Kayaknya Terror cocok ya :-P

And what about Twitch, when he found out he was in the bottom four? Whoa. It was like bad grade 8 party all over again, with Cat all, "come here, come here" and squatting down beside him...

Anyway, I've been scouring, absolutely SCOURING the internet for any video clips of said moments, but can't find any. What I did find is a shot of Mark's face when he found out he was safe:

It was too cute, because completely genuine. I must say, I do love Mark.

But to see Will go...that was a shocker. Honestly, I would prefer it if SYTYCD were judged to the bitter end by the PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT instead of turning into a horrible bad grade 8 (see, here we go again) popularity contest by letting "America" do the voting (I sooooo hate how Americans anthropomorphize their whole country, as in "America will decide", "What did America think?" etc.)

And don't even get me started yet on Nigel Lithgoe trying to convince people to actually VOTE. FOR. THEIR. LEADER. Nosiree. Tens of millions will vote for American Idol, but they won't vote for president.

Maybe they need to bring down a notch:

Text "BARACK" or "JOHN" to 12345 to cast your vote for president! Next episode, we find out what America said!

I mean, I guess if I cared so much, I could actually vote, but I don't really do that (except for Season One, for Benji, because he was my dancer soulmate, and I called his victory from his first audition). But I really don't get what happened, because EVERYONE I talked to about the show (and I've talked to a LOT of people about it, believe me) thought Will was the clear winner. So, seriously, what happened?

Also, this makes me most nervous for the November election -- if America screwed up so badly on this choice, what's going to happen then?

Why won't Nancy Pelosi allow congress to vote on off-shore drilling so that we can have new gas and not have to be reliant on oil from people who are trying to kill us.  We are sitting on more oil than they have.  Our people can become rich for a change.  Instead of sending our money to countries that support terrorists, we need to allow our people to drill for oil on our own land instead of taking OPEC to court to force them to drill their oil. At least we know that the money can be used to grow our economy and reduce our deficit and not used to kill our people.

You can go to the American Solutions website and sign the petition asking congress to Drill Now, Drill Here, Pay Less:

<script src="http://www.americansolutions.com/Gadgets/FormPrint.aspx?Page=Petition&g=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659&H=580&w=220" type="text/javascript"></script>

There.  I said it.

What if we (Christ-followers)all stayed home on election night?
What if we put our time, money and energies into helping needy people and spreading hope to a fallen world instead of advancing political agendas?
What's the worst that could happen?

I don't want to create the impression that I'm 100 percent sold on this concept, but it's been simmering in my brain for a few years now, and it's definitely growing on me.

Fire away.  I can take it.

This will be a community project, so forum members can vote on songs they want included in the forum playlist.

Our country needs a change of direction. We're doing all kinds of horrible things. I mean, just look at the War in Iraq. People are getting blown up and it's like, because of us. I mean, if we hadn't gone in there in the first place, people would be a lot happier and nobody would get blown up by, like, IEDs and stuff. So I like it a lot when Obama says we should bring the troops home.

I like it when he talks about the environment too. Because I mean we're in this absolute crisis that isn't going to go away unless we do something. And gas prices? What is the Republican guy gonna do to lower the gas prices? Drill for more oil? Doesn't he see that we are running out of oil? There is nowhere to drill man! And have you noticed that gas prices have been going up since the Republicans announced they would have a candidate to run against Barack? Seriously, just give it up already. Everybody knows Barack is going to win.

And why shouldn't he? I mean, the dude is black (NOT a Muslim...not that there's anything wrong with that). I mean, if he were a Muslim, how would that whole thing with his pastor gone down? Everybody started FREAKING OUT just because Obama's religious mentor of 20 years turned out to be an absolute off-the-wall nutjob. The thing is though, everybody knows that JOHN MCCAIN is really the religious wacko. I mean, he's a Republican! How could he NOT be an evangelical head-case?

Now, I'm white but that doesn't mean I can't respect Obama. I mean, white people have oppressed black people for centuries. Don't you think it's time that we let a black man be President? I mean, come on.

And yeah, that's pretty much about it.

July 22, 2008 is held as the darkest day in Indian democracy.

This day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won the confidence vote; but the day, instead of being counted as his victory day, is unambiguously held by one and all as the darkest day in Indian democracy.

In the life of India this day shall remain remarkable, not for victory of democracy, but for defeat of democracy.

What happened?

Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora, three BJP Members of Lok Sabha placed a bag on the table of the LS secretary general in front of the Speaker when debates on confidence motion were going on and fished out of it 10 bundles of currency notes of Rs.1000 denomination, claiming that the cash totaling a crore of rupees that they were placing on the table was given to them in advance against Rs.9 crore offered to them as bribe to create advantage for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The house was stunned and speechless. Deputy Speaker Charanjit Atwal had to adjourn the House hurriedly.

