Complete the Mission?

That's what Der Monkey Fuehrer said yesterday when he laid the traditional Memorial Day wreath at Arlington National Cemetery. And he said it without a trace of shame or embarrassment that he personally had sent over 2460 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to their deaths in the bloody sand of Iraq.

Thanks once again to Bartcop for this
picture of Baby Doc, made up using the faces of the men he sent to death.

It is a slap in the face to every serviceman and woman, every veteran, to see that fucking draft dodger swagger out at our premier national cemetery and do that smirking chimp impression while telling us to "complete the mission".

Complete the mission.

Not once, however, has he been able to articulate clearly either exactly what that mission is or what it will look like when it is completed.

We're on the same path in Iraq as we were in Vietnam. Henry Kissinger sold out the Saigon government and every American on the ground in Vietnam when he secretly told China -- in 1972 -- that a communist takeover in Vietnam was "acceptable" if the US could have a "decent interval" to withdraw troops so it wouldn't look like we lost the war.

Indecent interval is more like it. Exactly how many Americans died after that conversation? I don't know and I'm too fucking outraged to do the research myself.

But I do know this: The same thing will happen in Iraq, and how many more Americans will have to die between now and the time we can successfully extricate ourselves from the quagmire in the sand, because we don't want to "lose face"?

Lose face???!!! I'd rather have my country admit that it was wrong and lose face than have any more of my brothers and sisters lose actual eyes, ears, limbs and lives over this fucking mess.

Complete the mission. Yeah, I agree -- if the mission is to bring our troops home.

Now.

How Many Veterans Records? All of Them

In response to my earlier post on the stolen VA records, Anonymous has a good point. How many veterans were discharged from the military since the alleged cutoff date of 1976 cited in the original stories?

I don't have that figure, but according the 2000 US Census, out of a population of 208.1 million civilians age 18 and older, 26.4 million were veterans. Even given that a number of vets have died in the meantime, plus another bunch have been discharged and have become veterans, it looks like the data that was stolen includes just about every fucking veteran out there, going back for-fucking-ever -- not, as we were initially informed, only those discharged since 1975.

I ought to have done this verification myself. That 26 million figure should have just leaped out at me. Innumeracy -- it can even bite the pros.

It would behoove all of us to check and keep checking our credit scores on a regular basis. Who knows how big this could get?

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 735days 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Illegal Occupation of Iraq: 2454 2463
Total coalition forces dead: 222
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1721
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1163
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1123
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: 104

Number of days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration: still 970 days

Pay No Taxes!

According to Denny Fatboy Make-That-Three-Triple-Cheeseburgers Hastert, Squeaker of the House, the Marie Antoinette of American politics, and fulltime Repugnican prick, "well, folks, if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two, you don't pay any taxes. So you probably if you don't pay any taxes, you are not going to get a big tax cut. Now, if you earn $1 million a year, you are going to pay about $400,000 of taxes. Maybe you'll get a $40,000 tax cut ..."

Okay, I make somewhat more than $40,000, so I guess I'll have to pay taxes only on that amount over $40,000. So I am going to go right down to my payroll office and have them adjust my withholding. And I'm going to write to the IRS and ask for a refund of all the taxes I've paid in excess over the last five or seven years or how-the-fuck-ever-many years you can go back. I'll tell 'em Denny Hastert sent me.

Guilty Guilty Gulty!!!

Breaking news: Kenny-boy Lay and Jeffy-boy Skilling found guilty on charges of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and making false statements. Off to jail for up to 45 years for these two oligarchs of the new economy.

Baby Doc, who originally gave Lay the nickname "Kenny-boy" has been backpedaling his friendship with the little frogfaced motherfucker ever since he was first accused. But now that his own polls are plummeting out of sight, it won't be long before Kenny-boy himself will be saying, "hey, I barely knew the guy".

Rolling Back the Clock on Mine Safety

To the oligarchical fatcat pigs who now hold the reins of the presidency, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, labor is just another commodity, a raw material to be used up, worn out and thrown away. It's like all of the advances of the last 100 years -- Teddy Roosevelt's Trust Busting, sometimes called the Square Deal, his cousin Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in particular -- didn't happen.

Can anyone remember a more self-absorbed out-of-touch bunch of assholes being in positions of power in this country? You'd have to go back over 100 years, to the 1890s, the hey-day of Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the American oligarchy to find this kind of thinking.

This is exactly what the powers behind the throne are attempting to do: Roll back the clock to the "good old days" of child labor, no minimum wage, no health and safety guarantees, and twelve-hour workdays, with zero regulations to reign in the fatcat corporatists who think it is their god-given right to rule us lesser mortals with an iron fist of greed.

We already see the results of deregulation in the mining industry. We have had 26 coal mine deaths already just this year. While it's not yet anywhere near the 3,242 deaths that occurred in 1907, the highest year for mining fatalities, it's on track to surpass the 29 deaths in 1998, the lowest year on record.

Mining remains dangerous work, and it's incumbent on us as a society to make that work as safe as possible. This becomes extremely more difficult when the Baby Doc Maladminstration, as it has done time and again with regulatory agencies, has appointed one David Lauriski, a mining industry executive, to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

It's a scary time for this nation and its people. And we have to fight these dirty bastards every step of the way. Join a union if you can -- for those of us who work for a living, unions are the only entities who are concerned with the lives and health and safety of the workers. If you think you can rely on the goodwill largess of an employer for the betterment of your wages, hours and working conditions, then you are a fool.

