For Jack and Lani Garfield, duct taping the bedroom just won't do. Instead, they've totally updated an old bomb shelter in their backyard, complete with a special ventilation system, a generator and a two-way radio. The retired dentist and his wife, from Palm Springs, Calif., even fixed up the decor, hanging Cold War-era bomb test photos on the wall. "We're ready," says Dr. Garfield.
Cold War nostalgia? I remain dumbfounded at the kinds of atrocities that affluent people are willing to commit in the name of home decor.
With war looking likely, worried homeowners are investing in the latest home addition: the "safe room." With the help of home-security companies, they're putting in food-storage tanks in the basement, blast-proof walls in the garage and fiberglass pods that can be buried in the backyard. One security specialist is selling a portable shelter on eBay -- with two-day shipping included. And while experts say the rooms may not be as safe as some people hope, folks are shelling out from $3,000 to more than $50,000 for one, even when it's just a closet.
Of course, the number of people putting these things in is still small, but companies like American Saferoom Door in Los Angeles say business is up 20% in the past two months, while Zytech, a recently launched Maryland safe-room builder, says it already has a backlog of a dozen orders for its $26,000-and-up customized rooms. Alliance Security Products, a New York company owned by an ex-Israeli army officer, says its six-person tent can function as a safe room on the go. The company says it's sold 150 in the past month -- and has a waiting list four times that long.
Rex Bost's version will be a little more permanent. "We live in scary times," says the North Carolina builder. "This gives me peace of mind." His will be in the basement with foot-thick concrete walls and its own separate ventilation system. And in the event nothing bad happens, the space won't go to waste: He's planning to have it double as a place to practice his guitar, because it will have soundproof walls.
Woohoo! What a rock and roll rebel! I bet Rex Bost even has bumper stickers that say "If the safe room's Iraqin', don't come a-knockin'."
Daily Kos shows that the artificial hysteria accompanying this politically named medical operation — a rare and radical procedure by any standards — is just a tactical maneuver meant to open up a wider attack on women's (and doctors') medical and reproductive choices:
Now if this quote from Bush doesn't scare everyone who cares about Choice, then nothing ever will:
"Partial-birth abortion is an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity, and I commend the Senate for passing legislation to ban it," Bush said in a prepared statement. "Today's action is an important step toward building a culture of life in America."
Note Bush's choice of words: "an important step". All those who decry "slippery slope" arguments, that the ban on this rare procedure doesn't mean Bush and GOP will ban all abortions, need only read those words once again:
Today's action is an important step toward building a culture of life in America.
Code-word alert: "important step" equals "we're not stopping here," and "culture of life" means "we'll do anything that ultrapoliticized Christians from the South tell us to do."
We're not talking about the wholesale slaughter of near-term babies. We're talking about a rare situation...where two doctors, unrelated to abortion, come together and agree that the pregnancy should end for medical reason. The extremists, who have no problem executing children and men on death row, have problems terminating pregnancies where the mother's health is in trouble. It's murder, they say. God told them so.
[…]
If the health of a pregnant woman is in an immediate danger that could be alleviated through termination of that pregnancy, shouldn't we stop relying on providence and instead rely on science? Shouldn't each situation and medical decision be left to the doctors involved, instead of some fundy fruitcakes who get their marching orders from On High?
Providence only gets you only so far before the shackles are applied and enlightenment is shadowed by repression. The fundamentalists have show us that much.
Those favoring the ban are, logically, predominantly Republican and male. There are a total of 14 women senators, who represented 25 percent of the votes against the ban.
Simultaneously, the Republican House voted to remove accountability from medicine by placing an arbitrary cap on malpractice damages, replacing the role of judges and juries with numbers chosen at random by Republican lobbyists. So according to the compassionate logic of the conservatives' plan, Linda McDougal, who had two breasts accidently removed by her doctors, will be entitled to damages of only up to $125,000 per surgically removed healthy breast.
Punitive awards are considered taxable by current IRS standards. The $250,000 lifetime cap on malpractice damages becomes especially ludicrous when you realize that Dick Cheney received $278,103 in 2001 in dividends alone which, through the magic of Republican reasoning, they are proposing to make totally tax-free.
