Going After a Gnat With a Chainsaw

Interesting news out of congress this week: HR 4137, the so-called College Opportunity and Affordability Act (COAA). Sounds pretty innocuous, doesn't it?

But the devil, as the saying goes, is in the details. Once again we have an Orwellian-named bill that does just the opposite of what you might think it would.

Buried deep in the 747-page(!) bill is the following: Section 494(A): Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention, which provides that colleges and universities will have to come up with a plan to prevent illegal downloads of music from peer-to-peer filesharing groups, AND come up with a technology-based deterrent to "digital theft".

What that all means is that if a school does not comply, it will lose ALL federal funding for ALL student loans, grants, etc. Even Pell Grants. The bill also dictates that colleges come up with "alternatives" to the illegal downloading, and apparently what that means is that they will end up joining one of the non-illegal download providers. Which costs money. Which will undoubtedly come out of increased student fees.

And all of this certainly doesn't sound to me like it's going to enhance college opportunity and affordability. Quite the opposite.

Since only about 20% of a given school's student body actually lives on-campus, and by the MPAA's own estimate, only about 18% of "illegal downloaders" are students, this means that only about 4% of all illegal downloads are going into college computer networks.

And that seems to me to be more than a little Draconian.

But I guess that doesn't matter, since we've now, as a society, gone from "It's better to allow a thousand guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man" to a "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" mentality.

All that aside, in the big picture view, is it really necessary, is it really in the public good, to come up with a congressional bill that is over 700 pages long? Who has time to read that? Who has the intellectual fortitude to digest it?

No one, and that's why we get such bad laws. Our "representatives" are voting for -- or against -- bills that they haven't read, haven't digested, and are clueless about the projected effects or outcomes.

Let's take a stand on this one. I urge everyone to contact your representative and tell him/her to vote "NO" on HR 4137.

Boycott Overstock.com

I'll admit up front that I have never shopped online at Overstock.com. So it won't be a huge imposition on me to boycott them, but now that the Xmas shopping season is upon us, I want to urge anyone and everyone who has even thought of purchasing something at Overstock.com to reconsider.

And here's why: In Utah this year there was a ballot measure concerning funnelling state school money into private schools. Every time this has been on a ballot anywhere in the US it has been roundly defeated, usually by landslide margins, and Utah was no exception: The measure lost in every single county in the state.

Americans have always seen this as the proverbial nose in the tent by the Religious Right, whose main goal is to siphon off financial support from the public schools, put their special little children into those private, mostly-Fundo-Xian schools, and ultimately destroy the very fabric of our public school system.

Oh, and incidentally, those precious little white babies won't have to rub shoulders with all those dirty and smelly minority-type kids, who seem to just litter the public schools.

So what's Overstock got to do with all this, you say?

Well, I'm glad you asked. The HMFIC* of Overstock, one Patrick Byrne (who has more legal problems than Carter has pills -- and see the Crooks and Liars piece on him as well), has been pouring tons of his own money into these ridiculous campaigns for years now, including the one in Utah. And when I say "his own money", what I really mean is the money he gets as a profit from operating Overstock.com. Which, if you happen to spend money there, is cash going out of your pocket and into the already-overstuffed wallet of capitalist-pig fat-cat Patrick Byrne.

Update: Be sure to check out Whitecollar Fraud and O-Smear for more info on Byrne and his problems, legal and otherwise.

[* Head Mother Fucker In Charge -- it's an old Army term that I still use, nearly 40 years later.]

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

Total coalition forces dead: 306
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2277
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1738
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1681
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: 662
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 505.

It is still 400 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Liberal Ronald Reagan Criticizes -- Republicans!

This is priceless. Take a listen to this radio address from Saint Ronald himself, back when he was still a human being:

Listen to him talking about, among other things, the evils of the union-busting Taft-Hartley Act, the horrors of tax breaks to the wealthy and the nightmare of reducing milk subsidies to public school children.

Even back then he had the basics down to be the Great Communicator. Too bad he later sold his soul to the devil for a mess of pottage.

It's sad, really, to see how completely Saint Ronald went to the Dark Side, after being a liberal way back in 1948.

Ten Million Emails "Lost"

It's shocking, but there it is. Worse than we thought. Instead of a paltry five million White House emails gone missing, now the total is over ten million.

Conveniently, the dates of the vanished emails include the period of March 2003 through October 2005 -- which encompasses the period of time from start of the Iraq War Illegal Occupation to the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Tricky Dick was brought down over an 18.5 minute gap in a tape recording. This goes so far beyond that meager gap that "exponential" can't come close to describing it.

What we have here is a series of patent violations of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. And once again, the lawless and cynical BFEE will probably get away with it.

US Rep Henry Waxman (D--Naturally), along with the staff of CREW, are still doggedly pursuing the White House to produce these missing emails. I used to work in IT, so I know that nothing erased from a computer -- especially emails -- is gone forever. What with multiple backup systems and forensic hard disk tools, the emails are still there somewhere.

In the meantime, read the Crew report Without a Trace: The Story of the Missing White House Emails and the Violation of the Presidential Records Act.

How many more crimes can these fuckers get away with before America is finally fed up?

Abstinence? Yeah, That Works...Not!

In a not-surprising story out of Chicago, a group of doctors have found what the rest of us who can actually remember being teenagers knew already:

Abstinence-only sex education DOES. NOT. WORK.

But once again, those of us over here in the Reality-Based Community don't really matter. Not when you have a front-running presidential candidate denying that he descended from an ape (Note to Huckabee: We all deny that, because Darwin never said we did!!!), the BFEE throwing tax dollars at religious organizations faster than they can pick them up, and a teenage birth rate that has gone up for the first time in 14 years:

Average age at first intercourse: Down
Average number of teenagers having sex: Up
Average use of condoms: Down

The only surprising statistic is that the number of abortions has remained steady. Which means that more teenagers are choosing to remain -- or have been forced into remaining -- pregnant, and as any 15-year-old single mother can tell you, from that point on your potential futures have been reduced exponentially, down to a handful at best, and most of them are not good.

