Fox News gets the smackdown it deserves


Dayum! Did you see Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday? Well if not, get with program and check out the sheer tongue-lashing from the former president on America's favorite right wing mouth piece.

Chris Wallace is just another hack. Jon Stewart exposed the hackery of CNN, and FINALLY, someone with some credibility and guts put Fox in its place. Don't get me wrong, Fox had every right to ask Clinton those questions (and Clinton obviously saw them coming), but would Wallace ask those same questions of President Bush? Of course not. There's a reason Bush and Cheney only grant interviews to Fox; because they can count on friendly interviews from a "fair and balanced" network that won't ask the tough questions. I challenge anyone to find an interview questioning Bush's pre-911 record. Nary a mention on the month long vacation in August '01.

It takes an honorable, humble man like the former president to admit to failure. "I tried and failed, but at least I tried. That's the key there. Clinton spouted off numerous examples of what he did to catch Bin Laden and expounded quite articulately how the Bush administration did jack sh!t against Al Qaida in the 8 months preceding 9-11.

More on this and America's pathetic obsession with celebrities, stardom and fantasy later today on "The View from Planet Desmond"

More great interviews!


So if you haven't yet checked out PodPad...what's your problem?! Every week I talk to the superstars of podcasting who are really pioneering this new media. This week I spoke with Tim Bourquin; founder and CEO of the Podcast and Portable Media expo, which comes to Ontario California next weekend. YakkYakk will be there in full force, and I have some even bigger interviews at the convention than the ones I've already conducted: I'll be interviewing Robert Scoble, author of the wildly popular "Scobleizer" blog, and Andrew Baron, founder and executive producer of America's favorite Vlog "RocketBoom"...promises to be a great time! Listen to PodPad and learn what the pros are doing to make it happen in this exciting new world.

If you're into politics (and I know you are cuse you're reading this) Red White and Blue is truely a must listen. Every week David Ballard (host of YakkYakk's Green Business Weekly) and Dylan Gwinn (host of YakkYakk's the Mighty Gwinn Show) join me to hash out the biggest issues in the news from their points of view. What makes this show so great is you really have opinions from all over the spectrum. David's way left, Dylan's way right, and I'm as much of a wildcard as they come.

It's defintely an exciting time to get into this new media, come see what all the fuss is about on YakkYakk.com!

Transcript from "Where's the Outrage?" from September 15 2006



Alright folks here we are on another edition of where’s the outrage, and we’re talking about a tax that affects so few families but generates a great deal of revenue for our indebted federal government. The estate tax has been around in some form or another since before 1800. It’s morphed from a negligible tax of 5-percent to today’s top rate 46-percent. It’s a tax that only the super wealthy pay. If someone passes on less than 2 million dollars to you, you do not pay this tax. And even if someone does pass on more than 2 million dollars to you, there are lots of way to worm your way out of paying the tax.

Yet republican politicians have repeatedly misrepresented the nature of this tax. They like to call it the death tax, and they try to strike the hearts of middle class Americans by claiming that family farms and small businesses are affected by the tax. Well besides the fact that they haven’t been able to find even one farmer or small business owner to come forward and say he was seriously hurt by this tax is indicative of the misinformation flying everywhere about the estate tax, so why don’t we take a few minutes and learn the facts about this tax on the super wealthy socialites of America. Just a warning now, if you don’t like numbers and stats, I suggest you go listen to one of my other commentaries.

For starters, the first estate tax came in 1797 to help pay for Naval rearmament. It required only wealthy estates to purchase federal stamps and was then revoked in 1801 because the need for such revenue had passed.

The tax was brought back in 1862 during the civil was, again for government funding and ranged from between .75 percent and 5 percent. The tax was again abolished in 1870 only to return in 1898 to help fund the Spanish American war. It had a top tax rate of 15 percent on estates over 1-million dollars and was once again abolished in 1902.

Finally the estate tax returned—this time to stay in 1916 with a top rate of 10-percent on estates of 5-million dollars or more. A year later the rate was raise to 25-percent but only on estates of 10-million or more.

