Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Kerry "a Hero", Faux News Ignores It

Yesterday a story came out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nomination of a rightwing asshole named Sam Fox. Fox was -- surprise -- a big fundraiser for Baby Doc during 2004, and these types are generally rewarded with some minor diplomatic post somewhere where they can't do much harm; this time it's ambassador to Belgium.

So in the hearing John Kerry -- with a fighting spirit we did not see in 2004 -- ripped the guy on his $50,000 donation to the Swift Boat Liars for Bush. And he wrung out of him an admission that John Kerry was, in fact, a Vietnam War hero.

Bob Geiger over at OpEdNews.com has reprinted a lengthy excerpt from the interchange between Kerry and Fox.

Here's a link to all of the news stories covering the hearing, and in the vast majority of them, the "you're a hero" quote is prominently mentioned.

Not on Faux News, though. Here's a link to their coverage. No hero status for their favorite political victim from 2004 in their coverage, thank you very much.

Oh, and Sam Fox's excuse for donating the cash to the Swifties? "I didn't know about it and besides, everybody else was doing it."

Jesus, what is this, third grade? Kerry is right -- this guy has so many ethical shortcomings that he should be a candidate for remedial social studies, not for representing our country as fucking ambassador, for crissakes.

What's Wrong With Our Schools?

They never had this kind of thing when I went to school (of course when I went to school, we had to bring a tote-sack full of coal each morning for the stove and we did our figures with chalk on slates).

Anyway, up in Methuen, Massachusetts on the New Hampshire border, at the alternative high school, they've recreated a part of the sixties: Vietnam War protesters, counter-protesters, even a mock arrest.

Read the full story for a peek into the kind of learning that wasn't available to us back in the day. And apparently isn't available except to a so-called "alternative" high school.

One of the problems with Education Inc. in this country is that they are failing to engage our youth in anything meaningful. It's kind of bound up in the whole testing-our-students-failing-our-schools No Child Left Behind (aka No School Left Standing) crapola, but if "regular" schools were able to engage students the way alternative schools do, we would be a whole lot better off.

One size fits all doesn't work at the mall, doesn't work at the auto repair shop, doesn't work at the pizza parlor, and it certainly doesn't work in our schools.

Return of the Swifties. Again.

Just to show you that you can't keep a bad idea down, members of the infamous Swift Boat Liars for Bush are sticking their pointy snoots into the marketplace of ideas again, this time to discuss something they are calling "The Left’s Repeated Campaign Against The American Soldier".

Yeah, like it was "the left" that mismanaged the two-war-front, that sent men into battle without proper equipment, that underfunded the VA, that allowed Walter Reed to fall into such shameful state, etc etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseum.

Our good buddy George Bud (aka "The Liar", aka "Brain Damaged from NVA Torture") Day is again in the forefront of this movement, as is one US Rep Sam Johnson of Texas, who made a speech just the other day basically calling any attempt to curtail funding for the Iraq war "treason".

Apparently ole Sam just plumb forgot that he was one of the "traitors" of the right who supported withholding Bosnia funds in 1995. Yeah, he's a BIG supporter of "the troops", all right. Like I've said before, it all depends on who's yer preznit.

Fuck these assholes. They are beneath contempt, but the sad thing is that they are luring many of my fellow veterans into their snare, just like they did in 2004 and the Kerry smear campaign of lies.

The only thing we can do is fight back against the motherfuckers with everything we've got. You know, the way Kerry didn't fight in 2004.

Assassination Attempt? Yeah, Right.

So we're being told that the Taliban attempted a suicide-bomber assassination of VP Crashcart while he was making an unscheduled overnight stay at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

How convenient -- how fucking convenient -- that the Taliban had this guy already in place, armed and primed, locked and loaded, ready and waiting for his prey to show up. Waiting for years before his intended victim appeared on the scene.

And how unfortunate -- how fucking unfortunate -- for them that the poor fucker couldn't even get past the main gate and had settle for blowing himself up there.

Okay, does anyone else think this story stinks? First of all, take a look at Bagram Air Base and see how far away the front gate is from everything else, including any reasonable place where Cheney might have been at the time of the explosion (hint: the front gate is way down there at the lower left corner).

