Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Going Dark for a Few Days

We're getting out of town for a few days at a remote cabin on the lower slopes of Mt Rainier. It'll be our last chance to get some "snow time" this spring (even though it's snowed here about a dozen times this last winter, it didn't stick around for more than a day), and as I've always said, if I want to be in the snow, I'll go visit it.

See you sometime this weekend.

Monday, April 28, 2008

They Can't Handle the Truth!

In a new analysis out of the University of Georgia, it turns out that so-called conservatives are increasingly watching the Faux News channel, to the exclusion of everything else.

It's a circle-jerk echo chamber with a feedback loop that would fry the brain of any thinking person, but it's a good thing for them that they just don't -- can't -- think. They don't want to get any news from any source that could possibly shake up their stunted preconceptions about the how the world works.

I'll confess that I'm aware of a small number of liberals who have similar ideas, but by and large we liberals don't shun news sources just because their stories don't happen to reinforce our prejudices. While I don't watch Faux News on general principles, on a semi-regular basis I will tune into wingnut radio, just to see what kinds of lies Drugboy, Slanthead, BOrally and the rest are spewing to their mindless dittohead lockstep drones.

After all, "know your enemy" and all that...

"Don't Ask Don't Tell" Revisited

I know that I have a number of GLBT readers of this blog, and I've been a champion of civil rights for everyone for many years. I've also railed on occasion about the shortsighted actions of the US military when it comes to gays serving in uniform.

Even at this late date, the Pentagon is still kicking out an average of two persons per day, a decision based solely on their sexual orientation.

So I am happy to learn that PFLAG is issuing a call for personal experiences with the military's so-called "don't ask don't tell" law.

If you are a veteran, or the parent or friend of a veteran, who has been affected by this ridiculously stupid law, please consider contacting PFLAG's Steve Ralls sralls@pflag.org and sharing your stories.

It's past time to start fighting back. This country belongs to all of us, and those who want to serve in the military should have that option, regardless of their gender, race or ethnicity, politics, or even -- shock! -- sexual orientation.

Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform Watch

It has now been 1423 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.



And it's not just The Twins: ONLY ONE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, the obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq? Especially since he apparently hasn't actually even put on the uniform yet, even though he "enlisted" way last year.

Little Jenna has now set a date to marry her boyfriend, one Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike the husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't the Twins be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Harry, until the decision was made not to send him, was on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. Not to be denied, Harry turned around and went to Afghanistan on a "stealth" assignment for three months, until Matt "The Traitor" Drudge outed him for no good reason except his own self-aggrandizement.

So will the Bush Twins follow Harry's example?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't -- or won't -- join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go down the sewer pipe.

Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Eight Great Analogies about Iraq

Funnyman and political observer Lee Camp has come up with eight terrific analogies about the Iraq War. It starts out with:

Recently I was arguing with one of my dumber friends about the Iraq war. He loves Bush and thinks bigger bombs is the answer in Iraq. I wasn’t gaining any ground in the argument until I used a simple analogy. I said, "Your solution is like shattering an expensive vase and then saying, 'We need to keep smashing it until it’s fixed.'"
That's only the start. It finishes up with my personal favorite: "President Bush is like a colorblind child with a Rubik’s Cube."

In between there's a lot more darkly humorous commentary. Read the whole thing and get some ammo to use against your own warmonger acquaintances.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Saturday Song Parody

If You're Votin' for McCain
To the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain"
from The Wizard of Oz -- © 2008


He will glare and he will glower
He'll torture like Jack Bauer,
He wants to eat your brain.
In '09 you'll regret it
And your thoughts you'll have to edit
If you're votin' for McCain.

Like hoppin' on a griddle
His flip-flops are a riddle
But you will feel the pain.
And the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You'd have to dull with drinkin'
If you're votin' for McCain.

Oh he can't tell you why
'Cause he doesn't even know
If the Sunni or the Shia is the foe
But he won't let that stop the show.