Then, when you consider that 75 million Americans have gone uninsured within the last two years — coincidentally the reign of the oxymoronic "compassionate conservatism" — you realize that the Republican party is systematically attacking and debilitating American citizens by preventing their access to health care, to reproductive choices, and to meaningful remedies for medical errors.
And all GOP posturing is now done in the name of God, which makes it seem respectable and holy, but in fact it's homicide in slow motion. More than a few of the 2.8 million newly unemployed, and their children who go without health care, will get sick and many will die — all while the Republican-controlled Congress, Supreme Court, and White House play patty-cake with Christian zealots who are actively invading your bedroom, your workplace, your courts, your schools, your libraries, and your privacy in and out of your doctor’s offices.
As in every other area of policy, this administration places political expediency over common sense, justice, decency, and the personal liberties of American citizens. There is no freedom — and no morality — without choice.
Who is best equipped to handle the speculum: your doctor, or Karl Rove*?
*Remember that Karl Rove helped Christian zealot Ralph Reed get a $500,000+ kickback from now-ailing and abandoned Enron Corporation, which, like Arthur Andersen, has since outlived its political usefulness to the White House and is now left out in the cold to die a slow death.
Stocks rose sharply today (3/13/03), as investors overcame some of their worries about a possible war with Iraq and bought beaten-down shares after the United States indicated its willingness to delay a vote on a United Nations resolution against Baghdad until next week.
The beating your 401(k) account has taken since the Clinton years is linked to the uncertainty that Bush war plans impose on the financial markets, which translates into a general unwillingness to invest in jobs, facilities, or equipment. Add to that W's record deficit spending, the limitless costs of Iraqi reconstruction, the unknown costs of confrontation with North Korea, and anyone can see that the economy cannot recover until the beating of the war drums begins to fade.
It's ironic, but true: with the exception of the few industries to which his family is connected (energy, defense, security), Bush's war is very bad for business.
Digital genres, a May 30–31 conference at the University of Chicago:
In 1924 Gilbert Seldes' The 7 Lively Arts made one of the earliest and most powerful arguments that popular genres of entertainment such as jazz and cinema deserved the same critical attention afforded the fine arts - a view that is now widely accepted. This conference seeks to do today for digital genres what Seldes did for the lively arts eighty years before.
The conference is based on the idea that digital and network technologies are creating new methods of communication that, like the popular genres of the 1920, allow novel forms of creativity and expression. After a half-century dominated by the mass-media, we argue that it is these new genres - the genres that will preoccupy us on this side of the millennium - that are the true successors to Seldes' lively arts. What can slash, blogs, massively multiplayer games, fan fiction, chat rooms, and other popular genres tell us about how humans communicate? And how do they shed light on human meaning making more generally? Moving away from Seldes' concept of 'art' to a more embracing notion of 'genre' as a general method of understanding the structured, meaningful, and dialogic nature of cultural production, the conference examines a wide variety of cultural production enabled by digital technology. Please join us.
Furthermore, in National Public Radio's archive addresses to the National Press Club, Mrs. Cheney's status is conflicted. In the archive she is identified as Lynne Cheney, "Wife of Vice President Dick Cheney." The page at the web site devoted to the address she is identified as a "senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute," but the photo of Mrs. Cheney on the same page comes from the White House.
Speaking of photos from the White House, we're always happy for a gratuitous opportunity to run this parody photo.
Shocking and awful. Jeanne d'Arc of Body and Soul reports on Cheney and Rumsfeld whose misspent youth consisted of building hostile regimes they can now work to dismantle. She also provides a scary picture I have never seen before.
Among some of the media accompanying military units, there is a palpable gung-ho attitude. Many reporters have decked themselves out in uniforms virtually indistinguishable from those of the soldiers they will be covering, some even going so far as to have their names and the word "Correspondent" embroidered on their breast pockets. At least one reporter marched to the front with a large American flag clipped to his backpack.
The Fox News Network dispatched former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a conservative commentator, to a Marine unit to cover the war.
The Stockholm Syndrome finds a cousin in Baghdad. Link via Romanesko.
At first glance, terms of the potential reconstruction effort look identical to those of the 1991 war against Iraq, with U.S.-based engineering giants Bechtel Group Inc. (X.BTL), Halliburton Co. (HAL) and others looking like prime candidates to be named prime contractors. But experts say practical and political challenges this time could also cause a larger share of work to flow toward U.K. companies.