FDR hiked the estate tax to 60-percent in 1934, and 70 percent a year later. Today it stands at a top rate of 46-percent on estates over 2-million dollars. There are a lot of ways to get out of paying this tax too. Most spouses can get out of paying the tax all together or at least at a significantly diminished rate as long as the entire estate comes to them.

There’s also a specific clause in the law that allows family farms to escape the tax.
Now here’s how the tax actually works. You have a wealthy uncle who wants to leave you and your brother 3 and a half million dollars equally between the two of you. Since this is 2006 and the maximum amount of the estate that can be exempted is 2-million dollars, only 1 and a half million will actually be taxes at the 46 percent rate. That comes out to a total tax of about 690-thousand dollars. So remember it’s not 46-percent on 3 and half million dollars, its 46 percent on the million and a half over the exemption.

That means you and your brother get a million dollars TOTALLY TAX FREE, and another 405 thousand after taxes. Sounds pretty fair don’t you think? A million dollars, tax free that you didn’t earn. A million dollars you’d get because you’re lucky. Isn’t it fair for you to give up some of the rest of it to the government who protects you?

Well not according to republicans and the super wealthy families that have injected millions of dollars into lobbying campaigns to repeal this tax. Through 2010 the amount that can be exempted will rise from 2 million now to 3 and a half million in 2009, and then the tax totally disappears for a year in 2010 before returning to the original 2001 rate of 55-percent on estates of more than a million dollars.

How much will the year 2010 cost the fed because of no estate tax? Tens of BILLIONS of dollars according to the tax policy center. And as much as 1-trillion dollars over a decade if the tax is repealed for good, the way president Bush and republicans want it. A TRILLION DOLLARS! That’s more than the entire social security shortfall that Bush has been scaring us about!

Conservatives say it isn’t fair to tax someone when they die, which is why they call it the death tax. But the reality is you obviously aren’t taxing someone when they die, you’re taxing the heir for inheriting unearned income.

Bush likes to call it a double or even a triple tax, because some of the estate may have been taxed as capital gains or been subject to property taxes, or both in the past and then having it taxed again makes it 3 times. But again IT’S ONE TAX that is NOT being paid by the decedent but by the HEIR. The heir didn’t pay capital gains, and they didn’t work for this money.

Conservatives say it hurts small businesses and farms, but they haven’t been able to produce any examples of that. Only 440 estate tax returns were filed in 2004. Again from the tax policy center, the average tax for all 440 returns came out to only 20-percent not 46 percent. And the average tax paid by estates of 2 to 5 million dollars did not exceed a half a million dollars.

Estates worth between 10 and 20 million dollars paid an average tax of 2-point-eight million dollars. So again we’re talking about a tax that is only paid by the most privileged members of this society, and the generous exemptions leave everyone with millions of dollars to do whatever they want with.



Conservatives say it’s bad for the economy because it discourages entrepreneurship, but that is totally unfounded. When we’re talking about millions of dollars already being exempted and millions of dollars in estate taxes that can be avoided through loopholes, how does that discourage entrepreneurship?

If you want to talk about discouraging business then repeal the tax and see what happens. You’ll see an even greater concentration of wealth than we are already seeing. If you have a few million dollars, that’s a lot of money but you have to make that money work if you want it to last the rest of your life. Get rid of the estate taxes, and these same socialites can just spend and spend and not have to worry about turning that money into more money because they have so much of it.

Thirty years ago the wealthiest one percent of this country controlled less than 20 percent of the wealth. Today, according to the Federal Reserve board, they control more than a third of the wealth in this country.

Again conservatives say this is socialist…maybe even communist! Redistributing wealth. But what is wrong about demanding 2 million dollars on a 15 million dollar estate that was achieved through NO hard work and NO productivity? Isn’t it a fair price to pay for an idle heir or heiress to fork over some money in exchange for living in the greatest country in the world that make it possible for her hard working mom dad or grandpa to make that money in the first place?

How can republicans be talking about cutting even more taxes while we continue to spend out of control? How can they possibly look their constituents in the eye with a straight face and claim that this is a tax that affects the middle class?

Because this whole campaign is being bankrolled by the super wealthy. According to a report from the United for a fair economy organization, 18 families worth a total of 185 billion dollars are the ones who want this thing repealed for good. Some of these families have posed as small businesses or farmers saying the tax jeopardizes their livelihood despite the fact that a vast majority of the farms in the United States are not even worth what could be taxable.

