PittsburghThoughts

McCain Screams at AP reporter, "Gimme a break! I had to jerk-off in that Hanoi shit hole for 5 years! I deserve some side action!

This evening an obvioulsy upset and antagonized John McCain let it rip....blah, blah, blah, bleepity, bleep, bleep, etc, etc...

PittsburghThoughts exclusive: Vicki Iseman, "Yeah, I bonked the old fuck!"

Vicki, did you have sexual relations with that man?

Yeah, I bonked the old fuck.

Vicki, did you consider the consequences?

Yeah, I bonked the old fuck.

Vicki, do you feel bad about the possible derailment of McCain's presidential run?

Yeah, I bonked the old fuck.

Vicki, you don't really have much to say beside, "I bonked the old fuck," do you?

Yeah, I bonked the old fuck.

Define "Bonked."

BONK YOU!

There you have it, a PIttsburghThoughts exclusive! She bonked the old fuck!

RE: Yesterday's post,

I found the Saul Landau interview that I wanted for yesterday's post, split it into two parts due to size limitations and edited the post to include it.

One part that stands out: Nelson Mandela, on being released from prison, bushed away Castro's hand, refusing his hand shake and embraced him saying, "You made this possible."   Gene

From Isaac Saney - The Story of How Cuba Helped to Free Africa:

Cuba's direct, critical and extensive role in the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa is little known in the West. November 5th, 2005 marks the 30th anniversary of Cuba's decision to deploy combat-troops, at the request of the Angolan government, to repulse a major South African invasion of October 1975. In 1987-1988, a decisive battle occurred in the south-eastern Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale. When it occurred, the battle was the largest military engagement in Africa since the North African battles of the Second World War. Arrayed on one side were the armed forces of Cuba, Angola and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO); on the other, the South African Defense Forces, military units of the Union for the Total National Independence of Angola (UNITA — the South African-supported organization) and the South African Territorial Forces of Pretoria-controlled Namibia.

P.S. Once again, thanks, Mike, for helping me track down that link.

Time for an honest look at Cuba and ourselves, 

We, the United States, love, for some reason, to punish Cuba. Maybe it's our colonialist reaction to an unyielding nation that has the audacity to claim its autonomy in OUR hemisphere or maybe it's revenge for the Bay of Pigs. Whichever, our policies have produced nothing but misery for the Cuban people not that the average American is capable of giving a shit.

Our brains have not only been washed but sent a few too many times through the spin cycle and like the poor and disenfranchised here, as well as in Cuba and every other nation that we have ever sought to exploit, hung out to dry. Find an author that dares to write favorably of Castro and you have, according to the political mainstream, unearthed a dangerous lefty to be met, at the minimum, with scorn and derision.

The people in our southern hemisphere have been murdered, tortured and forced to live lives of misery for the benefit of a hand full of wealthy families and the corporations that they esteem. Our South American policy has consisted, *clandestinely, in overthrowing elected socialist leaders and installing extreme right wing dictators. That's changing, due in large part to huge oil reserves that we haven't been able to commandeer.

When I heard the Saul Landau interview on the Thom Hartmann radio show: Saul Landau Part 1.wav and Saul Landau Part 2.wav I was pleased. Castro was many things, and I'm sure if you or a family member were jailed and/or tortured for something anti-Castro that appeared in print or somehow gained public attention, you'd hate his guts as much as any American right-wing nut job. Saul Landau acknowledges Castro's accomplishments as a strong, successful leader who took a country wracked by corruption and improved it against the efforts of the most powerful nation on earth.  

Incidentally, how can you decry Castro's torture while condoning ours, and if you don't think that we have political prisoner's in OUR jails, you haven't been paying attention. Let's stop our 5 decade long embargo against the Cuban people and punishing them for the same crimes that we ourselves have committed and continue to commit. If communism has failed why do we still consider it a threat?  Gene

*The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News).

Quick! Where's Chad? Is the economy good or bad? Is the surge working? WTF does that mean? Is there a law that requires you to pay income tax?

I know the answer to the last question you say, the 16th amendment! Give yourself a pat on the back for submitting to conventional wisdom. But, watch this and you'll walk away with doubts. Video director, Aaron Russo's case rests on the conclusion that the 16th amendment was never ratified. Was it? Here's a convincing article that it wasn't ratified by the required number of states: HOW SOME STATES DID NOT LEGALLY RATIFY THE 16TH AMENDMENT

According to this argument, you can stop paying income tax. There's no law requiring it. Oh, you'll eventually end up in jail or broken and destitute, but still, there's no law requiring you to pay income tax. It's sort of like a thing that's understood, needs no explanation, taken for granted, as obvious as the nose on your face. But how can we live in a country that through pure force extracts our hard earned money when we're a nation of laws?

Lots of people have fought the IRS and lost. We know it. We fear retribution and rather than admit that we cowardly let the government extort us we allow ourselves to assume that it's all perfectly legal, as certain as death and ... taxes. But according to a few, and they have made a strong case reinforced by the fact that the IRS has refused to address this fundamental issue, federal income tax is a scam.

I have to agree. When my money goes for wars and military extravaganzas that I have no control over other than writing, phoning or showing up at my congressman's doorstep, the system is a lie.

It's been said, incorrectly I submit, that you can't prove a negative. In other words I can't prove that the IRS doesn't have the right or authority to tax me, so, let them prove that they do. So far they haven't been amenable to that idea and there's no reason to assume that they ever will be as long as they have the force of law but not the law itself on their side.

It's actually comical, people bank on their tax refunds. When I get my tax refund I'm going to_________, fill in the blank. Having money is the form of a bulk amount isn't something that we generally have the opportunity to consider and so when the IRS sends us a fat check, we react jubilantly. We've been bred to have a supplicant mentality.

How would the government operate without taxes, specifically, without income taxes? Before 1913 the income tax didn't exist in it's present form, there was a tax but it was very limited in it scope. Our country operated on tariffs and excise taxes. During the Civil War an income tax law was enacted but was also repealed after the war. From 1868 to 1913, almost 90 percent of all revenue was collected from the remaining excises.

The Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II all conferred on the people raises to the income tax. I leave out the Social Security tax because I believe in helping people stave off poverty rather than kill them.

My conclusions: War = Taxes, Taxes = Bigger Government, Bigger Government = Corruption, Corruption = More Government, More Government = Absolute Power.

This is what we have now; concentrated corruption, power and unending war. The machine runs on our money but we have little say on the direction the that machine takes. Let this battle over the IRS's ability to tax us rage on, not that we shouldn't fund roads, hospitals, schools, the Arts or the plethera of things that make a society but this war against funding war is worth fighting.