And all of it is due to the Rethug radical-fringe religio-fascists who have been pushing abstinence-only sex education, to the exclusion of realistic, We Actually Live On This Planet sex education.

Oh, and do you recall just last year, when Baby Doc said, talking about the fact that as of 2006 the teenage pregnancy rate was still falling slightly: "Wise policies such as welfare reform, drug education and support for abstinence and adoption have made a difference in the character of our country."

Oh really? What now? I guess he can always blame the Democrats. After all, they took over Congress in January of last year. They must have caused the teenage pregnancy rate to rise. Yeah, that's it.

After all, it couldn't be the Rethugs--they pretty much restrict their sexual contact with teenagers to the boys.

American Enterprise Institute is "Non-Partisan"?

The American Enterprise Institute! Non-partisan!

This was news to me, as I'm sure it was to pretty much everyone reading this hit piece on Obama in the formerly august New York Times.

But there it is, in the seventh graf down: "...said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan group." [emphasis added]

No leading qualifiers, no sidebars, nothing in fact to show the casual reader that this nest of rightwing corporatist neocon neofascist snakes is anything but a neutral observer.

Goddam that Librul Media anyway.

Perino Gives the Stink Eye to Helen Thomas

This is worth watching. At a press conference with Stepford-Sec Dana Perino, Helen Thomas asks some pointed questions that appear to leave Perino flat-footed.

Watch it til the end, after Perino has been suitably chastised. She gives Helen Thomas one of those daggers-from-the-eyes if-looks-could-kill stares.

Priceless.

Baby Doc Signing Statements

We've heard about them for years, but how many of us know exactly what they were and which bills signed by Der Monkey Fuehrer they were attached to?

Certainly not me, and that's why it was especially gratifying to find that the American Constitution Society has collected them and has published a lengthy list and description of them at Index of Presidential Signing Statements 2001-2007.

Like I say, it's long (174 pages in .pdf format), but well worth skimming through. He even put these signing statements on laws passed by his own fellow Rethugs in congress.

As I look through them, most of them seem to be of a nature to ensure the primacy and superiority of the Executive Branch. Watch for the tell-tale phrasing "unitary executive branch" in many of them.

Exactly the kind of thing you'd suspect from an Imperial pResident like Baby Doc Bush.

Blog Poster Arrested

In the news today was a story on suburban Milwaukee high school chemistry teacher James Buss, who left the following anonymous post on a rightwing Wisconsin blog:

Looking at those teacher salary numbers in West Bend made me sick. $60,000 for a part time job were you ‘work’ maybe 5 hours per day and sit in the teachers lounge and smoke the rest of the time. Thanks God we won on the referendum. But whining here doesn’t stop the problem. We’ve got to get in back of the kids who have had enough of lazy, no good teachers and are fighting back. Kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold members of the Young Republicans club at Columbine. They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberals rip them; they were heroes and should be remembered that way

It is patently obvious from reading this that it was sarcasm, a tongue-in-cheek poke at the wingnuts who run the Boots and Sabers political blog (I won't provide the link because I don't want to promote their blog but you can do a Google search and find them readily enough).

But that didn't stop the cops from investigating it. They went to the blog owners and got Buss's IP address -- without a warrant, apparently -- and swooped down on him like Storm Troopers. The potential charges against him: disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communication systems.

WTF???

This is, at its core, a free speech issue. Unless Buss was intending to inspire more wannabe Harris-and-Kelbold types to strike down greedy teacher thugs, one shot at a time, then he did nothing wrong.

Last I looked, we still had free speech in this country. Buss, a public school teacher, probably didn't exercise the best judgment in this. After all, over in Wingnutistan, they are not known for having much of a sense of humor, and their grasp of satire, of irony, of parody, of sarcasm, is tenuous at best.

But I think a whole lot of overreaction has taken place here.

Nevertheless, this has the potential of placing a "chilling effect" on free speech in the blogosphere. It won't affect me any since I refuse to live in fear, but I feel that many people might think twice before posting something that is critical, say, of the BFEE, especially on wingnut websites whose owners apparently have no qualms about calling the cops.

I don't know if the assholes over at Boots and Sabers are the ones who dropped the dime on Buss, but they were more than happy to give him up. And that's something that I would never do, so keep on posting here and we'll all meet up at Gitmo...

This Chimp is Smirking for a Reason

In a fascinating bit of news out of Japan, it turns out that chimps are better than humans at certain memory tasks.

Anyone who has ever been around a chimpanzee knows that they are very smart (as are most primates, I would guess -- remember Koko the Sign Language gorilla?)

Jeez, I'm probably gonna have to stop calling Baby Doc Bush a Smirking Chimp.

It's an insult to the chimpanzees.

Help Stop Peake at VA

Der Monkey Fuehrer has nominated a guy named Dr. James Peake to head the VA. On paper the guy looks pretty good: Former Army Surgeon General. First physician to be nominated to head the VA, and first general to be nominated. What's not to like?

Turns out, quite a bit.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Peake's tenure as chief Army medical man, including possible knowledge about the torture of enemy prisoners of war unlawful enemy combatants and his presiding over the criminally negligent treatment of our wounded, injured, and sick Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Until these questions are resolved, I don't want to see Peake as head of the VA. Please consider contacting the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and asking them not to vote for confirmation of Peake until these serious questions have been answered.

Check out Veterans for Common Sense for a ton of material on Peake and his prior actions.

Liar and History Revisionist Karl Rove

Here are links to the two-part video of Karl "Turdblossom" Rove v. Chris Van Hollen on Faux News Sunday.

It's absolutely mind-boggling to watch Turdblossom sit there and lie through his teeth.

Part One:

Part Two:

And, for those of you who don't have the time -- or the stomach -- to watch Turd Blossom or the Rethug-enabling Chris Wallace for the whole sordid thing, here's a DCCC digested version which pretty much cuts to the chase and shows the most important parts about Rove's lies and historical revisionism, with cross cuts to Baby Doc and Turdblossom himself which show him up to be a fucking LIAR.