Of course the Taliban is taking credit for it, strutting around like Flight-deck Dubya, but is it truly believable that the intended target was Darth Cheney? I don't think so.

Once again, it's pure bullshit, political theater to show the Moron-American voting bloc how dangerous the world really is, how much the Democrats don't "get it", and if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1005 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: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney crowd and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

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

It's fucking disgusting, that's what it is.

Why can't they be 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 Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Harry will soon be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna.

Will they follow him? The other Bush children? No, none of them will. They are all fucking cowards like Baby Doc Bush and Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

As The Yellow Elephant continues to ask, "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.

Friday, February 23, 2007

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

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1991
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1442
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1391
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: 373
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 220.

It is still 719 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

A Gathering of Eagles?

Word on the street has it that a gang of veterans calling itself a Gathering of Eagles is going to show up at the Vietnam memorial on March 17, the day of the 2007 March on the Pentagon. Wearing armbands.

Their stated purpose is allegedly to keep the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Jane Fonda from spitting on Iraq veterans again and throwing paint on the Vietnam memorial. This "story" is all over the wingnut Internets, including a blog calling itself ProgressiveU(!). Take a look and tell me what is so fucking progressive about this Faux-News-watching Rethug-sucking talking-points-spouting Kool-aid-drinking knuckle-dragging asshole.

Okay, enough name-calling. Back to the point: We've all beaten the whole "spitting on veterans" meme to death on this blog already, but throwing paint on the Vietnam memorial? That's a new one on me.

I don't believe that it has ever happened -- there was red paint (symbolizing blood) poured on the steps of the capitol building as I recall during the last demonstration, and back during the Vietnam War protests, actual blood was poured on occasion -- see for example, the Berrigan Brothers pouring blood on the draft records in Baltimore. But as far as I know, the Vietnam memorial has not been splattered with anything.

So my question is this: Can anyone seriously picture Cindy Sheehan, of all people, (or even Jane Fonda, for that matter) actually spitting on an Iraq veteran? Throwing red paint on the Vietnam memorial?

The answer is no, no rational person believes that. So just where are these bogus threats coming from?

From the diseased, weak-minded and insane imaginations of that good ole vast wingnut conspiracy, of course. And from the thinking-impaired socially-retarded shrunken-head brains of a bunch of can't-get-over-it Vietnam vets who still blame Jane Fonda for losing the Vietnam War. Never mind that inconvenient and pesky fact that 99% of the Hanoi Jane stories are PROVEN to be false. In short, they are lies that are still being circulated by the rightwing We-Hate-Jane crowd.

But back to the gathering storm of eagles. I think these self-described "eagles" actually just want to show up and strut around in their armbands and jackboots to intimidate people, kind of like a bunch of other guys I can think of, who also were notorious for suppressing free speech and calling anyone who disagreed with The Leader a traitor...

Gathering of eagles? Uh-huh. More like a Konvocation of Kleagles.

A Royal Offspring to Spring Off to War?

I've had a regular feature on this blog since the very first day, my Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform Watch, where I have maintain a countup of the days that have elapsed (now 999)since the poster girls for the slacker set graduated college.

Now persistent news stories out of the UK are claiming that Prince Harry, bad-boy royal and third in line for the throne of England, is scheduled to ship out with his regiment to Iraq as early as next month.

Time Magazine (which I otherwise hardly ever even glance at, for reasons that should be obvious) has a good story, When the Windsors Go to War, that's worth taking a look at.

All of the critics who claim that having the Bush twins in uniform would just serve as a distraction, a liability, potential targets for enemy combatants and don't-calle-it-a-civil-war insurgents ought to read the article and see what Andrew, the previous owner of the title of Bad-Boy Prince, had to say about his experience as a chopper pilot in La Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War).

Now all we need to do is get those twins and the other able-bodied chickenhawk yellow elephants off their lazy asses and into uniform.

Bookends

I see that Der Monkey Fuehrer spent President's Day at Mount Vernon, home of the person he referred to as the "first George W."

