NEXT SUNDAY WILL BE A SORRY DAY IN ESPN & NFL SPORTS HISTORY -
RUSH LIMBO MUMBO JUMBO MAKES HIS ESPN DEBUT. Details

Kick Out the Sports! by Bob Cook

Rush Limbaugh was recently hired as a commentator on ESPN's NFL pregame show to provide the "voice of the fan." In a statement, an ESPN executive explained the hiring of the bombastic radio conservative by saying, "We want to give fans a voice, and Rush is the person who can do it." In the same prepared statement, Limbaugh explained his qualifications by saying, "Football is like life and I know life." Limbaugh gets a commentary, as well as three opportunities to offer a counterpoint. The following is what Limbaugh's appearances may sound like, using the King of the Dittoheads' own quotes:

Chris Berman: Hello, we're back on "NFL Countdown." Let's move along to our "Voice of the Fan" segment, and who has a bigger and better voice, myself excluded, than Rush "To Judgment" Limbaugh. So let's see what's on your mind, eh, Rush?

Rush Limbaugh: With half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair!

Jackson: How can we keep this guy on? He makes no sense, and what is this stuff about (his brain being bigger than ours)?

Limbaugh (to Jackson): Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.

Jackson: What sort of racist crap is this? Don't you know I'm black? Don't you know black people watch this show?

Limbaugh: They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?

Berman: Whoa, there's a man who, uh, knows his demographic! For ESPN NFL Countdown, I'm Chris Berman, saying, I bet Fox doesn't even go this far on its pregame show!
Read this entire conversation online at Flakmagazine

Please register your discontent with Mark Shapiro at Espn HERE

Thought (good one!) for the day
There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra than Alzheimer's research. By 2020, there should be a large elderly population with perky breasts, never-ending erections and no recollection of what to do with either of them. Tip to Cynical Cyn

AS THIS STORY UNFOLDS I continue to be amazed that this administration is so arrogant that it fails to keep even an appearance of propriety. The Bush misadministration is so confident that America does not care how much money is funneled to powerful insider contributors that they don't even try to hide the obvious conflict of interest violations constituted by the huge profiteering of the Halliburton Corporation. At 1.3 Billion a month given in IRAQ to private companies like Halliburton the oil is not flowing, the lights are seldom on, and the troops are suffering without basic services while 'confessed felon Halliburton' with a history of ripping off taxpayers and shareholders is allowed unprecedented opportunity to steal from Americans. Do Americans care? Would they if they knew?
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought

Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HALLIBURTON
Mother Jones July 23, 2003 Issue is featuring a fascinating (and frightening) map of the Halliburton empire. Created by Michael Scherer, this interactive map lets you explore the tax havens, defense-related contracts, and federal energy subsidies in the company's global web consisting of offices in 70 countries and annual revenues of $12.6 billion.

Since Dick Cheney took over as CEO of Halliburton in 1995, after serving as secretary of defense during Gulf War I, the company has had tight political connections -- revenues rose 26 percent in his first year. "Federal investigators looking into charges that Halliburton defrauded taxpayers said that company officials "had the upper hand at the Pentagon because they knew the process like the back of their hand."Scherer shows that Halliburton continues to remain well-connected. The tax dollars the company receives -- $2.2 billion in defense-related contracts and generous subsidies for profitable pipeline projects -- "couldn't come at a better time for Halliburton," Scherer states, "its share price has collapsed under the weight of asbestos lawsuits, a federal investigation into its accounting practices, and a drop in oil prices." And Halliburton adds insult to injury to the American people by avoiding paying taxes, Scherer notes. "In 1995, the company had nine subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other countries that serve as tax havens. By 2002, it had 58."

HALLIBURTON HAS A STRANGLEHOLD ON THE WORLD'S OIL SUPPLY. What happens if Halliburton decides that parts are 'out of stock' or repair service on the hundreds of oil drilling, transportation, and storage services it provides is currently unavailable? Halliburton is everywhere the oil is in the world. Next time - forget next time - THIS TIME as gasoline prices rise and supplies fall we know who has the power to be the cause. If Halliburton chooses to slow down the oil supply slows down. Time to wake up and smell the crude stench of absolute power America. It is the stench emanating from the undisclosed location of the Vice-President of the United States. Lilith at A Rational Animal has more and this story will tell you how it all started for Halliburton when Cheney was Secretary of Defense and he paid Kellog Brown Root 8.9 million dollars to write a report on how privatization would work for the Military Quartermaster Services and Logistics that resulted in today's feast at the public trough.
WE do know that Halliburton is making huge amounts of money on no bid taxpayer funded government contracts despite the fact that Halliburton:
1) pled guilty to a felony paid a 1.2 million dollar fine
2) moved ops to overseas tax shelters to avoid millions in taxes
3) over charged taxpayers 2 million dollars on a Fort Ord contract
4) offered to settle fraud lawsuits by stockholders for 6 million dollars.
5) admitted to illegal bribes in Nigeria
6) paid Dick Cheney 40 million dollars
7) is under SEC Investigation for questionable accounting practices.
8) Gives hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions to Republicans only.

Despite these violations of law and trust Dick Cheney's old company is raking in big bucks to make the oil flow.
That has to be worth the blood spilled and the money spent by US Taxpayers and soldiers; OR DOES IT??
This answers the question of why we went to war in IRAQ.
Follow the money and figure out the end result.
The END justifies any reason or means for those who profit on the blood and trust of the American public.

TROLLING in TENNESSEE part VI Smith and Davidson Counties.

(Pink and Blue counties previously reported down the blog.)
SMITH COUNTY sits near the edge of the highland rim in the central basin of Tennessee. From this poor county Albert Gore Sr. made his way to teachers college and returned to teach and take the bus into Nashville most evenings to attend law school at the YMCA. These folks who know the Gore's best voted for Al Jr. 67 to 32 pecent in 2000. Cordell Hull Lake on the Cumberland River is the cheif attraction in an area that is too rugged and hilly to be of much use as farm land. It is not strange that Al Gore came from these poor but honest surroundings to lead in the fight against the Vietnam war and to sponsor good liberal programs to lift his fellow men from poverty. People in Smith County know each other well and the Gore's have been there for generations. This is the meaning of roots, backbone, and chatacter that exist in the Gore's but are sadly lacking in the Bush clan.

Population, 2000 17,712 percent change, 1990 to 2000 25.2%
White 95.4% Black or African American 2.5% 16.4%
High school graduates 67.5% Bachelor's degree or higher 9.3%
Median income, 1999 $35,625 Per capita income, 1999 $17,473

DAVIDSON COUNTY is home to Nashville the Capitol of Tennessee and the Capitol of Country Music. When country music was the music of the people Nashville was a very Democratic town but Country Music has become very Corporate and very rich and the political persuasion has changed for the worse. In the days when Frank Clement was Governor and Estes Keefauver and Albert Gore were the States Senators in the 50's and 60's Tennessee was much more progressive than it's neighbors to the North and South. Now Nashville is captive to the interests of Sony Music and HCA. Country musicians with liberal political views are silenced by the fear of economic reprisal. Country music has lost it's voice as social commentary and now it is only about the money. Despite the opressive corporate atmosphere the voters of Davidson County voted for Gore 59 to 40 percent

Population, 2000 569,891 percent change, 1990 to 2000 11.6%
White 67.0% Black or African American 25.9%
High school graduates 81.5 Bachelor's degree or higher 30.5%
Median income, 1999 $39,797 Per capita income, 1999 $23,069 Persons below poverty 13.0%

Between Carthage in Smith County and Nashville are Lebanon TN. home of Cracker Barrel and Mt. Juliet, home of Charlie Daniels. Just visit the Charlie Daniels site and read a few selections from the Soapbox to get the flavor. This "Long Haired Country Boy" has gone through some startling changes since his days as a Jimmy Carter Fund Raiser. The Cracker Barrel corporation can always be counted on for Republican Right Wing political support. These folks along with the Benson group and Country Music in general promote a brand of Religious Republicanism that is financially rewarding and self-serving.

