Why You Should Vote For Mike Gravel

Igor Writes-

The best campaign video ever. EVER. Make sure you watch the whole thing.



Gravel 08!

Videos: The Best of June

Igor Writes-

Look away Parvaneh, look away.



Oil tankers are perfectly safe, except when the front falls off.



William Fucking Shatner.



Remember "the landlord"? Well this is part two.



A news reporter gets tired of hearing about Paris Hilton.



Before Mike Rowe was awesome on Dirty Jobs, he was awesome on late night QVC, selling cat toys.



Enjoy!

Open call...

I keep hearing "U.S. officials" complaining that Iran is training and financing anti-american forces in Iraq.

I would like anyone with any actual evidence besides "U.S. officials say..." to pelase present it.

I have repeatedly stated my skepticism of the buildup to the future Iran war, but I would seriously consider changing my mind if there was any evidence of any of this.

Plus, I no longer ever trust the word of "U.S. officials".

Meanwhile, remember I told you that the Iranian people are mad at their own administration? Well, the Iranian government recently implemented a rationing program for gasoline, which promted this response:

Amazing/Hilarious/OHMYCHRIST

Just watch this. Oh, and notice how the subject appears to be Darfur.

Feedback

Igor Writes-

Lately we've been getting more traffic. I like the way this is going.

So, before we go on, I'd love to hear what you all think about this blog.

What are we doing well?

What do we suck at?

What do you want to see?

What are you sick of?

What is the square root of a negative number?

Leave us some comments.

P.S: We may be buying a proper domain, so be sure to change your bookmarks and whatnot when that happens.

I say Iraq, you say Iran, can we please call the whole thing off?

Igor Writes-

Ok, so to this point, the argument I hear for considering an invasion of Iran is that such an unstable government shouldn't be permitted to have nuclear weapons.

I consider this to be fundamentally incorrect.

First of all, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that they are pursuing nuclear technology to more easily provide energy for their citizens. But let's assume they are lying. Let's assume that they want an a-bomb and want one badly.

Can you blame them?

The United States has repeatedly threatened Iran, stating that "every option is on the table". What, precisely, is Iran expected to do about that?

By building a nuclear arsenal, they are in fact insuring that the United States WON'T invade Iran.

Consequently, since the United States is the largest offender of nuclear proliferation, Iran is unable to attack America or any of its allies (I'm looking at you, Israel) for fear of being completely flattened.

What, then, gives us the right to say which nations deserve nuclear arms and which ones don't? Who died and made us king of the world?

As I see it, either everyone has nukes, which is dangerous but not insanely so because everyone would be too afraid to attack, or no one gets any, which is significantly safer, but involves more ground invasions.

This situation, in which America holds the world hostage while Iran scrambles for an insurance policy, is unhealthy and can only lead to the deaths of many more innocent people.

The next argument, and understandably so, is that if Iran gets nukes, then the terrorists will get some too. There are a number of reasons why that won't happen.

First, there is a lot of political upheaval in Iran right now. The current administation is unpopular and there is rioting (not about america, surprisingly enough). Therefore the government would never hand over a nuke to any terrorist group for fear that they themselves would end up being the ones terrorized.

Second, nukes are, for lack of a better word, power. The Iranian government, if it were to hand a nuke to a terrorist group, would be handing power to a group that isn't the Iranian Government, which will never happen.

Third, until someone actually proves that Iran supports anti-american terror groups, I'm going to take this a simple pre-war Iraq-style propoganda. In fact, I've yet to see any hard evidence that Iran is developing the technology for a bomb. I've heard people say it, and papers report it, but no evidence quite yet. Remember that this same government conviced us all that Iraq had massive hidden stockpiles of WMD.

Am I completely nuts?

I'd love to hear what you all think, so leave some comments, which I will definitely respond to.

