Does this look laughable to anyone else?

The Democrats seem to have lost their fire. Not that the Republicans are any better, but it used to be that the Democrats at least had some capacity for rabble-rousing. But this recent speech by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sounds just as vague and limp as Bush's calls to "stay the course" in Iraq. Just look at this crap.

"Today as Americans are making New Year's resolutions, our Democratic New Year's resolution is to renew America's promise," the California congresswoman said.

WTF does "renew America's promise" even mean? Does anyone know? It can mean whateverthefuck you want it to mean.

"The federal budget should be a statement of our national values," Pelosi said. "Sadly, the Republican budget fails that test."

National values? What national values would you be referring to?

The budget proposed by the Democrats protects the middle class, reduces the deficit and reflects our American values, Pelosi said.

With this plan, she said, the government could wisely invest in issues that are important to Americans, such as education, health care and keeping energy costs down. Proposed spending cuts for these programs has drawn fiery debate in Congress in recent weeks.

So American values are education, health care and keeping energy costs down. Yep, we won our independence from Britain so we could pay less than a buck for gas. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi, for being an uninspired party hack.

Pelosi drew on several religious references during her address. She also mentioned a December rally of religious leaders who traveled to Washington to protest the proposed budget.

"Religious leaders told Congress that they are drawing a moral line in the sand against the Republican budget's misplaced priorities."

It's obvious that the Democrats have been salivating over the masses of idiots that have been voting GOP "becuz Bush is a Christian OMGWTF" and trying to figure out a way to get all the idiots to vote for them instead. But please... could you guys be a little less blatant? Seriously... and while I myself am a liberal Christian, let's be honest here-liberal Christians lack the capacity to fire up stupid fundamentalist Christians. Really. Let's just admit it, guys-until we can somehow find it in ourselves to be fucking idiots morally outraged because two guys kissed each other or that they're not teaching creationism in schools, we can't touch the fundie vote and it's useless for Democrats to use us to try.

Because if you ask Joe Bible Thumper what he gives more of a damn about, chances are he'll say some dude's meat in another dude's ass gives him far more chills at night than the makeup of the budget. And besides, Democrats, didn't you listen to them? Liberal Christians are going to Hell.

"We must draw a fiscal line in the sand. And we must join the religious community in drawing a moral line in the sand," Pelosi said. "Nothing less is at stake than the well-being of America's children, the strength and soundness of our economy, and the respect that America commands in the world."

I hate, hate, hate the phrase "America's children" being used in conjunction with politics. It's as bad as the Republicans labelling anyone who doesn't agree with the war or the USA PATRIOT Act as "unpatriotic." It's just some shitty little emotional appeal that you can slap on anything. Vote for this tax increase or you hate children. Vote for these spy initiatives or you hate America. What a crock of uninspired bullshit.

Nancy Pelosi, someone needs to replace your ass with the next Howard Dean, and but soon. At least Dean made interesting reading material, and I understood exactly what the man thought. You're nothing but emotionalism, buzzwords, and pathetic pleas to the fundies to come back.

NSA "accidentally" spied on us

So yeah, I'm not entirely sure how the world's most powerful spy agency accidentally manages to spy on its own citizens.

Apparently the NSA installed permanent cookies on the computers of those people who visited their website. These cookies monitored what sites were subsequently visited. What's the NSA's first excuse?

"Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on.

"After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies," he said."

So first, they ask us to believe that the spy masterminds responsible for protecting our nation got confused by some pre-packaged software. Who the hell would inadvertently slip those kinds of cookies into NSA's software anyway? So basically we're supposed to either believe that:

-The NSA is a pack of idiots
-Our government thinks we're sheep

Either way... yeah, America's safe.

But it's not done! After offering that explanation, Mr. Don Weber then gives a different explanation to the incident, saying:

it was strictly to improve the surfing experience "and not to collect personal user data."

So... this cookie that you spooks didn't know you were giving everyone was actually intended by you same, unaware spooks for benign purposes. And, you know, spam is just letting us know about Viagra and breast enlargement, just in case we weren't yet aware.

So with all this bungling, I'm left to wonder only one thing: DID BUSH APPOINT BORIS FUCKING BADANOV AS THE NEW NSA CHIEF, OR WHAT? This is probably the lamest crock of bullshit put out by any level of government since the lines "they hate our freedom" and "we had to destroy the village to save it." Either way, I think that in response to this idiocy, the official LP mascot should be a moose... or a squirrel.

Howard Stern, the FCC and the First Amendment

Howard Stern made his last "terrestrial radio" broadcast sometime last week. He will be bringing most of his twelve million listeners to Sirius Radio, a pay service of satellite radio. Though he will be earning a whopping $75 million more under the Sirius contract, it's not the money that motivates his move.

It's the FCC. FCC chairman Michael Powell decided that Stern's programming is indecent, and Clear Channel Communications has gotten tired of paying his fines. But why does the FCC have the right to regulate free speech on radio?

Supposedly it's because of scarcity; because there's only so many different channels that can be intelligibly broadcast upon, the government has the right to license and then regulate the airwaves. But this makes no sense; they would, according to that theory, have the right to issue licenses but not to mandate content. The courts have repeatedly declared that the government has no right to regulate content on the internet; why then can they do so on the airwaves?

Bureaucrash's Strike Against the Green Party

This video is one of the greatest sources of LOL I've seen in a while.

A bunch of libertarian activists make up a phony socialist organization, the "Progressives Against Progress," and sneak into the 2004 Green Party convention and propose some truly stupid ideas, stuff like letting people vote on what sites to allow or not, how much bandwidth each person can use, ending corporate farming as to lessen the food supply in America and decrease obesity rates.

To their dismay, they found the Greens eating these ideas up. One guy even suggested they get them put on the platform. So they decided to come up with something so inane, so outlandish that surely nobody would buy it. THEY WANTED TO NOMINATE FIDEL CASTRO FOR PRESIDENT.

Yet, they still did. Hell, one woman had a letter from him in her pocket; another knew a guy that visited him every year. Holy shit, this is the best thing I've watched in a while. What's sad is that these people actually vote.

RIAA sues hapless Internet-illiterate single mom over the holidays, claims Ebenezer Scrooge as role model

I'm not kidding.

Patricia Santangelo is a single mother, hasn't downloaded a song in her life, and doesn't even have the money to settle out of court with the RIAA, which named her in a lawsuit against music downloaders. Somehow in the midst of all this, she's supposed to raise four children.

The trial has cost her $24,000 so far, money she doesn't have; but even though she's representing herself she refuses to bow to the assholes at the RIAA on principle. "It's a moral issue," she says. "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."

Hers could potentially be the case that proves the whole downloading matter one way or another. No downloading case has ever been brought to court in America; so far only out-of-court settlements have emerged. So it's quite possible that the RIAA's bullying extortionary tactics could be brought down by one lone single mother standing up to them and saying "Enough!"

Here's another blog standing behind you, Ms. Santangelo. Thanks for having a spine, however it turns out.