Oh, and watch Chris "Goebbels" Wallace try, about halfway through Part 2, to quote John Murtha as saying the surge is working. Nothing like the Faux Noise Network to pluck shit out of context and use it to spin the BFEE talking points.

Texas: Still in the Dark Ages

Some alarming news out of the Lone Star State this week. Christine Comer, the Texas Science Curriculum director, was fired for daring to forward an email about a lecture by Barbara Forrest that was critical of so-called Intelligent Design.

Fired. For upholding "sound science".

I'd like to say that Texas was on the verge of reverting to the Dark Ages, but any state that would elect Baby Doc Bush governor, not once but twice, really never left them.

And so what does that say about a country that would elect him pResident twice? We don't really know, since we wasn't elected the first time, and probably not the second time, either.

Action Item: Tell Fed-Ex You're Fed Up

At an appropriate time of the year, here's an action item. Fed-Ex has been taking some extraordinary steps to prevent its drivers from unionizing. The drivers work long hours, frequently without benefits, and are routinely harassed -- even fired -- for just thinking about supporting a union.

I will personally refuse to ship anything with Fed-Ex, and will refuse to buy anything from any online merchant who ships exclusive through Fed-Ex.

I have also sent an email to the Fed-Ex CEO telling him that I'm fed up.

Please consider doing the same. We have to fight for fair employment and family-wage jobs whenever and wherever we can.

CNN: The Corrupt News Network

Tim Rutten, media critic at the LA Times, has an insightful -- and incisive -- commentary about the recent CNN-YouTube Rethug debate:

THE United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest.
So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag?

Read the whole thing and see if you agree with him. They spent the whole first part of the debate discussing immigration, an issue that maybe 10% of the populace considers the top issue facing the US.

And why would they do this? One simple reason: Ratings. Lou Dobbs, the neopopulist/neonativist has made it his signature issue, and CNN is losing ratings to MSNBC. The more they can fire up the great unwashed television audience on this essentially made-up issue, the more people will stay tuned into CNN.

Rutten thinks that's corrupt.

And he's right.

Phone Cards for Hospitalized Veterans: A Worthy Charity

What with all of the cutbacks and general stinginess of the Baby Doc Maladministration towards the VA and America's veterans, it's refreshing to see a worthy cooperation between the Credo Mobile division of Working Assets and Veterans for Peace to put pre-paid phone cards in the hands of disabled and hospitalized veterans.

Last year the same cooperative put phone cards into 148 VA hospitals which allowed the veterans to make phone calls home for the holidays.

Your tax-deductible contribution of $10.50 will get two-hour phone cards into the hands of three deserving veterans this December. A contribution of $52.50 will get phone cards into the hands of fifteen veterans.

I urge everyone to join me in dropping by and committing some bucks to this worthy cause.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1280 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 just 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both 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. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his 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 join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage.

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

Putting an Egg-Sucking Dog in Charge of the Henhouse

You can imagine my surprise to learn that noted war monger, neocon architect extraordinaire and champion comb-licker Paul Wolfowitz is returning to the Baby Doc Maladministration.

Yep. According to Newsweek Online, Secretary of State Kindasleazy Rice has offerred Wolfie a job as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board.

That's the august body within State that advises on international security stuff, such as, I don't know, maybe whether we should bomb Iran and stuff like that...

No word yet as to whether Wolfie's girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza will also be getting a job with State.

Oh, and that position does not require Senate approval, so Wolfie won't be bothered by pointed questions from those com-symp terrorist-enablers, the Democrats.

Patriotism

Nobody these days has ever heard of Carl Schurz, but he had an interesting life as a German revolutionary, Civil War Union general, and the first German-American to be a US Senator.

Here's what he had to say about patriotism:

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.

That was way back in 1898.

And Schurz was a Republican!

A Gay General??? The Horror!

I have posted on the whole "don't ask don't tell" debacle several times on this blog, including this one when this blog was brand new:

To those who say they don't want a gay person sleeping next to them or taking a shower with them, I say one word: bullshit. If you served in the military, then chances are you already did those things. You just didn't know it because the gay person sleeping next to you or showering with you was forced to keep his/her sexual orientation secret.
And somehow you survived it, didn't you?

So I was glad to see that Keith Kerr, retired Brigadier General and (now) an openly gay man, asked that question during the Rethug debate, since it's an issue that is long overdue to be settled.

But when it came out that he was a volunteer on the Clinton campaign, suddenly THAT became the story, about how he had somehow "ambushed" those poor pitiful deer-in-the-headlights candidates, and the real story got submerged.

The real story is that here is a Brigadier General who is retired after 43 years of service, a graduate of the Special Forces Officer Course, the Commanding General Staff Course and the Army War College, who had been forced to live in the closet for all of those years.

So it's back to what I said before: If you are a veteran who doesn't think you've already served with gay soldiers, sailors, etc., then you are an idiot.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

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

Total coalition forces dead: 306
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2270
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1731
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1674
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: 655
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 498.

It is still 417 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Veterans for Kucinich -- Update

A couple of days ago I was bewailing the fact that there doesn't seem to be a "Veterans for Kucinich" entity out there in the ether of the Internets.

Guess I spoke too soon, since I did a little more research and found that there is, indeed, a group calling itself Veterans for Dennis.

It's part of the Kucinich Action website, and I wish they'd made it a little more prominent.

Nevertheless, it IS there, and I encourage all of my fellow veterans to drop by and add yourself to the Veterans for Dennis group. The more veterans that come out of the closet and support Dennis Kucinich, the better off his campaign will be.

The Thoughtcrime Act of 2007

This is another one of those things that has flown under my radar until early yesterday morning.

Senate Bill 1959, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, sounds, on first seeing it, like something that doesn't sound so bad: Establish a National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes.

And for "other purposes"? Already a red flag ought to be going up.

Well, the devil, as the old saying goes, is in the details. This legislation is worded so vaguely that even my ranting blog could fall under its purview:

(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term 'violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term 'homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term 'ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.

