Sunday, May 4, 2008

If this doesn't piss you off.....

I just read this in today's New York Times, and I can't even describe how angry it makes me. Every time I think about the callow attitude this administration and its corporate butt-buddies display with their gaudy no-bid contracts and shoddy (at best) work, it, to quote Billy Jack, "just makes me go berserk!"

Check this out:

"One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter of resignation that unsafe electrical work was “a disaster waiting to happen.” Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning."


Naturally, KBR denies any fault:
For its part, KBR, which until last year was known as Kellogg, Brown and Root and was a subsidiary of Halliburton, denied that any lapses by the company had led to the electrocutions of American soldiers. “KBR’s commitment to employee safety and the safety of those the company serves is unwavering,” said a spokeswoman, Heather Browne. “KBR has found no evidence of a link between the work it has been tasked to perform and the reported electrocutions.”

Ms. Browne declined to respond to the specific accounts of former KBR electricians.

I swear, the more I think about it, the more I feel that Bush, Cheney and the CEOs of Halliburton and KBR need to face their day in front of a jury of their peers. Actually, that may not be possible. It will be exceedingly difficult to find and get together 12 people as stupid, dishonest and contemptible as these people. And just think, if John McCain gets elected our servicemen and women can look forward to at least four more years of this kind of treatment.

With that in mind, here's today's Bruce video -- from Belfast, recorded last December 15:

Friday, May 2, 2008

A Sad Month

Well, it was confirmed yesterday. 52 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq last month, the worst month since last September. Almost a trillion and a half dollars wasted, well over 25,000 wounded, and there's no way to count how many innocent Iraqis have died, all so that the shrub, Darth Vader, the idiots Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, etc. could make buttloads of money for their corporate buddies.

I can't even describe how ill this makes me feel.

I also haven't written about the fact that Phantom Dan Federici passed away on April 20. My first experience seeing Bruce was seeing Danny wail away on the accordion as the show opened with Wild Billy's Circus Story. So here's Devil's Arcade from Chicago last October, with a haunting job by Dan.