William Rivers Pitt, TruthOut, November 26, 2007 "Fear is just another word for ignorance." - Hunter S. Thompson Once upon a time there was Bad, and there was Worse, and there was Worst, and that used to be it. Those were the only parameters necessary when the time came to assess the severity of a given situation and decide if the thing was merely wrong, actually dangerous, or just plan ridiculous. Bad, for example, was Gerald Ford's full pardon of Richard Nixon, which came in tandem with his decision to let Nixon keep the tapes. That's pretty straightforward, and the provided example should be clear enough: Bad means something is pretty damned bad. Worse, by comparison, was Oliver North's sale of missiles to the same Iranian government that killed more than two hundred Marines in Beirut back in '83, followed by his illegal funneling of that sale's proceeds to fund a pack of kill-crazy fascists in Central America who shot some nuns and other non-combatants down like dogs using the good bullets they bought with thrice-laundered American tax dollars. All of which was taking place as Reagan slid further into the senility that eventually left him capable only of pretending to be the president. Rather than deal with the reality of the situation, however, the decision was made to hand the entire hyper-weaponized machinery of the federal government over to a bunch of wild boys nobody ever voted for, whose abuse of that power rapidly devolved into a mind-bending crime spree that almost got their uncomprehending boss impeached. As for Worst, well ... that's simple enough. Worst was a box in the cargo hold of Air Force One that left Dallas with John Kennedy inside of it, and was the blood pooling beneath Robert Kennedy's head as he lay dying on a dirty kitchen floor in California, and was Martin Luther King Jr. shot dead through the throat on some inconsequential Memphis hotel balcony, and was Medgar Evers shot dead in his driveway while his wife and children watched and wailed, and was Malcom Little who became Malcolm X who became El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz before a dozen gunshots put him down like Evers to die before the eyes of his wife and children. Read More Here

After watching Meet the Press this Sunday I would imagine that some presidential candidates whose names are not Clinton and Thompson should be screaming at NBC for equal time for themselves. On Sunday's program, Tim Russert, host of the program, had a round table discussion of the 2008 presidential election and two of the guests were husband wife nut jobs James Carville and Mary Matalin. Matalin and Carville's performances should be cause for outrage.

During the discussions on the race for president, both Carville and Matalin promoted their candidates on the program. Several times Matalin mentioned her work for the Thompson campaign, often discussing the candidate's new position papers and defending his lackluster campaigning. Carville for his part did the same for his candidate Hillary Clinton. The other guests, Republican Mike Murphy and Democrat Bob Shrum fortunately did not hawk any particular candidate on the program.

So much for any sense of fairness and quality and respect for the people viewing the program. Basically Russert and NBC allowed their Sunday morning show to be hijacked by two of the candidates for president. It would be one thing if both Matalin and Carville had come clean about their affiliations,which they did, and simply left it at that. Problem was they didn't. Almost every time either one was asked a question they framed it around their candidate. It was a sad show that once again shows how ridiculously manipulative Russert and his show can be for those they favor.

Dinosaur Jr. roared to epic levels of noise and pure indie rock pleasure during a full on sonic assault Friday night at Boston's Paradise Rock Club. From the opening riffs of “Almost Ready,” a stellar song from Beyond the band's excellent new record, to the show's final attack of “Chunks,” the reformed trio played loud and fast, just the way we like it. After opening with three songs from the new disk, “Almost Ready,” “Been There All The Time,” and “Back To Your Heart” the band kicked into the old stuff with a searing version of the “Lung”, followed by “Little Fury Things.” On stage the band said very little to the audience and almost nothing to each other, but that's pretty much the way its always been. What the band did do is show how much their musicianship had improved since the early days while keeping it fast, furious through an excellent set of Dino classics and new songs. Even while struggling at times with a muddled vocal sound, the combination of J's sonics, Murph's pounding and Lou's thrashing was something to behold, especially in a small venue like the Paradise. The day after Thanksgiving date, with most of the Boston's colleges closed down, made for a more hardcore crowd of true Dino fans. The band gave their fans exactly what they came for, a sonic trip to 90s indie rock and beyond. From beginning to end J, Lou and Murph attacked their catalog of 90s masterpieces including Freak Scene and Sludgefeast, and their stellar new record Beyond, with reckless abandon. Having seen many incarnations of Dinosaur Jr over the years, the new record and these incredible live shows remind you why the original three are the only people who should be playing this music. With a new record called Beyond who knows what they future might bring from J, Lou and Murph. A complete set list is below. Almost Ready Been There All The Time Back To Your Heart Lung Little Fury Things Out There This Is All I Came To Do Feel The Pain Pick Me Up Crumble The Wagon Gargoyle Encore Freak Scene Sludgefeast Chunks