No where is "force" defined in the bill, nor is it apparent that you and I out here in Left Blogistan would be free from the accusation of using our words to promote an "extremist belief system".

Okay, I know that this particular bill is only for the purpose of setting up the commission, so it's not time to hit the barricades just yet, but the very fact that this is floating around the deliberative body of our government gives one pause.

This is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Smartest Guys in the Room

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but somehow I missed seeing the terrific documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. But last night I finally watched it and man-oh-man was I ever blown away.

Over the intervening years, what with all the shit that has been blowing our way, I also managed to forget a lot of the details on the Enron scandal, so this film was a great reminder of what happened during those dark days.

And I mean dark days literally, since Enron was solely responsible -- after the moronic California assembly went for deregulation of energy companies -- for those nightmarish "rolling blackouts" in California that ultimately ended with Gray Davis being ousted and The Governator being installed.

It was priceless (in a horrifying way) to watch the Enron Gurus blame the California blackouts on -- get this -- regulation!

There is so much to tell about this film that I can't even begin. Buy it, rent it, watch it, even give it away for Xmas presents.

And the next time that obnoxious wingnut brother-in-law of yours starts harping on the benefits of the so-called Free Market, you won't have to say a word. Just hand him your copy of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, for a textbook example of how free markets can -- and will, if left unregulated -- run amok and bring down the carefully erected infrastructure in a major state.

California yesterday, tomorrow the world? Only if the neocon assholes get their way.

Our job? Stop them.

"If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom, Then I'm the Queen of England"

I just ran into this must-read over at The Regressive Antidote. It's a fairly long piece by David Michael Green with the title that you see above, the headline to this blog post.

If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they’re the ones who are always trying to take that freedom away from us, especially women and minorities? Why did they fight against the effort to end slavery, or to give women and minorities the vote, or to protect them from discrimination? Why are they still supporting efforts to disenfranchise minorities?

If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they’re the ones who bitterly opposed the New Deal at a time when Americans were ravaged by the Great Depression and the only freedom they were desperately seeking was from unemployment, starvation, humiliation and death? We should give thanks for their efforts ever since then, though, as they’ve been kind enough to keep trying to liberate seniors from the hell of receiving their Social Security benefits, bravely volunteering Wall Street to carry that burden instead.

If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they’re the ones who are always propping up foreign dictators, like Saddam, Musharraf, Mubarak, Marcos, Pinochet, the Shah, Batista, the House of Saud and apartheid South Africa? Why did they, in some of these cases, secretly topple democratically elected governments to install repressive regimes, which they then assisted in the torturing of their own citizens? Exactly which definition of ‘freedom’ does that fall under?

If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they’re the ones who are always trying to control other people’s sexuality? Why are conservatives always telling us whom we can sleep with and what we can do in bed, even including whether we can use birth control?

And there's a lot more. Check it out and you will probably, like me, bookmark it in your favorites for further study. And now I can't wait to use it on some poor unsuspecting Rethug who starts harping on the "freedoms" that the CONservatives support. Then I can, as Green suggests, tell them, "Yeah, no kidding, freedom is a really good thing. You’d like it even better if you actually tried it out some time."

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."

--George W. Bush, interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007

Jeez, that's right up there with "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

--George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

You can keep up with the latest bon mots from Bushspeak on About.com

"Veterans for Kucinich" -- WTF?

So I do a Google search for Veterans for Kucinich, hoping that there's an organization in place with its own website. No such luck. So then I tried entering "veteransforkucinich.org" in the address bar, and this is what I get. Same thing for "vetsforkucinich.org".

Maybe it's just me, but that really doesn't look like a Veterans for Kucinich website to me.

So the next step was to do a WhoIs search to find out who's got these domains locked up, and I learned that someone named Michael Hartsell in Missoula, Montana, is the registered owner of these two domains.

I don't know what Hartsell's angle is, but it certainly looks to me like cybersquatting. If that's the case, then when Kucinich gets the nomination these two domains will be for sale to the highest bidder.

It's an ugly practice, but it's also pretty widespread, despite numerous lawsuits that have been adjudicated against the cybersquatters.

Here's hoping that Hartsell's heart is in the right place, and that he's nailed down these domains against the chance that Kucinich will be the nominee, at which time he will donate them to the campaign.

Sidebar: Interestingly enough though, these domains are registered (and hosted) by the controversial GoDaddy.com, whose CEO Bob Parsons (a fellow Vietnam vet who ought to know better) is on record as stating that he did not believe that the "interrogation techniques" used in Gitmo were torture.

Okay, to Parsons' credit, he later withdrew this statement, but still...

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1273 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 just 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both 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. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his 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 join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage.

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

Hey Kids, You Wanna See Something REALLY Scary?

It's a little late for Halloween, but not too late to have the crap scared out of you.

Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone magazine just wrote a long story on resurgent Rethug Fundo Xian ex-governor Mike Huckabee, which you can read on the AlterNet website.

Mike Huckabee, the latest it girl of the Republican presidential race, tells a hell of a story. Let your guard down anywhere near the former Arkansas governor and he'll pod you, Body Snatchers-style -- you'll wake up drooling, your brain gone, riding a back seat on the bandwagon that suddenly has him charging toward the lead in the GOP race.

Huckabee, who denies evolution and says that we are not descended from primates (Note to Mike: We are primates...), who insists that the earth is around 6000 years old, and who believes that we have all these problems with illegal aliens because -- get this -- the abortion "Holocaust" has cost us millions of people who otherwise would be doing the work that those nasty over-the-border types are doing.

All of this begs the question, Taibbi asks, "If this religious zealot's rise represents the end of corporate dominance of the Republican Party, is that a good thing? Or is the real thing even worse than the fraud?"

What the press doesn't understand is that Huckabee has changed the equation of party-specific orthodoxies. A generation of GOP candidates have used the poor as a whipping-post stage prop, complaining about lazy, frantically copulating homeless fiends living in cars, fucking up the property values of Decent Folk. Huck turns that rhetoric around by saying, "We shouldn't allow a child to live under a bridge or in the back seat of a car." It's a brilliant innovation for a candidate like Huckabee, who recognizes that the only thing he has to lose by talking about poverty and high CEO salaries is the support of the big-money wing of his party -- something he doesn't have anyway.

