Jay Daverth's blog

03 Jun

Bush on everything that really matters

The President of the United States. POTUS. The voice of the free world coming to us through the awesome power of the radio. Will he soothe our troubled brows about Iraq, Haditha, Iran, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror? Will he offer a healing salve for our souls in this troubled economy and rising deficit? Will he set our minds at ease by eradicating corruption in the government? Yes! Absolutely! All these things and more. If, of course, by all that you mean stopping fags from getting married.

"Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious, and natural roots without weakening this good influence on society," he said.

A vote on the proposed amendment is scheduled next week in the U.S. senate, but it is not considered likely to pass.

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution needs to pass both houses of Congress with a two-thirds majority, and needs the approval of 38 states.

Bush made a similar call to ban gay marriage more than two years ago in February 2004.

"Attempts to redefine marriage ... could have serious consequences," he said at the time.

I'm still waiting, by the way, for somebody, anybody to get specific about what exactly those consequences would be. Well, at least someone is talking about issues that really matter instead of whether or not Batwoman needs to escape to Canada in order to get hitched.

03 Jun

English: The New Freedom Fries

And so it begins. This douchebag cheesesteak proprietor has decided he will no longer serve anyone who does not order in English Patriot-Speak:

It seems that Joseph Vento, Geno's owner, feels strongly that everyone in this country ought to speak English - even if they're tourists from faraway climes looking for that fabled Philly cheesesteak fix.

Vento insists his customers order in English. No pointing at the menu items. Speak English, a sign at Vento's popular, curbside counter reads.

The kicker is that this guy is the grandson of Italian immigrants who spoke limited English. Talk about an inferiority complex. I wonder if he serves jalepeño peppers?  Did I say douchebag already?

I'd give it about a month before we get local market owners throwing tortillas and refried beans into Boston Harbor.  The great Boston Taco Party! 

 

02 Jun

Who made George Bush an incompetent pandering bitch?

Why, those darn blue-staters in New York City did, of course. It's their fault Homeland Security cut their funding :

Federal officials said yesterday that the city had not only done a poor job of articulating its needs in its application, but had also mishandled the application itself, failing to file it electronically as required, instead faxing its request to Washington.

Everyone knows that when you file a federal application for Homeland Security money you have to do it by email and not by fax! Oh, and you also have to be in a a city that looks like a 2006 electoral uncertainty. Oh, and you have to vote for Bush. It's not the feds fault, though. I mean, if they knew there was a problem then surely they would have communicated that during the application process, right?

City and state officials insisted that they had made no mistakes. And a state official provided a written acknowledgment from the federal government saying that the city's application for grant money had been "successfully submitted" and said that the city could "log in" any time to view the application. ...

Elected city officials were especially stunned that the report said New York had no national monuments or icons. The city's application was evaluated by so-called peer-review panels of five to seven people with varying backgrounds from 47 states and affirmed by government analysts at the Department of Homeland Security.

So there's the problem, it clearly takes far more than 'five to seven' feds to realize that NYC has the Empire State Building, Times Square, and, oh yeah, the Statue. Of. Freakin. Liberty! Well, either way, I'm sure the Bush administration would never do anything so blatantly irresponsible for NYC's safety unless the funds were desperately needed elsewhere, right?

"We tried to do an analysis of some of the moneys and whether or not they were given out for political reasons, and in fact in many of the places where they got money — but arguably there's no threat — there are close elections either at the Senate level or the House level," the mayor said. "Now, whether that was their motive I have no idea." ...

Gulp.  Well, as the direct victim of the 9-11 attacks, you've been receiving good money so far, so you're probably got some of that leftover, right? 

Officials in New York said the impact of the cash drain would be felt.

"We have a counterterrorism center that would deal with all of the potential scenarios that we have been studying that we have to be prepared for that could be dramatically affected by any cut in funding," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas A. Scoppetta. "It's as though Washington is not going to be convinced of the need until they have another terrible incident in a place like New York or Washington." ...

Mr. Schumer called the episode an "absurdity," saying the grading system did not make sense.

"It would be as if you got 800's on your boards and Stanford Law School rejected you because you put the stamp on upside down," he said.