Hacking Diebold

According to a May 19 article on the InfoWorld website, by one Robert X. Cringely, it is about as difficult to hack into a Diebold voting machine as it is to steal the prize out of a Cracker Jack box.

Yes, that's very comforting to know, now that fully half of the states will be using electronic voting this year. Blackbox Voting has a full report on the liabilities inherent in using the machines, and it's not a pretty sight.

The machines are easily exploited by using "back door" entries that are -- get this -- a feature of the machines, installed in the software to allow easier upgrading.

So anyone with a half a degree in computer tech can, if they know what they are doing, hack into any Diebold machine and install a routine to, say, count five Republican votes for every four Democratic votes. Nothing blatant, no red flags, no flashing lights, just a few extra votes on the side that "deserves" to win. Unplug the machine and the count vanishes into the ether. No muss, no fuss and no Republicans left on base.

"What they’re proposing as a vulnerability is actually a functionality of the system," spokesman David Bear said, predictably. "Instead of recognizing the advantages of the technology, we keep ringing up 'what if' scenarios that serve no purpose other than to confuse and in some instances frighten voters."

Well. How about that. I say we ought to be frightened, and not let these smarmy snake-oil salesmen charm us into relinquishing contro of our voting system.

Optically scanned paper ballots. That's the only way to go, and I urge everyone to contact your state voting officials and let them know that using these infernal machines is an unacceptable method of counting our votes.

Frog March! Frog March!

Cheney to testify in Plame Leak! According to the Raw Story website, Patrick Fitzgerald has some kind of evidence linking VP Crashcart to the Libby leak of Plame's name.

I've always said that Baby Doc pulled a Nixon when choosing a vice president: Pick someone that NOBODY wants to see as president, and you've got both an impeachment-proof and an assassination-proof presidency. Despite the fact that I used to have a button, back in the days of the dear departed and roundly unlamented days of our first Imperial Presidency, that said "Lee Harvey Oswald, Where Are You Now that We Really Need You?", not even a psycho nutjob like Artie Bremer would have wanted Spiro Agnew as president, and the same obtains today with Cheney.

Gonzales to Journalists: You're Next

In what appears to be some kind of trial balloon, Grand Inquisitor Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales hints at prosecution of journalists who publish "classified" information.

Appearing on ABC's talking heads program This Week, Torquemada said that, with regard to tracking down the leak of the secret domestic spying operation, "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," i.e., that the journalists who published the story could be prosecuted.

Prosecuted for disclosing an illegal government operation. Prosecuted for doing their fucking jobs.

"I will say that I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect, the right of the press. But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," Torquemada said, without a trace of irony, while seeming to deny that the government would wiretap the telephones of journalists.

Jesus, isn't it enough that they have the majority of the lapdog media slavering at their feet? Now they have to track down and stifle the last few reporters who have not sold out their dignity and their souls to the corrupt corporate neofascist BFEE regime.

Veterans' Records Stolen -- Identity Theft Alert

The breaking news today is that an employee of the VA took information home without authorization and immediately let it get stolen by burglars.

The stolen information included the names, birthdates and Social Security numbers for over 26 million veterans. In short, the ideal recipe for massive identity theft.

All living veterans who were discharged after 1976 are affected by this crime -- and at 26.5 million, that's a lot of people.

The government has set up a special alert on the firstgov.gov website at http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml, but if you look at it closely it's pretty circular with the internal links that send you back to firstgov.gov and then back to the page.

The VA is saying, in essence, "don't worry -- we're from the government and we're here to help". But rather than trust them, the wise veteran will monitor his/her credit closely over the next few months.

I kind of feel sorry for the poor sap who was burglarized; he will no doubt lose his job over this -- it's too big an issue for him not to be severely disciplined -- but on the other hand you have to ask what the fuck were you thinking???

"Supporting" the Troops -- Again

The Army Times is carrying a story headlined "VA: Some veterans wrongly denied care".

The story says that "some medical benefits, such as home-based treatment, adult day care and respite care, have been improperly denied to eligible veterans".

Surprise, suprise. The Baby Doc Maladminstration has no qualms about sending these people to war, to get killed, to get limbs blown off, to get maimed for life. That's all fine and good to send cannon fodder out for the furtherance of the Empire, but god forbid they should come and start selfishly demanding medical care for the severe wounds they have received.

This is why the maladorous maladroits in this maladminstration have been consistently underfunding -- by the billions -- VA healthcare. They just don't give a shit about veterans. And all those wounded veterans who are streaming back, with wounds that are far worse than those of us who were in Vietnam would have -- could have -- survived with...well, they're just an embarrassing inconvenience who are better left untreated so they can die an early death from those wounds. It's really a cost-accounting measure: If they die early, then they will no longer be a drain on the public treasury, and no longer a living reminder of the true cost of war.

And you, all of you fucking assholes with your yellow ribbons on the backsides of your gas-guzzling penis-subsitute SUVs who proudly proclaim that you "support the troops", how many of you have even bothered to visit a VA hospital and seen firsthand the results of this illegal war? How many of you have volunteered just a few hours of your precious time at your nearest VA hospital, outreach clinic or community health center? How many of you have written to your congressional representative or you senator to call for mandatory funding of VA health care?

