News Blog Comments
If a wish is a prediction then I predicted this.
Annnnnnd there's still 4 days to goooo!!! 
Just you wait. At the rate this is going, Saddam Hussein will be found not guilty.
No One Could Have Foreseen the collapse of the Republican party.
You're leaving out Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, David Safavian, Claude Williams, Armstrong Williams & Maggie Gallagher, Judy Miller & Scooter Libby, numerous DHS/alphabet soup employees busted for kiddie porn....it's been an insane two years since the last election.
Actually, I think Hunter Thompson's ghost has gotten bored and decided to stir some shit up....sex, drugs, hookers, gay hookers, hypocrisy, graft, corruption, war, c'mon, this was Hunter's beat....
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!
But seriously, he was indicted? Seriously?
NB, I think the late HT's ghost is going especially heavy on the hypocrisy ingredient
How much you want to bet that on Sunday or Monday Saddam Hussein has another Judge or lawyer shot out from under him, and they have to postpone the verdict for several weeks?
And I bet that the Iranians, who participated in the first October Surprise have ordered everyone on patrol to stay far away from the American vessels as possible.
And just where did all those ex-spooks who worked with Valerie Plame go anyway? Not to mention other ex-CIA and ex-FBI? Lots of free time on their hands these days?
Hart palpitations, hart palpitations, hart palpitations; did the Scooter flip on the Rover, Lord please let this be.
Nota, I think the Republicans screwed themselves by stealing the last election. If the focus was on a President Kerry, how much of this stuff would have been page five? They could have been able to sweep some of this under the rug. And BTW, if President Kerry had said something, they could have used that all week to fire up the base. But Senator Kerry is just another Senator that gets his 15 minutes like everyone else.
Hunter's Revenge, indeed.
Carol--I've been thinking the same sorts of things about the intelligence professionals who got fired and replaced with Bu$hco hacks.
Hart palpitations
Dave, you got something against deer? I mean, I don't like them being within arms reach of some of the parkways I drive on at 60MPH at night, but what's your beef?
Carol--I've been thinking the same sorts of things about the intelligence professionals who got fired and replaced with Bu$hco hacks.
Amazing how anti-communist "liberals" love the CIA these days
what the fuck are you talking about?
wtf?
Hey how do we get Charlie Rangel to shut up until after the elections? He's all over the cable news channels... a train wreck waiting to happen.
S T E I N E R !!!
Hey how do we get Charlie Rangel to shut up
Move to Harlem and vote him out of office.
where in Gods name is the 5th Panzer?
But...but...Kerry told a joke! He wants our troops to die in shame! That's what this election will be about!
I shall burn incense and offer libations of fine dark rum to the shade of Hunter Thompson, to thank him for this heapin' helpin' of poetic justice.
Hubris Sonic,
Being marched to Siberia.
Marx and Lenin,
Which ain't gonna happen. I know, he's my Congressman.
I'll relax with a nice libation (or two) Tuesday night (looks like an 18 yr. old single malt Scotch night!). But I won't really celebrate until the election results are certified.
"Dateline Wed. Nov. 8: Kerry Concedes (Again); Wasn't on Any Ballot"
Is the new Osama tape out yet? I predict it's released in time for this evening's news.
Hubris, what I think M & L is talking about is...relativity.
As more and more of the CIA "old hands" were going off the reservation and starting to leak all the shit bushCo pulled; the skewing of "intelligence" to inflate the Saddam demon-doll, etc., bushCo, especially, Karl Rove, I'm sure, came up with the idea that, after they replaced George "I dutifully chomp political turds" Tenet with Porter Goss, the NEXT step was to purge all of the people who had either dragged their feet, or actively, if quietly, opposed bush's using the CIA to help him pimp his war.
Relatively "honest" heads rolled, and bushCo asskissers replaced them. I agree with M & L and if we take the white house in 2008, one of the first things the new prez should do, is send a fucking swat team to Langley, to drag Goss out and throw him in the street like some wino, and then hold his own little pogrom of all the bushCo "intelligence" gatherers.
And maybe even hire back a few of the old ones, with the instruction that no one's going to politicize their findings, just get it right, goddammit!