Give me a break from the arrogance already. But it does make an interesting set of bookends: The first president, who could not tell a lie, and the last president, who cannot tell the truth.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 998 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.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, 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.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Quotes from the American Taliban

I've ranted and raved before in this blog about the American Taliban, but I just stumbled onto a terrific website that brings together a large number of quotations from the various spokesmen of the most frightening political phenomenon since the Salem witch hunts.

A few samples:

"Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed"
-- mAnn Coulter

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed."
-- Randall Terry

"Democracy originated in the mind of a rational being who has the deepest hatred for God."
-- Robert T. Lee
There's a lot more from this scary bunch of motherfuckers -- check it out.

We must remain vigilant and keep that wall of separation between church and state. We relax our vigilance at our own peril. These assholes are playing for keeps.

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

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1984
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1435
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1384
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: 366
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 213.

It is still 726 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Timetables? We Don't Need No Stinking Timetables.

My oh my, how things can change. More from our Department of Dueling Quotes.

Here's one from 1999:

Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. [source]
Got that?

Okay, fast forward to yesterday:
There will be no timetable set... And the reason why is because we don't want to send mixed signals to an enemy or to a struggling democracy or to our troops [source]
You have probably guessed it already, but the speaker in both cases was our very own Baby Doc Bush, who seems to have been born, as Ann Richards had it, with silver foot in his mouth.

Makes a big difference when the president is a Rethug, doesn't it?

Republican War Veterans Lead Defense of Bush

At least that was the headline for the International Herald Tribune story.

Several members of the House who are veterans are sticking by Der Monkey Fuehrer through thick and thin, it appears, having drunk the Kool-aid early on and are now addicted to it. It's all over the whole "nonbinding" Iraq resolution issue.

One Geoff Davis, a West Point graduate (naturally) says, "this nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats' political base and lowering morale in our military."

This was quickly countered by the Majority Whip, James Clyburn of South Carolina: "The victory to be won in Iraq is not a military conquest."

I'm still with Jack Murtha on this one, who wants to forbid the Pentagon from sending more "unless they have adequate training and unless they have adequate equipment.".

It's time to redeploy. Over the horizon.

The Dollar Coin Makes (Another) Comeback

I'll admit it, I'm a big fan of the dollar coins. I tend to buy them by the roll so I can have them handy in my pocket change. Unfortunately they never caught on with the general public, and here's the main reason why: There are still dollar bills being made. People are creatures of habit and by and large won't change their ways until they have to.

The only way to get public acceptance of the dollar coin is to stop making the dollar bill. This happened in Canada and Australia, where the smallest bill is the $5 denomination. Same thing in the UK with the demise of the pound note.

But I've got a feeling that that will happen about the time we adopt the metric system. People are too resistant to change. It's a good thing that not everyone feels that way. Otherwise we'd never have developed vaccinations ("My father died of smallpox and it's good enough for me!") or put the first man on the moon.

BTW, a new email is going around about the new dollar coins is that they are part and parcel of the secular humanist attempt to drive god out of government: The motto "In God We Trust" is alleged to be missing from the coins.

As usual with this kind of crap, it's total bullshit. While I personally would much prefer that the motto be banished from public discourse, in this case I don't get my way. It's still on the coins, but it's on the edge, along with the usual e pluribus unum and the year of issue. See the Snopes article for the facts.

Nebraska Vietnam/Korean War Museum Hoaxer Busted

I'd never heard of this story, but the attorney general for the state of Nebraska has reached an agreement with one Kyle Kopitke over multiple attempts to defraud the veterans of Nebraska (and apparently Mr. Kopitke has been a very busy boy, trying to set up other bogus veterans museums in other states as well).

Long story short, Kopitke has admitted defrauding veterans, has returned various items of memorabilia, and was slapped around royally by the state attorney general: "Mr. Kopitke is a professional con-artist who made a living off the sacrifices of Nebraska veterans ... He can never take advantage of another veteran in Nebraska again."

