American College Students Banned from Withholding Personal Contact Information from Military Recruiters

In a clearly desperate attempt to maintain troop levels more than five years into an ill-conceived, ill-fated, illegal, and disastrous invasion of Iraq, the Defense Department has dreamed up a new, superdraconian interpretation of existing draconian regulations that clearly interfere with the free speech rights of every employee of every university in the country that receives any federal funding whatsoever. If the DOD gets its way, students who request that their respective universities withhold personal academic, demographic and contact data (such as academic interests, home addresses, and unlisted phone numbers) from military recruiters will have to have that data withheld from ALL prospective employers, even if those students specifically request that that information is withheld only from military recruiters. The DOD is very well known in the United States for its discriminatory and unfair treatment of gay and lesbian citizens. It is unclear why it has become so intent on obtaining the personal data of many folks it would never hire because of its own discriminatory and abusive policies.

One Small Victory For One Small Mind

The Daily News is reporting that the owner of Geno's Steaks, whose name is actually Joey, will not be prosecuted further in response to his posting a sign explaining that he is capable of conducting business in only one language.

Homeland "Security" Inappropriately Targets Gay, Lesbian, and Environtmentally Concerned Americans for Intimidation and Harassment

Apologists for the United States' pathetic and deplorable slide into fascism [and especially for allowing the Bush-Cheney junta to get away with election fraud twice] would like to explain away this web page as the ramblings of a bigoted Alabaman whose internet user privileges need to be curtailed. The page was pulled down after a minor hubbub began to swirl around it on the web. [Of course, most corporate "news" outlets ignored the story until the existence of widely read independent bloggers made that impossible.] Ganymede's Ghost obtained the copy shown above from a Google cache after simply searching the Alabama Homeland Security URL for the word gay. It was the only hit despite the fact that they tried to remove it. Having just been singled out for antigay harassment by a homeland "security" associate myself [for the putative offences of wearing a belt and forgetting to remove my keys and iPod from my pockets at an airport checkpoint] over a thousand miles away from Alabama in the birthplace of our liberty, I suggest that this web page is indicative of a national policy directive that is not yet widely publicized.

Dick Cheney Is Full of Shit

Responding to a shortage of virgin unicorn blood, doctors seem to have discovered that pumping Dick Cheney full of shit has slowed the process believed to be turning him into a giant blood clot. We may all rejoice in the fact the process has been slowed down enough to allow him to continue the Bush-Cheney junta's assualt on the rule of law.

I'm Not Sure If This Will Help, But I Feel The Need To Try

According to MoveOn.org, there will be hundreds of emergency veto rallies across the country today to protest the president's impending veto of a military spending bill that requires him to begin extricating our family members in the troops from the sectarian disaster he has allowed to unfold in Iraq. I plan to attend the rally on the northwest corner of Center Square (Philadelphia City Hall) at 5:15 today with my friend Jason [with whom I was planning to attend the Night of a Thousand Stevies in a few short weeks—until I saw the "film" that started it all, Gypsie 83, which was an entertaining movie even though it inaccurately stereotyped Pennsylvania and its inhabitants in several ways].

So anyway, if you go to a rally [here's where to find one more convenient for you if Center City doesn't work], bring pots, pans, noisemakers, and creative signs. The one in Center City will convene at Center Square and proceed down Market to Senator Specter's office at 6th and Market in the square brown [appropriate color choice if you like bullshit] federal office building. He's been saying he wants to bring our family members in the troops home as soon as possible and that Congress must hold the executive branch constitutionally accountable, but he continues to vote for the Bush-Cheney junta's profoundly flawed policies that were formulated on cynical lies and distortions intended only to enrich materialistically his cronies in certain military-industrial sectors of the economy. Strangely, local corporate media outlets have been ignoring this dishonest behavior. The organizers of today's rally intend to change that.

The Brits think Hillary won the debate [and that we are obsessed with guns].

Quickly! Someone bring more fresh virgin unicorn blood! Cheney is turning back into a giant clot, and Kucinich won't introduce the Articles of Impeachment until he's on the mend.

