MINISTER OF RANTS

IMUS IS SO OUTTA THERE! NOW WHAT!!

NBC News, which runs MSNBC, has tied the can to the I-man, effective immediately. My guess is CBS radio will follow suit.

Imus may, in fact, have been undone by the "little people" who worked in the newsoffices, the folks he verbally abused and ridiculed - or ignored. This week it was their turn to say they no longer wished to be associated with the "bigot". Nothing exceeds like arrogance and Imus had grown increasingly full of himself, irritable and nasty.

When the sponsors started droppin' out, it was time to cut bait. The corpies at NBC are saying the NBC news "family" expressed outrage in sufficient numbers to drive their decision to fire one of the most powerful broadcasting figures ever. IMHO, he would have done well to have fired Bernard McGuirk years ago - particularly, in response to the Gwen Ifill -"cleaning lady" dust-up.


Just a couple of weeks ago, CNN revamped their American Morning format, scrapping Soledad O'Brien and the other O'Brien (male), and adding former CBS back-up anchor John Roberts, all due to the regular trouncing of their morning programming by Imus in the Morning. MSNBC has just kissed off their highest-rated and most lucrative program. That bare-bones radio simulcast was the flagship among all their slick, fine-tuned formats.

So - what are MY options for AM news on the telly? I'll be surveying the vast blandland for a new breakfast hour companion. Today? No way. Goodbye, Good Morning, America. C-Span offers headlines and discussion. I can record "Red Eye" on Fox and play it when we get up. Is that all there is?


Reverend Al's victory won't be complete, though, 'til Imus is off the radio. He plans to picket CBS radio studios. Maybe Imus will write the final chapter in a return to his old "shock-jock" form on satellite radio.

And, for the record - Rash Limbo used the word " 'ho's" to refer to the women involved in the Duke rape case. And - is there anyone on the airwaves who is more obscenely bigoted and offensive than Michael Wiener AKA "Savage"?!

I MAY GROW OLDER - BUT I REFUSE TO GROW UP! BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO REV. ART, ARETHA FRANKLIN AND RICHARD DAWKINS!

YUP! Rev. Art & Aretha Franklin were born March 25, 1942, Da Rev in Columbus (he later moved to Dayton), the Queen of Soul in Memphis (She later moved to Motown).



And Dr. Richard Dawkins is celebrating the anniversary of his birth in Kenya (he later moved to England) on March 26, 1941.

Richard Dawkins is the PREEMINENT ATHEIST in the world today. My son, Gary Rand, presented me with the latest Dawkins screed against organized religionists - The God Delusion. Darren Eliot, my older son, remarked that he had never heard of Dawkins. Gary said, "I found myself in the science section of Borders and there were all these books by Richard Dawkins. I asked about The God Delusion and the bookseller directed me to the front of the store where there was a huge display. This thing's a bestseller!"

So Happy Birthday t' Doc & Aretha and me.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

65 is the new 35 - 'cuz I say so!

I'M BACK & I'M PROUD!

Should I be ashamed to admit my blog has been incommunicado for two weeks due to "renditus interruptus"?

That is, I had a crimp in my cash flow. The proceeds for retired eccentrics are what they refer to as "fixed", but not "well"-so. I had a choice of paying the hosting service or keepin' the cable bill (broadband) up to date. I opted to pay the hosting service so I wouldn't lose my blog and all my archives, so Time-Warner cut me off in the middle of the night. I've had no TV, internet or phones for a couple of weeks.

After all these years of just carryin' on the best I can, I'm not too proud to admit that sometimes I don't prioritize as well as I should. I'm just very happy to be back in the big bloggin' chair and I'm ready to get busy.

(That PayPal thingy must be asleep at the proverbial switch...)

PETE STARK IS NOT GENUFLECT-AFFLICTED...

There is only one member of Congress who is on record as NOT holding a god-belief... Representative Pete Stark (D) of California has acknowledged that he is an atheist in response to the Secular Coalition’s inquiry.

Pete Stark (76 this year) was first elected as a Democrat to Congress in 1972 from Fremont-Anaheim, Califiornia. He's a senior member of the House Ways and Means Commitee and is the Chair of the Health Commitee.

