As true now as then

Transcript: "There's a reason education SUCKS, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you've got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions -- forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON'T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -- lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want -- they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They DON'T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're comin' for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it ALL from you sooner or later -- 'cuz they OWN this fuckin' place. It's a big CLUB. And YOU AIN'T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe -- what to think -- and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people -- white collar, blue collar -- doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don't GIVE a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you, they don't GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. T HEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU -- AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care ... that's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth -- it's called the American Dream ... 'cuz you have to be asleep to believe it."

News you never read about

Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action.

Did you know?

1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat

2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media

3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign

4. Global Food Crisis Expands

Read all 25 of the top censored news you never read or heard about.

Way to govern, you guys.

Some of the bills Republicans have blocked. Rand Paul adds to the list.

Ack!

In shifting to a new Google Blogger template, it kindly erased my directory! I will add as many as I can, but if I have dropped you accidentally and you mind, remind me in comments.

Excellent story by a jailed journalist

Who tried to interview the pepper-sprayed women and was arrested. I think the NYPD will regret this....

Anti-antichrist

Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics

The left is in disarray while libertarianism is on the ascent. A new generation of evangelicals — well-versed in organizing but lacking moderating influences — is lining up behind hard-right anti-statists. While few of the faithful truly think that the president is the Antichrist, millions of voters, like their Depression-era predecessors, fear that the time is short. The sentiment that Mr. Obama is preparing the United States, as Roosevelt did, for the Antichrist’s global coalition is likely to grow.

Barring the rapture, Mrs. Bachmann or Mr. Perry could well ride the apocalyptic anti-statism of conservative Christians into the Oval Office. Indeed, the tribulation may be upon us.

Well this is good to know, now that President Obama has been proclaimed the Antichrist. (Is that like anti-matter? Unseen, mysterious, and explosive?)

Accidentally on purpose

Decided to play with my blog layout.

Anybody want to complain?

Oh boy....

Police brutality

At its most stupid and unnecessary show of power:

NYPD Deputy Inspector has been identified. I hope he thinks his smirking delight in spraying pepper spray into the faces of corralled women protesters was worth it. He's just made a whole bunch more people angry and rededicated to the cause.

Exactly.

Whiplash...

Yes!:

Obama lets states opt out of No Child Left Behind

WTF??

Police pen up and mace female ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters

ROTFLMAO

NRA claims ‘massive Obama conspiracy’ not to ban guns

Friday Hope on Saturday

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope blog.

And a cat:

The Voice of Choice

Calling back those people who threaten abortion providers, their landlords, the children of the landlords, the people who deliver towels and office supplies... turning their tactics back on them. Voice of Choice.

Obviously it laid eggs....

This article made me think of this: ... my very first picture on the blog...

Dear God! They're attacking from the drainage ditches!

"Five pound snail emerges from Bayou Blue pond."

"From a distance, it looked like a football-like object hanging from a shrub near the pond’s edge. Once she got closer, Arnold realized that what was hanging from the branch was one of the snails she purchased three years ago.

"It was gigantic," she said. "I thought it was a wasp’s nest when I saw it.""

( Toni Arnold of Bayou Blue snapped a shot of Moses the 5-pound snail as it hung from a shrub in her pond Tuesday.)"

POSTED BY ELLROON AT 10/27/2006 03:57:00 PM

I don't think squashing them with your shoes will work...

Why do the Koch brothers want to end public education?

Elizabeth Warren

On what America is really all about.

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

One execution I doubt many would protest...

Well said, sir.

Printed on the flag held in distress position:

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

It's Monday, so here are some things to make you smile

Um... is he allowed to do that?

David Attenborough stands up against creationism in school.

Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Stockbox Grocers to Convert Shipping Containers into Local Grocery Stores in Food Deserts

Exposing his weak underbelly

Andrew Breitbart wishes the nasty mean hateful liberal bullies would finally cross the line and physically attack him so he could use his guns. I guess because liberals use words and stuff to call him names. And point out where he's wrong. By using facts. Guns would take care of that.