[silence, sound of chirping crickets]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Assholes.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 728 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2436 2454
Total coalition forces dead: 222
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

It has been 1714 days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive".
It has been 1156 days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began.
It has been 1116 days since "Mission Accomplished".
It was only 1347 days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII.

It is still 977 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall! (as if that will help...)

Pelosi Says No to Impeachment?

This is an interesting development: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Chickenweasel) says that impeachment is "off the table" if the Dems win in November.

What the fuck? What the fuck is she up to? Has she drunk the koolaid, too?

The Repugnicans, when they impeached Clinton, had a master plan. They set out to raise the bar to a ludicrous height, and by so doing they gut-shot the Constitutional separation of powers that have served us well for over 200 years. They knew going in that they had a flimsy trumped-up case against a popular president, with absolutely zero chance of winning a conviction in the Senate, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

And it was a brilliant plan -- they pretty much guaranteed that unless their boy, Baby Doc (yes, the fix was in even way back then), was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, impeachment would always be "off the table" because the weak-kneed girlie men (and women) in the Democratic Party would be too afraid their own shadows, too chickenshit to actually bring impeachment proceedings against Baby Doc, for fear of being accused of political retribution, of just wanting to "get even" with the Republicans for the Clinton impeachment.

Word on the street has it that Pelosi wanted impeachment off the table so the Rethug strategists couldn't run against it in November. You know, vote Republican, save the republic, that kind of shit.

What the fuck was she thinking about? Democrats ought to stand for something, and with this corrupt and evil bunch of outlaw BFEE assholes, impeachment ought to be just the beginning. Instead it's stillborn.

Once again I find myself in a party that lacks the balls to stand up for its own values. I guess I'm in the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, the faction that still believes in democracy, still believes that we have a government of laws, still believes in the United States Constitution. And I am sharing the party with a bunch of neo-right Republican-lite corporatist hacks who are nothing more than eager, willing lickspittles to their corporate overlords (can you hear me, Maria Cantwell?).

If we want to win in November, we have to be true to our roots and our core values. Nobody wants to vote for a me-too crybaby who votes progressive only when it doesn't matter -- like voting for cutting off the filibuster of Scalito, but also voting not to confirm. They want it both ways, and they will end up having it neither, and the rest of us will continue to suffer under the oppressive yoke of the neofascist Bushco Cartel.

Supporting Veterans -- Republican Style

Over at VA Watchdog, Larry Scott has a list of members of Congress, both House and Senate, compiled by the DAV, showing their relative ratings of their votes on veterans and veterans' issues.

No big surprise to those of us who follow these things, but the Democrats consistently have higher marks than the Republicans. Consistently and completely. So many Democrats got ratings of 100, and so many Republicans received ratings of 0. That's zero. As in nothing. As in naught. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.

Including one Steven Buyer (R-Shitweasel), who just happens to chair the House Veterans Committee.

Take a look at the list and the ratings, and tell me again which party is it that supports America's veterans. And why have we allowed those goddam Repugnican thugs to get away with the Big Lie that they are the party that supports the troops and the veterans?

Six Thousand National Guardsmen to "Protect" Border

You there, you National Guardsmen in Iraq: We've got some good news for you. You're going back to the states. The bad news is those states are Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Out of one sandbox into another.

Who the fuck does Baby Doc think he's fooling? Never mind, I withdraw the question. It's an election year and he has to be seen doing "something" -- never mind what it is -- about the bugbear of illegal immigration. And with his poll numbers now below 30 percent, this is an ideal situation for him. Now all he needs is a couple of "border skirmishes" to pump up the jingoistic adrenaline and get some of that good old "protectin' the homeland" mojo working.

Right about now Mexico must be feeling nervous. The first time (1846) a large number of troops massed on their border with the US, it was heralding an invasion. The last time (1916), it was in advance of an incursion under the command of future WWI Commander General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. Coincidentally (or not), Pershing also initially had 6,000 troops under his command -- a number which grew to 12,000 by the time of the actual incursion -- or "punitive expedition" -- into Mexico proper.

I guess the only way to stave off United States imperialism is to have -- or say you have -- nuclear weapons. This is why Iran is in such a hurry to develop them. Of the so-called Axis of Evil, Iraq was invaded and North Korea left alone.

That certainly sends a clear message, so now I suppose Mexico will think it has to develop its own nuclear weapons program.

Every goddam country in the world who believes they have reason to fear US imperialism will also think that. And when that happens, we are fucked.

Innumeracy Still Reigns Supreme

I have argued in this blog before that Innumeracy is one of the worst things that has happened to this nation, even worse than illiteracy. It's really kind of a "pet peeve" of mine.

So here is a prime example of it, some dolt spewing phony statistics that might sound good to the average Moron-American reader, but which simply do not hold up under scrutiny.

Today my South Puget Sound outlet of the SCLM, The Olympian, carried a letter headlined Gasoline Situation isn’t so Bad After All from a local yokel who is apparently taking his talking points from some rightwing gasbag blowhard asshole (can you say "Rush Limbaugh"?).

The letter claimed that today's gas prices aren't so bad, Europeans pay much more per gallon, and that after taking into account inflation and the rise in the minimum wage, we are paying less per gallon, by about half, than we did in the gas-shortage 1970s. He also claims -- naturally without citation of a source -- that the price of gas during the so-called energy crisis was the equivalent in today's dollars of ... $7.00 per gallon!!

