Hey the sun is out!

They say summer doesn't begin in Oregon until the 5th of July. And strangely, after spending 6 years out here, that seems to be the case, within a day or two. But the sun is shining and it might even reach 70 degrees today. Hoo haw! And Oregon strawberries are in season. The sweetest strawberries in the world! Not like those big bland California strawberries. Hopped up on strawberry steroids no doubt. Everything is big down there. Like the governator. Hopped up on terminator steroids. If not steroids then it must be something in the ozone. THE ATTACK OF THE 50 FT GOVERNATOR. Up chucking 50 pound California strawberries at everybody.

Just one question ...

Does Hillary believe in anything?

I know I should be working but ...

I'm the only one here and therefore I am a Democracy of One. That's what one of my nuns in HS used to refer to herself as: a democracy of one. That must be what Bush thinks democracy is. But I don't believe that he gives any thought to much of anything at all. After all, this is the man who when asked to name the highlight of his presidency, he replied that it was the day he caught a fifty pound bass, or whatever the hell it was. And when asked at a news conference with Tony Blair what he would miss most about Blair, he said it was Blair's red ties. Uh huh.

So now we have a vote coming up in the House on a non-binding resolution on Iraq. I don't have it in front of me but it is, trust me, the crassest piece of Republican political garbage this side of a bulging barf bag. I'm not sure what the Dems are going to do, but if it was up to me, I'd tell them all to get up and walk out en masse right before the vote. It's about time the Democrats in Congress take a stand .... on something. Anything. The Republicans have turned the government into a den of thieves. The time for compromise is over. Dems: stand up and be counted. Or not be counted, that is, and walk out of this charade.

Supremes say to the Big Bad Wolf: it's OK to huff puff & blow the house down without knocking first

Justices: Cops with warrant don’t have to knock

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don’t knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush’s new justices.





Bush amends in a signing statement: "Hey, we don't need no stinking warrants!

HEEEEHAWWWW

AYEIYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA.... sound of head shaking ala Looney Tunes after waking from a long sleep....

Dang I forgot all about this blog! I am truly amazed that I remembered the username and password to get into it!

I am Don and I live in Portland and I used to be a blogger. hee

The last thing I remember was that G.W. Bush was elected to a Second Coming... I mean second term. I think since then there was this flood in New Orleans. The whole last two years has felt downright Biblical. Wars and floods and droughts oh my! A lot of very inconvenient truths to chew on.

And speaking of Storms, what of my fellow bloggers from that other time? I looked up Terry Pinder and found The Storm had settled down in Harrisburg. But there have been no new postings since March, and I wonder, "Terry, where art thou?"

more later ...

You'll notice old posts from back in August 2003 and earlier. Those are the original posts at this site, right after which I created the blog "nitcrawler" and hosted it via my home computer on movable type. I thought of deleting them all and starting fresh, but got lazy and thought, "the hell with it." That's the kind of take charge guy I am. Just letting you know!

nitecrawler is no more. At least for the time being. The short explanation is that I (inadvertantly) let the domain name expire, after which someone else hijacked it for their own use. Since it was a free account, I guess I can't really complain. The slightly longer explanation is that I also felt completely burned out after the election. It was a tough loss. I sat around thinking of something to say about it, but nothing really came to mind. Anyway, when/if/until I get a chance to park the old blog somewhere, this is where I'll be, from time to time, with a few observations, comments, truths, lies, and damned statistics! Maybe one or two of them will even be a little interesting. But I'm not guaranteeing anything!

hehe

my new painting ...

This is the reason I haven't done any new cartoons lately. I've been throwing all my creative energy, such as it is, toward finishing this piece. It's taken a whole month and a lot of hard work has gone into this. Now if I can only find someone who would be interested in buying it to help a poor starving artist pay his bills!

untitled

so anyway...

This was the day the window cleaners were supposed to clean the outsides of all the windows in the apartment building. When they showed up this morning, of course, the apartment management had not gone to the trouble of removing the window screens for them first. Since they have to get into the apartments to remove the screens, and since many people are not at home in mid morning, the cleaners can't do it. This very same thing happened last year too.

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When I lived in Pittsburgh, I worked at one of the largest food companies in the world (I won't tell you their name but they did claim to sell 57 varieties :-)). It was just amazing the amount of waste and plain old bone headedness that passed for corporate decision making. And this was one of the better run American corporations. During the same period, my partner worked for a major accounting firm (all I'll say it that it wasn't the one implicated in the Enron scandal). And he of course brought home his own collection of horror stories we'd sit around and laugh about.

Capitalism might be a hell of a lot better than Communism (at least the version practiced by the Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans, et.al.) but I've often wondered.... just because Soviet style Communism fell first doesn't mean that American style Capitalism is forever vindicated on the world stage as the greatest and bestest economic system forever and ever amen.