AN EXERPT FROM MY JUST ARRIVED COPY OF FAIR AND BALANCED FRANKEN.
I Bitch-Slap Bernie Goldberg by Al Franken

In January of 2003, I was asked to appear on the MSNBC show Donahue with Bernard Goldberg, the former CBS correspondent whose best-seller, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News, purports to take on the liberal media bias. Slander and Bias are the right’s one-two punch against the effete lefty elite. A couple weeks after I did the show, I was stopped by a TV news producer (not from CBS) who said, “Man, you really bitch-slapped Bernie Goldberg.” Yeah, I did. But I have to admit, I did it a little unfairly. I ambushed Bernie. With his own book.

I asked him about something from his chapter, “Liberal Hate Speech.” (Coulteresque, huh?) In the chapter, he cites twelve examples of “liberal hate speech” from the past twelve years. Goldberg admits he got them from the Media Research Center, a right-wing media-watch group which sends out a regular newsletter chock-full of “outrageous” quotes from the liberal media. Now, considering the hundreds of thousands of hours of mainstream media coverage over that period, you’d think Goldberg would have some pretty choice examples to pick from, right? One of the twelve examples was a quote from John Chancellor, the late, revered NBC anchor and commentator. Here’s how it appeared in Bias:

It’s short of soap, so there are lice in hospitals. It’s short of pantyhose, so women’s legs go bare. It’s short of snowsuits, so babies stay home in winter. Sometimes it’s short of cigarettes, so millions of people stop smoking involuntarily. It drives everyone crazy. The problem isn’t communism. No one even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages.
—NBC Nightly News commentator John Chancellor on the Soviet Union,
August 21, 1991

After presenting the quote, Goldberg tears Chancellor a new one for “his absurd observation that the problem in the old Soviet Union wasn’t communism, but shortages.” Hmm. The quote was from August 1991.

So, on Donahue, I read the quote, then asked, “Do you know what happened that day in the Soviet Union, Bernie?”
He froze. Then came back with a good one: “Why don’t you tell me?”
I had learned how to handle that trick in the schoolyard back in Minnesota. “No,” I said, “why don’t you tell me?”
Clearly, the man had no idea. I persisted, “What happened in the Soviet Union that day?”
Bernie went white. Finally, “Well, I don’t know what happened that day.”
So, I told him. Let’s go to the videotape:
FRANKEN: That was the collapse of the coup, the hard-liner coup at the parliament.
GOLDBERG: And?
FRANKEN: And that was huge. Do you know that perestroika had been in effect for six years at that point? The point here is, Bernie, you regurgitated a quote that you got from some right-wing media-watch group. And you did not care to look at the context of it.

Listen to how Tom Brokaw opened that evening’s news.

“Good evening. Wednesday, August 21, 1991. This is a day for bold print in history to be remembered and savored as the day when the power of the people in the Soviet Union proved to be greater than the power of the gray and cold blooded men who thought they could return that country to the darkness of state oppression.”

Boy, it sounds like a real pro-communist bias on NBC, doesn’t it? But you know what, Bernie? You didn’t even bother to find out what the context of John Chancellor—who, by the way, is dead, and couldn’t defend himself. You had no interest in finding out the context of what he was saying.
I was talking into a camera in San Francisco, so I couldn’t see Bernie. But when I watched the tape later, I have to admit I got a real kick out of watching Bernie sitting there silently, stewing. He knew he looked like a fool, because I was right. He had thrown something in his book without checking it. Frankly, when I had first read the quote in Goldberg’s book, I hadn’t known the context either. I’m a comedian. But I had a sneaky suspicion that John Chancellor had never been a Stalinist.
So, I, the comedian, bothered to look it up and get the transcript for the August 21, 1991, NBC Nightly News broadcast. Brokaw had asked Chancellor about Gorbachev’s next move. And what Chancellor was saying was that Gorbachev couldn’t use communism as an excuse because, by that point, he had completely dismantled communism in the Soviet Union.
A little later in the show, Donahue took a caller

DONAHUE:Billy from Tennessee. You waited. I thank you for your patience. What did you want to say? CALLER: Phil, thank you. I think the main thing I wanted to say is I’m sad that the conservatives you have on tonight have done a poor job of articulating our conservative argument, which I think is another bias of the press is that you always pick very smart, astute liberals, like Al Franken, who are very articulate, and then you have conservatives who scratch their heads and can’t come back with something.
DONAHUE: Oh , well . .

It makes you wonder how these Conservative writers can live with themselves after getting nailed like this on TV. Maybe that's why the Coultergeist refused to show up at a scheduled face to face with Joe Conason.

TOXIC DUST:
an adequate description of the Bush Administration's three year record of lies and deception.

Forget the health of the people - Just get Wall Street up and running so the Corporations won't suffer. Corporatism in America at it's finest

The Bush administration has misled the public on many issues, from the budget outlook to the Iraqi threat. But this particular deception seems, at first sight, not just callous but gratuitous. It's only when you look back at budget politics in 2001 that you see the method in the administration's mendacity.
A draft E.P.A. report released last December conceded that 9/11 had led to huge emissions of pollutants. In particular, releases of dioxins — which are carcinogens and can also damage the nervous system and cause birth defects — created "likely the highest ambient concentrations that have ever been reported," up to 1,500 times normal levels. But the report concluded that because the outdoor air cleared after a couple of months, little harm had been done.
In fact, the main danger comes from toxic dust that seeped into buildings and remains in carpets, furniture and air ducts. According to a recent report in Salon, businesses that did environmental assessments of their own premises found alarming levels not just of dioxins but also of asbestos and other dangerous pollutants. So the most shocking revelation from the new report is that under White House direction, the E.P.A. suppressed warnings about indoor pollution. Scattered evidence suggests that as a result, hundreds of cleaning workers and thousands of residents may be suffering chronic health problems.

This is a gift from the Bush mis-Administration that will keep on giving into the unforseeable future.

PART V of TROLLING IN TENNESSEE: Search for signs of intelligent life.
FREEPERS, FALWELLIANS, FAUX NEWS FANATICS, ASSCRAFTERS, BUTTCANNONS, CARLSONITES, COULTERGEISTS, 700 CLUBBERS, PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN PATRIONAUGHTS, HAN-NINNEYS, HORRORWITZES, HALFWITS, HESTONIAN GUN NUTS, DITTOHEADS, & NEWS-MAXED DRUDGES: RightWingNuts one and all this is for you. Trolling in Tennessee with BJ and Bustin is exploring the political orientation of some of the inhabitants of Tennessee in search of any semblance of logic or intelligence. Tuesday in Cumberland County
Cumberland County sits atop the Cumberland plateau on I-40 above Roane County in the Tennessee Valley. The three stars on the Tennessee flag stand for the three regions of the State and Cumberland is the last county in the East I will cover on this trip. The East is defined by Bluegrass and Mountain music and the Tennessee River Valley bordered by the Great Smoky Mountains on the East and the Cumberland Plateau on the West.

Cumberland Demographics:
Population, 2000 46,802 percent change 34.7% since 1990
Persons 65 years old and over 20.5%
White persons 98.1% Black or African American 0.1%
High school graduates 72.5% Bachelor's degree or higher13.7%
Median income, 1999 $30,901 money income $16,808 below poverty14.7%

The high growth rate and high number of 65 and older are indicative of the large retirement communities Fairfield Glade and Lake Tansi built around golf courses and small lakes on this rugged plateau of black oak and pine. My brother lives in Crossville and there are so few non-whites here that he has never seen one. It is carved with great white water for kayaks and canoes. The natives are white, poor and just over 50% High School educated and the retiree’s hold most of those college degrees. 7000 of these folk voted for Al Gore and 11,000 voted Republican in a county with per capita income of $16,808 and a poverty level of 15%. Figure it out for yourself.
Here the tour leaves the Eastern Division of the Great State of Tennessee and drops down to the Central Basin. Most of the remainder of the Eastern Counties are 65 to 35% Republican, 70% HS or above (15%) educated, 14% below the poverty line, 95% White, with a per capita income around $16,000 and a wide have vs. have not disparity. The only answer to their Republican politics is that they think they are in the top 5% of income earners and they harbor a deep fear of non-white Americans. This is BJ and Bustin's home turf.

WHEN YOU REMEMBER THIS NEWS FROM EARLY THIS MONTH:

EXXON MOBIL scores big on war ChevronTexaco Profit Soars
ChevronTexaco Corp. CVX.N , the No. 2 U.S. oil company, on Friday said its quarterly profit quadrupled as refining and marketing margins improved and gas and oil prices rose closing the performance gap with more highly valued rivals Exxon Mobil Corp.