From the fundos he gets backin'
And the wars won't be lackin'
'Cause the man is insane.
Iran he'll be attackin'
The Supreme Court he'll be packin'
If you're votin' for McCain

Friday, April 25, 2008

Inconvenient Truths about John McCain

That's the title of a must-read analysis by a guy named Doug Bandow, over at Anti-War.com. Here's an excerpt:

Sen. John McCain is a man of physical courage and personal honor. He's also a warmonger, with little concern for those who would die in his military adventures. The Democrats won't say that. But it's the truth.
. . .
Anyone willing to go to war with Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Serbia is prepared to fight anyone. Most people lean toward peace and believe that only dangerous necessity can justify loosing the dogs of war. Not McCain, who appears to be in permanent "yes" mode. If that famous 3 a.m. phone call came into the McCain White House, he likely would yell "bomb them" into the receiver, then wait until the morning to ask who we had attacked.
There's a lot more -- check it out.

And this Bandow guy? He's gotta be some compsymp radical-islamofascist-enabling liberal, right?

Nope, not quite. He is, among other things, a Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance who served as a special assistant to St Ronald Reagan and was a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign. I'd say that his conservative credentials are pretty impeccable.

So take that, Grampaw McCain. Everyone else, dig down, buckle up and prepare yourselves for the coming battle between The Empire and the Jedi Knights.

Friday by the Numbers

2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4052

Total coalition forces dead: 309
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2411
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1870
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1818
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 802
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 638

It is still 274 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Here Comes the New Boss Just Like the Old Boss

In a move that surprised no one, Der Monkey Fuehrer has named military lapdog General Betrayus Petraeus to be head of Centcom. That's the overlord of the entire military presence in the Middle East, and that's the post that Admiral William Fallon quit because he could not in good conscience prepare for the war with Iran that Baby Doc and the other neocons so desperately are salivating for.

Not our boy Betrayus, though. He has that weird combination of ambition and subservience that Baby Doc admires in his subordinates, and the plans to go full speed ahead on the war with Iran will continue pretty much unabated, now that he's going to be in charge.

So why the headline? Not because Betrayus is like Fallon. No, because Betrayus's successor in Iraq will be Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, whose command of the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq was highlighted by a series of war crimes.

Those two will certainly make a Dynamic Duo, but it's one that bodes ill for the already shaky future of our entire Middle East operations.

And it also gives an additional patina of inevitability to us going to war with Iran.

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

--Dakar, Senegal, July 8, 2003

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

More on the "Backdoor Draft"

According to a USA Today Report, the military is once again forcing service members to stay beyond their discharge dates, in a controversial program called "stop loss".

And they are perfectly within their rights to keep unwilling soldiers around long past their normal release dates, as long as it's for "the good of the service". The good of the soldier? As Darth Cheney said so recently, fuck 'em, they knew what they were getting into when they enlisted.

Except they didn't. And why in the hell aren't more of the sons and daughters of rich Rethugs in uniform and "defending" America in Iraq? Why is it by and large the children of the poor, the children of the bluecollar workers, who end up in uniform?

I used to be opposed to the draft. Especially when they were trying to draft me. But I'm older and wiser now, and I think that if we had universal military service, with no weaseling out allowed for the wealthy and the politically connected (e.g., someone escaping into the Texas Air National Guard, and then deserting that when the going got too tough), then we might not have gone into Iraq in the first place.

But there won't be a draft. Not as long as the Rethugs in power, aided and abetted by Rethug-appointed and neocon-based Federal Reserve can keep the economy at the point of disaster. There will be plenty of poor people who will see -- as they do now -- the military as a "way out", and will continue to enlist.

Roman Empire, anyone? Been there, done that, but we don't seem to have any problems with repeating history.

Remember what Karl Marx said? "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce."

