¿Cómo se dice “scumbag” en español?

updated 11/29/07

ABQjournal North_News: Chávez Talks Job Cuts at LANL By Dan Boyd, Journal Staff Writer

On Monday, Chávez acknowledged he probably won’t win over many of the “trust-fund elite” [mjh: Said with a sneer.] in Santa Fe, but played up his New Mexico heritage and said he thinks he can connect with working-class voters. [mjh: Yes, the impeccable Chávez radiates working class and a fake warmth.]

Although more than seven months remains until next year’s primaries, early surveys lend credence to that prediction. A recent SurveyUSA poll of 2,100 registered New Mexico voters said Udall holds a sizable lead over Chávez and would probably win the election if it were held today. [mjh: Thus the attacks: Cut your opponent down with the death of a thousand cowardly cuts.]

Mind you, I enjoy being an outsider, a white guy born into pacific and asian culture — I’m a native Hawaiian — growing up on the edge of black culture, living immersed in the unique diversity of multi-cultural New Mexico. Marty is entitled to play his “native son” card, but he should stop studying the Republican playbook. Everyone in New Mexico came from someplace else, some more recently than others. Still, as someone once asked in a movie, “what would life be like without an asshole?”

Marty said, “There’s some things where you fight to the end, you don’t cave like [Udall] did.” Tom Udall was the only Representative from NM and one of the few in the nation to vote against the deceptively named PATRIOT Act. He did not cave. That one act may be reason enough to support Udall. mjh

PS: In the paper, the headline reads “Chávez Criticizes Udall”; on the Web, the headline is “Chávez Talks Job Cuts at LANL.” Headline editors are gods.

Udall’s track record makes him fit to take Senate seat – Opinion

Editor,

I spent 1,200 hours working on Rep. Tom Udall’s 1998 campaign for Congress and, like many others, voted to elect Udall because of his integrity, his sense of justice and his outstanding work during his eight years as attorney general. I didn’t expect him to take orders from whatever inflamed portion of the public had something to say on any national scale, but, rather, to exercise his carefully considered judgment on issues and on specific votes. …

Fortunately, a vast majority of New Mexicans seem to agree. The only poll in this regard taken by Heath Haussamen gave [Udall] 69 percent, Mayor Martin Chavez 29 percent and Leland Lehrman 2 percent. …

Combating … corporate interests is precisely why I support Udall for the Senate. His advocacy and representation of New Mexico will be outstanding. He will win after clobbering the primary candidates and presumably Rep. Heather Wilson in the general election. New Mexicans should be really glad about this and not get sidetracked by nonsensical utterances that he is not fit to be in the Senate or not tough enough.

Stephen Fox
Daily Lobo reader

alibi . november 22 – 28, 2007 Democrats Against the War. Oh, yeah? Since when? By Jim Scarantino

In the Senate primary, only one credible candidate has opposed the war from the beginning. Tom Udall voted against war authorization. He also voted against the PATRIOT Act. His courageous stands can’t be discounted as “easy” for a congressman from a safe seat. Other Democrats with safe seats folded when their country needed them to be strong (examples: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Diane Feinstein). And, if you study its demographics, Udall’s district is not all that “safe.” Udall’s immediate predecessor in the job was a right-wing Republican.

Martin Chavez never spoke against the war until recently. He has explained he was preoccupied with running the city. But other big-city mayors opposed the war before the first bombs fell. The thousands of anti-war New Mexicans who marched down Central, between rows of Chavez’ police officers, also had other things to do. Back in those days, let’s not forget, Chavez was courting Republicans for his upcoming re-election.

Most likely every Democratic candidate who says they now oppose the Iraq War is sincere. For many, we can only take them at their word. But a few others have proven their opposition to America’s most idiotic war goes deeper than expedient words offered at campaign time.

Double-plus Good News, Fellow Patriots!

The Associated Press: AP IMPACT: Firefighter Help on Terrorism, By EILEEN SULLIVAN

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Americans have given up some of their privacy rights in an effort to prevent future strikes. The government monitors phone calls and e-mails; people who fly have their belongings searched before boarding and are limited in what they can carry; and some people have trouble traveling because their names are similar to those on terrorist watch lists.

The American Civil Liberties Union says using firefighters to gather intelligence is another step in that direction. Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now national security policy counsel to the ACLU, said the concept is dangerously close to the Bush administration’s 2002 proposal to have workers with access to private homes — such as postal carriers and telephone repairmen — report suspicious behavior to the FBI.

“Americans universally abhorred that idea,” German said. …

“We’re there to help people, and by discovering these type of events, we’re helping people,” said New York City Fire Chief Salvatore Cassano. “There are many things that firefighters do that other law enforcement or other agents aren’t able to do.”

Separately, the fire services in Washington, D.C., Phoenix and Atlanta have also been receiving terrorism-related intelligence training. Los Angeles County provides intelligence training so firefighters and inspectors can spot dangerous chemicals or other materials that could be used in bombs. And the fire service is also represented in at least 13 state and regional intelligence “fusion” centers across the country — where local, state and federal agencies share information about terrorism and other crimes.

In Washington, the fire service made its first foray into the intelligence world about two years ago, and now D.C. Fire/EMS has access to the same terrorism-related intelligence as the police, said Larry Schultz, an assistant fire chief in charge of operations.

D.C. firefighters and EMS providers are in 170,000 homes and businesses each year on routine calls, Schultz said.

“So we see things and observe things that may be useful to law enforcement,” he said. “We can walk into your house. We don’t need a search warrant.” If an ambulance team shows up at a house and sees detailed maps of the District’s public transit system on the wall, that’s something the EMS provider would pass along, he said.

“It’s the evolution of the fire service,” said Bob Khan, the fire chief in Phoenix, which has created an information-sharing arrangement between the fire service and law enforcement through terrorism liaison officers.

In a separate incident, firefighters burned the Constitution “to help people.” God Bless the Homeland! mjh

The Thought-police

LAPD to build data on Muslim areas – Los Angeles Times By Richard Winton, Jean-Paul Renaud and Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers, November 9, 2007

Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing, who heads the bureau, defended the undertaking as a way to help Muslim communities avoid the influence of those who would radicalize Islamic residents and advocate “violent, ideologically-based extremism.”

“We are seeking to identify at-risk communities,” Downing said in an interview Thursday evening. “We are looking for communities and enclaves based on risk factors that are likely to become isolated. . . . We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities.”

It was quite distressing to hear Downing on NPR calmly explain how important it is to turn in anyone you think might be inclined — inclined — towards persuasion to violence. Thought-policing is good for the Homeland! mjh

PS: Please, comrade, tell the neighborhood Thought Enforcer that this writer is as peaceful as a lamb. Praise be to The Decider!

Shoppers Strike

Stores opened today at 4am or earlier. Yesterday’s paper had more ads than any Sunday. Commercials on TV show everyone glowing with anticipation, ready to charge into the stores at the earliest opportunity, to fill their carts with bargains.

Don’t buy it. Literally: Don’t buy it. Stay home today. It’s not that I wish to shut down the economy. I wish to shut down the treatment of potential customers as sheep or Pavlov’s dogs. I wish for people to consider that maybe they don’t need all this crap and, if they do, maybe they should buy it when they want to, not when the marketers want them to.

Capitalism is just like patriotism: The louder and more insistent it is, the more we need to stop and wonder what we’re being driven to do. mjh