Only 5 of these 18 families contain people who actually EARNED those family fortunes. If they get this law repealed for good—which believe me the republicans have been working to do since Bush came into office—they will collectively save 71-BILLION dollars in taxes. What could this government do with 71 billion dollars folks?

Well if you think the Iraq war is still a great idea how about we give our soldiers some body armor? If you’re sick of traffic congested roads, how about we build some high speed rail lines? How about we throw a couple of billion of it aside for campaign financing, so our politicians wouldn’t be bought and sold through massive political contributions?

There are a myriad ways our government could spend this money. Money that this country needs. Do you think those 18 families cant find other ways to turn their remaining billions into more billions? Would they even notice that money being gone? Of course they wouldn’t. Ending the estate tax will not only deprive the government of money at a time when we need it most, it will continue to perpetuate this consolidation of wealth that has been occurring even with the estate tax for the past 3 decades.

I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, conservative or liberal, smart or stupid; DO NOT BELIEVE THE REPUBLICAN SPIN MACHINE ABOUT THE ESTATE TAX! We are almost 9-trillion dollars in debt! You want to keep cutting taxes? How long can this keep going on?

The estate tax has been a consistent and necessary part of the American tax system for nearly 100 consecutive years. It’s enjoyed widespread support for several generations because hey, Uber wealthy aristocracies are NOT a model of the American dream.

The hard working American people have been duped into believing that this tax affects them by the heirs and heiresses of this country. This tax has NEVER affected the middle class before, and it never will or should.

The Paris Hilton’s and Teresa Heinz’s of the world should be ashamed of themselves: peddling this kind of lie from behind their walled mansions. Absolutely disgusting!

Hey you still with me there? I know it’s a lot of numbers and talking about the tax system can be kind of daunting but folks this is an extremely important issue. And it’s indicative of this government to once again look to cut the taxes of the super rich. Isn’t it obvious Bush and his crew are just paying back all the buddies that helped make Bush the president in the first place? He’s gotta get all of the favors out of the way now cuse I think America has finally had enough of the Bush’s. I hope so anyway. NO MORE BUSH’S for president. That’s what I say. Vote your conscience this November. Boot these class warring conservatives out of office and GET MAD PEOPLE!

Transcript from the tuesday, September 12th edition of "The View from Planet Desmond"






Planet Desmond 19: 9-12-06—A story you probably missed


Hey everyone thanks for joining me again on the Planet, hope you all had a nice day of reflection yesterday, and hopefully you didn’t drown in all that “are we safer?” B-S that’s been all over the networks for the last week. And I pray to GOD you didn’t fall for that ABC dramatization the path to 9-11 which—from what I understand was just a big disgusting blame fest on President Clinton which –really folks is as disingenuous as it comes.

I don’t want to spend too much time on this because it’s not today’s topic, but the facts just don’t support the statement that 9-11 was mostly Clinton’s fault. We had Osama Bin Laden pegged at one of his training camps and Clinton was ready to push the red button and vaporize the SOB, but there was a REALLY strong possibility of serious civilian casualties and foreign diplomats in the area, so the strike was called off.

Another time Clinton authorized a group of commandos to go into Pakistan and find and kill bin laden, but the operation was called off when now president Pervez Musharaf suddenly seized control of the government.

Clinton and military generals also organized a missile strike on a suspected Bin Laden hideout, but republicans in congress became outraged because they saw it as a distraction from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

And just to wrap this up—DO NOT believe partisan hacks like Sean Hannity who claims Sudan was ready to turn Bin Laden over to the U-S but Clinton refused.

That story was purported on fox news by an American business man with Sudanese business interests. For one, Sudan offered only to apprehend Bin Laden and turn him over to the Saudis, which the Saudis refused, and second, how the hell could we trust anything coming from the government of Sudan?

You’re talking about a country that’s been plunged in civil war and genocide and hasn’t had a legitimate government in more than a decade. According to the Washington Post on October 3, 2001, Sudan said it was willing to cooperate in the war on terror if the U-S lifted economic sanctions against the country. But the FBI and CIA stopped caring about Sudan once all the information they gave our government turned out to be false.