"Particularly because our prime minister has gone out on a limb to support the U.S. administration, there is likely to be an expectation among British companies that they would be asked to bid for contracts," said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management Ltd. in London.
[…]
"Where we would hope the U.S. would look with a favorable eye on U.K. companies is in subcontracting," he said.
The U.K. is so far the only country to provide weapons and soldiers for the planned U.S.-led invasion.
[…]
One recent estimate by Yale University economics professor William D. Nordhaus puts the cost of [Iraqi] reconstruction and nation-building at between $25 billion and $100 billion. Washington's diplomatic isolation may shorten the list of countries willing to help pay those costs, with the U.S. the only nation to outline spending plans.
[…]
Even a short war could bring huge damage to Iraq's airports, railroads, bridges, ports, communications centers and power systems, Rosser said, presenting opportunities for U.K.-based companies with these skills.
U.K. companies were understandably reluctant to speak on the record about the amount of business they expect to gain after any conflict in Iraq.
Among those that have spoken publicly is medical instrument supplier Smith & Nephew Plc (U.SN). Its chief executive, Chris O'Donnell, recently called a surge in war-related demand an unasked for benefit for his industry.
A spokesman for Smith & Nephew said the company would expect demand to rise for bandages, "keyhole" surgery equipment and orthopedic products such as limb implants. He declined to estimate how much additional demand there might be.
[…]
Of these, Amec Plc (U.AME) is a primary beneficiary, not only because it fought oil well fires in Kuwait, but because it has greatly expanded its global work in oil and gas engineering and construction services.
And, according to a senior company official, Amec's relations with the U.S. Department of Defense are "stronger and closer" than ever thanks to the company's clean up and reconstruction of the Pentagon building and the World Trade Center following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Buttery biscuits for Bush and Blair, and a shroud of political silence for the people of the US and the UK who oppose their manias.
Translation: "The Bush Warriors: America's military campaign against evil." ["Die" means "the" in this context.]
The accompanying article (in German only) dated March 4 is entitled "The war that came out of a think tank," referring to the Project for a New American Century [pdf file]. There's also a chart (also in German) of "Washington's Power Circle," with all the usual suspects.
Der Spiegel ("The Mirror") is a German newsmagazine roughly equivalent to Time or Newsweek in the US.
In the cover illustration, W's pretzel pendant is a nice touch.
W stands for Wackenhut, and vice versa. Steven Baum at Ethel points us to a 1992 article from the sorely missed Spy Magazine. The story reports on a Wackenhut employee and former Marine named David Ramirez who was sent on a mission in the winter of 1990 to accompany a truck from Texas to Chicago:
A little before 5:00 on the morning of the third day [of the mission], they delivered the trailer to a practically empty warehouse outside Chicago. A burly man who had been waiting for them on the loading dock told them to take off the locks and go home, and that was that. They were on a plane back to Miami that afternoon. Later Ramirez's superiors told him — as they told other SID agents about similar midnight runs — that the trucks contained $40 million worth of food stamps. After considering the secrecy, the way the team was assembled and the orders not to stop or open the truck, Ramirez decided he didn't believe that explanation.
Neither do we. One reason is simple: A Department of Agriculture official simply denies that food stamps are shipped that way. "Someone is blowing smoke," he says. Another reason is that after a six-month investigation, in the course of which we spoke to more than 300 people, we believe we know what the truck did contain — equipment necessary for the manufacture of chemical weapons — and where it was headed: to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And the Wackenhut Corporation — a publicly traded company with strong ties to the CIA and federal contracts worth $200 million a year — was making sure Saddam would be getting his equipment intact.
The eight-page article is well worth reading if you're curious how Saddam procured all his evil WMD.
George and Richard Wackenhut, owners of Wackenhut Corporation, operate 13 prisons in the Lone Star State. They are so enthusiastic about fellow Republican George "Dubya" Bush and his race for the presidency that they have contributed considerable sums to his election campaigns.
Bush's ties to the prison-industrial complex raise troubling questions about his posturing as a "compassionate conservative". It sheds light on his "lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" policy on the incarceration of drug users — even though Bush does not deny reports that he snorted cocaine in his youth.
It also reveals much about his hard-line support for the death penalty which he has imposed 137 times since taking office, more than any other governor.
