BartCop's most recent rants

BartCop's most recent rants: "'It's unbelievable to me. He can't possibly have meant it. Because it means we can hit you if we don't like you. The administration is redefining its meaning of having stockpiles of WMDs to thinking about acquiring large stockpiles. His claims that there is no difference is disingenuous. But they're sticking with that position - that black is white.' --David Albright, former UN inspector and a Washington expert on nuclear arms, on Dubya's response to a Diane Sawyer question about his claims that Saddam Hussein possesed WMDs, as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons:( Dubya's answer: 'What's the difference?') Attribution "

FUBAR DAY

grandmom in hospital with a broken leg, im sick, work is just crazy (game supposed to go gold tomorrow), and we just had an earthquake. A 6.5 someplace pretty far away but we felt it... made me queEeezy.

Yahoo! News - Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

Yahoo! News - Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops so i guess the question is how long has the media known this?

crazy. sunday here at work and all hell is breaking loose were calling programmers in and talking about staying late tonight and working over break. Meanwhile I wokeup saturday sick with a sore throat, aches, and some congestion. i simply cannot be sick. not now

Cost of War

Cost of War worth checking out again

Project Censored

Project Censored oh boy

Project Censored

Project Censored: Corporate Media Partial Coverage: Atlantic Journal Constitution, 9/29/02, The President's Real goal in Iraq, By Jay Bookman "Over the last year corporate media have made much of Saddam Hussein and his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Rarely did the press or, especially, television address the possibility that larger strategies might also have driven the decision to invade Iraq. Broad political strategies regarding foreign policy do indeed exist and are part of the public record. The following is a summary of the current strategies that have formed over the last 30 years; strategies that eclipse the pursuit of oil and that preceded Hussein's rise to power: In the 1970s, the United States and the Middle East were embroiled in a tug-of-war over oil. At the time, American military presence in the Gulf was fairly insignificant and the prospect of seizing control of Arab oil fields by force was pretty unattainable. Still, the idea of this level of dominance was very attractive to a group of hard-line, pro-military Washington insiders that included both Democrats and Republicans. Eventually labeled "neoconservatives," this circle of influential strategists played important roles in the Defense Departments of Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr., at conservative think tanks throughout the '80s and '90s, and today occupies several key posts in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. Most principal among them are: ·Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, our current Vice-President and Defense Secretary respectively, who have been closely aligned since they served with the Ford administration in the 1970s; ·Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the key architect of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq; ·Richard Perle, past-chairman and still-member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board that has great influence over foreign military policies; ·William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and founder of the powerful, neo-conservative think-tank, Project for a New American Century. In the 1970s, however, neither high-level politicos, nor the American people, shared the priorities of this small group of military strategists. In 1979 the Shah of Iran fell and U.S. political sway in the region was greatly jeopardized. In 1980, the Carter Doctrine declared the Gulf "a zone of U.S. influence." It warned (especially the Soviets) that any attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf region would be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the U.S. and repelled by any means necessary, including military force. This was followed by the creation of the Rapid Deployment Force — a military program specifically designed to rush several thousand U.S. troops to the Gulf on short notice. Under President Reagan, the Rapid Deployment Force was transformed into the U.S. Central Command that oversaw the area from eastern Africa to Afghanistan. Bases and support facilities were established throughout the Gulf region, and alliances were expanded with countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Since the first Gulf War, the U.S. has built a network of military bases that now almost completely encircle the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. In 1989, following the end of the Cold War and just prior to the Gulf War, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz produced the 'Defense Planning Guidance' report advocating U.S. military dominance around the globe. The Plan called for the United States to maintain and grow in military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge us on the world stage. Using words like 'preemptive' and military 'forward presence,’ the plan called for the U.S. to be dominant over friends and foes alike. It concluded with the assertion that the U.S. can best attain this position by making itself 'absolutely powerful.' The 1989 plan was spawned after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without the traditional threat to national security, Cheney, Powell and Wolfowitz knew that the military budget would dwindle without new enemies and threats. In an attempt to salvage defense funding, Cheney and company constructed a plan to fill the 'threat blank'. On August 2, 1990 President Bush called a press conference. He explained that the threat of global war had significantly receded, but in its wake a new danger arose. This unforeseen threat to national security could come from any angle and from any power. Iraq, by a remarkable coincidence, invaded Northern Kuwait later the same day. Cheney et al. were out of political power for the eight years of Clinton’s presidency. During this time the neo-conservatives founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The most influential product of the PNAC was a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defense," (www.newamericancentury.org) which called for U.S. military dominance and control of global economic markets. With the election of George W. Bush, the authors of the plan were returned to power: Cheney as vice president, Powell as Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz in the number two spot at the Pentagon. With the old Defense Planning Guidance as the skeleton, the three went back to the drawing board. When their new plan was complete, it included contributions from Wolfowitz's boss Donald Rumsfeld. The old 'preemptive' attacks have now become 'unwarned attacks.' The Powell-Cheney doctrine of military 'forward presence' has been replaced by 'forward deterrence.' The U.S. stands ready to invade any country deemed a possible threat to our economic interests."

