A word on feeding the hungry

A group, Poverty.com, has put together this nifty vocabulary quiz that lets you send 20 grains of rice where it's needed through the United Nations. The advertisers on each quiz answer page pays for the rice.

You may have seen it already, because it seems to be a hit in the blogosphere. I acquired more than 6,000 grains of rice in about 15 minutes. I suppose that's only a couple of cups, actually, but the quiz is fun and educational -- and endless.

Too little, too late

The Record's Herb Jackson, formerly of the Asbury Park Press, gives the best rundown on Thursday's 235-181 energy bill vote in the House that would move a little -- not enough -- money from oil subsidies to renewable fuel incentives. Senate gamesmanship on Friday seemed pretty clear it won't get through there unless Big Oil gets its payday, so it's anyone's guess this where it will stand now. I'm not optimistic.

Also will update what whistleblowing FBI translator Sibel Edmonds knows and why it matters to New Jersey.

Ah, the flashbacks

Thank you, Mike Gravel, for keeping this presidential campaign interesting.

Power to the people, and give peace a chance.



More on Gravel's candidacy and background here.

Christian Girls Gone Wild

The next video ad for late-night TV, perhaps?

This sermon clip is poor quality, but it gives a hint where the CIA may be selling the good drugs these days.

"...a holy ghost enema right up your rear end, because God won't tolerate anything else."

Chris Christie as media magician

Debbie Holtz at Politicker NJ put together a nice timeline on the fortuitous "leaks" -- again -- from U.S. attorney Chris Christie's office this week that bumped his class-action scandal to lesser news holes.

On Monday, 11/19, a spokesman for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft responds to the Star Ledger's questions about the no-bid federal monitoring deal. By Monday evening, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie provides comments to the Ledger.


Monday, 11/19, Star Ledger, Internet, 10:01pm: $52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss


Tuesday, 11/20, Star Ledger, Print Edition: 52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss


Sometime before 9:00 am on Tuesday, an exclusive leak to The Record reveals an ongoing search being conducted at both the office and home of state Senator Joseph Coniglio. The Record arrives at both locations with a reporter, photographers and videographer to capture live footage of the raid.


Tuesday, 11/20, The Record: Federal agents search Coniglio's home


Tuesday, The Record, Live Video Feed of the event on 11/20: Feds seize documents from Coniglio's home and office

Happy Thanksgiving

Can you say "dollar store"?



I like the "dapper-dressed rabbits" and Bush as the ironically saluting squirrel.

And, "John Madden, how would your parents feel if they knew they gave birth to such an ass?"

Give thanks today to Bric-a-Brac Theatre.

Smooth move, future guv'na

I can't get over how starved people are for a political rock star that most of the public and the media don't see U.S. Attorney Chris Christie for the ever-so-partisan politician he is. He's smart, sure enough, but deceptive.

Last night, the Star-Ledger broke a peek at reality by reporting how Christie is using the $311 million settlement he got against the four biggest companies in the knee/hip replacement industry to kick back a record $52 million to his old boss, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who could go on the campaign trail himself again in his home state of Missouri just as Christie is expected to be the Republican savior for the 2009 gubernatorial ticket here.

And Ashcroft's is one of several law firms the settlement is employing, which seems to leave little of that $311 left to compensate the actual victims.

The complexity of how this money gets laundered (my opinion, not a legal judgment) from the corporations to Ashcroft's bank account -- $750,000 of it literally -- is quite fascinating. I can't help but imagine this might have been a point of discussion in Christie's legal negotiations. Because of confidentiality of lawyers and investigators, I'm guessing we'll never know exactly how this deal went down, even though it was our tax money.

Watch for these companies and their top dogs as contributors to Ashcroft's or Christie's political campaigns down the road: Stryker Orthopedics of Mahwah; the Biomet division of Johnson & Johnson; Zimmer Holdings of Indiana; and Smith & Nephew, a British company operating here from Memphis, Tenn.