Besides, hindsight is 20/20, republicans were too busy playing partisan politics to give Clinton more authority hunt down Bin Laden. And before 9-11 the concept of pre-emption would not have been justified, especially in that political environment. Don’t forget the Clinton administration gave copious reports to the Bush administration during transition that Al-Qaeda was becoming a huge treat and had an active plan to attack America.

So the bottom line here is could Clinton have done more? Of course, but Bush the first could have done more, and we all know our current bumbling president was too busy playing golf and vacationing than actually running this country.

So, just had to get that out there…don’t forget it all happened on Bush’s watch people.


Anyway, I wanted to bring a story to your attention this week that I’m sure evaded you in all the 9-11 commemorative programming. This is a pretty short article from the San Francisco chronicle on Sunday, let me just read to you real quick…



So at first glance you’re probably thinking so what right? These 5 piddily little countries don’t even have like, half the GDP of China, so who cares about some nuclear treaty?
I mean so what if they say they’re committing their uranium to peaceful purposes, cuse China could just come in and buy it all and turn it into nukes if they wanted, or Russia or the U-S or Pakistan or India and what can be done about it?

Well that part is true, and that sucks. But the point is, you have 5 countries, no matter how small—control HUGE amounts of uranium. And they signed this treaty to try and make a point. They’re trying to do what little they can to end this apocalyptic game of nuclear proliferation, and the U-S didn’t even have the courtesy to send someone to the signing ceremony. Neither did the U-K or France.

They object to the provision that allows Russia to transport and deploy nuclear weapons in the region under certain circumstances—whatever that means but c’mon what can they do? It’s Russia! They can’t mess with their former rulers. I mean c’mon those countries have only been independent now for about 15 years and Russia is not exactly a model democracy so if I were any one of these country’s I wouldn’t do ANYTHING to tick them off.

It may sound like hypocrisy, but then just look at what the U-S has done in the past year. We condemn Iran because they want to develop nuclear technology—and make no mistake that is definitely a huge problem, but then Bush goes to India and says “oh sure you can have nuclear power, even though you have nuclear weapons facilities and you won’t let IAEA inspectors in to see what’s going on, sure that’s okay.

This is why western governments are suffering so much around the world. So maybe this treaty thing was more symbolic than anything else, but the U-S, U-K and France all have nukes—the U-S more than anybody else I might add and they all call for an end to nuclear proliferation and then they don’t even have the respect to send representatives to this signing ceremony.


It’s just like the whole Kyoto protocol: the U-S objects because China and India didn’t ratify it…well then how does any progress ever get started? The U-S is the wealthiest, most advanced nation on earth. We’re the ones who’ve contributed more to the greenhouse problem and nuclear proliferation than anybody else, yet we don’t want to take any leadership to resolve the issues. How could we possibly have any credibility left after acting like this?

It’s our responsibility to take action since we’re the nation most capable of doing so. When 3 of the biggest nuclear players in the world don’t attend this kind of event it sends a big F-U to the rest of the world. As if to say “well, you guys aren’t doing enough to contain Russia so screw it, we’re not interested.” Then what are they supposed to say? “Well screw it then we need money and we’ll sell our uranium to Iran.” And then nothing gets accomplished because the west has this holier than thou mentality which is killing our relationships with the developing world.

How does anything ever get accomplished when this kind of immature foreign policy is allowed to go on? We sure as hell can’t wait for China and Russia to take leadership on the nuclear issue. And this kind of behavior is not going to get Pakistan and Iran to back off their nuclear programs. And look I’m not saying we need to dismantle all of our nuclear weapons this very instant, but we need to spur change, no matter how slowly. And this little treaty may sound just symbolic but it’s a start.

I mean what kind of message were we even trying to send by not attending this event? That we don’t trust Russia and we don’t care about you even though you have some of the biggest uranium deposits in the world? Definitely a step backwards in our relations with central Asia. The fact of the matter is that no progress will ever be made on ANY issue if the U-S doesn’t get on board.

