Fish Sticks, Mac & Cheese

so that ny times reporter judith miller is getting out of prison in exchange for giving up her source that resulted in getting cia agent valerie plame killed. i am all for freedom of the press and not revealing your source, but in the us today with the patriot act, they would have let her rot in jail. before i go any further on this, it occurred to me that peoples reactions today were exactly opposite of thier character.

people who would call themselves liberal's are happy she is giving up her source because, in not so many words, her testimony will all but be the end of karl rove, whom democrats see as the anti-christ. if rove and bush were not involved, i would bet anything that they would be screaming for the protection of the source as a freedom of the press and tout miller as hero. instead their licking their chops at the prospect of turd blossom going down.

on the flip side, conservatives are yapping that this IS a violation of freedom of the press. the less educated conservatives (hard to imagine) are claiming that plame wasn't even an agent. i would expect conservatives to be upset with this violation of the patriot act and see this is a breech in national security that resulted in a death of a cia agent. give up that source or else, they'd yell.

weird how politics in america have become so jaded that the people who call themselves "political" simply follow a person, rather than an ideology. was i sleeping or something? when did this happen? when did we become members of either the bush or liberal fan clubs?

for amusement only, here are my predictions for week 4 in the NFL:

new orleans over buffalo
jacksonville over denver
tampa bay over detroit
cincinnati over houston
indianapolis over tennessee
kansas city over philadelphia
new england over san diego
washington over seattle
new york giants over st. louis
baltimore over new york jets
oakland over dallas
atlanta over minnesota
arizona over san francisco
carolina over green bay

debate me if you want, these are my first instinct picks. i used to over think it and never won any money, so that is why i am picking here for free instead of someplace else. any predictions on how many i will get right?

another story i came acorss during my killing work time websurfing routine detailed the family of a toddler, suzie pena, that was suing the lapd for negligence resulting in the dealth of their 19-month old relative. you can read the article by clicking going here:

http://news.yahoo.com/a/ap/20050927/ap_on_re_us/brf_police_shooting

now i read this article, from the associated press, to be a spin on the story making it seem as though the family is in the wrong here. its kind of offensive actually. here is abbreviated version > the police were engaged in a gun battle with jose pena in which pena was using his daughter, suzie, as a shield. the cops shot her and she died. the lawsuit claims that police broke off negotiations with pena too quickly and this is negligence.

given the lapd's track record, i don't know what to believe here. well that and given the spin that the AP seems to be putting on their "news" articles lately, i am torn. on the one hand the police need to practice restraint and use force only as the last measure, almost only in retaliation. on the other hand the lapd has not always been on the up and up and for all i know they could have gunned down both of them and not batted an eye, and the rest of the cops would swear on a stack of bibles that it was in self defense.

if you have read anything else on this matter, please share it. only one thing is certain, 19-month old suzie pena died, and that is tragic.

So in Pennsylvania they are debating the issue of teaching “intelligent design” in the Dover School district. It seems that parents are suing because they don’t want the theory taught in schools. My first instinct on this topic is to say I don’t think a theory with religious connotations has any place in the schools. But when I take a minute and rethink it, to come out so staunchly against exposing our kids to alternate theories seems wrong too. I am not a religious person at all (and would consider myself atheist) but I don’t think everyone should be atheist. People should be informed and exposed to everything to be able to make intelligent choices in their lives. What do you think?

so to my dismay i couldn't get on john murney's blog the other day. i have been reading john's blog before i started my own. i put out an email to john and asked him what happened to the blog. if you are reading this john, let us know where you went.

a lot of stuff is happening, here is a brief, tighty whitey, commentary. hearts out to the people of the gulf coast as rita bears down upon them. did anyone watch the bush speech from new orleans? why were there no press there to ask him why they dropped the ball? why they cut the funding for the reconstruction of the new orleans levees to fund the iraqi debacle? how convenient.

here in new jersey they are kicking around the possibility of raising the smoking age to 19. now i am not a smoker (quit for over four years now) but i find this measure absolutely ridiculous. why 19? makes no sense. people can vote, own a gun, drive a car, enlist in the military at age 18, but if you choose cancer, heart disease as your mode of death, sorry, you have to wait a year? now i can see alcohol not being allowed until 21, physical research shows that that is the age when your brain no longer develops. not that these ages stopped anyone from doing anything, and personally i find all this hoopla to be a huge waste of gov't funding, but can someone explain this 19 year old limit thing to me?

Did you hear Laura Bush in a televised speech refer to the hurricane as “Karina?” She did it not once but twice. Wow. Can the Bushies be more out of touch with the American people? First Babs, now Laura? Truly the first family of ignorance….

I saw catch 22 in Sayreville NJ on Friday night, here is my review / thoughts on the show. When I first saw the show advertised, the band list was as follows: catch22, Wilhelm Scream, Whole Wheat Bread, …and like four other bands I never heard of. In other words, doors open at 6 and there was no need to show up before 8:30.

So that’s what we did, got there just in time for WWB, and thankfully so. These guys kicked major ass, got the crowd going and were musically tight as hell. Next up was Wilhelm Scream. They are not really my type of music and I didn’t enjoy them much, but the crowd dug it. Finally Catch 22 hit the stage just before 11pm. They played the same set when I saw them a year ago. I have to say, same old same old.

Come on C22, you mean you guys have no new songs when Dinosaur Sounds came out almost two years ago? No knock on them though, they were as on and as fun as ever, but I really dig them and see a lot of shows, they can at least mix it up a little more. All in all though, a great show and a great time. I am looking forward to seeing Streetlight Manifesto in Sayreville in October, plus Whole Wheat is opening for them, so I will definitely not miss that.

first $2000 debit cards, now Michael Brown is being "relieved" of his post. soembody dropped the ball and they are offering this clown up as a sacrifice to placate the masses. nice job.

i am not surprised nor outraged by barbara bush's comments recently. she is an out of touch old crotchitty biddy. i am just surprised they gave her dumb ass the microphone.

quite humorous actually. check it out here http://www.canofun.com/blog/videos/barbarabushwelcometotexasolbermann.wmv

it appears the Bush Reich doesn't want its us to see pictures of the aftermath debacle in New Orleans.

check it out > http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050907/ts_nm/censorship_dc

alright, time for me to quit whining and get back to business. i heard some rumors from my rumor mongering friends that the bushie's cut funding for a new orleans levee renewal program that would have cost $14 billion over a ten year span. the program would have fortified the city and helped against flood and erosion damage. what happened to the project you ask" the funds were diverted to a little thing we call operation iraqi freedom. early estimates on the damage in louisiana and mississippi top out at $26billion.

now i am apalled by this revelation. would the levee project have prevented katrina from slamming the gulf coast? no. could it have saved some lives though? absolutely, especially now as the city remains under water and victims are trapped in hazardous waste with dead bodies floating around. hopefully people will wake up to this administration's ignorance and abuse. probably not though, you know what they say, never underestimate the stupidity of the masses.

here is the link to the boston globe article >
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/01/us_earlier_rebuffed_louisiana_on_aid/