Bush sent Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham) to his death despite widespread doubt about his guilt. He also executed Karla Faye Tucker, the first women in 100 years executed in Texas, despite worldwide calls for clemency.
The death penalty is a centerpiece of the GOP's [Republicans'] policy of criminalising youth and people of colour.
That policy has resulted in the incarceration of 1.8 million people in US prisons, rivalling the number of youth attending college.
At least US$35 billion is spent each year on prison incarceration and the "privatisers" of the GOP see this industry as a lush pasture for super-profits.
No wonder the Repubs are better at catching bong dealers than terrorists. They're much easier to catch, and much more lucrative to imprison, as Wackenhut Corrections Corporation boasts in its "Fast Facts" (excerpts):
WCC was one of the first companies ever to capitalize on the trend toward government outsourcing of correctional and detention services.
Today, we are one of the world's largest public companies managing privatized correctional and detention facilities - and we're the second largest provider of correctional services to the United States Federal Government.
We estimate the United States private correctional and detention industry at $40 billion. We have a 21 percent share of the United States market and 55 percent share of the international market for a combined global market share of 27 percent.
We have 57 correctional and hospital facilities under contract and/or award, which comprise approximately 42,500 beds for males, females, adults, juveniles, pre-trial and sentenced offenders and special needs.
That works out to about $8 billion for their share of the US market, and probably lots more for the rest of the world.
With 42,500 beds (sounds so cozy, doesn't it?), Wackenhut approaches the achievement of the hotel and resort company Westin and its 52,000 beds. As another global leader in the temporary human storage industry, perhaps Wackenhut should recycle some of Westin's ad campaign headlines: 1) "Good business people go to Heaven." 2) "Work like the devil. Sleep like an angel." 3) "He's the best in sales. He's the best in golf. He deserves the best in bed. Who is he sleeping with?"
Peek behind the drapes and you'll see that Wackenhut and elected officials are sleeping with each other.
After all the empty talk in Washington about fixing important entitlements programs, something refreshing happened this week: The President delivered a remarkably sensible blueprint for fixing Medicare and dramatically improving the quality of health care for all seniors.
Choice is an important element of this proposal. Seniors would be given the same kinds of choices currently available to members of Congress, with traditional Medicare still an option, and they wouldn't be forced into HMOs. Also included is long overdue relief for runaway prescription drug costs, with a new discount card and an additional subsidy for poor seniors.
The partisan bickering in Washington over Medicare has gone on for too long, and it's time for Congress to come through for seniors this year.
The president's plan, with its emphasis on giving Medicare the funding it needs and providing better benefits, seems like an excellent starting point.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the $500,000 contract was revealed in a new ruling by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who noted an "apparent lack of work for the money," a phrase which translates into "bribe" or "kickback" in English.
(By the way, the FEC website is fun for kids of all ages. You can type in "Lay, Kenneth" on this page and see all the hard and soft money ($358,910!) contributions he made to a huge laundry list of the new right wing, including George W. Bush, Charles Hagel, and even the $25,000 he personally gave to the Ashcroft Victory Committee.)
In another recent article on Enron, we learn that Jeff Skilling, the CEO who helped sell $110 million in fictitious broadband revenues (the Blockbuster deal code-named "Braveheart") to investors, "has not surfaced as a target for charges over the deal."
So we watch Ralph Reed, Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling wander, overcompensated and unpunished, into the sunset.
Meanwhile, who bore the brunt of the Enron indictments? The only one who noticed that the emperor was naked — Arthur Andersen:
[Arthur] Andersen partner Carl Bass, a member of an internal review team demoted for disagreeing with Enron on interpretation of accounting rules, testified that he discouraged Enron's attempt to sell its share of the Blockbuster deal to CIBC because it was not "a real business with cash flows."
But it was Arthur Andersen, the firm, that was indicted in the resulting scandal. Not Enron profiteers Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay, Ralph Reed, or, for that matter, "boy" Karl Rove and the "genius" of his Bush 2000 campaign. They used real, albeit stolen, money from fake businesses to engineer a highly questionable election.
As the USA moves ever closer toward a cynical corporate Christian theocracy, it's not an idle question: Who would Jesus indict?
UPDATE: And, an hour later, we get our answer! Thirty minutes ago, the Wall Street Journal (subscription req'd) reported the following:
Arrest warrants brought in Houston charge Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and making false statements to FBI agents. Both are executives with Enron Broadband Services.
