Letter of the Day III

one more....

 

In his April 17 letter ("Even Judges Need Discipline"), David Rader describes the relationship of the Judiciary to the Executive and the Legislative as "a little boy and his mother and his father."

This is erroneous, but perhaps the simile is still apt. The U.S. House of Representatives best fits the description of a misbehaving toddler, throwing temper tantrums when it doesn't get its way.

The public, if not a "parental" court, needs to take this squalling brat on a well-deserved trip to the woodshed.

-L. Lenfred Link,
Maxwell.

attribution

 

Letter of the Day II

couldn't let this one pass....

 

Every year the U.S. State Department submits a report on terrorism to Congress. This year the department decided not to include figures in the report.

Why would it do this? Because in 2003 there were a record number of major terror attacks. In 2004 there were three times as many major terror attacks as in 2003.

The president wants you to believe we have the terrorists on the run - we are smoking them out of their holes. During his international war on terror, terrorism has tripled.

Naturally the Bush administration does not want the people to know about their horrible failure. Many people warned that if we went to war against Iraq, and no weapons of mass destruction were found, terrorism would increase.

What happened? We are living in a world that is substantially more dangerous than before.

-Dana Barrer,
Mitchellville.

attribution

 

the letter on iverson's site

and now he won't be able to say it was never there.

Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS) has been a big topic up here this week in the Legislature. We debated an amendment to the IPERS bill dealing with funding of the retirement system, through worker and employer contributions. Currently IPERS is in a state of concern. For two reasons: a few slim years on investments in the stock market and people are living longer. We must make changes if we want retirees to receive the benefits they have invested in.

IPERS is a state sponsored retirement system of guaranteed benefits for public employees: state, cities, counties, townships, agencies and school districts are all eligible for these benefits. Many funds on the stock market have seen a decline and IPERS is one of them. Currently there is a shortfall in the fund, as there is a shortfall in many personal retirement accounts invested on Wall Street. History shows us returns on investments go up and down, and it is not anyone’s fault that the economy is currently not doing as well as it once did.

Since IPERS beginning members pay 40% and the employer pays 60% of the invested retirement funds. It is a tremendously generous fund the employee and taxpayers contribute into for personal retirement. But with the growing age of retirees, to keep the fund solvent changes need to be made.

A change to the IPERS system is a difficult decision to make, 160,000 public employees in Iowa are affected. Right now the fund is 88.6% funded, but ten years ago the fund was at 98%. To stay solvent, or fully invested, it needs a return on investment of 7.5% which is a high return rate to achieve every year. To get the retirement system 100% the legislature would need to appropriate $243 million to the fund. I am concerned the fund remains solvent because so many Iowans are depending on IPERS as their full retirement plan. But is it right to ask the employer (all Iowa taxpayers) to pay more because our return on investment is not as good as it used to be?

The proposed change in the contributions would go from a percentage break of 40/60, with the 40 percent being funded by the employee to an even split of 50/50 percent with employee and employer investing the same portion. Unfortunately, the amendment failed and there have been no changes to the IPERS system.

If your retirement fund is weakening due to a slide in the stock market, do you come to the government and ask them to make up the difference?

IPERS is the public employee’s retirement fund, not all Iowa residents are able to contribute or draw from this fund. I think that we, all state employees, should be willing to shoulder more of the responsibility of keeping the fund solvent even if it means paying a little more into it. I feel we should have a 50/50 split, employee invests $50 and the employer invests $50.

In this plan there are absolutely no benefit reductions in the proposed bill for current employees. Not a single employee will have to work a day longer because of this bill. No changes are made to retirement dates for current employees. The bill will only protect the integrity of the IPERS fund. However, if no changes are made to contribution rates, the unfunded liability will grow and in time the benefits will be at risk.

Thank you for taking the time this week to learn more about IPERS. This is an extremely important issue that affects many Iowans, so legislators will continue to work with the IPERS people to find an acceptable solution to the IPERS program whose benefits are at risk.

Anytime you are here, please stop by my office and say hello. Visit my website at www.stewiverson.com to check out pictures of our guests, along with press releases and an archive of my weekly column.

Please contact me if you have any comments on this or any other issue. During the legislative session, you can contact me in my Des Moines office at 515-281-3560. As always, you can reach me in Dows on the weekends at 515-852-3350 or contact me via email at stewart.iverson@legis.state.ia.us .

http://www.stewiverson.com/insights/2005-14.asp

 

Letter of the Day

As Republicans push for privatization of Social Security, Stewart Iverson, Republican leader in the Iowa Senate, is concerned about the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS).

In a letter to constituents, Iverson said he wants to increase the employee contribution toward retirement because the stock-market slide has caused the IPERS fund to be underfunded. Iverson makes the point that the stock market could again fully fund IPERS sometime in the future, but his analysis overall says volumes about privatization of Social Security.