Go on over and read the article. It's pretty sobering stuff, and if by some "miracle" Huckabee manages to pull it off, we need to prepare ourselves for the coming crusade by the Fundo Xians, backed by their boy in the White House, to round up and Gitmo-ise all of us out here in Freethinkerland.

It's Not Fascism When We Do It!

[Thanks to the Project for the Old American Century for the image -- drop by and check them out; they have a number of personal items such as t-shirts, etc. with this image on them plus a lot more.]

US Constitution Arrested for Aiding and Abetting Terrorists!

That was the headline screaming across the Bad Reporter Times today.

Okay, if you know Don Asmussen's work, you already know that this is a joke.

Or is it? Can something like this really be so far off?

Remember, NSPD 51 is still out there, still "valid" (at least in the Alice-Through-the-Looking-glass world of the wingnuttery and their puppet masters in the BFEE) and we should all still be very nervous about Der Monkey Fuehrer and this unprecedented grab for power.

The US Constitution will join those other "quaint" artifacts of history, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta and the Geneva Convention treaties in the dustbin of history.

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

Total coalition forces dead: 306
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2263
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1724
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1667
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: 648
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 491.

It is still 424 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Church and State

Over the couple of years since I started this blog, I've made a large number of posts on religion and separation of church and state issues, so it isn't surprising that I've finally managed to get on someone's "hit list".

But what fucking rock did this moron crawl out from under?

Way back in August I did a blog post on The Faith Based Pentagon, excoriating the Christian Embassy crowd for sticking their stinking noses into the military tent.

So now it's November, and someone calling himself "Curtis Patton" is just now trying to take me to task over it:

Where in the Constitution do you find seperation of church and state. No it is not in the 1st amendment. The phrase was in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a Clergy letting him know that the state would not get involved in Religion. You atheist have gotten it wrong for so long you think that your wrong ideas are the truth.

He goes on to gamely try to disprove evolution for a couple more sentences, but to no avail, of course.

So, in spite of myself, I answered the lame-ass motherfucker thusly:

Curtis:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So why don't you tell me where in the Constitution it DOESN'T say there is a wall of separation?
It will probably come as a surprise to you, since I'm pretty sure you haven't actually READ it, that the US Constitution mentions religion exactly TWO TIMES and ONLY two times:
One is in the often-misrepresented-by-your-side First Amendment, and the other in Article VI - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
...
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. [Emphasis added]
And if that's not a clear indication of that Wall of Separation, then I don't know what would be.
You Fundos in the Wingnuttery are so fond of pointing out the "intent of the Founders" when it comes to constitutional questions, except when it doesn't support your own thesis.
And as far as your comments about evolution...well, if you cannot see the truth in the theory, then you are beyond help anyway.
(BTW, don't you have a spell-check on your computer? "seperation", "disproveing", "absense", etc. Please, come back when you've managed to get yourself an education and we'll talk some more -- Remember, I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man...)

He hasn't come back, of course. The vast majority of them never do. In the immortal words of Harry S Truman, "If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen."

Kucinich's Uphill Battle

Even after being totally marginalized by the horse-race media, you gotta hand it to Dennis Kucinch, who is still in there swinging.

Over at The Progressive, the ever-insightful John Nichols has a long think piece on Kucinich called Kucinich’s Challenge, wherein he offers a roadmap to the White House for the Kucinich campaign:

The challenge for Kucinich is a real one. He can run according to the rules and be a Democratic Harold Stassen, or he can break the rules and make his campaign a redemptive force. To do the former, he need merely continue campaigning as he now is. To do the latter, he must level with himself and with the voters and offer himself up as a representative of the idealistic insurgency that both the party and the country so sorely need.

An idealistic insurgency is what Gene McCarthy was the godfather of in 1968, which pulled the Democratic party to the left -- unfortunately in ways that it turned out weren't really anticipated in the heat of the battle in 1968.

So, at the risk of it turning into one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations, I think Kucinich ought to take to heart some of Nichols' suggestions, and I also urge each of you to toss a few bucks Dennis's way to help in the campaign.

Let's take back our democracy!

A Blast from the Past

It might behoove us on this Thanksgiving Eve 2007 to take a little trip down memory lane and watch a short video featuring none other than 1940's Republican candidate for President of the United States, Wendell Wilkie -- who was, in his own words, a liberal:

If Wilkie were still alive today, there's no doubt in my mind that he would be a Democrat. Just listen to some of the "controversial" ideas that he's on record as supporting.

Hell, he'd probably be held up as a traitorous supporter of terrorism by the strident assholes in the rightwing blogosphere.

An interesting experiment would be to write down all of the concepts and ideas that Wilkie says he supports in this video and then present it to that right-wing creepizoid of a brother-in-law of yours who's coming over for dinner tomorrow. Ask him what he thinks about someone who espouses such dangerous socialistic ideas, and finally spring the ambush: Tell him that they are direct quotes from the 1940 Republican Party nominee for president.

And then watch him start to squirm. Heh heh heh...

[Hat tip to Mick Lasalle over at the SFGate website.]

May I See Your Papers?

I grew up watching WWII movies, and I was always strongly attracted to those who showed Americans actively engaged behind enemy lines against the tyrannical regime of Der Fuehrer (e.g., The Man Who Never Was, The Counterfeit Traitor, 13 Rue Madeleine, The Rhinemann Exchange, Night Train to Munich, etc.)

One of the most chilling phrases ever heard by those behind-enemy-lines spies came when someone from the Gestapo got suspicious and asked, "May I zee your paperz?"

So it is with some interest that I note that the city of Santa Barbara CA demanded to see the military discharge papers of each and every member of Veterans for Peace before they would allow them to march in their Veterans Day parade.

Did they demand the same thing of the members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Legion before they would allow THEM to march?