The Urban Legends Name Game

For forty years I've been a fan and a connoisseur of Urban Legends -- even before they were called "urban legends" -- so it was with a lot of not-so-secret glee that I took the Urban Legends Name Game test over at the About.com Urban Legends site (Snopes is also a primo reference source for urban legends).

Go ahead and take the test yourself. It will increase your knowledge and expertise with urban legends, and it will help you to remember to take everything you see on The Internets with a grain -- if not a pound -- of salt.

BTW, I got 33 out of 35 correct. Frankly, it was a little disappointing, since I consider myself an expert on the topic, but it just goes to show you that life is a constant process of learning new stuff.

18 Vets a Day Commit Suicide

In a shocking story that's unfolding out of the San Francisco trial of veterans' groups class-action lawsuit against the VA, a hitherto-secret VA report shows that 18 veterans per day commit suicide. About 1000 veterans per month attempt it.

And this sad fact was -- surprise surprise -- covered up by the VA itself.

This is an appalling statistic, and this country ought to be ashamed of itself for the way it treats its veterans.

Yeah, big chance of that as long as the minions of the BFEE continue to occupy the White House. And speaking of that, what does Grampaw McCain have to say about this?

Nothing.


Sunday, April 20, 2008

The Real McCain Interview

Today George Stephanopolous, stalking horse for Hillary Clinton and not-so-secret GOP operative, will interview Grampaw McCain.

Given his recent Hannity-induced trashing of Barack Obama in the last "debate", here's a video of how his interview with McCain ought to go.

But those are the questions he won't ask, because he's a rightwing media tool.

Drop by The Real McCain for more great stuff.

[Update: For some reason that embedded video blew out the CSS, so I removed the embed and substituted the link, and things seem okay now.]

Onward and Upward

Yesterday we had our Democratic Party county convention, and I am proud to announce that I was selected as an Obama delegate to go to the Washington 3rd Congressional District. That's the last step before being selected as a delegate to the national Democratic convention in Denver this summer.

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to try to go farther. The numbers are against me, since there will be only two spots available and I'll be competing with everyone else from the 3rd District who also wants to go to Denver.

From stories I've heard from my friends who managed to fight their way forward in the past, just the campaigning itself is a fulltime job.

And since I'm retired, I don't know if I really want to take on a fulltime job.

Stay tuned for updates.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036

Total coalition forces dead: 309
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2403
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1863
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1811
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 795
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 631

It is still 281 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"As you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say."

-- Oct 28, 2003

Finally, Good News on the Hard Drive Crash

I've been at it for two weeks now, but finally I have some good news about the great 2008 hard drive crisis.

A guy that I know through one of the nonprofits I'm involved in suggested that he might be able to extract the "dead data" without a whole lot of trouble.

But, since he's a retired cop -- who is an expert in computer forensics -- I thought about it and decided that I really wouldn't feel comfortable with him rummaging around in my hard drive files and stumbling on stuff like "The Anarchists Cookbook" (I swear, judge, it was just research for my new book! No, really! Trust me.), I decided that that probably wasn't really the way to go.

So I did some more poking around in the Internets and found a downloadable program from a highly reputable outfit that promised that they could recover the data.

It was pretty simple. I downloaded the program and installed it, and then ran it against my "dead" drive. Amazingly, it was able to recognize all of the stuff that I thought I'd lost.

The only catch? Although it recognized it and claimed that it was able to recover it, there was that one little roadblock: They wanted me to pay for the software, which would unlock it and allow me to actually extract the missing data.

But, it was only $99 -- which is a far cry from the $200 online charge, and I didn't have to put my precious drive in the mail -- so I sucked it up, paid the money, and immediately I was given an unlock code. At 1:30 in the morning!

And it worked -- I've been able to extract all of the missing data from the dead drive. Of course it took it most of the day, but that's to be expected.

The company? Stellar Information Systems, and I am now a highly appreciative and tremendously grateful customer, willing to sing their praises far and wide.