Iverson says "a few slim years on investments in the stock market and people are living longer. We must make changes if we want retirees to receive the benefits they have invested in." Obviously the stock market has not been the answer for IPERS, which has always invested carefully. Iverson indicates his confidence in the stock market by suggesting that Iowa employees must contribute more to the fund because private employers do not contribute more to their funds in down years.

Iverson states: "The bill will only protect the integrity of the IPERS fund. However, if no changes are made to contribution rates, the underfunded liability will grow and in time the benefits will be at risk."

Those are partial quotes, and the letter is on his Web site [www.stewiverson.com], but this is not a ringing endorsement of stock-market based retirement funds. While the Republican Party trumpets privatization of Social Security, one of its well-known Iowa members is concerned that stock that the stock t hold up a fund that previously had been well respected and very solvent.

If a well-regarded group-retirement plan like IPERS cannot remain fully funded by its own contributions and employer contributions, how can we expect individual Social Security funds to provide the security that retirees need?

-Harold Tuchel,
Waterloo.

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a milestone

a sad milestone at that....

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third died in Samarra.

CNN

HE LIES LIKE A RUG

from a guy who runs around the globe beating his chest as if he's the biggest gorilla, making noise about freedom on the march, sacrificing freedom for stability is exactly what he has done to America.

RIGA, Latvia, May 7 -- President Bush condemned the Soviet subjugation of Eastern Europe after World War II but acknowledged Saturday that the United States bore some blame for the "division of Europe into armed camps" and vowed never again to trade freedom for stability.

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HYPOCRISY ALERT

"All free and successful countries have some common characteristics—freedom of worship, freedom of the press, economic liberty, the rule of law and the limitation of power through checks and balances," Mr. Bush remarked.

 

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incompetence defined

another definition of why we call the bushites the most incompetent administration ever in all of American history.  the label "most corrupt" comes to mind as well.

As a result, the likelihood of detecting a hidden weapon or bomb has not significantly changed since the government took over airport screening operations in 2002, according to the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. Transportation security officials acknowledge that they cannot improve performance without new technology, but they dispute suggestions that no progress has been made.

"We have created a much more formidable deterrent," said Mark O. Hatfield Jr., a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. "Do we have an absolute barrier? No."

Counting machinery and personnel, aviation screening has cost more than $15 billion since 2001, a price that Representative John L. Mica, Republican of Florida, says has hardly been worthwhile.

from nytimes, an article well worth reading, if you're not a bushite.

Quote of the Day

 God protect me from those that would protect me.
--Stan Olsen

 

attribution

d is for dictator. w is for wanna be

cbs shows bush in russia, or going to russia, speaking in latvia, and being the biggest hypocrite there ever was.

 

this guy was promoting democracy, yet demonstrating dictatorship.

 

ever notice how dictators always like to micromanage?

how they are afraid of facing people that are different?

or even those who do not like you?

 

no, bush is no democratic pusher.

he's a dictator wanna-be.

Quote of the Day

"Seriously, folks! How much longer will our country allow its elected (by hook and/or crook) officials, prominent religious and/or social issues leaders, and our national media to lie, inveigle, and obfuscate with impunity? "

--Delilah Boyd

attribution

on edit: God i luv her writing style.

on second edit:  YOU REALLY MUST READ HER IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN FOR THE SHEER TRUTH OF IT.

Letter Of The Day

I am an independent voter, but a voter all the same, becoming incensed at the appalling lack of enforcement concerning improper kickbacks received by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. People are acting as if this is some kind of partisan witch-hunt, but we are talking about two leisure trips valued at $127,000.

How can anyone spend that kind of money on a golf outing without even asking who was footing the bill? Isn't that equal to the better part of a congressman's yearly salary? How could you grab that much candy without having to make some deal with the devil selling the votes of your constituents to benefit one lobbyist's personal interests?

If that kind of handout is common, then we need the U.S. Department of Justice doing the ethics investigations, not members of Congress.

Delay seems to think the questions are personal, but being an elected official, he should answer to all Americans regardless of political belief. That should be the standard for all elected officials.

The esteemed former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon should be a model. He was known for refusing lobbyist perks so in no way could it be misconstrued that he possibly "sold" his vote to anyone.
-William Arndt,
Remsen.

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government waste

ever wonder how it is that feds always drive escalades?

why couldn't they be happy with something not as luxurious?

from cheney's favorite site...

factcheck.org has a summary that pretty much sums up the whole scene these days:

A multimillion-dollar ad campaign blames Democrats for the fact that "courtrooms sit empty." In fact, there are now half as many judicial vacancies as when Bush took office. And of the 46 federal judgeships that remain vacant, Bush has named only 16 replacements.

The ad also says cases are being delayed in federal courts for "thousands of Americans." Actually, official statistics show cases typically being decided more quickly now than they were in 1999, when it was Republicans opposing Clinton's judicial nominees.

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the well DUH post of the day

comes to us from that irreverent tom friedman over at the times.  i don't like him, since he's a shill for the 'party', but he does recognize something that has been apparant to me for years, yet slammed on every time i get in earshot of a bushite.