Well, he is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts.

It is more than disingenuous to point to those artificially-inflated gasoline price spikes of the so-called energy crisis/gas shortage of the 1970s as a base line and then claim that, after accounting for inflation and the rise of the minimum wage, today's prices are actually lower.

In fact, they are not.

According to zFacts.com, in October of 1973 gas was 39 cents a gallon; it hit its peak "gas shortage" price of 55 cents a gallon in July of 1974. In 2005 dollars (see the Inflation Calculator), gas leaped from $1.72 to $2.29 per gallon in just nine months.

Even at its prior historical high point, a brief spike to $1.37 per gallon at the start of the Iraq-Iran War in March of 1981, it was still only an inflation-adjusted $3.07 in today's dollars.

Neither, of course, is anywhere near that ridiculous $7.00 talking-point fantasy figure.

When I started college in the fall of 1963 gasoline was 30 cents a gallon (and even less at the off-brand stations -- remember them?). Keeping up with inflation, it ought to cost $1.83 a gallon. Instead it is nearly twice that amount.

The Federal minimum wage in 1963 was $1.25 per hour. Keeping up with inflation, it ought to be $7.64, but in 2006 it is still only $5.15.

In 1963 a minimum-wage employee had to work 14 minutes to buy a gallon of gas. Today that same employee has to work 37 minutes for that same gallon. Even in high-minimum-wage Washington State ($7.63 an hour), it now takes 25 minutes of work per gallon of gas.

When gas prices climb steadily towards $4.00 per gallon, when the chairman of Exxon-Mobil can retire with a $400 million bonus, when Big Oil profits are calculated in the billions of dollars per quarter, then it is time to impose an excess profits tax on these greedy corporations.

But thanks to our old friend Innumeracy, don't count on a groundswell of demand for that to happen.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 721 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

Karl Rove Back in the News

Word on the street has it that Mister Invisible, Karl Rove, is still in trouble and may end up in jail after all. Here's a little song to commemorate that event, should it come to pass. This is a parody of Joni Mitchell's Raised on Robbery:

Tweaked on Treachery
© 2005 Dennis Mansker

He was sitting in a cell at the graybar hotel,
Wondering how he got there,
Feeling sorry for himself.
A little secret-telling, giving up a name,
It was just a lady, Valerie Plame.
I said she's going down,
Wilson alone is such a shame,
He gets the blame, she gets the killin' flame.
I was a joker,
I claimed it was just a game.
Hey, Dubya, you got lots of clout,
I want out of prison,
And you can get me out.
Ain't no need of thinkin',
I was tweaked on treachery.

I talked to Bob Novak,
But I didn't say her name,
I said Joe Wilson's wife,
But it could be any dame.
I try and I try, I can't make any sense.
They're calling me a traitor,
I thought the truth was a defense.
I'm mean and I'm schemin',
I was tweaked on treachery.

Joe Wilson went to Niger once,
Was lookin' all around for yellowcake.
There wasn't any for Saddam to buy,
Showed our evidence was all fake.
He wrote a story in the New York Times
Put Bush in the ditch,
I won't get any rest,
That son of a bitch,
His wife's life's risky--
I was tweaked on treachery.

You know I'm not bad lookin',
But I do feel like a dope.
The guys call me honey,
When they want to play some "drop the soap".
Bush, where you goin'?
Don't go yet,
I'm still in prison, you're in my debt.
You said I'd be pardoned.
I was tweaked on treachery.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq War Illegal Occupation: 2436
Total coalition force soldiers dead: 220
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

It has been 1704 days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive".
It has been 1149 days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began.
It has been 1109 days since "Mission Accomplished".
It was only 1347 days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII.

It is still 984 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall!

Friday Cat Blogging

PTSD? What PTSD?

Out of all the new veterans coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, less than 25% of those who show signs of post-traumatic stress are referred for mental health treatment or evaulation.

According to a GAO report, about 5% of veterans returning from combat tours showed signs of being at risk. This in itself is a questionable number. Apparently someone interviewed these guys when they got back and made a decision based on their answers to a series of questions whether they were affected by PTSD.

Bullshit. It can take literally years for PTSD symptoms to appear. I know this from personal experience with friends of mine who were in Vietnam thirty-plus years ago. Asking a few loaded questions the minute someone steps off the plane is not going to get you anywhere. Take a look at the questions at the bottom of the news story and tell me what you would do. You just got off the plane, you haven't seen your family in a year, and some whitecoat asshole is asking a bunch of questions, a "yes" answer to any one of which could trigger an evaluation and a delay in getting home.

Let's do a followup on these same guys in a year or two or twelve and see if the PTSD symptoms develop over time. I think you will see a very different set of statistics.

President Jebby? Yeah, Surprise, Surprise

In a non-news story that at this point should surprise absolutely no one, Baby Doc is starting to talk up baby brother Jebby as the next pResident.

Jebby has said he won't run in 2008, but what the fuck does that mean? He's a Bush, for crissakes. That's what they do. They lie.

The ABC news story points out that while Der Monkey Fuehrer is posting polls in the low thirties, 55 percent of Florida voters think Jebby is doing a good job.

