Impeach Dubya

That's All, Folks.

2008-11-11T00:37:00.001-08:00

...

2008-02-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

Ruh-Roh!

2007-12-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

...And I Feel Fine.

...Until then, take the Separation of Church and State Quiz!

2007-11-08T02:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, I can see which way the wind is blowing.

Al Gore isn't getting into the 2008 race. That's pretty clear.

So The Impeach Dubya Blog is prepared to offer our preliminary, conditional, unless-this-person-pisses-us-off-mightily endorsement for the 2008 Democratic Primaries:

Clinton? No.

Obama? No.

Edwards?

...

No.

Kucinich?

Tempting, but...

...No.

The Impeach Dubya Blog is Proud to Endorse:

SENATOR CHRIS DODD
For President of the United States.

Yes, I know what you're saying. "Who?"

Check him out.

2007-10-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

Surprise! Another Anti-Contraception Nut-fuck appointed by Bush to oversee Title X Family Planning at HHS.

By not including a “conscience clause” allowing employers to withhold contraceptive coverage, Orr said the council would force employers "to make a choice between serving God and serving the D.C. government.

"It's not about choice. It's not about health care. It's about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death," she said.

In April 2001, when President Bush proposed ending contraceptive coverage for federal employees, Orr said, "We're quite pleased because fertility is not a disease."

Where the fuck do they FIND these people? Oh, yeah. Regent University.

Just take a good look at this creepy fuckin' foam-padded blue lady and tell me if you really want her in charge of your sex life:

Didn't think so.

2007-08-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Support The Unicorn Museum!

2007-07-25T21:06:00.001-07:00

This probably explains why that neighborhood cat shits in my vegetable garden, too.

2007-07-21T21:07:00.001-07:00

....What is it with these wingnuts and their complete inability to spell? I don't mean "antidisestablishmentarianism", I'm talking about simple, small words.

Like "Momma".

Or, if you will, "Mama"--
which would have worked even better,
if such a word can be applied
to the dumb-fuck internal logic
of this sign...

Yes, that is Mitt "Mitt the Shit" Romney standing there, working on locking up what the Late Lee Atwater charmingly referred to as the "Extra Chromosome" Vote.

And they were his own party. Wonder how you could get 44% of polled Americans to say they believe that "Mankind was created in its present form sometime in the last 10,000 years"?

I dunno, Cleetus. Better ask yer moma.

Lookout, Mitt! Here comes Fred!

2007-07-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

Keith Olbermann Special Comment 7/3/07:
"Resign"

2007-06-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

I gotta fix those fucking ads at the top of the page.

Here goes:

Bush Sucks. Anti-Bush. Bush Blows. George W. Bush is the worst president ever. Anti bush. Impeach Bush. Impeach the chimp. Chimpeach the imp. God I knew he was going to suck and then he really started to suck even worse than I thought he would but good grief hasn't he just plumbed depths of heretofore unimaginable sucktitude? And he's still got a solid year and a half to go. Flat-Earth Creationist Fundy Fuck 'Maginary War-Lovin and Sex-Hatin' Jesus only knows how much more suckiness the Crawford Caligula can drum up until then!

Hillary Clinton! Barack Obama! John Edwards! (Screw 'em. If Al Gore doesn't get in, I'm voting for Dennis Kucinich.)

Let's try some repetition:

Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore Al Gore

Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich

2008! Democrats! 2008! 2008! Democrats! 2008! 2008! Democrats! 2008!

I'm a Democrat! I vote Democratic! I'm a liberal! I love Liberals! Liberals are sexy! I'm a pro-choice, pro-separation of church and state, Thomas Jefferson quotin', Americans United Supportin, Planned Parenthood boostin', Howard Dean cheerin', elitist, latte-suckin', coastal, gay friendly...

Hey, wait. There's a dude who wrote a song that says it much better than I can.

Conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American male.
Gay bashin’, black fearin’, poor fightin’, tree killin’, regioal leaders of sales
Frat housin’, keg tappin’, shirt tuckin’, back slappin’ haters of hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, porn watchin’ lazyass hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, love makin’, pro choicen, gay weddin’, widespread diggin’ hippies like me.
Skin color-blinded, conspiracy-minded, protestors of corporate greed,
We who have nothing and most likely will ‘till we all wind up locked up in jails
By conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males,.

Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls, living together in two separate worlds
Following leaders of mountains of shame, looking for someone to blame.

Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls, living together in two separate worlds
Following leaders of mountains of shame, looking for someone to blame.
I know who I like to blame:

Conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males,
Soul savin’, flag wavin’, Rush lovin’, land pavin’ personal friends to the Quayles
Quite diligently workin’ so hard to keep the free reins of this Democracy
From tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, barefootin’ folk-singin’ hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, porn watchin’ lazyass hippies like me.

Oh. And speaking of fundy fucks- does anyone think that maybe if the FDA wasn't being run by the same brand of Jesus drunk inept incompetents that Bush has put in charge of the Rest of the Federal Government, maybe we might not be worried about nearly as much E Coli, Tainted Wheat Gluten, Antifreeze in Toothpaste, etc. etc. ... That we might not be facing recalls every other week of shoddy-ass products for babies and small kids manufactured in China? Maybe if we had a Federal Government regulatory apparatus that gave a damn about anything besides keeping new forms of contraception away from American women, we might be a little more safe.

Safe from everything, that is, except people having sex for non-procreative purposes.

2007-06-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

Mike Huckabee is against Miniskirts.

Why does he hate America?

Apparently, however, he admits to being "Pro-Thong":

I want people to be attracted to me because they find me interesting, not because I'm wearing something ... well, I doubt I own anything provocative.
Q: How about a minskirt?

A: A thong.

...The mind positively boggles.

2007-06-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

It's that time again-- meaning now...
(and in case you hadn't noticed, it's always now)

...when the Mainstream Media asks the crucial, tough, hard-hitting, probing investigative political questions that simply must be answered before the 2008 election, namely: "Who can woo the values voter?", "how can the Democrats reach out to the all-important values voter?", "Don't the Democrats realize that by supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom, and the separation of church and state they're alienating the all-important values voter?" "How does the values voter feel about being the most important constituency that the Democrats must invariably try, and most likely fail, to reach out to?" and perhaps most importantly, "what did the values voter have for lunch--- and how can the Democrats reach out to it?"

Those of you who are fortunate/unfortunate enough to know me or to have read some of my more extensive rants, particularly back when I had the time to put some genuine effort into this blog, know exactly where I stand on all this. But the condensed version of the important part, right here, is this: I think that the "conventional wisdom" about the all-powerful "values voter" is bullshit. I think it's exactly the kind of DLC, Bob Shrum, media-fed crap that has caused timidity in Democratic Candidates and has lost- lost, not won- us elections in the past. The GOP buys into it, too- which is why the whole Terri Schiavo thing bit them on the ass when they thought it was going to be a winner. They overestimated the power of the knuckle-dragger, creation museum, fundy vote, and underestimated the very powerful mind-your-own-damn-business streak that runs through the American electorate.

Were I to speak directly to a Democratic Party Pooh-bah, or a powerful strategist, this is what I would say: Stop bending over backwards to appease these mythical values voters. You want to appeal to the heartland, do it with real-world solutions to their real world problems. A SPHC system. A liveable minimum wage. Stop trying to out-Jesus the GOP because you're terrified they think all libruls "hate God". I'm not saying don't genuinely speak from your faith; I'm saying stop listening to the chowderheads who say we need to jettison the gays, the pro-choicers, the so-called atheist whackjob left, the defenders of the separation of church and state.

And the most important point I would tell my imaginary friend the Democratic Party Strategist? That there is a far larger, more powerful, and most importantly, more in play constituency than these alleged "values voters" perched between the parties, and they are, for lack of a better descriptor, what I would call non-aligned, educated, mostly professional and socially libertarian. The usually very funny and occasionally annoying Bill Maher on HBO is an excellent example. In fact, there is even a whole libertarian wing of the GOP that, while they may not agree with you on stuff like taxes, are completely pissed off that the theocratic nutjobs have taken over that party, and they understand that they're certainly not getting any "fiscal responsibility" from Mr. $400 Billion-dollar-Iraq-War.

We, as a party, need to REACH OUT--- not to "evangelicals" who are terrified of gay marriage, but to the millions upon millions of citizens who want the fucking religious busybodies OUT of their personal lives.

The millions of people who respect the First Amendment and think it's fine for kids to be taught about Genesis or led in organized prayer-- but in Sunday School, not Public School.

The millions upon millions who think it's absurd that we spend $40 Billion a year on a "drug war" aimed primarily at keeping consenting adults from smoking a relatively benign plant.

The millions who understand that if they get a painful or terminal illness, they want their doctor to be the one who is allowed to help with their decisions about pain management or even a pain-free exit on their own terms- not Bill Frist, DEA agents or televangelists.

The millions who are appalled that 3 of the 10 announced GOP candidates for the most powerful office in the world admit they don't believe in evolution.

The millions- the majority, in this country, who favor a woman's right to choose.

But to reach these folks, our party needs to come out strong for an across-the-board personal freedom agenda. An agenda that says, really, what a consenting adult does with his or her own body on his or her own time, as long as he or she isn't harming anyone else, is that person's own business.

That means, Senator Edwards, that no matter what the polls say, the moral answer to the question "do gays have the right to get married", is "Yes", not "No". And really, dude, I was almost all set to vote for you if Al Gore doesn't get in. You just about lost me with that answer, tonight.

Now. In Honor of the Mainstream Media's all-faith, all-Jesus all-the-fucking-time Presidential Pander-a-thon, I want to tell my buddies the Democratic Candidates- please, talk talk talk talk talktalktalktalktalktalktaaaaaaaaaalk about your faith if it makes you happy...

Just, for the Love of Christ (and this dude sums it up better than I ever could:) PLEASE...

KEEP YOUR JESUS OFF MY PENIS

...

It's worth noting that perpetuating the "all powerful values voter" meme serves several functions for the Corporate media, not the least of which is that it allows them to avoid talking about actual pertinent issues while painting the Democrats as out of touch with the common folk. Of course, they've blamed the Democratic Party's supposed inability to speak the plain language of the god-fearing plainspeople for several election defeats, notably 2000 and 2004.

And speaking of those elections, it's interesting that in the middle of their current Christgasm they don't seem to want to spend much time on what I think is the most important story you're not hearing a thing about, namely GOP Vote Caging-- and how it pertains to Monica Goodling and the DOJ scandal:

Slate: "Raging Caging"

Resignation of Rove Aide Came After Conyers Requested 'Vote Caging' Evidence from BBC

Hmmm.

Well, Monica Goodling, graduate of Pat Robertson U-- the one who based some of her personnel decisions on important professional criteria like marital fidelity; yeah, she probably could be described as a "values voter". It's pretty safe to say she's probably against, for instance, gay marriage, Roe v. Wade, and for all we know she may support criminalizing contraception, blasphemy and extra-marital sex as well. If Bush and the GOP staffed various levels of the Federal and State governments with folks like that, and they pulled the election-manipulating shenanigans that have been alleged and may be coming to light, then I guess it could be argued that, in a sense, "values voters" were responsible for the GOP's electoral success, for instance, in 2004.

As in, well-placed values voters to help steal elections.

Still, I would think that would be a more important story for the Mainstream Media than whether or not the Democratic Front-Runners seem like they "know the psalms".

But what do I know, huh?

2007-04-26T09:14:00.001-07:00

***

2007-04-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

For someone who has "Nothing To Hide"...

...He sure looks like he's got something to hide.

2007-04-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

Wondering how things got so messed, so massively screwn, so hugely, monsterously, good grief how-could-you-not-see-the-iceberg-headed-straight-for-the-ship fucked up?

Bill Maher Has Your Answer, Right Here:

Or, read it at Salon:

"Where are they getting these screw-ups from?"

(well worth clicking through for the free day pass)

Also, this certainly explains some stuff:

Bush's Imperial Historian

...He's a self-described extreme right-wing reactionary, who is enamored with the idea of mass internment and killing of civilians.

...But.. so sorry, ladies... he's not single!

2007-04-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

... And in other News, First Lady Laura Bush recently announced the White House's new Science and Technology advisors:

Professor Bunny will be in Charge of the Departments of Flat-Earth-ology, Global Warming is bunk-itronics, and the study of why the Virgin Mary appears on toast and not cheese. The widely esteemed Dr. Peter Fluffypants will be in charge of archaeologicalitics, specifically finding the big ramps used to take the dinosaurs up to Noah's Ark.

Long-time political observers were shocked that the First Lady took time off from her busy schedule of chain-smoking Marlboros and making evil plans to defeat that pesky pain-in-the-ass Batman.

However, recent developments have led to a shortage of Administration officials not under subpoena, and the White House consensus was that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the first choice to make the announcement, was unsuitable for the task due to her history of psychological issues around, and paralyzing fear of, giant bunnies.

Of course, not long afterwards was the White House Springtime Pagan Fertility and Screwing Festival, otherwise known as the "Easter Egg Hunt", otherwise known as "Easily the best place to drop acid since Jerry Garcia died"

For the third year running, Lynne Cheney won the "Scared the most crap out of my kid, now I got a whole month of nightmares and bedwetting to contend with, thanks a whole helluva lot you evil, black-clad skeez" award.

Many onlookers were disappointed that Clifford the Big Red Dog, an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War, did not leave a Big Red Poop on the White House lawn as a statement.

2007-01-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

Make It Rain, Rain Subpoenas...

"LonelyDem07": Democrats, Don't Be A Bunch of Pussies!

...thanks for the heads up, Elaine!

2007-01-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

2007-01-07T03:59:00.000-08:00

Check Out These Amazing Photos from Impeach On The Beach:

beach photos by John Montgomery

Looks pretty amazing! What a Beautiful Sight.

Here's another Beautiful Sight-

...Got the post-holiday blues? Feeling Tired? Glum? Depressed? Like all santa left you was a warm, squishy, Jack Abramoff turd in your XXL grampers?