First, many educated people seem to be getting their news from Comedy Central. Say what? As any author will tell you, the best TV book shows to be on have long been Don Imus, Charlie Rose, C-Span, Tim Russert on CNBC, "Today," Oprah and selected programs on CNN, Fox and MSNBC. They are all still huge. But what was new for me on this tour was the number of people who also mentioned getting their news from Jon Stewart's truly funny news satire, "The Daily Show." And I am not just talking about college kids. I am talking about grandmas. Just how many people are now getting their only TV news from Comedy Central is not clear to me - but it is a lot, lot more than you think.

 

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oh oh...

The Journal's Washington Wire mentions that the GOP, rejecting an advisory board's recommendations, has decided that a commission on Medicaid cuts will be administration-appointed rather than independent.

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so what have they been doing for the last 4 years?

wasnt the whole idea behind 9/11 was to consolidate the process of sharing intel?

 

well, it looks like that has been a miserable failure too.

One "senior intelligence official" told the Times the satellite images of North Korea show evidence of "everything you need to test. We've never seen this level of activity." Pyongyang has never tested a bomb before, and the possibility exists that North Korea is just playing to the cameras. Meanwhile, the Times cites three U.S. officials who vouched for the existence of the intel. But the paper adds, interestingly, that officials at one U.S. intel "said they were unaware of the new activity."

 

attribution

 

kalling kim jung il

B-2 bombers, F-15E fighters in Guam, Aegis ships in Japan

 

The U.S. military is beefing up its military capabilities in the Pacific by deploying high-tech aircraft and Navy vessels amid worsening assessments of the prospects of an early solution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.

 

B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and F-15E fighter jets were deployed in Guam recently on a rotation basis. Experts noted the bombers and fighters have the range to strike North Korea's nuclear facilities and high-profile stocks of missiles in the event of any conflict.

 

The U.S. military plans to introduce two newer Aegis combat system vessels in Japan this summer, replacing one Aegis-equipped vessel and another old destroyer, making the total number of Aegis-equipped warships seven.

attribution

 

Quote of the Day

"The thing about being an actor is that you're in the business of not growing up."
-Luke Wilson, on the lack of research required for his role in Old School.

 

attribution

dont these guys ever believe in doing the right thing?

they call themselves right-wing extremists, yet they are every bit BUT "right" wing anything.

There’s a backstory that lurks behind Bush’s decision to stand by DeLay. It involves Greenberg Traurig, the firm that employed the powerful lobbyist who paid for palatial DeLay junkets, and Abramoff staffers, who were footsoldiers in the Florida recount. Greenberg Traurig has yet to receive more than $314,000 in legal fees charged to a Bush committee during the 2000 Florida recount, RAW STORY can confirm.

As a corporation, Greenberg’s unpaid tab represents a massive in-kind campaign contribution, far larger than anything that went unreported by DeLay. But it appears to be legal: corporations are allowed to donate any amount to the nebulous type of committee employed during the recount. It would, however, violate the committee's self-imposed $5,000 contribution limit from individual donors.

rawstory

msnbc BREAKING NEWS

Exit polls project Tony Blair's Labour Party has won
re-election in Britain -

wow wow.  they dont trust the exit polls here, cuz ya know, they had kerry ahead by over 10%, but yet the exit polls sure told America that we had voted based on values.  and now we're told exit polls declared tony poodle blair victory. 

 

my my.  how they get to be selective whenever they want.

open letter to CBS

cbs news has become another struggling-to-get-'in' network, and they just don't get it.

 

they need to think just the opposite.  being "in" is good.  being "in" with the bushite people isn't.

 

why?  because with the bushite peolle, you'll never know when you're 'friendship' is up.

 

i could write a book

and title it:  why democrats never own oil.

file this under FREEDOM ON THE MARCH heading

Conservative lawmakers in Kuwait's Parliament on Tuesday created a constitutional roadblock that effectively killed a measure that would have allowed women to participate in city council elections for the first time. Hours later, the elections were called for June 2.

The action eliminates any chance that women will be able to take part in elections for another four years, when city council seats are again up for grabs.

The legislation initially was passed by Kuwait's 64-member National Assembly on April 19, but in accordance with Kuwaiti law faced a second vote for ratification on Monday. But Parliament ended in deadlock on Monday when 29 members abstained and only 29 voted for it, leaving the legislation just shy of the 33 votes needed.

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what more do you need to have before you realize....

that this administration, including the armed forces, have consistently lied to the American public?

The first Army investigator who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in an act of "gross negligence," but Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service.

A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the service.

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Letter Of The Day

General Motors blamed its first-quarter losses on health-care costs. In addition to corporate-health woes, more than 40 million Americans are without health care, drug costs are at an all-time high and there are imminent Medicaid cuts.

Health-care costs are the real crisis in the United States. Instead, our president is manufacturing a "crisis" trying to reform a Social Security system that needs only minor tweaking. Funds are available for an unnecessary war and tax cuts for the rich, but not to give basic health care, affordable medication and guarantee a minimal retirement income for working Americans.