Only 55%. The ABC whore media outlet makes it out that this is something to crow over. Well, in comparison to Big Brother's polls, I guess it is, but you'd think someone who thinks he is presidential material would be ashamed of 55%, not proud of it. I don't know now what Baby Doc's approval ratings were when he was goobernator of Tex-ass, but I'm willing to be that the knuckledragging redneck participants in the slanted Texas polls gave him a higher rating than that. And that was after seeing firsthand what the little fucker did to their state.

I'm tempted to say that this is something worth watching, but I have the feeling that it's already a slam-dunk and Baby Bush is going to be the nominee. The BFEE can't afford to let the office slip to a lesser mortal.

Sorry, John McCain. All that sucking up you've been doing to the religious-right-fundo-wackjobs will have been for naught. It won't have gotten you the nomination, but all you will have lost is your dignity, self-respect, integrity and soul.

Work for the Disabled? Not.

In a surprising story out of Texas, we learn that 70 Federal agents raided a nonprofit corporation in El Paso alleging the company defrauded the government.

The National Center for Employment of the Disabled had a series of big fat lucrative government contracts ($579.9 million in no-bid defense contracts) to provide the US Army with uniforms and hazmat suits, with the contractual proviso that 75% of the work had to be performed by the severely disabled.

Turns out that the actual number was somewhat less than that: 60%? 50%? No, it was actually 7.8%.

Texas? Corruption? Outright theft from the government? CEO likely a friend of Baby Doc? Check, check and double check. Nothing more to see here. Move along...

Tens of Millions

That's how many phone records the government has gone through, using "data mining" techniques, in the War on Terra^tm. There's a chance yours are in there. Chances are even better that those of us out here in Left Blogistan who have been, shall we say, less reticent in our criticism of One Party Rule are also in there.

Tens of millions of telephone records. Are all of those people in telephone contact with Al Qaeda? Probably not, since the data mining was intended to seek out patterns of suspected "terrorist activity". Whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. When I go out this Saturday to wave Stop the War signs on my local freeway overpass, that can be considered by the jackbooted thugs in the BFEE Police State to be potential "terrorist activity". Remember, if you're not with us, you are with the terrorists.

"No laws were broken," Baby Doc had the audacity to say today in a hastily-convened appearance after the USA Today story broke yesterday. He denied that his maladminstration is "trolling through the personal lives of Americans".

Liar.

Only out-of-country calls are alleged by the government to have been analyzed. Bullshit. Even if that were true -- which I seriously doubt -- the NSA sill has a huge database of domestic calls in their possession, and if the data exists, it will be analyzed. I work in a statistical research unit, and I know what the siren song of raw data can do to a hotshot analyst; there's no way that the data won't be analyzed.

The major telephone service providers -- Verizon, Bell South and ATT -- were happy to provide NSA with their records. I'm happy to say, however, that Qwest, standing almost alone, told the government to pound sand. Not that it does me any good; they are my phone service provider, but I have Verizon mobile and that's where I make all my long-distance calls.

And finally, let's not forget that this happened at NSA under the watch of General Mikey, and this is reason enough to stop his nomination as head of the CIA. But I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.

Oceana vs. Eastasia

Oceana was at war with Eastasia. Oceana had always been at war with Eastasia. Except when Oceana was at war with Eurasia, and then it had always been at war with Eurasia.

That was from Orwell's 1984, in case you didn't recognize it.

Why am I telling you this? Because the Taliban -- you remember them, fundo Islamist nutcases who took over Afghanistan and shielded Osama Bin Forgotten -- are no longer considered terrorists.

Yep, even though they are still killing American soldiers in their little corner of the sandbox, according the the US State Department, they didn't make the cut. Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Hizbullah all did, but not our good buddies in the Taliban.

Check it out and see if you can figure it out. I sure as hell can't. These fundo-religio-wacko nutsack thugs are engaged in behavior that anywhere else in the world would get them branded as terrorists.

Not by our State Department, though. Kindasleazy Rice must know something we don't know. I wonder what it is...

Outrage Upon Outrage

This is how the Bush Maladminstration is making you, me and everyone safer. The Nation is carrying the David Cole story in its current edition of NYU graduate student Mohammed Yousry, who took on the thankless job of translating Arabic for the lawyers representing blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first WTC attack.

For his trouble, Yousry has now been convicted of "supporting terrorism" and faces a twenty-year stretch in the graybar hotel. And, from all anyone can tell, all he did was translate at the direction of Rahman's attorneys.

But since one of the attorneys involved, Lynn Stewart, was also charged and convicted, I guess the federal prosecutors figured anyone else involved had to be guilty as well. (Stewart's conviction was bogus as well -- naturally -- but Yousry was and remains, in all respects, an innocent victim of the jackbooted thugs, the evil minions of the BFEE.)

Read the full story on the Nation website and tell me again how people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Not in Bushco Amerka, it appears.

Thirty-one and Dropping

According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, Der Monkey Fuehrer's approval rating has dropped to yet another new low, 31%.