Imagine a playground with 10 kids. 5 of those kids stick together and have baseball bats to protect themselves from 2 of the other kids who have really big baseball bats. The other 3 kids just want to do their own thing but still have baseball bats for protection. Now those 5 say “hey, we’re giving up our baseball bats because we shouldn’t need ‘em.” And the group of 3 says “hey that’s a good idea, but I won’t agree unless those two kids with the BIG bats agree too.” So the group of 5 ask the kids with the big bats to give ‘em up and they say “NO, we’re not giving up our bats.” The group asks why? Why won’t you give up your bats and they’d say something like “cuse we don’t want to. We can do whatever we want cuse we have these.” So now the other 8 just say screw that then, and they’re back to square one. Oh and then of course the two kids with the big bats would probably team up and demand the other 8 get rid of theirs. So…

Okay sorry I’m not really good at analogies but I think you know what I’m saying here, we’re in a stalemate with weapons that can destroy this world 10 times over. In fact it would only take the detonation of 20 nuclear weapons in a short period of time to create a nuclear winter so bad it would likely kill most of the plant and animal species on Earth.

And by the way YOUR U-S Government wants to essentially REBUILD our already vast nuclear arsenal because we’re afraid that the perfectly good nukes we have now may become faulty with age.

So let’s review as we wrap this up: The U-S has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. We condemn anyone else who wants to obtain nukes yet we can’t even attend a nice signing ceremony that aims to curb nuclear proliferation. If anything it would have been a very nice diplomatic gesture but no. Then we say its okay for India to have nuclear power despite the fact that they’ve been rather clandestine about it and won’t let IAEA inspectors in. And we urge the rest of the world to get rid of their nukes as we continue to not only retain, but also REBUILD the 10-thousand some odd nukes we have.

Look folks you know from my other podcasts I love this country but if all this doesn’t smack of idiotic foreign policy to you, well then God damn I might just have to move to Canada and be done with all this lunatic government.

Alright then that’s it for this weeks Planet, don’t forget that “Where’s the Outrage?” has moved to Friday’s to give you a good little shot of anger before he weekend, catch me later this week to see what's got me raging again. Hope to see you next week for another installment of THE VIEW FROM PLANET DESMOND!

Transcript from the tuesday, September 12th edition of "The View from Planet Desmond"






Planet Desmond 19: 9-12-06—A story you probably missed


Hey everyone thanks for joining me again on the Planet, hope you all had a nice day of reflection yesterday, and hopefully you didn’t drown in all that “are we safer?” B-S that’s been all over the networks for the last week. And I pray to GOD you didn’t fall for that ABC dramatization the path to 9-11 which—from what I understand was just a big disgusting blame fest on President Clinton which –really folks is as disingenuous as it comes.

I don’t want to spend too much time on this because it’s not today’s topic, but the facts just don’t support the statement that 9-11 was mostly Clinton’s fault. We had Osama Bin Laden pegged at one of his training camps and Clinton was ready to push the red button and vaporize the SOB, but there was a REALLY strong possibility of serious civilian casualties and foreign diplomats in the area, so the strike was called off.

Another time Clinton authorized a group of commandos to go into Pakistan and find and kill bin laden, but the operation was called off when now president Pervez Musharaf suddenly seized control of the government.

Clinton and military generals also organized a missile strike on a suspected Bin Laden hideout, but republicans in congress became outraged because they saw it as a distraction from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

And just to wrap this up—DO NOT believe partisan hacks like Sean Hannity who claims Sudan was ready to turn Bin Laden over to the U-S but Clinton refused.

That story was purported on fox news by an American business man with Sudanese business interests. For one, Sudan offered only to apprehend Bin Laden and turn him over to the Saudis, which the Saudis refused, and second, how the hell could we trust anything coming from the government of Sudan?

You’re talking about a country that’s been plunged in civil war and genocide and hasn’t had a legitimate government in more than a decade. According to the Washington Post on October 3, 2001, Sudan said it was willing to cooperate in the war on terror if the U-S lifted economic sanctions against the country. But the FBI and CIA stopped caring about Sudan once all the information they gave our government turned out to be false.