Our president's policies are leading to an increasingly economically tiered society. All his policy decisions favor the wealthy over the poor. This is not in harmony with the so-called moral-values platform that got him elected.
-Rick Burns,
Pella.

attribution

hey JON STEWART......

YOU ROCKED TONITE

AND SO DID YOUR FRIEND, AND OURS

MR. BLACK.

 

THE Q IS WITH YOU JON.

USE, DONT ABUSE.

Question of the Day

do you believe in creationism or in evolution as the genesis of earth and its inhabitants?

 

i could go on and on and on about how proving that 'God' created us is next to impossible, while proving the theory of evolution is equally difficult.

 

but a piece on cbsnews' website struck me as being totally off the mark:

A Gallup poll late last year showed that only 28 percent of Americans accept the theory of evolution, while 48 percent adhere to creationism - the belief that an intelligent being is responsible for the creation of the earth and its inhabitants.

who says that this 'intelligent being' has to be "God"?

 

Joke for the Day

and lastly... for a while anyway, we have your Joke for the Day.  also from today's papers:

The Post's off-lead reminds that the government is a bit behind the eight ball on preparing for the possibility of a terrorist nuke attack. Apparently, public education in particular is lacking. Still, the Homeland Security's Ready.gov does have some handy tips in the event of a detonation in your city. For instance: Find yourself about a block away from the blast? "Consider if you can get out of the area."

a personal observation.....

what with all these polls out that show a decidedly majority opposing almost everything the president does, makes one contemplate....  how in the fuck did he win the election if he cant ever get past the 50% line in anything.

a lesson on how the administration is kept above the law

from today's papers on slate, we get a lesson on how the administration escapes all responsibility for its actions.

Most of the papers go inside with Pvt. Lynndie England (of the leash fame) pleading guilty to abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib. Under her plea deal, she's expected to be sentenced to just a couple of years. But the interesting thing isn't the deal, it's that it almost didn't go off: As the Post flags, the judge nearly didn't accept England's plea after England said she had been ordered to pose with the prisoner and didn't know what she had done wrong. The court adjourned for a bit, England's lawyer gave her a talking to, and England returned to say her actions were "not only morally wrong but legally wrong. I had a choice, but I chose what my friends wanted me to do."

my how they squirm when the runt misspeaks

here's how the times lets the administration off the hook whenever the chimp is caught in a lie:

The general's report appears to provide a slightly different assessment than President Bush offered at a news conference last week when he said the number of American troops in Iraq would not limit Washington military options elsewhere.

Mr. Bush said he had asked General Myers, "Do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq?"

"And the answer is no, he didn't feel a bit limited," Mr. Bush said. "It feels like we got plenty of capacity."

Late Monday, a Pentagon official dismissed any serious contradiction between the president and the general. "The two comments are consistent in that no one in the military feels at all limited in the ability to respond to any contingency," the official said. "What the risk assessment discusses is the nature of the response."

Another Pentagon official emphasized that the risk assessment should be understood as a rating of the military's ability to successfully perform its mission based on a set of standards set by the Joint Staff, which is different from the broad statement of military capability given by the president at his news conference.

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george w. bush's legacy of freedom on the march

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A photographer for a Baghdad newspaper says Iraqi police beat and detained him for snapping pictures of long lines at gas stations. A reporter for another local paper received an invitation from Iraqi police to cover their graduation ceremony and ended up receiving death threats from the recruits. A local TV reporter says she's lost count of how many times Iraqi authorities have confiscated her cameras and smashed her tapes.

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what a way to go....

 

A second man overcome by manure pit gases during an incident in Clinton County last month has died, his family said.

Justin P. Faur, 23, of Teeds Grove, died Saturday at University Hospitals in Iowa City.

Faur was overcome by the gases when he tried to save Clinton County cattle farmer Dwight Johnson, 52, of Andover on April 16.

Police said Faur called 911 and then jumped into an underground pit to rescue Johnson, who later died on April 20.

"I think everybody in the area thinks Justin is a hero, and I think in our minds he was," Faur's stepfather, Dean Papke, said Monday.

Officials said Faur and Johnson were in the process of draining the pit's liquefied manure when the accident happened. Neighbors said they believed Johnson went in to the pit to retrieve a chain before it got wrapped up in a pump.

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Letter of the Day II

couldn't resist nominating this one:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to eliminate federal estate taxes beginning in 2010. Republicans have been demonizing the so-called death tax for years.

George W. Bush said soon after taking office in 2001, "To keep farms in the family we are going to get rid of the death tax." After the election, the Bush administration searched for several weeks, not finding one family farm lost to the estate tax.

The real issue is what kind of society we want. Do we want a meritocracy, where wealth is earned, or an aristocracy, where it is inherited? U.S. wealth disparities are closer to Third World countries than other industrialized countries. Without a mechanism to break apart large fortunes, we are rapidly approaching the old European model of aristocracy.