Cheer Up, Gang. Here's some Funny Stuff for you to enjoy while Waxman warms up the Subpoena machine:

Folk Songs of the Far Right Wing

The Effect of Drugs on the Common Wood Spider

2007-01-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

2006-12-30T03:05:00.000-08:00

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology"

HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T SAY
Orders to Cater to Creationists Make National Park Agnostic on Geology

Hmmm. I suppose that means the National Park Service is finally prepared to accept (and, more importantly, promote!) the real truth about the Grand Canyon--- namely that it was scoured clean by hot, starchy water when the great holy stainless steel strainer of our lord was drained, lo upon this sinful land.

6 days? Ha! Try "10 minutes... or until al dente".

2006-12-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

2006-12-07T18:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, Folks--- It's Time To Play...

SPOT THE TERRORISTS!

Which of these individuals are religion-crazed, America-Hating Terrorists or have otherwise been accused and/or convicted of terrorist acts, terrorist threats, terrorist shootings, terrorist bombings and other filthy, anti-American types of "we hate America" terror type stuff?

See if you can guess.

Okay, Carrot Top was a freebie.

So ...How'd Ya Do?

We tried to find a more recent picture of Chad Castagana, however it would seem that, right now at least, you can look and look and look--- but all the media will give you is this:

Hmmm. Shit, this Chad Castagana thing sure sounds like a big story to me...
I wonder why our normally terror-obsessed news providers won't show his head--- or his face?

Maybe it's covered with a turban or a veil or something, huh.

2006-11-19T01:37:00.000-08:00

Oh, Yeah, Baby.

2006-11-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

2006-11-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

2006-10-31T00:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!!!

Alleging that Electronic Voting Machines can be hacked for Widespread Deliberate Election Theft Is A Wacky, Tinfoil Hat "Conspiracy Theory"...

...Um, Except When It's Not.

Boooo!

2006-10-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

2006-08-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

2006-06-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

2006-03-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

2005-12-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

2005-12-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

All I Want For Christmas...

World's most remiss blogger, checking in. Wow. What a week, huh? Let me start by taking a little trip down memory lane. Back, to before the 2000 election, back when the "Impeach Dubya blog" wasn't even a 'huh? ...blog???' gleam in my eye.. See, my attitude back then-- when I fatalistically resigned myself to the thought that, despite eight years of peace, prosperity, and the undeniably competent rule of Bill Clinton, there was a decent chance we might be saddled with the Alfred E. Newman dipshit motherfucker in the White House-- was one of, essentially, the Republican Party has earned themselves a nice slice of turnabout is fair play. In my mind, they had railroaded and unfairly impeached a decent man over something that was no one else's business but his family's, and I figured that any Republican President -the next one- should be subject to the same treatment. You know, what's good for the goose, and all that.

...In related news, we have word that Linda "Lucianne Goldberg can pay for a platoon of plastic surgeons, your SOUL will still be ass-pimple-ugly, you miserable skeez" Tripp is currently engaged in a Bratwurst-peddling - Yes, Insert Joke Here- venture, the valence of being the world's most unpleasantly scolding media hag being apparently taken already by Dr. Laura. Is it me, or does that bratwurst look kind of like a poo? Hmmmm, maybe she's trying to curry favor... or shall we say, 'flavor'? with the current occupant of the White House?

Lest any of our too-eager conservative readers flip out-- like they did when I suggested Bush might be back on the sauce-- please allow me to say that I have no credible evidence that George Bush has eaten poo, eats poo, or that he particularly enjoys enthusiastically eating poo while sitting alone in the White House dining room, pumping his fist in the air violently to Bad Company's self-titled debut album-- cranked up full volume on a shitty battery-powered boom box made by 5 year old midget slave laborers in a cave on Fiji.

Some may have said these things, but not me.

And, in case any of our right-wing friends with nothing better to do (like protect our constitution from the out of control nut they 'elected' twice) missed it, the word "satire" is clearly written, twice, there at the top of the page. So, maybe I'm just funnin' ya.

And, yet, maybe...

Because there is some shit going down, if you'll 'scuse the pun, right now that, from my perspective, is as serious as a constitutional heart attack. Like you've got Ben Franklin jammed sideways into the carotid artery of Thomas Jefferson. But more on that later. As I was saying, when Bush was running for President in 2000, it occured to me -naturally- that the first thing we should try to do when if he took office, was impeach him. Just like I still want Arnold Schwarzennegger recalled- if these bastards are going to flagrantly disregard the results of elections they don't win, well.. I guess we don't have to worry about that anymore- now that they've near-perfected the art of stealing 'em. Yeah, so, I freely admit that my pro-chimpeachment stance was motivated by sheer, lowest-chakra desires for revenge. I was pissed about what they did to Bill Clinton, I still am, although if anyone thinks that'll make me support his wife in the primaries after the way she's been behaving lately, they've been smoking a little too much American Flag.

But after Bush stole- clearly stole- the 2000 'slection, then used obvious, cheap lies and even cheaper jingoism to bully the country into the unprecedented step of pre-emptively attacking a nation that had never attacked us, the idea of impeachment started to take on a new meaning. Shit, I thought, I knew this guy was an idiot.. but, maybe he really deserves to be impeached.

I know.. "Duh!" But wait- I remember talking to friends, co-workers, and assorted twentysomething slackers who were being paid six figures to play twister and ride down sleds all day in shiny dot com office buldings, and being vaguely disconcerted to discover that these -kids, really- didn't have any clue as to what a Republican administration might entail. They certainly didn't remember Nixon, but likewise they had no memory of Reagan, or Iran-Contra, or Ollie North, or "The A Team" for that matter.. Shit, they didn't even remember Poppy throwing up on the prime minister of Japan. (Who'da thought those would ever be the 'good old days', huh?)

And what they were really, really unclear on, was why any of it mattered. Clinton had been in the White House for eight years, and despite the offenses of the Mighty Clenis, things were pretty damn good. Bush, Gore.. what difference does it make? Who cares?

Noooo, I said, you don't understand. They get into power and always the same thing happens. The same gaggle of goons and ginkuses -even though the names and faces occasionally change, the stench is always the same- start skulking around the WH basement, hatching plans, drafting papers, watching old Nazi Propaganda films.. you know, the usual.

But even I didn't really buy my own storyline.. No, I, too had been lulled by the relative calm of the Clinton years. I thought that the Mainstream Press was accurately reporting Bush's positions when they palmed him off on us as a 'moderate'; and, nevertheless, I figured the American People -having voted for Bill Clinton twice- were far too sophisticated to buy into any agenda too far to the right, even as I warned people about the loony 'left behind' religious right crowd who seemed awfully close to Mr. Bush.

So. What a difference 5 years makes. Today, it is clearer than ever to this blogger that Mr. Bush is not only an embarrassment and a stain on the office of the Presidency, his continued reign- and it is a reign- presents a clear danger to our constitutional system of government. This, too, is not new- his behavior with regards to Iraq, with regards to the electoral process, with regards to the system of checks and balances- have all indicated a flirting with overreaching executive power in the extreme, for quite some time. But the recent news is, in my mind, different. And catapults the whole thing into another dimension, perhaps a bizarro one where most of us probably figured we would never get, again, in our lifetime... not since Dick Nixon hauled his sulky jowls onto that helicopter for his flight out of Foggy bottom.

Former Nixon Counsel John Dean told Senator Barbara Boxer that he believes Bush is "The First President To admit to an impeachable offense". Those are big words, not to be taken lightly. What, precisely, did Bush do? Well, if you've been spending too much time listening to the Press soft-pedal this, you might think that Bush 'fudged the rules', with this wiretapping thing. The "liberal' San Francisco Chronicle's Tuesday headline had Bush 'playing hardball' on the subject. As the magnitude of what Bush has casually, and belligerently, admitted to has become more apparent, and the story has stubbornly refused to go away, the press has grudgingly begun to accept that pesky, irritating words that piss off the Bush-friendly corporate boardrooms.. words like "impeachment".. may, actually have to be aired in the press, if only to be pooh-poohed as, like anti-war stances, the provence of the unconnected, uninformed, liberal, 'little people'. (Wait.. I'm confused. I thought we were the "elite"!)

See, folks, let me make it real clear. Bush broke the law. He's admitted he broke the law, and he's said he fully intends to continue to break the law. We're not talking about fudging the definition of 'sex', in front of a grand jury, either- and we're not talking about a violation of the Boland Amendment. And if you recall, with regards to the Late President "I Don't Recall" Reagan, his staff understood that flagrant lawbreaking had to be contained well away from the office of the Presidency.

Finally, George Bush has taken responsibility for something, and it aint pretty. The 1978 FISA law is extremely clear, and the blubberings of a dwindling circle of come hell-or-high-water Bushco apologists notwithstanding, if a President can just randomly wiretap whoever the fuck he wants for any reason, the whole purpose of the court, and the law, is rendered effectively moot. The FISA judges understand this, which is why they've called for an immediate briefing on this situation. You don't have to be Nostrafuckindamus to know what's coming next: Look for the right wing to complain about the 'bureacracy' inherent in the 'unwieldy' FISA process, the unfairness of having a clan of 'liberal, activist judges' hampering the superheroes in the Administration who are always valiantly out there in red, white and blue tights defending us from the slovenly, unshaven, turban-wearing 'brutal killers' who are so crafty that defeating them constantly seems to require the jettisoning of ever-greater constitutional freedoms and civil liberties. This shit has started already, of course. Rabid pinhead attack dogs of the right going, "Osama Bin Laden could be calling a phone sex line in El Segundo, and our law enforcement people couldn't listen in because of the paperwork, delays and red tape assosciated with this outdated, 1970s era (that's the new meme, right there) Law."

Don't believe it. Not a fucking word. The FISA court may not be a rubber stamp, but it's pretty fucking close. Conservative shitheads at The Weekly Standard whine about how the ACLU protested, legitimately, that the number of FISA requests skyrocketed in the past decade- before 9-11. As American Enterprise Institute Assgoblin Gary Schmitt correctly notes in a miraculous, time-traveling Weekly Standard Article dated 1-2-06, "Out of the thousands of applications put forward by the Department of Justice to the panel over the years, only a handful had ever been rejected.". Schmitt uses that as a justification to say that the ACLU, and, by extension, any liberal moonbat like John McCain who questions the President on these activities, must be disingenuous in protesting the President's illegal spying because- get this- they didn't like the law he was breaking, either! So There.

And it is upon these rocks of wisdom that the Church of Neoconservatism is built.

The question Gary Schmitt plainly doesn't want to ask is this; given the fact that

a) The FISA court has pretty much always done whatever-the-fuck the President has asked (like certain parents some of our lucky friends had in high school- the kids could get away with just about anything, so long as they told the folks what they were up to: "Okay, so, you're gonna be over at the hot blonde cheerleader's house, smoking weed and hopefully banging her twelve ways to Sunday. Okay, son, go get 'em. Use a condom, and call if you're going to be late")

and

b) this is the kicker- the Government could go ahead and DO the spying, and then get a warrant for it retroactively up to 72 hours later.. How fucking sweet is that? This idea that Osama could be ordering Domino's and the NSA would have to "hang up" because they didn't have a warrant or couldn't get one--- Kids, that's what's known in the Journalism profession as a "Fucking Lie".

Right- so, given both those things... WHY THE FUCK would George Bush decide to go around FISA and do something that clearly- unequivocally- broke the law, and would doubtless precipitate a constitutional showdown of sorts? Could it be, as Dick Cheney mentioned, the Administration is deliberately trying to "restore the legitimate authority of the Presidency"? (Cheney has certainly been working overtime on that one, too. Secret meetings that, executive torture orders this. Funny, isn't it, that only some eight years ago, the President didn't even have the right to keep what he did with his own god-damn Johnson private?) Certainly, some of the creepy things they keep trying to do, like holding American Citizens without trial or floating trial balloons about suspending democracy and elections seem like they're just trying to find the limits of exactly WHAT they can get away with. But this, clearly, criminal action strikes me as a little bit beyond merely testing the waters. It smells like the behavior of someone not entirely rational and drunk on his own "God-ordained" hubris (Like Bush) but it also makes me wonder just who, precisely, was being listened to. If it was people for whom they couldn't even provide the FISA court with the requisite "name and reason" that apparently posed such a pain in the ass, onerous paperwork hurdle for the Bush team.. then who was it? What kinds of 'terrorists' were falling into this net? Political opponents? Anti-fur activists? Cancer-Stricken Grannies calling their pot brownie dealers? Has-been television actors last seen in dog food commercials?

It's weird, and the silver lining to all this is that Bush's continual miscalculations combined with his arrogant 'fuck you' attitude, delivered to both friend and foe alike (but particularly foe) seems to be catching up with him. See, he took the proverbial whizz on congress with this spying deal, along with that Judicial Branch he's been so intent on demonizing for the past year. Congress, especially the United States Senate, doesn't take kindly to would-be Ceasars peeing on their heads.

Team Bush knows they're in trouble, which makes me wonder just how smart they actually are. They keep stumbling into these just righteous fucking disasters- The Iraqi Reconstruction, Hurricane Katrina, this.. that a sedated, blind monkey would have seen coming. It makes me think that they really don't have any clue as to what they're doing, and the ones that do are so busy making sure all the ill-gotten gains they've carted off from the American People are stashed away safe and secure for when the shit finally hits the fan and the curtain falls, as it inevitably must, on this train wreck of an Administration, that they can't be bothered to give a shit. But they've flailingly started to cobble together a defense, the first salvo of which came during the week. In which they argued that, well, the President has the Authority to spy on whoever he wants as part of this law passed 3 days after 9-11. (Quality legislation, clearly. Obviously another one which Congress spent a lot of time reading. They want to bitch about these '1970s, post-Watergate Laws', but I'd bet 100 silver plated minature statue of liberty paperweights that when the history of our time is written centuries hence, if the oceans haven't completely boiled away into space, the Laws passed 'post 9-11' will be widely regarded as one of the most noxious sub-chapters in the history of American Democracy.. when justified outrage and fear on the part of the American People were co-opted by unscrupulous administration hacks to steamroll un-Democratic, anti-American, anti-civil liberties legislation for the clear benefit of the folks in power who regard constitutional rights, checks, balances, and even the most meager sort of oversight whatsoever as a 'pain in the ass'.