He showed up as a blip on my A-dar, but only 'cuz I'm familiar with his reputation as a liberal firebrand who was outspoken regarding Bush's "Faith-Based" scammery - AND he has been listed as "affiliated" as a Unitarianist. Unitarianist may or may not claim belief in a deity.

He was on-the-record speaking out and voting against the Chimperor-in-Chief's Iraq war proposal:

"Congress must not walk in lockstep behind a president who has been so callous to proceed without reservation, as if war was of no real consequence..."

Every year, American Atheists state director Dave Kong presents awards to the California members and others who helped to further the cause of state/church separation. In 2002, U.S. Congressmen Mike Honda and Pete Stark were honored with the First Amendment award for their courageous refusal to endorse the resolution condemning the Pledge decision issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in June (the court ruled that the insertion of "God" into the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional)."

Stark and another congressman released a report in July of last year that shows "the Bush administration has sent billions of taxpayer dollars to religious organizations without accountability for how that money is spent," said Stark, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

"The Bush administration has failed to develop standards to verify that faith-based organizations aren't using federal funds to pay for inherently religious activity or to provide services on the basis of religion. Taxpayers shouldn't have to take it on faith that programs without standards for success are having a measurable impact."

Pete Stark is a peace advocate. He also supports increasing the availability of health care, revitalizing the economy, and protecting the environment.

This is a START! Surveys vary in the percentage of atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists in the U.S, with about 10% (30 million people) a fair middle point. “If the number of nontheists in Congress reflected the percentage of nontheists in the population,” Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition, observes, “there would be 53-54 nontheistic Congress members instead of one.”

STATEMENT ON BRITISH / U.S. IMPERIALISM - From Rev. Art

In a review of the insightful book, Ulster's White Negroes by Fionbarra O'Dochartaigh, Richard Wallace, Chicago, writes: "Anyone concerned with the rights of man should be aware of the meaning of the One-Eyed-Jack nature of English society - that is, a society that claims to be 'civilized' while claiming that other nations whose properties they covet are 'savages'. A One-Eyed-Jack is one who shows its good eye to the public, while its hidden, evil eye pursues its true agenda. The word 'Plantation' derives from the term 'Transplantation of English Society'. Throughout the world, England (Britain) has sought to take that which belonged to others, all in the name of 'Civilization'. Those who resisted were the savages or barbarians; and were treated as sub-human, subject to the whim of the Englishman, who usually exterminated them. Ulster is still called the 'Plantation' even today after all of England's other plantations have been forcefully dismantled. The Ulster Plantation's closest cousin are the Slave Plantations of America, where black tribespeople, stolen from Africa, were enslaved to plant and harvest the lands their masters, the English, stole from the Native American Indians. Methods learned in Ireland were improved upon in the Slave Plantations of America, and are today still being perfected in Ulster, in Ireland's six occupied Counties (Northern Ireland to the British). The Irish Civil Rights movement, launched in 1967 in Belfast, named the 'Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association', was very nearly crushed on Bloody Sunday in 1972. In Derry (the English still insist on calling it Londonderry in spite of the name change instituted by its City Council) - the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was modeled after Martin Luther King and the American Civil Rights movement. It is true that a group of innocent college students sought to right the wrongs of a foreign occupying society that considered the Native Irish to be inferior, uncivilized and savage - a race of people not worthy of basic human rights. In the 1700's and 1800's it was not a crime to kill an Irish Native. Similarly, in White Anglo Saxon America it was not a crime to kill a Plantation negro or an American Indian; they all had something the English wanted. In Ireland, the English, for 1000 years have attempted to exterminate the Native Irish at every turn because they wanted what the Irish have; a rich island nation bursting with natural resources and land to spare. Britain is currently supporting itself on the oil resources of Scotland, which it has stolen at the point of a gun.   In Ulster the British have used their specially written laws, their non-jury political courts, their British Police Force, their British Military, and their highly financed Ulster Protestant population to crush and destroy any effort by the Native Irish to achieve any semblance of basic human rights. The Nationalists and/or Catholics are, to this day, terrorized by the State solely because of their national origin/religious heritage and the blatant fact that the land of their forefather's was stolen by the forefather's of their molesters. England's legacy to Ireland is written on the walls of their prisons and the tombstones of their cemeteries. And, by the way - the Mass Graves of their 1845 Genocide have long been obliterated." Is the beloved Republic of Jefferson, Paine and Madison, Washington and Franklin, genetically predisposed from our conception in Empire to inherit the mantle of Britain as warmonger for wealth, power and hegemony across the planet? Surely, as Irish-Americans, we should be able to see the incontrovertible irony of the unholy alliance between Bush and Blair and their ruinous War for Empire in the Middle East. All we need to do is revisit the history, the stories and the Rebel songs of our youth to see the parallels between Ulster and Iraq... or India and Iraq... A One-Eyed-Jack is one who shows its good eye to the public, while its hidden, evil eye pursues its true agenda. Tiocfaidh ár lá! Rev. Art - Secretary, Robert Emmet Unit-Irish Northern Aid Good fortune. COMMENT! Please spread the meme. Don't smoke in bed...