Some very wealthy people understand the negative consequences and are against repealing the estate tax. Warren Buffet, Ted Turner and Bill Gates are among the more prominent members of this group. They argue that concentrated wealth undermines democracy by allowing a relatively small group of people power beyond their numbers. Concentrated wealth also places control of much of our nation's resources in the hands of people based on their heredity, not their merit.

These same billionaires also realize their fortunes were made possible by the system and the country into which they were born. The federal government created our banking, commerce and securities systems, along with most of the infrastructure of this country using tax dollars. Tax dollars fund medical and agricultural research, work that benefits all people.

Our society suffers when creative, intelligent, industrious people are denied the opportunity to fulfill their potential while others with much less intrinsic ability (think of Paris Hilton) are given tremendous fortunes by an accident of birth. These policies are both anti-Christian, anti-family and anti-patriotic.
-Ted Peterson,
Ames.

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Sad Story of the WeeQ

this broke my heart when i read it.  that people are driven to such nazi'ish behavior makes me ill.

THREE Scottish soldiers are facing a court martial for drug abuse at an Army base in Cyprus.

Soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers took cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy weeks after the regiment returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.

An internal inquiry has been ordered after random tests turned up three positive results.

But well--placed sources in Cyprus have accused the Army of a cover-up, claiming as many as 15 soldiers gave positive samples. Insiders also claim bullying is rife in the regiment - and punishment beatings are dished out to any who dare to complain.

Documents obtained by the Record revealed that 62 Scots soldiers have gone AWOL from Cyprus in just over a year.

Sources at Episkopi Barracks, where the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusliers are based,said the drug busts had rocked a unit where morale was already low.

One insider said: 'These guys have been caught with everything from cannabis and speed to ecstasy and cocaine. How can this be safe?

read on

 

Hypocrisy Alert

a continuation of the series from ITM

Sen. Rick Santorum's visibility on the issue of judicial nominations and his passionate arguments that every nomination that comes to the Senate floor deserves an up-or-down vote has led Democrats to point out that he blocked several judicial nominations during the Clinton years. At that time, an individual senator on the Judiciary Committee could place a confidential hold on individual nominations.

In his recent speeches, Santorum has carefully stated that it is wrong of Democrats to block judicial nominees "who would otherwise have majority support" and has said that all nominees deserve a vote "when they arrive on the Senate floor."

In an impassioned speech this past week, Santorum pointed to several of President Clinton's judicial appointees that he had supported. He argued that he had deferred to Clinton because Clinton had won the presidential election and had a right to "nominate who he wants as long as they are in the mainstream."

Santorum, R-Pa., acknowledged this past week that he held up confirmation of several of Clinton's district court nominees, but he said that was a very different scenario than blocking appellate court judges, as Democrats did with 10 Bush nominees last session.

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think the American MSM will pick this up?

Tony Blair had resolved to send British troops into action alongside US forces eight months before the Iraq War began, despite a clear warning from the Foreign Office that the conflict could be illegal.

A damning minute leaked to a Sunday newspaper reveals that in July 2002, a few weeks after meeting George Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Mr Blair summoned his closest aides for what amounted to a council of war. The minute reveals the head of British intelligence reported that President Bush had firmly made up his mind to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, adding that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

from the independent

The Master List of Locations - 1960-1974

following is the master list (?) of many of the locations and some memories i have. i'm going to use them as a basis for my book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Life.

here we go:

Mason City, IA

• Agnes Reynolds
• Alice Anderson
• Mary Rheingans
• Bike Riding
• Pennsylvania Bridge
• South Polk Place
• South Jefferson St.
• • -the Carpenters
  • -Chris McCoy
  • -Paul Ebbers
  • -Ted Bryant
  • -Brian Doty
• St. Joseph School
• • Father Schmitz
  • Convent
  • Father McGuire
  • Father Keating
  • Sister Mary Damien
  • Sister Mary Rosario
  • John Lapointe
  • Bruce Geller (who's son lives across the street from me now)
  • Mike Burke
  • Mary Vickers
  • John Donnelly (who i see out at hy-vee every so often)
  • John Argos (and the piano recitals in dubuque)
  • Jim Herzog
  • Jon Julien (who may be doing my dental work soon)
  • Sister Maureen Terese (who left the order and became a state representative, Mary O'Halloran. she also worked to elect ronald reagan during a marshalltown campaign stop luncheon.
• Grant School
• • basket weaving
  • rug making
  • softball
• Lincoln School
• • kindergarten

Manly, IA

• North Central Community School
• April Fools Day 1969
• January 20, 1970 > durand boys farm school
• Mr. Lee
• Mr. Rosen
• John Chisolm (who's brother i regularly sucked off in the weirdest places)
• Ron Kopeke (who i hear is out now and living in texas)
• Cop (from forest city who let me suck him and his brother off many times in the trailer park behind my parents' house)
• car borrowing - joy riding w/my pet poodle, Ralph.
• Sacred Heart
• • Father Carmen (milwaukee motel)
  • organist for mass
  • piano practice in the classrooms
  • collection box thievery
• Cathy Weitzel
• • 1972 corvette
  • her lover chris
  • pool league
  • wedding to gary