To put it in perspective, thanks to Political Arithmetik, here are the record low percents for the previous ten presidents:

• Truman, 22%, 14 Feb 1952 (all-time low).
• Eisenhower, 48%, 1 Apr 1958
• Kennedy, 56%, 17 Sep 1963
• Johnson, 35%, 12 Aug 1968
• Nixon, 23%., 7 Jan 1974
• Ford, 37%, 13 Jan 1975 and 31 Mar 1975
• Carter, 28%, 2 Jul 1979
• Reagan, 35%, 31 Jan 1983
• Bush (GHW), 29%, 2 Aug 1992
• Clinton, 37%, 6 Jun 1993

So at this point Baby Doc has a lower approval rating than all but four of the last ten presidents, and he's been losing an average of one point per month since January 2005. But it's early in his second term, and those numbers can only go lower -- barring some "unforeseen" circumstance (like attacking Iran) that will result in an irrational rally-'round-the-flag boost.

As it is, he is at the lowest point ever recorded for a president at this point in his second term. I can't wait for him to hit that magic number of 21%. At one percent per month, it'll be ten more months until it happens, but when it does, I'm buying the beer.

How Many More Days Until it is Officially a Police State?

An active duty general as head of the CIA? Even some Republicans are balking at the nomination of Air Force General Michael Hayden as CIA director. Hayden, as director of the NSA, was instrumental in the widespread advance of wiretaps and other invasive surveillance techniques on American citizens.

Once again Baby Doc is demonstrating, publically, unabashedly and blatantly, his disregard for individual liberties and personal freedom.

Jimmy Carter's CIA Director, Stansfield Turner (himself a retired Navy admiral) says about General Mikey, "If he interprets the law as he appears to be interpreting it, I think it's bad for the country to have the chief of intelligence having telephones in the United States monitored without somebody else approving it."

At least some in Der Monkey Fuehrer's own party are digging their heels in on this one.

Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says Hayden "is the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time." And Susan Collins (R-ME) says that Hayden at least should resign or retire from the Air Force and "put to rest questions about whether an active duty military officer should lead the CIA at this time."

No question of that happening, though. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte (previously famous for being an unindicted felon in the Iran Contra scandal) says Hayden "has no such plans and calls him a 'very, very independent-minded' individual who wouldn't bow to any Pentagon pressure."

Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my ass.

Out of Control and Out of Touch

It's with an odd mix of incredulity and astonishment that I read the story that the "high point" of Baby Doc's dictatorship presidency has been ... wait for it ... [drumroll] ... catching a seven pound bass!

As if we needed any more proof that this is a man who is totally out of touch with reality, but here it is. Catching a fucking fish out of his own lake on his own ranch! That's his "high point"? Catching a fish that was no doubt released there the day before, starved to the point where it would go for anything that remotely resembled food? Which is about the only way he could catch a fish.

Of course a large number of the administration-whore media outlets in the SCLM/MSM are trying to pass it off as a "joke". Naturally, since they can't stand the thought that the man they annointed and put into office in 2000 would be so shallow, so out of touch, so out of control that he would seriously claim that the high point of his entire presidency was catching a fish.

Bullshit. That's what I say. He said it and he meant it.

And since he LOVES that fucking ranch so goddam much, let's send his sorry ass back there permanently.

AIDS Test for Everyone?

That's what's in the works for everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 (why those particular cutoff ages were chosen isn't clear) if the Center for Disease Control gets its way, according to yesterday's news.

Okay, I'm all for making every possible -- and reasonable -- attempt to stop the transmission of the HIV virus. And testing everyone could go a long ways towards achieving that laudable goal.

BUT... my biggest concern is this: What will be done with that information?

Apparently there's no provision for counseling people who are discovered to be infected and did not know it. Will the information be available -- either officially or unofficially -- to employers? To health insurers? Others? I do not want to allow employment discrimination (hiring, firing, promotions) based on whether someone test positive for HIV, and I sure as hell do not want the already corrupt and inhumane insurance companies to have access to that information. They are already out of control and we don't need to enable them any further. They already have a policy that routinely denies lifesaving medical care whenever possible, and access to an individual's HIV status would give them the green light to just refuse coverage -- for health care, for life insurance, even automobile insurance.

I would like to see some ironclad safeguards in place to prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands before I could support this proposal.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 714 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

It's About Time

The chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Larry Craig (R-ID), is sponsoring a bill that would rescind a rule dating from the Civil War that prohibits attorneys from being paid more than $10 to assist veterans with claims against the government.

The Army Times has the story on the particulars of SB 2694, the Veterans’ Choice of Representation Act.

I urge everyone to contact your senators and urge them to get behind this bill. It's long overdue, and veterans have too long been left to the whims of the VA and the biases of the various VSOs, such as the American Legion and the VFW (both of whom would be, let us say, less than charitable towards radical veterans such as yours truly).

"This overdue change will significantly improve veterans’ access to the VA and expedite just outcomes," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is cosponsoring the bill with Craig.

Amen to that. And props to these two Republicans who are willing to buck the tide when it comes to veterans' needs that have been up to now ignored by their cohorts in the party in power.

Cynic that I am, I am sure it being an election year has absolutely nothing to do with it...

Feds: Don't Count on Us

In the event of a bird flu pandemic, the federal government is already creating a plausible deniability scenario. As reported in the Seattle Times, the White House released a report that tells state and local governments to make their own preparations because "all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic".

Thanks, but after the Katrina disaster -- which is still occurring, not that you'd really know that from the SCLM/MSM -- I don't think we really want the feds in here fucking things up more than they will be already.

As usual, we're on our own, and even more so out here on the left coast, in Blue State Paradise.

