Murdoch's "Precious"

--- Below is my comment on Bill Moyer's Huffington Post Blog Entry "On Murdoch" ---

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/on-murdoch_b_54361.html

Mr. Moyers, I think you are quite accurate in saying that Murdoch is "all appetite and no taste" in pursuit of his fresh corporate prey. Murdoch's pursuit of the Wall Street Journal has more to do with his ego than his need. That the Bancroft family has been reticent to give him what he wants has only stoked his passions to make the Wall Street Journal his possession. It's not what the Wall Street Journal "is" that makes Murdoch want it , it's that somebody has had the audacity to say he can't have it.

As far as a Murdoch ownership of the Wall Street Journal is concerned, I've never been a fan of the paper's editorial line and therefore get a certain amount of glee that the Wall Street Journal may become the possession of the tabloid king. I know there are discussions on "fire-walling" the editorial page from Murdoch misuse, but once this Media Don owns the paper he will do with it what he wants, to be sure. Maybe Murdoch does have a practical purpose in acquiring WSJ, in having a sense that ownership of the Wall Street Journal will bring credibility to some of the other media garbage he owns, but in reality the Wall Street Journal, with the change of ownership, will in an instant lose the credibility it has built up over the last 118 years. But Murdoch is probably blind to that fact, and only cares that he will have his "precious" and the Wall Street Journal will join the News Corp playpen.

As an aside, I'm thinking that the sale of the paper will be announced on July 8th, the anniversary of the Wall Street Journal's founding, or maybe July 7th if Murdoch is still on Australian time.

The grave state of American Journalism won't be corrected by the blocking of this sale, but maybe it will expand, by the number of subscribers of the Wall Street Journal, the individuals who believe that there is a problem in the current state of American media ownership that needs to be addressed.

Paris Hilton - Eloi on the Menu

Paris Hilton is an Eloi.

"The Eloi are one of the two post-human races in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine. In the year AD 802,701 humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the spoiled, attractive upper class, living in luxury on the surface of the earth while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing and infrastructure for the Eloi."

As you can guess, if Paris is an Eloi then the rest of us must be Morlocks.

" ...while the Morlocks continue to support the world's infrastructure and serve the Eloi, the Eloi have undergone significant physical and mental deterioration. Having solved all problems which required strength, intelligence or virtue, they have slowly become dissolute, frail animals. While one initially has the impression that the Eloi live a life of play and toil less abundance, it is revealed that the Morlocks are tending to the Eloi's needs for the same reason a farmer tends to cattle - because the Eloi compose most (if not all) of the Morlocks diet and the Eloi are no longer capable of acting in any other role than to be eaten by the morlocks"

While certainly I don't think anyone would want to substitute Paris for some other protein in their current diet, there is definitely consumption of Paris Hilton taking place amongst we Morlocks. On a day when the Senate issued long overdue subpoenas to the White House, the Vice President's office and the Justice Department regarding the domestic wiretapping transgressions, CNN gifted us with hours of coverage of our sweet little Eloi.

We also learned how we Morlocks consume our little Eloi through tabloids, and porn sites, and appearance payments, and crappy music, and her half wit reality show ... We Morlocks feast so, on this little Eloi, that she can afford to be marginally educated and talentless, eye candy.

I'd continue but I am so full of Paris at this point I need some Mylanta.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloi

Time to Link America's Defense and Responsibility

The following is my comment in response to Hal Donahue's Huffington Post piece :

Honor, Tradition, Courage: Broken Tiles, Broken Healthcare System

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hal-donahue/honor-tradition-courage_b_49565.html

It is long past the time for the funding of the VA to be included as a part of the overall Defense Spending Bill. Having separate VA appropriations bills from the Defense Spending Bills allows for stalling and delays in getting the funds where they are needed to aid our ailing troops.

An allocation of 25% of the total amount of every Defense Spending Bill should be earmarked for the VA as a mandate.

We have millions of Vets, some back to WWII, who rely on the VA for health care, and for their service and sacrifices for the United States it has to be the best money can buy, not merely some half-assed pill dispensary with a revolving door.

In addition to the Veterans who need quality health care, we need funding for intervention, counciling and housing for the estimated 80,000 homeless Vets across America, whose reward for service to their country is a stained piece of cardboard under a freeway overpass ... These individuals gave their all for America and they deserve better than to shiver in darkness alone.