So, they said that this Sept. 14, 2001 law gives them the Authority to do this. Tom Daschle, displaying way more fucking spine than he ever showed while he was 'our guy' in the Senate, called bullshit on that, saying that the Administration- in typical creepy fashion- tried to insert phrasing allowing the President total, unilateral power to engage in 'all necessary' conduct vis a vis the nebulous, never-defined 'war on terror'... on American Soil.

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens,"

Wow. Maybe Daschle is mad because, even with all this extra, illegal wiretapping and clearly unbounded, unaccountable, unlimited power of the Executive Branch which King Bush has magnanimously accorded himself--- no one in the government has been able to figure out who tried to kill him by mailing anthrax to his Senate office.

Seems to me like certain Republican Senators, like Specter and McCain, are pissed off- and rightfully so. I doubt these questions are going away, no matter how pliant Bush may think a media is that buried this story, like so many others, right before the 2004 election.
So, we shall see.

Which only leaves the right-wing punditry. Conservatives like George Will, who are frequently, mind-bogglingly wrong, (as he was recently when he tried to make some farting argument about how opposition to drilling in ANWR is about 'collectivism') yet who nevertheless still retain some modicum of a functioning cerebellum and a shred of intellectual honesty, were pretty plainly appalled by Bush's open defense of the Imperial Presidency, one which, when distilled down to its core, amounts to "Merely by saying the magic words National Security, I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want.."

Then you have perennial Bush Apologists like David Brooks, who are smart enough to know that something is mighty rotten in Denmark, and it's bad enough that another cute column about baseball or movies or how great the Catholic Church in the 14th Century was for free thought just aint gonna cut it for a distraction.. Brooks takes the tack that we should sympathize with poor old George, put ourselves in his shoes. I mean, what would YOU do?

Hmmm. Shit- I'm a possibly sociopathic megalomaniac with anecdotal evidence of cruelty in my past to both animals and humans.. I'm arguably the most powerful human on Earth by virtue of the multi-trillion dollar military machine at my fingertips, but I'm also convinced that God has specifically chosen ME for the job (thereby making my enemies- or anyone who even disagrees with me- an agent of Satan) ... I'm clearly drunk on Jesus and dubious, single-digit IQ televangelist theology, and possibly back on the hooch to boot. Yes, Dave, I'm putting myself in his shoes right now, Dave. No, I can't do that Dave. I can't open the pod bay doors.

Brooks calls what Bush did "legally dubious", which is sort of like calling chopping your neighbor's head off with an axe "unfriendly". I can't, as of yet, link to the Brooks piece, because the NYT's content is now all premium stuuuuufff, man. Yep, they gotta pay the bills- keeping crack reporters like Judy Miller happy- and maintaining the kind of polished standards of journalistic integrity which allow holding a story about criminal wrongdoing by the President until after the election... those things aint cheap, man. Well, we do know David Brooks has integrity positively oozing out of his ass. So good for him to equivocate so eloquently, sort of, on the side of mealy-mouthed lukewarm protestation.

Then, the most fun of all, we have guys like Cal Thomas. I mean, Bush is THE golden boy for these culture war clusterfucks. They're just so wet in the panties to have a President pounding the pulpit for their uptight, homophobic, hate-filled, war loving, sex and woman-fearing, cartoon sunday school version of the Divine, that Bush can simply do no wrong. Seriously. Bush could show up on prime time TV from the oval office, clearly drunk, wearing assless leather chaps (of the kind we frequently envision Mr. Thomas wearing, actually) eating poo sandwiches and biting the heads off live bats, all the while gibbering incoherently about the Book of Revelations and Jimmy Hoffa's testicles... and Cal Thomas would be out there, the next day, defending the guy from people saying 'bad things about our country'.

(No, I think we know what the only thing Bush could do to alienate the Cal Thomas crowd is. Name someone Pro-Choice to the Supreme Court.)

I mean, just read this bubbling cauldron of bullshit. He's pissed because some people who clearly hate America, like Senator "I spent Vietnam in the Hanoi Hilton.. Where the fuck were you, Cal?" McCain, are, quote, "preoccupied with civil liberties and charges of torture". Yeah. One irony is that you know- you KNOW- that if the President who was pulling these unconstitutional, unbounded power hijinks had a (D) instead of an (R) after his name, Thomas's head would be exploding with Black Helicopters coming from Mena Airport to force our virginal white daughters to put condoms on black dildos and worship the horned god Baal.

But this part, really, is the best:

Those relatively few who were spied on and had their cell phones monitored must have demonstrated their intention to aid in another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It often takes too long for a judge to permit monitoring a suspect's cell phone. Before a court order can be obtained, the terrorist suspect can disconnect, or change numbers and the trail quickly grows cold.
The law -- especially the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- has lagged behind the technological innovation and cunning of our enemies. President Bush did what he swore he would do in his oath of office: protect this country and its citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
You can't win a chess game when only one side plays by the rules.

I'd like to propose another rule, Cal. You can't have your column printed in major fucking newspapers when you out and out LIE. Oh, I know, you crackhead motherfucker left behind dipshit nitwits are used to being able to change 'facts' around wherever it suits you.. you know, evolution hasn't been 'proven', global warming 'needs more study', the shroud of Turin isn't an obvious fake with ridiculously bad human proportions to boot...

But, shithead, when you're dealing with the RULE OF LAW and the CONSTITUTION, two things which your spittle and cheesy moustache filled babble totally fail to take into account, you can't just change- or ignore- the facts to suit your agenda. To wit; everything EVERYONE knows about the FISA law blows all that bullshit about the 'trail quickly goes cold' right out of the water. There are 72 hours- 72 hours, shit-for-brains!!! ..during which the NSA can RETROACTIVELY obtain one of those rubber stamp warrants. We don't have anyone galloping on horseback around DC anymore, although due to your neo-luddism you can be forgiven for not knowing that, so the idea that in the age of instantaneous communication and cell phones these extremely pliant FISA judges are somehow 'holding up the process' and 'letting the bad guys get away' is just.. fuck, there's no clever way to say it...

It's a LIE, and you should be FIRED for trying to peddle that sort of shit off in the public media.

So, that's where we stand. President broke the law, clearly intends to keep breaking it, also asserts that he has the right to do whatever the hell he wants. All he needs is a scepter, a big throne, and a maniacal laugh. So, what do I want for Christmas, if not this year--- maybe, please, next?

Impeach Dubya. For real, now. He's more than earned it.

Now, a little fun, then I gotta go. This will probably be my last rant for a while, so I'd like to wish my loyal readership happy holidays, merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice, and go get drunk, laid, and gnaw on a big leg of lamb without wiping your face off, because it's Saturnalia, dammit. And Happy New Year.

And to the dolts who keep leaving real estate spam in my comments, a Very Merry Go Fuck Yourselves.

Now, I promised, a little Christmastime fun. I don't want to make fun of those abstinence only programs, even the religious ones, because lord knows in a world of sinful flesh, fleshful sin, and Victoria's Secret catalogs that clean the clocks of the cheap Sears underwear ads I had to furtively steal and masturbate to as a lad, it's damn hard to remain abstinent and properly focused on God, purity, and.. oh, who the fuck am I kidding--- Of course I'm gonna make fun of that shit.

The Mainstream Press, including the New York Times, demonstrating the kind of hard-hitting story they're not afraid to publish, has been running several puff pieces of late extolling the virtues of these "Abstinence-Only" programs, which take millions of your tax dollars and use them to buy thumping amplifiers, flashing strobe lights, and stupid fucking guys with bad haircuts to try to sell teens on a thinly-veiled Christian message heavy on the 'just say no- getting off' message, and light on anything having to do with anything Jesus ever said.

I did a little more research, and looking at these fucking abstinencepalooza things is downright frightening, and not just in a George Orwell "Junior Anti-Sex League" sense. But one thing I couldn't help noticing, while looking at the pictures...

Here's a couple more, see what you think..

Notice anything about these kids? Particularly the boys?

Something about their expressions, maybe?

Perhaps you detect, as I do, a distinct, er... lack of enthusiasm for what they're doing- or at least for having their picture taken holding these inane fucking rings... proclaiming loudly to the whole world,

"Nope! No Sex For Me, Thanks!"

Yeah. They're positively fucking THRILLED to be there. I'm certain.

And these are the kids that the folks behind these programs picked to represent the face of enthusiastic chastity to the world. One can only imagine how thrilled the kids whose pictures they didn't post were to be there...

Some of the girls look a little, er, ambivalent about the whole thing, too. Or maybe that's the best smile you can produce when you're surrounded 24-7 by bible thumping, Jesus-drunk parents spouting gobbledygook about 'honoring God's gift of your purity'

This kid on the right.. he's, like, "Uh- no- don't take my picture, really. I gotta go. Um, yeah- right now."

Poor kids. Can't say I blame 'em, either. Parents traditionally force kids to get into a lot of goofy, lame, shit- but this is pretty bad.

Wait, you gotta see one more. This is BY FAR the best one:

Yeah. These kids really look "abstinent", to me. And they're clearly taking the whole thing VERY seriously.. Right. I see this picture and I hear-- "Absti-whaaaaaat? We were just pulling bongs out in the parking lot, heh heh. Get this- We thought this was the fucking Pizza Hut!"

I like this paragraph from the article, because it contains one of those axiomatic 'truths' that everyone is supposed to accept as fact, when in fact it's total bullshit:

Most chastity rings from retailers are sold with pledge cards bearing religious messages such as "Remember to hold tight to what God has asked you to keep pure."

Parents often present the rings to sons and daughters teetering on puberty. "I can't think of any parent out there that wouldn't value the sentiment behind the ring," says Julie Lee, who sells purity rings online at JuliesJewels.com, from Graham, Texas.

Really, Julie? I don't know how things are down thaaaaar in Graham, Texas, but I happen to know LOTS of parents who, if cornered, would say that while they certainly encourage their kids to wait until they're emotionally ready before getting in a sexual relationship, they would sure-as-shit YES prefer that their kid NOT marry the FIRST human being on the god-damn PLANET that they have a sexual encounter with.

As for the parents you refer to, the ones pushing their kids to commit to sexual "purity" until marriage... Why only rings? Shit, the kink and fetish world is way ahead of you, folks. Why not outfit those kids with new, improved, high-tech Chastity Belts? You know, stick a picture of Jesus on there to remind the kid how this is done out of love for their eternal soul and yadda yadda yadda. Then lock 'em up, and you won't have to worry about the youngins' sinnin' before marryin'!

Ah, some liberal activist ACLU judge would probably find a reason to keep god-fearing parents from being able to adopt such reasonable measures. Except, maybe, in Texas. Maybe Julie from JuliesJewels should get into THAT market.

Or, I guess, they could keep doing what they're doing... namely, using millions of our tax dollars to peddle this unrealistic, Jesus-laden (I would hope God cares more about the people freezing to death in Pakistan right now than he does about the hymenic integrity of virginal high school debutantes in suburban America) 'just say no' bullshit to kids.

Yes, they've sure got a wonderful recipe there for unplanned pregnancies, STDs, abortions, and bad marriages between dumb-ass people... for all the wrong reasons.

Ho Ho Ho!

2005-12-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, some nonsense is so irritating it even causes this much-remiss blogger to come out of his hibernation-like stupor. As we head into the season of yuletide, and warmth by the fire, and the subtle hints of nasty, sinful premarital sex contained in the lyrics of Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland, I feel I just have to address this "War on Christmas" bullshit.

In case you haven't heard, every far right kook and culture war waterhead, and his bastard cousin Bob, is beating the 'liberals are at war on Christmas' drum.. Again.

Yes, that funky feeling you have in your head is Deja Vu, or else it's that Wicked Eggnog your brother makes with lighter fluid. Because long-time, ever-patient readers of the blog may recall that I covered a similar situation, just about a year ago.

Oh, I guess last year it wasn't a "war on Christmas".. It was "Take Back Christmas".. Yes, what better time than the season of, at least, lip service to Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men to ramp up agitation and anger towards those of different, or no faith, to use the fact that check-out clerks at Target say "Happy Holidays" as reason #2305 to hate them gul-durn sekyooolar humanist librul ACLU monkeys?

Last year, it seems "Liberals" were trying to "Take the Christ out Of Christmas". This year, it's that everyone is forced to say -and even worse, to be told while signing their credit card receipt- "Happy Holidays". I suppose it's a measure of how desparate the fucking right wing is getting in this country that now, they don't even bother to worry about the overt anti-Semitism contained in this particular Jihad. After all, the majority of the folks in this country who might be celebrating a holdiay other than Christmas during the "Holiday Season" are probably celebrating Hannukah. Was a time when the religious right- which is, lets be honest, mostly made up of Jesus freaks- would at least go through the motions of trying to appease Jewish conservatives in this country, what with all the talk about returning the nation to its "Judeo-Christian" Roots (unless, of course, you're looking at the Texas GOP platform, which declares the USA a "Christian" nation- we don't take muchuva cotton to em Jooo-day-yos down here, boaaah) ...However, it should be clear that when the chips are down, Jews get jettisoned overboard with the rest of the sinners, paganists, secular humanists, sex deviants, Democrats, hybrid owners and everyone else bound for the bubbly, fiery furnace.

Um, paging Ben Stein. Are you paying attention to any of this, asshole?

But- I digress. Because if the War on the 'War on Christmas' being waged by FOX News, O'Reilly, The AFA, FOTF, and the other usual pinhead suspects on the fringe right wasn't enough to piss me off, this little gem in the morning paper sent me over the TOP:

George W. Bush Q&A on Iraq, 12-12-05

...See, in the middle of a rehash of his same old bullshit about the war, while attempting to garner great big gobs of gushy, gooey press praise for doing what Presidents are normally expected to do as a matter of course, namely actually fielding a few god-damn questions about stuff, George Bush had a watershed moment. No, I don't mean when he acknowledged that our invasion of Iraq had 'liberated' some 30,000 (a conservative estimate) Iraqis right off the face of the planet- No, I mean when President George W. Bush actually admitted that some blame was appropriate for the Iraqi insurgency, and the resultant problems with his dipshit, dumb-ass war.

Who did he blame? Good question. Lets see the quote:

Look, I recognize we got an image issue, particularly when you got Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America, you know, saying, America is fighting Islam. Americans can't stand Muslims. This is a war against a religion.