I think you already know the answer to that question: No.

Fucking Un-Believable!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any fucking worse for America's veterans, the news today is that the Pentagon is demanding that wounded veterans return a portion of their reenlistment bonuses because...

Because...

Because they were wounded and therefore unable to fulfill their "contract" of reenlistment!

For one of the few times in my entire life (62 years!) I am rendered fucking speechless!

Yeah, that's really "supporting the troops" all right.

McClellan's Smoking Gun

It really doesn't come as a surprise that Scott McClellan, aka Scotty McWeeWee, after leaving his post as Baby Doc's press secretary has written a book.

But what does come as a surprise is his apparent willingness to throw his former masters under the bus over the Valerie Plame affair.

Consider this excerpt, found over at Editor and Publisher:

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself. [Emphasis added]

So there you have it. Little Scotty has apparently grown a conscience and now is not hesitating to point the finger of blame where we knew all along it should have been pointed.

And yet the terminally-spineless weak-kneed sob sisters in the Democratic Party still can't see the necessity to impeach this evil bunch of Mayberry Machiavelli political criminals.

Fox News Porn

Recently I discovered a new website called Fox News Porn that's well worth checking out.

Thanks to the ever-valuable Newshounds (Motto: We watch Fox so you won't have to), they've put together a soft-core porn video that consists of nothing but actual images and sequences broadcast on the Faux Noise Channel. You know, the propaganda arm of the family-values crowd over on the Right, specifically the Rethug Party.

And when you're done with that, be sure to drop by Fox Attacks! where you will find some keen action items, such as lists of advertisers who may not even be aware that they are funding and propagating this breathlessly misogynistic display of barely-legal female flesh. And you can even take the further step of contacting those advertisers and asking them if they are aware of what they are indirectly promulgating, and if they are, requesting that they stop.

Oh, and there's also a list of those entities who have already been contacted and who have so far refused to pull their ads. It makes a handy reference for those of us who believe that we ought to put our money where our mouths are, and not buy anything from these kinds of companies.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1266 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 just 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both 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. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his 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 join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage.

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

OMFG! Now I've Heard it All

This one almost got by me, and I'm glad I finally picked up on it.

Just this week The Chimperor -- without the slightest trace of irony in his voice or demeanor -- said to a group of Indiana businessmen that, of all things, Congress was acting "like a teenager with a new credit card."

Jesus, what fucking rock have does he think we've been under, to take crap like that from the biggest spender the White House has ever seen?

Oh my god, the pure unmitigated gall! I really thought it was a joke when I first heard it, something that slipped out of The Daily Show or something.

But no, he apparently really meant it!

Give me a fucking break. Baby Doc, you're the last person to have even the slightest residue of credibility when it comes to criticizing anyone else for profligate spending.

The Political Compass

Okay, it's a slow day. Sunday afternoon and the rain is falling, I've already read my daily dose of comic strips and such, and then I stumbled on something called The Political Compass.

If you take the test, it will report back where you stand on an economic scale along with an authority/freedom scale.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is where I ended up after answering the questions and getting a plot on the graph:

Go ahead and take the test. See where you stand. And don't worry about not "getting it" -- there's a clear explanation at the end of the test, where you get your own grid marker and get to see what it means.

The Real Casualty Rate in Iraq

We regularly hear that the official casualty numbers from the illegal occupation of Iraq don't seem so bad, in comparison to those of the Vietnam War.

There are a couple of things wrong with this statement. First, so many more soldiers are being kept alive after being wounded now, thanks to 40 years of improved battlefield medical techniques and faster evac from the site of the injury. Back in my day, a soldier who was severely wounded in a firefight spent a much longer time from the time of the injury until a dustoff chopper arrived to take him back to an evac hospital, and once he got there the medical technology was such that the most severely wounded were essentially beyond help.

All that has changed now, and the number of wounded who survive -- albeit with such severe disabilities that they are little more than vegetables -- has vastly increased. The ability of a medic to stop a soldier from "bleeding out" has been enhanced by modern technology, and those severely wounded are whisked away to a medical center much more quickly.

I'd say that the number of dead in this war would exceed 20,000 if the ability to keep them alive was still where it was during Vietnam.

And then you have to add to this the extremely high rate of suicide among returned Iraq War veterans -- a statistic that will not show up in official Pentagon reports.

CBS News recently did a study of veteran suicides and found the shocking statistic that veterans commit suicide at an alarming rate compared to their civilian counterparts. CBS calls it a "hidden epidemic".

For example, in 2005 alone there were 6256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. The vast majority of these occurred in young men between 18 and 24, the very same ones who are on the front line in the War on Terra^tm.

And that was just 2005. If you project a conservative take on those numbers -- say 5000 per year -- over the five years of the Iraq Illegal Occupation, you'll find that the actual casualty number from Baby Doc's Misadventure in the Desert far exceeds that 20,000 noted above.

And for what? As far as I can see, the only "positive" outcome of this nightmare has been a massive redeployment of our tax dollars from government coffers into the greedy pockets of Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, Blackwater, et. al.

I remember an old bumper sticker from the 60s: War is Good Business; Invest Your Son.

Except how many of those slimy motherfuckers have managed to invest any of their precious children?

Terrorist Organizations Get US Aid

Okay, if I have this straight, Der Monkey Feuhrer says that anyone who gives any kind of assistance -- including monetary aid -- to a terrorist organization is on the side of the terrorists. If that person happens to be an American, then he is guilty of treason.

Okay then.

According to a story in, of all places, the Chicago Tribune, the United States Agency for International Development funded groups with ties to terrorism on at least two occasions.

Got that?

So, using Baby Doc's own logic, shouldn't he voluntarily turn himself in for immediate "extraordinary rendition" to Gitmo or someplace even better?

I'm just asking...

Oh Sure, NOW He's Fighting Back

I was pissed at John Kerry in 2004 for refusing to fight back against the Swift Boat Liars for Bush, and my humble opinion is this: That refusal is what cost him the election.

