Diva Jood is the Law And Order Candidate

(If you click on the picture, it will enlarge so you can see it.)

Turd Blossom is in contempt of Congress for failing to appear on a subpoena. But a Judge ruled that even the Bush Administration is supposed to follow the law, which surprised all of them. Nevertheless, if you see Karl Rove, tackle him and arrest him. I wonder if he'll get to play with Scooter Libby?

The Postville Legacy: Do You Want Lies With That Hot Dog?

My dear blog friend Border Explorer has been diligent and passionate in her series about the Postville Raid. Called "the biggest immigration raid in American history," this raid has also opened the largest meat packing scandal since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, about the corruption in the meat packing industry in the early part of the 20th Century.

And here we have history repeating itself. Sinclair wrote about horrific working conditions, the exploitation of children and women, about workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground along with animal parts into beef lard. Sinclair wrote about a system that was supposed to bring progress to our nation; instead, the increased industrialization bred chaos, amorality, greed and a kind of individuality that has no regard for human dignity - forget about animal rights.

Agriprocessers, in Postville, hired illegal immigrants, mostly from Guatamala. The employees were coerced, threatened, beaten, kept in what they describe as a "slave-like" environment. The raid was conducted not as an immigration raid, but instead as a criminal raid with the main thrust being about "identity theft." Workers had been given "cooked" social security numbers. The immigrants, mostly unable to speak or read English, had no idea what they were being given. Opps. Their bad.

Much has been made over the fact that Agriprocessers is also the largest Kosher Meat and Poultry producer in the USA. Believe me, this has nothing to do with Orthodox Jewry. Nothing. This is about the over-industiralization of our economy.

The Meatrix is a small website I found after watching Fast Food Nation. This film shows the dark side of the fast food industry, from the ground up. The exploitation of illegal immigrants is a huge part of this chain of greed. Franchise America builds itself on cheap labor (subtext: illegal immigrants), sloppy production, and lies. Hey, Neocons? You want to stop illegal immigration? Shut down McDonalds.

At the Eat Well website, I put in my zip code: I am within 20 miles of 22 farmers markets, 2 restaurants, and 13 stores. There are actually more organic restaurants that they don't have on the list - but the telling piece is the 22 farmers markets. I go, weekly. They are local California farmers, with either Certified Organic or one step below Certified produce. I save money, I eat better, and I support the local economy. Give this a try.

Another site, Sustainable Table, gives all kinds of tips for building community, healthy eating, and defying the conglomerates. It is a way to connect us to our land, our food, and with each other.

The tactics used in the Postville Raid bespeak a totalitarian society. We know what we've become over the last eight years of the Bush Administration. But I contend this has been going on for far longer than Bush has even walked this earth. Greed is not new, nor is the exploitation of the poor and disenfranchised. But we can speak out, we can do more. We really can.

I can't be in Postville, but I can still help.

Border Explorer has been covering the largest ICE Raid in US History, the May 12 raid that apprehended 400 meat-packers in Postville, IA. The resulting raid has been a horrific bastardization of our rights, where Habeus Corpus has been turned on its ear. Border Explorer's coverage of this situation has been incredible, and you should all go read it.

Today, she writes:

The Postville Community Response Committee is asking those who are concerned about the situation to send a $20 donation. This will allow the Food Pantry to purchase approximately the following items for a family of four: rice, beans, a can each of fruit and vegetables, a box of cereal, eggs, and a $5 coupon for milk.

Please send your donation to the Postville Food Pantry c/o Pastor Steve Brackett, St Paul Lutheran Church, 116 Military, Postville IA 52162

My check is in the mail, and since I can't be in Postville, I can still help - this is how.

The G8 Dine and Dash

In 2005, at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, world leaders promised to increase global aid by £25billion a year by 2010 and raise aid to Africa, the world's poorest continent, by £12.5billion. But the bloc of rich nations is only 14 per cent of the way towards hitting its target. This year, in Hokkaido, Japan, they're dining on a variety of delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S., while they discuss the international food crisis, and try to forge out an agreement about climate change.

Conversation snippets:

George Bush: All y'all, I think this here crab bisket soup is a li'l bit hairy.

Gordon Brown: George, really, it's Hairy Crab Bisque, a real treat.

George Bush: An I thought it was a crisis in crabs. Hell, yes.