And we've got to, obviously, do a better job of reminding people that ours is not a nation that rejects religion.

I would lay 100-to-1 odds that "Ambassador To Islam", Karen "Our Constitution Says Under God" Hughes wrote that gem. Not reading between the lines? Since I'm fluent in asshole, I will translate it for you:

"The reason we're hated by so many in the Middle East? It's the fault of the ACLU- and secular humanists"

It has nothing to do with years of supporting dictators like the Shah and the Family Saud, or a bullshit invasion based on lies coupled a horribly bungled reconstruction 'effort'... Noo, see, it's a perception that we 'reject religion'.

See, if it wasn't for the check-out people at Target saying "happy holidays", there wouldn't BE an Iraqi insurgency.

Funny how, we're never allowed to ask what, specifically, 'they' are so mad about- because that would be 'enabling' them.... but Bush throws out this kind of shameless bullshit, essentially asserting that we need to hand our country over to our fundamentalists--- in order to placate theirs... and, as usual, he gets a free pass.

Leonard Pitts: "That's not persecution. It's a persecution complex."

2005-11-22T01:08:00.000-08:00

For Some Moments...

...There Truly Are No Words.

2005-11-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

Ellen Goodman: They Value Your Virginity More Than Your Life

2005-11-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

NY Times: Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions

A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

Arizona Rape Victim Denied Emergency Contraception

Anthrax victim's widow frustrated with 'pattern of delay'

Family fights an HMO for 4-year-old's life

2005-11-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

SIGN THE EMERGENCY PETITION TO STOP ALITO
Senator Harry Reid Forces Iraq War Intelligence Inquiry:

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions"

Give 'em Hell, Harry!
Bush and Cheney's OWN CHURCH Now Opposes Their Bogus War.

"As people of faith, we raise our voice in protest against the tragedy of the unjust war in Iraq," the statement read. "Thousands of lives have been lost and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in a war the United States initiated and should never have fought.... We grieve for all those whose lives have been lost or destroyed in this needless and avoidable tragedy. Military families have suffered undue hardship from prolonged troop rotations in Iraq and loss of loved ones. It is time to bring them home."

...Fuck, George, Don'tcha just HATE it when Christians actually start paying attention to the words of that long-haired, turn the other cheek, namby-pamby socialist hippie from Nazareth?

"Grumble Gurble Nurble Farb Dad Blam Libruls Robble Robble Robble"

Actually, he looks to me like all his moonshine is gone...

...and he just found Granny passed out by the cee-ment pond, surrounded by empty jugs.

2005-10-31T22:47:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

WATCH OUT FOR
BRAIN EATING ZOMBIES

2005-10-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

If This Fucker Is "Sober"...

...I'm The Queen of England.

2005-10-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

Can You Tell Me How To Get, How To Get To...

Schwarzenegger Street?

It's Enron-Tastic!

2005-10-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

(Thanks to Hawkerhurricane at DU for this. Priceless.)

The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject.

Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!

Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!

Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.

Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!

Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.

2005-10-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay has been arrested and booked like a common criminal (when, it could be argued, he's a very uncommon one) ...

Indictments could very well be imminent in the outing of Valerie Plame..

Bill Frist has gone from merely being guilty of being an asshole to possibly being guilty of other stuff, too...

George W. Bush may not be batshit out of his mind, holed up at the White House like a rat in a drain ditch on a serious Jim Beam & Pepto Bismol Bender... but he's sure as hell acting- and looking- like he is.

So, it's quite possible, in my mind, that the far right wing house of cards that has ran roughshod over this nation and her constitution for the past several years may be close to, if not collapsing, at least falling apart enough to seriously fuck up their chances for the 2006 midterms.

(Assuming, of course, that a certain other political party can find its balls in time- but that's another story... for another Joe Leiberman can kiss my ass day.)

With that in mind, however, on the off chance that the fat lady is affixing her horned helmet and spraying her throat with chloraseptic... we've started to compile a list of questions- nagging little loose ends- that we would really, really, REALLY like answered or wrapped up when our long, national nightmare is finally over:

If we're in Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people, and are all set to clear out 'the minute' they have things under control and want us to leave, why are we building, by some accounts, 14 permanent military bases in the country? On the assumption that the Shiite theocracy our tax dollars are creating there will request our continued presence? Inquiring minds, well, yeah... we pretty much figure we know the answer already.

Hey. Remember 9-11? Sure you do. Fuckin' GOP waves that bloody shirt every time they want to debate the god-damn flat tax. But.. remember how someone made millions in statistically anomalous 'short selling' of airline stock immeditately prior to the attacks? I know that, in this age of Total Information Awareness, where every ATM transaction, much less stock sale, is meticulously recorded, finding out who stood to profit by several million from a specific trade might be kind of a pain in the ass, and the media sure didn't seem interested in pursuing that story... but- for us?

Speaking of stories the media wanted to forget about all of a sudden... whatever did happen to that whole Anthrax investigation? You know, Press Guys, it's been long enough now that it could be played as a 'retro, fashion' thing to bring it up. Like, Paris Hilton! There ya go.

More weird shit: What was the deal with Nabil Al-Marabh? How come some Marin Hottubber like John Walker Lindh was such a massive threat to our country, but this guy- an actual terrorist with proven links to 9-11, had to be let go, paradoxically to "protect national security"? Hmmmmmmmm?

Speaking of Valerie Plame.. So, uh, who was actually responsible for the original Nigerian Yellowcake Document Forgery?

What happened to the $9 Billion from in Iraqi Reconstruction money from the US Treasury that mysteriously vanished and 'cannot be accounted for'? (Here's a hint- check the duffel bags)

Speaking of Ripping US Citizens off to the tune of billions, why the FUCK is Ken Lay still a free man?

And speaking of Ken Lay, what did he and Arnold Schwarzenegger speak about at their secret meeting during the height of California's (cough, cough) "energy crisis", you know, the one which was pinned on Gray Davis, ensuring his political demise? Golf?

Did someone say Secret? Energy? Meeting?

Where's Osama? Remember him?

Let us just be clear on one thing: a blowjob and a semen stain are impeachment worthy, but deliberately taking this country to war on a shabby pack of lies is... what?

More soon.

Thanks to H2OMAN at DU for that uplifting thought and image for the day.

Also: New Rule, to rip off Bill Maher- I can take criticism, griping, even incoherent far right spittle-fueled ranting in my comments, but one thing this dude just cannot abide is fuckin' SPAM. If you want to leave a comment, you better make damn clear through what you write that you're responding individually, in a pertinent fashion, to MY blog and the ideas presented herein. Otherwise you'll be deleted, period. I'm only saying this once.

2005-10-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today's Profile In Courage: Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.

For finally, after some 2 years of governmental delays and game-playing, ordering the release of additional photographic evidence from Abu Ghraib.

Clearly, the DoD and the Bush Administration will appeal this ruling, and they have 20 days in which to do so. If the photos and videos contain the kind of explosive evidence that some, like Sy Hersh, have previously alleged, the gummint will fight tooth and nail (actually, they already have, throwing everything, including General Myers and his kitchen sink, at Judge Hellerstein) to prevent them from seeing the light of day.

This is NOT about "more of the same", this is evidence of what has been done in the NAME of the AMERICAN PEOPLE with OUR TAX DOLLARS, and concurrently it is evidence which can corroborate allegations of a widespread policy of abuse actively encouraged by higher-ups in the chain of command, as opposed to the work of the ever-popular "few bad apples" like Lynndie England.

The Judge may have taken his time, but in the end he did the right thing. I will let his words speak for themselves:

Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms
that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and
missiles with which our troops are armed.
...

With great respect to the concerns expressed by General Myers, my task is not to defer to our worst fears, but to interpret and apply the law, in this case, the Freedom of Information Act, which advances values important to our society, transparency and accountability in government.

...

The interest at stake arises from pictures of flagrantly improper conduct by
American soldiers - forcing prisoners under their charge to pose in a manner that compromised their humanity and dignity. As I stated at the time of the original argument, and as I reiterated previously in this decision, the pictures are the best evidence of what happened, better than words, which might fail to describe, or summaries, which might err in their attempt to generalize and abbreviate.

Publication of the photographs is central to the purposes of FOIA because they initiate debate, not only about the improper and unlawful conduct of American soldiers, "rogue" soldiers, as they have been characterized, but also about other important questions as well-for example, the command structure that failed to exercise discipline over the troops, and the persons in that command structure whose failures in exercising supervision may make them culpable along with the soldiers who were court-martialed for perpetrating the wrongs; the poor training that did not create patterns of proper behavior and that failed to teach or distinguish between conduct that was proper and improper; the regulations and orders that governed the conduct of military forces engaged in guarding prisoners; the treatment of prisoners in other areas and places of detention; and other related questions.

Suppression of information is the surest way to cause its significance to grow and
persist. Clarity and openness are the best antidotes, either to dispel criticism if not merited or, if merited, to correct such errors as may be found.

...

Our struggle to prevail must be without sacrificing the transparency and accountability of government and military officials. These are the values FOIA was intended to advance, and they are at the very heart of the values for which we fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is a risk that the enemy will seize upon the publicity of the photographs and seek to use such publicity as a pretext for enlistments and violent acts. But the education and debate that such publicity will foster will strengthen our purpose and, by enabling such deficiencies as may be perceived to be debated and corrected, show our strength as a vibrant and functioning democracy to be emulated.

In its most recent discussion of FOIA, the Supreme Court commented that
"FOIA is often explained as a means for citizens to know what 'their Government is up to.' The sentiment is far from a convenient formalism. It defines a structural necessity in a real democracy."

As President Bush said, we fight to spread freedom so the freedoms of Americans will be made more secure. It is in compliance with these principles, enunciated by both the President and the highest court in the land, that I order the government to produce the Darby photographs that I have ruled are responsive and appropriately redacted.

Way to go, Judge. Way to go.

I strongly urge everyone to support The ACLU (translation: send 'em a check) because they've done a bang-up job with this... and with the inevitable DoD appeal, it's quite likely not over yet.

Quote From Goodwill (and "Good News") Ambassador To Christ-Deprived Mooooslams, Karen Hughes:
"Our Constitution Cites 'One Nation Under God'"

Now, let's be fair to ol' Karen (She's a Maaaaaan, Baby!) and try to put her TOTAL lack of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution in perspective..
...I mean, how well do YOU know the paper you wipe your ass on?

More Of That Librul Environmentalist Tree-Hugger Global Warming Junk Science:
Instead of a Sleigh, Pretty Soon Santa's Gonna Need a Sub.

2005-09-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

BRAD BLOG Exclusive With Diebold Insider:
"One of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known"

2005-09-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

2005-09-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

The "Blame Game" Game:

Readers of this blog may not know that your humble narrator, here, actually has one or two things in common with President George W. Bush- Like, first and foremost, I'm completely and utterly not qualified for my job, and my primary concern is making sure nobody finds out just what a massive scam I'm getting away with each day merely by not being hauled out from behind my desk and tossed out onto the street by the security guards.

No, I kid.

But, really, like George W. Bush, I too had a "reckless youth", although my definition of "youth" is a little different than his- mine ended well before his (allegedly) did, on his fortieth birthday. But I must say, although I've lived like a monk for many, many years (except for the no sex part) watching television this week made me feel more like getting piss, rip-roarin', puke-on-my-shoes drunk than I have in a long, long, loooong time.

Not just because of the abject suffering, the misery, the horror, and (worst of all) the knowledge that much of it really could have been avoided if we had a federal government that gave half a damn. No, the impetus behind the wagon fallingesque emotion was actually that I invented a GREAT NEW DRINKING GAME!

See, part of the surreal experience of watching cable news this past week was seeing elements of our nation's press corps magically re-find their journalistic testicles, particularly the reporters who were down among the chaos in places like the Superdome. But the other half of it was watching- literally seeing the process in graphic relief- the corporate media's Bush-defending spin control mechanisms desperately try to click into gear. Here's an example: My wife agrees with me that the media is woefully non-adversarial with this administration, but she does roll her eyes a bit when I get all tinfoilhat about the corporate media and their overt manipulation of the American Public. So imagine my surprise when she grabbed me and pulled me to the television the other night, and said "This is unbelievable- I'm actually WATCHING them try to spin this for Bush".

What she had cue'd up on the TIVO (man, are those things great, or what?) was about 5 minutes of some blonde CNN anchor-bot with a snot-faced expression cut straight from the Laurann Ingcoulteraham mold, who said "With the delay in services, SOME people seem to want to play the BLAME GAME"..

(I like that line about a "delay in services". No, lady, a delay in services is when your dry cleaning comes back on Friday instead of Thursday. When you leave tens of thousands of people with no food or water in a disaster area, that's called criminal neglect.)

So then, they cut to Larry King sticking his proboscis up Poppy and Bar's rear ends, and then sure 'nough, there's Poppy repeating some bullshit about the "Blame Game", being sure to remind us all what a "caring, strong, man of faith" ol Dubya is.

I'm not sure if Bar said anything.. she's been on a roll this week, but it'd be tough to top that wonderful quote from the other day, where she said that things were "working out well" for the folks who lost all their possessions and had been locked knee-deep in shit in the superdome for five days with rapists, murderers, and a whole lot of stinky corpses.

Now, inquiring minds might wonder why, if George W. Bush is such a manly, tough, strong man, he needs his MOMMY and DADDY to come out to the front of the schoolyard to 'splain to the kids about what a good boy Junior is, and how he really didn't mean to leave all those negroes to die, with no food or water for close to a week.

But, really, what I found most interesting was this phrase, "Blame Game". Because after those few, precious minutes with ex-President Corleone and his lovely wife, it rapidly became clear to me that you couldn't turn on a cable news channel without being literally assaulted with inane repetitions of those two words. "Blame Game". "Blame Game". "Blame Game". Again, it would be one thing- and weird enough- if only administration flunkies were flogging that phrase, but clearly MEDIA personnel had been instructed to put it out there, as well. One can imagine that Karl Rove sat on the fucking phone all day Monday, screaming at the top of his lungs to his toadies over at CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, along with all his other administration apologists: "Blame Game!" "Blame Game!" "Blame Game!"...

You know how, if you repeat a word enough times, it turns into gibberish? Ah, "Blame Game". "Blame Game."