AND THEN YOU READ THIS ON YOUR WAY TO BUY GAS

Holiday Drivers to Pay Record Pump Prices NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. motorists will pay record gasoline prices when they hit the roads for the Labor Day holiday weekend after a recent spike at the pumps, industry and government experts said on Monday. "We're not expecting any drop-off in prices heading into the Labor Day holiday," said Justin McNaull, spokesman for the AAA.
The national price for regular unleaded gasoline averaged $1.747 a gallon Monday -- breaking a record hit just before the Iraq war -- after spiking 12.0 cents in a week, the U.S. government said. U.S. average retail gasoline prices surged due to a crunch in supplies after the massive blackout Aug. 14 forced shut seven North American refineries and a pipeline break in Arizona cut fuel shipments into Phoenix.

DOESN'T IT MAKE YOU ANGRY?
This Bushit is so beyond belief I can't imagine why angry Americans are not clammoring for blood. A deregulation caused blackout of 24 hours has caused oil companies to improve on already record profits. I am so happy for them when I give them more money at the pump. I hope you feel good for them too.
BUT THEN READ THIS AND REMEMBER WHO ENERGY TRULY IS:

GAO Investigators: Cheney Stifled Energy Probe Monday, August 25, 2003; 5:30 PM Congressional investigators said Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney had stymied their investigation into his energy task force by refusing to turn over key documents. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry groups may have influenced the task force's 2001 report because the administration withheld important records.

Maximum density at NRO from Susan Konig:THANK WHO ALMIGHTY? [Susan Konig]

Dr. King's speech is inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial but the Ten Commandments are booted from the courthouse? There's a whole lot of God in the "I Have a Dream" speech. What's the difference? The inscription, over 2 ft wide, reads:
``I have a dream Martin Luther King Jr.
The March on Washington For jobs and freedom
August 28, 1963.''

Is MS. Konig particularly dense? She really needs to ask the difference?

40 Years ago this week from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the most memorable speech of my life. I was 18 years old at the time. Many of us have been made aware of it but few under 55 today actually heard it. These phrases are indelible in my mind and central to being a Democrat.



These words still bring a thrill to my heart and a tear to my eye:

.........You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

The power of these words was matched by the power of the voice that delivered them. On April 3, 1968 King delivers his "mountaintop" speech at the Masonic Temple in Memphis

"We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

I will be in Memphis on August 28, 2003 and I will remember Dr. King's dream. I will have been very hard on Tennesseans who profess a love of GOD, Freedom, Liberty, and Justice yet vote for Republican money, conquest for oil, and Ashcroft oppression. Too many of those votes are out of blind ignorance and racial hatred bought by men of greed and self-interest who foster a mistrust of women and minorities to their advantage and the disadvantage of poor uneducated white males. Dr. King's Dream did not die in Memphis in 1968 but it has not prevailed. In Tennessee in 2000 the percentage of African American and Black voters who supported the prevailing Bush vision of America was less than 8% of 16% of the voters in the state. Any party that invites polarization between white anglo-saxon protestant males on one side and women and minorities on the other is by definition the party of the rich and the powerful. The interests of working class white males are much more closely related to women and minorities than wealthy Republican corporatists and war mongers. Tennessee's white males must learn from their mistakes and remember the Dream to get to the Promised Land.

PART IV of TROLLING IN TENNESSEE: Search for signs of intelligent life.

FREEPERS, FALWELLIANS, FAUX NEWS FANATICS, ASSCRAFTERS, BUTTCANNONS, CARLSONITES, COULTERGEISTS, 700 CLUBBERS, PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN PATRIONAUGHTS, HAN-NINNEYS, HORRORWITZES, HALFWITS, HESTONIAN GUN NUTS, DITTOHEADS, & NEWS-MAXED DRUDGES: RightWingNuts one and all this is for you. Trolling in Tennessee with BJ and Bustin is exploring the political orientation of some of the inhabitants of Tennessee in search of any semblance of logic or intelligence. Weekend in Sevier, Cocke and Blount Counties Day 3

Sevier County is home to 75,000 growing from 1990 to 2000 39.4% White 97.3% Black or African American 0.6% High school graduates, 74.6% BS/BA or higher 13.5%. Median income 1999 $34,719 Persons below poverty in 1999 10.7%. 32 percent of Sevier Co. residents voted for Al Gore and 66 percent voted for pReznit Bush. The Sevier County population swells up to 40,000 during vacation season with lower and middle class tourists often in large church groups. These tourists are invariably white and many relocate to the area accounting for the huge growth rate. The tourists stay mainly in Pigeon Forge TN, a strip of raceways, arcades, waterslides, and souvenir shops featuring plastic black bears. The tourists rarely see any wildlife because so few venture into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. BUSH/CHENEY, Don't Blame Me I Voted for Bush, From My Cold Dead Hands, and Pro-Life bumper stickers are displayed along with Dollywood and Christus Biblical Gardens. A trip through Pigeon Forge in the Summer is like constant rush hour in Columbus or Cleveland where bumper to bumper traffic through a world of discount shopping centers makes the 15 mile drive from Sevierville to Gatlinburg a three hour trip. All of this exhaust helps keep the Smoky's very Smoky. This once beautiful area has become an American vacation nightmare for people who once loved the natural beauty of the mountains now defaced with rampant ugly plastic roadside attractions.
Cocke County Population 33,884 percent change 1990 to 2000 15.2% White 96.2% Black 2.0% High School 61.2% BS/BA degree or higher 6.2% Median income, 1999 $25,553 Persons below poverty, percent, 1999 22.5% Cocke Co. borders the Smoky Mountains on the North and is home to Newport Tn. once known as one of the toughest towns in America. Cocke Co. residents were for Shrub 61 to 39 percent and for an area with 40 percent non HS grads that is no sign of intelligence. BJ and Bustin fill the Cocke County genepool:

In better times Sevierville was home to the Electro-Voice microphone factory and Newport home to loudspeaker manufacturing and distribution. A truck would leave Sevierville for Newport loaded with new microphones twice a week. One day at Mountain Sound in Knoxville two Cocke Co. residents stopped by and offered to sell or trade new EV microphones. After contacting EV we made a deal for three cases and sent them on their way in their NRA and Stop Abortion Now sticker covered pick up with gun rack. Turns out these geniuses had been stopping the EV truck in Stokley TN. on the drives to Newport and off-loading two or three cases of mics a week for over a month. Because they were not inventoried prior to their arrival in Newport the company thought someone was stealing parts in Sevierville. These Republicans knew nothing about Mountain Sound's close relationship with EV despite the EV signs on our doors. After being caught and losing their jobs the theives applied to be reinstated but they failed. That is Cocke County Republican genius at work.

A better view of the Great Smoky Mtn. park is afforded in neighboring Blount County - Population 105,823 grew 23.1% in the past decade White 94.7% Black or African American 2.9% High school 78.4% BS/BA or higher 17.9% Median income 1999 $37,862 Persons below poverty 9.7% (It will be interesting to see the data on income after 3 years of Bush.) The trip through Townsend to Cades Cove is a vast improvement over Pigeon Forge but don't expect it to last. Blount County is home to the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) and Maryville College along with SouthKnoxBubba. and Maryville Mayor Steve West of West Chevrolet on the Airport Motor Mile. Despite SKB's efforts the West forces polled 63 percent of the vote for Shrub to 36 percent for Al Gore.

A Republican Party worker in Newport TN. was attempting to clean out cobwebs in his basement. He declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch. This caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house and fund raising records of the local Republican Party. Also lost in the fire were several hundred dollars in campaign flyers and signs.

There should be an obvious trend revealing itself as to why Gore could not carry Tennessee and no Democrat will carry Tennessee. Tennesse is known as the Volunteer State because it sent more of it's sons to war and death than any State in the Union. If there is a fight Tennesseans want in, and that makes it a greater mystery why they support AWOL Bush over Veteran Al Gore. Intelligence is hard to find in the extreme East of the State - next we head West.

Part III of TROLLING IN TENNESSEE: Search for signs of intelligent life.

