rule without restraint and the incapacity to use them for the well-being of just about anyone on the planet (other than a few friends and cronies) is now a major part of our domestic landscape.”

READING: tax documents.

LISTENING TO: someone’s stupid car alarm

SANG IN SHOWER: Why should I keep loving you when I know that you are not true? And why should I call your name when you’re to blame for making me bluuuuuuue?

BEST OF SPAM: Before i wrote you,i prayed that you will be a honest and reliable person whom i can work with to achieve this deal of our life.From my section in the bank, I discovered an abandoned sum of EIGHTEEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS...

175. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

From the Archives

(November 2005) In case you haven't been paying attention to Bush's illegal NSA wiretaps: article two of the three articles of impeachment against Nixon states that the president committed a crime

by directing or authorizing [intelligence] agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.

So the Pentagon has been spying on Americans at the insistence of the president—a man who, when told that his wiretapping order violates the US Constitution, replied that it’s “just a goddamn piece of paper” and waaa waaa waaa baby wants what baby wants and he’s perfectly willing to kill 30 thousand Iraqis and your sons and daughters and to stamp out Democracy to get it.

Maybe Nixon said this too before he was impeached (and knowing Nixon, he probably said it afterwards too, since he blamed everyone else for his failures).

Frankly, I want a president who treasures the Constitution more than his fucking LIFE or any short-term goals that he and the lobbyists who define their platform might have.

I want her to value public service over private interests PERIOD.

I want her to consider this belief holy, a calling.

I want Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, or the female equivalent, guiding our country—someone who will stand up to powerful interests and insist on policies that are good for ALL the people, not just the few with deep pockets and persuasive lobbyists.

I mean let’s face it, our Constitution is bigger than any one over-privileged cowboy who probably wouldn’t have even passed high-school grammar without Daddy’s connections

(and he damn well better be glad that Barbara Jordan ain’t around today or he’d already be impeached).

And let me just say that my southern Baptist mother and plenty of other fundamentalists must be aghast to know that this so-called Christian man uttered the phrase god damn out loud—bu we always knew he was an opportunistic poseur, right?

Meanwhile inquiring minds want to know what enemy so threatens national security that we must bypass customary procedures that routinely grant permission to wiretap phones with 4 hours’ notice anyway.

Is it those terrorists that the FBI warned Condi and George about? Those spies with their fingers on a nuclear bomb?

Why no. It’s those scary Quaker anti-war activist terrorists, that’s who.

Run Dick run! Better move us to red alert!!

(You’d think it’d be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Quakers that they are opposed to violence, but maybe the chickenhawks consider opposition to the war to be our greatest national threat [to coin a Vietnam phrase].)

Our president lies blatantly about weapons of mass destruction, about torture, about votes. No wonder we’re all jaded.

Meanwhile, my trunk is loaded down with gifts (which may not be unrelated); my stockings are overflowing and my suitcase is too, so I will leave you with a quote:

For now I am in a holiday humour.—Shakespeare

And, since I may not be online again before New Year’s, here’s another one:

AND NOW let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things.—Rainer Maria Rilke

READING: “It is unconstitutional to teach [so-called intelligent design] as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. ... We find that the secular purposes claimed by the [School] Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

So wrote the judge in his 139-page opinion in the PA evolution case.

LISTENING TO: silver bells

BEST-OF SELECT SPAM: MASTERDICK! Do you know . . . I love you?