Tallahassee Democrat | 09/02/2002 | Clearing up the election that won't die

Clearing up the election that won't die Don't let it happen again!

i saw a bumper sticker...

...it said "drum machines have no soul." I smiled. Point taken, but of course, drums have no soul either, and for that matter I'm not sure about people.

Yahoo! News - Chirac Seeks Law Banning Head Scarves

Yahoo! News - Chirac Seeks Law Banning Head Scarves Wow, what an amazing move on France's part... Bizarre to Americans, right? Is it discrimination? Are necklaces with the cross also banned? Are WWJD (QJFI) t-shirts allowed? As the article points out, the scarf is a symbol of female submission... I remember reading a cover article in UCLA's muslim magazine about how the scarf is really empowering to women. It was one of those things where you could tell the writer was trying to convince herself... I don't imagine that she even succeeded in that modest goal. On the other hand is this a place for the government? I'm all for secularism, but why should a person be able to wear a SNOOP t-shirt (or in france an NTM shirt) but not a religious item. Doesn't the choice belong to the individual? I report, you decide.

The Dead Leaves

just no time to blog these days. Work has gone crazy. We've got a title that were finishing up and I have so much on my plate. Feast or famine, as they say. Band practice on Monday was really sweet. Everyone agreed upon The Dead Leaves for our name so that's out of the way. We have a working arrangement for "girl shaped hole" so we can play it all the way through, and we worked out some 3 part harmonies. Katie's tune sounds awesome. I'm getting better at playing and singing and standing. I wish we could play more. But other than that it's just work work and work. 11 hours a day minimum, although the hours from 5-8 are pretty chill. I haven't had the time to think much on politics or international news... Kinda miss it. Gonna take the GRE in March or June. I think I'll put in a good effort studying. One thing I learned from teaching the SAT is that these tests can be nailed with practice. I hung out with Jason and Sahsa over the weekend. It was pretty cool but we didn't do much. There is a baby grand bellow my attic and Jason's old guitar was freshly strung. They made some sweet music which had me longing a bit for the old pharmacy days. Speaking of Pharmacy I thought of another cool band name: The Pill. Claudia will be here soon. I've kept that off the blog because there is so much to say and so much that is private and so much emotion. But it's just a week away and I'm pretty knocked out about it. It'll be great to have no responsibilities for 1.5 weeks so I can enjoy her visit maximally. I'm growing accustomed to not having money. I'm begining to think I'll live a large part of my life in relative modesty, and I'm coming to terms with that. I don't wanna spend my youth chasing money, I want to chase something else, so that perhaps in my maturity, the money will chase me.