Hunter Thompson's ghost is definitely involved here, but my instincts say the Republicans are facing something bigger: the Vengeance of Voodoo City.
When did all this start? You don't mess with New Orleans and just walk away. There were a lot of old bones stirred up when those levees broke.
Papa Legba is getting his licks in.
I'm checking everywhere to see what the fuck you're talking about-- I know Fitz convinced Walton to chuck the memory expert, but that's the last I heard. So what are you talking about?
it's a joke, son, i say, it's a joke. (made me laugh, too)
"I'm checking everywhere to see what the fuck you're talking about-- I know Fitz convinced Walton to chuck the memory expert, but that's the last I heard. So what are you talking about?"
Steve's saying that the Rove "October Surprise" wasn't one. That he was the one surprised by all the "*ss pokin', mistress chokin, chicken chokin', d*ck strokin', and "army brokin'" that's getting all the ink just prior to election day. Thus his "please indict me, I can't take it anymore" caption.
At least, that's how I read it.
Paperpusher.
You made me spit out my coffee conjuring up Foghorn Leghorn with that line.
Rompiendo la monotonia del tiempo
after the 1st term, when they went after social security, it showed that they were out of ideas that were acceptable to a plurality, and were digging deep into the dark inner recesses of big bizness desires. Oh, what a pension fund raid that would have been.
but the war grinds on, coulter becomes more and more boring, and the arrogance of power surfaces along with something I have been expecting to burst since bush day one.
they fired anyone who knew anything and replaced them with party hacks. this leaves a huge pool of dissatisfied carreer civil servants at all levels. these are serious people. and they dont like what has happened to the mechanism of government, thus the leaks and the books and the candidates.
and that is why this election is their breaking point: their purported aliies are running against them all over the country. so the smear machine turns on itself and explodes in a feedback loop.
In the night
In the night
Come and ride your horse
Don't forget the administration ( Under pressure from congressional Republicans) uploading detailed nuclear bomb plans onto an open internet web site:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/
...gressional.html
That's right NUKE plans. They're not just for tweakers anymore:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/24...tml?
eref=rss_us
So what's next, weapons grade plutonium on eBay?
Kerry who?
Been watching CNN a lot more than usual this past week because I'm on a new workout regimen and that's what's on when I'm on the rowing machine. Gotta say, whoever was praying for Kerry to get blown off the headlines just had their prayers answered. Not one word about Kerry this a.m.
Personally after all the dissapointments since 2000 I'm not predicting any sort of landslides. Taking the house will be enough as that will open the floodgates on investigating the criminality that is the Bush regime and will be enough to bring whatever is left of the Bush agenda (social security, permanent tax cuts?) to a sudden halt. Sure, the Senate would be nice as that controls the judiciary but I'm not sure how many new judges are in the pipeline at this point.
2008 and 2010 will be the seminal elections. 2008 because it will decide where the country goes in the post-Bush era. 2010 because it will be the first post-redistricting election after the 2010 census and that could serve to unravel a lot of the GOP gerrymandering that has been their firewall in the house. Most of the population growth here in Texas has been in Democratic or swing areas and there has been a lot of population growth.
Taking back our country is a long-term project. No matter what happens next Tuesday, the momentum is finally on our side.
Oh yeah, the nuke plans were published on the “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal,”
(They took it down just now, Saddam must have sent a DMCA notice).
Hunter Thompson's ghost is definitely involved here, but my instincts say the Republicans are facing something bigger: the Vengeance of Voodoo City.
When did all this start? You don't mess with New Orleans and just walk away. There were a lot of old bones stirred up when those levees broke.
Papa Legba is getting his licks in.
There was a Net rumor going about that some American witches, horrified at what happened to New Orleans, were going to do a powerful set of spells on the administration. To which Net reps of the Voodoo Empire stood up online and said to the effect, Lay off. We're going to handle this one.
Apparently, too many of the ancestors had awoken screaming at being dishonored so...genocidally in New Orleans. One can say hush child only soooo much. You gotta get down to the very root of the problem assailing the living and the dead.