"BlameGameBlameGame!"

"BlameGameBlameGame!"

"BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame!"

"I tell ya, Paw, They're Playin' That Dad Gum Blame Game Again, Dag Blammit!"

Sure, it's no "Knob Gobblin' Hobgoblins From Gobbler's Knob", but it'll make for a decent tongue twister in a pinch.

I wonder if it crossed the squirrelly, bald head-encased mind of Mr. Rove that the words "Blame" and "Game" also rhyme with "Plame".

After all, the Blame for Plame lies Mainly on the Game.

So, it occurred to me that if I was still in college, and my buddies and I had decided to make a drinking game this week where every time someone in the Administration or the Press used the phrase "Blame Game" we took a drink, by today we would probably be dead of alcohol poisoning.

Fortunately some members of the White House Press Corps are calling bullshit on that. Bravo.

But while we wily librul media elites are busy playing the "Blame Game", surely -despite that slight delay in services- the Federal Government is busy savin' lives, doin' the heavy lifting, gettin things done, right?

Well, you will be relieved to know that under Michael "Brownie" Brown, the guy whose previous experience had something to do with horse shows... and he even fucked THAT up, FEMA really has its priorities in order: First off, they have gathered firefighters from all over the country to enlist them in the crucial post-disaster job of handing out pro-FEMA flyers. How dare anyone say that the job hasn't been done right, even though actual relief was needlessly delayed -perhaps by up to two days- AFTER the storm hit:

the Associated Press reported that internal documents show Brown waited until hours after the hurricane had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region -- and then gave them two days to arrive.

---because you know what? When it comes to handing out fuckin' flyers, "Brownie" is on the god. damn. case!

This chowderhead actually said that one of the primary duties of FEMA personnel was to "make the agency look good" to government officials and members of the press:

According to leaked internal documents, Michael Brown suggested teams should be given two days to get to the devastated region and told FEMA staff that one of their duties was to make the agency look good. "Convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public," he wrote.

Mr Brown, who has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the crisis, apparently blamed the delay in deploying staff on the need for adequate training.

Yes, clearly they couldn't be sent into the field until they completed the requisite 48 hour seminar on spin, bullshit, blather, toadying, and press conference management.

And you know what else they're on the case about? (Shit, don't tell me these boys don't know what's important) Censorship. FEMA has decreed that not only is no unauthorized (meaning effective) aid getting into the city, but no pictures of dead bodies are gettin' out. That's right, they understand that in today's world, reality is what you can get away with- and if it aint on teevee, sheeeet mang, it didn't happen. While some quantum physicists might quarrel with such a drastic take on the Copenhagen interpretation, the fact of the matter is, if we don't see the dead bodies, for all intents and purposes, to much of the 'Merkin Public, they aint there. Much like a two year old who thinks he's invisible when he covers his eyes, millions of folks in this country are in active denial about realities that they will go out of their way to shield themselves from, and if a highly sanitized American Media will assist them in that, hey, even better. This is why you can have an argument with a right-winger about the Abu Ghraib images that, well, who knows what finally spooked Judge Hellerstein, but I bet they won't be released after all... and said right-winger will argue until he's blue in the face about how these images MUST NOT be allowed to see the light of day- and then, if you bring up what some have alleged the photos to contain, the same fucking jarhead will go, with a straight fucking face.... "Prove it. Show me the pictures."

No, seriously. I've had that exact fucking fight with people.

Sooooo, FEMA probably figures they're doing everyone (particularly Bush) a favor by issuing edicts like "no photos of dead bodies". Considering that the estimated death toll could range from 10,000 to as high as 40,000 or higher, it makes one wonder just what, exactly, people will be allowed to take pictures OF- because it seems to me that wherever you look in what used to be New Orleans, you're going to find... dead bodies.

Columbia Journalism Review on the Media's Complicity

What Will It Take To Get You People To Do Your Fucking Jobs?

Fiore: Whoopsi Gras

Bush's Use Of Firemen: As Props

Hey, Ready for a Laugh? I mean, as much of a laugh as you can manage, given the circumstances? Check This Out: I remember watching this some nearly five years ago... Who woulda thunk just how prophetic it would turn out to be?

Will Ferrell should win some kind of Nostradamus award just for the lines about "it's too hard!" and "I told you, this is hard!".

Shit, it seems even Bush's fuckups are stolen from someone else's material.

It's hard work, indeed.

2005-09-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

Must See TV: Keith Olbermann Is Here To Kick Some Ass And Chew Some Bubblegum... And He Just Ran Out Of Bubblegum

Or, Read The Transcript:

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?

I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

Olbermann is, of course, spot-on right, and in front of millions of MSNBC viewers he had the nerve tonight to speak the plain, unvarnished truth. Which means that his career in cable news is probably soon to end, but we here at the impeach dubya blog salute him for it, anyways.

Unfortunately, he co-opted several key points from the rant I've had sitting in my head all day, and clearly he said them in an astronomically more concise, hard-hitting fashion than your humble blogger would have. The only thing my rants have going for them is the liberal (get it?) peppering of foul language, but since the FBI has decreed that the most pernicious threat currently facing our nation they can blow (get it?) my tax dollars on is porn and obscenity, I'll probably have to ditch that as well.

One point that ol' Keith didn't bring up, but I am more than happy to, is that the 51% of American Voters who chose, last November, to return this train wreck of an Administration to the Oval Office should be deeply, horribly ashamed of themselves right now. Maybe that's not the inclusive thing to say, the "big tent", thing to say, but hear me out. I'm not sayin' y'all are beyond redemption, but before redemption there must be responsibility. Accountability. (you like words like that, don't you? "Redemption", "Responsibility", "Accountability"...) What needs to be asked of the Bush voters and defenders, here, as the bodies float face down past Bourbon Street hotels, is, "Are you happy now?", and, more importantly, "Was it worth it?". Was, for instance, your tax cut worth the little babies and toddlers dying for want of water inside the Convention Center, as they wailed plaintively for help that never arrived? Was keeping the gays down the street from getting married so important that it was worth seeing people's grandparents left dead in wheelchairs out on the street? Was getting your fucking 12 year old, testosterone, bomb-the-ragheads war fix worth not just the lives destroyed there, but the lives destroyed here as well?

Oh, I know, the STORM wasn't, technically, George W. Bush's fault. Rush Limbaugh and his shitty ilk on FOX NEWS have already started whining about "junk science" and bitching about people attributing Katrina to global warming. Well, one thing is true- it did not require global warming to make a Hurricane capable of swamping New Orleans. This was a possibility, a known possibility, for years- which makes the Bush Administration's gutting of funds to improve the levees even more inexcusable just as it makes his ridiculous bullshit line about "We never imagined this could happen" (Now, where have I heard that before?) push the outer envelope of total absurdity. But Rush & Co. are already grumbling about how 'no one can prove this storm was caused by global warming'. Yes, that is correct. Hurricanes are chaotic systems, as is all weather- and they don't show up holding signs saying "Brought to you by global warming". But what we DO know is, the water temperature in the gulf has gone up at least one or two degrees in the past few decades, and we sure as shit know that warm ocean water equals bigger, stronger hurricanes... and this hurricane ramped up to a category five in no time at all, thanks to the supercharging action of a very warm gulf of Mexico. What kind of evidence to these right-wing chucklefucks require before they can just admit what the science community already knows? Namely, that the greenhouse gases we are pouring into the atmosphere at
an unprecedented rate are causing the temperature of the Earth to increase? Don't answer that- no, no amount of evidence will EVER cause these stupid shitheads to repent ("repent", there's another word you folks like, right?) and see the error of their ways. Rush, speaking to the three people who still actually listen to that fat junkie fuck, actually said the other day, "I don't believe man could change the environment-- if he tried".

Yeah, that Cuyahoga river caught fuckin' fire on its OWN, pigboy. Now, go take some more pills.

No, these assholes will always say something like Global Warming "needs more study", because you can't "prove" that a Category 5 hurricane had anything to do with the fact that the oceans are warmer. We could be living on Venus, and it would "need more study". I mean, the polar ice caps are already melting, but that's not enough "hard proof" for these assholes. Ironically, this is the same gang who will argue unti they are blue in the face that a lack of evidence constitutes "proof" for something like "intelligent design". So listen up, shit-for-brains, 'cuz I'm only saying this once; there is a fuckload more evidence that Hurricane Katrina was directly caused by global warming than there is that the human race was directly caused by the God of the Bible.

So piss off.

Now, back to the Bush voter. Okay, look- I really do think that 51% of this country owes the planet, certainly the people of New Orleans, a serious fuckin' apology. Let me qualify that by saying I do believe that people- most people- are fairly decent sorts. The first impulse most of us had when we saw the devastation caused by this hurricane was, just like it was after 9-11, "what can we do to help". This is why people, on their own accord or with state and local government imprimatur, loaded up boats and planes and trucks with relief supplies and tried to get into New Orleans- only to be bizzarely, inexplicably, rebuffed and turned away by FEMA.
People -Americans- are generally decent, warmhearted people.. they don't like to see cruelty and can't abide abject suffering when it stares them in the face- which is why this Administration goes to such crazy lengths to bury any and all evidence of the suffering it causes and the cruelty it endorses. Americans don't go in for that stuff, usually, which is why they need to be manipulated, lulled to sleep, or frightened into supporting policies which run contrary to the decent, generous American spirit. Some people voted for Team Bush out of pure greed, and that is one thing- although if you track the economy, the deficit, and the Dow Jones, it becomes clear that unless these folks were investing or living in a different country altogether, or they were among the lucky contractors hauling money out of Iraq in duffel bags, they have screwed themselves along with the rest of us and our economy. I know plenty of fairly well off folks, and not one of them is doing better now than they were under Bill Clinton. But millions of Bush Voters comprising the "heartland base" didn't vote for him to ensure that upper-bracket tax cut.. and I would wager that they were motivated, via effective manipulation on the part of Karl Rove's GOP propaganda machine, by a little thing called fear. Fear of Ter'rists, for sure, but also fear of change. Fear of gays. Fear of women. Fear of Minorities and People who are "different", for sure. Fear of the future. Fear of those pesky, metrosexual "elitists" who wear black, watch HBO, and laugh at anyone with an @aol email address. Okay, some of that "fear" may also be what is known as "hate", but past a certain point it's all the same, low-chakra energy. And as Yoda so eloquently told us in that Star Wars movie with the annoying kid, his bowl cut, and the floppy eared, thinly-veiled African American caricature alien replete with the southern Louisiana accent; "fear leads to... suffering".

And suffering is what is happening, now, in big screen, IMAX technicolor. The folks who thought they were voting for "Christian Values" have brought about a most un-christian situation in N'awlins and environs. An everyone-for-him or herself situation of raw, unabashed terror, death, mayhem and sub-human cruelty. I'm not sure why FEMA blocked aid and the National Guard, or the Bush Administration waited several days to do jack diddly shit about what they knew were tens of thousands of people in places like the convention center with no food, water, or protection, but I do know one thing- when they say it's "not their fault", they're as full of shit as the corpse-filled water which has opened the sewers of that once great city. They've had four years- FOUR FUCKING YEARS, PEOPLE- since 9-11, and all that time they've made noises about how they were protecting us from dangerous things like library patrons through vitally important legislation like the PATRIOT act. Doesn't anyone think that maybe, just maybe, while they were designing those fancy-dancy color coded terror alert scales to flash on the television every time John Kerry had a surge in the polls, they could have been actually working on a rapid disaster response plan? As Olbermann alluded to, these folks have been claiming for years, particularly when it is electorally convenient, that Osama Bin Saddam Zarqawi and their swarthy bogeyman-of-the-month club are hovering over our American cities with suitcase nukes and doody bombs and mop buckets full of ebola virus and all kinds of unspeakable terror just a vote for a Democrat away, and they never stopped hammering their constant assurance that they were the only ones on Earth who could keep us safe.. so wouldn't it stand to reason that, if that were the case, they would have a gold-plated, well-oiled relief, recovery and rescue apparatus in place, prepared to spring instantly into action in response to those massive human disasters that they have constantly held over our heads for the past four years?

I mean, this was a hurricane- we saw this coming. And it is inexcusable- really, just fucking in. ex. cusable. that the Federal God-Damn Government took, what was it, four? five? days to get its shit together and start bringing starving, dying people food and water... and getting them out of those hellholes. There is no excuse, and I'm not buying this bullshit about how it was the local officials fault. Except if there's one thing we've learned in the past five years, with the Bush Administration, it's always someone else's fault. These are the assholes who are going to protect us from nuclear terrorism? Can you, Mr. Bush voter, after watching the footage of babies and old people and bodies in the water, honestly say these motherfuckers still make you feel safe?

If you can, you're either a damn liar--- or a damn fool.

Okay, it's Official: I No Longer Feel Bad For Making Fun Of Barbara Bush's Troll-Like Picture Last Week.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Yeah, Bar, those people who were stuck in that arena... things have really been "working very well for them"!

.

2005-09-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

The Compassion of Conservatism has wasted no time putting its best face forward, in the wake of what is shaping up to be easily the worst natural disaster this Nation has ever seen.. Bill O'Reilly had this to say about the folks swamped, terrorized, dead and dying on the flooded streets of what used to be New Orleans-
"A lot of the people -- a lot of the people who stayed wanted to do this destruction. They figured it out. And that's -- I'm not surprised." O'Reilly bitched the new Right Wing Meme, blame-the-fuckin'-victim, 'cuz anyone who stayed in that place was obviously just hangin' around to steal some teevees! O'Reilly's message of compassionate conservatism amounted to, "in all fairness, these people were TOLD to evacuate"

To which, we have no doubt, the nursing home patient pictured at right- if she wasn't being CARRIED TO A FUCKING HELICOPTER, mind you- would respond to Mr. O'Reilly...

by putting her little, old, invalid lady shoe up his ass.

I wonder, after the events of this week, if GOP philosophical brain-trust Grover Norquist will change his favorite line about "shrinking government so small that we can drown it in the bathtub".