Saturday 02:44 am

What a night! So much running through my head, or so little I'm not sure. They god Saddam.... or at this point there are unconfirmed reports that they got it, there will be an official announcement of some sort or another in 75 minutes. Oh shit this is crazy how can I sleep? They captured Saddam... I was so excited I woke my dad up, he was happy about the capture but not about the phone call... fair enough. People in Iraq are celebrating again... This really could mean a lot for our eventual success there, and make no mistake, as long as we're in there we mght as well succeed. His capture is symbolic for the Iraqi people, and it is great that we didn't kill him, right? We can put him on trial and show the world how pathetic he is instead of martyr him. I worry that this might, as my dad suggested, make Bush a hero... that would be a) absurd, and b) bad for america. I doubt that this will look that great for BushCo in the LONG run, but I have this bad habit of giving "the masses" more credit then they deserve... Beyond that I'm making some progress in designing my future... to use a rather gross phrasing. OH, oh! Here we go, live to an announcement on NBC... here it comes ooooh shit... "US OFFICIALS SAY THEY ARE CERTAIN THAT THEY HAVE CAPTURED SADDAM HUSSEIN. ...WHICH OF COURSE WOULD BE A HUGE VICTORY FOR THE WAR ON TERRORISM AND GEORGE BUSH " (fucked up editorializing by the reporter in Baghdad) In tikrit, by the way. They were at a basement in Tikrit.... You know I'm realizing as I listen to this that you will you will all know what I'm telling you long before you read this on Monday at the office or library or whatever, yeah, ok, so my thoughts here aren't at all reflected upon but I'm just excited I guess about this and wanna write about it. So the other news... yeah... I'll hold it a bit close to my chest for now... Some things I can't write about on here you know? But call me or email me for info.

Schieffer lied about Farmer Gore--and showed you the soul of your 'press corps:'

if ya'll want more content, then do more shouting out, it really means a lot to me to see some meaningful feedback. Otherwise what's the point?

Take No Prisoners

please click here and watch this. I also recommend that you read the text on the bottom of the page.

My technology... specifically my PC is pissing me off to high hell these days. It's enough to make me miss my Mac days. The DVD burner I bough won't burn DVDs, and my computer in general only works on and off as a DVD player for some odd reason. Last night I was watching a Chomsky DVD and the image froze up just a few minutes into it... Meanwhile ALL the stuff on my old hard drive is still inaccessable to me, Windows XP is a messy whore, the old games I like to play are a sketchy proposition at best, too much shit runs in the background, my TV connector seems to be fucked (that one is new this morning), and I can't find a cord I need to get my VGA switch working (my third VGA switch, the others were inadequate for one reason or another), and that's just the shit I can remember. My room is pissing me off too, it's so freeking awkward to DO anything in it other than crawl around and sleep. I'm too damn tall for it. Tonight is the company xmas party, yay, then I'm hanging out with Sasha and Jason, yay. Saturday I'm hanging with grandma and Sunday I hope to edit the short (finally) with John, who is so cool and down as to blow my mind. That guy is awesome. I'm reading this little tome called "The Prophet" and its pretty beautiful stuff, it's got this shell of a story about a prophet "whose ship has come" so the town gathers around to wish him farewell and they ask him to speak on various things like work and marriage and law, which he does in his prophet-like ways. On joy and sorrow: "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?" Nice. On Children: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams." Kinda makes me question my troubles with Windows XP. me and Sasha are looking into a house by Joshua Tree for rent month to month cheaply. We figure get ~6 people and have a second residence for like 50 bux a month each. Have a great weekend y'all.

barrels of yuks

...hilarious. From the begining of an Amazon.com reader review of Coulter's latest masterpiece. Amazon.com: Books: Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism: " Ann Coulter Lifted Up The Rug, November 14, 2003 Reviewer: Joseph Pacelli from USA I was very pleased with Ann's book. It was not written for historians and policy junkies, it was aimed for the average American reader who has taken in years of liberal propaganda from the media, hollywood and the educational system. She shows what I've always believed. That Sen. Joseph McCarthy was right!" (italics and bold mine) ...And it goes on from there...

Yahoo! News - Bush Rejects Europeans on Iraq Contract Flap: "'It's very simple. Our people risked their lives. Friendly coalition folks risked their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that, and that's what the U.S. taxpayers expect,' Bush said." Mr. Bush, you may be very simple, but the politics of Iraq's reconstruction are not. Even an ignoramus like me can tell you that. Coalition soldiers are risking their lives, so what does rewarding your rich buddies --whose kids, I'd wager, are nowhere near Iraq-- have to do with it? Not letting other contries bid for contracts, in addition to being politically absurd, means the reconstruction will cost more. Do the U.S. taxpayers expect that? Where's your free market now, asswipe?