CHURCHILL'S ASSESSMENT OF ISLAM? NOT ALL THAT HELPFUL. CHURCHILL A GREAT LEADER? YUP. CHURCHILL A RACIST? YUP!

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!

Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.” [Sir Winston Churchill in 1899] 

Did Winnie's view of people of other cultures/races improve with age? Nahhh. Not a bit.

On his American mum's side he was part American Indian, yet he hated his own race.  Like our own founders who mid-wifed the birth of a constitution that guarantees equal rights before the law for all, yet owned slaves, Winnie was a brilliant, complex, flawed man.

On one hand, he was a great and legendary Statesman, not just in England but for the civilized world. On the other hand, he was a callous anti-Irish and anti-Indian bigot.

When Gandhi went on his life-threatening hunger strike, the only thing Churchill could think of to ask his advisors was, "Is the Indian dead yet?"
That a man of so much greatness could be so petty presents an enigmatic contradiction that's difficult to resolve - especially when we're among the future generations of folks whose bacon was saved - thanks in no small part to this self-aggrandizing old bore.

MALCOLM X WAS PLANNING TO SWITCH TO A CAREER IN COUNTRY MUSIC WHEN HE WAS ASSASSINATED!

Just in time for Black History Month - THIS amazing story that might have been...

HONEY, I DON'T SEE ANY PHARMACISTS WEARIN' "CHOICE" BUTTONS!

PLAN B BIRTH CONTROL HASSLE

By Mary McCarty in

The Dayton Daily News
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

... Tashina Byrd has a simple answer for people who wonder why she's telling the world about her recent contraceptive emergency.

(For those who need to know, the condom broke.)

"It isn't just my business," she says. "This is a lot bigger than me."

The 23-year-old Springfield woman and her boyfriend, Brian O'Neill of Columbus, thought they were simply walking up to the pharmacy window at the Bechtle Avenue Wal-Mart in Springfield to purchase the over-the-counter emergency contraceptive, Plan B.

They had no idea they were about to walk into a national news story — one that does, indeed, raise a much larger question: Should a woman's ability to obtain birth control be subject to the moral beliefs of the pharmacist behind the counter?

... Plan B isn't the abortion-pill RU 486, which must be dispensed from a doctor's office. It doesn't end a pregnancy; it prevents a pregnancy from taking place. "It's the same ingredient as a birth-control pill, only a nuclear dose," O'Neill notes.

The couple watched as the young pharmacy assistant brought the drug to the pharmacist on duty, Brent Beams. "I could see the pharmacist, and he smiled and he laughed and he shook his head," Byrd says.

The pharmacy assistant told her, "We have it on hand, but we can't give it to you."

The Ohio Pharmacists Association's current policy is that if a pharmacist has a conscientious objection, the customer should find another pharmacist or another pharmacy.

