Rush has a moment of reality (maybe the drugs are wearing off)

So now Rush Limbaugh is condemning Bush and others for wanting amnesty for illegals and ignoring security at the borders. Says that this issue threatens to destroy the Republican party. When all this time he's been shilling for Bush and practically promising that life as we know it would come to a halt if we didn't re-elect El Jorge and go along with him.

But now that he is in a second term, Rush is finally comfortable enough to see and talk about the truth? That Bush and his kind are putting American sovereignty in jeopardy and don't care a flying rat's butt that they're doing it.

What they're doing in exposing our border with Mexico is pretty much what Benedict Arnold did at West Point... but on a much grander scale. If Arnold merited being hung for that (which he wasn't: he died bankrupt and despised in 1801) how much moreso do our "brilliant" modern leaders deserve?

I stopped listening to Rush a long time ago. He used to be engaging, thought-inspiring and darned funny back in the day. He's now so full of himself that he can't confront the hypocrisy he espouses unless he sees that he's destroying himself with it. The man has no more credibility in my book, and there's a lot better places to find original ideas than an ethically bankrupt sad individual who's wasted his life supporting a political party that he didn't even stop and consider if they were worth supporting to begin with.

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California elementary students forced to wear microchip ID by power-mad principal (kids should do what Gandhi did and burn 'em)

This is one of those stories that I had to make sure wasn't from The Onion. It ain't, folks.

From KFWB News 980 in Los Angeles comes this:

School Officials Make ID Badges Mandatory for Elementary Students

SUTTER, Calif. (AP) 1.28.05, 9:50a -- Parents of Sutter elementary students told school officials Thursday they're concerned about the school's new policy that requires students to wear security badges.

Brittan Elementary School District Superintendent Earnie Graham said the school is doing a test run to see if the technology improves campus security.

The badges contain a "passive antenna" that emit radio waves to a reader mounted above the doorway in each classroom. The readers picks up the child's ID number and sends it to a handheld computer that tracks attendance.

But parent Dawn Cantrall said the badge was "creepy and cumbersome," and complained that it had too much information on it, including a student's picture, full name and identification number.

"Now somebody can come up to her, see her name, and tell her, 'Your mom told me to pick you up,"' she said.

The school board approved the trial run last summer for kindergarten through eighth grade students. All staff members and volunteers also wear badges, said Graham.

The school board approved the free test run unanimously last summer. Graham held a special meeting Thursday for parents who had concerns about the new policy. Graham apologized for the scant notice given to parents, but said it was to increase school security.

"It's not an option," Graham said. "(The badge) is just like a textbook, you have to have it. I'm charged with running the school district and I get to make those kinds of rules."

The badges are supplied by InCom, a technology firm based in Sutter. The owners offered the school a small donation for the inconvenience of testing the badges and attendance scanners.

"I get to make those kinds of rules."

Read that again: "I get to make those kinds of rules."

Just the polite way of saying "I am a government official with power over your children, meaning that I have power over you. If I want your kid to be nothing but a numbered piece of meat, that's what he'll become and there's not a damned thing your or anyone can do about it, because I have more money and power and lawyers and men with guns than you'll ever scrape together. Who the Hell do you think you are to question my power anyway, you pathetic little plebian. Now shut up and take your number like a good serf should."

It's people like this guy who honestly don't believe that they're doing anything wrong. And they'll insist that they were always innocent right up to the moment that they're lined up against the wall or marched up the scaffold.

Let me put this another way: no children of mine will ever be in a public school. But if they were, and the principal tried to force THIS to them... I would kill him. And anyone else who'd attempt the same.

These people are in the same mindset as the Nazis were, except they're worse: see, they've chosen to be this way, despite all the history that they can't possibly claim ignorance of. The way I figure it, we either put the fear of God in them now, by ourselves if we have to, or we shoot 'em. The only other alternative is to be in fear of them and wait for our turn to be shot or gassed or bayoneted, whatever.

I went to Brittan Elementary School's website and found the latest school newsletter. Regarding the badges it says that "The badges are very durable, but students who lose or destroy their badges will be accountable for the cost of replacing them." About as galactically a STUPID a thing to impose on kids as there is, 'cuz kids being kids are naturally going to LOSE something like this somehow or another. But what the &$%# sick kind of bastiches FORCES something THIS expensive on ANYONE, much less SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILDREN and then dares tell them that they will PAY for something that THEY DIDN'T BUY, EVER APPROVED OR WOULD HAVE PROBABLY WANTED ANYWAY!?

