Category: Uncategorized

It is worth mentioning that one of the best NGO blogs out there belongs to the American Red Cross.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This is cool.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

A few administrative notes.

First, there is a new scrolling blogroll to the right. KIAV has been added to the Out Of Iraq Bloggers’ Caucus. It means we are on their blogroll and that we carry their blogroll here, and I also think it means we may crosspost there when relevant, though I have not taken the time yet to figure out how. However, we welcome these good Americans. Though I don’t know why they’re bothering because according to the Cross-Streamed Media and John McWeirdsmile, the surge worked and the Untied States has been utterly victorious and every soldier is coming home tomorrow.

You will also note a personnel update. Yes, KIAV has become a two-person operation, and I could not be happier to welcome my Dear Old Dad, Papa Bonk, who has contributed periodically, as a regular writer here. He is one smart dude and reads more than anyone. He will contribute a particularly smart brand of outrage to these pages.

The United States announced Wednesday a senior US diplomat would attend international nuclear talks with Iran in the highest-ranking meeting between the two foes in three decades.

I am convinced that the news has been somehow affected by a space alien space toy that turns the news into absurd contortions of itself. There is no more absurd a news story than that of the Iraqi PM saying that he’d like us to explore the idea of timetables for withdrawl and having the United States tell him, um, no thank you. But there are stiff competitors, such as The Current President’s assignment of an envoy to Iran despite his own recent pronouncement that talking to these people is akin to appeasement.

And now, for a personal appeal to Republigoat Presidential “Candidate” John Sidney McWeirdsmile. Sen. McCain, you are a wildly funny man. You are. You are friggin’ hillarious. I for one liked the ape rape joke and your brilliant song parodies. And the one about how Chelsea Clinton is so ugly because her father was Janet Reno, that one just made me piss my pants laughing, as did your joke about Iran and cigarettes. Sen. McCain, you are a regular card. Please don’t stop making jokes. In fact, sir, I think that if this whole “president” thing doesn’t pan out for you, I think you should consider quitting your day job to go write for Jay Leno. In the meantime, though, sir, please continue with the jokestering. Thanks.

Graphic stolen from Feministing.

I am aware that it is supposed to be funny, that it is supposed to swipe at the terror-mongers. But there is something wrong with it.

Where is the New Yorker cover featuring The Current President in a brown shirt and thin mustache? Where is the New Yorker cover featuring Dick Cheney eating the world and washing it down with a nice big mug of oil?

Instead of a subtle, smirky satire, why not speak it to power out loud, and to those who need to hear it?

I guess I don’t read the New Yorker much. But I think that Jerry and Elaine were on to something. Were only had the New Yorker plagiarized from Ziggy.

Air America Radio Talk Show Host Ron Kuby—who apparently used to hang out at the Catfish Bar and Grill on the campus of Kansas University when my folks frequented the place circa 1976—has just nailed the crying shame about the Fanny May and Freddie Mac bailouts. So long as they’re profitable, these are private firms held publicly, with the profit offered to its investors. The minute they lose, of course, we’re all expected to bear the loss. I know. These two companies shoulder half our economy. Which would seem to argue the point that few companies should not hold an enormous wealth in any given sector of the economy. Wouldn’t it? Doesn’t that provide a good example of the notion that fiercely consolidated capital is actually a soft underbelly to any economy?