You might be upset or annoyed not to have any updates from me for a few days, but really. Do I have anything important to say? Anything at all that you don't already know? Yes, the world is really fucked. I mean it is in some tremendously bad hands. But you know that. Yep, I had a weekend not unlike yours. Not too good not too bad. I spent some time with the family. I did some eating and some sleeping and some laundry and maybe a bit less partying than usual. One night I probably felt really happy, another night pretty sad. Same old I guess. Actually I went into the office few a few hours on Sunday, which is a new experience. And you know what? Today is Alexandra's birthday, that's pretty cool. She’s 22 today-- funny to think I've known her since before she was allowed to drink in the US. Happy birthday A-dogg! Come to think of it, today was a pretty interesting day at work; I spent the whole day in the recording studio “on script,” which means I made sure the voice-actors said the right lines, and I provided the context when necessary. If we changed a line on the fly, I recorded it in the script. Pretty cool. In other news I’m totally addicted to Diet Vanilla Coke. I can’t make it through my day without a few, I am excited before I drink one. It has to be DVC, nothing else will do. I know it's not the healthiest activity, yet I find the whole experience subtly magical. Popping a fresh can is quite the thrill. A little addiction helps me get through the day, is that so wrong?

911 Victim Ellen Mariani Open Letter To The POTUS

clicmeUS

"Today it was a good day, we got some steaks for dinner and it was going perfect until we heard incoming. I'm tired of this. I don't understand what we're doing wrong. The government probably has a lot of long-term plans for this country, but as far as I'm concerned it's come down to making it alive out of this place." -- US Soldier Uday, now dead Don't forget that Bush hasn't been to ONE funeral for these soldiers. That would be bad publicity. Who wants to see a picture of Bush with crying family members when we can have pictures of him suprising troops and serving turkey.

On CNBC, Russert pandered to Goldberg. So Bernie just pandered right back awesome, just awesome. Daily Howler is AWESOME! Don't forget to watch the gore video I linked to a few days.

This morning I was singing the Neutral Milk Hotel song In the Aeroplane Over the Sea which has a lyric "How strange it is to be anything at all..." This somehow got me thinking about the statistics about how likely it is to be born into a 1st world country since the advent of electricity and to be above the poverty line etc... I forget the odds but lets say its something like 1 in a billion. This is supposed to mean that each of us is very lucky, as the odds are a lot smaller than the odds of winning the lottery. However, because we cannot take the future of humanity into account, we have no idea what the complete set is. After all, it may turn out that 100 years from now, humanity explores space in peace and prosperity for a million years. Unlikely maybe, but illustrative. In such a circumstance, the odds of growing up in "good times" would rise considerably, and a new calculus might make us part of the unlucky group. On the other hand, if you facotr in the fact thaty we were born as people, and not, say, livestock and we start to look pretty lucky again. While me and most of my readers are lucky as compared to our contemporaries on the planet, it's not possible to say that we are lucky or unlucky per se. Regardless, the real magic is that we are anything at all.

My good friend Ben Olson, the successful online futurist, wrote kick ass play about ideology and humanism. Im posting it for your reading pleasure before it is available anyplace else. jordanblackman.com: get your rocks ON: Play- rough draft script[1.jib].doc

Companies' Productivity Soars 9.4 Percent

Yahoo! News - Companies' Productivity Soars 9.4 Percent media = full of poo

I just watched Chris "Clinton's Cock" Matthews get Dean to agree that he went into his draft physical hoping to get a deferment. It will be fun to watch the media make a big deal out of it. Me, it makes me like Dean much more that he had courage to tell the truth. Of course every sane person wanted to get a deferment from Viet-freaking-Nam.