Later to tumults when it resumed, timeservers and renegades saved the government that should surely have breathed its last had the support for the Prime Minister could not have been arranged.

That the support was arranged is clear from the fact that the savers of Singh did not come out openly in his support prior to voting.

There is no evidence to show that political ideology played a role and change in ideological perception of persons who were opposing him till then, helped him bag the support he so badly needed.

This whips up suspicions that there was a secret deal behind the nuke deal.

Archana Nayak of Orissa had told TV channels, how she was offered money and whatever she should ask for in whatever forms she would prefer if only she votes for the government.

Her open allegation is most significant specifically as a few minutes after her statement the Lok Sabha witnessed how from a huge moneybag bundles of currency notes used allegedly to net in opposition support emanated to mock at the rampart of democracy.

So, obviously the support came not from politico-economic ideological reorientation, but from the moneybags pressed into action by agents of the Prime Minister.

This looks more certain as without the security check being slacked by the highest-level authority, such a huge bag stuffed with a crore of rupees could never have entered the Lok Sabha in session on the most sensitive issue since its birth.

As far as BJP members are concerned, it looks impossible on their part to have brought in such a huge bag to the Lok Sabha hall where everything was subjected to meticulous security check over and above the intelligence cover over each of them.

So, if the huge moneybag came from outside, it is normal to suspect that the agents of the Prime Minister had brought it in and in know of this, the security scrutinizers had deliberately allowed it or ignored its entry.

If the security staff did not neglect their duty and if the security scrutiny was not slacked, then it is impossible for the huge moneybag to have entered into the Lok Sabha from outside.

Then wherefrom such huge money came?

Obviously, in such circumstances, it may be suspected that the huge moneybag came from within the Lok Sabha premises and the huge money from the Lok Sabha chest.

If this must be the case, then the Speaker comes within the radar of suspicion.

Either way, the matter has shattered peoples’ faith in management of democracy. The peoples are doubly disturbed, as they doubt that the Prime Minister survived by use of moneybags.

Whether or not the Prime Minister survived by use of moneybags, this is too serious a doubt to be allowed to linger. The more time it takes to be eradicated the more damaging it will be to democracy being a factor of decline in voters’ confidence in the most important functionaries like the Prime Minister and the Speaker.

The Speaker would perhaps never have come into a state of being suspected. But knowingly or unknowingly he has allowed himself to be used by the Prime Minister or to the advantage of the Prime Minister, which has given birth to this decline.

Firstly, he should not have allowed a voteless debate over the issue in the Lok Sabha. To proceed ahead with the nuke deal, the prerequisite was, “the Indian Parliament must agree to the text” of the Hyde Act on the basis of which 123 agreement was to be signed. That we have published this prerequisite many a times in these pages indicates that the need for Indian parliament “to agree to the text” of the Hyde Act as a “must” was known to others and available to the knowledge of everybody. So, it was imperative for the Speaker to study and stress on this aspect. Had he insisted upon the need of the Lok Sabha “to agree to the text” of the Hyde Act as a “must”, the house could have debated on the “text” of that Act and “agreed (or disagreed) to the “text” thereof and the Prime Minister should have proceeded accordingly and the present debacle would never have occurred. That did not happen.

Secondly, the Speaker should have resigned from his post in honoring the party line. He was never an apolitical man to hold the post. He was there by virtue of being a member of the CPI(M) party, which had bagged the post for a party person by way of bargain in exchange of support to Congress-led UPA. When the party withdrew support, the Speaker should have relinquished the post the party had bagged in exchange of the support. But he did not do that. He gave two grounds. One, as Speaker he is apolitical and cannot be called for to act in party lines. Two, he cannot vote against the government as that would mean doing what the BJP would be doing and acting, even indirectly, in unison with a communal party like the BJP would be contrary to his political ideology as a communist. It was self-contradictory. Remaining apolitical cannot be the same as remaining antagonist to a particular political party. Moreover, for a communist, between imperialism and communalism, elimination of the former must be top priority and hence, ethically, there was no wrong in voting against the Prime Minister to save the country from imperialism, even if that meant working in unison with the communalists.

Thirdly, being the guardian of probity in Lok Sabha, he should not have allowed convicted criminals to come from prisons to vote on the confidence motion. Dismissal of members for violation of probity in raising questions in the House was a strong ground to disallow convicted criminals to participate in the vote. The dignity of the House was in severe jeopardy as TV channels showed the criminals to public as they were proceeding into the Parliament to participate in voting. Deliberate or not, the Speaker did not do anything discernible to uphold the dignity of the House in this case.