-------------------------

Of course if you watch Kudlow and Kramer on CNBC you get the distinct impression that economic nirvana has already been achieved. Weren't they claiming the end of the "old economy" just a year prior to the big Internet bubble burst? Call that egg on my face an omelet and butter my toast! Without hardly missing a beat they cleaned up the mess and continued on their way as self appointed gurus of Wall St. They seem to be as reliable as the Wall Street Journal if all you read of the Journal were the opinion pages.

People pay for degrees, put on suits and call themselves experts. Deep down inside though I sometimes wonder if the whole world isn't really run by people like me.

Where FUD rules

Via Notes on the Atrocities a link to the KATU news blog. "K-2" is known for its 'if it bleeds it leads" brand of news reporting. I'm even surprised though at the pettiness of their "up to the minute" blogging report of the Bush visit to Portland. As pointed out on Atrocities, Channel 2's reporting of alleged pot smoking at the demonstration seems particularly inane and provocative:

Strong odor of marijuana observed at protest scene

12:24 PM

A KATU News photographer near the scene at Willamette Blvd. and Portsmouth where protesters are assembled reports that there is a strong odor of marijuana in the crowd. Police in riot gear have also doubled their presence outside the center where the president is addressing supporters.

I'd call this disingenuous. To report the smell of pot smoke and then somehow link it to police in riot gear gives the impression that this is just a crowd of angry drug taking anarchists.

On the other hand, when KATU announces their reporter has been "assaulted" by "the crowd, growing more and more angry ... shouting "Portland Media lies" you don't have to look too far to wonder where in the world people would come up with a notion like that.

Looks in general like "news blogging" at least ala KATU, is not a very good idea.

The Oregon legislature finally mustered the three-fifths mjaority in the House yesterday to pass a three year temporary income tax surcharge. Already today, the usual suspects on the Right are getting ready to collect signatures for a voter referendum to try and overturn the tax increase in the next election. According to the Daily Rag, an angry man phoned one of the state representatives who voted for the tax yelling at her daughter that, "I'm unemployed and I can't afford this tax. I voted for her and I'll never vote for her again."

Well, duh, if yer unemployed you don't have to pay the income tax, Jack. So I don't see how this tax surcharge affects you at all. Since it's a graduated tax, the biggest increases would fall on the shoulders of wealthier Oregonians. I guess that would mean that many of them won't be able to spend their entire Bush tax cuts on creating new jobs for the rest of us. Dang. But, it's either that or close schools and let convicted felons out of prison due to a lack of funding.

Yeah, this Bush economic plan is really turning out to be a good idea.

And here I was thinking I was being a good citizen by paying my taxes. When, according to Bush, I'd be doing the country a bigger favor if I didn't pay any taxes. But don't you know it turns out I'm too poor not to pay taxes. That great selfless honor is only bestowed on the very wealthy. Double dang!

The Indian Scam by Rich Lowry over at townhall.com starts off:

American Indians have always occupied an outsized place in our imagination, usually as a noble people, at one with a pristine North American continent prior to the arrival of the white man. It's time to upgrade the image. Forget buffalo, eagle feathers and tribal dances. Think slots, Harrah's and dirty politics.

The California recall is providing the nation an intense education in contemporary American politics, and high on the list of lessons is that Indian tribes have, lucratively, sold their souls to gambling and can buy off or defeat anyone who might want to stand in their way. California tribes make some $5 billion a year in gambling revenue and have poured more than $120 million into state political campaigns since 1998.

So, I guess what Lowry is saying is after we've stolen their land and driven them onto largely barren dusty reservations and pretty much destroyed their culture and sense of meaning and purpose as human beings, why, how dare Native peoples turn to something as evil and perverted as gambling to try to support themselves!

First , it's not the Indians who are doing all the gambling, it's the White Folks, so Lowry's chastising the wrong group, it seems to me. Second, I guess Lowry hasn't spoken to Bill Bennett lately. If he did, he'd have learned that gambling is OK. And third, if Lowry really wants pointers on dirty politics he should go talk to Karl Rove or Tom DeLay.

Evidently, FOX News is arguing that Al Franken's use of the term "fair and balanced" in his new book would "blur and tarnish" their so-called trademark. Well I think if FOX loses their lawsuit, they should immediately trademark blur & tarnish for their new slogan. Sounds a lot more like a fair & balanced™ description of FOX News to me.

When an apology is really an admission of mental illness...

From NY Daily News

Disgraced journalist Stephen Glass, fired from the New Republic in 1998 for telling tales taller than Jayson Blair's, is ...finally sending out letters of apology to his former editors.