There also needs to be a revitalization of the GI Bill which gives returning troops every opportunity to get education, employment and housing as befits a returning hero ... not a smile, trinkets and a cold shoulder.

This VA funding MUST be factored into every Defense Spending Bill that Congress sends to the President, not only because it is the right thing to do for those who put so much on the line for us, but to remind the Congress and the President, every funding cycle, of the human cost of War and to reinforce that funding Defense is more than just funding for well lobbied, substandard, weapons platforms.

The Iraq War .. Whose Legacy, Really?

H. CON. RES. 63

---

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That--

(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and

(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

Passed the House of Representatives February 16, 2007.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110ZLuX7a::

Today the Senate Republicans, in a rare Saturday session, exhibited cowardice as a Political Art by not allowing a vote on a resolution opposing President Bush's troop escalation in Iraq. The same resolution that on Friday, passed 246 -182 in the House with 17 Republicans defecting to the side of reason. Today's resolution was an opportunity to get on the record where the individual Senators stood on the very clear issue of escalation of American Military presence in the ongoing sectarian Iraq Civil War.

Numerous red herrings have been offered by the minority Republican members linking the resolution above with cutting funding to our troops in the field. I'm sorry, but reading and re-reading the resolution, I found, does not indicate anything about funding or not funding our troops. I hear remarks how this resolution is some insidious first step to abandoning US Military personal to starvation and murder at the hands of the Iraqi Insurgents . I'm afraid that just doesn't hold water.

The Republicans are the first to wield "Support of Our Troops" as a righteous light saber in the face of opponents to the war. Of course, with all of the injured coming back from the Middle East Campaign the Veterans Administration has reached a point where it has to ration medical care to them because of lack of funding. The Republicans could have passed legislation, while they were in the majority, to fully fund the VA and, thereby, tangibly demonstrate their support of our troops, they didn't. Maybe my problem is I don't understand the Republican definition of "support".

There is also much banter about how the Republicans are, at their heart, engaging in this obstructionism to support their "War Time President", George W. Bush. I sense there is something far more germane to the Republican position than protecting the historical legacy of one of the worst Presidents in Republican Party History ... hear me out.

In Vietnam, Truman sent the first advisers into the French debacle in 1950; in 1954, Eisenhower up the ante and the US was shouldering 80% of the cost; JFK inherited the policy and continued it; LBJ and Nixon escalated and mismanaged the effort, Ford oversaw the ultimate defeat and retreat of American forces. In Vietnam, there was enough political damage to be shared by both the Democrats and the Republicans. Iraq is different ... the Republicans own Iraq.

True there was a nearly bipartisan vote to grant President Bush the right to use force against Saddam, but when questions began to arise the control of Congress, the Constitutional Body of Oversight, by the Republicans came into play. Tom "The Hammer" Delay, flush with testosterone, kept the Republican flock in line. With smug assurance that the Democrats were politically irrelevant after the seemingly permanent shift to the Right the Nation displayed in elections since the birth of the Republican Congressional Majority, the Republican's sat on their hands and let the Dems twist in the wind. The election of 2006 took the wind out of their sails. and presented the Republicans with a HUGE problem. A failing war effort and no one but themselves to blame, or worse yet, take responsibility. The Republican's own the Iraq debacle, and it is the legacy of the Republican Party, not President Bush, they are concerned about.

The brutal sectarian violence unleashed by the invasion of Iraq is unlikely to end soon, in a land where seeking vengeance is the Muslim equivalent of Christianity's, "Turn the other Cheek". If the US troops are withdrawn from Iraq the implications for the Republican Party will be dire. In 100 years if a Republican President (probably a Yale Grad) decides to embark on some military adventure, the opposition Party leader, whether Democrat or what have you, can point an accusatory finger from the Well of the Senate and boldly state:

"Remember Iraq! The Republicans are at it again!"

For the war to collapse during the Bush presidency would cause an emasculation of the Republican Party that would endure. The Senate Republicans understand this, all too well. American's don't cater to losers, a retreat from Iraq is an undeniable Republican defeat.

