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bartcop.com
illegal spy program
Rhetoric heats up against Iran
House passes Patriot Act
renewal...
...Then moves to block ports deal
Microsoft launches new search
engine and I approve!
SD abortion law may backfire.
My crazy dream
construction. Yes, it does snow here.
Excerpt:
Senate Republicans blocked an investigation into President Bush's secret domestic spying
program on Tuesday, but agreed to expand congressional oversight of the surveillance system
in the future.
At the same time, a group of four Senate Republicans began circulating legislation that would
restrict the administration's ability to eavesdrop on U.S. residents without court approval.
The legislation would require the administration to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on U.S.
residents unless the attorney general certified to House and Senate intelligence
subcommittees that seeking court approval would hurt intelligence gathering.
And,
From another.
Excerpt:
Senate Republicans on Tuesday rejected demands by Democrats to investigate the
controversial National Security Agency domestic spying programme but agreed to legislative
proposals to provide more Congressional oversight.
Democrats immediately accused Republicans of capitulating to pressure from the White House,
which has lobbied hard against an investigation.
“This committee is basically under control of the White House,’’ said Jay Rockefeller, the top
Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, after the Republican-led committee decided
against an investigation. “It’s an unprecedented bout of political pressure from the White
House.’’
Are we going to have to wait until January '07 when the Democrats take over both houses again before
any justice comes this administration?
What do Christopher Hutchins, PeaceFresno, and Christiane Amanpour have to do with terrorists? Way to
set a precedent worthy of the East German StB, Senate Republicans. Looks like the terrorists won.
Excerpt:
Iranians are expressing unease about the international showdown over their country's nuclear
program, as broad public support for atomic power is tempered by growing misgivings about the
cost.
"Yes, it's true. Day by day we get more worried, because the world is against us," said Mohammad
Mohammadi, 57, in the doorway of his menswear store in Tehran's central market.
"I'm a businessman and I can see that people like myself are worried. We don't want anything
nasty to happen..."
The people don't want war. They don't even want a theocratic state but most of all people don't like foreign
intervention inside their borders. Every time an election comes around in Iran the reform candidate is in the
lead. Then Bush goes on the air supporting the reform candidate and the mullahs are able to rally support
for the status quo because the Great Satan is for reform resulting in a religio-wacko landslide.
Condi Rice, yesterday:
"We will see what is necessary to do in the Security Council. . . . The United States has been very
clear: the enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable."
Scott McClellan, yesterday:
Iran "has shown it cannot be trusted. It hid its nuclear activities for two decades from the
international community. It has refused to comply with its international obligations. This is about
the regime and its behavior."
Rumsfeld, yesterday:
"[The Iranian Revolutionary Guard] are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are
harmful to the future of Iraq, and we know it, and it is something that they will look back on as
having been an error in judgment. Of course [Tehran is behind this]. The Iranian Revolutionary
Guard doesn't go milling around willy-nilly."
Dick Cheney, Monday:
"The regime in Tehran continues to defy the world with its nuclear ambitions. Of course, this
matter may soon go before the U.N. Security Council. The Iranian regime needs to know that if it
stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful
consequences. For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing
the irresponsible conduct of the regime. And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear
message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. . . . Iranians desire and deserve to be
free from tyranny and oppression in their own homeland. Freedom in the Middle East requires
freedom for the Iranian people."
John Bolton, Sunday:
"The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will
become to solve. . . . The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of
international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences."
Don't you feel good about this too? Nothing sounds better for America that starting a third war in five years,
this time with a modern military that has a population of 80 million backing it up.
disappoint the founding fathers
Excerpt:
The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a
centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat
over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists.
Bush, forced by filibuster to accept new curbs on law enforcement investigations, is expected to
sign the legislation before 16 provisions of the 2001 law expire on Friday.
The vote was 280-138, just two more than needed under special rules that required a two-thirds
majority. The close vote caught senior Republican aides in both chambers by surprise.
God, when will this sickening weight be released from the American people? Oh, well, I guess most
Americans care more about Britney driving without a seat belt than losing their way of life that they have
taken for granted.
Excerpt:
Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his
first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader.
With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64 percent. His closest
challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049 votes, or 26 percent.
"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full
faith in me," DeLay said in a statement. "Not only did they reject the politics of personal
destruction, but they strongly rejected the candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their
platform."
DeLay survives and will face now heavily favored Democrat for seat. I think come January DeLay is going to
be taking a page out of Newt's book and getting a lobbyist position.
they kill in the name of no God? Were they born crazy or trained that way?
to block Ports deal
Excerpt:
House Republican leaders on Tuesday embraced legislation that would block a Dubai-owned
company from taking over operations at several U.S. ports, brushing aside a veto threat from
President Bush.
"We want to make sure that the security of our ports are in America's hands," said Rep. Jerry
Lewis, R-Calif., whose House Appropriations Committee planned to approve the measure
Wednesday.
I don't know how to respond. Republicans rejecting something Bush decided? Whaaaaa?