Sadly, the fucker spent all the money he collected and the state chose not to get a judgment against him for the cash. Okay, so beating a dead horse won't do anything for the horse, but it can make you feel better. I say get the judgment anyway -- you never know, he might win a lottery, have a rich uncle die, marry into wealth, etc. You just never know.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Restoring the Constitution 2007

Okay, so it's an election year and part of it may be just posturing, but Christopher Dodd, Democratic senator from Connecticut (which happens to not be one of my favorite states right now) is introducing something called the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 which, as the name implies, would restore at least parts of the Constitution that have been in major part abandoned by the Baby Doc Maladministration.

But cynical political ploy or not, it deserves our support. Please contact your senators and representatives and tell them that you support the bill.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Keep Your Fucking Nose Out of It

John Howard, the conservative PM of Australia, stuck his nose into American politics over the weekend, claiming that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for Al Qaeda.

What a sorry joke he is, even among his own people. I spent a month in Australia in early 2004 and I didn't meet anyone who actually liked him, who actually supported him. But they've got that weird parliamentary system down there, so the only people who actually have to like and support him are those in his home district. They keep reelecting him, and the majority party keeps appointing him Prime Minister. (However, one likely scenario has him losing his next election -- his home district demographics are changing to work against him.)

Anyway, I think Obama had the right response to the fucker: "If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home. It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."

In the meantime, Mr. Howard, you can keep your fucking nose out of American politics. With The Poodle still in the UK, you don't have a dog in this fight and we don't give a fat rat's ass what you think about our elections.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 991 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.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, 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.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

The Most Important Anniversary You Never Heard Of

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's Everson v. Board of Education decision, wherein something unique and, viewed from today's vantage, rather strange happened.

The entire court, while splitting 5-4 on the merits of Everson, came together to enunciate -- unanimously -- the following position on the Establishment Clause of the US Constitition:

The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation' between Church and State.
And there you have it, in stark black and white: The entire US Supreme Court, liberal and conservative alike, in complete agreement that there is, in fact, a "wall of separation" between church and state.

Remember that the next time one of your fundo Xian buddies starts yapping about putting "god" back in government and misrepresenting the "intent of the framers" about whether this is a nation founded on religion.

It's startling -- and alarming -- to realize how far we have drifted away from what used to be settled case law, and how fragile that wall of separation has become with the recent rash of Scalia-clone Supreme Court justices.

Friday, February 09, 2007

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

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1977
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1428
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1377
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: 359
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 206.

It is still 733 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

40 Years for Porn? More WTF

Jesus, what the fuck is it with Connecticut? As if re-electing Joementum Lieberman wasn't embarrassing enough, now there's the Norwich teacher porn case that reeks -- stinks to high heaven -- of an egregiously outrageous miscarriage of justice.

You can read the whole story and its followup article, but briefly Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in a middle school (it wasn't even a fucking grade school), was the victim of a porn cascade.

A porn cascade, for those not in the know, used to occur with alarming regularity in the days before popup blockers, firewalls, virus shields and the like. Without you knowing really what had triggered it, suddenly your computer would be taken over by porno zombies and start popping up screen after screen after screen of pornography. Every time you shut one down, two more would pop up.

So our poor sub was victimized by this. And not only victimized by this, but subsequently by the school board and the county prosecutor, along with a jury whose members were apparently so fucking stupid that they believed the prosecutor's lies about computers.

Without going into a long diatribe about it, I've worked with computers for the last 25+ years and I can tell from the prosecutor's arguments that either he's never seen one before, or he has a hidden agenda to run for statewide office on a get-tough-on-crime-and-let's-start-with-pornography ticket.

One of the prosecutor's arguments that apparently held sway with the jurors: You have to click on the links to get the pages.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit. I'm actually surprised that anyone would really believe that. But, on the other hand, maybe these people have never actually seen or heard of a porn cascade. After all, with modern equipment and software, they don't happen very much any more.

Modern equipment, modern software.

But do I really need to point out the fact that the computer in question was running a system so old as to be an antique: Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5, no popup blockers, no virus protection, no spamblockers and no firewall?

And that's the fault of the school district, not this poor sub who tried to prevent the students from seeing the screen while she panicked out and tried to make it stop. The prosecutor's argument? She could have just unplugged it. So that's the bottom line? She's facing 40 years in the graybar hotel with a cellmate named Butch for not unplugging it????