Oh, the irony of this settlement being to end "a probe into kickbacks" by these companies. The best place to hide something really is right under someone's nose.

Let's see how much each actual victim receives in the end. If it's like consumers in many class-action "settlements," it'll be pennies -- and will be paid only after the victim signs a convoluted indemnity contracts promising never to get wise and sue the companies on their own.

Hat tip and discussion over at Blue Jersey. Flickr photo by Steve Lubetkin.

Another fine first lady candidate

Awesome first lady in waiting

Michelle Obama has struck me in every interview as being smart and unpretentious. She hit the nail on the head again in this interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski

When Brzezinski related a personal anecdote about an African American flight attendant who had said Sen. Obama couldn't win "because he's black," the candidate's wife sympathized.

"That's right. That's the psychology that's going on in our heads, in our souls, and I understand it," she said. "I know where it comes from. You know, and I think that is one of the horrible legacies of racism and discrimination and oppression."

But she's confident husband Barack will overtake frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though Clinton polls higher in African American communities.

"Black Americans will wake up and get it," Obama said. "But what we're dealing with in the black community is just the natural fear of possibility. When I look at my life, the stuff that we're seeing in these polls is played out my whole life: always been told by somebody that I'm not ready, you know, I can't do something, my scores weren't high enough."

(Flickr pictr by lynnereneephoto)

Did you ever wonder ...?

Who makes up digital amusements like "Tater People" and why?

Why don't they sign it and get credit for their work? Maybe they create these things goofing around on company time. What do you think?

Happy Halloween

Purrfect explanation of the immigration debate

XXX sermon

Ah, this classic Oral Roberts tape is growing legs in the blogosphere. I guess they don't call his movement charismatic for nothing. Talk dirty to me, Big Boy:



My favorite part is his denouncement of "INSANE" hOmoooosexxxuals who "D-I-E die":

"I go to church too, but it didn't, you know, make me queer. Well, I wouldn't buy that 100%. Please erase that from the tape. Let's edit that part out, OK?"

Too close for comfort

Philadelphia has a judge who thinks it's just fine for men to gang rape a working girl at gunpoint. Because the 20-year-old single mom agreed to certain sexual acts for money, it's only "theft of service" when the home she agreed to go to turned out to be an abandoned building where she was held at gunpoint and raped by 4 men, says Judge Teresa Carr Deni. Deni dropped, for no legal reason, all the sexual and assault charges, including assault with a deadly weapon. Feministe has the story.

When some of the same guys did the same thing a few days later in a completely separate case with another woman, prosecutor Rich DeSipio didn't even bring the case because he "wouldn’t demean her that way,” calling the earlier case "a farce." And did he try to prosecute any of them on prostitution charges? Apparently, Philadelphia officially condones that.

Shame on both of them. It's open season on women in Philadelphia.

Merry War-mass

The War on Christmas comes earlier every year -- now as soon as we're done worshiping Chris Columbus.

And what would Jesus, prince of peace and preacher on the Mount, love more than this bumper sticker?

"This is America! And I'm going to say it: 'Merry Christmas!'"

In the words of Eddie Murphy, "I'm Gumby, dammit."

Blog of the week

Interesting blog of artists and poets, Exterminating Angel Press, has this Floyd Webster Rudmin editorial.

Conspiracy theory is "deconstructive history" because it is in rebellion against official explanations and against orthodox journalism and orthodox history. Conspiracy theorists cast out demography, market forces, technological development, social evolution, and other abstract, constructed categories of explanation. Conspiracy theory is radically empirical: tangible facts are the focus, especially facts that orthodox doctrine tries to make disappear. There is a ruthless reduction down to what is without doubt real, namely, persons. Conspiracy theory presumes that human events are caused by people acting as people do, including cooperating, planning, cheating, deceiving, and pursuing power.

Quote of the week

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.”

Was she really just talking about Russia in this New York Times piece?