Fourthly, with money bundles to the tune of a crore of rupees hitting hard the House as the money used to purchase advantage for the Prime Minister and submission of the video records depicting such serious offence against the Lok Sabha, it was imperative on part of the Speaker to defer, in cause of probity and parliamentary dignity, the vote taking till the doubts were totally cleared on earnest investigation and the culprit or conspirator fully exposed. But the Speaker did not do that.

In the circumstances, one regrets to note that if democracy in India is in danger, precipitators are both the Prime Minister and the Speaker.

Tomorrow i will be coding the member/account section.

Impeachment articles charge Bush with election fraud

When future historians sit down to study this era, archived media stories will be of little use to them, unless the Brad Pitt-Angela Jolie baby grows up to rule the world. Probably the biggest history-making story to be ignored by the corporate media this month is the introduction in the US Congress of Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. The 35 Articles of Impeachment filed by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich document hundreds of crimes committed by George W. Bush and “co-conspirators” under his direction.

Wolves and henhouses

The general feeling among Democratic Party leaders is that Bush is just a few months away from being history himself, so there’s no sense in stirring up the coals. I suppose that would be fine, if, say, he were the highway commissioner. We could probably weather a few months of potholes or sloppy plowing. But we need to go back and look at our history here. The Iraq War was started by George H. W. Bush (whose ambassador to Iraq gave Saddam Hussein the green light to invade Kuwait) in the middle of his presidency and strung out to its end, so that Clinton inherited what would become, at last count, a 17-year war.

Bushes can make sloppy exits, and by all accounts our current Bush is a bit nuts.

If you look closely at Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment, however, there’s another pressing issue at hand. George W. Bush doesn’t just threaten world peace, the global environment, our civil liberties, and the American economy every moment he stays in office. According to the impeachment documents, he has committed, orchestrated, or ordered crimes that undermine our ability to have fair elections. Hence, having him remain at the helm of the federal government during a presidential election year—especially this year where we have the rare opportunity to choose between two radically different candidates, and where Democrats have an opportunity to lock up control of Congress—puts the whole future of the country and possibly the world at stake.

Let’s cut to the specifics. According to the Articles of Impeachment, George W. Bush, “acting through his agents and subordinates, willfully corrupted and manipulated the electoral process of the United States for his personal gain and the personal gain of his co-conspirators and allies…and impeded the right of the people to vote and have their vote properly and accurately counted.”

This isn’t the 2000 Florida election theft that we’re talking about here. That might be how Bush got into office, but he wasn’t in office at the time, hence whatever he might have been involved in there is not part of the current impeachment documentation. Kucinich’s Article of Impeachment number 28 (Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice) and 29 (Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965) deal with post-2000 elections, with a focus on what appears to be the theft of the 2004 presidential election in the tie-breaking state of Ohio.

With regards to the Ohio presidential contest, the documents cite a House Judiciary Committee investigation documenting “widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation” designed to suppress the minority vote, which would have gone overwhelmingly to Bush’s opponent, John Kerry.

The 2004 election theft

Article 28 specifically charges that “John Kenneth Blackwell, then serving as the Secretary of State for the State of Ohio and also serving simultaneously as Co-Chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush in the State of Ohio, did at the direction of the White House under the administration of George W. Bush…disenfranchise African American voters.” The document goes on to specifically charge that the Bush/Blackwell team purposely limited the number of voting machines and paper ballots in African-American sections of Ohio cities.

For example, Article 28 documents the “withholding” of 125 voting machines in the city of Columbus and how 42 predominantly African-American precincts in Columbus all were “missing” one voting machine that was present during the 2004 primary. The result, according to the documents, is that “African-American voters in the city of Columbus were forced to wait three to seven hours to vote in the 2004 presidential election.” With the election taking place on a work day, this act disenfranchised potentially thousands of black voters.

Article 28 also documents how Blackwell purposefully stymied voter registration by arbitrarily declaring that only voter registration forms filled out on one specific type of paper, 80 bond weight, would be legally acceptable in 2004. The documentation points out that Blackwell’s office itself used an illegal 60 bond weight paper. The only apparent purpose of the paper weight declaration was to derail active voter registration drives that were in progress and reject the registration of new, predominantly young and minority voters just before the election, in effect purposely disenfranchising them.

The Articles of Impeachment document how the Bush/Blackwell team conducted “a massive partisan purge of registered voter rolls, eventually expunging more than 300,000 voters, many of whom were duly registered voters, and who were deprived of their constitutional right to vote.” As a result, “24.93 percent of the voters in the city of Cleveland, a city with a majority of African American citizens, were purged from the voting roles.” Another 10,000 Cleveland voters, according to the Article 28, were disenfranchised by a “computer error” committed by the private Diebold Election Systems, which was under contract to Blackwell’s office.

