The Russians have really lost their game since the fall of the Soviet Union. The production values on this is fairly good for youtube; but is anyone buying this insanity?

Could they have at least got a guy who at least sounds somewhat like ANY American, much less a Texan? And……and…..we started World War I? We made up Pearl Harbor? I mean, we’ve done some pretty bad crap in our day but I am pretty certain we didn’t force the Europeans to murdalize each other. We….we’re even responsible for Russians not having babies anymore?

Hilarious quotes:

” We dropped nuclear bombs on two peaceful Japanese cities”

” HI….BOIS…And…Gerelz….Iem Gerge Dubbalooo Bersh…. “

“We created the first social virus……….we called it, Live Fast, Die Young”.

This guy is a hoot. Check out his other videos for absolute, distilled, hilarious, insanity!

Oh, bitch, gloves are comin’ off now! He is literally saying he is willing to die so that he can call Obama’s mother white trash:

The guy made some prophecies, which he said came directly from god: Hillary would win the primary and…later…McCain would win the presidency.

Glenn Beck is no better than the rest of these losers and psychos. Just because he got himself on national television doesn’t make anything he says true. He’ll have a lovely home at FoxNews.

Oh good idea terrists; first you make sure a covert Muslim gets elected president and then you bash him on international news outlets? Obama is going to have to use his direct line to Osama Bin Laden and give out some serious scolding!

I’ve been experimenting with Tarot cards for quite some time. Since High School actually. That’s about the time every dejected boy and mopey girl finds magical outlets to their teenage angst. Being extremely unpopular I decided to find ways to gain power so that I could one day wreak destruction on all those who wouldn’t sit with me at lunch!

I mean, having the power of time at your fingertips is certainly a handy tool for revenge. I could, like, know where they’d be sitting in 2nd period. All manner of tacks, gum, and loose screws would await their hapless behinds! Besides, it’s always fun to jump out from behind some door and yell when, where, and how they are gonna die. Nothing’ll scare a kid more than knowing they’ll have to live to old age, eventually passing away after a long, drawn-out battle with lymphoma.

Nowadays, though, I use my powers for good. Aiding friends, family, and complete strangers with their questions and queries. Most say I am pretty good, whether it be through psychic prowess or mere psycho-analytic aptitude.

I am not entirely sure whether or not I believe that divinations such as these can actually tell the future. What I have found, at least, is that they help you focus, conceptualize, and analyze your problems. They help; and they’re quite abit of fun. I would suggest trying out a deck or two, if not simply for the artwork and symbolism.

For some fun, how’s about we play a game? Click on one of the following pictures for a picture which symbolizes your immediate future! Good luck everyone! (And no cheating by picking out a better future for yourself if your first choice is crappy. Deal with it!)

Congratulations Democrats on electing a historic president! Let’s all hope he doesn’t disappoint. I present all those who voted for Obama and worked hard on his campaign with the following celebratory videos!

One piece of advice, though, this is not the end. This is merely the beginning. Going back to sleep thinking that the job is done will only put a Republican in the White House 4 years from now. Our job is to make sure that Obama does what he said he’d do and keep Conservatives from blocking his efforts and dragging him through the mud.

Don’t get bored with politics, don’t go back to bed, don’t rest, don’t feel secure; the fight for an America of promise: peace, freedom, equality, and common prosperity; it will be long, hard, and assured only so long as you remain dedicated to what you believe in.

Insurance companies are well-known for their avarice and cold-hearted approach to human health and well-being. It doesn’t matter whether or not you would die from lack of coverage, they would rather you expire than cover someone who wouldn’t make them any money.

That’s the nature of a private, capitalist healthcare system. They don’t care if your children’s faces will fall off without coverage, they’ll do everything in their power to keep you from costing them money.

Of course, the government (which they spare no expense in lobbying) does everything it can to make sure this doesn’t change.

Case in point; meet artist, Cranky Yellow contributer, and new mother Elizabeth Frick (A.K.A. Ahimsa Creations).

That’s right everyone, the insurance company (ironically named “Golden Rule”) has colluded with the Missouri State government to push the costs of insuring undesirable babies to us, the tax-payers. That way insurance companies can be sure to only get healthy children who won’t cost them a penny, meaning they will get as much money as possible for providing as few services as possible. In the meantime, we must all pay the price for maintaining their bottom-line! It’s win-win!

This whole phenomena is very common; so common it has a name in the social sciences field: “Creaming”. Creaming is the process by which insurance companies do everything they can to insure people with little chance of becoming sick while leaving sickly people out in the cold. The elderly, the terminally ill, people with pre-existing conditions, high-risk individuals who are not yet sick, diabetics, and HIV+ individuals (or just gay men, they actually want to know your sexuality in order to provide you with health and/or life insurance). In other words, they take the “cream” off the top, the best most delicious part, and leave the rest for society or individuals to deal with.

To say that creaming is common is kind of an understatement; insurance companies couldn’t exist without the policy. There is simply no money in insuring people who actually need insurance, what would be the benefit? They have to make sure that costs do not exceed revenue, or that people in need of coverage do not come close to exceeding those that don’t.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with providing healthcare coverage to anyone in need; well, to be totally honest I think healthcare is a human right and should be provided to anyone and everyone. The real problem here is that this is social healthcare gone backwards; it is an issue of private enterprise externalizing their costs to the rest of society so they can enrich themselves.