The two men, who still work for Enron, surrendered Wednesday morning to FBI agents and were scheduled to make initial court appearances later in the day.
The charges stem from an attempt by Enron, in partnership with the Blockbuster Inc. video outlet chain, to set up an Internet video-on-demand business using broadband technology. Like many other Enron transactions, this one carried a fanciful code name: “Braveheart.”
If your reaction to the names Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz was "Who?" — your reaction is totally correct. Whatever their involvement, they are scapegoats.
A central sector, including Baghdad, will be administered by Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, the sources said. She served in that post in October 2000, when the destroyer USS Cole was bombed in Aden harbor.
Barbara was central to defeating the FBI's counterterrorism investigation of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen while she was ambassador there as reported by PBS Frontline.
That investigation was headed by John O'Neill, the maverick FBI counterterrorism expert who was forced out of the bureau in August 2001 because he wouldn't act appropriately worshipful of his inept superiors like interim FBI director Tom Pickard. O'Neill had the names of two of the hijackers who flew into the Pentagon on his desk one month before 9-11, when he was kicked out the FBI door. He subsequently took a job which turned out to be his last — John O'Neill died in the attack on his new employer, the World Trade Center in New York City.
Barbara Bodine, the new Queen of Baghdad, is ironically enough the same person who forced O'Neill out of Yemen in 2001 as he tried to connect the Al-Qaeda dots back to Osama bin Laden, who had known ties to Yemen and who is not now, and never was, Iraqi.
Barbara Bodine is a harbinger of death. She stymied the USS Cole investigation, and helped to prevent the one man who was figuring out Osama bin Laden's real story from acting effectively. Her presence in the scheme for postwar Baghdad expands the arguments about incompetence and deception as basic principles of Bush foreign policy.
A federal judge has refused to prohibit the U.S. government from potentially prosecuting two women with painful ailments whose doctors say marijuana is their only medical solace.
In the first case of its kind, the two California medical marijuana users sued Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking a court order allowing them to smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without threat or fear of federal prosecution.
[...]
Raich suffers from a variety of ailments, including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. Raich and her doctor say marijuana is the only drug that helps her pain and keeps her eating. She says she was partially paralyzed on the right side of her body until she started smoking marijuana.
Who will Ashcroft prosecute next? What exactly are the Department of Justice's priorities? Do we have any idea who the anthrax murderers-by-mail of October 2001 were? Have there been any indictments of millionaire thieves and former Enron CEOs Ken Lay or Jeff Skilling?
No, the Department of Justice prefers to focus on prosecuting women with brain cancer and closing down the websites of bong dealers. Once again, common sense evaporates in the law enforcement priorities of the Maniac from Missouri.
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar — In a warehouse that until a few weeks ago housed American tanks and armored vehicles, which are now in Kuwait preparing for a war against Iraq, a Hollywood set designer is overseeing feverish efforts to complete a $200,000 stage in time for military briefers to deliver news of that war to gathered reporters and a worldwide television audience.
The glitzy, high-tech set, half as wide as a basketball court, features a soft focus blue and white map of the world as its backdrop. Hanging from industrial gray steel stanchions and girders will be five 50-inch and two 70-inch plasma video screens. The TV screens will display all manner of video, computer images, maps and just about anything else officers from America’s Central Command might want to show.
This set will have more audio-visual bells and whistles than anything in the White House or the Pentagon.
In fact, said a technician flown here from the White House to install the electronic gear, "this totally sets a whole new standard to present information."
[...]
The designer of this high-tech, high-impact set is George Allison, 43, whose last major credit was art director for the Mike and Kirk Douglas movie "It Runs in the Family." He also designed the $89 million set for ABC’s "Good Morning America." More important, he has designed stage settings for appearances by President George W. Bush.
"It’s about bringing the level of technology up from the flip chart to the modern age," Allison said as he sat, paint spattered on his arms and hands, watching the final touches on his set. "It’s trying to send a very clear message about technology and the use of it."
Air Force Col. Ray Shepherd, director of public affairs for Central Command, said, "We use the latest technology in our military operations. It’s only fitting we use it here."
Besides, he said, most Americans get their news from television and are used to a certain level of visual sophistication. "We want to come as close as we can to the standards they're used to seeing on television," he said.