Let's say it's a combined hoodoo. Hunter on the march from the grave, The Voodoo Empire, and the old, tried and trues: god don't love ugly and what comes around, goes around. Shamelessness, hypocrisy, arrogance, hubris. All those closets are flying open, like the covers of pine caskets. Anyday now, any day now...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
2010 because it will be the first post-redistricting election after the 2010 census and that could serve to unravel a lot of the GOP gerrymandering that has been their firewall in the house
I think the 2010 Census results won't affect congressional apportionment until 2012.
"Hunter Thompson's ghost is definitely involved here, but my instincts say the Republicans are facing something bigger: the Vengeance of Voodoo City.
When did all this start? You don't mess with New Orleans and just walk away. There were a lot of old bones stirred up when those levees broke.
Papa Legba is getting his licks in."
You know what, Jim? Much as I'd like to think I've thought this stuff through from every angle, I've gotta admit I didn't really consider that not really un-serious point.
I've commented before about what I saw as the beginning of the fall of the House of Bush, but I must admit that what I now realize is that this *sshole hasn't had a solid seven consecutive good days since last August.
I mean, what are the odds that a couple of thousand angry vodun practitioners have not been working the bad juju on the drunken monkey since he basically sat by and smirked as hell washed over them?
A Madame Laveau here .
A Mister Wade there
Sheee-*t, even a p*ssed off Miss Rudolph waiting in the wings with her dreaded "monkey foot" scratching animal sounds and bad luck out of a mother-f*cker.
Who the hell knows?
All I know is that it's reeeeeeeeaaaal peculiar again how homeboy hasn't had a solid seven straight days where the sh*t broke his way since Katrina. He just hasn't.
And that is interesting.
Someone should tell Kanye West to do a track called "Papa Legba". It seems he may have been the first to call down the curse publicly.
Ayibobo, indeed!
I think the 2010 Census results won't affect congressional apportionment until 2012.
Yeah, you're probably right. I thought about that right after I posted but this comment software doesn't allow edits.
I've been watching Texas politics very closely the past few years since moving here as a complete outsider. I think the 2010 Census will be seminal. All the fast-growing areas of the state are being populated by Hispanic immigrants and non-Texans (people moving here from other states like California and the midwest). You can smell the revolution coming with signs like Lupe Valdez (openly Lesbian Hispanic woman) winning sheriff of Dallas County) and Hubert Vo, Vietnamese immigrant, beating one of the top GOP Good-old-Boys in the last statehouse election.
If the GOP loses its grip on Texas then it will lose it everywhere.
Kent, I agree with you fully about the importance of the next two elections.
LM, what kind of writing do you do professionally? You're very clever!
phoebes:
Written a bit for theater, radio and TV--and the occasional mash note to Rosario Dawson. (But don't tell Driftglass about the last one!)
LM-
Personally, I've been getting good results with High John the Conqueror root and a black cat bone. Bob Ney? That was mine.
From now until Wednesday morning 11/8 there're gonna be people passing out all over the place, because it's just impossible to hold your breath that long.
White males are now a minority. The 2004 election was the high water mark of know-nothing NASCAR confederate males. From now on, it's each sex and race for itself, picking over pieces of the American Empire.
Looks like the Thais beat it to us regarding voodoo cursing of Bush.
See http://www.smh.com.au/articles/
2...6364541599.html
I heard the vodun practitioners activity from a friend of mine who has "connections."
At this point, what comes to mind is the following snippet from Zodiac:
"One of the New York City remote crews drifted by in their van, reminding me: we've got a media apocalypse to run tomorrow, and these guys don't even know it yet.
"For that matter, neither did the victims. They'd been waiting for us to arrive for a month. Today we'd created a big noise and made them look like jerks. Now they were sitting back, holding meetings with their PR flacks, getting started on the damage control. That was awful, they were thinking, but now it's over, and we can stop the bleeding and pour some more death into the oceans.
"Hardey-har-har. Tomorrow they'd need both hands just to hold their intestines in place."
--Neal Stephenson
Hardey-har-har.
Blksista et al RE "karma bomb:"
Hell, it's about time.
Even us Jews have gematrias, Kaballah charms, and diverse incantations. I can't speak from personal experience, but I know that the one main synagogue in NOLA was flooded out; the rabbi was initially prohibited from going in to retrieve Torah scrolls; he did so anyway amid the general chaos. There were apparently gators lounging about in the 4-foot high water but he made a run for it and got the one scroll that hadn't been swept away out.