If it ever happens to you, give them a try. And you don't pay anything unless it can actually do the job.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Kwak Kwak Kwak

All right, this had all the earmarks of a bad political joke. But sadly -- shockingly -- it's true. A Korean joker named Chung Hwan Kwak, a major sidekick of Sun Myung Moon had his photo taken with Baby Doc and The Liberian:



Big deal, you say. Lots of people get their pictures taken with the First Fascists. Yeah, but do a lot of them also make such stupid public statements as "Judaism committed a historical sin in front of Jesus, so Jewish people experienced the Holocaust under Hitler. Without God's permission, would it really have been possible for Hitler to do such a massacre?"

Kwak is the Moonie head of their publishing propaganda arm, the notorious Washington Times newspaper, and he is a piece of work. Over at the always-valuable Talk to Action site, there's an extensive exposé of this thug, and it's not pretty to read.

Oh, and here's a short video of The Moon Man himself condemning "free sex" and the history of literature and media that promotes it:



These fuckers are beyond scary, and watch for such Xian stalwarts as Orrin Hatch on stage singing the praises of The Moon Man.

Beyond scary.

Lincoln the Elitist

Just ran across this one, from the Freeway Blogger:

Transcript from "Hannity's America" November 20, 1863
Sean Hannity: Well, we've got the transcript right here and it looks like Mr. Lincoln's really put his foot in it this time. The question for our panelists is: "After Gettysburg, Does Lincoln still have a chance for re-election?" Pat?
Pat Buchanan: I'd have to say no Sean. Right from the start he's set himself up as another liberal elitist, hopelessly out of touch with the voters. "Four Score and Seven..." The number he's looking for is eighty-seven. Maybe if he put down his chablis and brie plate for a minute he'd understand how real people actually speak.
Go read the rest of it. It's absolutely hilarious.

McCain Refuses to Support New GI Bill of Rights

Despite its bipartisan appeal in the Senate, Jim Webb's new GI Bill for the 21st Century is being dismissed by that grand old champion of veterans, John McCain.

Grampaw McCain has been shuffling around the country talking some big shit about being the veterans' friend, even to the point of crowing on ABC's The View that we ought to provide the troops "significant educational benefits in return for serving".

So what's up with his refusal to sign on with 55 of his fellow senators -- from both sides of the aisle -- who are cosponsoring or supporting Webb's bill?

It might be hard to believe, but here's what he says: Expanding the GI Bill to reflect the realities of the new veterans would be an incentive that would lead current military personnel to get out of the service!!!

With this line of reasoning, McCain is proving more and more that his rule would be Bush III, and that the first line of offense for corporate America will remain the service members who are thrust into the far outposts of empire.

After all, how can Bombin' Johnny attack Iran with a military that has been decimated by all those men and women who bail out for the lavish benefits provided by the GI Bill. Jeez, they might actually go to college, get an education, and start voting Democratic!

Nope, can't have that. Wouldn't be prudent. Wouldn't be right.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The "Boy" With His Finger on the Trigger

Okay, people. It's 2008 and everyone knows that calling an African-American man "boy" is right up with using the N-word in its offense to black people.

So what's up with US Representative from Kentucky Geoff Davis (R-Racist) saying at a GOOPer fund raiser saying that "That boy's finger does not need to be on the button"?

It's not like he didn't know that the use of the word was offensive. True, he's issued an apology to Obama, but the damage was done.

So we're back to what the fuck was he thinking? Easy answer: Most Rethugs are closet racists who take pains to keep it in the closet, but occasionally something like this will slip out.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Watch for a lot more subtle -- and not so subtle -- innuendoes, "awkward" phraseology, "misspeak" statements, etc etc, as we go on through the summer and into the fall.

Oh, and BTW, that congressman is named "Geoff" Davis. Pronounced "Jeff" Davis. As in Jefferson Davis...