So now Texas windbag and oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is strutting around saying that he'll give one million dollars to anyone who can disprove the allegations made by the lying cohort of Swifties in 2004, funded to the tune of some three million bucks by Pickens.

Shouldn't Pickens' current offer ought to at least match, if not exceed, what he poured into that scurrilous campaign?

But, that aside, now John Kerry has taken up Pickens' challenge and says he'll prove that the lying sack of crap John O'Neill and his pride of prevaricating pricks were wrong when they attacked his military service.

About fucking time, Senator. So where was that zeal, that energy, that outrage in 2004 when we really needed it?

But Pickens, in true Rethug form, says he "wouldn't consider giving Kerry the reward unless Kerry surrenders copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978".

Movies he shot? Military records for years after he was in Vietnam? Jesus, what's next, his first grade report card?

Pickens it seems is already starting to backpedal, having shot his mouth off at some wingnut function, and now is worried that he might actually have to cough up the money. So he counters with what is essentially a gambling bet, that if Kerry can't prove the allegations wrong, he'll have to pull out his own checkbook and pony up his own million dollars.

To his credit, Kerry says he will donate Pickens' million to Paralyzed Veterans of America.

So this one, despite the fact that it's now almost ancient history, will bear watching, if only to see Kerry drag into the pig shit that overblown pompous windbag Pickens.

Choose Your Candidate

Here's a quick 11-question quiz to help you decide, based solely on the issues, which presidential candidate is aligned most closely with your own personal values and opinions.

Go ahead and take it and see for yourself which of the candidates has positions that are the closest to your own. Then I would suggest that you work as hard as you can and give as much money as you can to that candidate.

You can probably guess which one came out on top for me -- no surprises there. But, absent any substantial questions coming up during the "debates" ("diamonds or pearls"??!! Give me a fucking break!) to help you make up your mind, this is as good a way as any to point you in the right direction.

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

Total coalition forces dead: 304
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2256
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1717
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1660
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: 641
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 484.

It is still 431 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Outsourcing Choppers: Bad Idea

And just who didn't see this coming? It seems the US Army has spent some $2.6 billion on new helicopters built in Europe (at least it wasn't China) that, it turns out, have just a small design flaw: They aren't safe to fly on hot days.

And not all that hot. We're talking 80 degree days when they tested them. Imagine what would happen if they had to fly somewhere where it gets really hot.

Like, oh, a desert environment, say.

The more jobs that get outsourced, the lower the quality of the products that come back in as a result of that outsourcing. It's not rocket surgery, folks.

But try telling that to the assholes in the BFEE who are in charge of this shit.

And Speaking of Freedom...

How's this for a telling quotation:

The country was founded on a belief that freedom is an inalienable right that comes from the hand of God himself. That freedom is not a freedom to do what you want; that's anarchy. It is a freedom to do what you ought to do.

That comes straight from the snarling lips of one Don Minnery, who is head of public policy for The Rev James Dobson's Focus on the Fetus Family.

It reminds me of Orwell's famous essay found at the end of 1984 about the Principles of Newspeak, wherein he says that in Newspeak the whole concept of "freedom" is out of the language except in usages such as "the dog is free of fleas".

I've long argued that one of the base concepts of the Religious Right -- and indeed the entire Rethug Party -- is that if freedom is to be abused, it must be taken away. You don't need to look any farther than this fascist asshole to see that they aren't even trying to hide the fact.

First Freedom First Petition

If you have not already done so, please drop by First Freedom First and sign the petition to reaffirm that well-known Wall of Separation.

Here's what the petition says:

We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America's religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:
· Every American should have the right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
· American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
· Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
· Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.
· Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.
We join together, as the most diverse nation in the world, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving this freedom.

Note to Dem Candidates about Iraq

I've always been a big supporter of MoveOn.org, so it was a no-brainer to sign their petition to the four Democratic senators running for president -- Biden, Clinton, Dodd, and Obama -- that they don't have to wait until 2009 to lead us out of Iraq. They can start bringing our troops home now, by leading a filibuster to block any funding bill for the war in Iraq that doesn't include a firm timetable for withdrawal.

It's geared towards veterans and military families, but since that last term is elastic, pretty much anyone can sign it with a clear conscience.

Please consider signing the petition. Let them know how we really feel about the Quagmire in the Desert.

I'm Back!

I'm finally back and more or less recovered from cross-time-zone jet lag. I had absolutely the best time at the Americans United for Separation of State yearly meeting.

It was pretty amazing to see a cross-section of America represented, both geographically and ideologically. And it was especially gratifying to see such a wide range of individuals -- from arrant atheists on one side all the way to ordained ministers and Orthodox rabbis on the other -- come together for one single purpose: To preserve the wall of separation between religion and government.

I also got a chance to meet up with many of my fellow bloggers and put faces with the names of blogs I have regularly checked out. We all got together one night after the general session to hear Barry Lynn himself speak. There were a number of bloggers at the conference, but I do want to mention especially those whom I met up with in the hotel bar the night before the conference: Blue Gal, Yikes! and PoliTits, along with Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy and PZ Myers of Pharyngula. You guys rock!

I also want to encourage everyone who is concerned about the rise of the American Taliban -- the Religious Right (which is, of course, neither) -- and wants to help prevent the conversion of our constitutional government to an Xian Theocracy to join Americans United. You can join for as little as $25 per year, and it's one of the very best places to put your money.

BTW, Xmas is coming up, and guest memberships to AU would make an ideal gift for friends and family.

Going Dark

I'm off tomorrow to Washington DC as a delegate to the national conference of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I'll be back in a week.

In the meantime, keep up the pressure to impeach Darth Cheney!

Impeachment -- The Next Steps

As he said he would, Dennis Kucinich filed HR 333 calling for the impeachment of VP Dick "Crashcart" Cheney on Tuesday.

And then some interesting political judo broke out. Bu$hco Democrat Steny Hoyer moved to table the bill, so the Rethugs, in an attempt to embarrass Nancy Pelosi, sided with Kucinich and voted to have a full house debate on the bill!