It’s disgusting; it’s inhuman to write a copy-paste emotionless letter to a new family saying that their child was unlucky enough to be able to fit in a loophole and they are happy to cram her through it. They regretted to inform them that they couldn’t wait to toss their adoptive child to the curb because of flaws in Missouri state insurance policy.

Golden Rule is probably telling the truth when they say “We treat all children the same”. If they could find loopholes for any unhealthy children, adopted or otherwise, they would drop them faster than you can say “denied”.

Here is the Frick’s blog if you’d like to know more about them.

Oh ho ho! Let’s prove those war-hungry, wealth-loving, torturing, backwards, hypocritical oafs that they can’t find safe-haven in the supposedly tame Midwest! I mean, seriously, do they really think it’s a good idea to have their little party next door to Canada and within a state that consistently votes Democrat? George Bush lost the state during the election that he managed to get the popular vote in (instead of his first term in which he managed to get in due to a combination of vote fraud, the electoral college, and the Supreme Court).

Luckily, a collection of groups are preparing to make sure the Republicans have more to listen to than Country music and lame speeches. Every day during the convention protestrnc2008.org is inviting people to come up to chilly Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota to shout and march our way to victory this November. The Republicans need to know they are up for a fight; they need to know just how many people are tired of their antics, their policies, and their useless, pointless, endlessly destructive wars.

Cranky Yellow is planning on attending this protest during the September 1st demonstrations. A full calender of events and information on where and when the events are happening can be found here. Join us if you’d like, it’d probably be really cold so bringing us some hot chocolate might get you something special (especially if you are an artist or activist). I’m just saying I am not above being bribed, we’ve still got room in the store, open calender dates for shows, and activist events being planned in Saint Louis.

The artist/activist Zach Otte was good enough to make a rather eye-catching poster to mark the occasion and encourage people to join in. Take a look for yourselves:

Every Cranky worth their muster ought to partake in this affair; what are we if not in it for victory over the forces of corporate manslaughter? The very policemen of the rich will be gathering in one spot; what else is there to do than yell at them from specially designed “Free Speech Zones”?

What’s a Democracy without a protest or two, what’s a Cranky without being frozen solid holding a sign with slightly rhyming phrases denouncing current policies and administrations? I ask you, do we even have a choice?

The first installment of Crammed Organisms @ Star Clipper Comics is closing down this Friday, July 18th! If you want to see it you had better get your butt over there and check it out. If you don’t go… you’ll wish you had. It’s a beautiful show.

That’s all for today. I’m a little tired and grumpy.

Kit Bond isn’t surprising, of course, being the loyal, rabid Republican he is. McCaskill, however, surprised me. She was voted in during the last elections on a wave of anger over Republican policies and strategies. Both her and Obama (who campaigned on her behalf) have decided to vote in favor of the recent FISA bill, which passed. According the the ACLU this is what the bill contains:
• H.R. 6304 permits the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing.

• H.R. 6304 permits only minimal court oversight. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) only reviews general procedures for targeting and minimizing the use of information that is collected. The court may not know who, what or where will actually be tapped.

• H.R. 6304 contains a general ban on reverse targeting. However, it lacks stronger language that was contained in prior House bills that included clear statutory directives about when the government should return to the FISA court and obtain an individualized order if it wants to continue listening to a US person’s communications.

• H.R.6304 contains an “exigent” circumstance loophole that thwarts the prior judicial review requirement. The bill permits the government to start a spying program and wait to go to court for up to 7 days every time “intelligence important to the national security of the US may be lost or not timely acquired.” By definition, court applications take time and will delay the collection of information. It is highly unlikely there is a situation where this exception doesn’t swallow the rule.

• H.R. 6304 further trivializes court review by explicitly permitting the government to continue surveillance programs even if the application is denied by the court. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever it gathered in the meantime.

• H.R. 6304 ensures the dismissal of all cases pending against the telecommunication companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping programs over the last 7 years. The test in the bill is not whether the government certifications were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that they were, all the cases seeking to find out what these companies and the government did with our communications will be killed.

• Members of Congress not on Judiciary or Intelligence Committees are NOT guaranteed access to reports from the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and Inspector General.On top of all of that; the bill exempts telecommunications companies from lawsuits pertaining to the possibly illegal wiretapping and spying programs aimed at American citizens by the Bush administration. You heard that right people, Claire McCaskill, our (Missouri) Senator has decided that telecommunication’s companies should be literally above the law.
Now, it would be great if I could get together a million or so dollars and lobby congress to be exempt from, say, parking tickets, domestic abuse, or vandalism. Don’t all of you just wish you had a huge amount of money that would allow you to be above the law, just like the Bush administration and its corporate patsies?

This law pretty much gives the telecommunications companies, other industries, and maybe even individuals encouragement to break the law just as long as a government agency is telling you to do so.

The reasons are silly and petty, acting as if the telecom companies couldn’t have known that what they were doing was illegal. It isn’t as if they don’t have high priced lawyers that regularly check to make sure the companies are in compliance with U.S. law, it isn’t as if they couldn’t have contacted law professors, judges, or other experts in Federal, State, and constitutional law. It’s also not as if some companies have already resisted, successfully, and in a high-profile fashion, government requests for information on customers.

For those of you who live in Missouri, here is where you can contact McCaskill and tell her how you feel:

http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/locations.cfm

http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/

I suggest the rest of you find out if your senator(s) decided to vote in favor of this horrible bill and give them a piece of your mind as well.