ARRRrrrrrrr

Avast! Piratin' speak is spreading.

One really good way to ruin your Saturday?

Read these articles...

What If the Tea Party Wins?

The 11 craziest things in Rick Perry’s ‘Fed Up’ manifesto

8 Facts That Prove the Tea Party Is Ignorant of the U.S. Constitution

‘Cut Budgets to Kill Jobs’ – And 4 More GOP Schemes to Rig the 2012 Election

11 Reasons Why the Unemployment Crisis Is Even Worse Than You Think

Between Race and Reason: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Even the bees are pissed off...

Hives bigger, killer bees meaner this year, say experts after attacks

Are the killer bees meaner than ever in 2011? The Killer Bee Guy thinks so.

They're much more ornery this year, according to Reed Booth, also know as The Killer Bee Guy. "This is the worst I've seen in 10 years," Booth told CNN affiliate KOLD-TV in Tucson this week.

Booth spoke after taking out a 200-pound hive of a quarter-million killer bees on a Bisbee farm earlier this week.

[snip]

"This year we've had more large hives than we've ever had," said Kevin Hodgson, of The Beekeeper, an extermination service in the Phoenix area. "Consistently these hives are bigger than they've been in recent years," Hodgson told KPHO.

Booth won't dispute that.

"It's been a record year for big, mean hives," willcoxrangenews.com quotes Booth as saying.

Answer the question

Morals, censorship, stupidity.

Explaining Wall Street ethics, cheating, intuition. Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code.

Censored Doonesbury about Palin not reading. And then there is the party of stupid. And Republicanism as religion. (Last one is scary.)

Surprise! (And thank god.) There are still intelligent people out there:

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a first-in-the-nation law that restricted what Florida physicians can say about guns to their patients, ruling the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantees and does not trample gun rights.

Some reasons why we actually need a government. You know... the kind Republicans deny exists. A government that works for the people. Or as the Republicans would have it... only some of the people.

Oops. FBI Raids Home Of CBS Correspondent By Mistake

Wars over water are just over the horizon.

Just imagine all those plastic dinosaurs we played with were really just terribly bald. Dinosaurs had colorful feathers.

Just a reminder:

Pat Robertson wants you to know if you get Alzheimer's.... your spouse can dump you.

How can they call themselves Anti-choice and Pro-family

And demand that embryos are human beings with all Constitutional rights.... And then cheer Rick Perry's execution count...

And Ron Paul's statement that the uninsured should just die:

And not see the utter hypocrisy and contradiction? Do these people actually know the kind of society they are cheering for?

This is how I cook for the family

Because ideology is always better than intelligence

Reagan actually “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years

(Post title comes from this article.)

One lap around the net

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” Mark Twain

Rick Perry is a thug. Digby discusses.

The Great Prosperity vs the Great Regression and Why Inequality is the Real Cause of Our Ongoing Terrible Economy by Robert Reich.

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Apocalyptic GOP Is Dragging Us Into a Civil War

by Matt Taibbi

The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles
By Adam Weinstein

Vote. Tell your friends to vote. Get your family to the polls. Just vote.

Rolling Stone:

The GOP War on Voting: In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

And: Talking Points Memo: Legal Battles Loom In Fight Over Voter ID Laws

Friday cat

Did we always have creeps like this?

Or are they hatching out somewhere?

Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum is just going to come right out and say it: registering the poor to vote is un-American and "like handing out burglary tools to criminals."

It's unfortunate, but even his photo makes him look like a throwback to a 19th century robber baron wannabe demanding that only landed gentry should be able to control the government....

Do we really need to list why we despise Dick Cheney?

Because even those who cheered him on during his reign of terror seem to have woken up.

But if you are interested....

(An aside... I've never been really clear when to use awakened, woke, awake etc.... so this was fun to find.)

Update: Robert Sheer takes a whack at the Cheney ego.