Sounds like the Rethugs have fucked with just about every earthly representative of every cosmic entitity honored as divine on earth--from some bonehead in Oklahoma pressuring the removal of a statue of Ganesh at a zoo (in an exhibit on the role of elephants in human history) as being "anti-Christian" to some knuckle heads spraypainting "Christ is King" on a Buddhist monastary after some bullshitty "promise keepers" meeting to ethnically profiling every single person in the US who may LOOK Muslim, never mind be one (ask my Jewish Iraqui friend what his summer vacation to Europe was like) to...just about damn near well EVERYONE.
At this rate, if lightning struck and killed the entire functioning US Govermnent I would NOT be surprised. As in not bat an eye, go back to my drink and keep killing zombies on the PS2 nonplussed.
I think the 2010 Census results won't affect congressional apportionment until 2012.
Yeah, you're probably right. I thought about that right after I posted but this comment software doesn't allow edits.
Don't sweat it. After I posted, I realized that the 2010 elections will seat the legislatures that will draw many of the congressional districts. So you're still right.
oh, yeah...after I woke up and came back I felt pretty stupid. sometimes everything's too much to consider.
Karl's a genius, all right.
M&L:
BTW, the 15th Congressional District includes more than just Harlem. And Harlem itself now includes a whole lot of white people due to the surge in new housing.
SOME things have changed.
This series of predictions for 2006 is from the New Orleans Voodoo Crossroads website. I've heard some good stuff about the Reverend Martinie:
Predictions For The US:
Again the economy is on shaky ground. Some companies simply will not make it throughout the year: these will be companies who in the past have put their interests above all else. There may be one of more big auto company in deep trouble for not having paid more attention to the real needs of the consumer and the environment.
[...]
The stock market will fluctuate wildly as the economic situation changes around the world. The inability to appease international tensions, the removal of some countries’ assets from the US or European economies will send the stock market plunging. These will be touted by pundits as “revisions’ and “corrections” but as the year goes on, some people will have suffered major losses.
This is not the year to invest heavily into the stock market unless you know what you are doing and you have good nerves!
The housing market will slowly but surely lose a lot of steam with real estate prices coming down quite a bit. Interest rates will continue to go up.
In spite of all of the administration’s efforts to put up a good front and to convince people that everything is good, the economy will suffer and the consumer’s buying power will decrease under the heavy burden of insignificant wage increases, heavy credit-card debts and a poor job market. The voices of discontent will rise on the national front.
The country will split even more as a very conservative Supreme Court begins to rule on controversial issues. The executive branch will continue to want to solidify and increase its power over all aspects of peoples lives, very much by pitting citizens against each other, the very thing that should not be done at this time. This over-reaching for absolute power will certainly contribute to an atmosphere of paranoia with an increase in crime, anger, recrimination and miscarriages of justice. But it will also destabilize the system as a whole instead of shoring up its power.
Advances will be made by Democrats on the national front. Among these, a strong voice from the past political landscape will be heard again and there will be talk that he may run for president in 2008. His message will be one of intelligent cooperation, peace and incentive for new technologies and protection of the environment. He will rally a lot of people who are generally upset with the state of affairs and have no confidence left in the present administration.
Another major scandal involving the White House itself will come to light and make the malaise even more serious.
[...]
More serious scandals will surface, tainting once more politiciens, and people in high places.
The military situation in Iraq will become even more dire. The US troops being stretched to the maximum of their ability and strength. There will be more and more people opposed to the war - any war!
Global Predictions for 2006:
[...]
This will be a year of great earthquakes and major volcanic activity. Also of intense nuclear threats and possibly some nuclear disaster will occur. Possibly in the mining of uranium or in a nuclear plant.
Terrific tensions willl build within countries such as Israel, Pakistan, Brazil, France, Mexico. The tension between the US, the European Union and Iran will intensify. Only if India join the peace talks can anything be accomplished. But India will demand heavy concessions from the US regarding its neighbor to the Northwest: Pakistan. So more and more the US will find itself hemmed it by its own policies of aggression and strident all-demanding alliances with unstable countries.
