I too throw my shoes!

This is a repost from the BBC News.

Iranians join Bush shoe protest
By Martin Vennard
BBC News

Dozens of Iranians in the country's capital Tehran have held their own shoe-throwing rally in protest at US President George W Bush.

They were showing support for the Iraqi journalist who threw his footwear at the American leader in Baghdad. The protesters waved their shoes in the air before throwing them at posters featuring caricatures of Mr Bush.

The journalist, Muntadar al-Zaidi, is due to go on trial in Iraq, accused of assaulting a foreign head of state.

'Cruelty'

The demonstration took place near Tehran university as people headed to Friday prayers. One demonstrator, who called himself Mr Ghanati, said he was a member of the Islamic guards and that the Iraqi journalist had seen off the "traitor" Mr Bush with his action.

"Bush has committed a lot of cruelty against the people of Iraq and other countries," he said.

A similar demonstration took place at a university in Iran's Isfahan province on Thursday and there have been other such protests across the region.

Iraqis have called for the release of the journalist. Muntadar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at Mr Bush as the president was giving a news conference during a visit to Baghdad this month.

Since then a Turkish firm, which claims it made the shoes, says it has had to take on 100 extra staff to cope with the surge in orders.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7800453.stm

Go Dan Go!

Repost from Guardian news article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/28/dan-rather-cbs-lawsuit-bush

CBS newsman's $70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow
Christopher Goodwin in Los Angeles
The Observer, Sunday 28 December 2008
Article history

As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, at least one unpleasant episode from his unpopular presidency is threatening to follow him into retirement.

A $70m lawsuit filed by Dan Rather, the veteran former newsreader for CBS Evening News, against his old network is reopening the debate over alleged favourable treatment that Bush received when he served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Bush had hoped that this controversy had been dealt with once and for all during the 2004 election.

Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.

He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true - "What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him," he says - but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired. He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush's second term.

Among those CBS considered for the panel to investigate Rather's report were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

"CBS broke with long-standing tradition at CBS News and elsewhere of standing up to political pressure," says Rather. "And, there's no joy in saying it, they caved ... in an effort to placate their regulators in Washington."

Rather's lawsuit makes other serious allegations about CBS succumbing to political pressure in an attempt to suppress important news stories. In particular, he says that his bosses at CBS tried to stop him reporting evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Rather's lawsuit, "for weeks they refused to grant permission to air the story" and "continued to raise the goalposts, insisting on additional substantiation". Rather also claims that General Richard Meyers, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military official in the US, called him at home and asked him not to broadcast the story, saying that it would "endanger national security".

Rather says that CBS only agreed to allow him to broadcast the story when it found out that Seymour Hersh would be writing about it in the New Yorker magazine. Even then, Rather claims, CBS tried to bury it. "CBS imposed the unusual restrictions that the story would be aired only once, that it would not be preceded by on-air promotion, and that it would not be referenced on the CBS Evening News," he says.

The charges outlined in Rather's lawsuit will cast a further shadow over the Bush legacy. He recently expressed regret for the "failed intelligence" which led to the invasion of Iraq and has received heavy criticism over the scale and depth of the economic downturn in the United States.

Worth Watching--Very eye opening for those who don’t know the early history of the US banks

The little anthropologist in me loved the beginning, but hang through it till the end--the end is worth watching on the current issues we face...

Take notes too, if you want to research it... The RFID thing is still being fought, but at the time the movie was made the government wanted to have it already implemented.

Regular link if movie doesn't come up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kHhc67GopM

PLEASE BE PATIENT--IT TAKES TIME TO LOAD!

A picture’s worth a 1000 words--McCain thinks this is a joke... Well, America’s not laughing..

Seriously--who the hell would vote for McCain? He apparently thinks America's economic situation, the war in Iraq, the environment, and pretty much all our struggles and very existence is a joke... Look at the guy!?!?! He's so unprofessional--have some dignity man!



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/mccain-frowns-roll-eyes-a_n_135085.html

Keith Olbermann rips John McCain and Sarah Palin on their Racist Rallies!

Finally, somebody in the corporate media world grows balls and tells off McCain! Why do people listen to that fucking racist?????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdxugg9Q18o

Mccain is an idiot and Palin too... Vote sensible, not stupid...