Besides, hindsight is 20/20, republicans were too busy playing partisan politics to give Clinton more authority hunt down Bin Laden. And before 9-11 the concept of pre-emption would not have been justified, especially in that political environment. Don’t forget the Clinton administration gave copious reports to the Bush administration during transition that Al-Qaeda was becoming a huge treat and had an active plan to attack America.

So the bottom line here is could Clinton have done more? Of course, but Bush the first could have done more, and we all know our current bumbling president was too busy playing golf and vacationing than actually running this country.

So, just had to get that out there…don’t forget it all happened on Bush’s watch people.


Anyway, I wanted to bring a story to your attention this week that I’m sure evaded you in all the 9-11 commemorative programming. This is a pretty short article from the San Francisco chronicle on Sunday, let me just read to you real quick…



So at first glance you’re probably thinking so what right? These 5 piddily little countries don’t even have like, half the GDP of China, so who cares about some nuclear treaty?
I mean so what if they say they’re committing their uranium to peaceful purposes, cuse China could just come in and buy it all and turn it into nukes if they wanted, or Russia or the U-S or Pakistan or India and what can be done about it?

Well that part is true, and that sucks. But the point is, you have 5 countries, no matter how small—control HUGE amounts of uranium. And they signed this treaty to try and make a point. They’re trying to do what little they can to end this apocalyptic game of nuclear proliferation, and the U-S didn’t even have the courtesy to send someone to the signing ceremony. Neither did the U-K or France.

They object to the provision that allows Russia to transport and deploy nuclear weapons in the region under certain circumstances—whatever that means but c’mon what can they do? It’s Russia! They can’t mess with their former rulers. I mean c’mon those countries have only been independent now for about 15 years and Russia is not exactly a model democracy so if I were any one of these country’s I wouldn’t do ANYTHING to tick them off.

It may sound like hypocrisy, but then just look at what the U-S has done in the past year. We condemn Iran because they want to develop nuclear technology—and make no mistake that is definitely a huge problem, but then Bush goes to India and says “oh sure you can have nuclear power, even though you have nuclear weapons facilities and you won’t let IAEA inspectors in to see what’s going on, sure that’s okay.

This is why western governments are suffering so much around the world. So maybe this treaty thing was more symbolic than anything else, but the U-S, U-K and France all have nukes—the U-S more than anybody else I might add and they all call for an end to nuclear proliferation and then they don’t even have the respect to send representatives to this signing ceremony.


It’s just like the whole Kyoto protocol: the U-S objects because China and India didn’t ratify it…well then how does any progress ever get started? The U-S is the wealthiest, most advanced nation on earth. We’re the ones who’ve contributed more to the greenhouse problem and nuclear proliferation than anybody else, yet we don’t want to take any leadership to resolve the issues. How could we possibly have any credibility left after acting like this?

It’s our responsibility to take action since we’re the nation most capable of doing so. When 3 of the biggest nuclear players in the world don’t attend this kind of event it sends a big F-U to the rest of the world. As if to say “well, you guys aren’t doing enough to contain Russia so screw it, we’re not interested.” Then what are they supposed to say? “Well screw it then we need money and we’ll sell our uranium to Iran.” And then nothing gets accomplished because the west has this holier than thou mentality which is killing our relationships with the developing world.

How does anything ever get accomplished when this kind of immature foreign policy is allowed to go on? We sure as hell can’t wait for China and Russia to take leadership on the nuclear issue. And this kind of behavior is not going to get Pakistan and Iran to back off their nuclear programs. And look I’m not saying we need to dismantle all of our nuclear weapons this very instant, but we need to spur change, no matter how slowly. And this little treaty may sound just symbolic but it’s a start.

I mean what kind of message were we even trying to send by not attending this event? That we don’t trust Russia and we don’t care about you even though you have some of the biggest uranium deposits in the world? Definitely a step backwards in our relations with central Asia. The fact of the matter is that no progress will ever be made on ANY issue if the U-S doesn’t get on board.

