Friday, July 25, 2003

"By what logic would we support a cult that is trying to kill us?" Oh, I don't know, maybe the logic stemming from the fact that 15 of the 19 Highjackers were from Saudi Arabia?

I'm by no means surprised that a bunch of stuff was pulled from the report (Allah forbid we should piss of the Saudis), but I'm impressed that someone in government actually stood up and said shit is fucked in the Kingdom.
Also, while looking up some info on my own about Gillespie, I came across what may be a very interesting page: Disinfopedia.
The new GOP chairman is a "former lobbyist" indeed. Here's a sampling of a few of his clients from the past couple of years:

- Enron: helped Enron get the ear of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force for around $700,000, and helped influence the House's August 2001 energy bill on behalf of the "21st Century Energy Project," a coalition of some of Gillespie's clients which included Enron and Dailmler-Chrysler (who both contributed $50,000 to the project).
- Daimler-Chrysler: in addition to lobbying for the Daimler-Chrsyler as part of the 21st Centrury Energy Project, also lobbied to have higher fuel efficiency standards pulled from Bush's energy bill in March 2002.
- Big Steel: helped convince the Administration to impose a tariff on imported steel, which were declared illegal by the World Trade Organization in May.

He was also one of the primary writers of the GOP's "Contract with America" back in '94.

Gillespie, was referred to by The New Republic as "the most important operative you've never heard of in the Bush presidency." Although they say he was a "senior communications advisor" in the first CNN article, he was much more heavily involved with the campaign than that humble title implies. He did work with many of Bush's top advisors, and was program chairman of the 200 Republican Convention, which was responsible for trying to promote the Republicans as a party of compassion and inclusion by doing such things as putting entertainers like Chaka Khan on stage,

Most of this info comes by way of Arianna Huffington's book Pigs at the Trough.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

You may not need a reminder, but be sure and check out this week's Onion. I particularly enjoyed this week's What do you think?.
Yup.
Put on your shoes and go to work, you shallow cunt.

Seriously, wearing them for comfort is just fine. But if you're paying $85-$145 for flip-flops, you are this week's poster child for "Why they hate us." Also, what is with bullshit statements like "The more dressy styles make the statement that you are credible, yet still accessible"? Can you believe that people say shit like this and actually believe it? Yeah, I can.
But what's gonna happen to all their porn?

Lucky timing for the Administration. Probably not long before people are like "what 16 words?"
Genius? Huh? You mean liar? Bottom line is, there's a big fuck up here. The President said something that turned out to be false. No, we didn't go to war over the 16 Words, but those words were part of the fabric that was our justification for war. Okay, so one thing has been proven false. Does that call in to question all of the other reasons? You bet your fucking ass it does, because a lot of us were questioning this shit from the get-go. Also, I am as yet to be convinced of a "present danger" from Saddam.

Then there's this nonsense that if there was any substance to the claims that the justifications for war were shaky, Bush would be in impeachment trouble. Yeah, that might be the case, if it wasn't for the fact that we have a republican controlled congress and a press that treats presidents differently. Clinton faced a republican-led congress, and the press latched onto a sex scandal like ravenous wolf high on angel dust. Meanwhile, Bush enjoys a republican led congress that is more interested in protecting its party's leader than protecting the country as well as a subdued press corps that asks bullshit scripted questions like "how is your faith guiding you?" when we're about to start fucking bombing people.

I do agree with at least part of one thing Kristol says, that the Democrats need to be "acting as an intelligent, loyal opposition." I don't care for the word loyal, because I'm getting sick of the implications that if you're not with Bush, you're with Saddam. But the words "intelligent" and "opposition" are spot on.
You know shit is fucked up when Michael Jackson is the voice of reason.
Fuckin' A. I knew my propensity towards bitter beers would pay off someday.

Monday, July 21, 2003

Okay, I swear to god, next fucking year I'm going to ComicCon. In the meantime, here are some pictures of new toys being shown at ComicCon. Nothing too exciting, except for the Playmates "Stonecutter Moe" figure. Of course, it's an "incentive" figure (don't you hate those marketing fucks?), which means I'll have to go out and buy like 4 other figures to mail away for it. Also, it's about time that Ron Jeremy got his own action figure.