We are killing each other at an alarming rate, but at least we're not going to lock up some peace activists who tried to visit the offices of former Senator Santorum.

Il n'y a pas de mots pour "Partial Birth" en français

The French think we are sliding faster et plus vitesse down a slippery slope.

Bush-Cheney Junta Continues to Violate International Law

The BBC is reporting that, according to Amnesty International, conditions for the 385 people being held hostage without due process by US "personnel" at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base are actually getting worse. Most hostages are now being held in solitary confinement, isolated twenty-two hours daily and only allowed to exercise at night. Many routinely go for days without seeing sunlight. This news comes after Bush's newly appointed Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, has recommended closing the facility because it hurts our ability to get along with other countries that are opposed to both terrorism and fascism.

Gonzales' Goon Squad Backs Down, for Now

The AP is reporting that independent videographer, Joshua Wolf, has been released from federal detention after 226 days. He had refused to surrender video footage [that we now know shows mostly police brutality] obtained at the G8 protests in San Francisco in 2005. Instead of surrendering it to the secretive [and we now know politically compromised] federal grand jury that was investigating the injury of a police officer during the protests, Wolf arranged to have the footage posted publicly on the web. While the Gonzales Goon Squad (GGS) is still claiming the prerogative to compel Wolf to testify in person before the grand jury, Wolf made a clear public statement immediately following his release that he has no intention of testifying before the grand jury. Watching the footage and making the assumption that GGS wants to win its case, I'd think it would be unlikely that they would actually try to make the guy testify. But once you know that one third of our current federal prosecutors were chosen for their political loyalty to a would-be dictator over their professional abilities, you realize that winning cases might not be what it's all about anymore.

What happens when a Severely Deluded US Senator wants to take a stroll in Bagdad to prove that he's not Deluded?

Over a hundred American troops have to drop what they're doing to secure his perimeter. Thinkprogress is already reporting that snipers have returned to the lucky open-air market our Republican senators chose for their latest installment of political theater [of the absurd].

In a surprise move today, the Supreme Court has ruled that greenhouse gases are actually greenhouse gases and the EPA has the authority to regulate all of the pollution coming out of tail pipes, not just the pollution that existed as pollution prior to 1860.

So That's What Happened!

The Bush-Cheney junta gutted the civil rights division of the Department of Justice a while ago. This must explain the so-called [and oxymoronically labeled] Patriot Act, Guantanamo, illegal wiretapping of domestic communications between citizens not suspected of any crimes, the heterosupremacist marriage ammendment, intimidation of poor and minority voters, &c.

Here's a blog that's well worth the read. The author is not one of the "bloggers" quoted by Bush last week, saying things are getting better in Bagdad. According to another blog well worth the read, Bush actually quoted an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that he misconfabulated as a blog [he still must be getting used to all this new internets jargon].

Another Reason Why NYC Is the Safest Big City in the US [and Philly Isn't]

Now it's illegal [in a city of eight million souls] for more than fifty "pedestrians, bikes, or other human-powered vehicles" to go in the same direction at the same time without getting a "parade permit." Is that like a dancehall license? How can they outlaw dancing when the bars don't have to close 'til 4:00? What happens when everybody gets off the train from Jersey and sprints in the same direction out of Penn Sation? Do they need a separate permit for each escalator? I don't know, Virginia. I live in Philadelphia. We still believe in Mother Earth. Our traffic can be just as bad, but we don't freak out when a bunch of hippies on bikes go weaving in and out of our gridlock. We even maintain our calm while packs of roller bladers and skateboarders do it out of pure joy with absolutely no ulterior political motives [like saving the planet].

Is this a frightening new development or just Republican political operatives trying to plant evidence of chemical weapons being used in Iraq?

One of the Attorney General's chief advisors has made it clear that she intends to invoke her Fifth Ammendment right not to be compelled to testify against herself under oath. Isn't that nice [and ironic].

Here’s a real-life example of why the so-called Patriot Act was a tyranical idea. People are now trying to explain away their Orwellian fascist tendancies as "procedural errors."

In another horrifying new development, Iraqi sectarians begin using chemical weapons in their civil war that was catalyzed by an illegal invasion and failed occupation.