Never trust anyone who overuses the word sincerely. One must wonder about those times when the abuser doesn't use the word. I sincerely hope that you, my loyal reader, had a copasetic thanksgiving. Perhaps you overate, which is proper. Or perhaps you underate or even fasted, which would be a pretty amazing experience, I do believe. Me, your fearful leader? I Took off for San Francisco Wednesday afternoon with 'ma 'n 'pa 'n gran'ma. We piled into the family benz and made it to Max's Opera House Cafe. As serendipity would have it, Murphy had just picked up Miller from the airport, and they came our way via pickup to pick me up. One I was good and picked up we headed to Dave's house in the Inner Sunset district. We spent the night cavorting and carousing. Late in the night, Miller played us some of his latest. It was a forgotten pleasure to hear new Miller/Danny songs and it made me pretty happy. I slept on the couch. And so it went for three nights, or was it four? No, it was three. Each of us spent the days with our families kvetching, and the evening with each other carousing. I'll leave the details aside, and simply say it was a very nice weekend of merriment-- one that truly felt like a holiday. Of course there were family affairs too. We had turley and oh so much more at Spencer's east bay abode. We shopped on the haight ashbury, which is pretty lame, but not as lame as it could be. We ate out at corner bistros and drank coffee. Soon it was Saturday and time to head back. I slept through most of the trip, sorry mom. I arrived in Malibu in good cheer and cleaned up my little attic for the next 24 hours... more or less. Chris sent in his apps and we all have our fingers crossed. Viva thanksgiving.

MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action

The absolute bar none best speech on the relationship between post 9-11 security and the future of american liberty

ROY EDWARD DISNEY November 30, 2003 Mr. Michael D. Eisner, Chairman The Walt Disney Company 500 South Buena Vista Street Burbank, CA 91521 Dear Michael: It is with deep sadness and regret that I send you this letter of resignation from the Walt Disney Company, both as Chairman of the Feature Animation Division and as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. You well know that you and I have had serious differences of opinion about the direction and style of management in the Company in recent years. For whatever reason, you have driven a wedge between me and those I work with even to the extent of requiring some of my associates to report my conversations and activities back to you. I find this intolerable. Finally, you discussed with the Nominating Committee of the Board of Directors its decision to leave my name off the slate of directors to be elected in the coming year, effectively muzzling my voice on the board -- much as you did with Andrea Van de Kamp last year. Michael, I believe your conduct has resulted from my clear and unambiguous statements to you and to the Board of Directors that after 19 years at the helm you are no longer the best person to run the Walt Disney Company. You had a very successful first 10-plus years at the company in partnership with Frank Wells, for which I salute you. But, since Frank's untimely death in 1994m, the Company has lost its focus, its creative energy, and its heritage. As I have said, and as Stanley Gold has documented in letters to you and other members of the Board, this Company, under your leadership has failed during the last seven years in many ways: 1. The failure to bring back ABC Prime Time from the ratings abyss it has been in for years and your inability to program successfully the ABC Family Channel. Both of these failures have had, and I believe will continue to have, significant adverse impact on shareholder value. 2. Your consistent micro-management of everyone around you with the resulting loss of morale throughout the Company. 3. The timidity of your investments in our theme park business. At Disney's California Adventure, Paris and now in Hong Kong, you have tried to build parks "on the cheap" and they show it and the attendance figures reflect it. 4. The perception by all of our stakeholders -- consumers, investors, employees, distributors and suppliers -- that the company is rapacious, soul-less, and always looking for the "quick buck" rather than long-term value which is leading to a loss of public trust. 5. The creative brain drain of the last several years, which is real and continuing, and damages our Company with the loss of every talented employee. 6. Your failure to establish and build constructive relationships with creative partners, especially Pixar, Miramax, and the cable companies distributing our products. 7. Your consistent refusal to establish a clear succession plan. In conclusion, Michael, it is my sincere belief that it is you who should be leaving and not me. Accordingly, I once again call for your resignation or retirement. The Walt Disney Company deserves fresh, energetic leadership at this challenging time in its history just as it did in 1984 when I headed a restructuring which resulted in your recruitment to the Company. I have and will always have an enormous allegiance and respect for this Company, founded by my uncle, Walt, and father, Roy, and to our faithful employees and loyal stockholders. I don't know if you and and other directors can comprehend how painful it is for me and the extended Disney family to arrive at this decision. In accordance with Item 6 of Form S-K and Item 7 of Schedule 14A, I request that you disclose this letter and that you file a copy of this letter as an exhibit to a Company Form 8-K. With sincere regret, (signed) Roy E. Disney

G.O.P. = F O X