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to co-opt the virginia slogan… Canadian parliament approves same-sex marriage.

i suppose this means my country will start building another fence.

with the supreme court backing eminent domain for private development, it took only a matter of days for the bag to get out of the cat.

announcing hotel lost liberty, a monument to former american glory and future economic progress that is to be built on the land currently occupied by one justice david h. souter.

plan your vacation now.

i wonder if any of the other relevant justices (stevens, ginsburg, kennedy, breyer) live around here? i toyed with real-estate development once upon a time…

the decision [pdf] is available.

seems that some people are a bit upset about some comments from one mr. karl rove:

“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

seems that some of them are serving in iraq.

i guess it’s probably news to mr. rove that liberals are in this all-volunteer american army. no. on second thought, he’s smart enough to know better. go ahead. take it personally.

in the meantime, as much as i sympathize with liberal american soliders (and i do, and they are worth reading), it’s probably worth noting that this is a classic neo-con tactic to distract everyone with some well-timed offensive rhetoric while someone else gets stabbed in the back. i admit i wasn’t paying attention. someone tell me who got screwed while rove was running his mouth?

piglet can finally relax

very odd

tee-eye-double-g-rrrr

update: isn’t that odd

in a critical follow-up to this post about the pentagon targetting teenagers with private-industry marketing firms, we have an interesting development from arkansas…

Granny chooses not to be a Seabee [ap via wfaa.com, 2005.06.24]

MAGNOLIA, Ark.— At age 81, Fola Coats might seem a little old to join the Navy. But the great-grandmother recently received a letter inviting her to enlist in the Seabees of the Naval Reserve.

“I laughed when I got (the letter),” she said. “I told (my family), I can’t wait to get my uniform.”

Coats’ husband served in World War II and two of her sons were in Vietnam.

“I guess they figured we were a great military family,” she said.

The letter suggests she should volunteer for the Seabees, supporting Navy construction needs with a specialty rating of builder, construction electrician, construction mechanic, engineering aide, equipment operator, steelworker or utility worker.

Coats said the letter has been good for laughs for her whole family.

“And the worst part of all of this is I don’t even like water,” she said. “I won’t even go swimming. That would be a little difficult when I get on that boat and get way out in the ocean.”

remember, i said something about military precision? there you have it.

long ago, i started talking about this as a new american facist regime, and i meant that in a very literal way. i’m not trying to invoke the ghosts of evil people to discredit our current leaders… they are doing just fine on their own.

today, a major plank of fascism reached the third branch of american government.

Justices, 5-4, Back Seizure of Property for Development [ny times, 2005.06.23]

The Supreme Court ruled today, in a deeply emotional case weighing the rights of property owners and the good of the community, that local governments can sometimes seize homes and businesses and turn them over to private developers.

…

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized.” The court’s ruling is certain to be studied from coast to coast, since similar conflicts between owners of homes and small businesses and development-minded officials have arisen in other locales.

in my america, the government protects me, as an individual, from private corporate interests, where i cannot protect myself. it protects my personal data from being mishandled and misused, it protects my personal property and civil rights.

this is not my america.

dictionary.com

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Fascism

The term fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini’s, that in various combinations:

* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual.
* stresses loyalty to a single leader.
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition.
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation.
* engages in corporatism.
* implements totalitarianism.

not a bad list, actually. just one step left…

and we’re not talking about terrorists and secret bunkers… we’re talking about children in american high schools.

i remember filling out the “selective service registration” paperwork, and that was awkward on its own, but now, it seems the pentagon’s decided that that information isn’t quite specific enough, and they’ve enlisted help from companies that do america best – marketing companies.

Pentagon Creating Student Database [washington post, 2005.06.22]

The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

…

School systems that fail to provide that information risk losing federal funds, although individual parents or students can withhold information that would be transferred to the military by their districts.

…

Under the new system, additional data will be collected from commercial data brokers, state drivers’ license records and other sources, including information already held by the military.

…

The Pentagon’s statements added that anyone can “opt out” of the system by providing detailed personal information that will be kept in a separate “suppression file.” That file will be matched with the full database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish to be contacted are not, according to the Pentagon.

trust us. we’re from the government.

truly a gem, since we were promised a quick and clean war and… no draft, right? not even considering.

if you’ll allow me a moment to comment on that comment – i think it’s the pentagon’s job to plan for wars. i’d much rather have the pentagon planning wars the conducting wars. i’d like to think that aside from the whiz-bang technology gadgets we buy with pentagon money that somewhere in that budget is enough money to cook up, consider and come up with a strategy for every concievable war situation… including the draft.

the new draft won’t be called a draft. it will precisely target (with military precision) vulnerable, under-employed individuals that are not contributing enough to the domestic economy, and bludgeon them with sales pitches about the glory of military service.

update: picked up in slate (and unfortunately, they picked up the link before i fixed the typos). no worries; sorry about the url. hi slate.