See, this tragedy; while the result of a natural disaster, was eminently avoidable and criminally mis-handled at every turn. But the utter lack of adequate response points up, clearly, the reason why we HAVE a federal government. A social safety net. How kind, again, of Bill O'Reilly to insist on FOX NEWS that motels in the south "not gouge" people left homeless by this disaster. Does the fuckknob really believe that everyone can afford to live in a hotel or motel room for months? Years? With no paychecks coming in? The scope of this disaster is mind-boggling, yet equally mind-boggling is that the usual suspects on the right can brainlessly continue to flog this bullshit about "personal responsibility"... You mean you didn't prepare for the destruction of your city by leaving a year's worth of food, water and cash in a waterproof safe on your roof? What the fuck were you thinking, deadbeat? That you could expect a handout?

No, see, this is WHY we have a safety net. Social services. Structures. This is why people in civilized societies TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER, because someday it could be you floating on a styrofoam ice chest which contains everything left that you own.

But The President did get active in the relief efforts, and although you may not have heard about it in the media (he's a humble man, and not much given to grandstanding or staged photo ops), he actually organized & paid for a flight that took, by conflicting reports, 130 to 150 very sick people out of the Hurricane Devastation so they could receive much needed medical care. Thus proving that our President is a doer, not a talker, someone whose faith leads him to genuinely care about his fellow human beings, and someone who this Nation clearly can count on in times of deep crisis.

Of course, we eagerly wait for 2009, when he, the real President of the United States, can take back the office which he rightfully won back in the year 2000.

For the sake of the Nation, for the little black babies shamefully left without food or water for days in brackish, toxic floodwaters, for the soldiers dying in Iraq for a shabby pack of lies, for the deficit, for the economy, for the future, and for all the increasingly endangered life on this overheating planet... we sincerely hope that is what takes place.

Mo Dowd: The United States of Shame

So.. With People Dying, Starving, Dehydrated and Stranded... Why the Fuck is FEMA Cutting The PHONE LINES Out Of Jefferson Parish?

Video (WMV) of Jefferson Parish Official Aaron Broussard Regarding Above:

"One reason for the slow White House response, said a Republican who has been in contact with several officials, is that so many high-level officials and aides were on vacation."

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

Krugman: "The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients."

RoveCo Damage Control Productions:

Sen Landrieu Blasts Levee Repairs As Phony "Photo Op"

More World-Class Idiocy From The King Of The Senatorial Circus Clowns: Rick Santorum Wants To Do Away With Free Weather Information From The Government
Hey, Speaking of Rick Santorum: "The Federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents FEMA from providing any relief in the form of family benefits to same-sex couples."

"George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"

2005-09-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

So: You Can Get A CameraMAN Into Abu Ghraib...
You Just Can't Get A CAMERA In.

Krugman: "At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government."

Guess Which Company's Been Tapped For The Lucrative Job of Hurricane Cleanup and Rebuilding? He're's a Hint. Like "Hurricane", the Name Begins With An "H"...

2005-08-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

PACKS OF GUNMEN ROAMING WHAT IS LEFT OF NEW ORLEANS, TAKING OVER HOSPITALS, ETC.

Okay, what is that... Like, the fifth sign of the apocalypse? Sixth?
I'm losin' track, now.

...So-- Wow. That Really sounds like a job for the National Guard!

Except... um... Hey! Where did they all go?

. . .

If You Haven't Already:
Donate to the Red Cross --- ASAP.
It's the caring, human, empathic thing to do.

Speaking of displays of empathy, viewing the disaster from the comfort of his plush, taxpayer-financed 747, President Bush declared confidently that the devastation was probably even "doubly bad on the ground!"

Then President Nero pulled out his guitar, and took a few "New Country" requests.

2005-08-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

"You and I can bring the rule and reign of the Cross to America and we can change America on our watch, together."

"Listen up, you Christo-Fascist bullies, you Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis, it's high time somebody called you out."

Karpinski: Rumsfeld Authorized Abuse:

Karpinski said that General Shinseki briefed Rumsfeld that "he can't win this war, if they insist on invading Iraq, he can't win this war with less than 300,000 soldiers." Rumsfeld reportedly ordered Shinseki to go back and find a way to do this with 125,000 to 130,000, but Shinseki came back and said they couldn't do the job with that number. "What did Rumsfeld do?" Karpinski asked rhetorically. "If you can't agree with me, I'm going to find somebody who can. He made Shinseki a lame duck, for all practical purposes, and brought in Schoomaker. And Schoomaker got it. He said, 'Oh yes sir, we can do this with 125,000.'"

...

When Karpinski inquired, "What's this about photographs?" the sergeant replied, "Ma'am, we've heard something about photographs, but I have no idea. Nobody has any details, and Ma'am, if anybody knows, nobody is talking." When Karpinski asked to see the log books, the sergeant told her that the Criminal Investigation Division had taken everything except for something on a pole outside the little office they were using.

"It was a memorandum signed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, authorizing a short list, maybe 6 or 8 techniques: use of dogs; stress positions; loud music; deprivation of food; keeping the lights on, those kinds of things," Karpinski said. "And then a handwritten message over to the side that appeared to be the same handwriting as the signature, and that signature was Secretary Rumsfeld's. And it said, 'Make sure this happens' with two exclamation points. And that was the only thing they had. Everything else had been confiscated."

Karpinski tried to get information, but "nobody knew anything, nobody - at least, that's what they were claiming. The Company Commander, Captain Reese, was tearful in my office and repeatedly told me he knew nothing about it, knew nothing about it," Karpinski said. But in a later plea bargain he entered into after the Taguba Report came out, "Captain Reese said that not only did he know about it, but he was told not to report it to his chain of command, and he was told that by Colonel Pappas. And he claimed that he saw General Sanchez out there on several occasions witnessing the torture of some of the security detainees."

Utah!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like... Fascism:

(Now, of course, equal time dictates that we allow the Utah Authorities to have their say on this deal... And their very persuasive- if chock full of spelling errors- argument boils down to the notion that it's important to protect youths from the pernicious dangers of drugs, sex, djs with dreds, and techno music - and as such, for their own safety, they need to be kicked, attacked with dogs, and have loaded assault weapons pointed at them.)

HURRICANE NEWS
UPDATE:

White People "Find"

Black People "Loot"

2005-08-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

This, From Gatorboy at DU:

Talented guy.
Nice work, man. Quick, somebody call the L.A. Times and tell them they don't need to run Mike Ramirez's ugly, dumb-ass chickenscratch scrawlings anymore!

2005-08-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

It's not nice to make fun of little old ladies

But I'll pay the Karmic Toll (Karmic Troll?) for it just this once

2005-08-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

Truthout Video: Will Pitt Interviews Cindy Sheehan

"This is America. Where I'm Sitting is a Free Speech Zone"

Windows Media Link - High Speed

Windows Media Link - Dialup

Quicktime - High Speed

Quicktime - Dialup

2005-08-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about George W. Bush, he's certainly consistent. Consistently an asshole, yes, but you have to admire, or at least acknowledge, his steadfast determination and unmitigated, never-faltering commitment to being a full-fledged, 24-7, Class "A" asshole, the king of the shitheads, if you will.

For example, he can be polling lower than Nixon was during his dangerous librium-and-Chivas period, he can be facing potentially administration-crushing crisises on several fronts, he can be holed up at his "ranch" spending his yearly "working" 5 week Vacation (Oooo! how French!) hiding in terror from a middle-aged Mom... yet he still manages to do shit, like make these retarded comments about the evolution "debate", that cause my already aching head to

........aaa juuuuuuus' about tooo fucking 'dissssssplode..... LUUUCCYYYYYYYYY!!!.

Oh, did you miss it? Regarding the debate about (cough, cough) "Intelligent Design Theory", which is to "Creationism" what KFC is to Kentucky Fried Chicken... The Chimp-in-Chief said, and I quote,

"I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught."

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

Now, first of all, about my head. The fact that Bush continues, in the face of all logic and sanity, to make these kinds of comments that cause said head to want to proverbially do the exploding, well, I think goes a long way to explaining why he holds on to the loyalty of the -what is it, 38%?- of people in this country who don't recognize what an utter fucking disaster, not to mention embarrassment, he is as a President and a "leader". See, as long as he says stupid, infuriating shit like that- stuff that causes the heads of brie-eating, latte-sucking, morally relativistic, religiously uninterested coastal liberals such as myself to explode, he has that percentage of the country who make up what the late Lee Atwater called "extra chromosome conservatives", well, positively creaming in their jeans, or dockers, or overalls, or whatever. Because if there's one thing they will march into hell for, casting aside any chance at decent health coverage, laughing as their jobs are shipped to India, cackling like a meth addict with a brain like Swiss cheese at our economy plowing 300mph straight into a tree, cheering as their kids are sent off to die for a shabbily peddled pack of lies... Yes, if there's one thing that's near and dear to your far right "heartland" voter, it's someone who drives us eggheaded pansy intellectual science-believers fucking batty with their stupid theocratic, idiotic, nonsensical ramblings. Oh, Reagan was good at it. But Bush is fuuuuuucking Mozart.

I mean, that quote drove me so nuts, I could spend a full hour ranting against each individual WORD in those two sentences, starting with "I". But, in the interest of charity, dear reader, I will limit myself to the most egregious examples.. like, well, that lovely thing about "both sides of the debate". There it is! That's the fucker, in a god-damn nutshell. There are TWO sides of the debate, people. Either 500 years of scientific method, that which has brought us steam engines and cell phones and quantum physics, is right about stuff like the origins of species, OR, Godcreatedeverythinginsevendaysandsolovedtheworldhesenthisonlysonyaddayaddayadda.

I don't need George Fucking Lakoff to tell me that the debate is really about framing the debate..just look at what these bastards do! I read that line, and I feel like someone who is watching a car get stolen in broad daylight, or a woman raped on a bus in front of a pack of totally oblivious strangers... But! ....But! ....But! Can't you see a crime is being committed here? In this case, it's a crime against everything that stands as reason and logic. Of course there are "two sides" to the debate, Dubya. Either Science should be taught in Science class, or whatever-the-fuck-we-feel-like should be taught in Science class.

Yes, BOTH sides should be taught. But why only two? If something like "Intelligent Design", which doesn't meet the barest standards of the scientific method (i.e. it's all well and good to postulate something- anything-but for it to be science there has to be evidence to back it up) then why the hell can't we teach just any ol' shit to our kids-- and call it science? Well, say the creationists, you can't PROVE that the holy hand of JHVH didn't come through here and design you from the ground up, taking special care to forget about properly packaging your wisdom teeth, and leaving nipples on us men ("like a hood ornament on a car", says one ID proponent) ... So why can't we teach kids phenomenology in Science class, too? Extreme solipsism? Hey, kids, you know, you MIGHT be a brain floating in a jar... this town, this high school, this classroom, that girl with the pouty lips and nice ass you've been staring at for the last half hour instead of taking notes.. ALL THAT might be a hallucination! It might be a figment of your own imagination. Everything you consider "reality" could just be stimulus fed into you over wires, or some other crafty facade, designed to keep you distracted with illusion and prevent you from remembering that YOU are actually Wo-Tan, the all-powerful deity, returned from Asgard to wreak major havoc upon the slothful and indigent lesser gods of Valhalla, until tricked by the subtle Glaroon and entrapped in half-sleep in the region of buzzing, whirring things in the mind-fields of thud.

Oh, now I've said too much.

But, sure, you can't prove it ISN'T an acceptable explanation for reality. And there are more. "Intelligent Design"? I want to give fifty bucks to the first kid who argues that, yes, there IS intelligent design, and THEY are the designer- because not only can't the ID crowd prove that "God" exists, if they throw out the evidentiary strictures of science which have brought us, among other things, the knowledge of evolution, fuck me Mr. Sartre, but they can't even really prove that THEY exist--- not to anyone else, at least. To the observer in the high school science class, from a purely existential, Zen perspective, the only intelligent designer who can rationally be supposed or even talked about is the one inside his or her own head.

But I'm certain legions of High School students running around saying "I am God", is not what the ID folks had in mind. Noooooo, they want to expose people to "both sides" of the debate, clearly one side being science and all it's silly rules about backing claims up with evidence, the other being that some (who can it be, now?) mysterious, deliberate designer, who shall remain nameless for purposes of the discussion but we're pretty sure he's an old guy with a white beard, "intelligently designed" everything and stuck it here while simultaneously planting all kinds of crafty, confusing evidence implicating natural selection and punctuated equilibrium processes operating over billions of years as the most logical explanation.

Intelligent Design? Well, if Chuck Colson, rightwing goon, Presidential advisor and Watergate felon--- turned prison minister--- turned rightwing goon, Presidential advisor and Religious Right Poo-bah... is backing it.... Fuck, that's good enough for Dubya! After all, Colson says "the scientific case for intelligent design" is "strong".

Shit, mang, if you can't trust an ex-con on these matters, who can ya trust?

Fuckit. After all, we here at the impeach dubya blog know that only people who accept the Flying Spaghetti Monster into their hearts, and believe that HE is responsible for everything are the ones who are getting into Heaven... (with all the meatballs you can eat- for eternity!) Praised Be His Tasty Noodliness, Al Dente Fettucini, et Spiritus Spaghetti, (r)Amen.

There was no shortage of dumb-ass quotes in the New York Times Article on the subject. Lest we pick on W alone, here's what Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, clearly a font of scientific expertise, had to say on the subject:

"if you're going to teach the Darwinian theory as evolution, teach it as theory. And then teach another theory that has the most support among scientists."

That's not even English, Fuckhole. But beyond that, this is why putting these dipshits anywhere near any place where they can have a say in the scientific education of anyone is a horrendous idea on par with letting a golden retriever fly a 747. Clearly, Mr. Land doesn't understand what a "theory" is, in the Scientific world, but that doesn't ever stop these types from waving that word around like they're Sean Hannity bloviating about John Kerry and "he said Global Test!".. Yes, Mr. Land, Evolution is a theory like GRAVITY is a fucking theory. Or, actually, the explanation of natural selection for the observed behavior, which IS evolution as demonstrated by the fossil record, is a "theory". But that doesn't mean it isn't accurate and true. See, science doesn't operate from a place of "we know the answer to everything- now let's run around and try to piece together a coherent narrative that will bring us to our pre-ordained conclusion"

That's religion's job.

And the "most support among scientists"? You mean, scientists on crack? Because no one else is buying the shit you're peddling, pal.