The menu is a tour-de-farce. Dominic Nutt, of the charity Save the Children, called the conference deeply hypocritical. I think that is an understatement at best, and typical of that British Reserve thing.

It is more than hypocritical to injest such a meal while wheat prices soar, and floods savage crops. It is more than hypocritical for a leader of a nation to call for "prudence and thrift in our kitchens", as Gordon Brown told the citizens of the United Kingdom, and then sit down to an 18-course banquet.


And while George Bush was hobnobing in Japan, Vice President Dick Cheney's office sought to prevent a federal official from publicly discussing the health consequences of global warming. I don't get it. I really, truly, cannot comprehend how people can be so callous, so deceitful. We all write about this, we all point out the abuses of power over and over and over again, and yet some part of me cannot comprehend how we can allow this to happen. I am overwhelmed by it all.

I admit that a lot of my clients are highly affluent people and I send them on lavish and elaborate trips. I am mindful of where they go, and my goal, my aim, is to expose them to other cultures so that their hearts are touched. But when I encounter the blatant, wanton excesses like this G8 conference, and the comments of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the citizens of the UK, I am absolutely rendered dumbstruck. To say that I am enraged would not do the feelings I have justice. Someone, somewhere, help me to understand just how we allowed this to happen. Because I can't get it at all.

Let's Go Surfing

Ya'll watch YouTube, right? I know I log in and watch stuff. It's fun. All the kids do it.A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far.

For every video on YouTube, the judge required Google to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who had watched it, and the address of their computer, known as an I.P. or Internet protocol address.

Not that I am paranoid, but Big Brother can access everything from our dental records to what kind of hair color we might use. And the internets provide access to every keystroke.

Who do we email? Who do we chat with? What are we researching? What do we read? What do we purchase? What do we watch? Where do we go? Computers store this information forever, and it is quite easily subpoened. Time to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who have been at the forefront of Electronic Rights and our best line of defense. Because I don't want Viacom to have my information, for any reason.

March 18, 2003 on Good Morning America

Babs and the modernized version of "Let them eat cake." This callous disregard for our military men and women, and their parents, bears remembering. It bears repeating. Barbara Bush lacks compassion, she lacks integrity, and she lacks a soul. For if her son can send these young men and women off to war, then she and her family should have the decency to honor them when they fall.

Cost of War in Iraq

I thought I would take a look at the local cost of the War in Iraq. The National Priorities Project has a page where you can get the costs as it pertains to your locality. Taxpayers in California's Congressional District 36 (Harman) will pay $1.3 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following services could have been provided:

• 550,963 People with Health Care for One Year OR
  
• 2,385,106 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR
  
• 23,915 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
  
• 18,911 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
  
• 201,177 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
  
• 4,007 Affordable Housing Units OR
  
• 500,391 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
  
• 160,123 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR
  
• 19,226 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
  
• 16,907 Port Container Inspectors for One year

I am rendered speechless. We need to bring all our resources home: our soldiers, who don't deserve the horrors they've been handed; and our tax dollars so we can repair the soul of our nation by providing the services we lose daily due to Bush's arrogance.

Are you feeling lucky? Are you?

Governor Schwarzenegger's Office of Protocol is a 501 (c) (3) organization and raises funds from individuals, corporations, and other foundations that will be used to pay for State events that a particular department of the government would pay for traditionally. Those state events include paying for top-of-the-line private jets like the plush Gulfstream models Governor Schwarzenegger uses for his travels; and the hotel suites he likes to stay in, such as The Royal Livingstone Hotel. Here, he not only stayed in the Presidential Suite, he had them install floor to ceiling mirrors for his stay.

Nonprofit watchdogs say using charitable write-offs to pay for sumptuous travel is an abuse of tax codes.

"Wow, that's a problem," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy. "Why should our tax dollars subsidize his lavish lifestyle?"

AH-nold is a very wealthy man - and still he bills his overseas travel to this nonprofit group. The Office of Protocol can qualify its secret donors for full tax deductions, just as if they were giving to skid row shelters or the United Way. Charities are not governed by the same disclosure rules as campaign donations are, so people can contribute to this obscure little non-profit in order to influence the Governor, and obtain favors from him. What a nifty little trick he's got going for himself! I can see it now: "You want me to approve that? Sure. I'm taking the family to Europe for the summer, just make a donation to the OOP."

Or should that be "OOPS?"