Insert Title

Ernie Writes-

Many things going on in the realm of politics is pissing me the hell off right now, so let's turn to the world of sports. For 2007, a New Jersey dog has been crowned, "World's Ugliest Dog." I'd like to make a punchline but I think this pretty much speaks for itself:



Leave it to New Jersey to have the world's ugliest dog



AND leave it to a New Jersey dog owner to be proud about it.

The United States of Cheney

You may have heard that Cheney does not consider himself part of the executive branch. Well, earlier today, he took a further step away from our government.

As of 4:35pm, Vice President Richard Cheney has seceded from the union to form his own nation, Chenania.

Some current facts and figures about Chenania:

Population: 1
Capital: Halliburton Headquarters
Income Per Capita: Ridiculous
Official Language: Lies
Official Bird: Chicken-Hawk
Miscellany: Shooting people in the face is not a crime.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlord.

The Caging of the American Voter

Igor Writes-

Over the last few weeks, you have probably heard the term "caging". As of yet, I haven't heard a good explanation on any network news stations of what caging is and WHY IT CAN BRING DOWN KARL ROVE AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.

Background...

The latest scandal in the Bush administration is the myriad missing e-mails lying around in cyberspace. By law, administration members are required to archive all mail sent and received. Lately, however, tens of thousands of e-mails related to the firing of the 8 white house attorneys in the Alberto Gonzalez (remember him?) case have gone missing, which is just terribly convenient.

Can I just add here that there is no way for an e-mail to truly disappear. It is well known that once an e-mail is sent, it passes through so many servers that it can always be found. Why haven't they been found, then?

Anyway, investigators within the Justice Department dropped in of the office of Dick Cheney, demanding to inspect his records, to see is his office complied with e-mail archive regulations.

Cheney had the investigators removed, claiming that since he is not part of the executive branch, he cannot be investigated.

Let me repeat that. Cheney claims that he is not a member of the executive branch! How fucking convenient is that?

You can only be a member of one of three branches. Since he is not a judge, a lawyer, or a legislator, how can he not be part of the executive branch?? He's second in line to the head of the branch!

After hearing that the Oversight Investigative Committee had balked over Cheney's actions, he then threatened to dismantle the committee. The irony here is that if Cheney isn't part of the executive branch, he has no authority to dismantle any committee!

Whoops...

Meanwhile, the owner of a website called RNCHQ.ORG, which is suspiciously similar to the domain of the Republican National Committee's Headquarters website, claimed that he received thousands of e-mails from the office of Karl Rove, meant for the real
RNC. Whoops.

Of course, he published the now infamous e-mails on his website, and passed them on to a BBC reporter named Greg Palast.

Palast, while reading through these e-mails, found something really interesting. This is where the story gets twisted.

A set of e-mails sent from Karl Rove's deputy Tim Griffin to what he thought was the RNC in 2004 mentioned caging.

Caging?

What the hell is caging, you ask?

Caging is a form of voter suppresion in which mass mailings are sent to registered voters marked "Do Not Forward, Return to Sender if Undeliverable". If a voter is not home, or the letter cannot be delivered, it is sent back to, in this case, the RNC, which then challenges the registration of that voter on the basis that they falsified their address. When that voter shows up at the polls, they vote normally, but their vote doesn't count and they are never told about it.

This is 2004, mind you. I believe there was some sort of election going on?

This, as it will become clear, it completely predatory, and used to keep Democratic voters away from the polls.

The real kicker is, the RNC sent thousands of these to African American soldiers stationed in Iraq. Except they sent the letters to their American homes. Which means that thousands of black soldiers were disenfranchised in the 2004 election. Moreover, other targeted groups included the homeless and students away from home, both of which overwhelmingly vote Democrat. The worst thing is, these disenfranchised voters are walking around our town and serving in Iraq even to this day not knowing that their votes weren't counted.

Needless to say, caging is a felony. And not one of those wishy-washy "oops, I didn't use enough stamps" felonies, but voter fraud. These e-mails, one of which was titled "RE: Caging List" with a 51-page Excel spreadsheet called "caging" with a file name "caginglist.xl1s", are not subtle in any way.

