Oh Joy Georgey Boy

If this doesn't bring joy to your heart and a smile to your face, you need help.

Yay Nader!

We lost Kucinich, but Nader's coming to the rescue:

MR. RUSSERT: Will you run for president as an independent in 2008?

MR. NADER: Let me put it in context, to make it a little more palatable to people who have closed minds. Twenty-four percent of the American people are satisfied with the state of the country, according to Gallup. That's about the lowest ranking ever. Sixty-one percent think both major parties are failing. And, according to Frank Luntz's poll, a Republican, 80 percent would consider voting for a independent this year. Now, you take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut, shut out, marginalized, disrespected and you go from Iraq to Palestine/Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bungling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts, getting a decent energy bill through, and you have to ask yourself, as a citizen, should we elaborate the issues that the two are not talking about? And the--all, all the candidates--McCain, Obama and Clinton--are against single payer Health insurance, full Medicare for all. I'm for it, as well as millions of Americans and 59 percent of physicians in a forthcoming poll this April. People don't like Pentagon waste, a bloated military budget, all the reports in the press and in the GAO reports. A wasteful defense is a weak defense. It takes away taxpayer money that can go to the necessities of the American people. That's off the table to Obama and Clinton and McCain.

The issue of labor law reform, repealing the notorious Taft-Hartley Act that keeps workers who are now more defenseless than ever against corporate globalization from organizing to defend their interests. Cracking down on corporate crime. The media--the mainstream media repeatedly indicating how trillions of dollars have been drained and fleeced and looted from millions of workers and investors who don't have many rights these days, and pensioners. You know, when you see the paralysis of the government, when you see Washington, D.C., be corporate-occupied territory, every department agency controlled by overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people, you--one feels an obligation, Tim, to try to open the doorways, to try to get better ballot access, to respect dissent in America in the terms of third parties and, and independent candidates; to recognize historically that great is sues have come in our history against slavery and women rights to vote and worker and farmer progressives, through little parties that never ran--won any national election. Dissent is the mother of ascent. And in that context, I have decided to run for president.
MR. RUSSERT: How would you feel, however, if Ralph Nader's presence on the ballot tilted Florida or Ohio to John McCain and McCain became president, and Barack Obama, the first African-American who had been nominated by the Democratic Party--this is hypothetical--did not become a president and people turned to you and said, "Nader, you've done it again"?

MR. NADER: Not a chance. If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form. You think the American people are going to vote for a pro-war John McCain who almost gives an indication that he's the candidate of perpetual war, perpetual intervention overseas? You think they're going to vote for a Republican like McCain, who allies himself with the criminal, recidivistic regime of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the most multipliable impeachable presidency in American history? Many leading members of the bar, including the former head of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco, absolutely dismayed over the violations of the Constitution, our federal laws, the criminal, illegal war in Iraq and the occupation? There's no way. That's why we have to take this opportunity to have a much broader debate on the issues that relate to the American people, as, as, as a fellow in Long Island said recently, M . Sloane, he said, "These parties aren't speaking to me. They're not speaking to my problems, to my family's problems."

Full Meet the Press Transcript: Counter Punch

Get Involved: Nader for President 2008

Thanksgiving [Rape & Pillage Day] Grateful List

(It's a joke folks!)

In a special pre-Thanksgiving radio address broadcast from the White House, President George W. Bush asked his fellow Americans to join him in giving thanks for the following things:

“My fellow Americans, let’s be thankful for global warming, because as these winter months approach, it makes the world such a nice, toasty place.

“Let’s be thankful for all of the food on our tables, unless some of it is from China.

“Let’s be thankful that Pakistan will have free and fair elections, and maybe someday we will, too.

“Let’s be thankful for the iPhone, except for those losers who actually paid full price for it.

“Let’s be grateful that I didn’t take out a subprime mortgage on the White House like Mr. Cheney told me to.

“Let's be thankful that nuclear weapons haven’t fallen into the hands of the wrong people, like Nancy Pelosi or Rosie O’Donnell.

“Let’s be thankful that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s writers are on strike, and hopefully will stay that way for the rest of my term in office.

“Let's be thankful that even though my approval numbers are falling, they’re still higher than my grades at Yale.

“Let’s be thankful that Osama bin Laden dyed his hair in his last video, because that made him look really gay.

“Let's be thankful for Guitar Hero III, which really helps you get through those long Cabinet meetings when they're going on and on about the economy.

“Let's be thankful that our military commanders have nothing bad to say about the war in Iraq until after they’re retired.

“Let's be thankful that in nine months it will be August and then I can go on summer vacation again.

“And finally, my fellow Americans, let's be thankful that, even though Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, I’m still a lock for the Nobel War Prize.”

<3 This Presidential Candidate

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, a quirky, long-shot candidate in the race for his party's presidential nomination in the November, 2008 election. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."

Full Story: Yahoo! News

Real Job

(I <3 this quote. It's been circulating via email for sometime now - I thought I'd share in case some of you out there had not yet seen it. Disclaimer: I haven't verified it's authenticity.)

From Ronald Reagan's recently published diaries.

Entry: May 17, 1986;

"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his
ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to
find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives
in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the
time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already
almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll
call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if
they'll hire him as a contributing editor or
something. That looks like easy work."

9-11-01: 6 Years Today

Today undoubtedly marks a sad day in our country's history. However, what saddens me more is that we won't practice what we preach. Why do we, while mourning our losses, continue to kill innocent people overseas?

3,000 people died in the World Trade Center Attacks.

Over 650,000 people have died as a result of the illegal war we are conducting in Iraq.

It's 9-11 EVERY DAY in Iraq!

(Not to mention Afghanistan, Palestine, etc.!)

Thank you Cindy Sheehan. Thank you for reminding me why I've always hesitated when it came to voting Democrat.

I was frightened out of ever voting for a third party, or an independent candidate, but voting out of fear is one of the things that bestowed us with the Bush crime mob and may give us the Republican, if not in party affiliation, Hillary Clinton.

I was a lifelong Democrat only because the choices were limited. The Democrats are the party of slavery and were the party that started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle. The Federal Reserve, permanent federal income taxes, not one but two World Wars, Japanese concentration camps, and not one but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan -- all brought to us via the Democrats.

Read on at: SF Chronicle

Just Another Day, Just Another Protest?

January 11th: the day after Bush announced his plan for a new surge of troops into Iraq.

Just another day, just another protest?

Except, I got quoted by an AP reporter AND it got picked up by 89 online news outlets. (See: http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=gmail&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=zahra+billoo&filter=0 )

The AlJazeera page with the AP story was the most circulated one of all, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/63C3F9E1-CD8B-472E-AE32-61BBE8FE1FD1.htm, at least based on how many people sent it to me.

(Stay tuned for more adventures!)

Shut Up & Sing!