Spring Fever

Yeah, I'm okay. We've had our first spate of nice weather here in the wet corner of the country (i.e. the Pacific Northwest) and all I can do is go outside and enjoy it.

I'll be back in a week or so, after the spell of nice weather goes away and we go back to our usual drippy climate.

In the meantime, enjoy your life.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444

Total coalition forces dead: 274
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2083
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1583
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1483
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: 404
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 309.

It is still 627 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

All Monica All the Time

I had a chance to actually see some of Monica Goodling's testimony last night, and what's with the breathless little-girl voice, the blow-dried mane, the understated presentation? What is she, auditioning for Legally Blonde 3: The Disbarring?

All in all it was a pretty disappointing outing for the Regent University graduate, and it goes a long ways in illustrating that fine education in law that she received there when she couldn't admit -- even under the immunity agreement -- that she had broken the law.

She made "mistakes". She couldn't even identify under direct cross examination that what she did was BREAK THE LAW. I thought that if you graduated from law school, you ought to have more than a passing familiarity with THE LAW.

Guess not, but what can you expect from the graduate of a fine school whose motto is "Christian Leadership to Change the World"? To these people, "god's law" supersedes all mortal laws, and anything they do can be justified as helping to push the cause of the lord.

And can you really blame her? A cursory reading of their holy book shows upteen million incidents where a wrathful god thinks nothing of smiting his enemies -- including women and children -- to further his holy cause.

How can we expect one of his minor lackeys, one of his special representatives here on earth, to do any different? What's a minor lawbreaking when we are engaged in a holy battle for the soul of America?

In the meantime, it looks like she basically blew the whistle on Gonzo -- what she described is beyond the line, and for all appearances Torquemada Gonzales is guilty -- at the very least -- of attempted obstruction of justice.

He might as well have walked into her tastefully-furnished-in-Xian-ecstasy apartment saying shit like "Nice place ya got here -- be a shame if something happened to it, now wouldn't it?"

Why do we keep putting up with this shit? What is wrong with us?

New Mother of Twins -- at Age 60???

More news from the world of the wacky: This week a 60-year-old woman gave birth to twins in New Jersey.

Sixty??? Twins???

So why would she do that?

It's not like she suddenly missed a couple of periods and turned up pregnant. She actually had to go to South Africa to have in-vitro fertilization (presumably because no rational fertility doctor in this country would countenance it).

It's also not like she didn't already have children -- the twins join a happy family of 33, 29 and 6-year-old siblings

What it is apparently all about is sending a message: She says she was on a mission to let women know they have choices(!).

Jesus, I'm all in favor of empowering women to do what they want, to be all they can be, etc etc, but having twins at 60 to prove a point is a little much.

It's also more than a little selfish. And stupid. When those twins get to the "evil teenager" stage in 14 years or so, this woman -- if she's unlucky enough to still be alive -- will be 74 years old.

And if she does die before they get there, they will be warped by the "untimely" loss of their mother.

I have often railed about men my age -- people I know even -- going insane and fathering children late in life, so it's not her gender that is at issue. It's about selfishness and irresponsibility and what is best for a child. It's hard enough for people in their thirties and forties to raise children -- I can't imagine what it would be like at my age.

Children, in order to survive and thrive, need -- have to have -- two strong and active parents in their lives (completely regardless of their marital status, race or gender). These poor kids will sooner rather than later have neither, and it will devolve to their older siblings to raise them after the parents check out an early age due to the stress of keeping up twins. And it will create resentment in them to be saddled with this task by their own irresponsible parents.

I feel the worst for the twins. No matter what happened, those two are pretty much screwed up from the get-go.

"Mistakes Were Made"

Jesus, that's starting to sound like a leitmotif with the BFEE. That and "I don't recall" or my favorite, "I don't recall remembering that"...

So little Monica Goodling, one-time rising star in the Justice Department, and graduate of the Fundo-Xian Regence University "law" school, basically said that in her testimony today.

"I may have crossed the line" when it came to questioning applicants about their political beliefs.
And that's pretty much as close as she came to admitting anything even marginally illegal.

So I've got to wonder, why the big deal about taking the Fifth? Why the bargaining for limited immunity if this is all she's got? Yeah, she did break the law in erecting that litmus test, but she claims she didn't do it intentionally, she thought they were "rules", etc.