I again see lots of difficulties in Pakistan, assassination attempts and coup attempts. Pakistan is literally on the brink of disaster.
Iran is a huge liability.
See http://
www.neworleansvoodoocross...prophecies.html for more.
REALLY interesting.
Abrahmoff greed and corruption? 5(at least)House seats.
Foley, et al, hitting on teenage boys? Forfeit your supposed "moral superiority".
The wrath of Nawlins voodoo down on their heads, with Doktor Thompson with his feet up and a glass of Wild Turkey laughing his ass off?---Priceless!
Selah, Doc. Wish you were still with us.
Say, Jen, that might be the Touro Synagogue in the New Orleans, which is supposed to be the oldest, built in the early 19th century, where that rabbi rescued the Sefer Torahs. I do know something about the esoteric Jewish practices, too. Whenever there were no answers to some national or tribal catastrophe, the esoteric came into play.
Which is probably why Saul consulted that witch to bring up Samuel from his resting for example, since none of the priests directly or remotely heard anything from the jehovah, who had long since fled him...
When the balance is upset, or tipped over unnecessarily (as with the forced expulsions of New Orleans residents), there is always hell to pay. With Bush, you find nothing but murder, neglect, corruption, hubris, dereliction of duty, torture and more murder.
The living and the dead have to be delivered from such idiocy.
Here is a better explanation than voodoo :
http://www.rollingstone.com/
poli..._on_republicans
BlkSista,
Yes, I think Touro is it. I have a pic of the rabbi carrying out a drenched scroll in waders.
Gematrias and other charms are considered quite "kosher" for normal Jews to use, as opposed to summoning the dead which is usually (but not always) a no-no. Any decent Sefir (scribe) can make one a charm, and one can do them at home.
I have a Gematria scotch-taped to the side of my 13-year old computer at home, pending its replacement, for example.
blksista, Lower Manhattanite, et al.: Are you serious about the voudon practitioners going after the administration? Talk about people not to mess with... *shudder* Wouldn't blame them one single bit, either--I believe the rule of thumb for most groups re: casting curses is that you should only curse someone if you yourself would deserve the same punishment were the tables turned (in other words, save it up for the big stuff, not petty little spats), but it would take some real doing for anyone outside the government to come anywhere close to what's been done over the past 6 years. If it's true, well...ain't Karma a bitch?
And Steve, if things this fucked up usually involve your friends and booze, um...perhaps you need some new friends? Just sayin'... 
Robin the mad photographer,
Well, my friends are great people, it's just that shit happens, but there's no need to get into that. Even Jen doesn't like those stories too much
Fresh Hell:
Iranian Long Range Missle Test
So much for Rovian Hopes for A Military October Surprise. The military must already be mobilized and in place for this exercise, so they're watching like teenage hawks for any American activity. And if they can spare one for a test, there's another one ready to go.
Eight hundred miles. Enough to hit any Israeli air base or army base, enough to hit U.S. staging areas in Kuwait or elsewhere. And notice that this is the last test before it's turned under the control of the Army. Once that happens, the stuff is ready to go.
Needless to say, a U.S. warship is a closer and easier target.
Heck, the only thing the Iranians have to do is sink one of our warships in the Straits of Hormuz and dump a few mines around there. Instant oil price shock.
And I can't believe they haven't done the preparation for this already.
Rightwing GOP-supporters are lying, evil, Satanic scum.
Every single one of them.
Fact, not opinion.
Rightwing GOP-supporters are lying, evil, Satanic scum.
Every single one of them.
Fact, not opinion.
====================================
You've hit the nail
on the head, dude.
I concur completely.
What the fuck is happening? Retreating armies fall apart with more grace than the GOP.
Speaking of which, yet another "good Christian" is caught red-handed:
Creation "Science" Evangelist Kent "Dr Dino" Hovind and wife face more than 200 years in jail for tax fraud.
This is the Xtian fantasist who runs the creationist theme park in Florida. It's shaping up to be a banner year (heck, a banner 6-months) for these Know-Nothing thieves and hypocrites.
blksista, Jim and LM,
I want to add another example of bad karma to your Katrina hypothesis. In '03, I was lucky enough to be invited to one of Molly Ivins' last open houseparties. They were word of mouth affairs and anybody who was a friend or a friend of a friend of Molly's got invited.