Okay, cheap shot. I admit it. But I also just couldn't help myself. Sue me if you don't like it.

Seeing the Big Picture

That's something that we in America apparently don't like doing. It takes too long, it takes too much work, and it takes way too much thinking.

And that's probably why the following biographical description hasn't gotten the wide distribution that it deserves. Of course the MSM/SCLM isn't helping any, since it doesn't fit into the already-established meme about the man's character.

Factor military duty into criticism

By Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss

April 3, 2008

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?

After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.

Since these comments became public we have heard criticisms, condemnations, denouncements and rejections of his comments and him.

We've seen on television, in a seemingly endless loop, sound bites of a select few of Rev. Wright's many sermons.

Some of the Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and should be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic," let us not forget that this is a man who gave up six of the most productive years of his life to serve his country.

How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.

While words do count, so do actions.

Let us not forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over the last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.
Whatever else you want to say, I think Wright has earned the right to criticize this country, and for the assholes on the right, aided and abetted by the media, to take a few phrases out of a lifetime of sermons and use them against him stinks of demagoguery of the first water.

Wright's service to his country just doesn't fit into the meme of the violent anti-American Black separatist that the wingnuttery and the MSM/SCLM took great pains to paint him into.

But, in the big picture, that doesn't matter. The vast majority of the members of the Moron-American voting bloc, the prime target audience for this crap, just doesn't want to be confused with facts.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform Watch

It has now been 1416 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.



And it's not just The Twins: ONLY ONE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, the obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq? Especially since he apparently hasn't actually even put on the uniform yet, even though he "enlisted" way last year.

Little Jenna has now set a date to marry her boyfriend, one Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike the husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't the Twins be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Harry, until the decision was made not to send him, was on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. Not to be denied, Harry turned around and went to Afghanistan on a "stealth" assignment for three months, until Matt "The Traitor" Drudge outed him for no good reason except his own self-aggrandizement.

So will the Bush Twins follow Harry's example?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't -- or won't -- join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go down the sewer pipe.

Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Saturday Song Parody

Meme for Maverick
(Theme from Maverick television series*, © 2008)

Who is that bumblin' old man there?
"Maverick" is his claim.
It's all made up from thin air,
Lies are his companions,
Media is to blame.
They always give him a free pass,
"Maverick" is their frame.
They all line up to kiss his ass,
Givin' up their ethics,
Addin' to his fame.

McCain thinks war is swell,
He'll march us straight to hell.
Cash from the lobbys what he likes to find.
Baghdad to old Tehran,
He wants to drop The Bomb.
John McCain is a legend in his mind.

[For my younger readers: Maverick was a television show from the late 1950s; you can read the normal lyrics and listen to the music here]

Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032

Total coalition forces dead: 309
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2396
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1857
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1804
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 788
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 624

It is still 288 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"They said, 'You know, this issue doesn't seem to resignate with the people.' And I said, 'You know something? Whether it resignates or not doesn't matter to me, because I stand for doing what's the right thing, and what the right thing is hearing the voices of people who work.'"

--Portland OR, October 31, 2000

Baby Doc's Numbers at New Low

An AP-Ipsos poll released to day show new lows in the approval rating for Der Monkey Fuehrer.

Especially within his own party. Only 60% of Rethugs approve of his overall job, and only 54% approve of the way he's handling the economy.

Of course the question remains as to what the fuck is wrong with those koolaid-drinking knuckle-dragging Moron-American-voting-bloc Rethugs who still, by a slim majority, approve of what he is doing.

Nevertheless, looking at the big picture: Neener neener!

VA Drags its Heels Over Voter Registration

The nation's VA hospitals are full of disabled veterans, naturally, and many of those vets are disabled to the point where getting out to register to vote is an almost unbearable burden. So the natural solution would be for the VA -- like many other government agencies operating under the 1993 Voter Registration Act-- to take on the responsibility to get those vets registered and on the permanent vote-by-mail lists that most states offer.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

Well, not so fast. The VA itself, in the person of its new director, James Peake, is claiming that this would "divert substantial resources from our primary mission".