FREEPERS, FALWELLIANS, FAUX NEWS FANATICS, ASSCRAFTERS, BUTTCANNONS, CARLSONITES, COULTERGEISTS, 700 CLUBBERS, PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN PATRIONAUGHTS, HAN-NINNEYS, HORRORWITZES, HALFWITS, HESTONIAN GUN NUTS, DITTOHEADS, & NEWS-MAXED DRUDGES: RightWingNuts one and all this is for you. Trolling in Tennessee with BJ and Bustin is exploring the political orientation of some of the inhabitants of Tennessee in search of any semblance of logic or intelligence. Day two Cleveland

South down I-81 28 miles north of Chattanooga sits a unique town of 37,000 people who are 96% WASP. 4,000 are students at Lee University and the Church of God Theological Seminary and many are employed by the headquarters of two major mainstream Pentecostal Denominations - the Church of God and the Church of God of Prophecy. Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic and "Blessed" with the gifts of revelation, utterance or inspiration, the discerning of spirits, miracles, healing, prophecy, tongues and interpretation. 100 COG Pentecostals outweigh 10,000 Presbyterians or Lutherans in fervor. Here in Cleveland GOD IS MY CO-PILOT, NRA, BUSH/CHENEY, and Stop Abortion Now bumper stickers are the common combination. Al Gore got 5,000 Bradley County votes in 2000 while rich Republican war promoter Bush got 20,000. No surprises here. These people in the foothills of Appalachia left the Southern Baptist Church because it was not literal enough. This is Army of God recruiting territory where white males make the rules and money in the odometer roll back center of the world. They resurrect souls like they resurrect cars and both are 'born again'. Any candidate or party needs to ask if these are the voters they want to attract. BJ and Bustin fit right in here in Cleveland where winning would not be a victory. Bradley Co. Pop 87,965 percent change, 1990 to 2000 19.3% White 93.0% Black or African American 4.0% Median income $35,034 below poverty 1999 12.2%. High school graduates 73.3% BS/BA degree or higher 15.9%

A Retired Republican Ward Chairman cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment outside of Cleveland slipped and fell 4 stories to his death. He was standing on a chair with wheels when the accident occurred, said police "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony." His wife indicated that the long time Republican wanted to take early retirement but was forced to continue work because of portfolio losses due to Adelphia and Enron. Friends say he remained rabidly Republican despite these financial setbacks. “He would rather be broke than admit he was wrong” said his wife, “I guess he was both”. His wife indicated that she had always voted Democratic despite pretending otherwise. “John was a decent man” she said, “He just wasn’t very bright.”

FREEPERS, FALWELLIANS, FAUX NEWS FANATICS, ASSCRAFTERS, BUTTCANNONS, CARLSONITES, COULTERGEISTS, 700 CLUBBERS, PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN PATRIONAUGHTS, HAN-NINNEYS, HORRORWITZES, HALFWITS, HESTONIAN GUN NUTS, DITTOHEADS, & NEWS-MAXED DRUDGES: RightWingNuts one and all this is for you. Trolling in Tennessee with BJ and Bustin is exploring the political orientation of some of the inhabitants of Tennessee in search of any semblance of logic or intelligence. .Friday installment from Knoxville. This could easily be a BJ and Bustin moment:

"Two Kingston Republicans were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree. The accident occurred as the two men were returning home after an NRA outing. The pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned when the fuse burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, they noticed that a .22 caliber bullet fit perfectly into the older model fuse box near the steering wheel. After inserting the bullet, the two men proceeded. 20 miles later the bullet overheated, discharged and struck the driver in the right testicle and the vehicle swerved striking a tree. The driver will require surgery to repair his wound and the passenger sustained a broken clavicle. The pick-up truck was covered in Bush-Cheney, NRA, and other common RightWingNut stickers. Both men are jobless and have no medical insurance since they were laid off when nuclear waste cleanup at Oak Ridge lost funding. When asked the two indicated they still support Bush and would rather lose their jobs and their nuts then their guns."

Roane County spans the Clinch and Tennessee River Valley and climbs the Cumberland Plateau to Central Standard Time. The Oak Ridge reservation is a large part of the county. Oak Ridge is said to have the highest per capita IQ. of any city in America - from a population of Nuclear Scientists; Kingston, Oliver Springs, Rockwood, and Harriman are not so blessed. These are tough coal mining towns with a history of moonshine and drug smuggling. Roane County is only 2.7% non-white yet Al Gore managed 44% of the vote here. There is some intelligent life in Roane County from the influence of the Oak Ridge outsiders.

pReznit has lost confidence in Cheney crystal bald. Seeks help from "the Body".


BJ and Bustin's FREEPER POST OF THE DAY. Would it help this troll to know that Wellstone died in a plane crash?

"The silent majority is waking up, too slowly for me but still waking up. REmeber, the last election said it all when voters kicked out the welstones of the world and put the republicans in charge of the congress and WH. WE are the majority and we will rid the liberals of their BS. Thank God we have Bush in the white house as he seems to be bringing religeon back into our schools and homes."

Begining on Friday - Rush Limbaughtomy will be researching Tennessee Trolls on a trek across the Volunteer State ending with a fine tune of the Subwoofer section of the new MALCO CINEMAS 10.2 screening room in Memphis TN. Posting will be done from the road. This FREEPERCISE to see if intelligent life can be found will conclude with comments on the Ticking of Trolls in Tennessee. Non-trolls and non-freepers who are new to the site should be sure to read LIMBAUGHTOMIZATION for a clear declaration of purpose. Trolls and Freepers should mesmerize themselves with the hypnotic logo above and wait patiently for instructions from the first person who says "Freeper-Troll".
WARNING: The Hypnotic Freepercise Logo is designed for brainwave entrainment. Focus and concentrate on the logo and silently chant the following Freeper - money - country- good; Freeper - money - country - good; Freeper - money - country - good.

NON-FREEPER TROLL INSTRUCTIONS: Freepers will be mesmerized and hypnotized by this mantra and "open" to your suggestion. Use the words: Freeper Troll before any suggestion you wish to implant. One of my favorites is having them strip to their underwear, cover themselves in honey, and run through the local neighborhood with Bush/Cheney stickers pasted to their bodies. Be creative and take lots of pictures.

NOTE on these COMMENTS: Rush Limbaughtomy_ was originally a site for Rush comments. TREASON _ was set up for Annthrax. SAVAGE CRUEL BIGOTS _ was set up for Savage Day BUMS RUSH _ was set up for long posts. Each have common sitemeters that link to the main site Rush Limbaughtomy and all contain my posts and track my visitors. A number of rightwingers have decided that this metering somehow invalidates visits accrued to my sites and that this constitutes some kind of deception.
Sitemeters on my sites are all public (click on the meter) like eXtreme tracking and blogpatrol. There are no 'hidden' meters anywhere. My family of blogs is published by my family and friends. We stand behind every word and every link. We have nothing to hide and nothing to "lie" about. We fully expected much ranting and raving from the Rightwing on this post and we got it. I will leave these rants up in the comment section and warn readers that some use language that requires an R rating.

If Jesus is on that mainline are Pat Robertson's calls blocked?

Pat Plagiarizes the pReznit? HOLY COW!!!
Attorneys for pReznit 'Bring it On' are considering bringing suit against Robertson for using the phrase popularized by cowBOY GEORGE. Words uttered by the Comumbler-in-Chief are all under copyright and "Bring It On" is a Bumblebrain trademark. "Robertson is trying to make up for his Liberian Gold loss on the coattails of pReznitential popularity." said a spokesman.

This news caps off a very bad month for the televangelist. 35 days have passed since he launched his 21 DAY SUPREME COURT PRAYER VIGIL with no sign from GOD and no resignations or deaths on the Supreme Court. Does this mean that Robertson is out of touch with GOD? Or is GOD just too busy talking to pReznit "I Smote Em but missed?"

Robertson Calls for Justices' Retirement Tuesday July 15

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson urged his nationwide audience Monday to pray for God to remove three justices so they could be replaced by conservatives. "We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court,'' Robertson said on the CBN 700 Club. Robertson has launched a 21-day "prayer offensive'' (or was it OFFENSIVE PRAYER?) directed at SCOTUS in the wake of its 6-3 vote that decriminalized sodomy. Robertson said that the ruling "has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest.''