The friends and family of teacher Julie Amero have set up a website at http://julieamer.blogspot.com for contributions to her legal defense fund. Please drop by and give a few bucks for a worthy cause.

Let's all stand up for what is right and help overturn this outrageous injustice.

Apparently Size Does Matter

No one had a problem with Denny Make-That-Three-Triple-Cheeseburgers Hastert having a Pentagon jet in which to commute between DC and Chicago. It was deemed necessary and expedient for someone who is, after all, second in line to the presidency, to have secure transportation.

But what happens when the Dems take control and the Speaker of the House is suddenly a liberal? A woman? From San Francisco?

The House Rethugs are suddenly all over her for having the fucking nerve to expect the same thing her predecessor had: An airplane that can fly her non-stop from DC to her home district.

Their main objection? The size of the plane. The one she's asking for is bigger than Hastert's.

That's it. Never mind the fact that it has to be bigger since it has to fly farther. Oh, no.

Thankfully for the humor community, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Dickwad) has now rung in on the size issue. The headline: "Boehner Stiffs Pelosi".

Now if only Roy Blunt (R-Moron) would join him, the headlines could read "Pelosi Gets Blunt Boehner"...

Do Your Fucking Job. Again.

More people are refusing to do their jobs. A news story today reveals that many doctors not only do not advise patients about things that the doctor has issues with, such as birth control or abortion, but they also don't refer those patients to other health care providers who might be more liberal in their treatment options.

Like cab drivers, pharmacists and others who are licensed to operate in the public good, these people have no goddam business imposing their weird religious beliefs on people who rely on them for the services they are licensed to provide.

Once again, do your fucking job or get a different one.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Starting the Discussion on the "T" Word

I'll admit up front that since the 2004 VP debate, I'm not a big fan of John Edwards. His dismal nonperfomance in that puppet show marked one of the lowest points in a Democratic campaign that was nothing but low points.

That said, though, props to Edwards for bringing up the dreaded "T" word. Every responsible analyst/economist agrees, maybe not in public, that the only way to turn around this country and start paying off the horrendous debt that the BFEE has saddled us with is to ... raise taxes.

Health care is a good place to start. Something HAS to be done with the health care system in this country, and it's a source of international shame that we are the very last industrialized nation that hasn't instituted some kind of national health care system.

Edwards' proposal is actually a fairly decent one, and a good place to start the discussion.

Monday, February 05, 2007

And Speaking of Iran...

Here's something we need to see before we start dropping bombs and launching missles.

Make sure your speakers are plugged in and turned on.

Remember the ... QM2?

You know the saying everything old is new again.

"Remember the Maine" got us into the Spanish American War. The sinking of the Lusitania got us into WWI.

I see that Cunard's new luxury liner, the Queen Mary 2, has Dubai as one of its regular ports of call. (Cunard was also, BTW, the owner of The Lusitania)

Dubai, for those who are still geographically challenged, is INSIDE THE FUCKING PERSIAN GULF. You have to go through the infamous 21-mile-wide Straits of Hormuz to get there.

The Persian Gulf. Only one of the hottest spots on the planet for things-that-can-go-wrong. And the US is steadily increasing its naval presence there. Which is why there's an admiral in charge (see my previous post on this question).

So can't anyone see that a luxury liner registered in a nation that is part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing"
might just turn out to be a target of convenience for every whirling dervish Al Qaeda hashashin with access to a sea kayak and a backpack full of C4?

Or for a double-super-secret agent under the control of the BFEE to sabotage in a floating version of the Reichstag Fire, in order to provoke an attack against ... Iran.

Think about it.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 985 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.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, 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.

Friday, February 02, 2007

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 -- That's 62 in just two weeks!

Total coalition forces dead: 253
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1970
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1421
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1370
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: 352
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 199.