This is concrete proof. Not speculation, not inference, but hard, digital proof.

The day after Palast wrote this article for the BBC, Tim Griffin, sender of the e-mails and deputy in the office of Karl Rove, resigned.

If the e-mails aren't enough proof, you can also take the word of Monica Goodling, former Department of Justice liaison to the White House, who was recently granted immunity for her testimony against Alberto Gonzalez. If you recall, Gonzalez tried to blame his deputy, Paul McNulty, for the entire scandal. Well apparently, according to Goodling, McNulty knew all about voter caging in 2004, but said nothing in order to keep his job.

What now?

So why is no one talking about this? Why isn't this a headline on every major news station and newspaper?

Probobly because it could bring down the entire Bush administration, or at least the entire office of Karl Rove and Bush's election campaign staff.

What can you do about it? Make it news. Write your papers, your news stations, Digg the hell out of the story, petition Google News. There are ways.

Who knows, maybe Kerry won the election after all.

Links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won.php
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_greg_pal_070620_medical_alert_3a__wash.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caging

On the table...

Igor Writes-

Didn't believe me when I said that our government is threatening nuclear war against iran?

Take a look at this.

Our government is broken.

Beam me up, Jesus...

Igor Writes-

Video attack!!!

This has nothing to do with anything. I just really like Brahms.



If I explain this video, I'll ruin it. Watch the whole thing. (Thanks to Ben for this one)


Norwegian Kids Mess With Train - Watch more free videos

This video is fantastic in many ways. Star Trek fans, rejoice. The rest of you can rejoice too, if you like.




In other news, I heard a great story the other day. Entirely true, too.

After his well-documented trial, O.J. Simpson told reporters that he would do whatever it took to find his wife's killer. So he set up a hotline for anonymous tips. According to an un-named source, most of the tips he recieved were "You did it".

Finally, are you all aware that we have an RSS feed? If you know what that is, feel free to use it. It makes us feel better about ourselves.

Fallout!

Ernie Writes-

This is not too new, but there's a small point I'd like to make. Before that point is made, here is the context:



That act was almost as classic as his excuse:



Seeing that BBC reporter get worked up, pushed into a corner with his self control completely diminished by a young man with a well maintained temper as to worsen the image of the BBC man, reminded me of something. At the time I could not quite put my finger on it, but then I remembered my Mcgoohan:



Gotta love them dry bones!

Follow-Up

I think Kieth Olbermann said it best (essential viewing)...

Speaking of congress...

Igor Writes-

Why isn't everybody furious??!?

When we swept the Democrats into office, it came with the message "we do not approve of the Iraq war". Despite that, the Democrats have caved in to the president at the cost of who knows how many American and Iraqi lives.

Do you realize that an estimated 65,000 iraqis have died as a result of this war? Does anyone really believe that less than 90% of those 65,000 are civilians caught in the crossfire? That's too scary to even think about it. Which is exactly why they should.

So congress passes a bill, authorizing new funding for Iraq contingent upon a gradual reduction of troops starting in September. Despite the glaring fact that between now and September nothing will change except the number of casualties, I liked that the Democrats at least were trying.

If you ask me, they should have simply cut all funding, forcing the president to call back the troops. Even Bush isn't heartless enough to leave the troops with no money and equipment.

In any case, congress' bill was promptly vetoed. This was a crossroads. All the Democrats had to do was to continue to pass the same bill over and over until they forced Bush's hand. But they caved. And now people will have to continue dying.

This is a travesty. The same democrats that are currently running for president and shouting how much they deplore the war in Iraq did NOTHING to prevent the extension. And for this, we should be furious.

In reality, congress has been playing this game for years. McCain and Bush would constantly bicker over legislation and policy, making McCain look centrist and independent, empowering congress. But if you look closely, what really was happening was that Bush would propose something so preposterously reactionary that anything that McCain counter-proposed would seem much more grounded. In reality, The compromises that McCain and Bush would come to were still really ridiculous and right-leaning, but didn't anger people as much because it looked as if someone had actually stood up to the president. Of course now we see that McCain has no credibility and is just as much of a liar as the next guy.