From Swinger to Saint - From Shout It From the Housetops By Pat Robertson

"You are the Lord's guest," the handsome Dutchman said as we looked at the menu in the elegant Philadelphia restaurant. "God is generous, not stingy. He wants you to have the best. Order anything you want."

Robertson took this as a sign from GOD and became the richest TELEVANGELIST in history, but since Charles Taylor stepped down in Liberia resulting in a 15 million dollar investment loss for Robertson in Liberian Gold mines, he must think GOD had something else in mind.

Robertson accused President Bush of “undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels” by asking Liberian President Charles Taylor, recently indicted for war crimes, to step down

GOD only knows what kind of hell Pat can raise at this next event on September 11th in Washington DC. I wouldn't be caught anywhere near the capitol on that date.
For more Poligious news check out Lilith at A Rational Animal on the Alabama Supreme Court Justice and the Ten Commandments. Rush Limbaughtomy has always been of the opinion that GOD has nothing to do with Judeo-Christian male supremacy and it pisses Her off. Lilith would certainly know and I urge her to be out of the Capitol on that date.

Four star review for Bring It On is Right!, August 1, 2003 Reviewer: RW On Amazon.com
I cannot wait to read this inspirational book recommended by my cousin Perry! And Perry should know about inspiration. Recently, while watching the '700 Club' Perry put his hands on the TV during the prayers and his erectile dysfunction was completely healed. Some, but not all, of his prison buddies were thrilled.

By way of Apathy, Inc.and Notes on the Atrocities have other inside looks at pseudo-Christian demographics in the USA with this NYT/CNN piece and more. For a more serious intellectual view of Judeo Christian law read Mark Kleinman In reflecting that this post is particularly one-sided in it's depiction of Pat Robertson and the effect that may have on The Right Christians I offer these latter links to a more sober view. I would be remiss if I did not include Alllen Brill in this list as an excellent read on good Christian politics.

"Your Money or Your Lights." anatomy of a coverup to keep us from noticing the holdup.

FAUX NEWS STARTS THE DISTRACTION ROLLING: Look over here at TERRORISM!!!!

Sources: Sabotage Cannot Be Ruled Out in Blackout Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Although government and energy-industry officials have continued to state that Thursday's massive power blackout was not an act of terrorism, they are unable to rule out the possibility that a computer hacker plunged 50 million people into darkness, a source told Fox News Monday. There were also reports that Al Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the outage, although U.S. officials said Monday that those claims should be taken with "a giant grain of salt."

Anything to distract attention from the real culprits. "There were also reports.....", "A source in the midst....." and even as the headlines and links proclaim it a result of a terrorist hack they report but bury the only hard source: "US Officials".
OR IF YOU WON'T BUY TERRORISM how about our great progress in readiness?--- With a positive spin about the success of the Homeland Security department response:

Ridge: Blackout Was 'Initial Test' for Homeland Security System
"The systems that were put in place, the means by which we communicate and share information that we have set up in our respective organizations to help one another if we need one another, were clearly tested that night," Ridge said, "Let's just call it an initial test of our relationship, and I think it worked pretty well." see SouthKnoxBubba on Ridge

ANYTHING AT ALL TO KEEP US FROM LOOKING WHERE THE TRUE FAULT LIES: ___
For that one must travel into the web or the NYT op-ed

"In the search for the source of Thursday's blackout, the underlying cause has been all but ignored: deregulation. In principle, deregulation of the power industry was supposed to use the discipline of free markets to generate just the right amount of electricity at the right price. But electric power, it turns out, is not like ordinary commodities.... In the old days of regulation, a utility like Con Ed would be required to regularly submit a resource plan to a state's public service commission.... Under deregulation, however, nobody plays that crucial planning role. Much of the Southeast, by contrast, has retained traditional regulation - and cheap, reliable electricity.
When the blackout hit on Thursday, many of us first thought of terrorists. What hit us may be equally dangerous. We are hostage to a delusional view of economics that allowed much of the Northeast to go dark without an enemy lifting a finger."
But if you check out only one piece amid the oceans of verbiage (and pulped trees), don't miss Gregg Palast's piece, which reminds us, among other things, of that great legacy left us by George I, the first growth of our present dynastic shrubbery -- the deregulation of electricity and of the ability of utility companies to contribute to political campaigns. Enter Enron ("Their motto," writes Palast, "your money or your lights.") and George II. Check out why we've joined Brazil (Rio's electricity company was seized by Texas deregulators with the expectable results) and now privatizing Iraq into "the Dark Ages."

Take a look at political contributions by the top 12 Energy Industry Companies:

1 Southern Co $1,915,422 -- 32% Dem 68% Republican
2 National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn $1,348,629 46%Dem 54%Rep
3 Exelon Corp $1,284,645 34%Dem 66%Rep
4 Dominion Resources $1,249,035 33%Dem 67%Rep
5 TXU Corp $1,088,628 24%Dem 76%Rep
6 FirstEnergy Corp $1,044,807 29%Dem 70%Rep Another $350,000 came from FirstEnergy Corp.
7 Florida Power & Light $841,792 11%Dem 89%Rep
8 Entergy Corp $799,077 42%Dem 58%Rep
9 Duke Energy $708,015 27% Dem 73%Rep
10 Edison Electric Institute $594,766 30%Dem 70%Rep
11 Progress Energy $592,199 38%Dem 62%Rep
12 Reliant Resources $476,012 27%Dem 73%Rep

Just to save you the time this totals to 12 Million Dollars and (with the exception of the Rural Electric Cooperative at 8% more to Republicans) 16% to a whopping 78% advantage to Republicans. Source is Open Secrets
For more specifics about FirstEnergy go here and to MahablogVeiled for Allah has more enlightening details on this subject from serious research.
____ Paul Krugman has a clear and concise column on the effects of deregulation:

In the Road to Ruin...... a local event turned into an epic blackout because the transmission network has been neglected. That is, the power industry hasn't spent enough on the control systems and safeguards that are supposed to prevent such things. And the cause of that neglect is faith-based deregulation.

The media would have you believe that it is too early to lay blame for this at the feet of Republican deregulation and FirstEnergy. They hope you will reserve judgment until something else comes along to distract your attention from the truth. Just as ENRON has faded from public consciousness in the fog of IRAQ and more recent events the blackout of 2003 under complete Republican control of the government will fade in time. Remember the Republican promise of cheaper energy prices with deregulation? How stupid did they think we were? Energy companies resulting from de-regulation have decimated the economy of California leaving billions in deficits in the wake of their private irresponsibility. Now the Republicans seek to profit from their treachery by replacing a Democrat with a Republican as Governor. They will attemp to turn their massive failure to their advantage by taking more of our money to assist the "poor" energy companies in fullfilling their failed responsibility to provide uninterrupted power. Meanwhile the energy companies are pouring millions into their campaign coffers and more millions into the wallets of their rich Republican shareholders. If you do not know we are engaged in a class war you are sleeping. Visit Maru the crankpot for the additional poop. This post details Dennis Kucinich view of the Blackout and is must reading.

SOMEHOW I MISSED THIS IN EARLY AUGUST - Totalitarianism Today, Ruminate this, Mousemusings, and Common Dreams did not.
GEORGE A. AKERLOF Koshland Professor of Economics 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics author of "Near Rational Wage and Price Setting and the Optimal Rates of Inflation and Unemployment" From his interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel

Akerlof: A short-term tax benefit for the poor would actually be a reasonable stimulus. Then, the money would almost certainly be spent. But the current and future deficit is a lot less stimulatory than it could be. Our administration is just throwing the money away. The rich don't need the money and are a lot less likely to spend it - they will primarily increase their savings. Remember that wealthier families have done extremely well in the US in the past twenty years, whereas poorer ones have done quite badly. So the re-distributive effects of this administration's tax policy are going in the exactly wrong direction. The worst and most indefensible of those cuts are those in dividend taxation - this overwhelmingly helps very wealthy people.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The President claims that dividend tax reform supports the stock market - and helps the economy as a whole to grow.
Akerlof: That's totally unrealistic. Standard formulas from growth models suggest that that effect will be extremely small. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come to a similar conclusion. So, even a sympathetic treatment finds that this argument is simply not correct. The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting. Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly. And people depend on those. It's only among the richest 40 percent that you begin to get households who have sizeable fractions of their own retirement income. A more likely effect of the deficits is this: If there's another recession, we won't be able to engage in stimulatory fiscal spending to maintain full employment. Until now, there's been a great deal of trust in the American government. Markets knew that, if there is a current deficit, it will be repaid. The government has wasted that resource. I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.