Imagine a playground with 10 kids. 5 of those kids stick together and have baseball bats to protect themselves from 2 of the other kids who have really big baseball bats. The other 3 kids just want to do their own thing but still have baseball bats for protection. Now those 5 say “hey, we’re giving up our baseball bats because we shouldn’t need ‘em.” And the group of 3 says “hey that’s a good idea, but I won’t agree unless those two kids with the BIG bats agree too.” So the group of 5 ask the kids with the big bats to give ‘em up and they say “NO, we’re not giving up our bats.” The group asks why? Why won’t you give up your bats and they’d say something like “cuse we don’t want to. We can do whatever we want cuse we have these.” So now the other 8 just say screw that then, and they’re back to square one. Oh and then of course the two kids with the big bats would probably team up and demand the other 8 get rid of theirs. So…

Okay sorry I’m not really good at analogies but I think you know what I’m saying here, we’re in a stalemate with weapons that can destroy this world 10 times over. In fact it would only take the detonation of 20 nuclear weapons in a short period of time to create a nuclear winter so bad it would likely kill most of the plant and animal species on Earth.

And by the way YOUR U-S Government wants to essentially REBUILD our already vast nuclear arsenal because we’re afraid that the perfectly good nukes we have now may become faulty with age.

So let’s review as we wrap this up: The U-S has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. We condemn anyone else who wants to obtain nukes yet we can’t even attend a nice signing ceremony that aims to curb nuclear proliferation. If anything it would have been a very nice diplomatic gesture but no. Then we say its okay for India to have nuclear power despite the fact that they’ve been rather clandestine about it and won’t let IAEA inspectors in. And we urge the rest of the world to get rid of their nukes as we continue to not only retain, but also REBUILD the 10-thousand some odd nukes we have.

Look folks you know from my other podcasts I love this country but if all this doesn’t smack of idiotic foreign policy to you, well then God damn I might just have to move to Canada and be done with all this lunatic government.

Alright then that’s it for this weeks Planet, don’t forget that “Where’s the Outrage?” has moved to Friday’s to give you a good little shot of anger before he weekend, and I think this week I’m just going to go all out and tell you why I KNOW history will reflect the presidency of George W. Bush as one of the worst the nation has ever known. Definitely going to be good times so please join me for that. And until next time, this has been…

Celebrities...what a joke


Hey folks, to wrap the week here at YakkYakk, I did a "Where's the Outrage?" piece on celebrity culture and how obnoxious and stupid it all is. That stupid little bitch Paris Hilton FINALLY got a small dose of reality when she got a DUI Wednesday, which I find absolutely hilarious. This bitch has gotten a free pass all throughout life because her relatives made a fortune in the hotel industry. So I ask dear readers, why does anybody give a sh*t about this chick? Because she's hot? I say only because she got nailed on video with some dude and then the whole world saw it. What a whore.

The fact that people are allowed to make money by following these people around, photographing them or just becoming experts on their lives makes me want to puke. I love movies, but these guys are making millions of dollars to PRETEND. Isn't it just downright silly? Why are women so obsessed with people like Tom Cruise? Bah...for more rants listen to the show today, not one of my best, but certainly one of my more amusing.

Also, where's the outrage will now be available on FRIDAYS instead of Thursdays. Not only does it give you a chance to get pissed before the weekend, but it gives me an extra to find something to get mad about, and take care of all the other stuff here in the office. Thursdays have become an extremely busy day, and Fridays are usually a lot more laid back, so that's why we changed. Also, new episodes of "Word Up!" will be back on Monday, and then regularly from then on. Even though Monday is September 11th, I don't think I'm going to make word up themed to it. You can go anywhere for that, so let "word up!" be your escape from all that "Are we safer?" BS and learn some fun new words at the same time. BAM! Have an awesome weekend

Another spoonful of illegal immigration, and Where's the love?


This week on Planet Desmond I devoted the show to setting the record straight on illegal immigration, and then today on Red White and Blue we also focused half the show on why Mexico isn't doing anything to stop there people from coming here.

For the first time, David, Dylan and I all pretty much agree that Mexico is to blame for this just as much as our elected officials, because they are actually seeing a HUGE monetary benefit in allowing people to flood north. Not only do they become free of millions of poor, uneducated people, but those same people, after moving north, send 16-BILLION dollars a year back to Mexico! It's their highest source of revenue just behind oil. David says we need to get a lot of private investment in the country, but I still say build a wall and be done with it dammit!