NBC is reporting that Sen. Trent Lott, White Citizen's Council soft-shoe racist and a nitwit who thought the bigoted Strom Thurmond would have been a good president, is resigning from the Senate by the end of this year. The 66-year-old Republican prick with ears who defended Nixon when he was in the House in the 1970s, made the official announcement Monday, Nov. 26th. Call me crazy ("You're crazy!"), but, what with the devastation Hurricane Katrina visited upon much of southern Mississippi, and Bush's inept response, plus the drought that has led to a short crop this year that the state's GOP rulers have failed to address, I think the door is open here for a Democrat to take the seat in 2008. No, not a Kucinich Dem, but a southerner cut from the Heath Shuler or Jim Webb mold, which would be a vast improvement over Trent-mouth. -- I'm always amazed at the shortsightedness of both the Dem and GOP candidates and their questioners in the Big Media. In all of the babbling about attacking Iran, I have yet to hear a follow-up question concerning what happens 'The Day After' we attack Tehran; worse I haven't heard any one of the pro-war candidates address this issue directly. Here's a likely scenario: We bomb Iran without a ground invasion, on the pretext of eliminating Mullahland's ability to produce nuclear weapons. Thousands of Iranians die in the attack. Iran responds by unleashing their Shia allies in Iraq against our troops, especially the 100,000-strong Mahdi Army, and we lose tens of thousands of troops in a bloody massacre. The Iraqi Army we've been training turns on us and drives us out of the Green Zone. The US retaliates by more bombing, and the Iranians, uniting with their Iraqi Shia allies and the Syrians, push us out of Iraq, with the covert help of China and Russia. Our ground forces, already weakened by overdeployment, are overwhelmed and Bush's private mercenaries simply run like rabbits. In other words, the Iranians win and occupy Iraq and we have reduced influence in the region, while the rest of the world condemns the US for an unprovoked attack on Iran. Oh, and gas prices go much higher, and Iran gets a nuclear arsenal from Russia anyway. So, this is what bubblehead Rudy wants to unleash to stop Iran from getting nukes?

BartCop.com Volume 2073 - Crawford Goat Grab In Today's Tequila Treehouse...

	Cognitive Dissonance
	Bush ally Howard loses
	The Deal with Ron Paul
	20K more brain injuries
	Hate Crimes are Up
	Exxon's oil costs
	Why I hate Hillary...
	Pakistan at the Brink
	Jessica Alba Looking...

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, November 26, 2007 “Americans’ Economic Pessimism Reaches Record High.” That’s the headline on a recent Gallup report, which shows a nation deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. Right now, “27% of Americans rate current economic conditions as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ while 44% say they are ‘only fair’ and 28% say they are poor.” Moreover, “an extraordinary 78% of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, while a scant 13% say it is getting better.” What’s really remarkable about this dismal outlook is that the economy isn’t (yet?) in recession, and consumers haven’t yet felt the full effects of $98 oil (wait until they see this winter’s heating bills) or the plunging dollar, which will raise the prices of imported goods. The response of those who support the Bush administration’s economic policies is to complain about the unfairness of it all. They rattle off statistics that supposedly show how wonderful the economy really is. Many of these statistics are misleading or irrelevant, but it’s true that the official unemployment rate is fairly low by historical standards. So why are people so unhappy? The answer from Bush supporters — who are, on this and other matters, a strikingly whiny bunch — is to blame the “liberal media” for failing to report the good news. But the real explanation for the public’s pessimism is that whatever good economic news there is hasn’t translated into gains for most working Americans. One way to drive this point home is to compare the situation for workers today with that in the late 1990s, when the country’s economic optimism was almost as remarkable as its pessimism today. For example, in the fall of 1998 almost two-thirds of Americans thought the economy was excellent or good. Read More Here