I am still trying to figure out this little diddy:
If Bush claimed he had no idea about the Dubai Ports deal then why does he defend it as the right
decision? He didn't make a decision... Unless he's lying. *shrug*
wounds
Excerpt:
Two endangered American crocodiles, once considered among the most imperiled species in
the United States, were found shot to death near Key West, authorities said Tuesday.
Both crocodiles, a 7-footer found Saturday and an 8-footer discovered Monday on Sugarloaf
Key about 12 miles east of Key West, were shot between the eyes, authorities said.
A few years when El Nino was going off, the Washington State coast it got warm enough that the first
known green sea turtle ever seen in Washington waters washed up on shore. So naturally, some
toothless goofer emerged from the sticks, shot it in the head, put it in his truck and drove away.
I never heard the verdict or punishment for him (he did get busted) but I do know that even touching a
green sea turtle brings a $20,000 fine.
Excerpt:
They're a church whose presence in West Texas continues to create concern, and attract the
interest of the nation's law enforcement community. We're talking about members of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. They broke away from the
mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or Mormon Church) in the 1890s.
The FLDS has built a compound near the Schleicher County seat of Eldorado, in West Texas. It's
built on property they purchased nearly two years ago, and is now the site of several buildings
including what appear to be large dormitory-style residences, observation platforms or towers,
and the church's first temple.
Zealotry and compounds are always a great match-up. What goes through these crazies' heads? When
has a compound ever afforded protection for them? They always end up getting killed by someone else or
just saving everybody the trouble by doing it themselves.
to work the people
Excerpt:
The move to freeze pensions at solid, profitable companies like Verizon—and at others,
including IBM, Sprint, Nextel, Tribune Corp., Lexmark, Alcoa and Russell Corp.—is the latest
sign of pressure on traditional guaranteed pension plans. "It's an entirely new phenomenon for
healthy companies to freeze their pensions," says Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for
Retirement Research at Boston College.
In 2003, 41 percent of workers with pension coverage had defined benefit pensions, down from
83 percent in 1980, according to the latest data released in February by the center. For the last
several years, employees in struggling industries such as airlines, steel, coal and textiles have
watched as their firms declared bankruptcy and terminated their plans altogether. And more
may be in trouble, particularly in industries such as auto parts.
Not only that, new regulatory and legislative changes now in the works could encourage
companies to freeze their pensions—or get out of the pension business altogether. And
questions are being raised about the funding of pensions for public-sector employees.
Way to go America. Ask not what your country can do for you--because there is just no point.
Republicans are so obsessed with everyone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps that they want
everyone to do it twice just to be sure we're really good at it.
Just tell that to those dude in Oregon and they will tell you that it is a bad, bad idea.
of the packaging, not because it's shitty beer
Excerpt:
In another public acknowledgement of domestic beer's woes, the chief executive of Miller
Brewing told a crowd of bar owners Monday that the industry is at a "critical crossroads," as it
faces flat growth and surging competition from other alcoholic beverages.
...To fight back, Miller is overhauling the packaging and marketing of its big domestic brands,
including Lite, Genuine Draft and High Life...
Yes, when people buy shitty beer it's because of the packaging not because they want to bring a case of
beer to a party that will act as a decoy and buy you enough time so that you can hide the good beer
somewhere where those free-loading beer-horkers won't find it.
he himself is a victim of a smear campaign
deodorants at a high school
Excerpt:
A Cape Cod high school may soon be the first in the state free of all colognes, perfumes,
scented deodorants and body sprays.
The Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School committee met Monday night to discuss the
fragrance ban for staff and students proposed by Superintendent Barry J. Motta.
The proposed policy will be sent to a subcommittee for review, Motta said, and will likely
become part of the student handbook.
Strong fragrances can irritate people with asthma, trigger headaches, and cause respiratory
and neurological symptoms. Motta said he did not know about the possible effects of perfumes
and colognes until one of his staff members said they suffered from chemical sensitivity.
And BO doesn't affect these people?
uniform
- The U.S. ambassador held talks with a top Shiite leader Tuesday as Iraqi factions wrangled over a
new government. The prime minister declared he would not be "blackmailed" into stepping aside,
and the Shiite majority balked at convening the parliament.
- The inability to agree is threatening to crush American hopes of beginning a troop pullout this
summer as violence rages on. Bombings, mortar blasts and gunfire killed 19 more people
throughout the country Tuesday, and police also reported finding four more bullet-riddled bodies —
two of them with their eyes gouged out.
- On Wednesday, at least 23 bodies — many of them hanged — were found dumped in parts of
Baghdad, police said. Eighteen of the bodies were found in an abandoned minibus on a road
between two mostly Sunni Muslim neighborhoods in western Baghdad.
- In an interview published Tuesday, Khalilzad said the 2003 U.S. ouster of Saddam Hussein had
opened a "Pandora's box" that could see the violence and turmoil now gripping Iraq turn into an all-
out regional war if American troops are withdrawn too quickly.
- The Feb. 22 bombing that destroyed the golden dome atop a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of
Samarra set off two weeks of sectarian revenge attacks, mainly targeting Sunni mosques, clerics
and neighborhoods. Sunni politicians have accused the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to
firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, of launching many of the attacks with the blessing of the Shiite-
controlled government security apparatus.