In a note to Harper's editor Lewis Lapham in May, Glass wrote, "I often lied in vicious ways to belittle people, to promote myself and to help me pretend I was someone I was not. What I was, in fact, was someone who was angry and confused and scared and mean and lonely."

I could see Bush using this same template for his ultimate apology to the American people for his failed policies. Yes, I said that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But you have to remember, I was someone who was angry and confused and scared and mean and lonely. And yes, I said that tax cuts for the wealthy would jump start the economy. But you see, I often lied in vicious ways to belittle people and to help me pretend I was someone I was not.

Well, you get the point.

Bush is arriving in Portland as we speak, to ah um ... hold a press conference? No.... Give a speech on the state of the economy and the hostilities in Iraq and the Middle East? Ah... not really ... Ask ordinary everyday people on the street what their concerns for the country and their personal lives are? Well.....

I know! Attend a $2000 a plate fundraiser for his reelection campaign next year? DITTO!

Brain hurts... taking ... nap.

What it means to be a liberal ...

A friend sent me this via email...


Subject: Amen

"Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and
most powerful
nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo
that national
progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and
democratic instincts
of the American people...

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being
forced into labor;
if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour
week and you are
allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals.
If your food is not
poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your
parents are eligible
for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without
bankrupting your
family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our
air isn't black with
pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still
green -- you can thank liberals.

If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone
has the right to vote;
if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally
begun to transcend a
segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like
those and so many
others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power.
What defined
conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those
advances.
The country we know and love today was built by those victories for
liberalism -- with the
support of the American people.
-- Joe Conason

and my response:

yes, but doesn't it bother you that at least in some ways we're beginning to backslide? Or maybe we're all taking these things for granted. Like workplace safety rules, for example. Or civil rights laws. There was a website I saw recently about what the perspective would be for a member of the college graduating class of 2006. These kids would have all been born around 1985. Which means, for example, that in their own experience, Michael Jackson was never a black man! It was filled with pop culture stuff like that but reading this list, I realize that people born after a certain year would take for granted every one of these things that required great struggle against entrenched power. Is that what conservatives do- prey on people's short memories and our lousy educational system that doesn't teach kids the bloody battles that previous generations had to fight to secure these rights because teachers are afraid of being accused of liberal bias?

I think Americans think that all these advances were just handed down to them on a silver platter. And since the airwaves are now filled with hardly anything but right wing vitriol, they're all getting a skewed portrait of what goes on in this country. Like, how many cable news programs are devoted to the opinion and voices of the labor movement compared to how many Wall St. investment programs clutter the channels? None, right? The likes of Rupert Murdoch and AOL-Time-Warner-Lockheed-Halliburton just keep pounding away, discrediting the liberal movement until people wake up and say, "yeah, those lousy liberals, all they want to do is spend my money, I'm voting for Bush." But you have to hand it to the Right, they've sure sold the American people a bill of goods, haven't they?

I'm still laughing, shaking my head, over the quote below attributed to Arnold S., about "what the racial thing is..." Ah yes, that old "racial thing." But at least Arnold admits that "nothing matters to me." I mean, I can at least respect somone who comes right out and says he doesn't really give a shit. Now I'm sure (well at least reasonably sure, I think) that Arnold would say he didn't really mean that he didn't give a shit, just that he doesn't care whether you're young or old, black or white, you know, that racial thing , he will still more than happily take your vote and be your governor. It's almost quaint really, to listen to someone like Arnold who has enough of a command of the English language to make himself understood but still not so familiar with all the nuances that most politicians and public people use to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainity, and Doubt). It's refreshing in a kind of brain dead sort of way. Something that harkens back to another era when snake salesmen roamed the land and people still believed that you could tell a person's future by examining the bumps on his head. I suppose sometime in the misty future people will look back at us and shake their heads and marvel that we ever had the balls to believe half the things we did. I just wish I could take a peak into that future right now and find out which half they were. Hoping against hope that it's all the things on the right hand side of the hash mark, don't you know....

How to energize the left? Two thought provoking articles:

For the Dismissal of Objectivity in News by Williams Cole and Will the Last Remaining Liberal Please Turn Out The Lights? by Keith Boykin.

Bush should really learn to keep his mouth shut. In hindsight at least when Reagan fumbled around for something to say, we now know it was probably Alzheimers. Bush probably wishes he had Alzheimers. When asked about what he knew about Iran-Contra, Reagan simply answered that he didn't remember. When Bush is asked about Iraq, he conveniently updates history as if we all had Alzheimers and don't remember. Such as, when asked "where are the weapons of mass destruction?" he replies that "we found them." And claiming that we went to war because "We gave [Saddam] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." Then again maybe Bush is right and maybe we don't really remember anything. Maybe it's not 2003 at all but really 1984 where history is updated daily as enemies are declared friends and our friends were really our enemies all along.