But wait! There's More. Because if that quote from Bush didn't completely turn my head into a bubbling puddle of jelly-like brain lava, this one -with all the attendant hypocrisy- sure as fuck did:

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," he said, adding that "you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

Oh, that's rich. That's rich indeeeeeeeed. "Different ideas"? This from the guy whose religious right secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, got an episode of "Postcards from Buster" banned, while running the head of PBS out of the job in the process. "Postcards from Buster" is apparently kid's show where a cartoon mongoose eats an evil cobra... wait, no, that's not it.. anyway, some kind of cartoon lawn gnome, or something, goes around and visits various people and sees what they do. Well, in one episode, he visits a family on a farm in Vermont, but the parents are -gasp! Shhhh- Lesbeeeeans. Nothing about the show was untoward, obscene or even mentioned the L-word, although judging by Ms. Spellings' comments on the matter, you would have thought they and the cartoon lawn gnome (Bunny. Sorry.) took a pile of ecstasy, broke down in a lather of goat cheese, and engaged in some hot Vermont flannel cartoon lesbeeean action.

No, "exposing people to different ideas" apparently only includes shoehorning thinly veiled Christian theology into science classes.. it doesn't include teaching kids that respect and tolerance are good American virtues, and some families have two moms or two dads, just like some families have one of each or just one of either. It's astounding to hear the religious right ballyhoo about "tolerance for different ideas".

...These are the fuckers who complain that if the gays down the street get married, it's going to cause the entire fabric of Western Civilization to collapse.

Evolution Links & Resources:

National Center for Science Education

Evolution Blog

Talk.Origins Archive

2005-08-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

Remind Me Again...

Why The Hell Are We Over There?

2005-08-05T02:03:00.000-07:00

14 Media Organizations and Public Interest Groups, including CBS Broadcasting, NBC Universal, and The American Society of Newspaper Editors, File Friend-of-the-Court Brief Urging FOIA Release of Abu Ghraib Images:

Read More About It At The RAW STORY.

2005-08-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

CNN Suspends Novak after he Completely Fucking Flips Out.

Bloated Rightwing Gab-monger is told to "Take some time off" after swearing at James "Ragin' Cajun" Carville and waddling angrily off the set of Inside Edition. We here at the Impeach Dubya blog, while still wondering silently to ourselves just how it is Novak isn't in prison for his role in the Valerie Plame outing, would like to respectfully suggest to Mr. Novak that he use some of that free time to trim those crazy fuckin' eyebrows.

...They're starting to freak us out, Maaaaaaaaaaaaan.

Santorum Exposed

Washington Post: Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

Bushflash: Two Years, A Pack of Lies

2005-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

Qunnipac Survey Results, July 27, 2005:

Bush Approval Rating Drops to 41 Percent - Lowest Ever

American voters support the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade decision 65 - 30 percent.

2005-07-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

...What is it with the human animal and being a fucking control freak? Feh. I don't know. Maybe I'm missing some crucial part of my brain.. Because I've never cared, particularly, one way or another how my neighbors are getting their jollies, insofar as everyone involved is a consenting adult; and call me an ass-lickin', sweaty-balled cocksucker, I sure as fuck have never been inclined to get my shorts in a bunch if they happen to swear like a god-damn drunken-ass bastard fuck-monkey sailor from time to time.

Unfortunately, and for some reason this has been on extra full display this past week, there just seems to be some instinctive need on the part of some people to try to force the world to rigidly conform to their personal moral peculiarities. Rather than using their goddess-given brains to perform the function of filtering down the myriad infinite signals that constitute unprocessed "reality" into something soft and friendly and invective-free that they can enjoy sans taking (seemingly perpetual) offense, they feel the need to remove everything that personally bugs them from "out there", not taking into account that, unlike the space inside their heads, the whole world is not designed- nor small enough- to be wholly subject to their personal aesthetic predjudices and delicate sensitivities.

Why "moral", for some people, always seems to center almost exclusively on sex, depictions of sex, and discussion of sex or casual mention of sexual characteristics, well, that's a discussion I'll leave for another day. And shit, maybe Hillary Clinton going after Videogame manufacturers was a savvy political move, a "Sister Souljah" moment. And if they really need to make it more difficult for kids to get a hold of that stuff, okay, that's one thing.

But you can't convince me -in MY moral framework- that there wasn't more important crap for her to be worrying about... like, for instance, the Abu Ghraib images the Government is STILL refusing to release? (check out this timeline from the ACLU to get some idea of how long this game has been going on - and that's only the first half) Me? I'd much prefer it if she would get righteously indignant over those obscene images, as opposed to some....

*TIT*

... in a video game.

The problem with letting anybody legislate morality is, sooner or later it's going to end up in the hands of some drooling, 50 I.Q. pinhead like Senator Rick Santorum. Interviewed on Aaron Brown's Newsnight, yesterday, the esteemed Senator from Pennsylvania made the following cogent observations, clearly demonstrating not only his moderation on social issues, but his keen legal intellect. Oh, and keep in mind his name has been floated- Seriously- as a GOP White House contender for 2008...

BROWN: Do you think there's a right to privacy in the Constitution?

SANTORUM: No -- well, not the right to privacy as created under Roe v. Wade and all...

BROWN: Do you think there's a right to privacy in the Constitution?

SANTORUM: I think there's a right to unreasonable -- to unreasonable search and seizure...

BROWN: For example, if you'd been a Supreme Court judge in Griswold versus Connecticut, the famous birth control case came up, which centered around whether there was a right to privacy. Do you believe that was correctly decided?

SANTORUM: No, I don't. I write about it in the book. I don't.

BROWN: The state of Connecticut had the right to ban birth control for a married couple.

SANTORUM: I think they were wrong. It was a bad law.

BROWN: But they had the right.

SANTORUM: They had the right. They had the right...

BROWN: Why would a conservative argue that government should interfere with that most personal decision?

SANTORUM: I didn't. I said it was a bad law. And...

BROWN: But they had the right to make.

SANTORUM: They had the right to make it. Look, legislatures have the right to make mistakes and do really stupid things...

BROWN: OK.

There you have it, folks. According to Senator Rick Santorum, State Legislatures should have the right to ban birth control. In fairness to Rick the Dick, he did say it was a "bad law", a "stupid law", although one wonders what other "bad, stupid" laws Sen. Santorum thinks it's okay for state legislatures to pass...

Also, he did say he believed there was, a, um, right to "unreasonable search and seizure" in the Constitution, although it's pretty hard to decipher whether, according to him, the right is to be FREE from such searches, to do them, or to have them done to you. And if that's the only constitutional right we have, what happens if a bad legislature passes a law against birth control, and a woman wants to use an IUD? Hmmmm. Maybe that "right to unreasonable search and seizure" will prevent the cops from poking around in her uterus to bust her for it.

And maybe, just maybe, the fact that an express right to not have the government in your body, in your bedroom, and in your pants isn't spelled out in the Bill of Rights, doesn't mean doing so is somehow "constitutional", there, Ricky....

Cynthia Tucker: Right To Privacy Is The Real Target of the Religious Right

Rather than focus narrowly on abortion, Americans who believe in individual rights - that's nearly all of us - should concentrate on Roberts' views on something even more important: the right to privacy. If you examine carefully the rantings of those on the extremist edge of the religious right, you'll see that they make an underlying argument even more troubling than their absolutist premise that abortion is murder: They argue that there is no constitutional right to privacy.

If that antediluvian view holds sway, American women will find themselves living under something akin to Shariah, the Quranic law that restricts women's rights. And men, too, will find their private lives severely curtailed by government interference. If Americans have no right to privacy, the government can roam freely about your bedroom, telling you how and when to have sex and whether you can use a contraceptive.

Control Freaks. Yeah, they ALL think they're doing "what's best for everybody". People who want to tell women they can't decide for themselves about abortion. People who want to keep gays from having equal rights, or even ANY rights... People who want to keep other people from using contraception, or having sex outside of marriage. People who want to control what consenting adults can watch or read in the privacy of their own homes. People with an overweening need to censor what other people SAY.

Chew on this - They're ALL certain that they're "right", and that they're doing it for a "good" reason.

Fuck 'em.

2005-07-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

2005-07-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Un. Be. Fucking. Lievable.

From ACLU Press Release: July 22, 2005-

NEW YORK -- Today was the day the government was supposed to process and redact photographs and videos relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners held abroad. Raising new arguments on the eve of its deadline, the United States government refused to release the materials to the public. The photographs and videos were to be processed for eventual release as a result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations.

"The government is raising newfound reasons for withholding records to which the public has an undeniable right," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "Instead of releasing these records and holding officials accountable for detainee abuse, the government now seeks to shield itself from public scrutiny by filing these reasons in secret."

In a letter filed at the eleventh hour, the Department of Defense claims that photographs and videos of abuse that the court had previously ordered redacted for future release "could result in harm to individuals" for reasons that will be set forth in a memorandum and three declarations that the government will file under seal with the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.

Under the government's proposal, the documents explaining the government's reasons for withholding the images of abuse will not be available to the public except in redacted form, and the photographs and videos may never be made public.

The ACLU has expressed skepticism at what appears to be yet another attempt by the government to deny the public critical information about the abuse and torture of prisoners.

Okay, so, lets get this straight. We are talking about images and video from Abu Ghraib- the "worse, far worse" stuff mentioned by congress in the days immediately following the initial abuse reveleations. This could include tapes alluded to by Sy Hersh last year, we don't know. Apparently, we're not supposed to know, either.. whatever it is they're trying SO desperately to hide is so incendiary, only redacted versions of the reasons for covering up the images can even be made available to the public.

But to backtrack, for a minute, here- the Government argued that it shouldn't be forced to release the images. A Federal Judge called "bullshit" on that, and ordered the release by June 30th. Gov't hems and haws and finally says they need until July 22 to complete the process of making faces unidentifiable in the pictures and videos.

Lo and behold, July 22 rolls around, and the government is arguing -what?

that it shouldn't be forced to release the images.

Where the fuck is the vaunted "respect for rule of law" we heard so much about during the Clinton years? Yeah, that sound you hear is the Bush Administration saying "fuck you" to the legal system and the American people. You want to know what was done in your names? You say you have the right to, according to the law of the land and a court order from a Federal Judge?

Too Fucking Bad. The Rules don't EVER apply to the Bush Administration, remember? Court Orders? Rule of Law? That's for the other fella, not us.

...

In other News, and this should please all the commentators who helpfully inform that they are going to "pray for" me...

The Impeach Dubya Blog Has BEEN SAVED! Hallelujah! Why, I get all weepy just thinking about it... Sniff! Because, Avast ye swabs....

"I Was Touched By His Noodly Appendage"

2005-07-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah. THESE people aren't interested in dragging the United States back to the 1950's...

No, Sir.

2005-07-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

"Rock-Solid Conservative" Roberts on Roe v. Wade:

"We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled...The Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion...finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."

2005-07-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

So, I'm reading this Cal Thomas piece the other day, and I'm trying to figure out just what the fucking guy is saying. That happens all the time with his incohate, spittle-fueled rants, but this one...

The words heard most often by political leaders, commentators and citizens in the aftermath of the London terrorist bombings were "shocked, but not surprised."

No one should have been surprised because Britain, like the United States, has created a welcoming atmosphere for terrorists and allowed them the fertile soil they need to grow and carry out their murderous acts among us.

...

Another 2001 opinion poll for the Asian radio station Sunrise found 98 percent of London Muslims under 45 saying they would not fight for Britain, and 48 percent saying they would take up arms for Bin Laden.

In view of these beliefs and repeated acts of terror, the incitements against all things Western, Jewish and Christian in who knows how many mosques in Britain and the U.S., the teaching of seditious ideas in radical Islamic schools funded by our "friends" the Saudis, and the refusal of most Muslim communities to assimilate and learn the language, history and practices of their host countries, why do Britain and the United States continue to allow such things to exist within their borders?

What "things" is Thomas talking about, here? Muslims? Muslim communities? People who aren't Christian? Gays?

..can you figure it out? What, precisely, is the guy proposing? Is he proposing here what I think he's proposing? And if so, why can't he just come out and say it? (well, duh!) And if he's not saying what I think he's saying, then the column is totally pointless, because he's not saying anything at all.

Yeah. And speaking of Thomas's homophobia, the other day, my wife -who always gets a kick of out the brain-dead nonsense Cal Thomas spews- looked at his picture and said, "geez, that's funny- he's so uptight about gays, and he really looks like he would be totally at home in a pair of assless leather chaps, with his ugly walrus moustache planted in front of a Market Street glory hole". (This is my prim, proper, respectable wife- I swear she never used phrases like "assless chaps" or "glory hole" until she started hanging around me. My bad.) We then digressed into an interesting analysis of why members of the gay community have historically favored certain affectations, like those weird moustaches, also preferred by cops, right-wingers, John Bolton, and the BTK killer. I responded that I thought the moustache was more of a 1970's, 1980's gay man look-- nowadays gay gentlemen are more likely to look like buffed frat guys, but with better manners and style sense.

Did I hear someone say closeted Gays?
RICK SANTORUM STILL WANTS A GAY MAN ON HIS STAFF

Yeah, Yeah, I bet he does. Right there at the head of his staff, working up a big, hearty, hard-workin' sweat. Check out this quote:

"Mr. Traynham is a valued member of my staff and I regret that this effort on behalf of people who oppose me has made him a target of bigotry in their eyes."

Fuck, and I thought Cal Thomas didn't make any sense! I guess this is what happens when a bloviatingly hypocritical member of the United States Sentate gets caught in what is, essentially, a morally untenable position: See, Rick the Dick has argued, most famously with his "man on dog" comments, that Gays should be treated as criminals for engaging in private, consensual sex acts between adults of the same sex. Now he has to stand by his head press dingleberry, and said dingleberry is apparently one of those evil degenerates who the Government should have the right to incarcerate. So what I'd like to ask the esteemed Senator and satirical, frothy byproduct from Pennsylvania, is this: Mr. Robert L. Traynham, (whose level of self loathing -or at least jaded cynicism- must be astronomical to, quote, "strongly support" such an anti-Gay asshat as yourself...) anyway, is this Mr. Traynham a criminal? ..or is he a valued member of your staff? Senator Santorum, is he supposed to direct your communications from the prison cell where you apparently support his being incarcerated for his deviant behaviors?