Well, that may be all of it, but I doubt it. I'm guessing that there's a lot more, and she is stonewalling.

After all, in the minds of the graduates of Regence University, this nation is in the grip of Satan and it's their job to wrestle the devil for the soul of the nation. What's a little perjury when it's done for the greater good.

Read the excerpts from her testimony over at Think Progress and see what you think.

And remember, Monica is not the only member of the current maladminstration who is a product of that fine academic instution -- there are some 150 others, all in impossibly high posts in the federal government, acting as sleeper cells for the Xian Revolution.

It's pretty scary stuff, and if they succeed in their goals of turning this into a Xian theocracy, people like me will be disappeared.

Sir! No Sir!

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Sir! No Sir!, an excellent documentary on the anti-war movement within the military during the Vietnam War, and I highly recommend it, not only to those who were there and those who only watched it on tv, but especially to those who weren't alive yet and who have been spoon-fed a fake history of the Vietnam War Resistance movement.

It was on the Sundance Channel, and I hope they will show it again. If not, it's on DVD and you can request your local video outlet to order a copy, if they don't have one already. Or even buy your own copy -- it's worth having in your collection.

These days, with the wholesale rewriting of the history of the Vietnam War (spitting on returning veterans, we could have won if it hadn't have been for the wimpy peacenik protesters/the media/the Democrats/name your villain) that has occurred over the intervening years, it's a refreshing look at the volatile anti-war movement that was taking place inside the military, beginning with, of all people, Green Berets, very early on. And it will amaze some and shock others to learn how widespread the anti-war movement became as the war ground on.

I'd like it to be mandatory viewing for all high school students, especially those in history class who are studying the Vietnam War.

Get it, see it, share it. It's worth the time.

NSPD 51, and Why You Should Care

You gotta hand it to the fuckers in the BFEE, for the most secretive maladministration in memory, they can be pretty upfront and above-board with a lot of their unconstitutional grab for power crap.

Take for example, May 9th's National Security Presidential Directive 51 (it's right there on the White House website) containing within it the Orwellian-named Enduring Constitutional Government (ECG), which is defnined as meaning "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers".

Get that? "Proper" respect for the separation of powers. Under whose definition? Well, that would be The Preznit himself, and we've seen the respect he shows for the separation of powers. And what's "cooperative" mean? If they don't want to cooperate, is it off to the stadium to prepare for a trip to Gitmo?

The directive would kick in basically any time Baby Doc feels it is necessary; all he has to do is declare a "Catastrophic Emergency" -- which by definition in the directive itself means "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

Now how fucking vague is that? A hurricane in Mexico? An ice storm in Canada? Pakistan dropping the big one into the men's room at the Taj Mahal? Even a precipitous drop in the value of the dollar against the Euro.

Any and all of these can be interpreted within the broad confines of this directive.

Note that it doesn't have to be on American soil. Anywhere on the planet (and probably off of it) is fair game for this far-reaching directive.

This goes way beyond the end-run around habeas corpus codified in the so-called Patriot Act.

This is nothing less than a blueprint for instituting martial law in the United State -- with Der Monkey Fuehrer himself at the top. Even Tricky Dick Nixon didn't go this far with his infamous Houston Plan, which provided for, among other things, extra-legal wiretaps, agents provocateur, and the rounding up of potential "subversives".

Call to action: call your congressman and your senators and tell them to take steps to nullify this blatant attempt to subvert our democracy and install officially the theocratic fascism of the Bush Family Evil Empire.

We can do no less.

Dropping the F-Bomb: Bye-bye Johnny

Jesus, what the fuck is it with these family-values Rethugs? First Darth Cheney unloads a big "fuck you" on Pat Leahy on the floor of the Senate, and now John "I'm-Not-Really-a-Madman-I-Just-Play-One-on-TV" McCain tells fellow senator -- and fellow Rethug -- John Cornyn "fuck you".

Poor John McCain. I could almost weep a small tear for the fucker, if I thought he deserved it. Mister Straight Talk has turned into Mister Dirty Talk, and it's painful watching him demolish his political career like this.

Live and direct, only on Pay-per-View, the self-immolation of John McCain. See it now.

So goodbye, Johnny. You are a pathetic shell of that swaggering jet pilot POW who came home from years of torture and built a political career on it. I used to have a modicum of respect for you, back in 2000 when you appeared to be the last best hope for keeping the nation out of the grasp of the BFEE.