Marshalltown, IA

• community college
• tallcorn hotel
• omid kahkesh - oh dear, he should get a whole chapter to himself
• go-go dancing - tree collier and the massage parlor - erotic eric
• hashem abdullah - another brother who traveled with me to manly for thanksgiving in 1974.
• trailor court
• bernice johnson
• kathy thompson (who i last visited in 2001 with my blue car and looked like she was aging beautifully)
• • white bear lake
  • after hours parties

Marshalltown was where I landed up once I was released from the Iowa Boys Training School, in Eldora, IA. Marshalltown was where I learned arabic and farsi. I met Hashem Ghoulem Abdullah. He was my roommate when I went to legally change my name. I never did, but I always acted like I did. Even went to the lawyer's office, but never went to court. For all intents and purposes, I became Nehemiah Mahabuballah Mahana. Nick for short.

Marshalltown was also where I met Tree. Tree was Eddie Collier out of Des Moines. He ran a massage parlor in town, and a lady who was really in to me (more on her in a bit) put me in touch with tree after learning that tree needed a driver. i can't take capitalizing shit. let the system do it.

Pittsburgh, PA

• arline training school
• club baths
• • plane trips from nyc with manny & nelson
• nelson galloway (412-422-3249?)

Durand Il

• school
• zack (hottie who kept me like a bitch)
• piano lessons (off grounds)
• piano in the chapel (was ALWays in there)
• broke into the cottage parents' apt

Eldora IA

first time - cottage 3
second time - cooper hospital
Wes Etheridge
Maya Blau
Ken Walcott

Cherokee IA

• first time - childrens' unit
• transfer to adolescent unit after tantrum
• second time - CDU (chem depend. unit)
• third time - CDU (old hospital)
• last time via new york > des moines
• left on bus to san francisco 1986 nov.

Storm Lake IA

• Optimetrist - Dr. Dennis (who found me up in minneapolis homeless and took me in to be boyfriends. that ended up weird, and i spoze i could spend a lot of time talkin about all the experiences i had there, but not right now)

Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN

• first time - from marshalltown while go-go dancing, with some leader of AIM - american indian movement
• second time - in white bear lake w/friends of kathy thompson - worked at some bar, ended up leaving for ... ?

Des Moines, IA

• first time - tree collier (tree's talent agency)
• renee & becky stonehocker
• second time (?) in hotel, working at blue cross/blue shield in ruan bldg, got tired of workin the temp scene, and went to the bathroom, decided to screw it all, and left, and an hour later, i was on the road hitchhiking west.
• third time - working the cab circuit; ending up fallin for some con artist from 'hawaii' and we were going to go back there - ended up in las vegas, he stole a car, and we got caught right before christmas in orange county CA. i was extradicted back, but charges were dropped. wow. that'll take some pot to get out the memories on that. i need a way of marking these so i can come back to remember them.
• lived in a shelter for a while on one trip coming back to iowa from new york, and was wanting to get into cherokee. so that's mid-spring 1986. i think.
• lived in YMCA - dont remember much about that at all either; except that there were no hotties.
• before i went to san francisco, was dancing at the gay bar and omid took me down from marshalltown. that was my coming out if you will. i knew the bartender at the tallcorn kept talkin about taking me to a place "where men danced together" and it was somewhat jilting, but only for a moment. i know i made a lot of trips between marshalltown & des moines with the 2 girls from the massage parlor

New York NY
boy oh boy this is gonna REALLY require some decent pot.

• first time - hitching from ames to des moines with everything i owned in a 10x10x10 box and a dime in my pocket, enough to make the call in des moines to tree and get the name of the place i was to go dance. where i was coming from, is storm lake i believe. and i could have ended up actually going to des moines and it would have changed the course of history. as it is, i took that last ride in iowa on I-35, only going 35 miles, when the guy was going all the way to scarsdale new york. it took a few minutes, but i decided, and asked kindly, to go along. and that story is a hair-raiser in and of itself. but back to the structure of the task at hand. i got dropped off at 72nd and lexington, and stuffed the box in some bushes behind some 65 story apartment building and headed to the nearest gay bar. if memory serves me right, i didnt have far to go. and i'm sure i got picked up and that basically started my first go-around in the city. i think i was so star-struck that most of those ventures left me numb and without memory.
• second time - boy, i need some pot before i dive into this one.
• third time - same thing here.
• Felix Goacachea (FG management) - deserves a whole chapter to himself.
• Manny Parrish - boy oh boy, this one deserves a complete separate book. but for now, lemme jus copy down what's on the sheet.
• • 400 west 14th street - our loft. pictures will be posted forewith.
  • Bobby Baum - manny's boyfriend who was a freak and a half. didnt like me too much, but i think that settled on his jealousy more than anything else.
  • studio
  • importe 12 - the first label that signed us.
  • shows - this could be a really hair raising chapter. for now, just the notes on the sheet:
  • • Fun House - new years eve
    • Red Parrot - with madonna & grandmaster flash - billboard reviewed the show, and gave us 3 paragraphs, and madonna 3 lines. it was the highlight of my career.
    • ice skating rink in brooklyn - god only knows what this was
    • camden nj - a show we did where i had to blow manny in the van before we went on so he would be ok
    • DJ animal - god i wish i could remember him, cuz i know i got memories of him.
    • studio 54 - star wars party. the real highlight of my career.
    • studio 54 - fiorucci party - fiorucci was the designer of all the costumes we had
    • sweeny todd's barber shop (183 christopher street)
    • • maintenance strike scab
      • st. mark's baths
      • 12 west
      • carolyn kennedy
    • cock ring bar
    • • omar
      • julio
    • anvil bar
    • • konrad
      • cheech
      • nelson (not that nelson, but they have met)
      • lance wise
      • chico starr
      • pat
      • billy mead
      • early days
      • later days
    • les mouches
    • • frank mcgurty
      • carey finkelstein
      • john chambers
      • kitty - tom kinsey