Substantial resources??? That may sound like reality to someone from, say, Mars, but registering to vote is actually one of the easiest interactions that take place between citizens and their government.

Here are those resource-hogging steps to get registered to vote:

1. Fill out a postcard-sized card.
2. Send it in.

And that's it. So why is the VA dragging its feet over this very simple process that would "divert substantial resources" away from veterans health care? Could it be that the BFEE is trying to suppress voting by hospitalized veterans because it's afraid that they will not vote for Grampaw McCain?

I'm just asking.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

McCain's Medical Records

Much is being made over the fact that Grampaw McCain keeps putting off the release of his medical records (now the date has been moved to sometime in May), so much in fact that it's starting to raise questions.

For example, it's no secret that McCain has had two serious bouts with malignant melanoma, and it appears that he is having more than his share of "senior moments" lately.

As a melanoma survivor -- so far -- myself, I can't imagine it not being an issue if I were running for the presidency, but McCain brushes off any questions about it with a generic "my health is great" answer. And while I'm a bit younger than McCain, I still experience a few senior moments myself; however, if I were having as many as he seems to, I'd personally be more than a little concerned by their frequency. As should the American people, if I were running for president.

These are normal questions that need to be asked before we vote for the next president of the United States, but so far we aren't getting any answers.

I have a couple of separate but equal theories about Grampaw's unwillingness to disclose his medical records:

  1. He really does have a clean bill of health, but he's waiting until the Democratic nominee (i.e., Barack Obama) starts making a case about the apparent secrecy of his medical records, at which point he will make a big show of providing them. This will result in any further attempts on the part of the Democrats to bring up any health issues being dismissed as mere ageism, or mean-spirited low-class below-the-belt attacks on a poor old man.
    Or...

  2. He really does not have a clean bill of health, but since he's now only the presumptive nominee, he's waiting until after the convention blesses him and his carefully-hand-picked and overwhelmingly-qualified VP (no, I don't know who that could be, but I do notice that the Mittens Boy seems to be do a lot of hanging around...), at which time the Rethugs will breathe a collective sigh of relief, the way they did when St Ronald picked Bush 41 way back in 1980 -- in retrospect, I think that a number of Gooper insiders knew even back then that Ronnie Raygun was in the beginning stages of alzheimers. Then McCain will dramatically reveal the awful truth, whatever it happens to be, and according to plan he will win the election with a sympathy vote and subsequently resign for "health reasons" some time in the new year. After all, he has already mentioned that he probably won't run for a second term -- is that a subtle hint?

Okay there are my theories. Could be either, a mixture of both, or neither. Or something else entirely.

BTW, remember when the wingnuttery tried to make a big fucking deal -- aided and abetted by the MSM/SCLM -- about John Kerry "refusing" to release his medical records in 2004? Where are they now, when their own boy is apparently trying to pull the same bullshit?

Yeah, that's what I thought: This is "different"...

Democratic Wimps

I've been out of touch with a lot of the news for the last week, what with all that's happened, but I see in today's NY Times that Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has apologized to John McCain for some off-the-cuff remarks that Rockefeller made about his fellow senator:

In an interview in his home state, West Virginia, on Monday, Mr. Rockefeller, a Democrat, told The Charleston Gazette that Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, could not relate to the everyday concerns of people on issues like health care.
According to the article, Mr. Rockefeller said: “McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”
On Tuesday, the McCain campaign demanded an apology, not just from Senator Rockefeller, but also from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, because he has received the West Virginian’s endorsement.
[ . . . ]
The Obama campaign also issued a statement: “Senator Obama has a deep respect for Senator McCain’s service to this country and he does not agree with what Senator Rockefeller said.”
Well, isn't that just special. So what in Rockefeller's original statement was incorrect? What did he get wrong? What wasn't true?