Hey, why not just stick this radio ID chip in their forehead or right hand? That'll keep 'em from losing it for sure, no doubt.

Here's the badges themselves in action, by the way. There's more info about 'em at InCom Corporation's homepage about their "InClass" product:

"Badges? We don't need no steenkin' badges!"
But before we resort to the bullet box, we still have the soap box. So this is what the good people of Sutter should do against their would-be masters...

A hundred years or so ago, Mahatma Gandhi burned his British-imposed pass that all non-white people in India were forced to carry. It was the beginning of the "passive resistance" that ultimately saw an independent India.

This was the the parents of Brittan's students should encourage their kids to do, not just for themselves but for children all over this country: have a public burning of these damnable badges. They are nothing but glorified versions of the same passes that Gandhi and those he inspired burned: if they didn't have to live under that kind of rule, then our kids sure as Hell don't deserve it either.

Burn 'em, folks. Do it in front of God and everyone. Make sure this principal and his kind know that you're doing it. Thumb your noses at them and don't apologize for it. Let 'em know damned well that the children do not belong to the school or the government or anyone else but to God and their own families.

If that ain't worth fighting, however that fight is carried out, then I don't know what is.

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"WAR!" Huh-yeah, What is it good for?

Something about seeing "WAR!" like that, sorta just tacked-on to the REAL crawl, makes me giggle inside. Like for all the horrific darkness that George Lucas has promised in this movie, the kind of stuff that will send the toughest geek fanboy running home crying for Momma, for all the GRUESOMENESS (and it'll be gruesome, believe you me... I've seen stuff the public ain't yet), Star Wars Episode 3 will be like the others and still not take itself seriously somehow!

So if you're curious as to what the text will be for the opening crawl on this, the final Star Wars movie of all time (unless The Plaid One chooses to make one about 80-year old Han Solo and drags Harrison Ford out in another twenty years... which should be before they finally get to work on that Indiana Jones 4 they keep promising) 'cuz this is what always sets the tone for the movie to follow, here ya go, courtesy of Paul and Pablo and Steve and Jim and Rick (and George 'course) and all the other good folks at StarWars.com:

Episode III
REVENGE OF THE SITH

War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor....

"Heroes on both sides"? "Evil is everywhere"? The first hints at nebulous morality, which is good for this series. Lot of fans - myself included - are of the belief that Dooku is NOT all that bad a guy: that the only reason he threw in with the Sith is because he saw how corrupt and decadent the Republic had become while the Jedi did nothing... so he said "to Hell with it, and screw you Yoda!" and went his own way to make things right. He's not in it for the power (which doesn't make him a real Sith at all anyway), he just wants enough power for the moment to effect some much-needed changes. He's got the right motive, it's just that his methods are lousy. That's just one example though, and it's good that Lucas is getting more bold as his series matures (hope it carries on into the TV show in 2006).

As for "evil is everywhere"...

<beavisandbuttheadlaugh>
Heh. Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh-heh.
</beavisandbuttheadlaugh>

Good crawl. Seems like Lucas is going to let his saga go out with a bang :-)

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He's not sorry for wasting dozens of lives in Iraq, yet Bush regrets getting caught in op-ed parlor trick on American people

After being discovered paying ANOTHER op-ed commentator to hawk his schemes, President Bush has ordered his staff to no longer hire columnists.

But if he's supposed to be so moral and ethical, why did he start doing it to begin with?

Given how dishonest a practice this is, what kind of public official even conceives of such a thing?

Why would the President of the United States do this?

Why would Bush spend our money to try to trick us like this?

With each passing day I'm becoming all the more glad that Bush won(?) the election. It would have been better for his political career to have died quick and mercifully. Now he begins to suffer death by a thousand cuts. Twenty years from now, he will be regarded as one of the worst Presidents in American history... even surpassing Bill Clinton. I'm a patient man: I can wait to gloat at the Bush-bots for awhile, when there's nothing they can do about it by that point.

I just wish that he could prove his incompetence in a better way than having so many American soldiers dying without purpose in a country whose people are now far worse off now than when we "liberated" it from an already evil dictator. The man who's sent well over a thousand to die meaningless deaths yet has never so much as acknowledged their "sacrifices" by attending a soldier's funeral is now threatening more of this nonsense:

"We value life and we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life," the president said. "But it is the long-term objective that is vital, and that is to spread freedom."