So what does Hoyer do? Wanting to avoid that debate, he engineers a vote to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee!

Jesus, talk about some strange bedfellows.

Anyway, now HR 333 resides with that committee, so what can we do to move it along?

Well, glad you asked. Here are the next steps:

1. Call the House Judiciary Committee at 202-225-3951 and demand hearings on H.Res. 333.
2. Sign the petition to email all of the Dems on the committee, telling them how you feel.
3. If you live in the district of a House Judiciary Committee member, call their office and tell them you're a constituent and you want immediate hearings on H.Res. 333. Then join your Congressional District Impeachment Committee and organize a HonkToImpeach rally in front of your Representative's district office.
4. Then keep up the pressure on your Representative every way you can, including letters to the editor, calls to local talk shows, and pointed questions at every community forum attended by your Representative.
5. If your Representative is not on the Judiciary Committee, ask them to cosponsor H Res 333.
6. Start a media campaign including op-ed articles on impeaching Cheney, letters-to-the-editor about the Kucinich resolution, and informational picketing in front of the offices of local media, particularly in Detroit for Conyers and NY City for Nadler (see the media activism kit for help). And also ask the media talking head shows to give the Republicans the impeachment debate they claim they want.
7. Ask pollsters to poll the public on impeachment, especially of Cheney.

[Thanks to After Downing Street for the activist steps listed here.]

"If the President Does It, That Means It's Not Illegal..."

And that bit of political wisdom comes directly to us from the now-infamous David Frost interview with Tricky Dick Nixon a couple of years after he had left the White House in shame. Proving that Tricky Dick remained unrepentant about his crimes in office.

I guess, then, that it's probably too much to ask that Baby Doc and the rest of the BFEE -- who are not fit to wash Tricky Dick's underwear -- to man up and confess that they believe the same way. All of them, every last motherfucker in the Bu$hco Maladministration.

However, we do have the privilege of seeing the next Attorney General publicly saying basically the same fucking thing in his hearing before the Senate committee hearings. So it's not like the bastards are trying to hide it from us. They're just counting on us remaining loyal sheeple who will nod our heads in agreement and tune in to Faux Noise for a quick uptake on what's happenin' out there in fair-and-balanced land.

Well, that's not going to happen. Not as long as those of us out here in Left Blogistan can still hit a keyboard with enough accuracy to call bullshit on them.

For an insightful and spot-on-the-money analysis of Mukasey's ideas, see John Nichols' Mukasey Is (Much) Worse Than Gonzales over at The Nation.

And make sure you encourage both of your own senators vote "NO!" on Mukasey when his appointment comes to the full senate for their "advice and consent".

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1252 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 just 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both 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. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his 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 join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage.

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

Kucinich Won't Back Down

Ohio congressman and Dem presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is on a roll, and he won't back down. After months of calling for the impeachment of Darth Cheney and having those calls fall on deaf ears -- at least at the congressional level; the people are behind him -- it looks like he's pretty much had it.

On Tuesday he will introduce a "privileged resolution" calling for the House of Representatives to bring impeachment proceedings against VP "Shooter" Cheney.

A privileged resolution is one that pretty much jumps to the head of the line and gets voted on by the full House, without having to slog through committee arguments and having weakening compromises stuffed into it.

So once Kucinich introduces it, let's all contact our representative and tell them that we want them to vote YES on this important resolution.

There's an old saying that if you cut off a dog's tail, it will live; if you cut off its head, it will die. Well, I've long held that VP Crashcart was the one really pulling the strings for Prezdint Pinocchio, so if we get rid of him we'll be well on the road to national recovery. Baby Doc will have to appoint a "moderate Republican" (if that's not an oxymoron these days...) to replace him.

And that will leave the field open for the next round of impeachment proceedings. I haven't quite yet given up hope that the Dems will finally say "enough is enough!" and do the right thing.

Go, Patty, Go!

My own senator, Patty Murray, delivered the Dem's weekly radio address today, and she laid it on the line when it comes to the BFEE and veterans.

"The president can call on Democrats to follow him in lockstep all he wants, but when it comes to caring for our veterans, we are not about to start taking advice from George Bush," she said.

Patty Murray has been a long-time advocate for veterans' rights and veterans' issues, and she is the first woman to sit on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. We veterans here in Washington state consider ourselves lucky to have her. Whenever I feel like I've given up on the Democratic Party, all I have to do is look around to Patty Murray and my hopes are regenerated.

Go, Patty, go!

Dems Cave. Again.

Jesus, what the fuck is it with the Dems? Now both Schumer and Feinstein have caved in on the Mukasey appointment and say that they will both vote to approve the fucker.

And that means that he'll go out of the Judiciary Committee for a full vote in the Senate. Who will no doubt confirm the asshole as the next AG.

I don't get it. The Dems were elected to a majority in 2004 to put a stop to the BFEE's crimes and injustice, its trashing of the constitution, and its illegal war in Iraq.

How in the hell do they think they are going to ever accomplish this if they keep shooting themselves in their feet?

Right now I'm more pissed off at my own party than I have ever been.

And that's saying a lot.

I'll Take My Toys and Go Home

The news today is that Baby Doc is whining that if Rudy's boy Mukasey doesn't get approval as the new AG, he just won't nominate anyone else and we'll be without an Attorney General in "time of war".

He's also sniveling that Mukasey is being held to a "unique and unfair standard".

Yeah, like the fact that he won't say whether waterboarding is torture. And Der Monkey Fuehrer is afraid that if we say we won't waterboard suspected terrorists, then Al Qaeda will know how they won't be tortured and they won't commit a terrorist act(!).

I know, it a piece of twisted logic that doesn't make any sense to me either, and it certainly doesn't account for "suicide bombers" who, by definition, couldn't give a shit about any kind of post-attack torture.

All in all, I hope the Dems keep Mukasey from the AG post. After what we've gone through with the last couple of AGs, it'll probably be a good thing to limp along without one for another 445 days.

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

Total coalition forces dead: 304
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2242
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1689
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1646
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: 627
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 470.

It is still 445 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.