Answer: Nothing. So why did Rockefeller feel the need to apologize for it?

That's one of the problems with the Democrats. They refuse to develop that killer instinct, that go-for-the-jugular technique of infighting that the Rethugs have perfected over the years. The Rethugs don't bring a knife to a gunfight, as the Swiftboating of John Kerry four years ago so amply demonstrated.

McCain is running a sub rosa campaign based on his Vietnam service, such as it was ("I don't like to talk about it, but did I mention that I was a POW?"), and it ought to be fair game to ask some questions about it, to criticize it, to wonder exactly what it is about it that made Grampaw Mac so ready to be president, but the wimpy Dems won't do it. The Rethugs obviously wouldn't have been so mealy-mouthed about it -- if the shoe were on the other foot, they would have told the "offended" to go piss up a rope.

Note to the Dems: This is not the way to win an election.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Good News and Bad News

Okay, here I am. The good news is that the cost of repair for the Seattle breakdown was "only" $200. It turned out that it wasn't the clutch itself, but the so-called "slave cylinder". I was expecting a bill in the range of a thousand bucks, so that was a huge relief.

Bad news: The hard drive is still fried. My friend the computer geek suggested that I freeze it for several hours.

Yeah, right. And tomorrow I'm going to go after Bigfoot, go for a ride on a flying saucer, and join Scientology.

Well, it turns out that freezing a recalcitrant hard drive is one of those time-honored "quick fixes" that actually works a lot of the time. And I thought he was sending me on a high-tech snipe hunt. So I tried it, wrapped the drive inside a sealed bag to keep out condensation, and stuck it in the freezer for about six hours.

Nothing.

But that's about what I expected, so I didn't lose anything except time. The next step, I guess, is to send it off to one of the repair shops to see if they can do anything with it. I did some research on the Internets and found a place that has a good reputation and doesn't charge the traditional arm and a leg.

The price they quoted me?

$200(!)

Something very odd about those bookends, but I guess we can chalk that up to Synchronicity...

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with my usual observations, declarations, subversive humor, left-wing rants and accusatory finger-pointing.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Week from Hell

I haven't been around lately, after my "bad hair day". That's because it turned into something much worse.

My main hard drive somehow got fried. Bad enough in itself, but after the days-long hassle of buying and installing a new hard drive, reinstalling Windows XP Pro, reinstalling all of my software and hassling for hours with finding, downloading and installing new drivers for my peripherals, I discovered that my backup software had some kind of a glitch and hadn't made backups for more than two months.

Two months! And then I found that not all of the items that I'd identified as wanting to be backed up actually got backed up. Like my login and password text document, a ton of downloaded install files, the only draft of my new book, the electronic copy of my old book, etc etc etc.

I've finally cobbled things together enough that I am functional (barely). I've contacted many of the vendors to see about replacements for the software, but you can imagine how that is going.

In the meantime, I've decided to bite the bullet and see if I can get the local geek shop to try to recover the data from the fried hard drive. It's going to cost -- and cost a lot -- but I think it will be worth it.

Oh, and the icing on the cake? Today She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed went up to Seattle to visit with our friend Linda (I'm thinking she actually made up an excuse to get out of the house and out of town and not have to put up with all of my ranting and raving and pissing and moaning), and no sooner does she get there but ... the clutch goes out in her car.

I can't imagine what's going to happen next.

My posts may be a little sparse this week. I still have a lot to do to get my PC back into shape, plus I may have to drive to Seattle tomorrow to deal with the repair shop and bring her home. And then take her back up there later in the week, when the car is repaired.

Stay tuned.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Bad Voodoo's War

I've read a lot of good press about this documentary, and I've set the DVR to record it tonight. It's on PBS's Frontline at 10:00 (on the left coast). Here's a little preview:



I hope it's as good as it's made out to be. More tomorrow -- I've had a "bad hair day" today.