On another note, I'm starting to get really angry when I ask my friends if they've been listening to my shows and watching "Word Up!" and I usually receive the same lame response: "Oh uh, I've been meaning to but I'm just too busy" or "Oh uh, my computer’s been on the fritz"...F*ck that! Word Up is less than 2 minutes long! And if I can't get my buddies to listen to my shows, how am I going to convince the rest of the world that I should be a political superstar? Well Harvey, don't be surprised when you start an online media company that I don't pick up the phone...BAH!

Our new show PodPad will be up today, featuring an interview with 88SLIDE founder Noah Bonnet. If you haven't checked out the one minute daily trivia challenge that can win you a cool prize, get over to 88SLIDE.COM and do it already! Today we're interviewing the founders of "Jet Set Show" Zadi Diaz and Steven Woolf. That interview will be up Monday. Pod Pad is well on its way to becoming the Tonight Show of the podcasting world...just a little cooler than Jay Leno though (not that that's hard)...see ya tomorrow.

Intern departing, and another informative interview series



The beginning of September marks the end of summer in many people's minds, and the end of summer means no more awesome intern for YakkYakk. Keeping in the tradition of everything falling into place the way it has for us, we found Kristof on Craig list in early June. We were looking for an experienced video editor to work for us for a few months and help us get caught up on several projects that have overwhelmed up less experienced editors. How fortunate we were to have the diligent little 17 year old with us.

This kid hasn't even finished high school yet, but already he's garnered an amazing passion for digital media. If I had even half the drive he does when I was his age, I would have been n LA radio star by now! It's encouraging to see young people so devote and not even get paid for it. Everyday he's driven his gas guzzling old Mercedes 45 minutes to and from our office to work for free and edit video all day to further his talents. No grumbling or complaining, just good old fashion hard work and dedication. All of us here at YakkYakk could definitely take some notes on Kristof's work ethic, and he will surely be missed next time one of our talents wants us to sit and edit with them for 2 or 3 hours. Hopefully next summer, when we're much more grounded, we can hire Kristof as a full time worker, and pay him the salary he deserves. A somber day indeed.

On a lighter note however, YakkYakk's new interview series "Pod Pad" is off to a great beginning. "Pod Pad" focuses on the people in the pod casting industry who are making this revolutionary new media work. We'll be talking with the founders and stars of some of the most popular pod casts out there, and what better way to kick off the series than with the founder of the fun, one minute daily trivia challenge 88-slide? Noah Bonnnet is an extremely talented, dedicated producer who says he works practically non-stop, from 7AM to midnight Monday through Friday to make 88-slide one of the sleekest, most original pod casts going.

We talked about all kinds of stuff (our interview will be available on the site Tuesday, September 5), from how it all started, to hardships running a business, and the future of pod casting as a commercial entity. Very cool interview, and I'm really excited about getting some more people down here soon. Right now I'm working on the founders of "French maid TV" and "Jet-Set", so keep in touch with Pod Pad if you want to hear some conversations with the people who are pioneering this new frontier!

That's it for me here in Santa Monica, hope you all have an awesome Labor Day weekend (I certainly will, a couple nights out with the love of my life and the other two with my good friends); I'll be back next week.

Punctuality, and another great interview



I haven't updated this thing in way too long. Since starting Red White and Blue and writing more "Word Ups!"lately I have completely neglected my blog. From now on I'm making a devoted effort to post on Monday's, Wedneday's and Friday's. Also I'm going to try not to go far into depth on show topics here. I'll also keep you posted on exciting things going on in the company.

I had a great interview with John Alford, a Democratic consultant, about issues in the democratic party and how they hope to retake congress this November. We talked about Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, and how Phil Angelides will try to proove my prediction wrong that-- Arnold Schwarzenegger will be re-elected as Governor of California.

Check it out on Planet Desmond, and if you haven't heard our fiery but intelligent political roundtable show Red White and Blue, take a few minutes to check that out too. Conspiracy theorists will be especially happy with our liberal commentator David Ballard, and war hawks will enjoy the Red state talk of Dylan Gwinn.

I'm looking to find a Republican stretegist to join me for next week's Planet Desmond. So if you know one, hit me up!

That's it for folks, go check out my shows!