It is still 740 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

And Even More on Spitting

Coincidentally, as I was composing the previous blog entry, I got a post on my old "spitting on vets" post. Someone who prefers to hide behind anonymity cites a reference to an alleged CBS news story from December 1971 that "proves" that Vietnam vets were spit on. And based on this single citation he claims that "hundreds" of Vietnam vets were victims of expectorant attacks.

Okay, I'll bite. I looked at the source. Just as I suspected, it is not a documented contemporary account. It's just some guy saying after the fact that he was spit on at the Seattle airport on his way back from Vietnam. There were no arrests, no incident reports filed by airport security or local police, no contemporary newspaper accounts, nothing. Just one guy's after-the-fact claim.

Some proof.

Saying so
does not make it so. When I came back from Vietnam in 1969, we landed at Travis Air Force in California. Then we were loaded on busses and carted off to the Oakland Army Terminal for processing out. Finally I took a taxi to the San Francisco airport and caught a flight to Seattle.

So I went through both of the airports that figure prominently in most of those "spitting on veterans" stories, without incident. So did my fellow Vietnam vets; out of all the veterans that I know -- and I know a lot of them -- NO ONE has reported that they were spit on.

And when you think about it, just how would anyone know you had just returned from Vietnam? Why were no other soldiers, sailors or Marines in uniform spat on? If they were, why haven't they reported it? It seems to me that those rabid leftwing pinko-commie antiwar protesters full of spit and looking for a place to explode wouldn't be that discerning.

After I returned I went back to college and became active in the anti-war movement. No one I ever met in the movement called me a baby-killer or spit on me. Quite the contrary, returning vets held a special cachet because it was felt that we had been there and seen it all, and we could speak with authority. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in the early days before the ideological split, were honored with prominent spots in the antiwar rallies and demonstrations.

Ironically, it was the warhawks who dissed the Vietnam vets. I've said before that we were made to feel uncomfortable in the American Legion and the VFW -- they looked at us as losers, slackers and stoned-out druggies who were unable to win our own war the way they had won theirs.

So if anyone was routinely disrespecting Vietnam vets, it was not the anti-war movement. Let's get that straight once and for all.

Okay. But let's just say, for argument's sake, that the CBS story is correct, and he actually was spit on by an anti-war protester at the Seattle airport.

So what? One incident proves nothing. One incident is just that, one incident. It certainly does not serve as the basis for the blanket statement you see everywhere, that Vietnam vets were routinely spit on when we returned.

It's easy to see why the rightwing wants to promote this canard. But it's sad to see so many of my fellow vets buying into it and manufacturing false memories of it happening to them.

Remember, there is ZERO evidence that these spitting incidents ever occurred. None. Not a single arrest, police report or newspaper/media account contemporary with the event.

If you can find one (and not some bogus after-the-fact reminiscence), send it to me and I will eat my words.

Spitting. Again.

Jesus, will it never end. As I've said before in this blog, claims of spitting on veterans has become a shorthand way to denigrate anti-war protesters. Only problem is, it never happened to troops coming back from Vietnam and it isn't happening now.

One-legged Iraq War veteran Private Joshua Sparling, however, seems to be proud of the fact that he has been a one-man spittoon. Sparling has claimed that on numerous occasions he's been spat upon by protesters.

At the risk of sounding like a parrot, bullshit bullshit billshit.

Sparling is a professional Rethug agitator who hangs out with the likes of Sean Hannity and Ann "Thrax" Coulter. He shows up belligerent and obnoxious at anti-war rallies, actually trying to provoke someone into spitting on him. Trouble is, no one will actually do it, so he's reduced to just making shit up. Hey, they eat that up over in rightwing cuckoo-land.

One of the problems with his whole shtick, though, is that it only serves to resurrect the completely discounted urban legend about Vietnam veterans being spat on. In airports. On their way home from Vietnam.

Remember that not one single case of a Vietnam veteran being spat upon has ever been documented. But that doesn't matter, since proof and evidence are the province of the reality-based community. It still shows up in any simple Google News search.

Check out the full story of Joshua Sparling over at AlterNet. It's not a pretty sight, but someone needs to call out the fucker on his lies. And he can stop waving that bloody stump around -- he hasn't sacrificed nearly as much as 3085 of his fellow soldiers.