But when you rolled over and took it in the ass from Der Monkey Fuehrer, after what Karl Rove and the Bush Crime Family evil minions had done to you in the 2000 primaries, I lost all respect for you.

And you only made it worse when you started pandering to the Jerry Falwells on the religious right, in an ignoble flip-flopping humiliation to somehow try to pry loose some of that Xian cash. Like you actually could.

Now you're just an embarrassment. Get off the stage before they bring in the vaudeville hook and drag you off.

Oh, and Johnny: Try going to the VA to get some PTSD counseling, and while you're at it, take an anger management class.

You've got some serious problems, dude.

Offshoring the News

If this wasn't making the rounds in a bunch of legitimate news sources, I'd assume that it came out of someplace like The Onion.

In little old Pasadena, California, the online news source Pasadena Now has outsourced its local reporting to, of all places, India.

Yes, that's local reporting. No, I don't know how it's going to work, how they will cover the city council meetings, for example, or the smell of sewer gas in the library, or the pothole question.

But I suspect that this is just the first step in another outsourcing surge. I'm sure that Big Media is watching carefully, to see if they can start outsourcing their own news.

And, come to think of it, why not? What's left of the Fourth Estate in this country is, by and large, is nothing more than release-reading sycophant mouthpieces for government flacks like Tony Snowjob. Why not get some poor Hindi to do that for a dollar a day rather than paying some high-priced administration-ass-kissing hack like...well, like pretty much on the staff of Faux News?

It wouldn't surprise me if Rupert Murdoch, after he scoops up the Wall Street Journal to add to his China-appeasing dead-white-girl-flogging liberal-baiting "news" empire, starts hiring offshore news anchors.

But, since he is in love with Red China, it'll probably not be East Indians that he hires.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1089 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

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

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

Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has just enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, the obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq?

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

Why can't the Twins be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry, until the decision was made not to send him, was on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409

Total coalition forces dead: 274
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2076
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1576
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1476
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: 397
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 302.

It is still 634 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

A-Hah!!! JFK Assassination Conspiracy

Although I'm not one to adopt tin-foil-hat theories easily, I have been a student and critic of the JFK Assassination for 42 years, almost since it happened.

I bought the Warren Report when it was released in 1965 (though sadly not the accompanying multiple volumes of evidence) and I was immediately struck by the total unlikelihood of the now-infamous "magic bullet theory".

So it is with great satisfaction that I note in the news that top scientists -- including the FBI's own metallurgist -- have concluded that the bullet fragments at the scene most likely came from three or more bullets.

Three bullets = more than one shooter. For those who are familiar with the assassination and all of its evidence, it can't happen any other way.

More than one shooter? Conspiracy.

3400 Dead Americans

This can't wait for my regular Friday feature, Friday by the Numbers.

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Report reported today that the American troop death toll just reached 3400.

That's 3400 American families who have lost a son, a daughter, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, even grandparents, to this stupid and senseless occupation of Iraq.

When is enough enough? When will we say "no more"?

Bring the troops home.

Now.

The VA -- Just When You Think it Can't Stink More

A few days ago I railed against the bonuses for VA officials that totaled some 3.8 MILLION dollars. I was outraged enough over that, but now it turns out that a lot of those very same officials sat on review boards that recommended the bonuses.

Jesus, what is it with these people? Has the stink of corruption and cronyism gotten so bad that nobody can smell it any more?

And yeah, yeah, VA Commissar Jim Nicholson says there's no conflict of interest, blah blah blah, and the bonuses are needed to keep the top people, yada yada yada.

At the risk of sounding like an obsessive-compulsive parrot with Tourette's, BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHT!

Public service is a calling -- it's not supposed to be a way to suck extra money out of a VA system that is already operating in the red, that takes months to process a claim, that is overworked and understaffed at the local VA hospital level.

Nicholson can take his weak-assed explanation and shove it. If it sounds like bullshit and looks like bullshit and stinks like bullshit, it's bullshit.

Prince Harry -- No Iraq for You

So it turns out after all that Prince Harry will not be going to Iraq with his regiment. According to a Guardian Q&A, the situation in Iraq is too dangerous and Harry would have been a prime target for insurgent kidnappers.

Well, yeah, that's true. That and the fact that Iraq is also too dangerous for the rank-and-file troops that are already there, and the "surge" has created more violence.