Palin yells at her own supporters--She not too bright:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/27170156

McCain doesn't know the price of gas--well when you're filthy stinking rich and have other people to take care of "those things", like filling up your limo, why would you know? Especially if you don't care what working Americans are paying:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/28/mccain-gas-prices-unaware/

McCain can't make up his mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9qh1cbXdvc

I picked my "faves" for this blog, but you can read more online--I recommend Randi Rhodes website: http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?/archives/105-Wednesday,-October-15,-2008.html

She puts up links to articles published by both corporate conservative media (NBC, CBS, ABC, Washington Post, etc.) and "liberal" media (thinkprogress.org, salon.com, etc.).

Oh, and I just had to add this too for all the hard core republicans--you want a candidate with family values, right? Well, sorry, I wouldn't call dumping your ailing wife for a hot chick 20 years younger than you being a "good christian"... That's what McCain did (and ya'll called Clinton dirty--sorry McCain's a bigger creepy cradle robber):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html

A Mad Day

A Mad Day
Tuesday 30 September 2008
by: John Cory, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust ... and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do..." Howard Beale, from the film "Network" (1976).

I'm mad as hell because today was bad and was all about politics and not country first.

Democrats were once again Charlie Brown to the Republican's Lucy with the football and we saw the predictable result. Republicans are whining about "the big mean lady who talked bad about us so we showed her - we didn't vote for America, we voted against the big mean lady who didn't talk nice!" And the media talking heads will regurgitate this bilge for hours and days to come.

There is only one political ad that should be aired immediately by the Democratic Party and that is: All of the McCain's surrogates' quotes about McCain suspending his campaign to save the country with this headline: "Republicans Vote For The Great Depression!"

The Democrats need to hang this necktie around John McCain and the Republicans from now to Election Day. John McCain and the Republican Party refused to reach across the aisle. McCain is powerless. McCain is Bush in lame-duck clothing. McCain was pivotal in defeating the bipartisan effort to save America.

Wake up Democrats! These people couldn't care less about America, the middle class working folk, poverty, health insurance and education. The Republicans care more about politics and the wealthy than anything else in this world. Don't you get it? We turn to you for change - not compromise. We turn to you for leadership - not more of the same.

As I read Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini and others, they all say this was not the best solution - but it was something to fill the void of nothing. Doing nothing would only speed the crisis with disastrous results. And so, Democrats believed in the delusion of "Country First" and went to the wall. Republicans, of course, support disaster because that is their forte. The Republicans bring about disaster like the war in Iraq, Katrina, Enron, deregulation, and, when caught, blame it on Democrats from FDR to Bill Clinton. Blame it on the poor and minority populations. Blame it on Gay Marriage. Blame it on teaching evolution in public schools. Anything to avoid taking responsibility for their failures. That's the GOP way.

It's time to play politics, Democrats! Hope is not a method. Change comes through action, and now is the time to nail this to the Republican hide of this country. No nice words - no soft peddling - power to truth - with a political edge. If Democrats want victory in November - it may have just been handed to them.

I'm not a smart guy or strategic political planner, but here is my view of the next few days that could bring Democrats victory - if they really want it:

1) Every Democratic spokesperson on television points out that McCain is so weak he cannot lead his own political party, so how can we expect him to lead this country?

2) Run ads of John McCain hugging George Bush with photos of New Orleans drowning, of the carnage in Iraq, the DOW plummeting, CEO's retreating to beautiful mansions with millions of dollars while their former companies go bankrupt and employees carry their jobs out in cardboard boxes on their way to the unemployment office.

3) Show the DOW where it was on the day Bill Clinton left office and where it is today after eight years of Bush and the GOP. If it is a flat line - we all know the medical condition of an EKG flat line. No matter how many spikes are induced by CPR.

4) Message: McCain and GOP put politics first - not country. Willing to sacrifice America to avoid losing power.

As I said in the beginning, I'm mad as hell and I'm looking for the Howard Beale Democrats. Anything less is disaster for America.

"... We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy ... I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad." - From the film "Network" (1976) by Paddy Chayefsky.

Democrats - it is time to get mad.