Oh but you did stamp it upside-down you whiny little turd. You probably even used black ink instead of the Bush-approved pink glitter marker. I mean, really, New York only has itself to blame if the next attack is in the city. That'll teach 'em to let homosexuals and Mexicans run loose in the streets.

02 Jun

When you've lost the post...

...then you know you've got problems:


02 Jun

Coup d'etat 2004

I promised to write more on RFK’s article when I had a chance, but I really don’t know what to say. The entire thing is so well-researched and heart-wrenching that words are literally failing me.

I can say that anyone who reads this article and believes the election wasn’t stolen is willfully deluding themselves. In some cases, the theft occurred at the highest levels, but there is zero doubt in my mind that a Republican elite – hired thugs from Texas as well as hired thugs in office – participated in a concerted conspiracy to disenfranchise Democratic voters from Ohio. The result is the theft of more than a critical mass of voted that should have won Kerry the election through Ohio alone without even considering the damage done in other states.

Obviously, the MSM is vastly complicit in this effort. There is way too much to clip, so just go read the article and you’ll see what I mean. Kennedy cites fear as the main reason investigative journalists turned such a blind eye to the problem. But I think the real reason is that the truth – that a coup d’etat took place in 2004 – is just too difficult to stomach. I believe most Americans are fundamentally lazy and apathetic to begin with, but when we are not even informed by the MSM about what took place, how could we ever expect ourselves to begin the real work.

And let’s pretend, now that we know better, that we decided to do something about it. The implications are astounding. The past two years should never have occurred. Torture rendition, the breakdown with Iran, civil war in Iraq, NSA spying scandal – all of these things would have been dealt with in a vastly different manner. A better manner. If they even occurred at all. What are we to do now? Remove Bush from office, repeal every bill he signed into law, simply advance to Go and start fresh? The mind boggles.

And when a president with a 29% approval rating delivers upset GOP victories in 2006 , will we then decide to get off our asses and do something? Or will we just grumble about it and wait for 2008. And 2010. And 2012...

02 Jun

Big Telecoms – Friend of the Little People

I came across these peeps via Metafilter and have come away feeling dirtier than a pee-stained old crack house basement mattress. They claim to be “a nationwide coalition of Internet users united together in the belief that the Net's phenomenal growth over the past decade stems from the ability of entrepreneurs to expand consumer choices and opportunities without worrying about government regulation.” That’s some pretty big talk for a shadow organization that actually represents the big telecoms.

I especially love their name, ‘Hands off Our Internet’ ('HOOI', as in a steaming bunch of 'Hooey'). Considering who these people are, you can really get a glimpse into the mind of the petulant corporate America that has zero experience in hearing the word ‘no’. I mean, who do you think they mean when they say ‘our’ internet. Is it the collective ‘we’? No, they mean ‘them’, because as big telecom industries, they feel as though they run the traffic so they somehow take ownership of the internet. Which really encapsulates the debate about net neutrality – it’s not about speed per se, it’s about who the internet really belongs to. Is it the democratically organized egalitarian entity that belongs equally to WE / US, or is it the new private playground of the big kids who would like US to keep our greedy common bourgeois hands off THEIR internet.

Go ahead and take a look through the site, you wouldn’t believe some of the scare tactics they try to shove down your throat. For example:

This is about how we’re going to pay for the next generation Internet, and creating different ways to deliver web content to the home as fast as possible. This is also about whether we want the government to dictate how the next version of the Internet is run before we even get there … Who will pay for the pipes that will deliver the next generation Internet? What is the best way to ensure packets of information get across the Internet in the most efficient manner possible? How will traffic be managed when 100 million movies are being downloaded at any given moment?

You have to love how, whenever companies are forced to act in an egalitarian manner they resort to the ‘stifling innovation’ argument. Let me tell you, governmental enforcement of net neutrality or lack thereof will have zero effect on this supposed ‘next generation’ internet. It will come when it comes, no sooner and no later, and it will be the telecom companies who pay for it or somebody else will come and do it for them. Why? Because there is money to be made.

Let’s say that net neutrality fails and the big telecoms are allowed to run amok with their plans to create a tiered internet system. With all that extra money, is it more likely that they will reinvest in the infrastructure and create a better product? Or will they do the same thing they do with the Bush tax cuts and buy an extra Porsche or twelve? Besides, do you really want a next-gen internet that is molded by the vision of telecom companies or would you rather have one created democratically, even if it takes a few months (at the most) longer?

