Voenix Rising

As if I had any doubts…

Cool!

From SFGate.com:

Court Allows Student’s Anti-Bush T-Shirt

(o6-29) 07:22 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP)

Putting its recent ruling on student speech into practice, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a school district’s appeal of a ruling that it violated a student’s rights by censoring his anti-Bush T-shirt.

A seventh-grader from Vermont was suspended for wearing a shirt that bore images of cocaine and a martini glass—but also had messages calling President Bush a lying drunk driver who abused cocaine and marijuana, and the “chicken-hawk-in-chief” who was engaged in a “world domination tour.”

After his suspension, Zachary Guiles returned to school with duct tape covering the offending images.

Williamstown Middle School Principal Kathleen Morris-Kortz said the images violated the school dress code, which prohibits clothing that promotes the use of drugs or alcohol.

An appeals court said the school had no right to censor any part of the shirt.

On Monday, the court said schools could regulate student expression if it advocated illegal drug use. Justice Samuel Alito cautioned that schools could not censor political speech.

The case is Marineau v. Guiles, 06-757.

You wanted a legacy, motherfucker? You’ve got one.

WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.

Ron Hutcheson over at McClatchy has posted an excellent article dissecting the failed presidency of our Wanker-in-Chief:

The Senate’s rejection Thursday of President Bush’s immigration plan was the latest in a series of embarrassments that have exposed Bush’s political weakness and shaken his hold on power.The president slipped out of town for a long weekend in Maine before the Senate delivered the final blow to his immigration bill, but it wasn’t the only setback that might put a damper on his seaside getaway with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the space of a single short week, Bush was hit with more Republican defections on Iraq, more bad news from the battlefield, more subpoenas from a hostile Congress, a new assault on his signature education plan and embarrassing disclosures about his vice president.

He also found himself in a fight over executive privilege that begs comparisons to Richard Nixon’s legal battles during the Watergate scandal.

“It’s the incredible shrinking presidency. He’s lost battles in the courts. He’s lost battles in Iraq. He’s lost battles on Capitol Hill,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University.

“His bank account is empty and there’s nowhere to go for more. I think his presidency is essentially over.”

Light proposed a headline to sum up the week: “The president loses his legacy.”

Bush’s plan to give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to come out of the shadows was the twin pillar of his ambitious second-term agenda. His other big idea, revamping Social Security, died two years ago with barely a whimper.

The two biggest victories from his first term, tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind education law, are also at risk. Many of the tax reductions that Bush championed are set to expire, and he’s been unable to convince Congress to make them permanent.

(More…)

My old housemate from San Francisco—who’s a huge Karen Black fan—works as a “Public Assistance Caseload Worker.” He recently had an interesting encounter with a client. This one’s for him…

(Hat tip to Donnie for the smirking angel in the orange jumpsuit.)

Why isn’t this crack-whore behind bars? If you or I publicly stated that we wished for a presidential candidate to be killed, you can bet full well that the FBI would be knocking on our doors before sundown.

And once again, when confronted with the truth, she’s shown the world what an evil, petty, pathetic little skank she really is.

I’m just wondering why the media is even paying attention to her anymore. After she was so resoundingly trashed for comments she made regarding John Edwards six months ago, I had hoped that she had permanently slithered off to hide under whatever slimy rock she’d crawled out of. I guess that was expecting too much.

Of course, with a media obsessed with the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at all that they’re still fawning over her ugliness.

What we need is Ellen Ripley to appear and put this festering, pus-oozing piece of filth in her place.

“Get away from her, you bitch!”

You have got to be kidding me.  Is there nothing the current crop of jokers in the federal government can’t screw up?

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”
Abraham Lincoln

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Abigail Adams

“Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson

In these days of up-is-down and black-is-white:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
John F. Kennedy

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Thomas Jefferson

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the SUPREME INTERNATIONAL CRIME differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Justice Robert H. Jackson, Nuremberg Trials, 1946

“In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
George Orwell

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
Voltaire

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
Thomas Paine

“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience… Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring”
Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
Barry Goldwater, 1964

And don’t even ask how I found it.

A small sampling of headlines from The Huffington Post:

More Lobbyists On McCain Staff Than Any Other ‘08 Candidate

Looney Tunes strikes again. McCain: bringing integrity back to the White House. NOT.

Number Of African-Americans Joining The Military Plunges 38 Percent

Ya think? With the clusterfuck that Iraq has become is anyone joining the military? Anyone?

Obama: Faith Hijacked By Right Wing Evangelicals

You’re just now realizing that, Barak? Welcome to the party.

US Death Toll In Iraq This Week Hits 30

Yep, that surge sure is working, chimpy…

Cheney Announced Bush Detainee Policy Before Bush Made Decision

Can we impeach that motherfucking son of a bitch now?

Vice President Intercepts Confidential Memos Between Other White House Staffers

Pray for a blood clot. Or an errant meteorite that has the motherfucker’s name written on it.

Members Say Giuliani’s Excuse For Quitting Iraq Study Group Isn’t True

A Republican lying? Oh, that’s just crazy talk!

Suit Alleges Gonzales Passed Up Highly-Qualified Mexican-American Woman To Appoint White Men With No Experience

The only requirement for securing any job in chimpy’s administration is having absolutely no experience for the position whatsoever…that and being able to stick your tongue so far up his ass that you can twist past the first bend in his colon.

“Hotels are a naturally creepy place.”

I saw John Cusack’s new film 1408 yesterday. I’m not a big horror fan, but every now and then a movie comes along that piques my interest. 1408 was one of those, and since I am a fan of Cusack’s work (I fell in love with him in High Fidelity), seeing this one was a no brainer.

The film starts out at a very leisurely pace, establishing that Cusack’s character, Mike Enslin, while having written several questionably successful books on the paranormal, doesn’t really believe in any of it. After nearly downing in a surfing accident (which figures prominently later in the film), he receives a post card from the Dolphin Hotel in New York that simply reads, “Don’t enter 1408.”

Of course, this is a line drawn in the sand that Enslin has to cross. After traveling to New York and ignoring the hotel manager’s pleas that he not stay in the room, he finally enters 1408.

“This is it?”

Of course, after a very short time, things do start happening, and it becomes increasingly unclear if they are actual events, glimpses into the paranormal, or entirely within Enslin’s own mind. Not since I first saw Stephen King’s The Shining has a hotel so thoroughly creeped me out.

Relying more on psychological tension than overt violence and gore, the film contains several good jump-out-of-your-seat scenes. And while it’s never really explained why the room is so evil, the ending (with the customary and expected “Gotcha!” moment) is satisfying. I won’t say it’s a great movie, but as King-inspired tales go, it was definitely one of the better screen realizations to date, and unlike several other recent films I’ve seen, I didn’t leave the theater feeling like I’d been cheated out of my money.