The Republicans can't go on record in support of President Bush, whose poll ratings are in free fall, with an election coming in 08 that could really pull the rug out from under them, and they certainly can't align themselves with the Democrats, in many areas of the Country that would be political suicide. All that their cowardice allows them is hollow, non binding platitudes in support of American Military Personnel in the Iraq, and the kind of obstructionism the Senate Republicans displayed today. The only hope for the Republican Party is to stall America's imminent withdrawal from Iraq until they can either taint the Democrats, or can see a Democratic President in office they can blame for Iraq and save their skins.

The obstructionism and stalling, of course, is the Republican way of supporting our troops, by keeping them employed in Iraq, at least until the next National Election.

FogBelter out ....

Pop-up Porn Bouffant

I was taken aback by I story I came across on CNN’s website about a substitute teacher in Norwich, Connecticut who potentially faced 40 years in prison for exposing 7^th graders to pornography on a school PC

(See story => http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/02/13/teacher.porn.ap/index.html )

Mrs. Amero, the substitute teacher, innocently used a classroom PC to send an to email her husband before a class, after receiving permission from a co-teacher. After using the computer, Mrs. Amero left the classroom to use the restroom, leaving the permanent teacher, who granted her access to the PC and some of her students alone in the class. When she returned to the classroom she found her colleague had left and the students were surfing the web. The students had gone to a hairdressing website, when suddenly the PC exploded with hardcore porn pop-ups, which the students saw. For this the teacher went to trial and was convicted.

Okay, several problems here. First, as is the case in most American schools, the PC that was being used in the Middle School was antiquated and not being properly administered by the responsible parties at the school. The school had no firewall software, nor Antivirus or Anti-Spyware applications installed on their Internet connected PC to protect it from the malware that plagues the Internet. Any computer savvy person could tell you virus protection is a must. Furthermore, in a rush to convict Mrs. Amero, the prosecutors didn’t even bother to check the PC in question for viruses … sloppy and unprofessional. I mean, you swab a rape victim for evidence, you check for fingerprints at a crime scene, in the 21^st Century, you check a computer for virus infection in a case like this. Second, based on the article, it seems that the substitute teacher was also cursed by have a jury of ignorant people, who after years of mass media exposure relating to perverts in positions of authority, couldn’t tell a victim of circumstance from Richard Allen Davis.

A story I know of parallels the case above. A friend of mine worked in a Computer Data Center as a Supervisor. His crew consisted of 9 men a 1 woman. One day, the only woman in the environment reported that she was having a problem with her PC. My friend went to investigate and discovered that when he booted the PC he was getting a flurry of gambling pop-ups. Someone had been surfing the Net and picked up a virus on the PC. Not good, but manageable he thought. He ran various anti-virus software on the PC and had some success, but was still getting some very stubborn, but benign, pop-ups. After he ran a third virus-scan on the PC, he managed to kill the gambling pop-ups, but then, with the female employee watching over his shoulder, all hell broke loose … The gambling pop-ups had been acting as a cork, holding back what was really infecting the PC … PORN. Not the run of the mill porn mind you, pop-ups of some of the raunchiest, most violent, perverse stuff he had ever seen. Oral, anal, animals, kids … you name it, it popped up. He furiously clicked away at the pop-ups, attempting to close them, with the employee, eyes bugged out and mouth agape, taking in the pornographic deluge. “Oh my GOD!” the employee shrieked and ran to the other side of office, face bright red, trembling. My friend frantically clicked away, in a hopeless attempt to stop the pop-ups. “Fix my machine! I can’t work like this!!! You need to fix my machine!!!!” In total frustration at not being able to take control of the PC, he yanked the power cord from the wall … a mosaic of woman with dogs, and men with … god knows what … faded as the power was cut.

My friend apologized profusely to his employee, and immediately contacted the Desktop Support of his company. He turned over the PC to them and requested that they reformat the hard drive and rebuild the image on the PC. The Tech told my friend he had some amazing software that would “scour the drive” of any virus or spyware. My friend had his doubts, but went with the Tech’s plan because this was his expertise. A day later the tech returned the PC to the office stating … “My God that was a bitch to clean!”