- In a report Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraq's
authorities may be violating international law by arbitrarily detaining thousands of people.
- The report, which studied the situation in Iraq over the last three months, said Iraq's prison system
remains a major concern and lamented that an investigation into allegations of torture in Iraqi
Interior Ministry jails had not yet been made public as promised.
- the simmering feud between Talabani, the Kurdish president, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite prime
minister who owed his re-nomination to al-Sadr's backing — spurred the formation of a coalition
determined to block al-Jaafari's second term.
- If Kurds and Sunnis refuse Cabinet posts because of al-Jaafari, it could mark a failure of the U.S.
goal of setting up a unity government with support of all ethnic and religious factions. Washington
policy holds that such a unity government would inspire sufficient loyalty from all parties to enable it
to fight the raging insurgency by itself as American forces began to withdraw.
That was all from one article of what has already gone on this week. Iraq is screwed.
this website this website isn't even in the first 20 pages. There is some long-dead historian from Texas
and a bunch of articles about Wade miller who used to pitch for the Astros and Dwayne Wade who used to
play for the Rockets. Fuck 'em.
When I search my own name in the new MSN search houstonwade.com is the first thing that pops up.
Bravo, Microsoft. You won me over because in the world of Internet search ego is the true king who can
anoint a winner. Boost my ego and win yourself a fan.
Bravo.
annual Jewelry show
Excerpt:
More than 100 South American thieves have descended on Hong Kong to target the city's
annual jewelry show, the South China Morning Post Tuesday quoted a police source as
saying.
Their tactics range from simply stealing bags while their owners are not looking to distracting
them by spraying tomato ketchup on their clothes, the newspaper said.
Crime syndicates from Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela were active both inside and
outside the convention center where the show started Monday, working in teams of three or
four and wearing business suits, the police source was quoted as saying.
This definitely gets an 'A' for effort. Industrializing buggers, these ones.
Excerpt:
[T]he National Right to Life Committee - one of the country's leading anti-abortion groups -
has declined to embrace the South Dakota strategy. Instead, it notes that the nine-member
Supreme Court, even with the recent addition of conservatives John Roberts and Samuel
Alito, still has a majority of at least five justices who support Roe.
If the lower courts reject it by upholding precedent then the pro-life crowd is screwed. It might not even
make it to higher courts if the one court overturns and then next court upholds the lower courts ruling
without even hearing the case.
school on the corner of Day Road and Madison Avenue...
platform/stage that was on the roadway on Madison. The seating wasn't raised so it was a little hard to
make out what was going on over everyone's heads.
Then all this pomp and circumstance stuff happened and out came President Bush. Oh, I guess I am
hear to see Bush speak or something. Bush came out looking disheveled and using crutches. His
speech was horrible and he even singled me out to see if I brought the "flow chart" or something and
everyone was just bewildered for how unprepared he was.
His speech was just going nowhere. No-Where. When he abruptly got out of his seat and said that he
would be back in a minute and wandered off the left of the stage and behind the trees down Madison
where no one could see him on his crutches. Then the stage filled with all these Taiko drums and
Japanese drummer-guys...
those girls! It's all the girls in the dance program at the college. "Hey Lauren! Look at me! Yoohoo!
Nichole!" I probably shouldn't yell at them, they look pretty serious up there.
As the dancers got prepared the drums started and Bush came out on stage in a whole Riverdance
getup complete with head band...
was wear a $20 suit and hobbling on crutches but now he was doing twirls and jumps and throwing girls
in the air and catching them--the whole works.
At this time my dream allowed me to leave my seat and view the whole show via a boom camera angle to
where I could get above the action. For the big finish bush climbed on stage and did this crazy thing
where he jumped in the air and then laid down on his back on the stage with his head in this saucer of
water.
The beats from the Taiko drums caused the water to pulse making the circular ripples emanate from
bush's head that had this light/dark bullseye structure. I think it was the reflections from the dark trees
that lined the street and the white, over-cast clouds that were in the sky...
was blown away. You wouldn't believe what he did for his finally.
He jumped into that saucer and disappeared! Can you believe it? Just like those Acme black holes
from Loony Tunes. Gone.
Everybody was cheering and clapping. Standing ovation all around and Bush popped is head up and
there was just a thunderous roar of applause. Then I realized how he did it.
He cut a hole in the stage and put a big plastic trashcan full of water where the hole was and jumped in
this little pool. I figured it out!
crack at it.
these South Africa guys come from? 4 lead changes and Canada, a team full of all
stars, barely holds on for an 11-8 win over a bunch of no-named kids from
god-knows-where. Sign them up.
two dingers apiece. Beltre, where was that pop last year?
Canada/US (should be good)
South Africa/Mexico (I am definitely watching this one!)
Cuba/Panama (Cuba is always a dark horse)
Puerto Rico/Netherlands (another good match-up)
Italy/Venezuela (I don't like Italy's roster. I played in Europe, Italy has a fantastic league on par with
the Dutch, Latin America or Japan. I do not agree with stocking the team with a bunch of Americans who
happen to have Italian last names. Let the real Italians represent their country.)
to read what I put up. Enjoy your Wednesday!
famous. Thank You.