In short, they were good liberal get togethers in the belly of Blood Red Texas. Once everybody got liquored up, the back patio floor was open. Anybody with a rant, a poem, a song or or some music to play was invited to perform.
One of the entertainers that night was a poet who read "A Letter to My Sister Condi." W. and his team had just come back from Africa, where he had gone for a photo op and to make some empty promises about AIDS support. I think W. had made some clumsy reference to slavery as well, but my memory is foggy.
The poem described slaves in chains traveling to America and warned Condi that she was dishonoring their suffering by aiding the W.'s charade. She warned that their spirits were not pleased and could and would cause all forms of mischief if the disrespect continued.
These clowns were teasing the spirits long before Katrina. That disaster was just the last karmic straw.
Normally I abhor the use of vengeful magics (Google "magic threefold return"), but I can certainly countenance works that expose the truth about what sort of corrupt jerk-offs the ReThugs really are.
Not to say there are no karmic consequences to such works (all we say and do, even think and feel, has karmic implications, after all), but if one if going to resort to sorcery as a fighting tactic, that's the most ethically sound way to do so.
I've heard "Dr" Ken Hovind listened to his debates on infidelguy.com. In my opinion once a man reduces evolution to saying that people came from a rock he is a lying asshole, who even if you hit him with a copy of Straight & Crooked Thinking, attached to a cluex4 would still go around swinging pseudoscientific tripe & spouting bullshit.
If the feds finally get him, which they have been trying to do for years, it might be enough to warm my cold, atheist, heart. Hell, I might even consider believiing in God again, or at least a demiurge.
All hail Hermes, the thrice majestic!
IT should be clear whats happening(the talk of voodo lit that bulb in my head). First rule of magik, you erap what you soe, what gose around comes around, karma baby. Look closely at what the dominiosts have been doing, look at it through an occult eye, they are workign a ritule to bring about the rapture.what the fuck did you think bohemian grove is all about. they never did learn what mr crowly knew If you work the darkness, eventual bad stuff happens to you (he also worked the darkness, he just made ure he had fun while he did it).
Hey rigth wing nut jobs, teh price for power is allways high...its even higher when you take shortcuts.
Sorrry for the tinfoil hat land(just have flash backs to odder days), I'm better now
Robin, Blk Sista and Lower Manhattanite:
Seeing as my parents were from Louisiana, where the talk was real thick around Lake Ponchartrain about voodoo, juju and whoo whoo, I say if that's what it takes to rid the Nation of the Hanna-Barbera/Warner-Bros, Looney Tunes crowd, then get those chicken bones ready and fired up and get the warpaint on, it's going to be a bumpy ride...
Pol Junkie,
You said it...gotta get my Rabbi some kosher ink/parchment and a calculator...wonder if I can somehow slap an Anti Fundie Wall of Protection on the side of my building...
Pol Junkie--HEY! Leave my toons out of this; they deserve better than being compared to the Elephascists!
"Hunter Thompson's ghost is definitely involved here, but my instincts say the Republicans are facing something bigger: the Vengeance of Voodoo City.
When did all this start? You don't mess with New Orleans and just walk away. There were a lot of old bones stirred up when those levees broke.
Papa Legba is getting his licks in."
And all the related commentary...whooo, boy. I just love the image of Hunter and the voudon masters and mistresses calling down karma on those nasty bastards. They brought it on with their own arrogance, lust for power, lust for violence, blithe disregard for the lives and wellbeing of anyone not part of their club, hypocricy and general stupidity and fucked-up-ness. The voudon, if they are involved, are simply focusing the universe's proper attention and wrath where they should be focused.
And Hunter's just tossin' back another drink and keeping them entertained while they work their magics. Wow. I suddenly believe in cosmic justice again.
blksista
Say, Jen, that might be the Touro Synagogue in the New Orleans, which is supposed to be the oldest, built in the early 19th century, where that rabbi rescued the Sefer Torahs.
That was(?) the second oldest. The original Touro synagogue is in Providence RI, built in 1763. May G-d preserve it from the Shoggoths that ever tunnel beneath it.
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