So I'm stocking up on more non-perishable food and jugs of drinking water. I already had a small supply that I put up after the earthquake of 2001, but I'm increasing the total amount, in anticipation of quarantines and travel restrictions. Better safe than sorry. Plan ahead. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Etc.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq War Illegal Occupation: 2412
Total coalition force soldiers dead: 214
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

It has been 1697 days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive".
It has been 1142 days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began.
It has been 1102 days since "Mission Accomplished".
It was only 1347 days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII.

It is still 991 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall!

Friday Cat Blogging

It Had to Happen -- After All, They Are Republican Crybabies

Now Baby Doc and his minions, followers, hangers-on and assorted wingnuts are angry over Stephen Colbert's "assault" on him and his maladministration, and their lapdog media lackeys, at the White House Whore Press dinner at the Hinckley Hilton the other night.

Waaaaaah! Somebody called the waaaaaahmbulance! They all got their little feelings hurt when someone had the audacity, the nerve, the balls to make a series of clever and pointed jokes at the expense of the Codpiece Monkey, The Simpering Chimperor, the Empty Sleevejob.

Talk about people with absolutely no sense of humor. Where was their outrage when Bill Clinton was verbally attacked -- violently, egregiously, slanderously -- by the notorious "shock jock" Don Imus at a similar function a few years back?

Nowhere, that's where. They were rolling in the aisles, just so long as their own sacred cow -- i.e., themselves -- wasn't getting gored.

Piss on the whole lot of them, the bunch of wimpy-assed crybabies in the maladmininstration and their wussy-weenie lackeys in the SCLM/MSM.

Dan Froomkin has a lengthy column in the WaHoPo on the Colbert fallout that's well worth reading, and you might drop by Thank You Stephen Colbert to post your well-wishes for his incisive observations on Baby Doc and the deplorable state of the media.

Let's let Jon Stewart have the last word: Colbert "...was under the impression they had hired him to do the thing he does on TV every night..."

Imagine that.

You Can't Make this Shit Up #284

Guess who said this: "It's important for there to be fiscal discipline in Washington D.C. if we want to keep this economy strong."

Bill Clinton? George H. W. Bush? Ronald Reagan?

Nope, it was Baby Doc himself, apparently thinking that he's still doing that "self-mockery" comedy routine at the Whore Press Dinner.

Without a trace of irony, Baby Doc is threatening a veto -- his very first, if he really does it -- over a congressional emergency spending bill that is inching up to $109 billion.

Baby Doc wants it kept at $92.2 billion (plus some bird-flu earmarks that will push it to around $94.5 billion). I haven't seen the bill, but I'm willing to bet good money that it's heavily larded with pork for Repugnican home districts. An actual veto would be not only in order but long overdue.

But the fact remains that the Empty Sleevejob has been spending money like a foretopman on shore leave since he slithered his way into the presidency, and now all of a sudden he's a born-again fiscal responsibility-er? Keeping this house-of-cards-built-on-sand economy strong?

Give me a fucking break.

Separation of Church and State Alive but on Life Supports

In a story out of San Francisco, the 9th Circuit has ruled that a county social services department does not have accommodate the beliefs of a radical christianist who thinks he has the right -- no the duty -- to evangelize, to proselytize others at his workplace

This is a county department. There is such a thing as separation of church and state. Not that it matters to Daniel Berry, the plaintiff in the case, a glassy-eyed bible-thumping true believer. And, interestingly enough, not that it matters to the US Equal Employment Commission, who encouraged Berry in this ridiculous behavior. Berry "should be allowed to discuss religion with 'receptive' clients and display a Spanish-language Bible and 'Happy Birthday Jesus' sign in the cubicle where he counsels them".

These are the fucking people who are supposed to be looking out for our rights! What the fuck is the matter with them? I work for a state agency in Washington State, and the last thing I need when I go to work is to have to put up with some lame-brain bible-thumping moron trying to cram Jesus down my throat. And it makes it so much worse that Berry is also shoving Jesus up the ass of the people he is counseling.

I don't know what kind of counseling he is doing, but I will bet good money that his clients are most likely poor, under-educated, and desperate. Exactly the kind of mix that will make them appear to be "receptive" to the Right Reverend Berry because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they did not put up a receptive-appearing front.

Screw Daniel Berry and his proselytizing. If I want Jesus, I know where to find him. At this point, thanks to the televangelists who spew their drivel into the airwaves (take a drive through the rural south some time; them and draft-dodging oxycontin-addict and confessed drug criminal Rush Limbaugh are about all you can hear on the radio for long stretches), so does everyone who lives on this goddam planet. We don't need Berry and his bible-thumping morons to tell us.

Screwing the Vets -- Again

Over at Main and Central, there's a link to a blog post on Low and Left that contains some shocking information:

Lt. Gen. Terry Scott (U.S. Army, ret.), who is Chairman of the Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC), wants to study vets who get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) as well as VA compensation. The goal is an offset (reduction) in payments to veterans. The VDBC's charter doesn't allow this, so, in an unconstitutional move, he asked Congress to interpret their own law, to give him permission to do this. And, unbelievably, he's got that permission. Veterans...it's time to get angry.

Thanks for serving your country, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out to your freeway onramp with your "disabled vet will work for food" sign. Fuckin' A it's time to get angry. These fuckers think they can get away with anything and the veteran community will just roll over and take it.

Fuck them. This is a bunch of bullshit and we're not going to take it.