WHAT CAN ANYONE SAY THAT THIS NOBEL LAUREATE HAS NOT. "the WORST government the US has ever had."

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND (that anyone can find)

SouthKnoxBubba alerts us to this NYT story on the Texas Education Miracle Amazingly stupid yet true - only a Bush could believe he could get away with this one.
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HAMMERDOWN always cracks me up but he is particularly sidesplitting today.
Just read it - no description would do it justice.
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PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY is the subject of this post on Shock and Awe
Good Sunday reading linked to here including The Right Christians -always enlightning
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More here

DEREGULATED REPUBLICAN FIRSTENERGY CORPORATION IS THE CULPRIT: Visit Mahablog for more details.

A section of FirstEnergy's Chamberlin-Harding substation is shown Saturday, Aug. 16, 2003 in Twinsburg, Ohio. Federal and industry regulators investigating what triggered Thursday's Northeast blackout have narrowed their search to three as yet unspecified transmission lines near Cleveland. The first indication was at 2 p.m. Thursday, when the FirstEnergy's Eastlake Unit 5 plant tripped off. At 3:06 p.m., FirstEnergy's Chamberlin-Harding power transmission line, a 345-kilovolt power line, in Twinsburg, Ohio, tripped.

So the blackout culprit was a broken alarm system on transmission lines owned by FirstEnergy south of Cleveland. For want of a repair or redundancy and some human error we got catastrophy. Was it because poor little 12 billion a year in revenues and over 1 billion in cash FirstEnergy was financially hamstrung by some government or environmental policy. NOPE - Just failure to repair an alarm. Just bad private management and unwarranted frugality. Just looking after the bottom line again without regard to the safety of millions of Americans.

Financial profile of FirstEnergy the 4th largest investor owned energy company in America.

(Dollars in thousands, except per share amounts)
Total revenues $12,151,997
Net income $629,280
Basic earnings per common share: $2.34
Diluted earnings per common share:$2.14
Dividends per common share $1.50
Book value per common share $24.25
Net cash from operations $1,915,287

FirstEnergy's PAC (to which Burg has contributed) has given 2002 cycle campaign contributions to several senators on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including Senators George Voinovich (R-OH), Bob Smith (R-NH), James Inhofe (R-OK), and Arlen Specter (R-PA) Privately, Burg has also contributed this campaign cycle to Senator Bob Smith, to the Edison Electric Institute's PAC, to Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) and to various members of the House of Representatives.
surprise, surprise, surprise FirstEnergy donates to Republicans and is being sued by investors.
FirstEnergy Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer H. Peter Burg had a very healthy paycheck for the year, a public document filed by the Akron utility shows Burg received a salary of $989,511 and a bonus of $406,186 in 2002 for a total of $1,395,697, plus stock options and other compensation, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I guess we can blame it on Rich Republicans after all. If you doubt this at all you deserve a visit to Tom at The Funny Farm where you can despense with these confusing details and get into the Heart of Darkness caused by the Bushout of O3. If Blackouts don't scare you maybe Tom's piece on the National I. Q. will.

BLOGGER EXTRORDINAIRE: skippy the bush kangaroo delivers devastating knockout punches with both feet!! Check out Ah’nuld is he down for the count after just one week? If he adds any more to that list of advisors he will have enough votes on his staff: Warren Buffet, Rob Lowe, George Schultz, the Quackenbush quartet, and Pete Wilson’s minions….Ken Lay, Thomas White, Tom Arnold, Peter Frampton, PETER FRAMPTON ???…….and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum

BUSH and the Republican's in Congress lobbied to defeat power grid improvement measure.
Will FAIR and BALANCED Fox News cover this story? June 20, 2001
REPUBLICANS DENY REP. FARR'S AMENDMENT FOR ELECTRIC POWER GRID LOANS

' I'm disheartened that some Republicans continue to play politics while the energy crisis wreaks havoc on our lives,' Rep. Farr says Kevin at Lean Left has more
Bush calls too late for upgrade Democratic Veteran the Lingua Ubaldi Award winner has the Preznits message down.

SouthKnoxBubba- best F&B site today.

OFFENSIVE OR DEFENSE
"We are shining a spotlight on the haters and the enablers. You can decide if that spotlight is aimed in the right direction."

TODAYS FAIR AND BALANCED LINEUP ON FOX NEWS NETWORK

The Dennis Miller Segment features Dennis swaping jokes with a cardboard cutout of Al Franken. Bill O'Reilly is featured as voice of the Al Franken cutout as straight man for Miller.

The O'Reilly Factor: President Bush is effectively managing the economy today clearing brush in Crawford, Texas. The President informed Bill O'Reilly in an exclusive interview that the economy "is in great shape" and that the Liberal news media is responsible for any false impression that people are unemployed. "Everybody is working who wants to work" said the President "If not they can come to the ranch and clear this brush if they can get clearance to clear." O'Reilly will question the President about his recent golf outing in Crawford.

Hannity and Insignificant: Today from the Democratic Left GOP Joe Lieberman and Indiana Senator Bayh of the DLC will face centrists Ann Coulter & Michael Savage and the ghost of Joe McCarthy on the Right for a balanced discussion of the ineffective candidacy of Vermont Governor Howard Dean who is so far Left he is unelectable.

Fox Nightly News Tonight's special edition will feature a series of photo journals from the embedded reporters who were with the troops during the first week of Victory in IRAQ the LIBERATION of the IRAQI PEOPLE and a special preview of the new film THE RESCUE OF JESSICA LYNCH - courage under the knife.

Fox Late Night: Will be with President Bush in San Diego as he revisits his heroic landing on the USS Lincoln. Fox will replay the MISSION ACCCOMPLISHED address in full including close ups of the President in full Combat attire. A special segment will feature "
The Making of Air Warrior Of Legend Bush" the new action figure for $39.99

Fox News has filed a lawsuit against Al Franken saying that Franken's book is an attempt to "blur and tarnish" the image of Fox News as a Fair and Balanced news source.
RUSH LIMBAUGHTOMY urges readers to click on the logo above - you decide.

It appears that the LIMBAUGHTOMY has hit some raw nerve across the Right Bank of Blogmania with this little dream:

WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE IF AL GORE WERE THE PRESIDENT?
The early exit polls in FLORIDA were correct.
Had all the votes counted as intended Gore would be President.
We would be prosperous, people would be employed, the deficit would not exist,
the Rich would have gotten richer, the poor would not be as poor,
we would not be at war, soldiers would not be dying, Bin Lauden would be dead,
there would be no Dept. of Big Brother Security, there would be no Patriot Act
and the World Trade Towers would still be standing.

It seems that many of these rightwing bloggers take issue with my musings. To them I ask:
Would the studious and “over-informed” Al Gore have read and acted on the CIA and NSC information that crossed his desk stopping 9-11?
I believe he would.
Would that have stopped the war on IRAQ, the attack on Afghanistan, the record deficit, the Patriot Act, and the Homeland Security Department?
Yes I believe it would.
Would that have helped the economy and the job market?
Yes I believe it would.
Would he have used the drones to attack the Taliban and take out Osama? Who knows but yes is as good as no. Did the Operation Desert Fox attacks destroy Saddams WMD’s? Well it appears that something did.

You may wish my musings were far off the mark but in this world what might have been is only a dream. I prefer to make my what might have been a good dream. So put it down if it makes you feel superior, but your rejection of it has only as much credibility as the dream itself.
A Fearful Symmetry , Poliblog, The Mind of Man, SPOONS, OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY, a shot in the dark, SARCASTIC SOUTHERNER, and SCSU SCHOLARS have opened a chorus of howls and moans over the premise presented in this now infamous LIMBAUGHTOMY post
It is difficult to describe the feeling of elation and satisfaction with a job so well done that it exceeds all expectations. De-LIMBAUGHTOMIZATION is occurring on a scale unprecedented in the short but lively existence of Rush Limbaughtomy. Readership is up to over 5000 visits in the past 36 hours and the reverse brain-washing is having a ripple effect across the country as thousands of previously Limbaughtomized right wingers begin to gyrate wildly and scream vituperative expletives. Talent on loan from GOD indeed. I wish to thank all of these fine fans and readers for linking to the Limbaughtomy and making my day.
And an UPDATE this time from one of those "college boys from LSU who went in dumb and came out dumb too". (Randy Newman) The BOG is fuming and ranting so hard his type is turing yellow. The BOG is very descriptive of the mind of the author. Too bad the VOLS don't meet the Bayou Bengals until the SEC Championship this year - oh wait that would be those other tigers.