The PC was setup on the employee’s desk with a clean bill of health. The employee came in, sat at her desk, and booted up her PC. Then from his office, my friend heard a shriek. He ran out to the Operations area and found his female employee, bright red, apoplectic, with an accusatory finger pointed at him, while on her PC monitor he observed a veritable pop-up “fireworks display” of gay porn, animal porn, kiddy porn, exploding across the screen.

“You did this on purpose!!!!!” she shrieked at him as his BP went through the ceiling and thoughts of termination for breaching the company’s sexual harassment policy swirled in his brain. As a reactive response, he yanked the power cord from the wall, tore the CPU, with the peripherals attached, from the lady’s desk, dragged them across the Operations area and threw them on the floor in his office. To make a long story short, my friend ordered a new PC for the employee and watched as the Desktop Tech reformatted, then degaussed the old hard drive and sent it out for destruction.

The moral is, what happened to Mrs.Amero could happen to anyone. PC’s in a public environment are susceptible to misuse and in Public Schools, are often poorly managed. It would be a travesty if she were to spend 40 years in jail for this. She was merely an unwitting victim of technology.

And, as for how the PC became contaminated in the first place, ask the janitor. My friend did.

FogBelter out…….

McCain Fears "Tet Offensive" in Iraq - I fear McCain Presidency

You know ... John McCain might be a little out of it and that's why he regurgitates Vietnam analogies all the time. I reviewed his history and it makes me a little nervous about him being President ... I mean, here's a guy who's Father and Grandfather were 4 Star Admirals and he still saw combat in Vietnam? How does THAT work? He's not a lucky man! I mean, he should have been able to spend the Vietnam War checking Japanese hookers for gonorrhea with that pedigree ... not stuck in an actual war zone! Not a lucky guy ... then there was that Forrestal thing ... 134 dead naval personnel because someone accidentally shot McCain's A-4E Skyhawk with a Zuni rocket while it was parked on the deck of his aircraft carrier! Not a lucky guy! Then ... after he recovered from the conflagration on the Forrestal, he gets himself assigned to the Saints squadron of the 16th Air Wing, known for having the highest loss rate of the Vietnam War. Not a big surprise for "Mr Lucky" McCain! Neither was it surprising that McCain's winning streak would have him shot down down over Vietnam ... adding to the 16th Air Wing's glorious string of combat losses. And even though Lucky Johnny broke both arms and a leg in his crash into Truc Bach Lake, he was lucky enough to be found by a mob of Vietnamese who rewarded his attempts at providing them liberty, by spitting on him, kicking him and providing that most friendly of Viet Cong greetings ... a bayonet through the groin. Again ... a bayonet ... through ... the groin. It's no wonder "Lucky" McCain falls back on happy thoughts like the Tet Offensive, which he enjoyed from Hanoi Hilton, which supposedly sells some pretty cool t-shirts today :-) ... The point ... you may ask? I'm not sure if there is a Tet Offensive in our future in Iraq, but after George W Bush, I sure hope there is a Lucky President in our future ... period. And John ... careful with that razor, huh ... we love you ya big paluka!

To Burn or not to Burn...

It must be election season because the Republicans are rolling out another Constitutional Amendment regarding Flag Burning. I’ve never considered Flag Burning myself, but as an act of self expression protected by the Constitution, I feel the status quo on the subject is fine. Sure, there will be bleeding-heart pseudo-Patriots who will beg through clinched teeth and tear streaked faces that Old Glory is representative of all that makes the United States good and right … and of course they would be wrong.

The Supreme Court set the record on what the flag represented in 1901, after the United States acquired the Philippines, and its 10 million inhabitants, from Spain for 20 million dollars as the settlement of Spanish American War. Since slavery had been abolished with the 13th Amendment and there was no explicit description within the Constitution allowing for colonies or the holding of persons divested of rights, there was a sticky issue that required the Supreme Court’s opinion. As of the Treaty of Paris in 1898, the Filipinos were living under the American flag, but with no Constitutional Rights. The Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision where none of the concurring judges could agree on the rational for the decision, decided that the rights and protections of the US Constitution do not necessarily follow the American Flag. In essence, the Supreme Court, in 1901, divorced Old Glory from the Constitution, thereby reducing the flag to little more than a territorial marker.

Under this reality, it is a waste of time to protect Old Glory with an Amendment to the Constitution it doesn’t even represent