You can reach General Scott by email at veterans@vetscommission.intranets.com, or by phone at (202) 756-7729. Let's show the bastards that we still serve our country and our fellow veterans.

Cruel and Unusual -- and Barbaric -- Punishment

It took nearly 90 minutes of invasive poking and prodding for a team of inept state-employed killers to find a suitable vein in the body of convicted murderer Joseph Clark before they could finally inject enough chemicals to snuff him.

Clark reportedly cried out in pain during the excruciatingly tedious procedure, and at one point said, "It don't work."

The death penalty, as I have argued before, is both cruel and unusual -- if not in its fequency, in its application. And, as Clark said before he died, "it don't work".

It is especially cruel in a case like this. It is also barbaric, and it has no place in a civilized society. It does not do what it is allegedly supposed to do, which is deter others from committing similar crimes. If it did, Texas ought to have nobody on death row, since that state is the king of killing, the earl of executions, the duke of death... and so on.

But it evidently hasn't stopped the murders and other death-penalty crimes in Texas, has it?

It's about time we recognized it for what it really is: Revenge killing -- a concept that was personally known to and accepted by the "founding fathers" at the time this country was established, but has long been outlawed for people like you and me -- which our own government gleefully perpetrates on what seems like a weekly basis somewhere in this country.

Let's put a stop to it. Not that it's going to stop as long as the party of god, guns and good ole "family values" is in power. Yet another reason to elect progressive Democrats to congress this fall.

RFID, Privacy and Room 101

Less than 20% of Americans have even heard of RFID. That in itself is a shocking statistic, since RFID has the potential of becoming the Big Brother tool that everyone has been wary of -- or should have been wary of -- for years.

When we adopted the cats, the animal shelter wouldn't let them go without an ID chip implanted in the backs of their necks. And that's what I thought we'd eventually come to with people: Parents would be convinced, after an epidemic series of bogus "missing child" alerts, that it would be to their panicky benefit to have their children chipped, and after a couple of generations it would be second nature to everyone except the lunatic fringe, who would still complain about their privacy concerns.

Well, it turns out that "they" can do it surreptitiously, clandestinely, without any kind of invasive procedure, by just planting so-called "inventory control" RFID tags in our clothing.

The Levi Strauss Company is just the latest corporation to jump on the RFID bandwagon, which bodes ill for me, since there is not a time that I can recall in my now-lengthy lifetime when I did not own at least one pair of Levi jeans.

Oh, sure, the technocrats behind the whole RFID movement continue mouthing the usual platitudes about protecting our privacy, blah blah blah, but as we all know, if a technology -- or anything else -- can be used for evil, it will be used for evil.

Evil in this case being Big Brother tracking our every movement with radio frequency detectors, following us wherever we go, using the tags in our clothing. And the neocon koolaid drinkers on the right see nothing wrong with this: If you aren't doing anything wrong, why worry about someone watching you? Just like they say they don't care that Baby Doc is listening to their conversations because they are not saying anything "wrong".

And that is the mindset that has allowed our freedoms to be chipped away, eroded, destroyed, bit by bit over the last several years. It's the classic frog-in-boiling-water syndrome. Our water has been heated up so slowly that most people can't recall what it was like to have those personal freedoms and liberties that have been stolen quietly away from us.

Only those of us out here on the lunatic fringe can remember, and we're all destined for Room 101, sooner or later.

The King of Schmucks

A zillion thanx to Bartcop for this one!!!

Colbert Slam Dunks Baby Doc

Not only Baby Doc but the entire White House Whore Press Corps. In case you missed it, Larry Colbert was the final speaker at the annual White House Press black tie dinner, and boy oh boy did he ever give it to the pResident and the whores in the press pool.

I can't do justice to it -- you just had to see it.

So, in case you missed it, here's a link where you can see for yourself.

Incredible. And Colbert is so smooth that I doubt whether Baby Doc even got most of the jokes. Pickles did, though -- watch her face as she is leaving the dais at the end of part three. She looks pissed.

Too bad.

Three Years, 2400 Dead Americans

Exactly three years ago today, Baby Doc staged that ridiculous photo-op off the coast of San Diego, when he landed on the deck of the carrier and strutted around under the banner "Mission Accomplished" with a gym sock rolled up in his crotch, looking like a monkey wearing a codpiece.

Yesterday the number of Americans who have died in this illegal war crime we call the Iraq War reached 2400.

Two thousand four hundred dead Americans. And for what? For fucking what?????

He can't give Cindy Sheehan an answer to that question. He can't give the other 4798 mothers and fathers of those dead Americans the answer to that question. He can't give us the answer to that question.

Why in the hell is he still president? It's an embarrassment, an abomination, that this man is in office, the most powerful leader in the world. And he's fucked it up beyond all recognition. Beyond all belief.

I used to think that anyone who got into office wouldn't really be able to fuck things up all that much because he would have advisers, the party would install "keepers", the congress would apply the brakes, etc etc. Things that would keep the guy in line.

Now I see that was wrong. Turns out it was crazy talk. If we let him, the megalomaniacal fucker will plunge us into WWIII.

Yeah, we'll probably "win" it. Like that'll mean anything. In the words of the old Barry McGuire song, "there'll be no one to save with the world in a grave"... Yes, I believe we are truly now on The Eve of Destruction.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 707 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst this month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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