At the rate his madness is accelerating, I'm tempted to pray for God to send a CvS (people in the know will understand wink-wink).

Gotta wonder something: if Bush is not paying any more commentators after these two were discovered, how many more working in television or print media have whored themselves out that we don't know about yet?

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Idol's Leroy Wells singing a new song: "In The Jailhouse Now"

Remember Leroy Wells, the guy on American Idol from my last post? Looks like he's been a bad bad boy. Here's the lowdown from WPMI's website:

American Idol hopeful Leroy Wells watches his performance from the lockup
Last Update: 1/26/2005 11:00:19 PM
Posted By: Ron Reams

(MOBILE, Ala.) January 26 -- An American Idol hopeful, gaining notoriety, but not just for his shot at stardom. T-V viewers found Grand Bay's Leroy Wells on national T-V Tuesday night. However, on Wednesday, the would-be “idol” could be found in Mobile Metro Jail.

While millions of American Idol fans kept it locked into Leroy, Leroy was locked up behind bars for failing to appear in court.

The 22-year-old Grand Bay, Alabama native wowed fans with his rendition of "Got Your Money" by O-D-B. Even though he wasn't able to watch his performance from home, sheriff’s deputies tell NBC 15 they did allow Leroy and other inmates to watch American Idol from jail.

Mobile Police spokesman Marcus Young says Leroy Wells was arrested earlier this month for reportedly shooting a hand gun into an occupied vehicle. “Apparently they were arguing over how the cars were in the roadway at which time Mr. Wells allegedly shot the victim in his hip,” Young says.

Ahh geez, what a waste. EVERYONE was talking about this kid all day after his "performance" on Tuesday night's show. It was a hilarious moment that made a lot of people smile and to know it's marred by something like this...

"Violence. Don't play that game."

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"GECRUNKPRAJESUSCAYUDIGIT?!?" Tonight's American Idol one of TV's funniest hours ever

EDIT: leroy-wells.com has the video from American Idol in streaming Windows Media format. Please don't watch if you've just come out of gall bladder surgery as the intense laughter can open the incision.

Tonight's show was the auditions in New Orleans. And the guest judge was Gene Simmons from KISS. Factor in how an American Idol audition is always a magnet for the really strange over the real singers. It was like the perfect storm of hilarity waiting to happen!

This would have still been classic if the only ummm, "unique" person to show up was Daron Beck, the guy in all-black who sang "I Put A Spell On You" by Screaming Jay Hawkins. And believe you me, he had every nuance of that song down pat and maybe did a hella better "You're MIIIIIIIIIINE!!!" scream than Hawkins.

Then came Leroy Wells. Remember William Hung, whose rendition of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" last year made him a household name (despite the fact that, as he admits, he sang lousy)? And the year before that it was Keith, the guy at the Atlanta audition in the big green turtleneck sweater who sang Madonna's "Like A Virgin". If every season of American Idol must have a mascot standout who didn't make it past the audition, Leroy Wells has season 4 all "crunked" up. Folks, by any means necessary, you absolutely MUST watch the footage of this guy. You're probably going to see him anyway, on TV shows and websites devoted to him. Maybe even t-shirts with his face. We only understood four things he ever said: his singing "I Feel Good" by James Brown, that he did something with paint for a living, "praise Jesus" and the thing that I told my wife is going to be this decade's answer to Flip Wilson's "The Devil made me do it" 30 years ago...

"CAN YOU DIG IT?!?"

The real scary thing is, I don't think Leroy is on drugs or did this as "an act" at all. And one contestant who auditioned the same day affirms that what we saw tonight is 100% undiluted personality. I couldn't make it out but everyone who watched it tonight said that he talked about "getting crunked" or something.

This was the hardest we've laughed in a long time.

I called Mom at the next commercial break and she was hysterical with laughter. This was... geez how do you describe someone that you can't even understand what the heck he's saying?

Here's hoping that whatever it is that he's supposed to be, that Leroy Wells will go far. He's definitely his own person and that's a rare thing in this world. That, and because he (and most of the others tonight, save for two) were extremely gracious in being turned away. Success is never guaranteed, but that's okay, 'cuz I saw a lot of people able to walk away and smile that they at least gave it their best.

Including Leroy Wells :-)

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NO MORE TO COME: Tea-Time ends for Art Fern, Aunt Blabby goes quiet, Floyd R. Turbo fires his final shot, Carnac reveals the last great mystery...

Johnny Carson died today.

Another legend has gone.

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