Hmmm, surge...more violence. Did anyone besides me think that throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out was maybe the wrong idea?

So back to Harry. I blame the obsessive paparazzi news media more than anything else. They would be all over the place trying to cover each and every move the young troop commander would make, and all the bad guys would have to do to score points would be to start lobbing explosives into the middle of a gaggle of media hypes. Chances are Harry would be in there somewhere.

So I basically agree with the British Army's decision, especially since they are now in the stealth process of trying to disengage while still saving face. The Coalition of the Willing Bribed has been distancing itself from the illegal occupation of Iraq for months now. Pretty soon it's going to be only US troops sacrificing themselves for the advancement of the Oil Empire.

Thank You, Buzzflash

I suddenly got a ton of comments on my Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform this week, and I wondered why. Turns out that Buzzflash, my favorite news site, featured it on their front page yesterday.

Naturally most of the comments are anonymous and a lot consist of vicious attacks on my personal character (one pathetic loser even accused me of "spitting on veterans").

In the words of Fearless Leader, "bring it on".

Just remember, though, that I have only two rules: (1) I don't respond to anonymous sniper blowhards, and (2) I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1082 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

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

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

Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has just enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, the obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq?

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

Why can't the Twins be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry -- it's now official -- is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387

Total coalition forces dead: 273
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2069
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1569
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1469
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: 390
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 295.

It is still 641 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Middle East Wrap-up

A flurry of interesting stories came out of the Middle East in the last couple days:

· Darth Cheney made a surprise visit to Baghdad to bully the "independent" Iraqi government into not going on vacation this summer. While he was there, a mysterious explosion resulted in ALL of the reporters being herded into an underground bunker. This happened after Cheney made an off-th-cuff remark about how nice it will be to get away from them. Conicidence?

· So what the fuck is Darth Cheney even doing there? It's not just to throw his weight around with the cowering Iraqis. Oh, never mind. I just noticed that stops in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are on the itinerary. Could it be that the surprise visit to Iraq is just window dressing to cover for VP Crashcart stopping by to check on his future home in the UAE when he "returns" to Halliburton, and showing up in Riyadh to genuflect to his oil masters in Saudi Arabia?

· GOP "moderates" had a meeting with Der Monkey Fuehrer to tell him that the maladministration has to show some gaines in Iraq or the GOP would be in trouble next year. Gee, ya think? With his approval rating at 28%, watch the flood of defectors trying to distance themselves from him. Too bad for them that it's too little, too late.

· The Iraqi parliament voted on a "non-binding" resolution that would direct the US to get out of their country. This passed with a majority vote. Would you know it from reading the American "liberal" media? Nope.

"Individual Augmentation"

No, it's not what it sounds like (I know, I get those emails all the time...). Instead it's a little-known program in the armed services that allows the occupiers of Iraq to get more boots on the ground without having to call up even more National Guard units.

Basically what it does is to "allow" Navy personnel the "opportunity" to get off the water and onto the sand in Iraq.

According to a recent Stars and Stripes article, sailors are given 12 days training in weapons, IEDs, basic warfare, convoy duty, urban operations, land navigation and first aid.

Twelve days???

When it takes at least four months to train the average ground soldier (counting basic training and advanced training)?

And there are an estimated 10,000 sailors in this great program, with 7,000 actually on the ground in Iraq. Most of them ill-trained in battlefield survival.

Once again the Baby Doc Maladministration shows its utter contempt for America's fighing men and women, and if I hear one more time about how the Rethugs "support" the troops, I'm going postal.

Gonzo to Stick Around: Good

Even though he said he didn't remember a total of sixty times before the Senate (BTW, my favorite Gonzo line from the Senate hearings: "I don't recall remembering that..."), and odds are even that he will break that record when he testifies before the House, Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales said today that he won't leave.

I say good. The longer he sticks around, the more of an albatross he'll be around the necks of the Rethugs, and the more fodder he'll be for the Democratic candidate next year to show why we need a change at the top.

So keep it up, Torquemada. Keep up that feisty fighting spirit, maintain that arrogance, and keep rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

So Much for the "Bush Economy"

You don't have to look any farther than Wal-Mart to see the handwriting on the wall. Despite the praises of the wingnut talking heads on Faux News about how great the economy is doing under the grasping monkey-fingers of Baby Doc Bush, the news today is that Wal-Mart, that bastion of corporatist capitalism, is having its worst sales in 27 years: 3.5% decline just in April.

I wonder how they'll spin this. Never mind, I know.

It's Clinton's fault.

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."

-- May 25, 2004

VA Disability? Financial Problems? Direct Deposit? You're Screwed

Supposedly your VA disability payments, along with your Social Security, are secure from garnishment by bill collectors.

Supposedly.

But in a case out of Alabama, Mrs. Viola Sue Kell got her bank account frozen while debt collectors garnished her money.

All of which was from Social Security disability payments. Illegal, yeah, but apparently it happens with disgusting -- and alarming -- regularity.

Larry Scott over at VA Watchdog has the full story, and it's not a pretty one.

Banks, who ought to know better, don't tell the collectors that what they are doing is illegal. They just blithely go along with it, apparently because it's such a money maker for them. They can charge a fee -- to the account holder -- of $100 just for putting the garnishment on the bank account. And then, for the unwary customer who goes on writing checks for daily living expenses, they can charge an additional overdraft fee for every check that they bounce.

Jeez, what a cash cow this could be. No wonder they won't tell their customers.

So evidently this is a process that will continue. If you have a VA disability or Social Security payment that is deposited directly into your bank account -- and these days who doesn't opt for that convenience? -- you should be aware that if you have any financial problems that could result in your assets being frozen and garnished, you really need to consider stopping that direct deposit and go back to getting hard-copy checks snail-mailed to you.

It'll be inconvenient as hell, but at least you'll keep getting your money.

Not Registering for the Draft (that Doesn't Exist)

Jesus, the outrages just keep coming at us. A 16-year-employee of the VA in San Francisco is going to be fired because he didn't register for the draft.

Before he was 26 years old. Which happened way back in the 1990s.

Chris Freking, now 39, was born in The Philippines to an American citizen father and a local woman. He didn't even come to this country until 1990.

The law is severe: If you didn't register by the time you were 25, you are barred from pretty much all Federal benefits. Including Federal jobs.

Freking has been an outstanding employee for the VA health care system -- caring, professional, dedicated, and well-liked by the veterans he cares for -- so it just fucking figures that they are going to fire him.

And apparently there is no appeal process, and no way to "make it better", since he's now 39 and too old to register. His career is down the toilet

Like I say, it's another outrage. Why are we making young men (and only young men!) register for a draft that doesn't exist, and then punish them for not registering, especially when they don't go to high school here and don't know the requirements?

Here's a choice bit from the SF Gate article and a quote from bureaucratic asshole Kerry McTigue of the US Dept of Personnel Management:

All eligible males are presumed to be aware of their registration requirements. And eligible males who fail in that responsibility are presumed to have done so knowingly and willingly unless they can prove otherwise.
"We're going to put the burden of proof, so to speak, on the person who hasn't registered that they're not a draft dodger, because it's more difficult for the government to prove the other side."

Got that? The burden of proof is on Freking, who now has to "prove" his state of mind at the time he did not register.

So much for innocent until proven guilty. But I guess that's a quaint idea, along with such nonsense as freedom of speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure, freedom from torture, etc. etc. etc.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1075 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

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

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

Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has just enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, the obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq?

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

Why can't the Twins be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry -- it's now official -- is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Performance Bonuses for VA Officials???!!!

It's got to be the top story in the outrage department. It appears that certain top officials in the Dept of Veterans Affairs get fucking bonuses, up to the tune of some $33,000.

This is in a time when there is a backlog of disability applications that can result in some vets waiting up to a year or more just for a determination of eligibility.

How dare they? How fucking DARE they give themselves bonuses? Who the fuck else in government service gets BONUSES? I certainly don't, and I wouldn't expect one. Public service is a calling, and those who enter it do it for reasons other than monetary.

At least that's the way it's supposed to be. With this pack of crony-capitalist motherfuckers in charge, all bets are off.

It's to the Dems' credit that they are expressing the same kind of outrage, and are busy looking into it. One promising threat is that they will suspend the bonuses until the veterans are taken care of.

Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., will be introducing legislation to place a hold on this year's bonuses. "It is shocking and scandalous even by the VA's own low standards that top officials at the VA would get performance bonuses when there's a backlog of over 600,000 cases," Hall said.

This is another "watch list" item. When he submits it, let's all contact our congressional representatives and tell them we support it.

Another Veto in the Works?

The House passed an expanded "hate crimes" bill that adds to existing Hate Crimes legislation extended coverage to people victimized because of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Naturally the Rethugs are up in arms, and Baby Doc is threatening another veto -- which would be only his third -- if it comes to his desk.

They are falling back on that tired old "special rights" argument that was patently absurd in its infancy and hasn't gotten better with age. It's all bullshit pandering to the American Taliban, and our old pal James Dobson, of Focus on the Family (aka Focus on the Fetus) -- or, as Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes call it, Focus on Your Own Damn Family -- is right in the middle of it.

The real purpose of the bill is "to muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality".

In other words, it's another one of those horrible liberal/godless-atheist plots to prevent Xians from their "free speech" rights.

I guess so, if your definition of "free speech" extends to murdering the Matthew Shepards of this world.

Which, when you get right down to it, is what they want. They want to set up their Xian theocracy based on "biblical principles" -- which means, first and foremost, the slaughter of homosexuals.

Their bible contains a lot of pretty scary shit, and you need to lay hands on a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which spells out in terrifying detail and accuracy what these fuckers are really up to.

Dawkins' thesis is that belief in god is a psychiatric condition, a psychological delusion that has resulted in more murder, starvation, genocide, child abuse, dehumanization of women, etc, than anything else in the history of this world. And when you take a look around at the likes of Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the rest of their cohort of evil minions, you can't help but think we're very close to a religious meltdown in this country.

That's why I am proud to support Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I urge you to get involved in these organizations as well. It will take a concerted effort from what I suspect is an angry but committed minority of non-believers in this country to roll back the fundo inroads these assholes have made into our secular democracy.

Speaking of Kent State

I don't know the details or the provenance, but the news is full of stories about an audio tape of the Kent State shootings that has been languishing in a safe deposit box for the last 37 years.

Allegedly the tape contains a National Guard officer giving the order to open fire on the student demonstrators.

If true, this sheds new light on what really happened that day. Unfortunately, the guy who is peddling the tape, Alan Canfora, who was wounded that day, has apparently made himself kind of a "professional victim", a Kent State survivor who hasn't shut up about the shootings for the last 37 years. Naturally when you get to be controversial, your evidence can be seen as suspect -- or be painted as tainted by your enemies.

This one will be interesting to follow.

Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings

On this date in 1970, a group of out-of-control National Guardsmen, brought in to quell an incipient student riot at Ohio's Kent State University, shot and killed four individuals and wounded nine others.

This was one of many low points in the Nixon Administration and the event was immortalized in the great CSNY song "Ohio".

Okay, so now fast-forward to the most recent college campus shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech.

You assholes on the right who say that it wouldn't have happened if the students had been armed: Would you say the same thing about the Kent State massacre? If the students had been armed, there wouldn't have been the slaughter of innocents that took place? That there would have been a peaceful standoff with no bloodshed and no loss of life?

Yeah, I didn't think so. Fucking hypcrites.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358

Total coalition forces dead: 272
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2062
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1562
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1462
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: 383
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 288.

It is still 648 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Four Years Since "Mission Accomplished"

Jeez, time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? Seems like just yesterday Prezdint Codpiece was prancing around on the carrier deck in front of that big-assed sign with a gym sock stuffed down the front of his flight suit.

Four years, and what has it meant?

Only 3,352 Americans dead, 272 Coalition Forces dead, 600,000 Iraqis dead, and no end in sight. Der Monkey Fuehrer is going to veto the Iraq spending bill because Congress has the nerve -- the unmitigated gall -- to do what the people who elected them to office want them to do, end the illegal Occupation of Iraq.

But he can't really do that yet, since there's been a few little glitches in the neocon wet dream to suck the oil out of the desert and give it to Halliburton.

Glitches like that pesky "last throes of the insurgency" that's been going on now for three fucking years.

Oh, yeah, and today he said that US withdrawal from Iraq could turn it into a "cauldron of chaos"... WTF? If it isn't chaos already, then I don't want to see real chaos.

The only answer is impeachment. To paraphrase Rethug/neocon secret hero George Wallace when he made his infamous stand in the schoolhouse door, "Impeachment now, impeachment tomorrow, impeachment forever!"

Yeah, I know some asshole is gonna start whining, "He was a Democrat" -- well, so was Strom "The Rapist" Thurmond back then, so bite me.