UPDATED TUESDAY AUG 12 9:00 AM



Our macho hero a DESERTER??

Say it isn't so Ah'nold: ......."when he was 18, he joined the Austrian army in order to follow his strict diet. His stay was very short, however, as he deserted to take part in the Mr. Junior Europe competition....." from Absolute Ah nold
Seb at Sadly NO posting from Stuttgart is checking up on this story at the source

Ahnult dropped out of school and was jailed for his desertion:

Arnold trained seven days a week and for that he had to drop out of school and abandon the church. Besides training Arnold began a three-year apprenticeship as a carpenter. He competed in his first competition in Graz hotel and came in second place. In 1965 he enlisted in the Austrian army, and to compete in Stuttgart Arnold had to go A.W.O.L and for that he was jailed when he came back.

Ah'nulds "business degree" was from Wisconsin Superior by correspondence. Kind of like my 'Docterat in Brane Surgey' from Strasborg Secretarial Correspondance College fully accreditid by the YPAWPBS (you pay and we provide) Association. Any of you Repusicats have the Blahs and need a Limbaughtomy after reading this just let Nurse Ratched know. She has released our last patient for another run at the White House.
We did point out that although Ah'nulds English is suspect it is better English than is currently used in the White House so this find explains why GWB has "endorsed" the more macho Ah'nuld for "guvernator": This means that AWOL is trumped by desertion and my hero of T23D is a Chickenhawk Desserter from military service and would never make it on Operation Ivy Lightning

Visit this link to ex-lion tamer and read that Rush Limbo Mumbo Jumbo has labeled Ah'nuld as the GOP JOE Lieberman for Conservatives just as I indicate in the post below. Hell has frozen over - the Mumbo Jumbo and the Limbaughtomy are in agreement on something.

So many conservative pundits and online bloggers are busy telling us Democrats that any candidate to the "left" of 'GOP Joe' Lieberman cannot be elected. Their constant reminders that those who challenge the pReznit on the War for Oil will be seen as “weak” on national security are most considerate. I believe it is only fair that we Democrats recognize this new spirit of helpfulness and fair play that has been lacking in Republicans for so long. Isn’t it so nice of them to take the time to tell us how to win. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and sorry for all of the bad things I have said about Republicans. I intend to make it up to them and reciprocate right here and now.

All Republicans take note that there is only one way you will defeat the Democrats and retain the White House in 2004:
Dump Bush and nominate Ah'nold the bodybuilder for President.
Ah'nold speaks better English than Bush.
He is more macho.
He is certainly more intelligent.
His father was a Nazi like George’s grandfather.
He earned his money instead of living off of millions in contributions from his father’s friends or
Taking it from the government like Cheney.
Ah'nold is married to a Kennedy.
Rush Limbo Mumbo Jumbo thinks he is a liberal.
That makes him acceptable to those rare and coveted white male Democrats

Ah'nold is the logical choice. Don't pay any attention to that Constitutional thing about birthplace. You can ignore that like you ignore the law. Democrats like Ah'nold for President and he appeals to rich white men so he will solidify your base. He will certainly consolidate the Austrian immigrant vote.

We Democrats would hate to see you lose the White House next year after you worked so hard to steal it. We know you are all disgusted with the lying little dimwit Bush. Thank you for trying so hard to help us Democrats. We want to help you too.

Recent news puts HALLIBURTON in the headlines again: Cheney firm's rival is forced to drop oil bid

HALLIBURTON is Dick Cheney’s company, but there has been so much NEGATIVE information that it is difficult to keep it all in focus.

How did HALLIBURTON become the unrivaled supplier of MILITARY LOGISTICS and winner in the IRAQ OIL Lottery?

___ PART ONE

First the Pentagon under Dick Cheney paid KBR division of HALLIBURTON a total of 8.9 million dollars to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could provide logistic services:

In 1992, the Pentagon, then headed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave Brown & Root an additional $5 million to update the report. Brown & Root (now called Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR) is a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation, which Cheney, the U.S. vice president, headed as CEO from 1995 to 2000. Brown & Root was also awarded contracts in 1995 and 1997 to provide logistical support in the Balkans, where the U.S. military has been enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace accord that ended the war in former Yugoslavia. Those contracts mushroomed to $2.2 billion worth of payments over five years, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Privatizing Combat: The New World Order

It is astounding that we paid KBR division of HALLIBURTON near 9 million dollars under Defense Sec. Cheney to write the report that resulted in KBR division of HALLIBURTON’S receipt of 2.2 billion dollars for providing the logistics detailed in their own report under Halliburton President Cheney.!!!

In the late 1990’s Ken Starr launched an 80 million dollar investigation of the Clinton’s over a $58,000 failed investment in Whitewater, yet there is little mention of this obvious conflict of interest over massive amounts of money that continue to flow to HALLIBURTON. Perhaps it is because HALLIBURTON gave over $700,000 to candidates in the 2000 election cycle. All of those candidates were Republicans. END PART ONE - Much more to come.

__

Bloggers won’t match Limbaugh

This article from (Doctor) David Hill gives us the following assessment of the Limbaugh advantage over bloggers:

______"Last week, Rush Limbaugh was celebrating his 15th year of hosting a daily talk-radio show. That brings us to the potential “next big thing” in political communications, blogging. With some journalists and politicians starting to take the phenomenon seriously, should Rush and other talkers start to worry about competition from the “Blogosphere?” There is no doubt blogging is something to think about. Blogcount has estimated that there are more than 2 million blogs, though many never touch on politics. Although estimates are that just 4 percent of the online community reads blogs, they are followed by a better-educated and more upscale, influential audience than that for talk radio. I doubt that blogging or any specific bloggers will match Limbaugh’s record-setting pace for gathering influence in the political process. Blogging lacks four key elements in Limbaugh’s formula for success.
_____First, bloggers don’t match what Rush calls “show prep.” Rush is almost always armed for his shows with reams of data and analysis from a wide variety of news and information sources. His commentaries indicate that he has actually read his sources, thought about their meaning, and prepared his own in-depth analyses before trying to persuade audience members during his three on-air hours each day. By comparison, many bloggers’ preparations for their stream-of-consciousness commentaries seem limited to reading the ruminations of other bloggers and scanning Internet news. Because some bloggers, even prominent ones, spend so much time writing throughout the entire day, they don’t research their own ideas well enough to be persuasive."________

.
There is more if you click on the link by the pigture but I was struck by the Research question. I currently peruse 30 to 50 blogs a day plus the WaPo, NYT, Reuters, BBC, MoveOn, Truthout, Buzzflash, Counterpunch, LA Times, Boston Globe, etc and then I Google or Fazzle specific topics for data to plug into my blog. The very idea that Rush Limbaugh is well informed or accurate about his babblings is hysterical. Rush's hired monkeys bang away on their Selectrix Typewriters after reading Newsmax, the Drudge Report, WSJ Opinion Journal, The Right Wing News, and the Washington Times. Rush watches Faux News while he dines and they throw whatever sounds the most outrageous up for grabs on the EIB program. If that is research my cat is a PhD.
Here is a nice specific via Seb at Sadly NO.

_____"Nikita Dean responded with a tirade against all who voted to liberate the Iraqi people. He said that President Bush's statements that Saddam had tried to buy uranium "from Africa," that Iraq and Al-Qaeda were linked, that Iraq was on the verge of getting nukes, and that the secretary of defense knew where they were "wasn't true."
____"The facts? Saddam tried to buy nukes from three African countries other than Niger, and the British still stand by their intel on the Niger story. Plus, Saddam bought uranium from Niger in the 80s. We also have volumes of facts on Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda. Dean grumped, "I will never send American troops abroad without telling the people the truth about why they're going there. That's why I think I'm electable." Keep thinking that. Keep dreaming." Rushbo Limbo Mumbo Jumbo

And this is the print stuff online not some slip of the tongue on the air. Name 3 countries that have "nukes" in Africa Rush and how about a modicum of documentation yourself - since volumes are available. Hell even Annthrax uses footnotes even if they are 95% bogus. These examples of RushResearch are available sentence by sentence but these happen to be well documented and in our view.
I don't have any idea about the next 15 years. The way things are going we may not see next year. But Rush and radio are dinosaurs. The web is the information source of the future and the dittoheads are not all that data friendly.

