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No Delay

There's a bad smell wafting out of Texas, gentle readers and it ain't coming from the cows. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is now under investigation, like so many other of his Republican brethren. It seems that Mr. Delay had strong-armed money out of Enron for his political action committee in May of 2001. Ok, maybe strong-armed isn't quite the right term here, since Enron had given DeLay $250,000 previously, and we all know how nice those folks at Enron can be. Enron lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson emailed Ken Lay, currently out on bail, and told of DeLay's demand that a hundred grand come in the form of "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," to be used in the state GOP campaign effort. The result of these fund raising efforts was Republican control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years. Well, once control of the state legislature was attained, those stalwart Republicans set out on an immediate campaign to redraw congressional districts, sending more Republican lawmakers to Washington and making DeLay House majority leader. Funny, how that all worked out.

Says DeLay's spokesman, Stuart Roy, ""DeLay is doing everything moral, legal and ethical to increase the Republican majority and advance conservative ideas." So what, dear readers, are we to make of this? Either that Stuart Roy and Tom Delay are not aware of the 100 year old Texas law banning corporate financing of state legislature campaigns or that conservative ideas apparently include illegal campaign financing.

The BHC is certain that Texas state Republicans will be endevouring to correct that quaint and cleary outdated law as quickly as possible. Maybe they'll even make it retroactive and help extract Delay from this unpleasant little business.


They will stop at nothing....

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Failing Grade

With all the bluster from George Bush about scholastic standards and testing, testing, testing, the irony that Educational Testing Service (ETS) cannot actually conduct tests correctly surely must strike someone in the White House. Then again, probably not. No one in the White House seems to see the rank irony in having George Bush, a man barely capable of passing tests himself, sedulously promoting more and tougher testing of students.

ETS reported that they had, indeed, screwed up the licence testing of over 4,000 teachers in 18 different states. These errors prevented many of the teachers from getting jobs at a time when the supply of teachers in the US is seriously short. Paltry contrition was forthcoming from ETS, which said it would refund the testing fee of $100. No offer to refund the year's lost wages these teachers likely suffered because of ETS's mistakes has been forthcoming. Like we really needed to tell you that.


Read of the failed testing....

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Let Freedom Ring

Well, maybe Iraqi freedom sounds less like a ring a more like a gunshot. When the BHC first saw this story, we couldn't quite believe it and still don't quite know what to make of it. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Iraqi interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, was witnessed to have executed six "insurgents" by his own hand. Apparently, six prisoners of the Al-Amariyah security centre in Baghdad were lined up against a wall, hand-cuffed and blindfolded, when Allawi walked up to them and shot each of them once in the head. Witnesses claimed that a dozen Iraqi police and four Americans were present and, apparently, couldn't quite believe what they had just seen.

Now, the BHC has not seen any other reports of this and no corroboration from any other sources has been forthcoming, though the Herald story has been cited numerously since. Typically, no mention of this has even entered the mainstream media in the US, and surprisingly, even the British papers seem to have ignored this.

Regardless of media coverage, or a lack thereof, this tale would not likely surprise anyone who is at all familiar with Allawi's past. The new prime minister of Iraq is a former, or possibly current, CIA stooge who is believed to have organised car-bombing campaigns in and around Baghdad in the 90's. Indeed, just how did Allawi wind up getting the nod as the choosen one? As one member of the Iraqi Governing Council put it, "we really chose him because he had the least enemies." That must have been quite a smorgasbord of potential leaders when the primary requisite for the ministership was having the fewest enemies.


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Pro Whaling

The International Whaling Commission is now calling for more humane ways to kill whales. No such techniques are known and current methods employ pleasant toys like grenade-tipped harpoons which pro-whaling nations say is perfectly humane and sensible. Indeed, Japan reassures us that it "has been working very hard to improve [their] killing methods, with positive results." Now, that's a comfort and nothing like time well-spent devising new and even more efficient, pain-free ways of wiping out a few mammalian species.

But whoa...wait...wait a minute! One thing screams out at us here at the BHC and that is that the most salient point in this story is one which is not even being made: that today, in the 21st century, there still actually are pro-whaling nations. Indeed, since 1986, Japan, Norway and Iceland have managed to whack some 25,000 of the great beasts. Why these countries need to do this, no one knows, since nothing which is gotten from whales is not available from other sources. The only reason, which is no reason at all, has got to be cultural inertia. Japan may also have another motive since ambergris, from Sperm whales, has long been thought of as an aphrodisiac in the far east and, along with a disturbing penchant for tiger penises and rino horn, old asian men will consume just about anything if they think it will give them a hard-on. But the Scandanavians have no such excuse, as weak and sick as that might be. Wake up out of your 19th century clodpoll slumber, you freaking Norwegians.


Read it....

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Help for the Homeless

The venerable Department of Labor has devised a radical, new millenium way to help homeless people: a website! Hurray! It's about time the homeless had a website they could go to a learn all sorts of useful things about being homeless. No word yet from Secretary Chao as to when the homeless might begin receiving their wireless laptops.


Help is on the way....