Or maybe our mission in Iraq and Bush's "War on Terrorism" is really Heller's "Catch-22" where just when we think we're winning we're really losing and just when it's time to declare victory the mission gets extended. Kevin Phillips recently pointed out in an L.A. Times article how entwined the Bush family's business interests in the Middle East are with the politics of the region and this alone would seem to make it impossible to get a straight answer from this Administration as to what its true goals are for the region. Along with Bush financial interests in Afghanistan pre 9-11 and Cheney's past and present dealings with Iraq, is it any wonder the conspiracy theorists are having a field day about what Bush knew or didn't know about the 9-11 attacks?

I found this interesting. Another Kevin Phillips article back in January, 2001, points out that " ...the Republicans ... have had a Bush or a Dole on every ticket since 1976. ..."

and he goes on to point out about the 2000 presidential election, that

"The Bush administration is the first in many years to be elected in the face of a loose ideological majority--the more than 50 percent that supported Al Gore or Ralph Nader--that favors moving the nation's policies and politics in a direction largely different from what the nominally victorious regime represents. Even the George Wallace vote of 1968 and the Ross Perot vote of 1992 did not represent comparable polarities against the new administrations, since in many ways the policies favored by these third-party candidates did not cut against the ideological grain of the winning candidates (Richard Nixon in 1968, Bill Clinton in 1992)."

Much talk has been made in right wing circles since the bush ascendancy to the throne how much trouble the Democratic party is going to have in the next election forging a majority to reclaim the White House, and how out of touch the current Democratic presidential contenders are with the mainstream American voter. The more I think about it, the more I believe that this kind of right wing analysis is little more than political spin designed to keep the liberal/progressive wing of American politics off balance and off message. If I were a Republican, I would be even more worried about Bush getting reelected-- or should I say elected in '04. With his shady business dealings and incoherent foreign and domestic policy, Dubya may do more long term harm to Republican and conservative interests than a thousand Paul Wellstones ever could.

The Terminator says:

"It's the most difficult [decision to run for governor of California] I've made in my entire life, except the one I made in 1978 when I decided to get a bikini wax."

"I don't run around every day with a gun in my hand. So I want kids to understand the difference; one is make believe, like we do in the movies. But in reality, I'm for gun control. I'm a peace-loving guy."

"It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, if you're young or old, what the racial thing is, nothing matters to me."

"Pumping iron is a great feeling...like coming, but coming continuously.


But as dumb as these commens of Arnold's are, at least he's not Commander-in-chief like some people we know, saying things like ...



"I'm the commander, I do not need to
explain why I say things. That's the in-
teresting thing about being the President.
Maybe somebody needs to explain to me
why they say something, but I don't feel
like I owe anybody an explanation...."


"We concluded that tomorrow is a
moment of truth for the world."

"With a robust package of at least $550 billion in
across-the-board tax relief, we will help create
more than a million new jobs by the end of 2004."

"We gave [Saddam] a chance to allow
the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

For more comments taken out of context from our two favorite Republicans , visit We Love Arnold and Bush Speaks .

The mayor of simpleton

Following today's explosion at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad which may have resulted in scores of deaths, Bush is on TV right now talking about the "remenants of terrorism." No, that's not a typo. He did say "remenants." Thanks to Bush's little war in Iraq, we're having a big fire sale on remenants over there.

Karl Rove at the headgates

For those naive enough to believe that the Bush Administration can be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to issues like environmental policy, and, more recently, develop a fair and coherent policy for upgrading our energy infrastructure, would do well to read this editoral from the Oregonian. In part, it notes

The Bush administration's high-level interest in the Klamath Basin water crisis has carried all along more than a whiff of politics, discernable even amid the stench of belly-up salmon.

Yet it is still disturbing to see now the extent that political considerations and poll results were introduced to influence crucial decisions on scarce water in the Southern Oregon basin.

The Wall Street Journal recently detailed a January 2002 meeting in which Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, delivered a presentation to 50 top U.S. Interior Department managers making it clear the administration expected them to side with agricultural interests in the Klamath.

Of course, this wasn't the first or last time a White House has played politics with a controversial natural resources issue. But the depiction of Rove giving a Power Point presentation to Interior bureaucrats, flashing poll results and speaking of the urgent need to protect the Republicans' farm "base" is distressing to all of us still naively hoping that the Klamath crisis will be resolved using the best science.

Add to this revelation Cheney's secret energy meetings with oil and energy executives, Bush's ties with the likes of Kenneth Lay, the manipulation of electric transmission in California by Enron and others, all in the guise of improving our energy infrastructure, and you get the idea that maybe what we need here is an independent oversight committee to keep watch over the White House. If this is the kind of energy policy reform Bush is thinking about, then God help us all.