Weehawken/Union City NJ

• Papo (Luciano Velez) - deserves a whole book.
• Racli's (2 fulton street) - off the boat italian/landlord
• hotel on 48th street - again, deserves a whole chapter, or two.
• bar under papo's house - and i jus came across the number somewhere. i think i got diaries goin back to this era. should be good.
• friendly's
• • mama
  • ricki
  • card games afterward - mama going around the table and if you had money to gamble, she had coke to put under your nose with her special spoon - going "toot toot"
• coffee shop on 52nd
• beat up across from coffee shop (p/u from friendly's)

Chicago, IL

• first time
• • jose
  • gay day parade '75 (i think)
  • broadway limited
• second time
• • running from taking pot from tree in des moines
  • cab driver
  • accident prone due to cruising
  • got license in record time (1 day)
  • carol's speakeasy
  • hotel on addison
  • man's country
  • • new year's eve - placidil punch+

Washington DC

• 1300, time for some capitol lawn sex w/army boy from olwein

Charleston, SC

• navy base
• pot dealing
• transfer from boat
• barracks boys
• orchid artist (madsen)

Atlanta, GA

• vacation at the baths

Miami FL

• first time
• • from des moines snowstorm
  • YMCA
  • waiter at the hotel across the street - which was just recently destroyed.
• second time
• • houseboy job
  • old cutler road (coral gables)
  • cuban hottie

Ft. Lauderdle, FL

• first time
• second time
• • baths

Key West FL

• in by hitching from miami
• delmonico's
• george cadenas
• "you're on my wavelength"
• monster
• guest houses
• hilton piano player

Meridian MS

• personnelman school
• letter from commander to parents

orlando FL

• navy boat

Daytona Beach FL

• bike week
• hitched up with bikers - fucked all day and all night on the beach in their van
• shacked up in some guy's house for 3 weeks
• left for nyc?

New Orleans LA

• first time
• • running from chicago boys
  • took overnight train
• second time
• • gretna
  • mardi gras
  • DJ
  • gonzo

Memphis TN

• arrived after gig in little rock
• worked at buddy's til closing
• ended up on train back to chicago w/quualude
• • got off the train in carbondale, took the bus... oh wait, did i already tell that story up above under another city headline?

Little Rock AR

• dj at club i called about from new orleans thru an ad

Phoenix AZ

• hitched from chicago
• stuck in kansas city (i think these are two different times - will try and pin down the years)
• flew in from MCI
• knew precious metal sculptor from chicago one-night-stand
• tubin the river
• valley national bank
• dancin to from here to eternity in club
• lived with guy who worked the 800 number i had to use back in iowa
• fbi tracking me after robbery on vnb
• • knew who i was in bed with!

Iowa City IA

• taxi dispatcher
• "car wash" - disco w/fog machine
• gospel piano player (black kid from KC)

Kansas City MO

• Coates House Fire
• American Red Cross
• billie
• car towed
• middle eastern restaurant owner - bartender
• club baths (frank & ron from omaha)

St. Louis MO

• coming up from memphis; bus from carbondale il
• club baths
• gay day parade
• drove thru on cornmeet w/voxxers en route to KC

Omaha NE

• go go dancing in straight bar
• ak-sar-ben racing w/sugar daddy from des moines

Denver CO

• ride from cherokee w/cooks
• DJ at bar; turned country
• piano player at same bar
• witch in purple
• kids from new orleans
• jerry lipolis
• david's
• navy enlistment
• grant street apartment
• temping

Las Vegas NV

• rudy
• sadji (della reese's son); drag on the strip
• les jardin bar near airport
• masseur @ jockey club, hilton & tropicana
• jail extradition from LA (accessory in auto theft w/kid from des moines > hawaii)
• hitchhiked out w/rudy & ..... ?
• hard time starting
• cold further north
• 1-80 blizzard in nebraska
• des moines > tree's > dancers