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Prepare for the Worst

One of the more bizarre stances taken by the White House these days is their cuddly embrace of contradictory behaviours: loudly proclaiming that America is now safer while, at the same time, raising threat levels or trumpeting about being attacked by terrorists and how they may have to come up with plans to postpone such pesky features of democracy as the elections in November (see The BHC, Vol 28, For Your Protection). Well, it seems that the American public has been lulled into a false sense of security by the strong and calming words of George Bush because the Department of Homeland Security is disturbed that "the percentage of Americans who have created an emergency plan for a terrorist attack has dropped in the past year, along with the proportion of Americans who believe that terrorists may strike near their home." So, we're not safer?

Sensing that perhaps the DHS has not induced sufficient alarm in Americans, US officials point to a need for the citizenry to stockpile supplies, brace themselves for attack, and prepare themselves emotionally. The BHC is not quite sure what that might entail but it might likely involve a lot of huffing and puffing.


Get scared now....

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The Truth Shall Set You Free

And that has certainly been true for John Morrison, an advisor to the British parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC), who was canned after he appeared on the BBC Panorama program. It seems that Mr. Morrison, in speaking of Tony Blair's claim that Hussein posed a "serious and current threat" to the UK, said, "When I heard him using those words, I could almost hear the collective raspberry going up around Whitehall."

Enjoy your blessed freedom Mr. Morrison.


Free as a bird...."

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New World Order

It appears that the Sudanese government is a much more potent menace that anyone might have imagined. Indeed, in the face of UN sanctions and censure for their employ of the violent and uncontrolled Janjaweed militia in Darfur, Sudan has warned the world to stay out of its affairs or they will crush any meddling allies who might try to intervene. Perhaps coming to the realisation that they couldn't actually do anything like this, the Sudanese government has backed down considerably from this stance and now claims that the 30 days the UN has allowed to end the rape and bloodshed before sanctions are enacted is not enough time. The Sudanese position appears to be that the they should be allowed to continue raping and killing for at least 3 more months.


Read the bloody-mindedness....

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Castro: Help!

As Florida continues to demonstrate a complete and utter incompetence in conducting elections, it should be the rightful duty of the UN to send monitors to oversee the federal elections in November. Some while ago, a cheeky Fidel Castro offered to send Cuban election officials to Florida to make sure things were run right. Well, that's not looking like such a bad offer at this point, since Florida election officials in Miami-Dade County have managed to lose all electronic records of the 2002 gubernatorial primary. There is no other record of this data.

Between this and possible future electronic voting machine debacles and Jeb Bush trying to keep as many eligible Democrats off the voting lists as possible, 2004 is shaping up to be every bit the disaster people have been warning of for four bloody years. And whom might we have to thank for this computer-driven nightmare? Why Election Systems and Software of Omaha, that's whom. Readers might like to recall that the CEO of ESS was once the one and only Republican senator Chuck Nagel. Chuck was elected to his Nebraskan senate seat in an election which used ESS voting machines.


Election Fraud ramp up....

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The Great Depression

According to Capitol Hill Blue, it seems that the strain of lying through his teeth for nearly four years is finally getting to George Bush. White House physician, Richard Tubb, has prescribed "powerful anti-depressant drugs" to control Bush's increasingly erratic behaviour. Just such behaviour was seen at a press conference recently when Bush simply limped off stage after being asked about his relationship with the then recently indicted Ken Lay.

In fact, prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank has written a book about Bush, like there aren't enough of those yet, in which he describes Bush as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and an “untreated alcoholic."

The article goes on to state that the anti-depressant drugs can impair mental faculties, although the BHC wonders how anyone would be able to observe such an effect in this president.

Now the BHC is still unsure of just what this Capitol Hill Blue website is and it has the tone of a cheesy tabloid, albeit, a lefty one, so beware.


Read and judge...."

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Mind Set and Match

In Springfield, Mo. this week, Bush stumped around, impugning Kerry as usual and in doing so, said something so completely inscrutable, it is hard to know just what he is implying or trying to imply:

"We're not turning back to the old days, the old Washington mind-set that says they will give the orders, you'll pay the bills,"

Now, just what are we to take away from this elocution? That now the Washington mind-set is that they will give the orders and no one will pay the bills. Given the White House budgets of late, that is pretty much exactly what their mind-set is. How long does he think that can go on?


Read the puzzling words....

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Family Friendly Flex Time

Bush continues to defy normative conservative principles by coming out this week and proclaiming a new program that he, or someone else who has no idea what conservatism means, envisions will promote the future good health of American families. In what is no doubt a half-hearted effort to appear concerned about Americans putting food on their families and joyously celebrating each other's company, Bush tells America that he intends for Congress to nose their way into business and family life:

I believe Congress ought to enact comp time and flex time to help America's families better juggle the demands of work and their home.

Though no one in America will likely be impressed by this, no doubt this is something Bush's inconsiderable faculties might actually manage.


Read it....

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Do the Math

Jerry Vlasek, a trauma surgeon and prominent figure in the anti-vivisection movement in the UK, caused quite a rowe when he sallied forth and anounced that animal rights protesters ought to use violence and assassinate biomedical research scientists. Says the thoughtful, soulful Jerry,

I don't think you'd have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.

Now, the ratios here are not quite constant, the first two working out to be 200,000 animal lives/human and the last one giving us a whopping 666,666 and 2/3 animals/human. The final ratio, clearly the best deal, definitely demonstrates the value of killing in bulk.


Read about the nut....

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Wow, that was a pile.