As a symbol of the American military’s growing media sophistication, you couldn't do better than the briefing room/TV set. The set is part of a 17,000-square-foot media center that will host journalists not just from America but from every European country, China, Japan and even the Arab TV network al-Jazeera, which some in the military refer to as the enemy station. Not only do these journalists speak a babel of foreign languages, they use a babel of television systems. Not to worry. The military technicians in the media center will be able to convert any form of video into any other of the world’s formats. On the spot.
[...]
"I can’t tell you how much high-level support we’re getting for this," Shepherd said. One reflection of that high-level interest: Central Command's "strategic communicator" is Jim Wilkinson, who came over from his job as deputy communications director at the Bush White House.
It was Wilkinson who dreamed up the stretched canvas backdrops that appeared behind Bush with key phrases printed on them: Strengthen Medicare, A Home of Your Own, Corporate Responsibility. And it was Allison who designed them.
Allison's set in the Qatar briefing room has had its share of glitches. He was told the ceiling would be 15 feet high and he designed the set accordingly. When he arrived he found the ceiling was only 11.5 feet high. The stage was lowered.
One more measure of how important the military thinks the appearance of this stage is. Most of the set was built in Chicago and then sent by Federal Express to Qatar. At a cost, Allison said, of $47,000.
But the final measure of how little may have changed in military-media relations is this: Unnamed Defense Department officials ordered the Central Command public affairs officers to bar photographs of the set while it was under construction. No explanation was offered.
Places! Lights... camera... cue Ethel Merman Colin Powell....
There's no people like show people, They smile when they are low Even with a turkey that you know will fold, You may be stranded out in the cold Still you wouldn't change it for a sack of gold, Let's go on with the show!
"Sing out, Colin!" yells stage manager Karl Rove, with his clipboard, smiling from the wings with a wave of approval. Next, he turns on the STANDING OVATION sign (#7).
13] In Deuteronomy WORLD WAR and ATOMIC HOLOCAUST both occur with two dates 2000 and 2006. There is also IT WILL STRIKE THEM, TO DESTROY, ANNIHILATE crossing WORLD WAR.
14] From Genesis 44:4 to Exodus 10:16 there is encoded ARMAGEDDON in the Hebrew form of Harn Megiddo (Mount Mediggo) now the site of an Israeli Airbase. Also there is ASAD HOLOCAUST (Asad is Syria's president) and SHOOTING FROM THE MILITARY POST.
That sucking sound, besides all your money disappearing to pay for a Crusade, is The Rapture lifting every Christian fundamentalist cretin skyward after they've created hell here on earth.
Separated by less than a city block, KPFT-FM, a listener-supported champion of "progressive" causes, and KPRC-AM, a heavyweight of right-wing talk programming, have marshalled thousands for rallies and marches that aired views on war with Iraq.
Though they maintain a cordial collegiality, the stations are at odds by their very nature.
At KPFT, one of six Pacifica stations nationwide, political passion trumps profit. The station formally has editorialized against U.S. intervention in Iraq and has moved news and commentary into prime-time slots. Weekly listenership approaches 158,000.
KPRC, one of eight Houston stations of the Clear Channel Communications megachain, officially is neutral. But its two talk-show hosts, Pat Gray and Chris Baker, conservatives in the Rush Limbaugh mold, have boosted the station to a No. 2 ranking in the local AM market. As a commercial station, its passion is profit.
This story is much bigger than right-wing bias on the radio. It's the massive nationwide corporate subsidization of right-wing bias that is the real problem.
You would think that owning eight radio stations in Houston alone would be enough, but you would be wrong about that. Clear Channel is one of the chief corporate behemoths in favor of relaxing the rules of media consolidation. They want more. They want all the public airwaves to themselves, and Colin Powell's son Michael, the lackey of a lackey and head of the FCC, is helping them as much and as quickly as he can.
Lynne Cheney is apparently unwilling to play the clown at Cowboy Bush's Amateur Rodeo in Washington DC, despite the event's successes at roping Katherine Harris, Antonin Scalia, Colin Powell, and countless other little dogies for the big GOP roundup, as flank rider Karl Rove keeps the herd moving toward the branding iron.
In case you're wondering, this parody photo is one being fought by White House legal counsel at American taxpayer expense.