San Francisco CA

• first time
• second time
• third time
• bus out from cherokee
• u.s. mission > dave gilooley
• pac bell directory job
• laura gilardi
• king (crystal dealer/roommate)
• drugs, drugs and more drugs
• jail
• hotels

Los Gatos Hills CA

• mushrooms w/cute kid (chem student)

Los Angeles CA

• first time
• • hollywood spa
  • kid w/firebird convertible
  • commuting to palm springs (dave's villa caprice)
• second time
• • gay &* lesbian community center
  • la cienaga apt w/greek opener for debbie reynolds
• third time

San Diego CAT

• first time
• • prostitute becoming roommate
  • navy try-out
  • YMCA
  • played piano and made 'em cry
  • beachcomber
  • arab from morocco
  • chased him to san francisco > finally fucked
• second time

Palm Springs CA

• daves villa caprice
• manager affair
• worker affair (lil' blonde cutie)
• piano player at bar/restaurant
• porn star friend into solar energy
• flew out to KC

Joke of the Day

I (laura bush) saw my in-laws down at the ranch over Easter. We like it down there. George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse.

attribution

someone goofed

A day after the Pentagon released its controversial and heavily redacted report on the shooting of Italian intel agent Nicola Calipari, people discovered that the blacked-out portions were not scrubbed from the underlying text in the doc's PDF file.

 

mwahahahahaha

 

more on this 'goof'

This morning Gianluca Neri, an Italian blogger from Milano, had a look at the document which was published on the net and ridiculized the whole American secret services. With a simple cut and paste from the Acrobat document into a word processor, he was able to disclose all details to the public: names, places, the name of the soldier who fired, everything...

It is actually pretty simple to recover that information. Open this PDF, select all text, copy to clipboard and paste into a regular text editor. if your version of Arcobot does not let you select the text, find the Microsoft Word document here.

i cant stop laughing at the sheer ignorance of the bushites.

Quote of the Day

is by unnamed individuals, but the essence of the words are unmistakeable.

 

As U.S. soldiers attempted to keep crowds from gathering for fear of a second blast, witnesses said that angry youths shouted at them, "No, you go! The suiciders are after you!"

attribution

Letter Of The Day

State Senators Stewart Iverson, Jeff Lamberti and Larry McKibben accused Senate Democrats of lacking "the fortitude to take those tough votes."

Let's talk about fortitude. Fortitude resists the urge to respond to the heat-of-battle public reactions by running around willy-nilly and drafting micro-legislation to right every wrong, never stepping back to take a look at the entire picture and the large-scale implications of your actions.

Fortitude is admitting that you are not omnipotent, that child molestation is an inherently irrational act and that you won't make the molesters go away by threatening to kill them.

Fortitude leads instead of following.

-Kenneth Schumacher,
Iowa City.

attribution

we may be dumb, but we're not hypocrites

http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2005/05/02/opinion/doc4275a9110e434767296502.txt

60 minutes

watching 60 minutes.

 

former interrogator in gitmo.

 

should prove interesting

 

 

the book inside the wire

Letter Of The Day

It seems the "trickle down" economics of Ronald Reagan, which raised the inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of earners in 1979-2000 by 184 percent and that of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 6 percent (CNN), has become the "plop down" economics of George W. Bush, with "plop" standing for Please Let's Own People.
-Irv Shrago,
Oskaloosa.

attribution

from mainstream media to mainlining media

count on mediamatters.org for an honest opinion about what's wrong with today's MSM:

Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." No reporter challenged Bush on the contradiction during the press conference, and only George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, noted it in the post-conference analysis.

attribution

the bush legacy: FAKERY EVERYWHERE

this will never get picked up by MSM.  they're too fuckn stupid to even inquire, much less be able to report professionally about it.

AUTHORITIES at Guantanamo Bay staged interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being gathered, says a former US Army translator at the camp.

Sergeant Erik Saar told CBS television's 60 Minutes that he believed "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Sgt Saar told the program, to air on Sunday.

"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information," he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.

Sgt Saar worked at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003.

the Australian

we need a robin hood

all i can say about this budget deal is that one has to be insane to not believe that the bushite people are taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

Under the hard-fought agreement, the federal deficit, which reached a record $412 billion in 2004, would fall to $383 billion in 2006 and $211 billion by 2010. Congress would be expected to shave $35 billion off the growth of entitlement programs through 2010, the first such savings since the 1997 balanced budget agreement.

Nearly a third of that total would come from Medicaid, the primary federal and state health program for the poor. At the same time, the budget makes room for $106 billion of tax cuts over five years, $70 billion of which would be protected from a Senate filibuster.

attribution

bush and the terrorists, sitting in a tree.....

ever wonder why the bush administration has such close relationships with dictators and other equally evil leaders?

 

take the sudan for instance.  in a frontpage exclusive, the LATimes starts out:

KHARTOUM, Sudan — The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations.

if there were any doubt that bush and terrorists work to each other's benefit, there shouldn't be any more after reading that piece.