I TRIED TO THINK OF A BETTER ASSESSMENT OF AL GORE'S SPEECH BUT I COULD NOT


Go Read the Daily Kos on Soros 75 million dollar fund for everywhere but the South (and he is a lot smarter and richer than I am) and apply it to this assessment.

More of the Gore Speech on Bums Rush.

WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE IF AL GORE WERE THE PRESIDENT?
The early exit polls in FLORIDA were correct.
Had all the votes counted as intended Gore would be President.
We would be prosperous, people would be employed, the deficit would not exist,
the Rich would have gotten richer, the poor would not be as poor,
we would not be at war, soldiers would not be dying, Bin Lauden would be dead,
there would be no Dept. of Big Brother Security, there would be no Patriot Act
and the World Trade Towers would still be standing.


Cuomo Calls on Gore to Seek Presidency

Cuomo said that the Democrats are lacking a "positive agenda, one that the whole party can come around, and a guy like Gore - who has done it, who has it and who can point to it - I think he would be an advantage to the campaign." Cuomo's comments came one day before Gore was to deliver a speech at New York University on the Bush administration's handling of the U.S.-led war against Iraq and other national security issues.

Catch up on what Al has been doing lately.
Al Gore denounces President Bush's efforts in pushing for attack on Iraq

Gore talks of Iraq, al Qaeda -- and what he'd do differently

"Joined at the Heart" by Al and Tipper Gore

In search of the appeal of the INSTAPUNDIT



This seems like a good a day to take up a subject that has bugged me since I began blogging:
Why does INSTAPUNDIT continue to draw 75,000 on average hits a day?

Could it be the content? Let's take a look at todays slate:

Item one SKBUBBA IS SHAKING UP THE POLITICAL SCENE here in Knoxville. posted at 10:17 PM

Item two :NEWSWEEK MISQUOTES A BLOGGER: And pays the price:WHAT PRICE?
"Well, let's see: First, I'm 34 years-old, not 38. Second, I contributed $20 to Dean's campaign, not $25. Third, while I like and support President Bush I have never referred to him either in public or in private - and most certainly not on the record to a reporter from Newsweek magazine - as "my man."
That's 2 factual errors and a misquote in 62 words of copy. I'm sorry, but that's pretty shoddy journalism. . ." posted at 10:04 PM

Item three: HOWARD DEAN IS OBVIOUSLY A ZIONIST AGENT. posted at 09:41 PM

Item four: ZIRCONIUM AND DIRTY BOMBS: Jay Manifold has a post following up on something I linked to earlier. posted at 06:14 PM

Item five: FRATERS LIBERTAS THINKS that Republicans may be using gay marriage as an issue to split black votes away from the Democrats. posted at 06:05 PM
IT MUST BE A REALLY SLOW NEWS DAY.

Item one is of local interest to Knoxvillians but I am very happy that it will lead many new readers to the excellent South Knox Bubba

Item two takes on a paragraph in a Newsweek story that slips up by making a man 4 years older and contributing $5.00 more in a puff piece on Republicans funding Dean because they think it might save pReznit "too stupid to vacation someplace nice".
Wow - somebody should sue Newsweek for Slander
Just goes to show that MSNBC on MSN will use anybody or any publication no matter how "shoddy".
Oh wait Instapundit is used by MSN-MSNBC. nevermind.

Item three: Is about a Dean supporter who used a GIF from the IDF site. It has that typically misleading headline that Dean is a Zionist.

Item four: Is really about the ineffectiveness of a potential Saddam WMD but you have to read carefully to get it.

Item five: Offers the "thought" that Republicans are supporting the Marriage amendment to glean an increase over their 9% of the Black vote while gutting all of the "fabulous" Andrew Sullivan support.

Pandagon has a nice piece about the Instapundit Strawmen arguments to further support my quest for the answer to the question: Why do people read this?

After reading all of this if you are not totally bored to tears please comment and tell me in detail why not.

THESE ARE TRULY THE WORDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR FRITZ HOLLINGS


At first I could not believe it. I thought it had to be a hoax but here it is in the Greeneville News direct from the Senators mouth.

"I'm truly worried about the country's direction. And a friend just mentioned you never hold back, but 'now you're leaving and not running, you're going to say anything and everything.'

"I said no I can tell you this categorically, we've got the weakest president and weakest government in the history of my 50 years of public service. I say weak president in that the poor boy campaigns all the time and pays no attention to what's going on in the Congress. Karl Rove tells him to do this or do that or whatever it is, but he's out campaigning. And I really don't think our friend Mark Sanford likes the job. As a result the state and the country – your state, my state, our country – is headed in the wrong direction with respect to our finances.

"You can see it at the state level. They are firing a thousand teachers.

"And at the national level, we've got Enron accounting galore. The President said two weeks ago on page one of his budget report that we have a $455 billion deficit at the end of next month; that's when the end of the fiscal year terminates. The truth of the matter is, you turn to page 57 of the report and you'll see it's $698 billion. And he admits to a $700 billion deficit, so you can see why the market goes down. Everyone sees who invests that there's no reason to invest because the interest rates are going up and you can't carry your investments." Big tip of the hat to MARU at WTF a favorite stop every day.

This IS a Deja Vu - Do not adjust your computer screen.

I just cannot believe that NOBODY picked up on this story
because I am outraged - maybe it was the weekend. So it's back on page one.
__________________________________________________________________


_____THE FLAG OF THE UNITED OIL CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA ___

First of the month financial news is always illuminating- if this doesn't PISS YOU OFF nothing will.
Bush Backers cite:
1) The decline in the "new unemployed" although the economy keeps shedding jobs
2) The increase in consumer spending and GDP although the one time 44 Billion dollar defense procurement accounted for that.

But Bush Backers have plenty to cheer about:
The big oil guys are VERY HAPPY: EXXON MOBIL scores big on war ChevronTexaco Profit Soars
ChevronTexaco Corp. CVX.N , the No. 2 U.S. oil company, on Friday said its quarterly profit quadrupled as refining and marketing margins improved and gas and oil prices rose closing the performance gap with more highly valued rivals Exxon Mobil Corp.

Halliburton shareholders and principals are estatic: Work in Iraq benefits Halliburton
Halliburton, the second biggest oilfield service company in the world, yesterday said work in Iraq had boosted revenue as it swung from a loss to record second-quarter net income of $26m, or 6 cents a share, compared with the year-earlier period. The Houston-based company credited the quarter's 11 per cent rise in revenue, to $3.6bn largely to increased activity in its Engineering and Construction Group (ECG) projects, including government services work in the Middle East.

Supporters at ENRON are pleased; Enron untouched in fight against corporate fraud
The Justice Department has proudly boasted of the hundreds of executives its Corporate Fraud Task Force has rounded up since its launch more than a year ago to fight white-collar crime. But the failure to bring charges against top executives at Enron, the signature case of the era, has loomed at least as large as prosecutors' many successes.

And the Defense contractors are already lining up for another trip to the trough in January:
Pentagon goes to Congress as war costs mount
When Lawrence Lindsey, then the White House's chief economic adviser, said in a published interview almost a year ago that he believed that the war in Iraq could cost anywhere from $100bn to $200bn (€88bn-€176bn, £62bn-£124bn), he was quickly admonished by his colleagues in the Bush administration.

How much looting, rape, and pillaging of our Treasury and our resources will it take before we throw these pirates out?
They say it is not about the oil but American Oil Corporations are taking record profits.
They say it is not about Halliburtion but those are the folks who are profiteering
They say it is not about corporate welfare and that privatization of public operations is cost effective but they do not punish the crooks.
They said this war would cost between 50 and 65 billion and it has already cost more with no end in site.
THEY ARE THE LOOTERS, RAPIST, AND PILLAGERS WHO ARE ROBBING US BLIND.