Flickr photo: Buddy Stone

Let's see them call him a fibber now

The right-wing propagandists managed to twist Vice President Al Gore's rightful statements that he had a role in initiating the Internet as we know it and that his friendship with Erich Segal was one of the inspirations for the author's tear-jerker, "Love Story."

The Nobel committee has awarded its annual Peace Prize to Al Gore, and that's about as clear and absolute as claims to fame get.

Can't be a little bit pregnant

And New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, a Bush Pioneer eyeing Drumthwacket, can't be a little bit partisan.

His office issued three press releases yesterday about indictments against Democrats around the state but failed to mention the FBI caught a pretty big Republican fish.

Frank Barbera, the former Treasurer of the Atlantic County Republican Party and a political ally of County Executive Dennis Levinson, was arrested by FBI agents this week on bribery charges ... Barbera is accused of offering a $5,000 bribe to Craig Callaway in 2005, while Callaway was serving as the Atlantic City Council President. Callaway is now serving a 40-month sentence following his own bribery conviction.

Where's Rudy?

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald comes through again.

And Pallone makes a trifecta for man week here

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth, did a terrific job speaking for me, complete with snark (you go, Frank!) at the end of his speech asking for Rush Limbaugh to be held to the same standards as MoveOn.org. (I'd actually have had him add Ann "poison Justice Stevens' creme broule" Coulter to that speech.)



Blue Jersey has more of the story and links to Media Matters' as-ever fabulous work in speaking truth to power.

So our Jersey Boy is a "bear"?

I can't top Steven Hart's post at BlueJersey and cross-posted at Opinion Mill:

In today's news from the socio-cultural front, New Jersey-bred auteur Kevin Smith is slated to become a magazine-cover sex symbol.
The creator of Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl is going to be featured on the cover of A Bear's Life, a magazine for broad-beamed hirsute fellas and the men who dig them. As Smith explains:

Within that community there are bears - guys who look like me - and dudes who are really into them, who are called cubs. And, apparently, I'm the focus of a lot of admiration in this community. I'd be considered something of a coup, a score for a cub - the ultimate bear to get.
And they called and said, "Do you want to be on the cover of a magazine?" I was like, "Are you telling me there's someone out there who sexualizes me? I'll be on that magazine, totally."

More at Queerty.com.

I (heart) Evo Morales

Isn't Bolivia's first indigenous president adorable? I want to bring him home so he can nationalize our oil industry and give the land back to the people to use productively, instead of industry polluting it.

She's right, you know

If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any more goddamn wars. Go Gidget.

The 9/11 memory hole

Poignant is the talking point of the day, but factual reality is what's on our radar.

That's why this piece today in Raw Story by Peter Lance, author of "1000 Years for Revenge," is a fascinating read. It's a narrative, so open the link when you have time to read it in entirety.

I didn't know Lance was gagged. Did you? I've been wondering why a top investigative reporter on al Qaeda would participate in the made-for-TV propaganda, "Path to 9/11," and never explain why.

Our former N.J. Gov. Thomas H. Kean's role in this narrative is significant, and Lance leaves me thinking there's more to the Kean story than he tells us here. We should be more curious about these things.

Cyrus failed to underscore the significance of the two fighters being scrambled out of Otis Air National Guard (ANG) base on Cape Cod, 188 miles from Ground Zero; arriving too late to interdict UA #175 which had hit the South Tower.

By the time he’d written the script, Nowrasteh had read my second 9/11 book Cover Up and he knew – per a Dec. 5, 2003 Bergent (sic) Record story quoting his advisor Gov. Tom Kean - that there were two F-16’s from an identical ANG base in Atlantic City which could have reached Manhattan in under eight minutes that day.

But they were never scrambled by NEADS or NORAD; a glaring omission left out of Kean’s 9/11 Commission Report that any desk assistant for ABC News could have uncovered with a simple search on Google.

The video I'm recommending for those who want to remember the truth, not the "1984"ed version of Sept. 11, 2001, is a documentary DVD featuring our own 9/11 widows dubbed the Jersey Girls, "9/11: Press for the Truth."