Cleveland is Kucinich’s district, hence the theft of his constituents’ right to vote hit close to home. In Toledo, another city with a large African-American population, 28,000 voters were purged just before the presidential election of 2004. By contrast, in the 98 percent white Ohio county of Miami, no voters were purged. The impeachment documentation goes on to document uncounted provisional ballots, also in African-American communities.

The Injustice Department

All of this should have been investigated by the US Justice Department, which is charged with enforcing federal laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guarantees and actively protects minority voters from disenfranchisement. Article 28, however, charges that the Justice Department, “under the direction and Administration of George W. Bush, did willfully and purposefully obstruct and stonewall legitimate criminal investigations into myriad cases of reported electoral fraud and suppression in the state of Ohio.” For example, the impeachment documents charge that Bush cronies [my word] “did, for partisan reasons, illegally and with malice aforethought block career attorneys and other officials in the Department of Justice from filing three lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities…”

This is just Article 28 that I’ve been quoting here. There are 34 more such detailed Articles of Impeachment that deal with crimes other than election theft. I know Democrats don’t want to open up the impeachment can of worms for fear that it would give Bush, and by association, John McCain, a sympathy vote, making it look like the Bush/McCain team is being unfairly picked on. That’s what happened with the Clinton impeachment, which Republicans initiated after the president lied about an extramarital sexual affair. But this isn’t just semen stains on a dress. Clinton’s sloppy orgasm didn’t change the direction of world history by stealing an election or starting a war.

Democrats are also fearful that the Bush/McCain team would get sympathy because so many of the documented charges appear to be outrageous. They can’t possibly be true. It must be partisan bickering—and we’re sick of politicians bickering when the country is going to hell. But the charges are well documented. And now they’ve been written into the nation’s history. It is unbelievable—unbelievable that we gave a free ride to these criminals for eight years, shamelessly allowing them to shred our constitution and trash our country.

Dr. Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and media studies at Buffalo State College. His previous columns are available at artvoice.com, archived at mediastudy.com, and distributed globally though syndication.

We cannot forget that citizens of the United States of America are Americans. Americans in that they live in a divided country, the world's most powerful divided country, and many of them are politicians at heart. Many of them, I said. And that is where they excel. I can probably handle about 20 minutes of political talk before I start to feel sleepy, and truly slutty.

I have a weakness when it comes to discussing politics, and that is I am not a true citizen. I'm an international, "3rd Culture" white dude who grew up in countries famous for shoddy politics. In the Philippines: a Catholic government trying to subdue a Muslim population to their south; and in Bangladesh, a largely impoverished Muslim population trying to come to terms with barrels of empty political promises thrown their way since their independence from Pakistan.

I've been through coup attempts in my youth, and seen many a hartal face to face. I know first hand that teargas stings like a bitch because of riots too close to home. I've had armed guards working at my homes when things got out of control. I was mostly unaffected, but obviously affected.

Now, can you see why I don't put much faith in politics?...or religion for that matter?

I really suck at taking politics seriously, and I have limited belief in the fact that what I do makes a difference. But I'm learning. I've been in Canada for 8 years now and have officially started voting for my own future. Through university I voted Green or Liberal mostly to show support, and probably in the hopes of legalizing marijuana.

Now where was I...Oh yea, Americans. They're very good at talking shop, shop being internal politics. They love and hate their government's ideals, they bicker and bend - but at least they bicker! There's nothing worse than silence.

Several months ago I was speaking with a fellow American-international friend of mine who now lives in Seattle. He said that as infuriating as it can be, it's wonderful to live in a nation so politically active. Not that us calm Canucks are inactive, we just have a smaller effect on the rest of the world and we know that. We too are divided, we too bicker and boil...but we're also oddly accepting of our 4 years of frustration when we make mistakes at the poll.

Not all of my generation cares so passionately about internal politics, but the young Americans sure do, and they should all be proud of the opportunity they hold.

When you vote, do so with a cause. Also, vote knowing that the rest of the world must come to terms with your government.

Whoa Nellie!

I sat up and took notice when I spied a list of potential running mates for that crotchety presidential candidate, John McCain.

Jeb Bush is on the short list?

If that's the case, let's take a gander at the potential scenario.

John McCain wins the Presidential race with Jeb on the VP ticket.

Then, one evening - after ingesting a bit of nitroglycerin for the old ticker - an impotent moment with Cindy inclines the aging Lothario to pop a tab of Viagra.

Faster than you can say - double whammy! - McCain is carted off to the hospital quick as a wink.

Too late!

So, who becomes top dog in the White House?

You got it: Jeb Bush.

Well, looks like Obama may be a shoe-in, after all, once voters get their priorities straight!

I still like to swing even if John is not up to it...