To take the other side, if net neutrality passes and the big telecoms are forced to keep the internet traffic moving as it already is – in other words, do nothing different than they have been doing from the beginning – then do you really think they won’t lay the infrastructure for next-gen internet? Of course they will, they are just as much in competition with each other for your patronage and everyone will want to be the first to offer enhanced service. And if they want to be petulant and follow through with their threats to withhold the technology, then other companies and investors will seize the opportunity and render the existing telecoms obsolete. I mean, how many wagon wheel companies refused to get into the auto trading business. Adios Antiguos!

The rest of their site is a loose collection of threats and scare tactics. Here are a couple of the more egregious ones:

The inevitable cascade of private litigation (and can anyone seriously argue that there won’t be?) will add a whole new level of cost to our Internet usage. The users will pay, and they’ll find the cure is far worse than the disease.

“Legal costs will shoot through the roof — draining the pockets of everyone involved.” And this is the nirvana the regulated neutrality is supposed to bring us?

Who is going to be bringing all of these supposed lawsuits? Why, the big telecoms, that’s who! Or rather the consumers who are suing the telecoms for behaving like spoiled children. This is not even a thinly veiled threat and it’s an affirmation of their win-win strategy: If net neutrality fails, they will make extra money from the larger web entities like Google and Amazon. If it passes, they will make extra money by raising rates on consumers and blaming litigation. This is no different than blaming medical malpractice suits for skyrocketing insurance prices – it sounds well and good but is in fact complete and utter bullshit.

Then they trot out this supposedly spontaneous letter from their collective unions’ president:

“The proposed net neutrality bill will result in the unintended consequence of delayed deployment of high-speed networks, with particularly negative impact on underserved communities” … [The president] goes on to say that if this neutrality regulation bill passes Congress, the U.S. “will fall even further behind the rest of the world [in broadband deployment], and our rural and low-income populations will wait even longer to enter the digital age.”

So in other words, if you pass net neutrality, you might as well be pissing into the water supply of poor, hungry children in third-world America. Really. You should be ashamed of yourself for not letting the telecoms have their way. Jerk.

Clearly, the big telecoms would like to couch the net-neutrality debate as the first step to governmental regulation of the internet, it’s actually the exact opposite. Net neutrality is not about regulating the internet at all, it’s about regulating the service providers. Specifically, we’re trying to send a message telling them that THEY can’t be the ones to regulate it in their favor. In other words, keep your filthy, greedy, covetous, gluttonous, immoral, malevolent, grubby, smutty, ugly, lazy, nasty, vile, venomous, loathsome, despicable, wretched, banal, ill-tempered, foul-intentioned, black-hearted, miserly, petty, sanctimonious hands off MY MINE MY internet!

01 Jun

Hold on to your brain balls

Wow!
...what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn't even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)
Those numbers in (parentheses) are footnotes which end just about every line. This is a helluva well-researched article which I gurantee will blow your mind. I'm going to sleep now (if I can), and will try to write more on this tomorrow.
01 Jun

Poll: Bush Worst President EVER!

Well, this century anyway.  Remember back in the day when it wasn't vogue to hate Bush?

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. - Mark Twain

Well, at least the sheep are finally on my side of the fence.

01 Jun

Homeland Security screws NYC

Obviously, this is damn annoying considering that the reason HomeSec is underfunded is to cover the cost of reckless tax cuts and elective territorial imperialism in Iraq. So far, I've heard that New York and Seattle got hit particularly hard whereas Fort Lauderdale got a big boon (thanks I'm sure to brother Jeb).

I was wondering if there is any way to find out what the overall nationwide distrubution is this year compared to last. Mainly, I'm curious as to whether this would corrolate to which cities are Bush-friendly in an election year and if 'Blue' cities are bearing the brunt of the budget cuts.

Any sleuths out there who know how to look this up?

01 Jun

Link Vomit

I'm always stuck with a bunch of bookmarks at the end of the day that interest me but, for whatever reason, I either don't have time or don't feel creative enough to write an entire post on. So I think I'll make this a regular feature.