YOU'VE BEEN DRINKIN' - SO IF YOU'RE DRIVIN', MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CAR... || THE NEW PROHIBITIONISTS * BLOOD ALCOHOL CONTENT TYRANNY *

WHY do defense attorneys have all these stories of clients, pillars of their communities, who, according to their own accounts and those of witnesses, drank a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, or 3-4 beers after work at a billiards hall - BLOWIN' a .15 OR a .21 on the field-administered BAC test?!

SOURCE :

1-800-dial dui.com

The breathalyzer is designed to test persons having a 2100/1 blood-breath ratio. Such ratios in fact vary from 1100/1 to 3200/1. The variance can produce errors in test results. In fact, high readings were taken in 14% of the population.

The temperature of the machine itself varies, thus affecting test results.

Body temperatures in fact vary between human beings, also affecting test results.

Hematocrit, or the solid particles in whole blood, vary (particularly between males and females, which also affects test results.

Even with some inherent unreliability in various breath testing machines, errors may be magnified if police do not follow proper procedures, such as in calibrating a machine, testing blank specimens, or in making sure a suspect is not affected by his or her ambient environment.

A good defense lawyer will know how to challenge the accuracy of breath test..

Alcohol Breath Testers: Incorrect Readings

Alcohol breath detectors don’t actually measure blood alcohol content (BAC), but indirectly estimate it. The only test of BAC is through drawing a sample of blood and performing laboratory tests on it. However, that is rarely done.

IN FACT - if possible, call your attorney BEFORE consenting to a field administered BAC test. It may be advisable to go for a controlled breathalyzer test back at HQ - or to submit to a blood draw in lieu of the BAC.

(In Dayton, the number to call for the best DUI lawyer is: 937-224-0039, for Larry Denny. This referral is unsolicited. I don’t know Mr. Denny, except by reputation…)

MADD

 

= NEO-PROHIBITIONISTS

THE CEO OF THE MADD MOTHERS IS A MALE!

Mothers Against Drunk Driving was created in 1980 to reduce drunk driving and the death and injury that it can cause. Over time, temperance forces have gained control of MADD and it has largely become anti-alcohol rather than anti-drunk driving. Even MADD’s founding president, Candy Lightner, left the organization because of its neo-prohibitionist orientation.

Of all accidents, fatal, injury and property, drinkers are but 3.9 percent of the drivers involved.

Of all traffic fatalities attributed to drinking drivers - 2/3 OF THE DECEASED ARE THE DRINKING DRIVERS!

NO ONE IS DRUNK @.10 BAC! MADD has lobbied the gummint to cut it to .08 - and they're hammering away at .05.

(Actually - if, as in many places in Europe, drinking & driving are totally banned - I would go along with it, reluctantly. It's not that difficult for a party of 2 or 4 or more to designate a non-drinker for the evening. Even drunks need to widen their circle of acquaintances. And bars would have to expand upon the non-alcohol beverage and juice options available.)

BOTTOM LINE: The MADD Mothers (whose corporate boss is a male) will settle for NOTHING LESS THAN total prohibition of alcohol sales.

For more on MADD, visit Mothers Against Drunk Driving: A Crash Course in MADD.

The Soviet Bolsheviks (communists) were strict drys and quickly imposed national prohibition following the Russian Revolution.

FDR ran on a platform pledging to end Prohibition.

Hitler was a tee-totaler; Churchill was a drunk.

FDR was a cripple, not to mention a drunkard. And that didn’t stop him from whipping up on Tojo and Hitler, now did it?

The Puritans made and drank beer.

Prohibition Fails In Iran

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. [Ambrose Bierce] 

The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober. [William Butler Yeats]

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. [Humphrey Bogart] 

<(Da Rev’s Addendum, CLUE to the CLUELESS: this argument has nothing to do with smoking bans in public places which are for the protection of ALL patrons and workers. There is NO safe level of second-hand smoke; smoking in the same public spaces as non-smokers is ALWAYS irresponsible! Smoking may kill OTHERS. Drinking responsibly is an individual's privilege and choice.)

I'm raisin’ a cup o’ kindness, friends…

Good fortune. COMMENT. Spread the meme. Don’t smoke in bed…