The same thing is happening with this congress. They are "compromising" the president, in reality bending the will of the people toward Bush's agenda, keeping up only the semblance of debate and disagreement.

No one is on our side here. The government seems to want nothing to do with public opinion. The government, that is, including the Democrats and Republicans, which in my eyes are now in the same boat. The same sinking boat. And both parties refuse to abandon ship (if you'll excuse the nautical punnery).

I guess the real question is: what can we do about it?

Well, you can elect a guy like Mike Gravel, who is far enough out there such that he won't conform to anyone's ideals, but that doesn't look like it can possibly happen.

So you see, we are setting ourselves up to be played by both sides when we have only these two lousy political parties to choose from.

I for one, no longer trust anyone.

Come here often?

Igor Writes-

First of all, I wanna apologize for the recent lack of posts. I've been swamped and therefore rarely near my computer. I do, however, have a metric assload (2.23 american assloads) of bookmarks to share with all of you.

I have to mention here that I love the new Google Video, which now lists YouTube, MySpace, and a slew of other videos with a much more intuitive search function. Besides being a place to upload videos, it has become the first true video search engine.

You may recall me mentioning a 60 minutes interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is a great interview, and you can actually see the American media trying to label him insane, while he tries to avoid the more confrontational questions. Nonetheless, defenitely worth watching.

Here it is:



Meanwhile, pundits and politicians alike still threaten war against Iran. For reasons I've already gone over, I think it would be a huge mistake...

On a lighter note, here's your daily Orson.



More Americans being idiots!!



This next video, while also hilarious, has no embed code, and shame on them for that.

Link

Alberto Gonzales Update!!

This week, congress decided to take a no-confidence vote about Alberto "I don't recall" Gonzalez, which is a completely non-binding resolution saying essentially, "we, congress, don't like Alberto Gonzalez.

However, before they could have that debate and vote, they had to debate and vote on the merits of having a no-confidence vote. You read that right, they voted to decide whether or not to vote on a completely superficial statement. Moreover, the measure was overturned, so nothing got done anyway.

Your tax money, hard at work.


Hehe, you slay me, LolPresident

A hunt for Time…ex

Ernie writes-

Bush’s watch was stolen during his recent visit to Albania. Have a look:

Unfortunately all 20 of his secret service men, were looking everywhere else at the time. Therefore the culprit could not be identified. Normally in a situation like this, an incompetent law enforcer would frame the nearest black guy. But it would seem that Albania is in short supply. Therefore the following suspect has bee detained for questioning:

Harry Potter Goodness

Kevin Writes-



When you think about it, it all seems so natural: Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore both sound like a retarded four year old child, and one of the spell classes Harry learned at Hogwarts clearly taught him how to summon Gotham's Caped Crusader. In hindsight, it all makes sense. Also, they're made out of Lego. But it remains to be seen if Batman has any ties to the Dark Lord Voldemort, or if Lucius Malfoy is in league with The Joker or Poison Ivy.

Cricket

Ernie Writes-

What the crap is Cricket? And further, who named it? I found this headline reporting the results of a recent game on BBC news, "Third Test, Old Trafford, day five: England 370 & 313 bt West Indies 229 & 394 by 60 runs." Can anyone tell me what he just said? I won't begin to interpret that headline, so I've chosen to interpret what's going on in each of the following photos.

He's thinking, "If only I had a bum to squeeze.":



He's thinking, "What the hell is Cricket?":



He's saying, "Jeeves! Clean up this bird doodie!":



He's responding, "I'll clean it up!":



I hope you enjoyed my interpretation. If anyone can provide any feedback in regards to the enigma that is Cricket, please leave a comment.

Orson Goodness

Ernie Writes-

Because I'm in an Orson mood, and because I have not written anything in some time. Please enjoy my various Orson clips:

A pair from "The Critic:"




The finest toon He's ever made: