Mr. Acid

George Carlin Dies at Age 71

2008-06-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Yep.

George Carlin had alcohol and drug problems during a large chunk of his career as well as heart problems. It is a miracle that he lived as long as he did. But when I was a kid back in the 1960's and 1970's, he was the baddest man out there. Sure, Cheech and Chong were derided by a lot of conservatives for their drug humor, but they were a kind of counterculture Foster Brooks act, ultimately safe and cute more than dangerous.

George didn't take anyone's bullshit and he lived to poke holes in a lot of our hypocrisies and foibles. He was a kind of street philosopher and not just a mere entertainer like your Jerry Seinfelds, your Carlos Mencias, your Jeff Foxworthys or your Jay Lenos.

He was a linguistic subversive and in this age of the dumbed down douchebag dopiness that passes for comedy, he was the voice that said, "wait a second you motherfuckers!" Without him there is arguably no Saturday Night Live in the form we originally knew it, no Daily Show, no Stephen Colbert and no Bill Hicks. He carried on the rebellious spirit of Lenhy Bruce, who was his inspiration, and actually made people think.

Goodbye George and thanks.

Random Stuff

2008-06-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

This clown sent a letter to the IRS daring them to do anything to him. That is the same thing Wesley Snipes did, though the nature of the challenge is rather different. Now the feds are determining which correctional center they will slot Snipes into.

Martha Stewart tried lying to the feds about some stock sales she made and she also was treated to a stay at the gray bar hotel. Now she can't enter Britain because of her conviction. That's freaking hilarious!

Obama raised $21.9 million in May. McCain? Not so much. Is he really going to accept public financing for his campaign? It could be that the problem is because McCain hasn't been able to make up his mind as to what to do about our energy crisis. In fact, the Gropenfuhrer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, just dissed McCain's rationale for coastal drilling. The rejection of public funding will not hurt Obama.

McCain may name Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (yeah, I know, who?) as his VP. But he isn't exactly going to energize the GOP base that is unhappy with the Republican top of the ticket.

Also, did McCain lie to either Hispanic leaders or Republican anti-immigration activists? Or both?

McCain can't finesse this number: 500 Californians dead in the Iraq War. Stay the course is not going to work there.

You might also be able to kiss another Republican blowhard off soon. Red Sox righthander Curt Schilling is going to have possible career ending shoulder surgery. Schilling was a major stud on the hill, but also a colossal asshole off of it. He once told Sports Illustrated that he hated it that pllayers were using steroids and then when a Congressional committee asked him about it, he ballessly demurred.

Some of you religious fucks are scary.

Republicans admit that new Orange County, CA sheriff is qualified for her job, but they are grousing about her selection anyway.

Firefox 3.0 tally to date: 14 million and counting.

You want something that will piss you off? You know that U.S. consumers are paying 3-4 times what the Japanese and the Koreans are for broadband access even though theirs is faster? That's what happens when you have a lack of competition ina given sector.

Pro Gay marriage folks in California are now pressing the courts there to head off a bigoted voter initiatve. I hope it succeeds.

Meanwhile, religious nuts refuse to do their taxpayer funded jobs when it comes to the same sex marriage issue.

Idiot of the day right here.

Also mentallly underpowered are those who got sucked into the "clean coal" hoax.

If you've ever seen the tv series Futurama, there was a joke in one of the episodes that went, "its some kind of hollow tube, devoid of human life. Gasp. The Los Angeles Subway." Well, that isn't true now with sky high gas prices. Check it out.

Two Republican sex predators (yes, their dad is connected to the party) just got out in the OC. So watch out for 'em.

I don't understand how you can use your employer's network and yet demand that they have to respect your privacy when you do. But a California court said that an employee has to give permission before your boss can see your correspondence on the job. This is absurd.

UCLA's hospital has been doing transplants on Japanese gangsters. I'm not kidding. This is fucking outrageous.

In the "It's About Time" file is this.

You may remember that Democratic congresswoman who had her home foreclosed recently. She was also in arrears of her property taxes. Now the state has taken the home away from the new buyer without compensation and given it back to her even though he had already begun renovating the place. Outrageous.

What Effect Will Newsweek Poll Have on GOP Campaign Finances?

2008-06-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

A new Newsweek poll came out today giving Barack Obama a 15 point lead over John McCain. While it is way too early to lend that survey any actual gravity in terms of who might win in November, one wonders if it will tighten the wallets of Republican contributors further.

Or will it wake contributors up and make them get off the stick?

The GOP has only been able to raise half of its goal amount for the past quarter and with Scott McClellan's keeping the secretive and underhanded ways that the White House tried to subvert a national security operative in the headlines and other polls that see 80% of the populace believing that the country is headed inthe wrong direction as the economy slows down, this isn't the optimum atmosphere for fat cats to want to blow their cash on a losing horse.

John McCain has looked downright foolish at times and a recent tv ad starring John Cusack that equates Bush with McCain is devastating. Another ad by MoveOn.org featuring a mother saying that McCain can't have her son for his 100 Years War, also hits home strongly.

And that is before you get to the lacerating London Times report linked in the post below blaming the Republican leadership for failing in the war on terrorism. McCain has stated that he thinks things are going just ducky in Iraq and Afghanistan (where U.S. troops fended off a Taliban attack on Khandahar yesterday), another instance of just sheer delusion.

Obama has hit the ground running while McCain has had feet of clay. With Obama tied in Georgia (!!!) with McCain thanks to Bob Barr running on the Libertarian ticket and siphoning off votes from the GOP, even longtime wacko representative Dana Rohrabacher could very well lose his seat of 20 years to a Democrat mayor in reliably conservative and wealthy Huntington Beach, California,, the adversity only piles up for McCain.

The irony here in that latter instance is rich. Huntington Beach is a former oil boomtown (and there are still oil wells pumping away on Pacific Coast Highway) and Cook herself is bascially an oil industry whore. With the oil lobby (Bush and Cheney, etc) running the country, Rohrabacher may get a dose of his own medicine.

And oil further hurts Republicans in Florida, where the coastal drilling issue has resulted in charges of hypocrisy against Governor Charlie "Secret Gay" Crist. Obama is now destroying McCain in that nettlesome state for Democrats.

Then McCain decides to charge Obama with the words "cowboy diplomacy," something that rebounds back on to himself because it reminds people of Bush's mishandling of foreign policy that McCain supported and obscures what McCain is actualy attempting to get across, that Obama may be a protectionist. Another sign that McCain entered the Naval Academy as a legacy admit (which is true) and not on merit. Just like Bush and Yale.

Murdoch Owned London Times Calls Bush Leader of Incompetents in War on Terror

2008-06-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

Wow wee! Is the London Times trying to reclaim its reputation as the world's finest newspaper> Taking ol' Turbo and his henchmen to the woodshed for a severe spanking.

More Missteps for McCain; Huffington Post Remembers Russert With Censorship

2008-06-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Talk about too little too late. The feds conducted massive arrests on many of the scam artists that helped make the current mortgage crisis possible. I wonder how many of the Bush will pardon. In any event, this should have happened years ago, but the Chimperor's see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil approach prevented that from happening.

One enabler for the dire state of housing these days is Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who has done a 180 and now wants new federal powers to regulate Wall Street. Another tacit rebuke of neocon-onomics.

Then there is this disturbing little freudian slip by GOP congressman Mark Kirk.

The Republicans are missing their fundraising targets by a big margin because of the dissatisfaction with McCain and Bush and now, unlike past campaigns, the Democrats will enjoy up to a 3-1 financial advantage in the general election. Sweet.

McCain backing off on drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge won't make too may of his corporate masters happy, either. This guy flip flops more than Ratfucker Romney and that is saying something.

Certainly, he can now write California off. He had hoped to be able to appeal to enough independents in California to carve out a victory there, but his calling for coastal drilling has cashiered that. Florida undercover gay Governor Charlie Crist, who had also been against exploration off of his state's coast, is now for it, cynically referring to it as a states rights issue.

Huh? Florida has no rights in this decision other than to have its voters throw the presidential administration out of office that drills there. This may have cost McCain that state, too. Obama, according to most polls, is leading in all the swing states right now. Only the Rev. Moon-backed Rassmussen Poll has him losing one of those states.

Even Jeb Bush was against drilling in Fklorida waters.

Perhaps as a hail mary to get on the goodside of MSNBC, which is owned by nuclear plant contractor General Electric, McCain has called for building 45 nuclear plants. Or as I call them, 45 new delicious terrorist targets. And that is before you get to nuclear waste disposition issues and potential safety problems. They also aren't very economical. I'm all for building more power plants, especially gas fired ones, but you don't use uranium, whose radiation is poisonous for about 350,000 years, to boil water, which is what a nuke plant does.

McCain's cartoon turtle-like economic adviser, Phil Gramm, gets his main paycheck these days from Swiss bank UBS AG. This can't help McCain's electoral chances.

It also appears that the Republicans are going to try to demonize Michelle Obama during the campaign. Huffington Post writer Stephen Elliott responded by musing on Cindy McCain's drug problem.

However, that doesn't matter to the yellow elephants. They take their marching orders from another druggie, Rush Limbaugh. So Cindy is just par for the Republican course.

Speaking of Cindy McCain, there was another Huffpo piece on her giving John McCain free transportation on her private jet. I wrote a response that as much as I don't care for the old geezer, the fact remains that John is Cindy's spouse and that this doesn't have the same scent of public corruption that other free excursions provided by corporate lobbyists to elected officials have. The Huffpo moderators censored that and instead printed missives all condemning the McCains for this. Kind of intellectually dishonest, no?

The Huffpo folks also continue to churn out drooling tributes to the late Tim Russert. The readership of the site is becoming fed up with it. While moderators have let through occasional condemnations of the potato headed Sunday talker, they are currently heavily censoring anything that contains really strong attacks of either the ongoing eulogies or Russert himself. Again, media royalism at its worst.

Any minute now, I expect Arianna Huffington to issue a fawning piece talking about how tasty Russert's semen was when she gave him a hummer in a beltway bathroom. She wil call it the milk of human kindness and devotion, or some other such blather.

And again, what are these pundits going to do when a real giant, Mike Wallace, finally grabs some eternal rest? Demand they put his face on Mt. Rushmore? Have a monument erected to him in D.C.? The bloviating classes have really put themselves out on a ledge here to the point of parody.

CBS' Lara Logan, not exactly your Phd candidate, lamented the less than substantive coverage of the Iraq war. Give her a tardy and put her in detention. It is one thing to say that now, but she obviously didn't have the guts to do so two years ago. So she is still just another media coward trying to do a fast song and dance to redeem herself.

Is corrupt Alaska congressman Don Young a politician or a leader of a religious cult? Jesus Q. Christ!

Is this the British government's attempt to pull a Mossadegh coup-type action on Equatorial Guinea? Especially since Margaret Thatcher's son Mark is involved in this.

Is Europe finally getting a clue on illegal immigration? This was a MAJOR issue (along with the Iraq war) in Britian that helped sweep the Tories into power.

In the wake of the download frenzy for Firefox the other day comes news that someone has already found a security hole in it. It still beats the hell out of Internet Explorer, though.

A lot of people are confused about what global warming entails. Many think it means that they will wake up one day and it will be 150 degrees outside. What the actual ramifications are concern the creation of more severe weather episodes and the shifting of climatic zones.

There is already a rise in global sea levels due to eroding cie fields in Greenland and the poles, causing many so-called "barrier islands" along the east coast of the U.S. to now be submerged. Those islands had acted as a brake on hurricane intensity, but now that they aren't there you could see far more severe storm surges than in the past inundating cities such as Miami and even Washington D.C., where flood waters could be licking at the White House grounds at some point.

That is due to the fact that the Potomac empties out into a bay, which leads to a one foot increase in river level for each foot of higher tide in the ocean. Washington D.C. was once largely a big marsh and diseases such as malaria weren't unknown there.

In hot water himself right now is a teenager in tony Coto de Caza in Orange County, California who not only hacked into his school's computers to change his grades, but he also conducted break ins to plant malware on school computers. He faces up to 38 years in jail, though he will probably get less than a year. I would like to see him get a nickel (five years) because this is a bad kid and you can't allow this kind of behavior to pass without firm legal punishment.

Unfortunately, too many people seem willing to cut this asshole a break, some recommending as little as community service and even companies hiring him for his hacking skills. Yeah, that makes sense for someone accused of identity theft, burglary, etc. Had this kid been, say, 25, the sympathy would have been non-existent. That's ridiculous. Fuck this retard.

He'll probably be hired as a Republican operative, though. He has the background for it. Amoral slimebag who has some dough.

Or how about some fucked retards? I mean, WTF?

Now where did we put those nuclear weapons parts? Oops, I can't remember! Now just why did you guys vote for Bush on national security issues?

I'm glad that Boeing is getting another shot at supplying tankers to the U.S. Air Force over Airbus, but Americans, unfortunately, both benefit and get hurt in that deal.

South Korea and Japan enjoy internet connection speeds far in excess of what you can get through ur monopolistic cable and telecom firms in the U.S. Well, that may change, but it is kinda late in the game and the Koreans and Japanese pay cheaper rates despite strong currencies.

And is Japan poised to blow Detroit up with its new hydrogen fuel cell cars? We'll see.

Also, here is an interesting way to think about car mileage.

If you're enough of an idiot to use HGH to boost your athletic performance, well, swing and a miss if this report is correct.

As I type this, I am watching an absolutely stellar series on the History Channel on the battle of Thermoplaye. You know, they one they made the move 300 about. If they repeat it, don't miss it. Just terrific.

Random Stuff

2008-06-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

It's Firefox Day! Get her downloaded!

The Iowa disaster has been going on for days and Bush is going to wait until Thursday to survey the scene? What in God's name is he doing right now that prevents him from showing up at this economic, human and environmental disaster? Just more callousness from the Bush junta.

And now Mississippi may have massive flooding problems of its own. Fortunately for the GOP, it appears that its policy of infrastructural neglect wasn't the cause here, just a one in 500 years weather event.

Meanwhile, Bush cronies KBR still raping the treasury and they even got a government official who tried to stave some of this theft off fired.

And even as KBR is hindering our effort in Iraq, the Taliban appears poised for an offensive on the outskirts of Kandahar. Now what was it Laura Bush, who is looking so empty eyed these days she might as well be following a nutty religious cult, saif that things were going oh so peachy in a region we should have taken care of first before even considering any action elsewhere. But that makes too much sense and Turbo has none.

I don't know why I have to do this, but it bears reminding you that with all the talk of a possible strike against Iran, that also comes complete with Russians because the Putin regime has extensive dealings with the Persians and Russia has traditionally considered Iran within its sphere of influence. But you will hear nothing about that in the mainstream media because they are too busy being Bush"s pissboys.

Government corruption got a big thumbs up from an appeals court when a former Republican official's conviction in the Jack Abramoff case was set aside on a technicality. Where is the GOP outrage over this judge subverting a jury's decision? *lol

It's deja vu! Stagflation during a Republican administration!

On the other side of the aisle, a former Democratic state legislator and church pastor was convicted of fraud. I thought that being explosed to the good book was supposed to make people refrain from stuff like this. I am shocked *lol.

Then you had a case of cronyism in Baltimore, where mayor Sheila Dixon, an African-American Obama supporter, btw, is being investigated by the feds for possible illegal use of city money. So corruption just isn't for Republicans anymore.

You gotta love Texas. Or not.

The business media cracks me up sometimes. In this piece, they slam CNN host Lou Dobbs for "scaremongering" on the salmonella tomato issue after he raked Bush and his FDA over the coals for helping to make it possible. However, even though this outfit complains about what Dobbs said, they stop short of propounding that his statements were untrue. Plus this tends to back Dobbs up.

Nice try guys.

Media Royalism and Censorship at the Huffington Post

2008-06-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

It isn't just NBC going totally overboard over the sudden death of Dick Cheney's favorite dupe Tim Russert. The Huffington Post has been riddled with tributes to the fan of Turbo Bush and it is now censoring comments excoriating Mr. Potato Head for his role in helping the White House propagandize the public into the disastrous war in Iraq.

I have personally had at least half a dozen posts reacting to HP contributors' effusive praise of Timmeh refused even though those comments weren't profane, off topic or ad hominem attacks on other posters. Indeed, somebody there apparently has it in for me since I have had other comments censored, too. None of those violated any of the HP's posting guidelines.

There was a particularly inane column about Russert scribbled by Jamie Frevele about how 'Sundays wouldn't be the same without [him]." So I retorted that Frevele had pulled a Pee Wee Herman and declared Russert "The King of Sunday!" I facetiously added that since his death cast such a pall over that day that no broadcasting be permitted to take place as a tribute to this media god.

In that connection, in talking back at a writer of another Russert brown nose article, I asked him, "so what are you guys going to say when Mike Wallace dies? Wallace actually made you feel good about the media because he was its junkyard dog that nobody wanted to cross, grilling his quarry to the wall until they admitted something they were attempting to conceal."

"On the other hand, Russert was a teddy bear, a soft, inoffensive, lightweight toy nobody minded having around. If you are going to treat Russert as some mythic figure, then how do you eulogize Wallace? As God? Russert didn't even deserve to breathe on Wallace's microphone."

Yeah, I can see how you would think of this complaint as whining, but the fact is that the moderators let through other more inane posts such as, and I quote, "do yo know how horny scotch makes you?" That one appeared TWICE.

In one instance, I questioned a writer's piece on his recent trip to Disneyland, pondering whether this was some kind of product placement. Disney is notorious for its unnecessarily relentless and sometimes underhanded promotion of its properties and there just wasn't any journalistic reason for the guy to pen this article nor for HP to run it other than maybe HP was being paid off to do so by Bush cocksucker Robert Iger's outfit. They printed three comments that were all just "we love Disney" type blather.

So the Huffington Post is both serving corporate masters and its own elitist circle of media acquaintances and friends and not necessarily its readership. In doing so, it is taking the condescending tack that characterizes the mainstream media's attitude toward regular folks. That is just wrong.

The NY Mets Disgrace Themselves With Randolph Firing

2008-06-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to learn that the New York Mets had fired manager Willie Randolph at midnight Pacific Time after a game against the Dodgers (that's 3 a.m. Eastern! Think of the shock of the ballclub's fans!). New York Daily News writer Bill Madden called the Mets handling of the Randolph severance "the most disgraceful, atrocious and cowardly" canning he had ever seen, saying that it was even worse than some of the monkey shines of NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. I concur.

Randolph, one of the classiest and most dignified individuals in all of baseball who shouldn't have had to wait as long as he did to lead a team, deserved far better than this abomination. The Flushing Meadows nine had won three of their last four and fell just short in that one loss and were one under .500 for the season. GM Omar Minaya, also one of the nicest men in the national pastime, had tried to protect Randolph, who took the team to within one game of a World Series a couple of years ago., but their huge payroll, the historic collapse they had in 2007 and the mediocre beginning this time around was just too much for the ownership and fan base to swallow.

It is ironic that Randolph has that record and is now looking for alternative employment while Seattle is holding on to Lou Piniella disciple John McLaren despite that team having the worst record in all of baseball.

On paper, the Mets should have been a formidable aggregation,. especially since they were able to pick up arguably the greatest lefthander in the game, Johan Santana, during the offseason. However, the Philadelphia Phillies have been beating the living crap out of National League pitching and are currently well ahead in the NL East while the Mets are mired in fourth.

The only gamers on the Mets right now are third baseman David Wright, closer Billy Wagner and Santana. Centerfielder Carlos Beltran, who, during his final season in Houston, appeared as if he was blossoming into the Puerto Rican Willie Mays, has largely been disappointing in relation to his salary and God only knows what is going on with Jose Reyes, who has gone from one of the most two or three most exciting players in baseball to an enigma. First baseman Carlos Delgado just flat hasn't hit.

It will be interesting to see if moving into a new ballpark next season will energize what looks to be a floundering collection of lost souls. Bench coach Jerry Manuel, who had a forgettable managerial stint with the Chicago White Sox, has been named interim manager while minor league manager Ken Oberkfell brought up to join the big league coaching staff. Manuel will almost certainly not be retained once the schedule concludes. Indeed, Oberkfell, who was a gamer himself during his days as a St. Louis Cardinal , would be a good candidate to succeed Manuel.

Minaya has one more year left on his deal and if they don't show vast improvement after the all star break and in 2009, he could very well also find himself an outsider. I would expect, though, that Delgado will be disposed of in the interim, along with outfielder Moises Alou, who has seemingly moved into the disabled list fulltime this year.

Here's to hoping that Randolph finds a coaching position soon. This was a bad case of bad things happening to good people.

Call Him "Crash" McCain

2008-06-16T20:49:00.001-07:00

If you remember clownish Orange County Congressman Robert Dornan, he was such a bad pilot when he was in the armed services he spent a good deal of his military career as a USO liason. Well, guess who might be worse than Dornan? Yes, the most execrable former flyboy to disgrace the halls of Capitol Hill is one John "Crash" McCain.

McCain, doing for the U.S. what he did for naval aviation.

Suck it Homophobes! More Evidence Being Gay Has Genetic Roots

2008-06-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Which just goes to prove that far right religious assholes don't know shit. Eat this, bitches.

Mariners Fans Bring Out the Ropes and Torches

2008-06-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! Put on your flame retardant gear and take a look at the reaction in the Seattle Times after the team not only got swept by the lowly Washington Nationals, but then punted General Manager Bill Bavasi. Apparently, that doesn't even begin to satisfy the ballclub's faithful, who were asked to let the team have it.

Who Will Replace Russert on Press the Meat?

2008-06-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

Joe Scarborough, currently a morning host for MSNBC and who could be using his tv time much as Ronald Reagan did, to help the nation become comfortable with him in preparation for either a Seanatorial (VERY likely) or presidential (look for GOP elders to buttonhole him about 2012) run, has been mentioned as a possible successor to Tim Russert on Meet The Press.

That would be a kind of Fox News move for MSNBC, which is attempting to differentiate itself from the Rupe-a-dupe" propaganda outlet, and would draw howls of protests from Democratic viewers. It is one thing to have been a Democratic operative, as Russert was for Mario Cuomo, but it is another to have been a conservative Congressman with a record that moderates and liberals may find distasteful heading up the leading Sunday political interview show.

The chief question here for me is whether or not out of professional courtesy Tom Brokaw will be offered the seat. Brokaw, who I remember from his days as a local anchor for NBC in L.A., is a pompous ass and will turn viewers off. Again, it is one thing to be a newsreader and quite another to be quizzing political leaders week after week for however long the show lasts.

Another candidate for the job, Keith Olberman, should stay right where he is. If he doesn't, MSNBC is out of business in a year.

Brian Williams is too vapid to be taken seriously and also too respectful of those he will be interrogating. Well, it won't be an interrogation so much as a slow pitch softball game.

Andrea Mitchell-Greenspan was way too friendly with the Bush Administration and her marriage to Alan Greenspan, Bush's former federal reserve chairman, only further hurt her objectivity. Plus let's face facts, many people just don't want to see women being hardasses. Ask Hillary Clinton.

Katie Couric is an airhead. Her stint at the anchor chair of CBS was also such as a disaster and still present in the audience's mind that she has no chance. Really, if they want a woman, they need to hire Rachel Maddow. But Rachel is a lesbian and sharp as a tack, someone that political figures, especially on the conservative side of the aisle, may find nettlesome to want to confront. Rachel is clearly the most qualified to do this job in terms of no nonsense temperment and high intellect, but lack of access will kill her chances here. She has been rumored to perhaps getting her own MSNBC program during weeknights. Please let that happen.

So I believe, and this is hardly original thinking, that if Brokaw turns the job down, White House correspondent David Gregory will be tapped to succeed Russert. Gregory earned the favor of the yellow elephants at GE by fondling Bill Clinton's cock during the Monica Lewinsky episode and his johnny come far too lately to be of any actual import tussles with Scott MacClellan have set him up to move over to Sunday.

Gregory is a bit of an empty suit, but he is brash and in today's news environment of all heat and no brains, he could end up being a long running staple.

Will McCain Drop Out of Race? Don't Count on it

2008-06-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

A piece in the Huffington Post by Steve Rosenbaum posits that GOP presidential nominee John McCain will bow out during or around the time of his party's convention, ostensibly for health reasons, in favor of a younger and arguably more electable candidate.

Aside from the fact that it is hard to imagine someone with the Senatorial ego and delusions of personal grandeur of McCain would shelve his ambitions to be the most powerful man in the world, Rosenbaum goes on to list a group of possible choices the yellow elephants may resort to. Here is my assessment of those named in the article:

Condoleeza Rice: The worst Secretary of State in American history and who conducted our diplomatic affairs with all the elan of a giggling high school cheerleader. There are also those rumors about her being either a lesbian or having been serving at the pleasure of Bush's "little W." if you know what I mean *nudge nudge, wink wink.*

If she were in over her head any more, she would be going out in public wearing a scuba outfit. FEMA would have launched a rescue operation. Blacks don't trust her. So a Rice run is a non-starter.

Colin Powell: The second worst Secretary of State of all time. Was part of Bush's propaganda effort. And in doing so, failed the country enormously. It is apparent now that Powell was an affirmative action hire by Scanner Bush and used as a handy tool by Turbo Bush. Look up dupe in the dictionary. Powell's face may be there. He will be destroyed.

Marilyn Musgrave (Colorado Congresswoman): Just another neocon asshole, the type that is being repudiated by the American public. Plus she has no name recognition. And there are Republicans who aren't going to vote for any woman no matter what. This is a joke.

Mitt Romney: Willard "Ratfucker" Romney has flip flopped more than a fish freshly hoisted out of the water and on to a boat. He would be Christmas and the Fourth of July for Democratic opposition researchers. And he's a Mormon, which will cause some of the evangelical wackos to stay home on election day. He will win Utah though. But that's about it.

Mike Huckabee: He not only looks like Deputy Dawg, he turned his primary campaign into a religious crusade, which scares not just those on the left, but independents, women and moderate Republicans. He will get shellacked. Plus some have accused him of having secret liberal social sympathies that are anathema to rank and file reactionaries.

Charlie Crist: He's a secret gay. In fact, he is in trouble among some Republicans in Florida for being kinda easygoing on the homosexual issue. To quote from an episode of Family Guy, he is so far in the closet he is finding Christmas presents. Bigwigs in the GOP establishment know about these rumors and I can't see them allowing a Crist candidacy to occur.

Tim Pawlenty (Minnesota Governor). Who? And that is his problem. At least Obama is the devil the public knows. Pawlenty has no foreign policy experience, which is something the Republicans have hit Obama on with McCain fronting the ticket. So they GOP will lose that meme and they don't have much else.

Bobby Jindal (Louisiana Governor): Tv ads with the theme to The Exorcist playing in the background. It will become a national joke. That is because Jindal has reportedly participated in exorcisms. Even most Catholics aren't prepared to go there. He would get destroyed.

Mark Sanford (Governor of South Carolina): The most likely McCain replacement, I think. But will have a lot of problems with hispanics over the immigration issue and is embroiled in a budget fight with his state's legislature, something the American public isn't going to want to see in D.C. It would be reminiscent of Bush. Would sweep the south, but he also voted against some Republican pork projects when he was in Congress and it would be another message that you can't trust his party on budget issues. Might be able to pull back in some of the disaffected Republicans backing Ron Paul, but that is a hail mary since Paul is almost a cult right now.

The biggest obstacle to overcome fo Sanford, though, would be the "bait and switch" meme the Democrats would throw out there. They would paint Sanford's nomination as undemocratic and emphasize that he hasn't been vetted through the primary process. That will probably sow enough suspicion to doom his candidacy.

John Thune: Rabidly hated by Democrats and not the kind of guy independents are going to vote for. Is an asshole and a half, dishonest to a fare thee well and would drive Democratic Party turnout through the roof.

Chuck Hagel (Nebraska Senator): The GOP rank and file are still smarting from Hagel ranging far off of the reservation vis a vis the Iraq war and, since they tend to be royalist in their thinking anyway, would not permit this kind of lese majeste to be rewarded. Would be very formidable as a national candidate, but with his criticisms of the conduct of the Iraq war, would be hard pressed to come up with a resolution to it and he may not have one. If he doesn't, there is basically no reason to vote for him over Obama. I also don't think that Hagel is willing to kiss enough ass to get back in the good graces of the party apparatchiks.

Dick Lugar (Indiana Senator). The problem is his name. I can only imagine the You Tube parodies and jokes on Leno that will arise out of that. Lugar is well regarded on both sides of the aisle, but he also isn't likely to bring anything new and again, he will get hung with the bait and switch tag. Plus the public at large just doesn't know that much about him.

Michael Bloomberg: No. He is basically a John Lindsay Republican (limousine liberal) and the party long ago swore those off. Plus crime has gone back up in NYC under his watch. Bloomberg's best bet for president is to either run as a Democrat or an independent.

Random Stuff

2008-06-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Today's required reading: The Death of U.S. Strategy in Iraq.

Also, if you are in the mood for a miserable slog, there is The Shame of Gitmo.

This just in: 36.000 Iowans homeless due to catastrophic flooding. MSNBC continues to use its airtime to say, Tim Russert Still Dead!

I can't even fathom what the good folks of that midwest state are going through right now. I wonder what impact this will have on food prices. In any event, my best wishes go out to those suffering from this calamity.

A U.S. soldier has refused to report for Iraq duty. You can't blame him. The Bush administration has absolutely exhausted out military, doing something that neither the Germans, the Japanese or the Soviet Union couldn't. One sometimes wonder if Bush is a mole for our enemies.

In more pleasant news, the GOP is writing off two open Senate seats while The Cook Report keeps moving into the toss up column Republican-held House seats and the yellow elephants are having fundraising troubles. It is going to be a Democrat landslide in November.

Call him Barackpossible in light of the fact that women are now beginning to coalesce behind him.
But Virgina Governor Mark Warner won't accept VP nod in order to clobber Republican douchebag Jim Gilmore in the fall. The Wall Street Journal has Warner as the favorite in the race.

The FCC has finally approved the Sirius-XM satellite radio merger and it is well overdue. The union has brought opposition from consumer groups, but this was tremendously shortsighted since both firms were bleeding money, leading to the eventual likelihood that there would be no satellite radio in the future at all.

It is also true that if people don't like what they program on whatever the new merged company will be called they can unsubscribe and directly hurt them. So since they will have to appeal to a broad market, I don't see how this is a loss for media reform.

New competitors, of course, could also arise.

Is this good news for American politics or bad news? People are increasingly turning to the web to help them decide who they should vote for.

In that connection comes news about the Associated Press' attempts to crack down on bloggers who use their articles. AP asserts that some bloggers go overboard in the length with which they quote that company's reportage. You can't realy disagree with them in one sense: Yahoo News and major newspapers pay to carry AP while bloggers don't fork over anything.

By the same token, with today's hyperactive news cycle, where articles are sent out to millions before they have been fact checked, sometimes it is necessary to quote an AP featurette point by point, especially since they once had John Solomon, a pathological liar who is now the executive editor of the Moonie Herald (you call it the Washington Times), which should tell you something about his distortional capability.

Has been Newt Gingrich asserted Monday that Louisiana Governor Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal is the best choice to be John McCain's VP. Cue Tubular Bells. Does anyone listen to that pompous philandering, prevaricating hosebag anymore?

And since I mentioned to McCain, the lovely and talented John Aravosis over at Americablog has posted a video of bloopers. by the old codger.

Would he consider the crazy man in the political basement Ross Perot (!!!) as his VP?

Midland, Texas Republicans to McCain: drop dead!

The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper that roots for Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and which once decried the scrutiny that now disgraced former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had exerted on the financial community, is now calling for an investigation into the breaks several Democratic politicians received on their mortgages through Countrywide. Fucking hilarious.

I think that as long as they're so concerned about public integrity of our elected officials, how about using some of that to also examine why Exxon has a private army culled from the Indonesian military?

Former Phillies and Mets outfielder Dosing (steroids) Lenny Dykstra, at the center of a stock picking controversy with Forbes. Lenny is an uber attention whore, so I'm sure he is loving it.

Doesn't it strike anyone else as curious how much of a hot potato the attempted hostile takeover of Budweiser has become while there is little media interest in how U.S. defense contractors are moving offshore to avoid taxes or how much of our weapons technology is manufactured by foreign firms, including China.

Why the Democrats haven't made defense manufacturing self-sufficiency an issue is beyond me. Accusing the Republicans of hurting our military capability by favoring non-American firms would put them back on their heels, the recent giving of an air tanker contract to Boeing rival Airbus being just one example.

RIAA gets spanked by a federal district court in promo cd case. One thing the feds might want to look into is how record executives donate promotional cd's in order to get a tax break even though they didn't pay for the cds they donated. They got them gratis as promos. A lot of record store managers and radio station program directors do this as well.

In addition, record executives often trade promo cds of their artists to executives of other labels for free cds from those competing outfits. So while the RIAA goes out and sues consumers for trading mp3 files, they are, in effect, conducting an illicit underground market in music they didn't themselves pay for. It seems to me that the IRS needs to look into this.

Airlines charging for the wrong baggage?

New York to feel global warming in a big way.

Did you know that there are 6,000 Ugandans working as security guards for the U.S. in Iraq? I just hope we aren't helping to foster the next Idi Amin.

Documentary on the Lies That Lead to the Iraq War Plus Loony Muslim Extremists in Toronto and More

2008-06-15T14:05:00.001-07:00

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), that country's version of the BBC, has a couple of terrific documentary programs, The Fifth Estate and Doc Zone. Some of those are available for viewing online, such as this one on the horseshit Bush spun to the public as to why we should go to war against Iraq.

In addition there is this one on an extremist Islamic sect in Toronto.

But it also has to be said that the Catholic Church in Canada did like its U.S. counterparts, shuttle a molesting priest around to conceal his crimes.

And then there are morons who follow faith healers such as Benny Hinn.

By the same token, though, torturing suspected terrorists hasn't done the U.S. image any favors and they diffuse the smoke screen of excuses the Bushies threw up in reaction to the revelations.

Here is one about the vicious nature of the political conversation in America.

Random Stuff

2008-06-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

John McCain has been attempting to make himself the national security candidate. Missed it by THAT much.

What is it about intelligence and the British Commonwealth? I detailed earlier for you the problems that Canada's spooks have had and Britain's MI5 and MI6 have been penetrated more than a high street whore.

Well, here we go again. Apparently some kind soul in the U.K. intelligence community felt that there wasn't any interesting reading to be had on London trains, so he left some top secret documents to be perused by interested parties.

Then it happened AGAIN.

You wonder if the trains are being used as a document drop by a mole to his/her foreign intelligence service handler. Once I can see as just inattention, twice and a thorough review of the members of both MI5 and MI6 may be in order.

This reminds me of a story in Canada not too long ago about that nation's anti-terror plans being discarded in a dumpster.

How about Air Canada being spied on by Westjet? I'm not kidding.

Canada really is the Bullwinkle Moose of countries. amiable but also big, dumb and easy to scam.

There is a controversy bubbling up now about some congress critters, most of them Democrats, receiving special favors from the near bankrupt Countrywide Mortgage firm. Compared to the Abramoff investigation, the rather slight breaks are small potatoes, but it nonetheless undermines some of the party's moral authority vis a vis the Bush administration.

Unlike Republicans, however, who defend their kind no matter what they did (*cough Scooter Libby *cough John Doolittle *cough), I hope this matter is thoroughly investigated and if there is any corruption, and how can you not suspect there was, the guilty should be iced in maximum security for a dime (ten years). Corruption undermines democracy, no matter who is doing it.

In a roundabout connection, Pakistan Junta-crat Pervez Musharraf may be impeached in a country he grabbed off in a military coup. So let's look at the totals here: a leader of a military junta in a Muslim state can be impeached but in the reputed land of the free and home of the brave political predator Bush can't? What is wrong with THAT picture?

Jesus H. Fuck Me Christ! MSNBC spent all day Saturday memorializing dead Bush enabler Tim Russert even though there was a human and economic tragedy occurring in Iowa. It's all about priorities, that being able to, in effect, run a long ass infomercial for yourself by using a dead man as a proxy. In other words, by highlighting that "we had Russert, this great man," they were actually endeavoring to embellish the NBC brand. When you have a chance to do that, well, it's only Iowa, I guess.

Oh speaking of lame marketing ideas, I tried to watch a couple of episodes of Family Guy the other day on TBN (not to be confused with televangelist scam artists and alleged closeted homosexual Paul Crouch's Trinity Broadcasting Network) and they have come up with a really irritating way to promote their programs now. What they do is impose animations and blurbs about them during segments. That isn't bad in itself, but they were doing it every fucking two minutes! They even stopped the show a couple of times midway through scenes so that the star of this particular show, Bill Engvall, could utter the ad copy. It was so bad that after a few minutes, I got fed up and turned the tv off.

I mean, what the fuck? We need that shit hammered into our eyes and heads repeatedly to try to ensure that someone would watch that show? I'm not going to see Engvall's vehicle just because I feel so insulted by such overweening marketing. And I like the guy! But fuck him and his show. That is just pure lack of consideration for the viewing public. Whoever devised this shit needs to be castrated.

Separated at birth? Max Headroom and Republican bullshit slinger Tony Snow. Kinda eerie, isn't it?

The irony with bringing up Snow, who is one of the GOP's asses of evil, is that Russert farts off the earth all of a sudden while Snow survives two bouts of cancer. Russert was just a dupe. Snow was a cheerleader for a fascist takeover of the U.S.

Oh, I forgot to mention this: when Russert croaked Friday, Laura Ingraham was subbing for Blahblah O'Reilly on his show. Someone did a flattering summation of Russert's career and Ingraham didn't react much to it. Of course, Ingraham was originally brought to you by MSNBC during its days as a purveyor of reactionary cant.

But what struck me was how made up Ingraham was. Talk about putting makeup on a pig. As someone who has a thing for tomboys, who usually do have at least some kind of femininity, Ingraham is more like a mildly fay northern European male. She has to be a dyke. I know I'm hardly alone in thinking this, but c'mon.

It just cracks me up how many gay hating Republicans are in denial about how infiltrated by rightwing homosexuals the GOP is. Hell, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who might be McCain's VP, is rumored to be of that ilk. Fox regularly has John Kasich on frequently, another alleged gay. California nitwit congressman David Dreier has denied his friendship with Dorothy, if you get my drift, which nobody, and I mean nobody, believes.

You know, "angry" is an adjective often used to describe Keith Olberman. In fact, it is an accusation you hear from the rightwing parrotheads and even from the New Yorker, of all outlets. The disingenuousness of that is pretty apparent, though. The whole rightwing radio format is predicated on sputtering displays of white trash male imaginary grievances, with its most ebullient, if you want to call it that, practitioner being onetime herbal medicine barker and San Francisco talk show host Michael "the human snotball" Savage. MSNBC had him on for a while before he got so excessive that even the Republicans at GE who run the station had to can him to preserve their image.

So the whole anger meme runs like this: seething at lefties in a ballistic fit is perfectly fine, but you turn it on members of the self-appointed chosen, i.e, the GOP, then you are psycho. It's called having it both ways.

Bad news for queer bashers: you're dinosaurs!

And your boy McCain may have a campaign manager with ties to the vicious Russian Mob.

For those of you still using Internet Explorer (what, are you still on AOL, too you chumps?), Tuesday would be the perfect time for you to join the cool kids and download the Firefox browser. It loads smoother than the Gates product and it also offers a neat array of widgets to make your net surfing more fun thanks to being open source. Seriously, IE is for McCain voters, people who are too stupid to know when something is OVER.

Poor Republicans! They have been burbling about what they termed recent successes in Afghanistan. Well, you can kiss that idea goodbye. Sadly, there is also this bit of news.

Meanwhile, there have been rumblings that Barack Obama may be able to peel off some of the evangelical vote from McCain. Here is one illustration why.

Unfortunately, as we creep closer to November, the GOP's kissin' cousins are gearing up to kill the Illinois Senator. That is no joke. Why do Republicans hate democracy so much?

They also hate science.

Bush Finally Concerned with Bin Laden

2008-06-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

According to Rupert Murdoch fishwrap London Times, ol' Turbo has now ordered whoever to bring him the head of Osama Bin Laden, who has pulled one of the greatest disappearing jobs since Jimmy Hoffa. If the escalation (advertising copy name "the surge") was Operation Save My Legacy part one, this is the sequel. You could also brand it, Operation Flail for History.

Of course, if Bush was smart, as soon as he found out who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, he should have ordered the deployment of some tactical nukes in the mountains of Afghanistan, but oh no. Boy George, who has all the strategic acumen of a Wal-Mart assistant store manager, instead gave us warfare Pic 'n Save style, disaster inevitably ensuing, didn't have the stones. Therefore, neither the Taliban nor Bin Laden paid big boy penalties for playing with what was supposedly the world's pre-eminent power.

Then we went into Iraq, which was, as Jon Stewart so accurately observed, akin to "building a dam in Arkansas to deal with the flooding from Hurricane Katrina."

More and more, I believe that Iraq was part of Karl Rove's strategy to carve out a permanent Republican majority rather than actually attempting to create a wedge of democracy in a region still nostalgic for the 6th century. If my suspicion is true, it will go down in world history as the most heinous machiavellian act by a national executive ever.

Either that, or it was, as some others have declared, a way for the idiot in chief to salve his massive inferiority complex trying to live up to his father Scanner or brother Jeb. That may actually be closer to the actual case, but thanks to our ridiculous laws keeping many government documents out of circulation for 75 years (this is purely a vanity thing---our leaders don't want to suffer the criticism they may engender while they are still alive) I will likely never know.

Yeah, you will get slanted excuses commonly referred to as memoirs, but those are often of dubious historical integrity as the authors attempt to buff up their images for posterity, a kind of historiographical turd polishing. That isn't a Rove allusion, by the way.

Oh wait, this just in! This is what happens when you have a Secretary of State such as Tokenette, who is, and has been, in way over her head.

Random Stuff

2008-06-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

Hey, you want to talk fatal attractions? There is a controversy ongoing in Canada right now with that nation's foreign minister, Maxime Bernier, taking as his girlfriend a former Hell's Angels moll, Julie Couillard.. Yes, this is true. She even accompanied Bernier to a meeting with President Bush. No word on whether the Secret Service knew of Couillard's past (or maybe even continuing?) associations.

Prime Minister Steven Harper has, incredibly, told the press to mind its own business. So wait, you have cabinet member dating someone who has an organized crime connection and you don't think it is worth public attention? And you're a Tory (conservative)? Is it me or is this Alice in Wonderland? Bernier, nonetheless, resigned.

The opposition Liberal Party has raised the spectre of government infiltration by the gang, something that was written off as "absurd" by the Tories.

Canada has had substantial security issues and one wonders about the competence of its version of the CIA, CSIS, covered up the fact that it knew an Indian airliner leaving from Toronto in 1985 was going to be bombed, but failed to alert anyone or take special measures. The result was a blown up plane with 329 people aboard. All died in the incident. More here.

These were just two times when that intelligence service dropped the ball and certainly, if I were a malefactor, I would see Canada as a weak link as more CSIS problems have come to light.
There has been nothing in the U.S. media as to how the Bush Administration views all this, if they are even paying attention. Well, if they aren't they had better do so right now and help our northern neighbors rectify their issues.

You may not have seen this, but perhaps a reflection of just how badly the Republicans are going right now is on display in Montana, of all places. Bob Kelleher, a 15 time loser as a former Democratic Party and Green Party candidate for office, is the Republican Senate nominee to try to unseat incumbent Max Baucus. He is also 85 years old.

But the kicker to this is that this guy is way to the left of any of the Democrat candidates running this election cycle. You have to read it to believe it. He got past two other candidates in the primary, one a former GOP state house speaker and the other a businesswoman who was backed by the White House.

Now the aforementioned ne0-Bush hopeful will now try to run as an independent ala Joe Lieberman. So count on an easy Baucus victory.

Then there was another embarrassment for John McCain. Details here.

The L.A. Times says that the NRA may be on the wane, but the fact there is that's it's due to their being successful.

How would you like to be subject to compulsory dieting at the behest of your government. Check out what is going on in Japan. The stupidity there is that it doesn't deal with the two biggest problems in the otherwise low fat heart safe diet in that country: smoking and salt intake due to the consumption of soups and shoyu (soy sauce).

Former NBC sports play by play man Charlie Jones died the other day, which was too bad. I remember Charlie from his days of working AFL and AFC football games and he always did a real solid job. I don't know anything about him personally, but my best to his family.

Fucking Around Wirh Michelle Malkin

2008-06-14T12:58:00.001-07:00

She might be a screaming loony, but man, let me tell you, I wanna fuck Michelle (Malkin) Maglalang (her actual last name). I'd have to put a ball gag in her mouth just so I won't have to hear the inanities that stream out of that cakehole, but she is one smokin' hot little Filipina. Since she is insane, she is also probably wild as hell in the sack.

By the way, did you hear about her latest piece of psychosis?

The story, as I understand it, is this: she was out walking her dog one day near her home when she passed a middle aged guy who was washing his car in his driveway. He had a cd of Rainbow's Long Live Rock n' Roll playing in a boom box. The ever vigilant Michelle, however, didn't like what she was hearing. Not because she thought it was too loud or the lyrics were offensive or anything like that. It was the way the song that was on at that moment, "Gates of Babylon," was played.

She confronted the car owner, accusing him of airing "terrorist music." The bewildered gentleman asked her what she was talking about. She responded that the tune sounded like something you would hear in an Arab country. "You're an idiot bitch. Get the fuck off my driveway before I call the cops," he retorted. "I'm going to sick Fox security on you," Michelle screamed and stomped off.

Apparently still seething, she did some research on the song and found out it was based on a harmonic minor scale, which has an arabic tinge to it. Proud of that discovery, she immediately got on her computer and began to write about this new danger, referring to the scale as "a sonic keffiyeh," noting that "rock musicians are largely a bunch of scummy leftwing hippies" and "were using this scale to inculcate pro-terrorist sympathies to their fans," insisting that "with the harmonic minor scale, each cd becomes "a little madrassa" spreading anti-American cultural ideas to a U.S. audience.

Richie Blackmore, the former guitarist and leader of Rainbow, was asked about this and referred to Malkin as "madder than a hatter."

In furthering her research, she also came across one Yngwie Malmsteen, the Swedish virtuoso guitarist who had effectively started the neoclassical heavy metal movement, which uses the harmonic minor scale as one of its hallmarks, alarming her further. "The cancer has spread," she typed on her blog.

When Malmsteen was contacted about this, he was just tucking into a 21 piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (he has a bit of a weight problem) . Malmsteen dismissed her claim with a long cackle and then snarked, "if you ban the harmonic minor scale anyway, there goes Mozart's "Requiem" and other classical pieces. I guess Bach is a terrorist to her. If I see her, I will unleash the fury on her!" he seethed.

Malkin called Malmsteen's statement "the mark of someone who is a terrorist sympathizer" and is now vowing to have all of the hundreds of neoclassical metal musicians sentenced to internment camps while the fans will be dispatched to re-education facilities, where they will have their musical tastes reconditioned to love barbershop quartets. "The major scale is God's scale," asserts Malkin, and that is indeed the hallmark of that style of singing.

Offered that American troops might be listening to neoclassical metal, and if what one sees on You Tube, many of them do, she countered, "those who do are moles who are trying to disseminate sympathy for the terrorists and they should be imprisoned at Guantanamo!"

She also exhibited little patience for classical composers. condemning "longhaired assholes like that hippie Mozart, who was nostalgic for the days of the Islamist Turks rampaging through Europe and who wrote his "Requiem." as part of a quest to culturally colonize Austria It was a lucky break for western culture when he died young."

Okay, I made all that stuff about her equating music with terrorism up, but you wouldn't put it past her, right?

The GOP Sex Scandals Never Seem to End; Ku Klux Love for the OC

2008-06-14T07:39:00.001-07:00

This one involves an appeals court judge appointed by Ronald Reagan who has a fondness for porno and it has gotten in the way of an obscenity case that is before him. Ugly details.

Now imagine this scenario: you are at a party. You are too boozed up to drive home. You crash at your hosts's place in the top bunk of a bunk bed. Also in a similarly inebriated condition and sleeping in the lower bunk is the national chairman of the Young Republicans. Then you suddenly are awakened in the middle of the night by said GOP bigwig blowing you. Yes, you read that correctly. You got to check this out.

Sex offender was Republican volunteer. I know, Republican and sex offender are redundant terms.

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, whose marriage is breaking up because he was "polling" (heh heh) where he wasn't supposed to, may be employing a "wag the dog" strategy in calling for a special session. Here be the report. And this story ain't going to go away.

More fun in the Catholic Church.

And Louisiana's GOP Governor, Bobby Jindal, is even wackier than THAT. Will he be McCain's VP nominee?

And are Southern Baptists about to go the way of the dodo bird? It sure looks that way. Halelluah!

GOP religious freaks object to HIV/AIDS prevention funding even though bill has bipartisan support. No doubt about it, that party loves misery.

Did you know that ultra-conservative Orange County (California) came to be thanks to a couple members of the Ku Klux Klan? Wouldn't surprise you? Well, it's true baby! Here's the straight dope.

Conservative parents beam with pride as daughters deal with gay rights advocate.

Republicans in Florida rush to sign up felons as new voters...but so do Democrats. Assholes.

Bush on 24, but I don't mean the tv show. Looky here.

Why do Utahns continue to vote Republican when they can't do anything right?

Helluva job there Mukasey: Feds allow convicted hedge fund exec to escape. Global manhunt now underway.

McCain pisses off party faithful in Texas. Will probably be abandoned by black conservatives.

Republican run Ford continues to betray America.

Red states continue to betray kid's health. And insurance companies will make you sick.

Media treating Obama like somebody from another planet. Remember Pat Buchanan's "exotic" remark? He isn't alone in thinking that.

AT&T continues to be the evil telecom company.

This is your local news media.

The Orange County (California) Weekly decided to satirically tweak the conservative Orange County Register, former home of GOP Rep Dana Rohrabacher, in a sexual way. Laughs here.

McCain sex tape surfaces and hilarity ensues (satire).

Amid Apologias for Russert, Some Voices of Sanity

2008-06-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

First, for all of you folks attacking me about laying into Tim Russert, let us not forget that this porcine dickhead had MSNBC cancel appearances scheduled on that channel by Arianna Huffington because the Greek former Newt groupie called him "a conventional wisdom monkey." Russert, not wanting to face up to his culpability in the Republican predations on America, chose instead to forbid the public from seeing discussions of this issue. That isn't someone who loves either journalism, the truth or America. The great patriots at Crooks and Liars brought you the play by play on the controversy and the Huffington Post's Jason Linkins elaborated.

Just as his book about his father is actually a subliminal tribute to himself, Russert takes care of number one and to hell with anybody else. Fuck him.

Tim Russert is an Idiot

Requiem for Pope Russert

Then Linkins took this satirical shot at Russert during Timmeh's final Meet the Press show before he croaked: "Tim Russert is amazed by how well the Obama campaign has used technology like cell phones and the internet. "They held up cell phones at rallies, and sent 'text messages' to each other. These are messages or PURE TEXT. Very TEXTUAL. Extremely MESSAGEFUL. Later, I saw the campaign using this remarkable 'fire' concoction to keep warm, whereas I had to slice open the guts of frostbitten NBC News interns and crawl inside to keep warm."

Rolling back a little further to a debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton moderated by Russert and Warren Beatty wannabe Brian Williams is Worst. Moderators. Ever?

And there was this.

Even further back was this screed on the Buffalo Bamboozler.

Look, the best you can say about Russert was that he was the political journalism equivalent of former FEMA head Mike Brown. He just didn't have the innate tenacity to help defend this country from the collection of time wasters and thieves that are currently running it and was all too content to bring us sheer pablum as reportage because it was the safe thing to do when his bosses are a bunch of fascist wingnuts.

But there is a worse explanation, which I have already laid out and I believe it to be closer to the truth. Too bad if you don't like it.

Traitor to America Tim Russert Dies Suddenly: Adios You Fucking Douchebag

2008-06-13T14:03:00.001-07:00

NBC political guru Tim Russert, who enabled the disastrous Bush administration that has brought the USA to the brink of ruin by being a reliable conduit by which the GOP could spew its bullshit into the American conversation, keeled over of a heart attack at work Friday at age 58. Given how so many slimebags (Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon, Chucky Manson, etc) usually live to a ripe old age while making the lives of the average guy as bad as they can get away with, it is refreshing to see Mr. Potato Head buy the farm at age 58. Of course, that is still about 30-40 years longer than some of the soldiers in Iraq he helped send to their deaths.

The thing that really gets me hocked off is how the talking heads at MSNBC, including a near-sobbing Keith Olberman, are acting as if Jesus himself had just departed this mortal coil when, in fact, Russert was little more than a glorified political hanger on who hoped to cap off his career with a job with the Bush Administration, but wasn't trusted enough to cadge one due to his past association with Democrats such as Mario Cuomo.

Wait, you didn't hear about that last bit? Well, let's rev up the wayback machine and journey to those days of yesteryear, specifically an item run by the always salutary Roger Ailes blog:

"Reliable sources have informed MWO that Jack Welch and Tim Russert attended last autumn's Al Smith Dinner in New York together - and that Russert, on the back of his lapel, was cleverly wearing a Bush for President button.

Russert has reportedly tried to shrug off the incident in private, but has failed to discuss it publicly.

MWO has also been told that either during or after the campaign, Republican Welch chewed out his employee, NBC News correspondent Claire Shipman, for being too favorable to Gore in her reporting on the Vice President's campaign. And Shipman's bureau chief - Tim Russert - reportedly did not lift a finger to protect her or to protest Welch's outrageous partisan interference."

As an aside, in case you didn't hear it, Peggy "Underdog Lady" Noonan just called Russert "a Reagan Democrat." Do I need to say more?

Usually, the motivation for displaying that kind of fealty to GOP operatives is in hopes of landing a position with the administration (just like my suspicions that Chris Matthews kissed up to the Bushies to get the chief of staff or press secretary's slot, which was also in vein, but he did carry the GOP water in the Scooter Libby controversy, especially since Libby and he are good friends).

Really, just like with Andrea Mitchell Greenspan (yes, she is married to Alan, the guy who helped make the home mortgage crisis possible and who is derisively called "Mr. [real estate] Bubble" by Americablog supremo John Aravosis, but NBC has never told you that) , he was part of the military-industrial-media complex that General Electric, which owns NBC, so exemplifies. Anything said about Russert that ignores that is to cheat history and the American public he so aided and abetted the Bushies in bamboozling.

In short, Russert was a journalistic version of Vidkun Quisling, Kim Philby and Neville Chamberlain, who each furthered the purposes of evil in the name of preserving or elevating his own personal ambitions. It was he who lent credibility to a man with the emotional impulses of a spoiled eight year old to the detriment of a nation that was the greatest history had ever known and which is now headed the way of Great Britain and Spain unless the next president can rectify things.

Russert went to his reward, in a box and his corpulaent body ready to provide years of good eating to worms and bacteria, never having apologized to America for his crimes. But isn't that a typical Republican?

Now some of you out there are going to wring your hands and whine, "but Mr. Acid, it isn't nice to talk like that about the dead." Shut the fuck up, will ya? It is that kind of failure to hold political criminals responsible that has gotten this country to this point. Yeah, I feel for his wife, but you know what? All those little sniveling bureaucrats that ultimately make the Chinese commie government function all have spouses who love them, too. Now put that way, what do you think?

And Luke Russert? Douchebags don't fall far from the tree. Suck me Luke.

Your Defense Dollars at Work....Selling Cocaine

2006-12-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

More shit for Ronald Dumsfeld to answer for: the FBI recently rounded up a passel of military recruiters in Arizona who were not only helping potential enlistees cheat on aptitude tests but they were also sprinkling nose candy around their localities. The ugly truth here.

Random Thoughts

2006-12-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

With the Iraq war going about as well as a French defensive maneuver, there were some wiseasses who remarked that it would be better just to put deposed dictator Saddam Hussein back into power. That ain't gonna happen, but here is the next best thing, I guess. It will be interesting to see how this one blows up in Turbo's face.

And while that bit of less than satisfying news is out, here is an indication that John "The Escalator" McCain is going to risk losing Afghanistan, where the actual 9/11 terrorists hid out, so that he can send 30,000 more troops to get bogged down in Operation Qwagmire. Osama Bin Laden must think that McCain is Bush's comedy writer or something because I'm sure he had a good chuckle over that one.

Not that funny, though, is that Bush, in what should probably be called Operation Save My Legacy, may decide to join McCain in suggesting more troops be dropped into Iraq. Talk about sociopathically selfish.

However, the rats are really deserting him as his poll numbers make mole-like and dig deeper holes.

The irony for me is that incoming Speaker of the House Nancy, "I need a visit from the clue patrol at committee nomination time" Pelosi is going to create a new intelligence oversight committee. Hmmm....Bush? Intelligence? Talk about no there there. Is it grounds for impeachment if they find no intelligence at Camp Clusterfuck? Or is it just for seeing that the non-existent intelligence is deployed where it can least hurt the republic?

Surely another sign of deficient intelligence is that we are now going to help motherfucking commie China with its nuclear reactor program. Chris Cox has his fingerprints on this somewhere. He has been the biggest Chinese collaborator since we tried to prop up the heinous Chang "Peanut" Kai-shek after WWII. The last super computer sale to that country was under Cox' auspices.

In Japan, being in the Jieitai, or Self Defence Force, is imbued with the coolness level that is associated in the U.S. with losers who spend their time playing Dungeons and Dragons. But now that the education system is about to get more outwardly patriotic, it will be interesting to see if that changes. It is hard to believe, though, that Japan will create a military establishment large enough to project any power because it is better economically to allow the U.S. to do it for them. That is not to mention that both China and the Koreas will shit their collective pants and thereby heighten diplomatic tensions in Asia.

Call the Tim Johnson situation "a stroke of ghoulishness."

Show of hands time: did any of you care about how long it took the state of Florida to dispatch a death row inmate this past week? Me neither.

And may Castro be in agony as he makes his way to that eternal farm.

Not scheduled for a trip to the boneyard but maybe just to get boned is Judith Regan, jet setting slut (well, maybe not, but one gets that impression from her appearances on Howard Stern's show) and O.J. Simpson ("murderers are the new black and he's even black," she must have thought) stenographer. She was told to take a hike by Rupert Murdoch, the Chinese Polituburo piss boy, and his Harper Collins outfit for, get this, embarrassing the company that pinched off the rightwing propaganda mill Faux Nooz. Maybe the Chinese didn't like her.

Your hydrochloric herald has about as much use for a record executive as he would a collection of Wayne Newton's best bowel movements, but an exception to that is Atlantic Records honcho Ahmet Ertegun, who passed away at 83 after, now check this out, falling off the stage at a Rolling Stones show. Yes, it was only rock and roll but he liked it.

Ford Readying One Last Pratfall

2006-12-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

It really is sad that Peter Boyle died recently. Anyone who remembers his performance in the hilarious Young Frankenstein would realize that he would have been perfect to play another stiff, Gerald Ford, who stumbled into the presidency and never ceased tripping up until Jimmy Carter elbowed him out in 1976. Now it appears that Ford is about to be sent packing again, this time in an expensive wooden box amid way too much fanfare.

Yeah, "Mayaguez Gerry" gave us lots of laughs, whether it was lining balls into the backs of the heads of golf partners or deciding that the answer for the inflation problem was printing up buttons that urged, "whip inflation now," he was one of a kind. The sad thing is that Prez Turbo makes him look like freakin' George Washington. But I digress.

Longtime has been Chevy Chase, a pompous ass who had one of the worst talk shows of all time (maybe only Magic Johnson's was more pitiful), has Ford to thank for his career, such as it was. Too bad they can't throw Chase into the same casket with Gerry so that you could see off two no talents for the price of one.

How Do I Hate the State of Washington? Let Me Count the Ways

2006-12-16T17:10:00.000-08:00

The people of Washington like to position themselves as cosmopolitan sophisticates who are yet rugged enough for the great outdoors. That is patent bullshit. Once you get outside of Seattle (San Francisco for Dummies), the rest of the state is one big Riverside County, a bunch of rednecks who are in the habit of giving aid and comfort to rightwing wackos. Think of it as Arkansas without the accent.

Thursday, there was a relatively gusty windstorm with shortlived severe rainfall. No big deal for those of us from California, who have seen this before. That also rarely impacts the power grid in the Golden State. The longest power failure I have ever experienced was during the Northridge quake, which was in the 7.0 range, when we didn't have electricity for all of about three hours.

Unfortunately, Washington's infrastructure is rather fragile, as this report will show. So not only did the power go out twice for extended periods, but my cable and broadband connections disappeared for a day and a half. Thank you Comcast, you fucking assholes.

This isn't the first time that we have experienced this stuff when the wind gets up around 40mph, something that happens in California with the infamous brushfire aiding Santa Anas. Thank the deity of your choice that we don't have hurricanes or tornadoes here. We would be left with something resembling what Iraqis are now dealing with.

Which has spurred me to enumerate why if you are contemplating moving to this joke of a state you should think twice:

1). The women are absolute beasts. Maybe because I grew up around hot surfer babes in southern California I am spoiled, but shit, I haven't seen this much white trash in my life. Half of them look like they are addicted to meth and yet are still fat. WTF? Plus most of them sport ugly tattooes. Sorry, but I like women who don't look like longshoremen.

And if that weren't enough, single motherhood is a plague here, as every girl over the age of 20 has already popped one out and is either on food stamps or WICK until the lazy cunt can sucker some poor soul into knocking her up again so he can have the pleasure of financing her lifestyle. Washington chicks are nasty. Stay away from them. Date foreign women instead.

2). This state hates men. Anyone who gets married here is an outright fool. The system is so rigged for an easy payday for any lazy ass bitch that wants one. For example, let's say you start dating a single mother. There is actually a law in Washington that says that if you have been with her more than six months a judge can rule that her kid has bonded with you and badda bing badda boom, you are on the hook for child support even though you are not the biological father. The Washington bar is chock a block with feminazi judges and their pussywhipped male sympathizers. Every male has a bullseye painted on his back here.

3). In addition to the weakness of the power grid and lack of resiliency in the product supplied by the broadband providers, you can pretty much hear the roads chewing up your tires as you drive over them they are in such bad shape. Which provokes me to observe....

4). The road system was designed by George W. Bush. Okay, Bush would have trouble finding the ends of a straight line, but you would not believe how asymmetrical the roads are. You're tooling down the road and you miss your offramp, so you think, "no big deal, I'll just hit the next ramp and then get back on the freeway toward my destination." Much too logical. You might have to go miles and struggle to figure out where the signs are attempting to point you to because of where they just seemingly stick them up with no mind that real motorists need to use them. For tourists, Washington is hell to navigate. Sincerely, the folks who assembled the road system were sucking down doses of microdot while they were in the planning stages.

In addition, when you are driving down a road and don't make the turn when you need to you might not be able to do a u-turn to head back for several miles. It is unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it, but bring blood pressure medicine with you. And tourists, just go somewhere else. There isn't that much to see here anyway. And if you don't get to those sites early enough there will be no place to park. It's a fucking nightmare.

5). You think radio is generally bad pretty much everywhere (it is), but radio in Washington is flat unlistenable. The one saving grace is a sports station that is semi-decent, which makes it well ahead of sports talk in L.A., which is is an absolute joke.

6). Drunken driving and meth use rates you would not believe. This has made Tacoma, for example, one of the highest crime cities in the entire west. Plus we seem to have more serial killers per capita than anywhere else.

7). High food prices.

8). The freeway speed limit is 60mph and the highest street limit is 40mph. Yep, you guessed it, that is designed to drive up the rate of ticketed speeding violations. The Washington state patrol isn't so much about public safety as it is preoccupied shaking down the public.

9). The music that made the state famous most recently was grunge, but it perhaps should have been dubbed "dinge," because the entire state seems enveloped in a shroud of it. The state motto should be, "everything moldier than everything else."

10). Idiot governors. Gary Locke, a Chinese-American Democrat, actually thought, and I quote, that farming out some of the state's welfare bureaucracy to India, no, not Indiana, but the land of the Taj Mahal, "was a good bargain for taxpayers."

Then when he left, we got man hating psycho bitch Christine Gregoire to front for the Democrats, which made me seriously contemplate voting Republican for the first time in my life. Until the GOP, bless their black hearts, put airheaded dickface Dino Rossi. So I voted for the psycho bitch because at least she kind of has a brain. Instead, I refused to vote for another conniving misandryst (that is to men what misogyny is to women), Deborah Senn, for state Attorney General. I left my ballot blank in that race because Rob McKenna was just another GOP ubertwat. Voters didn't like Senn, either, and so McKenna, who is a douchebag, is now making the state's law enforcement decisions.

11). There are no jobs here. Well, at least if you want to make a real living. Your basic choices are the government, Boeing, fast food or retail. That is it. The logging industry is about dead and you have to be connected to get a job at the ports.

12). If you want to be invasively interrogated by customs coming back from overseas, fly into Sea-Tac, which has the surliest agents I have ever run across and they ask questions that are none of their fucking business. If you remember recent reports about how foreign tourists don't feel welcome in the U.S. well, Sea-Tac is one reason why.

That is exacerbated by the high rate of baggage theft (piece of advice: don't ever fly Alaska) and the fact that the airport itself is an architectural monstrosity.

13). Next to NYC, the rudest place I have ever been is Washington. In L.A., people might not like you but at least they can fake being nice. At least when they don't ignore you or choose to whip out a pistol and plug you. But in Washington, it seems like everybody here is looking for some kind of confrontation. It could be that they are angry about being forced to spend all their lives here or they're agitated because they haven't had their daily meth or crack yet. This whole state needs anger management courses.

Now you may be asking why don't I move. I would. But going back to California is more expensive than I can handle. Housing is still relatively reasonable (provided that you want to live at least an hour away from Seattle) and I own my house free and clear thanks to California housing prices compared to here.

So those of you still in California, stay put or you will be sorry. Washington is a shithole. The tv show Frazier ostensibly took place in Seattle but it was shot in L.A. Think about why that may be. A lot of California's problems can be cleared up by dealing honestly and decisively with the illegal immigration issue. Washington is beyond hope.

Sunday Morning Bringdown

2006-12-10T06:32:00.000-08:00

You may have noted that I blasted the recent U.S.-Indian nuclear deal because of the contradictory diplomatic signals it sends to our ally on the war on terrorism, Pakistan (where Osama is probably hiding out at the moment Howard Hughes-like). Secretary of State Tokenette Rice (or "Clueless Condi"), gushed about the pact as only she can. You may observe that the terms of the agreement weren't disclosed in this article. However, this piece asserts that it has been criticized as a threat to non-proliferation efforts. No shit Sherlock!

While India has been a democracy, it has often been on the brink of political chaos and there is a good deal of infighting between ethnic and religious groups. That isn't exactly a great security environment in which to help them with their nuke program.

A hardy "fuck you!" to Henry Hyde, who was the main culprit in making this come to pass and to the idiot Democrats who went along with it.

As if that werent' bad enough, the fuckin' morons in Louisiana voted William Jefferson back into office in a runoff election. What the bejesus does it take there to get voters attention? A hundred grand in the icebox ain't bizarre enough for y'all?

There was some grousing in the comments section of Americablog that the Republicans might have mobilized to return Jefferson to Washington in order to embarrass the incoming Democrat majority. I wouldn't put it past those motherfuckers (look at Lieberman's being permitted to darken the Senate for another term as an example), but it is also indicative of the crisis of morality in America's black communities. Maxine Waters, Marion Barry, and now Jefferson. I hope you enjoy all the negative attention black caucus!

I also want to know what the fuck the Clinton Administration was thinking when they bugged Princess Diana. Unless her main squeeze, the weedy Dodi Fayed, was associated with terrorism, this isn't exactly the greatest diplomatic thing a nation can do to an ally.

Yet, the reaction to this was curiously muted in the London Times, once one of the finest newspapers in the world but which has since become another in a line of Rupert Murdoch fishwraps. This report doesn't mention the U.S. spying at all and a columnist tells Britain to "get over it" in relation to Diana's death.

One wonders if Murdoch was playing up to PM Tony Blair by not having the country's newspaper of record make a stink about the bugging. It becomes weirder when you consider that the news of the bugging was on the NY Post's site, another Murdoch echo chamber, and London Times rival the Observer wrote about it.

However, the British-based Reuters News Service also skipped mentioning the bugging. In fact, it only offered a cursory bit about the drunken state of her driver and in a not very prominent way. The BBC, the government tv outlet, also omitted anything about the wiretapping. Make of that what you will.

As a side note, British pols are being urged to drop the phrase, "war on terror" because it makes people in the Muslim world angry. Boo fucking hoo. What pc bullshit that is.

Not every pc, though, is that Neil Bush and the Carlyle Group are very friendly with a sheik who is being accused by the U.S. of being a trader in child slaves. Not that anyone should be suprised.

On another "with friends like these" tip, is this. Try not to laugh too loudly.

On the other hand, the Saudis are now saying that the Middle East is about to explode into regional warfare at least partially thanks to Bush's incompetent handling Iraq. Call him The Firestarter. The next time you dumbasses decide to vote for one of your own take a look at the situation in the Middle East and how Boy George screwed it up even more than it already was. If you still pull the lever for a retard please blow your brains out afterward and get yourself out of the gene pool, okay? This is a guy who confuses the words "vision" and "delusion."

Remember back in Vietnam when the NLF (the bad guys) were basically able to amble into Saigon and buy weapons off of street corners and mosey back into the battlefield with them? Deja vu!

Meanwhile, Bush's economic magic is absolutely delighting travelers who take foreign vacations. Well, maybe not.

Adding to that is the Cambodianization of Central Africa.

I have stopped buying CD's. It has been three years now since my last purchase. Aside from the prices just being too damned high, the fact that they are now often loaded with code that prevents them from being played on my laptop or pc really hocked me off. This was before the Rootkit controversy, which further strengthened my resolve to forego buying recorded music. I now just listen to Live 365, which is an internet radio site with thousands of individual stations, tons of which are better than anything that terrestrial radio can offer, or utilize my already extant collection. But now it appears the record industry might finally be getting a clue regarding this matter. It's about fucking time.

Now for the idiotic lawsuit of the day award. How ghoulish is THAT? Their claim is not only specious, it is insulting to those who died. Now they are attempting to capitalize on the incident. What rat bastards.

If you're a sexual predator, Washington state's health care system is your paradise, as this pathetic reports informs us.

Hey, you think the Japanese are feeling pretty good about that report having to do with condoms produced to international size standards being too big for Indian pricks? The Japanese have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to the U.S., one of them centering on penis size. This, in fact, was parodied in an episode of South Park. So while India has some pretty damned fabulous food, it isn't a place you want to go if you're a woman or a gay male seeking a good bit of stuffing.

But you Americans celebrating your relative weenie wealth need to know this, too: many Japanese women complain that the members of U.S. males are often too funyafunya (soft and floppy) to be enjoyed internally, a contrast to their native land's gents, who may stick out a little less but do so with more firmness.

Now for a Musical Interlude

2006-12-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

Check this out if you hate the war and Bush.

Random Thoughts

2006-12-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

First, to dispel a rumor, Christmas is not engaging in a ballistic mistle toe buildup to answer the war on it.

Now for a plug: go to the Minor Ripper blog and scroll down to see how the U.S. military is making friends and influencing people among Iraqi motorists. It's a little reminiscent of what happened in South Korea a couple of years back when an American tank crushed a schoolgirl, setting off an absolutely vicious firestorm of controversy there. The average Korean does not want anybody's army there except its own, but recognizes that they are, for the time being, in a relationship of convenience with the U.S. to combat the North Korean Communist threat.

Time to get the wallets open and go after pantomime Republican moderate Susan Collins. Representative Tom Allen has thrown down the gauntlet for Democrats and we need to ensure that he helps cushion our majority in that chamber.

So anybody see the story of a student who was suspended for faking putting some candy up his nose? Yes, you read that correctly. Again, it proves that the administrators are the most useless individuals on any school campus. But it gets even more bizarre from there.

Now Bush thinks that he is dictator of the world. He is so divorced from reality that it doesn't even want alimony. It is just glad to get away from him. And he is more isolated right now than a Taco Bell burrito in the break room of the Center for Disease Control.

Anti-white bigot Spike Lee is now going to make a movie about the Rodney King riots. No word if Representative Maxine Waters, another bigot, and former city councilman Mark "my people won't riot" Thomas will have a part in it. Waters still calls it "an insurrection" and not an orgy of death and destruction where gangs of blacks, much like the Ku Klux Klan in an earlier time, went after Korean-American merchants in downtowm L.A. No doubt, Lee will whitewash the blatantly racist behavior by blacks and blame it all on whitey. God, he's disgusting.

To you assholes out there who are buying Hewlett-Packard computers, why? They are shit. And here is another reason you should bypass them.

Now it's time for our math corner, but put those calculators away, it isn't that type of math. Here is the problem: Pakistan is our ally in the war on terror. They have been in conflict with neighboring India for decades and the issue has often threatened to go nuclear. So what does the Bush Administration do? Of course! Send more nuclear technology to India! Boy, he just knows how to strike the right diplomatic chords, doesn't he? Not to mention that security in India is about as firm as Bob Dole's cock.

Hillary Clinton is definitely running for president. How do you know? Because she is getting involved in bullshit video game content issues in order to play up to the religious gapejaws out there. So let's see: we got a war we're about to lose at great cost to the economy and military preparedness not to mention those who were killed and wounded there, problems with funding the schools and government corruption and Hillary is preoccupied with video games for fuck's sake! She might want to see this article, too, which suggests that her taking part in this could leave people cold.

Look, there shouldn't be any ratings at all for tv, movies, music or video games. You can read the fucking reviews and determine whether you should go see or buy the item in question. We don't need a bunch of out of touch old ladies from motherfucking Iowa telling us what we should be able to consume. It is none of their business.

This is all part of the GOP war on adults, be it getting Howard Stern off the air, attempting to limit the availability of porno or now video games. Just shut the fuck up and mind your own business you twats! We shouldn't have to live in a world where seven year olds are the artistic arbiters.

Really, I would like to see the Democrats target Waters, the Saddam of South Central, for defeat because she is, let's face it, just a blackfaced Strom Thurmond with a tits and a pussy. But I doubt that Howard Dean would have the stones for it.

Now back to more conventional bigotry: while the usual GOP hatemongers are decrying Mary Cheney deciding to have a baby, The Advocate is worried about what the kid will face gorwing up since its grandpa is a big enabler for anti-gay mountebanks.

While reading this article, keep in mind that Taylor's dad and devil with a priestly collar on Pat Robertson are each other's BFF. Again, religion about power and wealth, not spirituality.

Now for a bit of fun, see how a British general is getting his clock cleaned in the media for trying to go from Bush/Blair poodle to crusader.

And how much you wanna bet that the anti-semites in the religious right are going off on a decision by conservative Jews to recognize gay rabbis? And I had to post a link to a Time Magazine article on the subject just for the headline, which is a howler.

Blogger Mark Byron had this observation about the move by the Jewish organization: "I've got the New Yawk Jewish mom sound bite-"I'd have hoped he'd have married a nice Jewish girl, but at least he's marrying a Jew." You might also want to check out Steve Gimbel's reaction as well at Philospher's Playground.

For a more thoughtful view on the conflicts within Judaism about the issue, see Pillage Idiot.

Meanwhile, on the roads of Washington state....

And somebody call Dr. Phil and have him try to get major league baseball owners from shopping like drunken sailors on shore leave. They just gave nobody Mariners pitcher Gil Meche a five year, $55 million deal and he has a career ERA of 4.65! Julio Lugo, a pretty good but hardly superstar shortstop, is now taking in something like $9 million. All the owners are Republicans and are thus genetically incapable of sticking to a budget. Now do you understand why we have the swollen budget deficits we do? Mamma mia!

And a Child Shall Lead Them....Into the Valley of Death

2006-12-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

When Floyd R. Turbo Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court to be President, the tv punditocracy crowed that, finally, the grownups were back at the White House after what they saw as the youthful excesses and lack of respect for the office by former President Bill Clinton and his staff. Indeed, "Quisling Chris" Matthews used those very words to describe the incoming administration.

Another NBC newscarney, Tim Russert, went to a White House party flashing a "Bush for President" pin he had under one of his lapels to Republican bigwigs. The rumor on the hill was that Matthews was angling for the press secretary's job and one has no doubt that so was Russert.

And that is before you get to the pro-government Faux Nooz, which was a virtual informercial outlet for Boy George specifically and the GOP in general.

Well, we are about to wrap up 2006 and it is apparent that I was right about Turbo when I remarked back in 2001 that there was something awfully childish about him. That culminated Thursday in the Iraq Study Group report that was not only a repudiation of Bush's handling of the war, but it tacitly undercut all the talking heads who had basically flacked for what will go down as by far the lowest collection of creeps, knaves and boobs to ever be handed the reigns of power to the greatest country in world history.

Ultimately, what is at the heart of this is Turbo boy, the neo-Romanov retard. What all the professional political blabbers and conservative camp followers backed wasn't an adult man, but an arrested adolescent, and with catastrophic consequences at that.

During his presidential campaign, H. Ross Perot spoke of "the crazy aunt in the basement," which was the ballooning budget deficit that was threatening American economic stability and yet nobody was seriously attempting to get a handle on it.

The Bush family's equivalent to that was Turbo. He apparently had some learning difficulties as a child and they weren't helped that much by his boorish, drunken battleaxe of a mother. So he was never much of a student and not particularly athletic, either, a contrast to his father, who played first base at Yale after serving in WWII, and his brother, Jeb, who was considered to be the most intellectually gifted of the Scanner and Battleaxe offspring (which resultd in Binghampton Press and Sun Bulletin writer David Rossie to remark, "being the brightest Bush boy is a little like being the most talented oboe player in Logan, Ohio.") and who got involved in banking after he took a degree in Latin American Studies. Jeb also registered for the draft, but wasn't called up.

By contrast, Turbo, an indifferent student, could only be a cheerleader and had to depend on daddy not only for his slot at Yale, but to save his ass from going to Vietnam by arranging a phony baloney position in the Texas Air National Guard during years which were mostly fuled by large amounts of alcohol and cocaine. When he attempted to get involved in the oil business his father's business buddies, which included members of the Saudi royal family, were there to bail him out when the ventures failed.

The same proved true in how Turbo became a millionaire, as Bush crony Tom Hicks brought him on board to help run the Texas Rangers, after which he sold his interest in the ballclub for a handsome amount.

While this perhaps improved his economic position, it was still evident that he still felt that he would forever be consigned to the kid's table at Thanksgiving dinner. A run for office that predated his involvement with the Rangers saw him get spanked.

He subsequently met his now wife, Laura, who basically became his surrogate mother, converting him to religion (kind of like how Jeb had gone from being a Protestant to a Catholic at the urging of his Mexican spouse) and getting him to, as the story would have it, forego the booze.

Nonetheless, even after making all that cash with Texas, Bush continued to surround himself with his daddy's buddies, even when he was named President of the United States. This should have set off all kinds of alarm bells for two reasons: one, these guys were all a bunch of thieves; two, it exhibited how Bush has trouble standing on his own two feet. In other words, he was now in Washington D.C. but had never truly moved away from home.

Unfortunately, when you go from running a parochial state such as Texas to a boisterous democracy of 300 million, it was soon evident that Bush was over his head. Lobbyists wrote most of the Congressional legislation for the GOP and all Bush had to do was rubber stamp it. But when it came to having to deal with the hardcore nitty gritty of issues when meeting with his advisers, he retreated into a fantasy world. The No Child Left Behind Act was the most insidious of the Bush fairy tales, federalizing the education system (not entirely a bad thing in itself as there needs to be some kind of national uniformity therein, but when you don't fund it the whole thing creates havoc) while not lending school systems the financial help they need to make it have a chance of working.

He continued to insist that he was a "uniter, not a divider," even as the GOP setup the most vicious propaganda apparatus in American history, and remained on vacation at his Crawford haberdashery (all hats, no cattle) while New Orleans was being destroyed by Republican neglect. The firestorm of criticism that engendered put Turbo back into photo op mode, as he was apparently convinced that they can salve over any resentment, something he has repeated in his trips to Iraq even as he presided, Nero-like, over the distaster that evolved into. Adivsers, not wanting to lose their cushy political perks, increasingly resorted to telling Turbo wanted to hear, a situation resembling that of the Joe Stalin administration.

And it is the folly of Iraq that will go down as Bush's biggest fiasco. Again, he called on his dad's buddies, Colin Powell and Ronald Dumbsfeld, to try to one up Scanner's successful campaign (though we lost the peace in that deal) to expel Saddam Hussien out of Kuwait.

Bush then engaged in one of the most laughable if it weren't so tragic photo ops in U.S. history when he threw that "Mission Accomplished" wingding dressed in a flightsuit, leading some of his critics to dub him, "commander codpiece."

The rationale for the second Iraq War was deeply flawed, attacking it in the name of the war on terrorists who had aided the 9/11 incidents, who were based in Afghanistan. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show later compared this to erecting a dam in Arkansas to deal with the flooding from Katrina, another sign of Turbo's childlike delusional tendencies.

It degnerated from there, as the administration, totally ignorant of Iraqi culture and history, ended up enabling sectarian warfare that escalated into full on civil war. 3,000 American and untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian dead later, Scanner's friend James Baker, headed up a commission that excoriated Turbo's handling of the conflict and urged that the U.S. negotiate with two members of what Turbo had cartoonishly slammed as "the axis of evil," Iran and Syria.

Faced with his glum development, Bush once more crawled back into his fantasy world, where "we are winning the war in Iraq."

Inevitably, Bush has now set up the conditions for one of the great massacres since the Rwandan Genocide or the war in the Balkans. His dad isn't going to be able to help him out of that. That will be his legacy. All because he was coddled by Scanner and then tried to live up to what dad did.

This will also be the legacy of those who spurred Bush on, be it Rich Lowry, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Frist, Karl Rove, Russert, Matthews, David Brooks, Bob Novak, Joe Lieberman, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, you name 'em, you know who they are. Treat them as if they were Nazi collaborators who created the atmosphere that raised this little man to the most powerful position on earth and got us a humiliating defeat that is also a defeat for civilization and progress.

Americablog Verbal Plays of the Day

2006-12-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

Culled from Americablog:

Yo quiero . . . STOMACH PUMP. (That Taco Bell Chihuahua)

Hey, look on the bright side of things. Gay marriage has been kept out of Iraq! Mission Accomplished. (Lostw)

Why do the Alps HATE AMERICA??? (PattyP)

The Alps have a WELL-KNOWN liberal bias. We should have known they were up to no good when they allowed those liberal troublemakers, the Von Trapp family, to safely escape Austria.
(Pope Buck I)

Clearly, if the Alps are not with us, then they are against us. (Jump to the Left)

Bouquets of eidelweiss and boxes of chocolate await their liberators! (Ellie)

[On a story about a woman finding a bat in a Christmas tree]: Proof that nature is evil and hates America - Wildlife joins the War on Christmas! (PattyP)

when do they start blaming Clinton for the alps? (evangenita)

I am now convinced that Snow has something to do with the Alp coverup. (Jump to the Left)

I've done a fair bit of mountin' in my time. Lately, I've become a bit of a slope-poke.
(evangenital)

Here's my campaign: "Support gay marriage. Because no good Christian watches lesbian porn with unmarried actresses." (SkippyFlipjack)

The chimp is known for his own radioactive element - balonium 69. at least 30% of the u.s. population has been exposed, with lethal results expected. (evangenital)

Personally, instead of watching [Bush] drag his ass on the lawn, I would rather see him plant his ass on the grass and spin in circles like some dogs with worms do... It would be the most entertaining thing the sick wankstain would ever do! And poppy could be on hand to cry while Pickles pops valiums and swills vodka. (rikc)

Come on now, where would a twinkie be without partially hydrogenated vegetable oil?
(Nosybear). In Mark Foley's bedroom? Ooh, did I just write that? (Mr. Acid). Might be a sore twinky, though...(Nosybear). Did foley use vegetable oil to loosen up those twinkies?
(evangenital).

As far as weight gain goes, the LARD helps those who help themselves. (evangenita)

Wanna bet they find Al Qaeda on Mars? (John Aravosis)

Random Thoughts

2006-12-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

Hedge fund head's political connections insulating him from a subpoena in another case of Bush Administration corruption.

Amid rising deficits, an Iraq civil war, global warming, financially struggling schools and unresolved immigration issues, the Turbo will divert attention and monster amounts of money by taking us to the Moon. Look, I have always been a proponent of space exploration, but this is the wrong thing to do at this time.

To add to the fun, out of date computing technology is hampering the space shuttle Discovery.

And if that wasn't enough nonsense for you, the Pentagon is looking the other way when it comes to drug trafficking in Afghanistan.

And how do you like the idea of Rick Santorum as our next U.S. Ambassador? Nooooooooooooooooo!

How about the Bush Administration peering into your email inbox?

Well, here we go again. The bakamono (idiots) that be at JASRAC, the body that oversees music publishing in Japan, has sent another complaint to You Tube about copyrighted material fans are posting on that venerable website even though it provides a forum for wide exposure of JPop, JRock, etc, that the record companies in the Land of the Rising Sun wouldn't ordinarily have access to. They also want a message posted in Japanese that the fans, who are only trying to show off what they think is cool to interested parties, may be prosecuted for doing this. Yeah, that will win you favor among the young. Hey assholes, you fucks have no credibility with teens and young adults at all. They are much more willing to hear what their peers think about something than the bullshit asserted by your advertising departments. Just shut the fuck up and let fans do your work for you. I mean, as soon as you are hired by a major company do they fit you with blinders right at the outset? It appears so.

On a little more visionary note, you have this in Britain.

In a less sanitary development, Taco Bell's "run for the border" has become "head for the bathroom."

Others, though, head for the drug store to get high on cough medicine. Ugh! The first I heard that you could get a buzz off of cold remedies was more than 20 years ago, when a young coworker was doing it. But c'mon, cough medicine? Do they realize how lame and dorky THAT looks? Give me a break.

Also lame as hell is Vicente Padilla being given more than $11 million a year after not doing all that much during his career while Ted Lilly, who got into a fist fight with his skipper last season with Toronto when he was pulled after getting drilled by the opposition, is lining up a four year, $10 million per contract. What the fuck is THAT? Geez, mommas late your boys grow up to be journeyman pitchers.

On another athletics note, after getting beat by UCLA and having their national title hopes dashed last weekend, USC got creamed at College Bowl and then went to UCLA to enhance its rather suspect academic quality.

Financial and racial follies at the liberal L.A. City Council. Bernard Parks, the incompetent former police chief, is now a councilman? God help them all.

But then again, the California's Gropenfuhrer is going to do everything for his party that Bush did for Iraq, rip it asunder and create internecine warfare.

Those of you tired of airport screening lines might want to look at this.....

As the line of abusive Catholic priests lengthens.

And in L.A., Archbishop Roger "Phony" Mahoney is waxing Dick Cheney with regard to settlement of abuse claims.

California Democratic Assemblyman Merv "the scurv" Dymally has always been a little shady and, well, there he goes again.

OC Catholic High School a Pedophiliac Haven---and the School Covered it Up

2006-12-05T00:25:00.000-08:00

Unfreaking believable, but it is the Catholic Church we're talking about, so this may not suprise anybody.

It is Time for Religion to be OVER!

2006-12-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Your carbolic commentator has always broken down religion thus:

Religion: codified superstition.
Church: the marketing outlet for said superstition.
Pastor/Priest: The local chief public relations flack for that superstition.
Bishop: the district manager for the superstition's marketing outlets.
The Bible, Dianetics, the Koran, the Torah, etc: the line of bullshit that all camp followers are expected to internalize no matter how nonsensical it is. Indeed, they often read like a kind of ecclesiastical People magazine, luridly informing the gapejawed who begat whom, how many, who smote whom, who "knew (i.e.m fucked)" whom, and who, at the end of the day, emerges as the World's Sexiest Man of Eternity (Jesus, Mohammed, L. Ron Hubbard, Buddha, Yahweh, Your Name Here).

This diatribe was inspired by the contretemps of one incoming Congress critter named Keith Ellison, who was said to have desired to be sworn in while putting his lefthand on the Koran. This drew an immediate rebuke from wingnuts hither and yon, especially the pompous twat Dennis Prager, who burbles his bullshit on sieg heil on your dial KRLA in Los Angeles.

The only trouble, as we all now know, is that there is no supposedly holy book used during the swearing in ceremony for new lawmakers in Washington D.C., lending this the aura of another one in a long line GOP works of fiction.

Moreover, USA Today reader mlock0431 noted, Prager's preoccupation with having everybody be sworn in Bible-handed may not exactly be blessed by their fairy tale Lord:

Matthew 5:33-37

33: Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

34: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

35: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

36: Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Prager reportedly has a divinity degree, so he knew about this passage. So he was more than willing to climb the soapbox and spout off heretical ideas. Respecting tradition, I'm sure that Prager has now called the Vatican and asked for an Inquisition on himself and is thinking about what outfit looks best while being burned at the stake.

Okay, maybe not. Christian Republicans aren't interested in the truth, only power.

Christians are also interested in completely perverting history, as this incident in Kenya shows.

The biggest hobgoblin of hosanna hut bureaucrats is sex. Making men and women feel afraid and ashamed of their sexuality is a 2,000 year old tradition and the GOP has touted abstinence lectures mainly by adopting the Republican go to tactic, fear. Tales of horrible STDs and pregnancy has only served to undermine the credibility among the young vis a vis the subject. Indeed, a recent study showed that teens and young adults are more sexually active then ever but their pregnancy rate is declining thanks to the frequent employment of birth control. This highlights the fact that the abstinence approach is unproductive and should be substituted with discussing the subject openly and honestly in instructing them how to manage their sex drives.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't advocate teenagers having sex. In fact, given their relatively poor impulse control and lack of emotional development it really isn't a good idea for that to happen until adulthood. But since I lost my virginity as a teenager (to an older woman) I feel hypocritical saying that. My parents had given me the full lecture about sex just before I entered junior high and also provided materials written by medical professionals about it so that I knew what I was getting into. That this doesn't happen everywhere, though, is both a tragedy and indicative of how counterproductive religion can be.

And that is before you even get to the sexual proclivities of the hosanna hut managers, who have proven to be much more salacious and perverted than leftwing liberals such as myself. Clearly, receiving large doses of biblical cant has no effect on stemming one's sex drive. Pat Robertson screwed his wife before they got married and knocked her up, as did GOP hero Ronald Reagan during much more ostensibly conservative times. So when any of these rightwing assholes gets on a rant about sex it is no wonder that a lot of eye rolling ensues. Especially if it is coming out of the mouth of a serial matrimonialist such as Clinton impeachment boy Henry Hyde or gay men such as David Dreier.

This is reinforced by television, where, because the FCC feels it must cater to religious nuts there is little honest portrayal of sex, which only confuses teens and adults further.

Consequently, this dissemination of obvious bullshit has turned off teens to religion, a positive good.

But this spreading phenomenon elicited a rebuke from the producers of South Park, who created an incredibly leaden episode that people can make a religion out of anything, even science, and went as far as to propound that the most absurd extension of that is warfare over competing visions of the field.

That humans are competitive, avaricious and often delusional is not a exactly news. But in making one of the characters, Kyle, the preachy conscience of the often rollicking and razor sharp series, it is starting to fall into the same kind of sanctimonious trap that has informed the usual religious spokesmen. In that way, South Park has jumped the shark and is actually getting boring. But every artist eventually runs out of good ideas and their take on the religion vs. science issue may have been a loud warning bell of that. So in a screwy way, religion has claimed another victim there.

The program portrays Jesus as little more than a talented schmuck. At the end of the day, though, what religion is predicated on is control. Back in the olden days, rulers needed a line of bullshit to keep the masses in line as the answer to the question, "who made you king?" "God." Well God and a collection of mercenaries anyway.

Look, Christianity wouldn't even be around if the Emperor Constantine hadn't hallucinated and been talked into being a dupe for those salesmen who flog the Christ brand name. That was during a time when the king determined what the faith of the land was going to be and when Connie became a Christian so did everybody else, dissenters being locked up, tortured and killed. In that way, Christianity is like Prez Turbo. It won't listen to reason and instead chooses to live in a fantasy world while its first impulse is to dispatch naysayers to some gulag.

When Henry the VIII decided to disembark from the Catholic Church's love train (no divorce allowed and buttfucking little boys), the church demanded that Spain and France go to war for Henry's bald challenge to its authority. Not that I want to make a hero of the syphilitic eight ball, but you get the point that religion is all about what most mass organizations are about: money and power (and 12 year old nookie, I guess).

It has also helped idiots escaped responsibility through the "Satan possessed me" for their drug addiction, criminal lifestyle, corruption and lying. These are all intentional acts and there is no little man whispering in our ears to do these things. They are due to the evil that resides in man and not to the cajoling of a red skinned demon prodding you with a pitchfork.

A lot of the religious conflicts in the English church essentially revolved around what kind of entertainment you wanted or didn't want (you call them masses and ceremonies). with your hectoring These conflicts lead to the English Civil War and the ascension of Oliver Cromwell, who Britons had enough of after a little over a decade. Yet, the punters then filled the pews anyway since, well let's face it, there weren't a whole lot of entertainment options available for your average peasant and it was a good place to pick up chicks. In fact, I'm sure that the hottest thing one could do during that time was to celebrate your like of a man or woman by sneaking into the church after closing time to sing your praises of the cosmic big daddy while entangled with each other on the altar, a pew or a storage room. So sinful, but soooooooo delicious.

That may explain why Jimmy Swaggart is able to maintain a semblance of a career much as how the public tends to forgive egregious transgressions by Hollywood stars and pop singers. Mind you, at this point, Swaggart has gone from being on the Playboy level of semi-respectable televangelists to the kind of crowd that reads the biblical equivalent of Swank, but he is still able to divest dumbasses of their hard earned cash. If he screws up again you will see him handling snakes.

The same goes for Paul Crouch, the top (no pun intended) hemorrhoid at Trinity Broadcasting, American's Wal-Mart of electronic rolling of the holy, and a close friend of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. His acolytes not only forgave him building the most gaudy and decadent tribute to white trash predilections ever, foisting Jeff Fenholt, a former member of the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar who spun his few minutes auditioning for Black Sabbath into a non-existent full blown tour with them (Tony Iommi, Sabbath's lead guitarist, declined to sue due to it not being financially worth it; the Fenholts lived in the down at the mouth Riverside County burg of Upland) on them and basically being con artists, but also ignored a claim by a former aide that the kind of girlish Crouch was plowing his back 4o. That sucked because the Bible calls for stoning homosexuals and seeing Crouch, who bears a slight resemblance to Ted Turner, get that treatment would have been ironically cool.

Here is what gets me, though: Crouch preaches so-called "prosperity gospel" and yet there is the biblical passage that intoned, "and again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." So next time you see video footage on Faux Nooz of bigtime Dick and crew exiting a local hosanna hut, know that there go the damned. But yet, so many seemed to want to follow them into hell.

This is all wish fulfillment on a level befitting a Star Trek chess game, as there is no heaven or hell but the mere becoming of worm food. So the idea on the part of the gapejaws that the rich who played dirty to become so will get their just desserts in the end is horseshit. Moreover, you take the Christianity brand name off of this and the Newt Gingriches out there are calling that class warfare which doesn't play well among voters. Yes, the Republicans hate Jesus.

Really, all of Jesus' supposed enthusiasts are doing nothing more than engaging in "buffet Christianity," loading up on the ideas that are to their taste and leaving the less appealing ones either for others or to rot.

The reason for this is that Christianity is predicated on fear of death. We all want to be immortal, but alas, it is not so. To salve this, Christian cult leaders came up with the concept of everlasting life alongside big daddy's righthand in paradise, an idea as easily laughable as someone getting to have at 70 virgins if they blow themselves up in an Israeli shopping mall but one that people go for as a coping mechanism. So they shape their religion to comport with their world view. On one hand, that is ultimately democratic, each man being his own pope. On the other, it tends to rob religion of what it sets out to do, set hard ethical and customary boundaries. In other words, all Christians are moral relativists and that undermines its rationale for being.

All of this, when taken together, undermines the need for religion. Those of you out there who would ask, "if there is no fear of God then wouldn't society tumble into anarchy?" Uh, no. Both Korea and Japan have about 10% of the crime rate that America does and yet they are non-religious countries (in Korea, it is about one-third Christians, but that plays almost no role in why there is little crime). Less than 1% of Japanese are Christians and showing outward displays of religiosity is considered socially gauche. It all has to do with child rearing and cultural norms. You parents have to do the job and not use the threat of some third party punishing your offspring for you. Relying on religion makes you look weak and ineffectual and the fairy tale nature of it undermines your credibility.

So be big boys and girls. Start getting real with your outlook and stop hoping that some mythical entity will make things turn out okay for you.

Random Thoughts

2006-11-29T18:44:00.000-08:00

It's called collateral damage and that phrase is a big favorite at Camp Clusterfuck (the Bush White House). In this case, you have two pieces of such victimization, an innocent civilian and taxpayers on the hook to pay off the judgement he won in the ensuing lawsuit.

Also innocent is the Associated Press, which objected to rightwing naysayers who assert that the incident in which some Baghdad Muslim worshippers were burned alive by insurgents. Now here is why I can't figure this out: the GOP may be disturbed about all the reports of in your face attacks by the terrorists in Iraq, but this incident only displays the utter depravity of the religious fanatics who are perpetrating these acts and should be useful propaganda for the American side. But noooo! Not in Republican-ville.

The Bush administration, similar to Joe Stalin during the Soviet era, just cannot tolerate ANY insinuation that things are going other than peachy keen. This is how divorced from reality they are. Bush would like to be staging Kim Jong-il style precision dancing in the Green Zone, but they can't deal with all the party crashers.

Ratcheting up the criticism of Bush is none other than the Republican asswipes at Time Magazine, who accuse him of creating a catastrophe in Iraq. Even asswipes are right occasionally.

And while we're on the subject of asshats, Brent Bozell says that generals in Iraq don't think it's civil war. Uh, Media Matters indicated that Bozell may want to take another look at the facts.

Following up on my rant about Ford the other day, they just laid off 38,000 workers, albeit with severance packages (which no doubt take together wouldn't match the total compensation of the members of the company's board and other executives).

And while we're on the subject of crappy car companies, rapper and self-styled pimp Calvin Broadus (aka Snoop Dog) has been busted again. If you remember, Broadus starred in a commercial for Chrysler with former chairman Lee Iacocca. Again, it was an exhibition of corporate America's inattention to morality, as Broadus was (is?) a gang member and had once been tried for taking part in a drive by murder. When I saw that commercial, I half-expected O.J. Simpson to show up at some point. So you will never see me in a Chrysler. They are shitty cars anyway.

This is becoming a week of no-shows. First, Fidel Castro takes a rain check on his own birthday party. Let's hope he never sees another one.

Senate leader Bill Frist, he of the Psychic Friends Diagnosis Network, has shelved his presidential ambitions. Like he had a chance.

Then Iraqi leader Nuri Al-Miliki stood Prez Turbo up Wednesday in their scheduled meeting.

NY Governor George Pataki, the space between whose ears is some of the most untouched real estate in the country, was in Iraq and didn't like the looks of what is going on there. Can we please knock it off with these vanity sightseeing junkets to Iraq at taxpayer expense? What the fuck is Pataki doing there anyway? Pols like him just get in the way over there. I'm sure the security detail he had guarding him had better things to do.

But apparently bored, his imperial Turboness banned sales of IPods and other "luxury items" to North Korea as a juvenile way to get Kim's goat. The only trouble with that is Kim can get them from Japan and China rather easily.

Also, is Bush going to do anything about those Fiats his buddy, the Rev. Sun-myung Moon, has made in North Korea at a plant Moon owns there (with the help of slave labor, I'm guessing)? Apparently not so much. But that is the Bush administration, one empty gesture after another.

A division of Halliburton will pay the U.S. more than $8 million for engaging in fraudulent charges under a government contract. Nobody is going to jail for this, however. How did THAT happen? (Dick Cheney). If I set up a three card monte table in front of my house and bilk my neighbors out of a couple of hundred bucks I likely end up in the slammer. But not the officials of KBR. Lesson: if you gotta pull a bunko scheme, make the government your victim.

The rightwing straitjacket that Republicans currently wrap themselves in is hurting them, says E.J. Dionne.

But what is hurting democracy is stuff like you see in Texas.

The Seattle Times has this series on immigration.

Maliki Reaches Security Agreement----With Iran; Heckuva Job There George!

2006-11-29T18:39:00.000-08:00

Holy Moly! Read it and flinch. Thanks to Musedebussy at Americablog for highlighting this disturbing piece.

Conservative Correctness Rears Its Ugly Head in Calling Iraq a Civil War

2006-11-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

Has anyone been scratching their heads over why the media has been so tentative about labeling the Iraq conflict a civil war? They shouldn't and there is a lesson in it.

The media is so full of cowards now that even stating what should be obvious to an eight year old is fraught with fears that the mighty rightwing Wurlitzer will bury them in an avalanche of criticism. So many of these media companies are seeded with Republicans in their executive ranks that reporters and headline writers are running scared that their necks are on the chopping block if the conservative echo chamber reverberates with the sound of grumbling.

Shit, look at Joe Thugborough accusing Danny DeVito of engaging in, and I quote, "political hate speech." First, it was on The View, who nobody above a room temperature I.Q. gives a tinker's cuss about. Thugborough also had some paint fall off of his macho facade by admitting that he cares about anything emanating from that yenta-fest.

Keep that in mind then you read today's headline about how a rightwinger is making a serious bid to buy the NY Times.

Republicans believe, much how the black community does, that it should be entitled to immunity from scrutiny from non-members of the populace by virtue of who they are because they each fraudulently claim that they have been victims of unfair portrayals in the media.

The actual truth is that in inner city America as well as in corporate boardrooms, criminality tends to be coddled and even, in certain circles, thought of as cool and they scream like stuck pigs when the police and prosecutors show up to interdict that and the media appears to capture it for its viewers, listeners and subscribers.

The media has, in fact, been way too timid in forthrightly dealing with both groups because they don't want to be accused of being racists on the one hand and being liberal stooges on the other.

Consequently, the time is more ripe than ever for the emergence of an American Hitler or Mussolini because the watchdog that is supposed to help prevent that from happening is either bought off by the problem party (NBC by GE, Sinclair, Disney, Fox, Clear Channel, etc) or have been scared into toeing the line (CBS, which is owned by Viacom). CNN is such a bore that it is hard to take seriously and it, too, has begun listing rightward.

So idiots like David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, John Gibson and Brit Hume aren't just cowards, they, in a very real way, end up being collaborators and should be reviled as such.

By the way, Thugborough, Barbara Walters is a horse's ass. She's about as venerable as a can of sardines.

Bush's Cut and Run Iraq Die-in for 2008

2006-11-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

It is apparent that President Floyd R., Turbo Bush has absolutely no idea of how to successfully conclude the Iraq War or to get our troops home without igniting what will assuredly be an obscene level of retaliatory bloodshed.

But the GOP doesn't feel there is any reason for them to worry about any of that. Why? That is a no brainer.

The Greedy Old Party already got off fairly cheaply in the past midterm elections with their mishandling of the war. Considering the longterm impact of this thing, which ranges from exacerbating already enormous budget deficits that potentially provide a crucial strategic asset to our enemies in China and Saudi Arabia, to pulverizing American prestige abroad while also strengthening that of terrorist groups and their supporters in Iran and Syria, they have proven incapable of managing any sort of crisis, be it domestic or military.

But what they do realize is that people tend to put more stock in their most recent memory of something. Since Iraq has become military quicksand for the neocons, it really doesn't behoove them to try to solve this thing. Instead, the gambit is to put the Democrats in a position to where they will either have to come up with a concrete plan for the administration, who will then take credit for it if it succeeds, or will say, "see, we told you they can't lead" if it fails.

What the GOP is actually hoping for isn't an actual concrete scheme from the Democrats, but for them to repeat what they did with Vietnam, cut off funding for it. Turbo can then say that Congress tied his hands since they wouldn't provide the money for the war on terrorism and, as the pictures come in of continued bloodshed and maybe even the Iranians marching on Baghdad, the public will recall those images when they go to the polls in the upcoming general election.

In other words, the Republicans are basically staging a die-in for American soldiers for electoral advantage. That Bush doesn't want to be overshadowed by James Baker and anything he might come up with is a dead giveaway because Bush is still attempting to look presidential (hah!) and in control even as Iraq gets further and further out of his grasp as time passes. So even if Baker devises the most brilliant strategy since the landing at Inchon, Bush won't hear it because it didn't come from him or his inner circle.

What the Democrats need to do is to call Bush on this. Tell him that they aren't going to hold his hand and that if all he can do is keep soldiers stationed overseas to use their sacrifice as an electoral tool he and Cheney should resign so that new President Nancy Pelosi will have all the tools available to help resolve this thing as coherently as possible.

Insist that Bush read the Constitution and know that he is the commander in chief. If he can't do his job then, like what happens in any battlefield situation when the general in charge isn't up to the task, he has to be relieved of duty. Furthermore, challenge Bush to finally do what is right for the country and not right for just him or his cronies with Halliburton and the party. Tell the country that Bush had the House of Saud bail him out of one of his bankrupt oil companies and now it is time for "Bhandar Bush (i.e., Saudi prince and Bush intimate Prince Bhandar) to step up to the plate for the U.S. or fuck off back home and take his BFF Bush with him.

That will cause the GOP to run McCain out there, but you just start calling him "John McNamara" and accuse him of wanting to escalate the war. Done, goodbye, get lost.

Yes, the GOP, which has stonewalled on revealing who was in those energy meetings with Cheney is now stonewalling peace as a hail mary for 2008. Let's hope that Pelosi, et al, don't fall for it.

Dispatches From Camp Clusterfuck

2006-11-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

Mr. 250 Pounds of Wrong, Newt Gingrich, wants to help terrorists win by abrogating free speech.

Gingrich also equates Bush with George Washington in calling for continuing involvement in the Iraq fiasco. How many lobotomies does one have to have to buy THAT one? Washington's relatives ought to be incensed!

Republican Representative Tom Tancretin has called Cuban-American dominated Miami "a third world country" in an interview with World Wackmaster Daily. No word on what flavor shoe polish he was tasting when he uttered that one.

No matter what U.S. does, bloody civil war in Iraq inevitable.

Washington Post seems to admit it is a mouthpiece for Bush's phony baloney Iraqi government....

Even as Michael Froomkin calls Bush's upcoming meeting with Jordan "a charade", Bush, who once condemned "old Europe" as out of touch, now begs for military support from them.

CNN's Michael Ware gets up close and personal with Bush's Baghdad clusterfuck.

Iraq Study Group a study in a whole lotta nothing.

Republicans do soft shoe to stay out of a War Crimes Tribunal docket.

A geographic look at U.S. military options in Iraq. It's got lots of pictures, so maybe even prez Turbo can understand it.

Al Qaeda power expanded under Bush bumbling.

But does he understand his poll numbers tanked again?"

Two words you never thought you would hear associated with our dumbass in chief: "library" and "think tank."

Brother Neil, though, got himself some money earmarked for schools.

Is Bigtime about to bail after a career trying to restore the imperial presidency?

Will there be blowback for the punditocracy for cheerleading the Iraq mess?

American Muslims show the stupidity of religion.

For women yak yak yak is their heroin while for men it is all about pussy and science says so.

Aussie wheat outfit bribed Saddam with $224 milion and duped Norm Coleman (R-MN) out of investigation.

Republican congressman Curt Weldon threatened a foreign aid cutoff to Moldova after friend's distillery venture in Russia went south. Can you say, "extortion?"

Diplomatic wizardry from Rush Limbaugh.

Minimum wage increase helps job creation.

U.S. economy supposedly growing, but some facts undercut that.

Creationism idiocy invades Britain from America.

Democratic wipeout of GOP in Washington state could mean smoother sailing for agenda.

A new day, another Republican lie.

New Jersey Republicans try to have it both ways on gay marriage issue; wait until you get a load of THIS!

Maxine Waters, shut the fuck up!

Slight recline better for back than sitting up straight.

Feds Bust Country Singer for Illegal Bear Killing. Somebody send him hunting with Cheney!

Random Thoughts

2006-11-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Anyone ever wonder what Scanner Bush would look like in an orange jumpsuit? We should have been able to get an eyeful of that during the Iran-Contra affair, when Bush clearly perjured himself in denying that he had anything to do with the scheme.

Now he and his buddies at the Carlyle Group may be investigated for insider trading after acquiring Taiwanese chip packaging firm ASE. Moreover, the purchase appears to be part of a quid pro quo to evade Taiwan's laws having to do with investing in the mainland Chinese market. China is an enemy of the United States. Yes, a Bush helping American enemies, a tradition for over 70 years.

According to media reports, the hellspawn of Turbo Bush, Barbara and Jenna (kind of like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, except without the "class"), have been asked to leave Argentina due to security issues. One Latin American tabloid had the twins cavorting starkers in the hallway of their hotel, but the hotel staff denied it.

What enquiring minds REALLY want to know is: do they swallow and do they prefer doggy style over missionary? Kind of hard to imagine their mom sticking Turbo's cock in her mouth (that is Condi's job, according to some of the more salacious Washington D.C. rumors), but the daughters sound like they could have a taste for tube steak.

But pulling out early to prevent having more boys aborted in Iraq are the Brits, Poles and Italians. The U.S. is being increasingly isolated and with Iraqi officials looking to bring Iran into the diplomatic mix in order to try to shut this insurgency down, the extent of Bush's debacle and America's tragedy seems to get bigger with every passing day.

Unfortunately, if Jordan's King Abdullah is correct, it will be civil wars for everybody during the coming year. It's too bad that Turbo has had to learn on the job that diplomacy does count. And it is even more distressing the size of his unilateralist mess is becoming.

Mitt's dick side exposed in gay flip flop.

Knives come out for GOP leaders as party takes a digger in Hawaii.

Pat Buchanan, America's most noted crank, actually thinks Vlad Putin had nothing to do with the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko. Somebody prescribe him some Lithium, okay? Sheesh! Look Pat, what Putin has to gain from this is silencing critics in Russian emigre communities abroad. He has already completely cowed the domestic media. Moreover, there is increasing speculation that Putin has engaged in false flag operations that resulted in the deaths of dozens of innocent civilians so that he could setup Chechen rebels to be crushed (not that I have any sympathy for the Chechen side, who are a bunch of morons, for the most part).

It appears that men may finally have a pill on the way that will allow them to engage in pregnancy risk-free poking. Of course, this has the hosanna hut denizens up in arms, who argue that it will cause more STD's since there will be less condom use. What they forget is all the unmarried and even married couples who will use it so as not to cause an unwanted knocking up. So in the end, all these voyeuristic rollers of the holy smoke are attempting to do is stick their noses into people's private business. Again, religion is never having to mind your own business.

But paying for the screwing they have been giving consumers for decades is Ford, whose debt notes were downgraded by Standard and Poor. Ford has always sucked, the lowlights being the Edsel and those exploding Pintos. It is too bad that their ill fortune has resulted in the layoffs of tens of thousands of workers over the years, but the fact is that anyone with a brain should have seen this coming. Like GM, this company has been run into the ground by incompetent management. But will those execs pay the price for that? No. Mr. and Mrs. Lineworker will. So if this company disappears, and it probably will in my lifetime, nobody will miss it from a qualitative standpoint.

Also being ankled for poor product is television. Young people are abandoning the idiot box more and more in favor of internet video content. Your sulfuric soothsayer has had his tube in the upright and off position almost the entire Thanksgiving holiday period, the only things interrupting that silence being the USC-Notre Dame tilt (being a California native it is ingrained into my genetic code to watch it) as well as an episode of a cartoon called Metalocalypse, which is a hilarious series about a dimwitted but mindblowingly popular fictional death metal band. Instead, I often hang out at You Tube and watch music and people's personal videos.

Back in the land of white trash, Canadian bimbo Pam Anderson and her yingyang husband, Detroit's Kid Rock, are splitting. Never saw THAT coming, did you? While I have no respect for any rapper except for Wycliffe Jean (and that is only because he is a megatalented musician and not just the usual gangbanging dumbass), Kid Rock has had an engaging dorkiness and obviously loves music even if you wouldn't want him as a neighbor.

Don't crumple up that piece of notepaper just yet. It could be the hot new data storage medium and I ain't talking books here. You gotta check this out.

Finally, to the Iraq Study Group, thanks for a whole lot of nothing.

Sunday Reading

2006-11-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

Perverting history to create war hysteria.

Where's the exit strategy GOP? Nations are waiting.

Dead Kennedy's sang a better tune than G.W. Bush is now.

Nutty conspiracy theories dog U.S. war effort in Iraq.

Oil companies hindering Indian economic growth.

In today's comedy segment, we have Iran's wackjob leader offering to "help" U.S., but only after it withdraws from Iraq.

GOP playmate Augusto Pinochet claims victimhood. No word on what families of those he killed think.

Electorate found Democrats better on pocketbook issues than Republicans.

Civil rights demagogues readying rhetoric after drunks ram two cars and get shot.

Senator Feinstein to scrutinize voting machines.

The Republicans' family planning farce.

Is Bush Administration using Ethiopia to wage war in Somalia?

Associated Press finds evidence of oil companies manipulating supply to drive up prices.

Republicans avert your eyes, it's the week's science news summary.

God exterminated sinful marine life to remake oceans anew. Just kidding.

Why the U.S. Needs to Stay the Hell Out of the Lebanon Issue

2006-11-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

Remember how I said that because of their congenital incompetence that nobody should ever try to pick up after the French? Well, here is another patch of the world the bastards have screwed up all to hell coming back to haunt us.

Holy Shit! Russians Go to Church to Recruit British and American Spies

2006-11-25T13:17:00.000-08:00

Once again, these citadels of the superstitious bite civilization in the ass.

And it isn't like MI6, Britain's version of the CIA, probably isn't compromised now like it has repeatedly been over the last 100 years.

Bush Administration Sabotaged Terror Investigation

2006-11-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

Crikey, is Bush Homer Simpson or what?

Random Thoughts

2006-11-25T04:54:00.000-08:00

Meet the new defense chief, same as the old boss.

L.A. Times calls it a civil war in Iraq.

A couple who fled to Canada in the wake of Bush winning a second term decides to stay put even with conservative tool (in both senses of the word) Stephen Harper becoming prime minister there and the Democrats taking Congress.

Here we go: the two idiots who were heckling Michael Richards now want a payday for the former Seinfeld star's tirade that was directed at them. And who is representing these two loudmouths? None other than judicial heldentwat Gloria Allred.

These hecklers are a couple of pussies. Look, Richards' career is over. Just because somebody calls you names doesn't mean they actually hurt you to the point that you suffered some kind of loss. If you can now claim monetary awards just for name calling, lawyers would be crawling all over elementary and junior high schools looking for students who want to sue their classmates after playground spats. So shut the fuck up and disappear, okay you fucking whiners?

Lawyers have also found a new way to manipulate jurors, so expect to see more histrionics from them in a courtroom near you.

Meanwhile, states will tell the Supreme Court that they want Turbo Bush and Congress to take action on global warming.

Republicans in Indiana are resisting a Democratic call to eliminate that state's six percent sales tax on gasoline. Why? So they can cut property taxes instead, which mostly benefits, as you would expect, apartment owners (who won't slash rents) and the wealthy with big ass land holdings. Moreover, just what the impact of the GOP plan will be on police services and schools hasn't been disclosed, but it won't be positive. That's the Republicans for you, always willing to sacrifice public safety and education for the sake of greed.

I have two uncles who are truckers. They are both owner-operators, one a long haul and the other a shorter haul (pretty much the south only) and they are getting killed on these high gas prices, the ones that the Indiana state government benefits from thanks to the continuing gouging by Big Oil. Of course, ultimately when transportation costs go up so do consumer prices. But again, the GOP doesn't care.

The Carlyle Group, an investment firm that is headed up by Scanner Bush and some of his cronies, has plans to buy one of the world's biggest microchip packaging firms. Hmmm..... Read about it here.

Rwanda has broken off relations with France amid allegations that the froggies are attempting to destabilize the African nation's government. Nice job Rwanda! French leaders should be brought up on war crimes charges for helping to stoke the genocide there, but there is no plan to do that, unfortunately.

French soccer fans also have some self-reflection to do following a match with an Israeli squad, as they showed that anti-semitism is still alive and well there.

It appears that cranky Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is going to cruise to an easy victory in the upcoming elections in that country, but it could have an interesting side effect since Chavez may forbid Venezuelan players to go to the major leagues. Several MLB clubs have academies there. MLB thus brings millions of dollars to what is still a poor nation. Venezuelan baseball fans are reportedly not amused.

Comedians, though, are having a good time shredding the Bush Administration for the appointment of religious wacko Dr. Eric Keroack to oversee family planning policy, but average women are not because the GOP cannot mind its own business.

Also not right in the head is L.A.'s birdbrained Democrat mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who says it's okay to inconvenience people attempting to go to and from work and to help generate more pollution in one of America's smoggiest cities for Hollywood's sake. Sorry, but I think it is the job of industry to stay out of the way of average people as much as possible. This country doesn't exist for the benefit of corporate America, but for the country's inhabitants. It's too bad that Villaraigosa hasn't learned that simple fact. Call him a Hollywood whore.

Is the campaign to recognize gay marriages setting gay rights back? Read this and make up your own mind.

In what might be the oddest headline of the day, though, a teachers pension fund in Ontario, Canada has bought interest in, get this, four shipping container terminals. You read that right.

Voters to Romney on Gay Marriage Ban: Suck it!

2006-11-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney says this is about voters' wishes being respected, which is the same argument made by southern segregationists back in the 1950's. But the folks in heavily Catholic Massachusetts are having none of this nonsense, according to this report.

Democrats Messy But Effective, Republican Base is Bigots Says George Mason University Study

2006-11-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

It's not to say that Democrats are perfect, but we get the job done anyway, according to this study by the conservative leaning George Mason University.

More Republican Idiocy

2006-11-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

The perpetual surveillance state.

Republican cartoon characters declare war on actual cartoons.

Gunplay in National Parks to be Senator George Allen's uh, parting shot.

Massive corruption, U.S. tactical missteps leading to Taliban resurgence.

Bush sided with foreign wheat growers over those in America's heartland.

Bush, GOP Congress tells working folk to go to hell.

Incompetent Bush BFF Vicente Fox helping gangsters take over Mexican border towns.

Bush Team 100 member Robert Bass' protege's company indicted by South Korea for Stock Manipulation, embezzlement, other charges.

Money leads to rightwing cave on Vietnam trade.

Teacher turns public school classroom into hosanna hut and then lies about it:

Heritage Foundation: WWII and Korea Vets Stupid

2006-11-24T06:35:00.000-08:00

Chickenhawks are running scared over NY Representative Charlie Rangel's proposal that a draft be reinstated. The media today is running editorials and articles from yellow elephant outlets such as National Review decrying the idea.

I also reject that notion propounded by the Heritage Foundation that drafted recruits in WWII and Korea were dumber than those currently being subjected to the Iraq experience. Just outside my bedroom door, because there is greater wall space, are pictures and citations concernings my late grandfather, who was killed at the Battle of the Bulge. I have his medals on a shelf right in front of my bed along with more pictures. So you can imagine how offensive I find that insinuation by the rightwing propaganda house, especially since my mom was so young when he died that she barely remembers him. It is due to folks like him that I can sit here and spout off to you this morning. I will always be grateful.

My grandmother then married another WWII vet, who stayed in the reserves after it was over and got called up to serve in Korea, where he was wounded.

I will take them over the array of gangbangers and drug users who are allowed to join today due to eroded criteria so that the Bush administration can make it look like they aren't hurting military preparedness.

Down the line we are going a pay a price for this. We already have a gang problem in the military, even in the Navy, and we are bascially training hoodlums how to outfight the police in America's urban cores. Great for the vicious 18th Street gang and the Crips, bad for America.

That isn't to mention that dissing our WWII troops is incredibly elitist, but when it comes to the Bushies, that isn't a suprise.

Random Thoughts

2006-11-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

First, a tribute to a journalistic hero in Mexico. This guy had 15 pound balls.

Yes, it's more problems for the bumblers in the White House in the Middle East as the Turbo Bush crowd massages America's hunger problem. I guess any problem can be cured with a new euphemism. Let them eat cottonseed, I guess.

Vampire Bob Novak dropped a big brown steamer on Bush's Thanksgiving dinner table. Now you know that the White House has become a lame duck pond when a true believer such as Novak, who should be in jail for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, jumps ship.

The American Legion supported Texas Representative Chet Edwards, a Democrat and non-veteran, over an Iraq War vet running for the GOP because, unlike the Republicans in general, Edwards has been an outstanding advocate for those who who go put a big ass whippin' on our enemies.

A Democrat priority should be fixing our broken Veterans Administration. It is obscene the crap that vets who emerge with medical problems due to serving us overseas have to endure from the VA, which basically treats them as nuisances rather than good folks with real needs. Get it done Democrats. Now!

You gotta love the marketing weasels at Microsoft and how they handled the launch of their new X Box. But since when do Republicans care about consumers?

But you actually really do have to admire scientist who continue to advance stem cell research, including one where it turns out they can extract stem cells without hurting human embryos. This further undermines the hosanna hut contingent that wants to impede the use of embryonic stem cells.

And there is even more intriguing stem cell related news here.

Can somebody rationally explain to me why there is resistance to a new regulation that requires every American traveling outside our borders and anyone entering the U.S. to have a passport? As someone who has lived in foreign countries myself it is unbelievable that this hasn't always been a rule. Wah wah wah, I got to spend $90 to get a passport. Poor baby. Give me a fucking break!

Canadian ISPs have joined the fight against child porn. What the fuck took them so long? Shouldn't they have done that in the late 1990's?

What are the British going to do about Vladimir Putin? Kinda tough to try to extradite the frontman of a nuclear power for murder, especially a particularly xenophobic one. The Russians did something like this before in Britain during the Soviet era when a KGB agent poked a target with an umbrella tipped with ricin at a bus stop, iirc.

France should be added to the axis of evil (which sounds like something Marvel Comics would have dreamed up, such is the manner in which the Bush Administration has dumbed down how we discuss foreign policy). Everything they have touched, be it Haiti, Vietnam or Algeria, turns to shit and creates tremendous international diplomatic and security issues. Now with revelations increasing of French culpability in the Rwandan Genocide, the froggies are moving to create legal diversions to obfuscate that fact.

My condolences to the family of former Baltimore pitcher Pat Dobson at age 64 of leukemia. The interesting note about Pat was that he didn't pitch a no hitter in the big leagues, but he did toss one against a Japanese all star team when the O's did a tour of Japan back in their glory days, when he was part of a rotation that included Mike Cuellar, Jim Palmer, and Dave McNally, all four men winning 20 games in 1971.

Random Thoughts

2006-11-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

There was a time leading up to the election that the rightwing punditocracy was predicting that the great DailyKos blog was about to implode due to dissension within the ranks of its readers and unease within the Democratic Party about where netroots outfits like that august organ was leading the.

Well, the crayon warriors were almost right. DailyKos did implode....the Republican Party during the election. Gloat here.

Those of you who live in my beloved Southern California have undoubtedly heard about the racism lawsuit against the L.A. Fire Department for a prank some of its brave men in yellow pulled on an African-American colleague where they put some dogfood in his spaghetti. The L.A. City Council, which has been a bad joke since the turn of the 20th century, decided to pay out $2.7 million to make the ensuing civil suit go away, even after photos emerged of the plaintiff, Tennie Pierce, pulling even more asinine practical jokes than the one he was afflicted by. Pierce apparently became distraught when his colleagues kidded him about wolfing the dog chow-laden pasta and decided to get himself some legal muscle.

After the photos of the pranks that Pierce himself was a part of came out through the auspices of the unlistenable John and Ken show on sieg heil on your dial KFI, the fecal matter went Jackson Pollack and L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, generally a shitbrain for all seasons, did the right thing and yanked the settlement. Even the leftwing L.A. Weekly cheered the mayor's action.

Of course, as you can imagine, the usual winger suspects such as World Wackmaster Daily are expressing ecstacy in their Idaho bunkers because it points out how much of a scourge leftwing political correctness is. The unfortunate thing is that view is correct (but then again, there is such a thing as conservative correctness, too. Just ask the Southern Poverty Law Center).

Too many blacks are all too willing to use phony charges of racism as a chance for a payday and they have to be called on it.

Speaking of which, fuckhead Michael Richards tried to reach Tawana Brawley playmate Al Sharpton as a way of expressing a mea culpa for his n-word laced invective against a couple of black hecklers at an L.A. nightclub. Richards has thus done something that makes me think of him less than I already did (I never cared for him on the old Fridays program and I thought Seinfeld was a snooze).

The problem with Richards doing that, aside from the fact that even most liberals think Sharpton is human dogshit, is that by paying obeisance to the shitwad he has sabotaged his chances of replacing Dennis Miller as the rightwing's favorite unfunny comedian. The use of the "n-word" would have nicely burnished Richards conservative bonafides, but that is now cast asunder. D'oh!

On my position concerning the tasing of a UCLA student a while back, there is a rather unsavory tinge to the officer who did the deed and he shouldn't have been around to even be there, in my opinion.

The Long Beach Police Department is rather infamous for its cavalier observance of excessive force regulations. A few years back, a former police officer named Don Jackson was stopped by the LBPD for supposedly weaving in traffic (he wasn't). The problem was that Jackson was being trailed by an unmarked NBC news van. Can you see where this is headed? The officer made Jackson assume the position against a shop window and then just shoved Jackson's head through it while the NBC crew filmed all this in disbelief.

The Caucasian officer was eventually brought up on charges and, get this, acquitted, in a trial in Hawthorne, California. The officer had his job with the LBPD restored as a result and, AFAIK, is still on that city's force today.

So you obviously have to go a loooooooooooooong way to get pink slipped by the Long Beach PD, but the guy who was involved in the UCLA incident was. He claims it was for doing paperwork too slowly or some such bullshit. I just wonder if there were any dead bodies that actually engendered his firing.

Jackson himself went off the deep end and is more or less on a vendetta against all cops now, even backing O.J. Simpson during his murder trial.

Incidentally, for those of you behind the wall in George Bush's personal gloryhole, your man and noted pot smoking surf nazi Dana Rohrabacher regularly refers to his home district Huntington Beach policemen and women as, and this is a direct quote, "stormtroopers." So fuck off you winger assholes who think it is righties who favor the constabulary. Hell, his wife is a convict. That should tell you something. as would Rohrabacher's and Scott Baugh's relationship with a child molester.

Finally, a note to Florida Representative: Alcee Hastings: resign. Do your party and the country a favor you scumbag.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T06:56:00.000-08:00

And what better thing to give thanks for than the continuing progress in the understanding of how human beings work. So here is today's assigned reading.

Random Thoughts

2006-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

So I see where Wal-Mart capitulated to the religious bigots concerning marketing to the gay segment of America by issuing a statement basically saying that they would be more mealy mouthed about it in the future so as not to offend those who prefer to bongo their bibles.

That provokes a question: why can Budweiser, which told these assholes where they could ram their nonsense a few years back, stand up for themselves while Wal-Mart, a much bigger company, caved like a 98 pound weakling to these bullies?

Wal-Mart has always carried plentiful supplies of Jesus' blood in their stores (you call it wine) and the Waltons were supposedly Big Daddy in the Sky-fearing men, so what made them turn, uh, hmmm.... to inviting homosexuals to spend their wads in their big boxes? Because the Waltons wanted even more cash up the ass. When it comes to money, the Waltons are Richard Gere, you get my drift?

So now Wal-Mart will have to accept the filthy lucre that we all can't get enough of on the Q.T. from that sexually non-heterodox clientele. No Prohibition-style secret handshakes or code words necessary (yet). Some Wal-Mart clerks may even accept a suggestive little wink. Of course, they might try to look a little ashamed to placate the punters fresh from the pews, but that will only make the, uh, transaction more, well, delicious.

Check this article out. It will have even my fellow atheists exclaiming, "amen."

Another Republican runs to the front to be with the winning side. Now if we can just turn Olympia Snowe and/or Susan Collins....

Bad news in New Mexico, where the GOP's version of Howard Stern's Underdog Lady, Heather Wilson, has taken her House race by a whisker. This bitch is disturbed. Who the hell could vote for that and keep a straight face?

This just in: John McCain thinks lying to our troops overseas will boost morale. Uh John, you fought inVietnam, remember? Or at 71 is your memory becoming a bit late-Ronald Reaganish? I guess he can no longer recall the cynicism that disgruntled U.S. troops during that war after hearing all kinds of prevarications and empty promises out of D.C. and seeing little of it mean anything to help them win the thing.

Conason: Bush Missed the Point, as Usual

2006-11-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

How come Bush's remark about the lesson learned in Vietnam was to keep the war going until victory that was uttered in that country didn't catch much attention from the press? Imagine the posturing by the wingnuts if Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the states and propounded that Japan should have held out longer even after the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before ending WWII! The outrage by the usual media suspects would be so hot you could make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich on the top of your tv set.

I don't know if the great Joe Conason was disgusted or amused, but he used the hammer of truth to once again chronicle the mischief of our popular with 31% of the population (you guys gotta quit chasing that moonshine with OxyContin) clown in chief.

Hagel Goes Walkabout on Republicans Yet Again

2006-11-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, as well as Joe Scarborough, would both probably like to run for President and have been taking quite a few potshots at their party over the last few months, which is a bit like shooting a barrel of your own fish. This is all likely a pose to appear independent while both men are actually members of the GOP's Newt cadre.

In any event, Hagel threw John McCain under the bus with this little assessment of the Iraq situation.

Odds of Hagel becoming McCain's Secretary of Defense should he be elected to the White House? I think you'll see Cindy Sheehan get that nominati0n before he looks Chucky's way.

Simpson Confessional Desperation Ploy to Boost Failing Fox TV

2006-11-22T07:20:00.000-08:00

Call it a "hail O.J. pass." According to the L.A. Times, the Fox Network's ratings are dead last among the major four networks and the Simpson kinda sorta, nudge nudge wink wink tell something but probably not all special was engineered to draw the eyeballs of Mr. and Mrs. Gapejaws across the firmament to Rupe-a-dupe's flagging concern.

But the kicker? Expect to see it on the net at some point.

You Republicans out there remember that it was the Gingrich Congress that gave Murdoch citizenship through special legislation so that he would not only not have to undergo the usual naturalization routine that the great majority of much more humble immigrants have to, but so that he could own U.S. television outlets knowing that he would turn those stations into conservative loudspeakers. So the L. Brent Bozells, James Dobsons and the other usual hosanna hut mountebanks have no complaint here. You voted for the clowns who made Fox possible. Helluva job there GOP base (and base it is)!

Of course, what makes Murdoch so frightening is that he has been taking over stations in Britain, most recently snatching off ITV, and has accumulated enormous power there as a result. It is to the point that he is treated like a head of state rather than the vile Philistine that he is.

The irony in all this, however, is that Bill Clinton's recent verbal disembowelment of the insipid Chris Wallace (the media's answer to George W. Bush, spoiled and much dumber than dad) has, harrumphed the rightwing Accuracy in Media, seen Rupee attempt to kiss up to the Big Dog.

When light loafered Fox News morning host Shepherd Smith ripped into Bush for his delaying the dispatch of more troops to Iraq after the election so as to not piss the electorate off more than they already were, it created a sensation among liberal bloggers and their readers, though they expressed fears that the news game's version of Clay Aiken would soon be shown the door or end up in a rendition to an unnamed European gulag. But he is still with Fox and hasn't been demoted to their minor league club, MSNBC, at least as of yet. It could be that Fox will merely lobotomize him like they did with Alan Colmes.

Germany to Bush: Get Bent

2006-11-22T07:09:00.000-08:00

Conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was literally rubbed the wrong way by our boy Floyd R. Turbo Bush, said no way are her nation's troops going to get involved in attempting to help U.S. forces stave off an epic comeback attempt by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

That the U.S. had to ask the Germans to do this is yet more evidence of the incompetent distribution of resources by the Bush Administration in the area and things are indeed becoming more tenuous for the American ability to stifle Afghanistan's murderous Islamic religious nuts. Helluva job there Georgie and Donny!

Both the war and Bush are extremely unpopular in Germany and it is evident that Merkel is attempting to soft shoe her country's participation in helping to turn Afghanistan around from a barbaric theocracy to a workable ally of the west.

Know Your Bushes

2006-11-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

This one is about the daddy of G.H.W. "Scanner" Bush, Prescott.

As an addendum to that, you have this.

In addition, my fellow Democrats will get a kick out of this goody.

Thank you to the good offices of the folks who post at Americablog for the first and third items while the second was revealed to me by the Antifluff Superstar Blog.

Rush Limbaugh, We Have a Solution for You

2006-11-21T20:50:00.000-08:00

According to the Associated Press, a Tampa man was able to receive a vastly more lenient sentence on a $1.8 million federal embezzlement charge by blaming it on his Paxil prescription.

Sad to say, the judge in this case was an appointee of Bill Clinton's.

Drug addicted criminals all across the land have to be celebrating this, as if you are a heroin user and stole a car or did a break in to finance your habit you can blame the illegal action on the drugs and get only a slap on the wrist.

Hell, Rush Limbaugh could have claimed that the OxyContin urged him to violate prescription laws by being so narcotic and probably walked off with a reduced charge since he wasn't about to admit responsibility of any sort for his actions.

Moreover, the embezzler will probably end up suing his doctor since he now has a judgment entered into the public record that somebody like him who was bipolar should never have been given Paxil, meaning that a white collar criminal is about to get his ass a big payday thanks to our squirrely legal system.

By the way, let's end this whole Club Fed bullshit for white collar criminals. Put them in maximum stir. That should deter at least some who are contemplating ripping off their companies or private individuals if they have to room with Tyrone the street thug from the Bronx who is doing a dime for armed robbery. This class system we have that differentiates scum who rip you off at gunpoint from those who use a computer or a line of bullshit is nonsensical and unfair. Put the screws to both of them.

Random Thoughts

2006-11-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

I was reading the great Jesus General blog this evening when someone posted in the comments section about a wacko Christian sect called Quiverfull, which is averse to any form of birth control and advocates that people have as many offspring as they can splorch out. No, this is apparently NOT related to the Mormons.

In reply to this, one of the respondents riposted that "a vagina isn't a clown car" while another told an anecdote that supposedly occurred on Groucho Marx' old game show, You Bet Your Life: when a female contestant revealed that she had a large brood, Marx asked her why. "I love my husband," she is said to have rejoindered. Which engendered this observation from the mustachioed comedian: "Well, I like my cigars, too, but I take them out of my mouth every once in a while." I haven't stopped laughing since.

I just saw on the news of how Iran and Syria might end up being allowed to weigh in on any settlement of the Iraq situation. To me, that would be the greatest diplomatic and military humiliation ever endured by America. Let's call Bush what he is: Nero. Or a scatalogical King Midas, who turns to shit everything he touches.

There were some recent cheers in some sectors of the liberal blogosphere regarding a reported improvement in the ratings of MSNBC and CNN as compared with Fox News. But why? MSNBC was perhaps an even bigger cheerleader for the Iraq invasion than the Rupe-a dupes and CNN features one blowhard wingnut shithead Glenn Beck as well as former Rush Limbaugh fuck toy Darin Kagin. Furthermore, the one watchable asset that MSNBC, which should be folded up like a cheap carnival tent and sent into that eternal good night, has, Keith Olberman, is forced to have his show scarred by a bunch of tabloid horseshit by his Republican bosses attempting to blunt the impact of his show. None of the winger hosts, Joe Thugborough, Tim "the Buffalo Buttface" Russert and"Quisling Chris" Matthews are so hamstrung.

Thus, all three cable news outlets suck and it wouldn't be much of a loss if all three of them went off the air tomorrow. Most smart people are getting their news off the internet anyway.

Speaking of which, are there big enough numbers available to quantify just how galactic an embarrassment the Katie Couric version of the once proud CBS Evening News is? It is like having a sexless soccer mom from down the block working the anchor chair. Even Rita Cosby would be an improvement only because she makes you imagine what she did to get that husky voice of hers and it kind of makes you horny even if, like Couric, Cosby isn't a journalist but rather just a bimbo who can read a teleprompter.

Scraping the bottom of the brainpan the last couple of days was Democrat New York Congress critter Chucky Rangell, who would like to revive the draft. Rangell, unlike most of the war eagle crowd on the other side of the isle, has seen combat somewhere (Korea, in fact) and is pissed about how it is generally minorities and the poor who end up with the cannons pointed at them, to plagiarize John Fogerty. So he wants to make (cue melody from White Christmas) everyone from 18-42 available to Uncle Sam's beck and call.

One can see Rangell's point. He also posits that this would have kept us from pulling the trigger on Iraq since everybody in the country would have had some kind of personal stake in how we exercise military power. Of course, that's about as sound as Ted Haggard's ability to deny himself buttsex and street pharmaceuticals because Bush and Cheney are such sociopaths that they don't give a shit and the empty eyed denizens of the country's hosanna huts back them because their leaders (Jerry Falwell, ad nauseum) are part of the GOP in crowd. If Bush really gave a shit about what Americans think we would have gun control, abortion wouldn't be threatened and we would have national health care.

The conscription proposal was immediately shot down (no pun intended) by speaker to be Nancy Pelosi. All Rangell ultimately did was create a distraction from the incremental agenda that Pelosi has in mind for the first few months of the Democrat Congress and it may have even alienated independents who don't want to hear anything associated with war at the moment due to the monumental clusterfuck Bush has subjected our brave troops to.

What is a bit ominous about all this is that Bush has so crippled the reach and readiness of our armed forces that one wonders if maybe Rangell isn't right. The GOP won't back a draft either out of political expediency even as you have idiots like John McCain calling for 20,000 more men to be dropped into the quagmire. McCain is talking like he has the intention of going McNamara on us if he were elected president and then it will be even more like Vietnam than it already is. Yet another reason to refrain from voting for this stealth rightwing hack.

Fox has no decided to pull the OJ Simpson tv special and I had initially thought that they would leave the book available (which was already climbing up the Amazon charts; The queen bitch of South Central, Maxine Waters, was probably looking forward to the former running back personally autographing her copy) while using the fuss over it as a form of negative marketing. But no, the book has been pulled, too, thank the deity of your choice. C'mon, even the most blindered Republican has to now realize that Fox and its honchos Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes lack any conscience whatsoever. Or is that what the wingnuts like about them?

This all provoked a poster to Americablog to do a send up in the comments section concerning a deal Fox probably would have made with Osama Bin-Laden. It's under the headline, "Fox News' Rupert Murdoch Cancels OJ Book and TV Special."

I guess we've seen the last of Michael Richards, no? What a pinhead!

It's Time to Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security

2006-11-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack, Washington D.C. bureaucrats decided to go forth and multiply, giving birth to a new entity, the Department of Homeland Security in perhaps the second most expensive overreaction to a problem since the Spanish-American War. Those of you who payed attention in history class will recall that we used an explosion on a ship called The Maine as a predicate for seizing some of Spain's possessions. Spain was such a dessicated power by that time that taking them on was a bit like me punching out Jessica Tandy. Not a fair fight. We then went and killed over 100,000 Filipinos in a follow up aborted revolution.

As it turned out, though, what caused the detonation of The Maine was spontaneous combustion down below in the coal magazine. Whoops!

While Americans are likewise thinking that the Iraq War was the wrong conflict at an ill fitting chronological juncture, making it the most costly snafu in response to a conundrum in American annals, just below it was the creepily named DHS. I will be buying a couple of bags of chips and some dip in preparation for the visit I will probably get from national security cops after posting this piece so as not to be a bad host. I must admit that since I don't drink I'm not sure what wine you are supposed to serve during an interrogation.

Homeland Security was a tacit admission that Boy George didn't have the leadership to do what he needed to as President of the United States. It was ostensibly (a word meaning somebody is making up a lame excuse) originally devised as a way to more efficiently enact security measures and enable closer collaboration between foreign (CIA) and domestic (FBI) intelligence agencies. What is wrong with this is that we already have a defense department. It used to be called The Department of War, but that was no doubt changed to make it more warm and fuzzy to Mr. and Mrs. Gapejaw American. So have they become incapable of defending American shores now? God only knows they haven't been able to keep a lid on Iraq since the mission was pronounced accomplished by Bush nor are they exactly up to holding off a resurgent Taliban.

In any event, when we are sold a Department of Defense we want an actual Department of Defense. Donald Rumsfeld, who will go down in history as a joke, has some explaining to do on that front.

Then there is the FBI, which is supposed to handle domestic spying. Now we didn't seem to have any problems in that area during WWII or during Vietnam, when the number of constitutional rights they violated was equal to the digits you see on a McDonald's sign.

When someone becomes president, he is supposed to fulfill the role that the DHS does. If you can't crack heads to get the CIA and the FBI to share information with you that might affect the safety of citizens on the American mainland and Hawaii then you should resign. It is called dereliction of your duty in that office. You shouldn't need a multibillion dollar agency to pass the buck to. Bush is the commander in chief even if he has tried to run the country like it was a college fraternity Monday Through Saturday and a pentacostal church on Sunday.

Bush then politicized the new bureaucracy by using it as a go to conduit with which to stir up fear among the electorate to fortify his party's electoral position. Bush didn't just cry wolf, but also pretty much every other animal that you can see in a decent sized zoo and now people just roll their eyes when the words, "according to the Department of Homeland Security...." are uttered. The Katrina debacle didn't exactly help people take it any more seriously.

Let's face it: terrorism wasn't on Bush's radar and he didn't want to hear about it. Instead, he was obsessed with getting ruinous tax breaks passed so that we not only had 9/11, but we also now have an accumulated budget deficit that gives the Saudis, the Chinese and other holders of the bonds that are used to finance that red ink a measure of leverage over us and our currency. Boy, I feel so much safer knowing that.

Cheney? Hard on for Iraq to the exclusion of just about everything else except aiding his energy buddies in reaming the American consumer. Cheney was so busy cooking up the phony rationale for toppling Saddam Hussein that he wasn't available to be Bush's intelligence factotum.

So with a chance to give more cronies and people he owes favors to a chance to take up space in the bureaucracy, the DHS was created with the aim of: 1) looking like they were doing something; 2) had something to pawn responsibility off on if there was another large scale terrorism incident on U.S. soil. As usual, however, Bush was doing nothing and making taxpayers pay through the nose for it.

And get this, the U.S. military was firing interpreters with Arabic skills because they were gay despite a shortage in that vital capability. Jerry Falwell might feel better that latrines weren't being used as what homesexuals call "tea rooms (bathrooms where trysts take place)," but it further eroded out intelligence gathering ability. In a funny way, that means that Falwell, James Dobson, Ted Haggard and Pat Robertson are threats to national security due to their urge for a gay purge and holding Bush's feet to the fire to get it done. Call them "Focus on the Faggots."

If we had a REAL president (Bill Clinton, say), the DHS wouldn't have happened and that would have been a good thing. That is because a real president knows what questions to ask and who to read the riot act to. America found out, though, that when you ride with stupid you're on the hot rails to hell.

Time to Think About Internal Exile for Recidivist Criminals

2006-11-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

At any one time in America there are approximately 1.5 million people incarcerated in prisons and jails throughout the land, according to the Justice Department. Of those, more than half had been under some form of governmental supervision, either state or federal, after being released from a sentence arising out of a previous offense.

The reason that I bring this up was that I read a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer concerning a chronically violent miscreant who stole a car one night and, while speeding through the streets of a city I not very fondly like to refer to as San Francisco for Dummies, went through a stoplight and collided with a car driven by an off duty female police officer. She died at the scene.

The killer, which is what he was, was a wanted man at the time, but he was considered a low priority while the Seattle PD was busy busting respondents to a Craig's List ad for engaging in prostitution. No, I am not making this up. Read about it yourself. And just so that you know, the State Attorney is Rob McKenna, a Republican. Maybe prostitution busts play better to Washington's GOP base, who are mostly located east of the Cascades, than nabbing assholes like the one that killed the officer in Seattle. In any event, the misallocation of police resources for cracking down on compensated nookie helped the thief slip through the cracks. He was thankfully killed as well, sparing us hundreds of thousands in jail and court costs.

But the prostitution vs. rounding up street thugs question isn't why I am writing this. However, it is an example of why I am about to say what follows:

In just about every locality you can name, the authorities become like competitive bass fishermen, playing a perpetual game of catch and release. In this case, the fish are the criminals who require us to keep our doors locked at night and compel us to not frequent certain neighborhoods after dark. We spend billions a year to keep these sociopaths away from civilized society only to then reintroduce what are really a bunch of one man crime waves back into their communities. You will hopefully forgive me if I insist that is stupid. The officers who have to put up with these cocksuckers in the lockup would be better employed patrolling our streets instead.

That is because if I had my way, I would go to whatever authority that controls the Marianas or a similar godforsaken outpost and buy off an island for use as a prison colony. What I propose is that we take anyone who belongs to a street gang or other organized crime group, even if they aren't currently in prison, as well as habitual offenders of every stripe and dispatch them to what could perhaps be dubbed Papillon Island (if you haven't seen Papillon I recommend you do so; it's a great movie).

Unlike today's American prisons, though, where the guards live in fear of of the rapists and robbers contained therein, in my scheme, the criminals would be dropped off on the island with the supplies necessary to begin planting their own food and become self supporting (hand tools only to help facilitate that) and they would have to figure it out for themselves. The U.S. Navy would surround the island to practice blockading around the clock. Anyone that tries to come off the island would be shot to death on site, as would anyone that attempted to approach it unless there was approval from Washington D.C.

It would be one and done. If the prisoners can't do what aboriginals from Australia to Canada did and form some kind of cooperative society then they would be allowed to perish. Furthermore, this would be done with no regard for population control (save that no women would be allowed on it). Prisoners would be dropped off as needed and let the colony's inmates deal with it even if the inmate population swells to five million on a patch of land the size of Disneyland. If major gang war breaks out, hey, who is against criminals killing each other? There would be no visitation allowed since it would be called a national security zone. No media, either. It would also be a no fly zone to prevent the media from flying over it. Any helicopters or planes flying over it would be shot down or forced to land. The participants would be subject to a one million dollar fine apiece and a ten year mandatory jail sentence at Joliet. The pilot's license would be pulled for life.

No first time offenders would be allowed to be placed on the island to ensure that those mistakenly convicted would have a chance at some kind of redemption. Yeah, I know this disappoints you Republicans who think that you should just convict anybody to clear a case (see Rackauckas, Tony). I have rather more respect for the innocent than that.

As hazily alluded to earlier, I make no distinction between incorrigible shoplifters and murderers. If you insist on hurting local business by repeatedly stealing even after previous trips to the gray bar hotel then you got to go. America depends on small business and we can't afford the economic termites that are petty thieves.

Drug users? Americans have waaaaay too much sympathy for them. We need a three strikes on users (with an arrest where a drug habit lead to the commission of a crime to support it being counted as two strikes) and a two strike regulation on dealers. If you are going to debilitate yourself on whatever, be it OxyContin or meth, society is held back by your continued participation in it. The first time you are busted, you go to mandatory rehab. The second time, a habit plus an offense sends on a permanent island getaway. Good riddance you waste of DNA!

The exception would be marijuana, which I would legalize and then tax the shit out of like alcohol and cigarettes, to pad the various state budgets.

Anybody who has two violent felonies plus a criminal misdemeanor (petty theft, assault, harrassment, drug possession) would be permanently bid farewell. Corporate criminals, especially embezzlers, wouldn't be allowed the first offense privilege. They go immediately. Otherwise, you will have more Ivan Boeskys, who was allowed to keep a substantial chunk of his ill gotten money by the judge in his case, or Michael Milken, who has endeavored to redeem his image as one of the U.S.' most prominent ratfuckers by setting up a phony baloney charitable foundation that is geared mostly to making him loveable.

Look, what you are dealing with in the habitual criminal is someone who doesn't think longterm and who hates the thought of having to work for a living. They are impulse driven and solipsistic in the extreme. Murders are still committed everyday despite the existence of the death penalty, which does not deter crime (I am not a death penalty opponent, just so that you know). So make them work to survive, which they don't have to now (and they get free cable and meals besides) and put those rookie cops who are the ones most often assigned county or city jail duty out in the neighborhoods instead of in fortified control centers in prisons or on their walkways.

Initially, this would be expensive due to land acquisition and transportation costs associated to moving hundreds of thousands of people out to the middle of whatever ocean we decide to do so. But when dickheads disappear the regular good people of the best country in the world can enjoy an environment much more free of lurking threats and investment in what used to be high crime areas would explode, leading to a renaissance in our cities.

Police officers on the street would feel like they are actually doing something rather than just being part of a neverending bit of street kabuki. They would be a lot less frustrated and cynical and thus less likely to go nuts in frustration on a suspect because they know the guy is about to go bye bye forever. This would result in less civil rights litigation and fewer criminals seeing an arrest as a chance to turn it into a payday by hiring the likes of the thankfully dead Johnny, "they hack 'em, I back 'em" Cochrane.

There is no way this is a loser. Or at least as big a loser as the criminal element. So make it happen by hitting up your state and federal representatives with an email or a phone call.

A Tazy Shade of Winter

2006-11-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

Call me odd, but if the cops story about the Arab-American kid at UCLA is true, that he wouldn't show his identification after being politely asked for it at 11 p.m. in a campus library like everybody else was, then I have little sympathy for him. That policy has been in effect for sometime and he wasn't singled out.

Yeah, the police may have gone a little overboard. But the fact of the matter is that in this world, as much of a liberal as I am, the only thing some people will understand is a good old fashioned ass kicking. Or in this case, tasing.

Listen pal, you may not have intended to do it, but the practical effect is that you attempted to use your ethnicity as a shield from a rule everybody had to follow in order to protect the folks who have a legitimate reason to be there. For that, I extend you a hardy medial unidigital salute.
As far as his civil attorney, Steven Yagman, who is, in my opinion, a vexatious litigator, goes, his showing up in a courtroom ought to illicit the same reaction that major league general managers have when a player they were interested in has hired Scott Boras to represent him: a roll of the eyes and a "no dice."

Of course, I could change my mind when more about all this is disclosed. If one of the cops threatened a bystander with being tased, though, he has to be fired. That would tend to incite a crowd and could have resulted in something truly horrendous.

Democrats Get Out the Word: We Do War Better

2006-11-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

I saw how Henry Kissinger said that the Iraq War is unwinnable and yet he doesn't want us to pullout. Does this strike anyone as familiar? Like back around, say, 1973?

But then again, by that time, Nixon had slugged a three bagger, though for the other team. Vietnam was untenable, he had spread the conflict into Cambodia and thus helped set the stage for Pol Pot's emergence, and also lost Laos. The best Bush can do is a double (Afghanistan and Iraq) unless Iraq splits into three pieces (when he first heard about Sunni Muslims, he probably thought it had something to do with Woody Allen's wife).

Moreover, for all the nonsense about Democrats being weak on national security, when one looks at the facts the GOP doesn't come out so hot. Democrats won world wars one and two. We ended a genocidal war in the Balkans (over the strenuous objections of assholes like Bob Dole) and the liberals who won the Civil War are all now Democrats while those who lost it are all presently ensconced with the Republicans even if the parties were reversed at the time it ended. George H.W. "Scanner" Bush got us mired in Somalia and we basically went to war with Panama as a way to extradite Manuel Noriega (more irony: Boy George said that he "wasn't concerned with Osama Bin-Laden," who killed thousands of Americans on our own soil, but his daddy sure went after Noriega for a whole lot less, no?).

In addition, the Republicans only get an incomplete on the first Gulf War by leaving Saddam Hussein in power despite Scanner calling him another Hitler (which leads to the question of what would have happened if Scanner had been president during WWII and we got to Hitler's bunker first and not the Russians: "can't take out Hitler; would lead to a long costly occupation. Wouldn't be prudent"). My personal suspicion is that it allowed Hussein to lay infrastructure for a resistance in the aftermath of a new future attack (the labyrinth of underground tunnels, which the North Vietnamese would have thought luxurious by the standards of what they had to endure in their underground nests) and part of what we are seeing now is due to Scanner's inaction.

Eisenhower basically gave the North Koreans a mulligan because the American public was tiring of the war and then spent more than a billion dollars attempting to prop the French up in Vietnam despite the fact that the froggies have a recommended wine for a surrender in their military handbook. Eisenhower's mishandling of the diplomacy surrounding Vietnam then set in motion what became an American tragedy.

Nixon cut and run because he wanted to take the heat out of the American antiwar movement by getting out and therefore invalidating the need for a draft in an attempt to keep the GOP from eliciting an electoral bloodbath in the 1974 midterms (still didn't work).

Like Nixon and Kissinger did, Boy George and his cronies are trying to concoct some public relations bullshit, the 21st century answer to "peace with honor," which was actually peace at home and a Communist takeover in 1975.

Sorry, but Republicans just don't do war well. It's not that president Johnson was adept in handling Vietnam, but there was a hell of lot more at work diplomatically and geopolitically there than what Boy George had to deal with.

Oh, and MacArthur and Eisenhower being Republican generals? I'll acknowledge that. But the fact is that Roosevelt and Truman allowed them to run their wars (except for MacArthur's plan to nuke China) while Bush did not in a much less nettlesome geopolitcal environment. So Democrats, with the exception of Johnson, do war better. It can't be denied.

John McCain the Phony

2006-11-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

Professional former prisoner of war and Arizona Senator John McCain will now apparently make another run at nabbing the Republican presidential nomination. In his so doing, you will no doubt get the same old bullshit about what a maverick he is. The truth, though, is that McCain is just another rightwing hack.

Let's look at who the former pilot has in tow: Bruce Herschensohn, the failed GOP California Senate aspirant who decried the fact that the UN is filled with representatives of dictatorial regimes on the one hand then lamented that then President Jimmy Carter didn't crush the Islamic rebellion that toppled dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, aka the Shah of Iran.

Yep, that is how you buy credibility in a Muslim region, by killing what may have been thousands of that religion's faithful and perhaps becoming bogged down in a perpetual guerrilla conflict after the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam just a little over half a decade previous. That is not to also mention that the Soviet Union, which was barely hanging on at that point, felt that Iran was within its sphere of influence. A U.S. military action there could possibly have stoked tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets and given more spine to military and KGB hardliners, especially after what we had been doing in Afghanistan with the Mujahadeen.

So he obviously doesn't really believe in diplomacy, which has been Bush's big problem and he has no grasp of geopolitical realities. It doesn't say much for McCain that he would have this idiot as one of his advisers.

That is beside the fact that he doesn't agree that the federal government ought to aid victims of natural disasters. That falls right in line with Bush, who left everybody behind during Hurricane Katrina while he was on another vacation and only belatedly moved, albeit merely with a series of lame ass photo ops, when the criticism and outrage got to be crushing.

Moreover, Herschensohn is another echo from the Nixon White House days and if McCain is trying to set himself up as some kind of moral paragon, as his recent courting of wackjob religious fringies like Jerry Falwell showed, then his buddy Bruce, a Tricky Dick apologist, betrays that.

One also has to question how conservatives could vote for McCain anyway. Aside from the fact that he has the adultery thing going and his wife is part of the GOPP (Grand Old Pill Poppers), Bush and his campaign made insinuations during the 2000 primary campaign that McCain was a kind of Manchurian Candidate in the wake of the torture he endured whilst a prisoner in Vietnam. That leaves those conservatives now open to being charged with selling out the country by being willing to vote for somebody who may have been programmed by the Commies even if we all know that what was said about McCain in this connection is garbage.

Then there is John Weaver, his political strategist. Weaver also advised another wingnut, Phil Gramm, during his 1996 presidential bid.

McCain is also closely tied to advisers to Bush, as this list demonstrates, including the insufferable former Indiana Senator Dan Coates, who tried to help Bush get Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and who is hardly a stalwart defender of the First Amendment.

It's the same old shit. Don't fall for it. McCain is about as independent of the GOP establishment as Ed Gillespie.