It also sounds like Santorum is arguing for Mr. Traynham's right to privacy. Sorry, Jerk, you're the one who keeps telling us that it doesn't exist.

Shithead.

2005-07-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

White House Won't Comment on Rove, Leak
Hell, they won't even comment on whether Rove has ever taken a leak.

For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that whoever did would be fired.

But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan wouldn't repeat those claims Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who disclosed Valerie Plame's name.

Hear that, folks? That's the sound of the chickens comin' home to roost.

2005-07-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Our hearts go out to the people of Great Britain and the folks caught up in the terrible, tragic attacks there. You have our support, our condolences and our best wishes.

This is not a moment for blame or politics. Al Qaeda is fingered as the source of the attacks and FOX NEWS bobbleheads like Brian Kilmeade crow about how the bombings will, quote, "work to our advantage", particularly in that it will make the tree huggers shut up about global warming, and the rock stars stop bitching about African starvation and debt relief. (Oh, sorry, I forgot- this isn't a time for politics, right, Brian?)

Nevertheless, politics aside, as Al Qaeda has been identified as the source of the blasts, we do think it's worth reminding people that not some 3 weeks ago, CIA chief Porter Goss bragged to Time Magazine about how he has an "excellent idea" of where Osama bin Laden is, although since the United States doesn't go around invading other countries or telling other regimes what to do, we can't do anything about him. Then he clammed up, playing the sneaky secret-agent-I-could-tell-you-but-then-I'd-have-to... card. Hmmmm.

Seeing as this was an Al Qaeda attack, I would like to have someone- anyone- in the press ask the President why, if we have had an "excellent idea" of where the head of the organization that is as we speak brutally murdering innocents all over the world, and is the primary raison d'etre of the "Global War on Terror", we're not fucking doing anything about it, or him. Bonus points for asking if we could have prevented any of this by finding the tall, hairy bastard in that "excellent" place he's hiding.

2005-07-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Who Says The President Doesn't Have A Sense of Humor?

I mean, with something like this...
where do I even start?

All this picture needs is some 20 foot tall, red, "fuck me" pumps
and a quote from Gone With The Wind:

"As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me!"

2005-07-04T02:09:00.000-07:00

2005-07-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

"Whose Ass Would Jesus Kick?"

We have a potential answer from Mr. Ted E. Schelenski. Mr. Schelenski is Vice President of that far right, values fascists think tank and culture war Bulwark Heritage Foundation and was recently arrested in Washington, DC... for shoving a 23-year-old female ballet dancer off her bicycle and to the ground.

From The Washington Post:

the silver-haired, retired Navy lieutenant got out of his car, approached the red-headed ballet dancer riding a bike and allegedly shoved her to the ground, authorities said. He got back into his car and, as bystanders followed him, drove down the block to his nearby office, the bicyclist said.
...
"It was some kind of road-rage nonsense," Hall said. "When he got out of the car, I told him: 'You're crazy! Get back in the car!' "

But Schelenski came at the 105-pound, communications assistant at the Academy for Educational Development and shoved her to the ground while she was still straddled on her bicycle, she said.

"I was pretty scraped up and bruised," Hall said. "And he just got back into his car and floored it. He took off."

Now, lets be fair. It is entirely possible that the ex-Navy Lieutenant in the silver Acura felt, well, threatened by the red-haired, 23 year old ballet dancer on the bicycle. He may have felt, rightly or wrongly, that the 2 tons of automoblile surrounding him was not enough to protect him from the deadly, wily, sinewy female treachery embodied in her lithe, well-toned limbs.

We do know that these Heritage Foundation, Christian Coalition types are horribly threatened by anything that even hints at open female sexuality.. How are we to know that Ms. Hall was not, for example, brazenly baring her ankles or even her thighs on that hot, muggy, musky and dank foggy bottom afternoon?

How can Mr. Schelenski reasonably be expected to contain his pent-up, frustrated rage when his CD of Veggietales Sing-Along Songs is interrupted by some rampant whore (and a dancer, no less) straddling a bicycle seat like it's a big naugahyde cock, having the temerity to not only ride her bicycle on the sidewalk dressed like a streetwalker, but also to talk back -in public- to a man, in clear defiance of Jesus's natural order of things; in which the Bible plainly states that silver haired male acura drivers were placed on Earth as masters of 23 year old red-haired female ballet dancers. To challenge him -or his driving- is to challenge GOD, young missy.

Looking at Mr. Schelenski, I couldn't help feeling I had seen his frightening, withered mug somewhere before.. Then, in a flash, it occurred to me! As you can see, he is a dead fucking ringer for the weird character played by Dan Aykroyd in the 1991 don't-blink-or-you-missed-it comedy "Nothing But Trouble", made during that sad Post-Fletch period when Chevy Chase hadn't yet figured out that he should pack it in. (However, Chev, we have not forgotten your fine work, nor your fiery political oratory of recent years- and both are still deeply appreciated)

Being easily a third-or-fourth tier video rental, what I remember about the film from maybe watching the thing once (while being the requisite level of piss drunk) is pretty minimal... but I know it was weird, creepy, dark, and the one scene I clearly remember is where Chase & co. are having dinner with Aykroyd's weird judge.. and Chevy looks over and sees that the Judge's nose is a perfectly formed, rather graphic, withered up penis. It's a subtle visual gag, and you might not notice it if you weren't looking, but it was probably the one truly genuine laugh I got out of the film.

So, Ted E. Schelenski, defender of traditional values and thuggish attacker of young women on bicycles.. here's to you, Dicknose.

2005-07-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Remarks By George H.W. Bush,
41st President of the United States,
At the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence

26 April 1999

"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

...

2005-07-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Frog March! Frog March! Frog March!

Who Knew? The person behind the Plame leak could have been none other than... Karl Rove himself! Wow. And he seemed like he had so much integrity!

Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

...Any of you limp-dick Clinton haters have any signs, buttons, or bumperstickers that say
"It's The RULE OF LAW, Stupid"
That you want to get rid of, cheap?

2005-07-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR TO RETIRE

Senate Majority Leader Frist, on the potential to replace Crucial SCOTUS Swing Vote With Far-Right, Pro-Life, Fundamentalist Wackjob:

"I'm As Happy As A Little Girl! ...Look How Hard My Nipples Are!"

In honor of the distinguished career of Justice O'Connor, we here at the impeach dubya blog want to take this moment to- ah, fuckit. Women of the United States of America, here's what you need to do- RIGHT NOW. You know those birth control pills you take every month? Within two years there's a damn good chance they will be a controlled substance. Find a pharmacy that isn't run by Jesus Freaks, stock up on 'em and stash them in a good hiding place (lest you find yourself sharing a cell with other dangerous drug abusers, like the dreaded Florida Starbucks Weed Tipper) ...Think I'm kidding? Exaggerating? Engaging in Hyperbole?

Yeah, um... we'll see, won't we.

In Other News..

When Does "By June 30th" NOT Mean "By June 30th"?

When you're dealing with shit the U.S. Military really doesn't want you to know about, that's when.

And When Does the US Media Not Give A Damn? Um, pretty much always, with this kind of stuff. So, despite Federal Court Orders to the Contrary, are we ever going to see this additional Abu Ghraib evidence?

Yeah, um... we'll see, won't we.

2005-06-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

A Totalitarian Ideology that Hates Freedom, Rejects Tolerance and Despises all Dissent.

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

"a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent."

2005-06-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

Man, oh man. So Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove, you know, that bald gentleman who -on a good day- looks like nothing so much as a giant circumcised phallus in a suit and glasses, made some typically Republican comments recently which have several of our good Democrats in a well-justified snit. What I find interesting about these comments, however, is the fact that the GOP constantly reads from this weird AM radio playbook, and the reality they describe -while sounding consistent to the legions of Rush Limbaugh listeners- bears absolutely no resemblance to the facts.

What Karl Rove may NOT want you to remember, for example, is that some people did blame America for 9-11 immediately after the attacks; but they weren't "liberals" or Democratic lawmakers.. No, who were the treasonous, anti-American dirtbags who ran around just days after the 9-11 attacks--- saying that the U.S. "got what we deserved"?

They were Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club," hosted by Robertson.

...

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

Amazing. Religious fundamentalists brutally murder 3,000 people, and secular humanists are responsible. Of course, our old pal Robertson is still at it, in that he recently said that liberal judges are worse than terrorists who fly planes into buildings.

No, see, I remember those fucked up September days, and I especially remember that those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle went overboard to display our support for a President we really never accepted (Still don't, fuck you very much) as legitimately elected... to "join together" as one American people and look to our leader to ask him, "Mr. President- here we are. We're ready. We want to help. We are 250 Million Strong. What can we do?"

And what did our brave, resourceful, courageous leader answer? That is, what did our President tell us, as Americans, to contribute --- once he had finished spending the day of the attacks in hiding, letting Rudy Guliani be the face of the nation, and his approval rating had skyrocketed up to 91% for doing less than squat?

Yeah, you remember. He told us to go shopping.

So now, some four years after the fact, Karl Rove is merely echoing the same bullshit blather heard every day on countless Clear Channel outlets across this great land- namely, that Democrats are wimpy, spineless surrender monkeys who care more about the "feelings" of terrorists than we do about the some 3,000 innocent people who died on September 11, 2001. It couldn't be more of a bald-faced lie, but it sure sounds good, right? Fuckin' democrat quiche-eaters, all they want to do is hold hands and invite Osama Bin Laden over to sing Kumbayah, right?

Oh.... Um. Wait. Osama who?

See, conservative readers of this blog (I mean, the ones whose heads haven't already exploded because I did something unacceptable, like refer to the pope as "the old guy in the big fuckin' hat") probably figure that I'm about as liberal as they come... But even loony, crazy, moonbat, pansy-eatin', gay rights endorsin', women-should-be-allowed-to-choose believin', church-and-state-should-be-separate supportin', me.. I was in favor of going into Afghanistan. Fuck, I wondered what took us so long, to be honest. (Turns out, it's because they were -even then- talking almost exclusively about Iraq)

Certainly, silly me, I actually believed that the point was to get the people who perpetrated the attack, specifically Osama Bin Laden... I scoffed at my Nader 2000 friends who told me it was all about the UNOCAL pipeline, and besides, what did they think we should do? Of course, when dapper fez-wearin' CIA asset and ex-UNOCAL employee Hamid Karzai was installed as Afghanistan's president, I began to wonder... and when we had been in Afghanistan for quite some time and suddenly finding Osama had gone from priority #1 to priority #20 and finally not a fucking priority at all, I started to think the whole endeavour really stank.

Then, of course, 9-11 was used as an excuse to invade a country which didn't have jack diddly shit to do with the attacks.

Democrats are "soft on terrorists"? And the GOP is what? Please explain to me why, then, our new Bush-appointed CIA director, Porter Goss, can say to Time Magazine, that he has a quote, "excellent idea" of where Osama Bin Laden is.. but we can't do anything about it, because, well, heavens to Besty, we can't just invade countries willy-nilly to get terrorists..

Oh, really? What the fuck was Afghanistan? What the fuck was Iraq? Where the hell is the logic? If OBL is hiding in Pakistan, why can't we give Pervez Musharraf an ultimatum like we did the Taliban? Goss says we have to cede to geopolitical reality. Coming from a gang that has never once ceded to anything remotely resembling geopolitical reality in their lives, that's Neocon code-speak for I am yanking your fucking chain... and feeding you a big fat line of Bullshit.

Wow. When people said that U.S. Contractors were hauling money out of Iraq in duffel bags,

I thought they were just speaking metaphorically.

Shroud Of Turin Confirmed As Fake- Again.

Jeb Bush Demands Further Investigation.

2005-06-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's time for another edition of...
(Bum-Ba-Ba-Bum-Bum-Bummmmmmm!!!)
PROFILES IN TOTAL LACK OF COURAGE.

I call it total lack of courage because, that's really the best, kindest explanation for the jaw-dropping, astounding failure of 20 senators to vote for the bill decreeing an official Senatorial apology for the unwillingness, over 7 Presidential Administrations, of that institution to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Were I to use more appropriate words for these Senatorial butt-nodules, I might offend someone...

...and Lordy knows I don't want to do that, now, do I?

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Christopher Bond (R-MO)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Michael Crapo (R-ID)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Trent Lott (R-MS)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Craig Thomas (R-WY)
George Voinovich (R-OH)

(And, yes, we got the list from Kos. Whaddaya want? It's finally nice out. Hey- I never claimed to not be lazy.)

Anyone who desperately needs to know what a flaming evil bastard the human animal is capable of being, need only look at the history of lynching in this country- as well as the attendant celebratory, carnival atmosphere that would often accompany the merciless torture and murder of lynching victims, who were almost invariably young black men. The U.S. Senate -at the behest of southern racists- shamefully blocked and/or failed to act on some 200 pieces of anti-lynching legislation while close to 5,000 -and that's just the known figure- human beings were strung from trees, burned or skinned alive, disembowled or otherwise killed in unspeakably cruel, brutal fashion.

I'm sorry, I forgot- it's only those other people who are capable of sub-human brutality. When WE engage in brutal, cruel behavior, we're not allowed to call it what it is- or even what it really, really looks like to those who are qualified to know what they're talking about- lest we be forced to apologize for speaking something remotely resembling the truth.

Is anyone gonna force Trent Lott and co. to apologize for ducking out for chimichangas and buffalo wings at the DC Bennigans (or whatever) instead of making a totally painless point about one of the Senate's most shameful chapters? Not bloody fucking likely. And, while those 19 Republicans (And one Democrat) don't win any humanity prizes for this obnoxious move, I am forced to say that when it comes to balls, in some fashion or another, they've got your average Dem. Party lawmaker beat by a mile. Someone like Conryn from Texas can say, well, I know that X percentage of my constituency is racist assholes, and even if they won't admit it to anyone 'xcept they momma, they really don't want me apologizing for all that lynching bid'niss...

But take a Democrat lawmaker, even from a very liberal, secular part of the country, and throw them at some bullshit piece of non-legislation stating that "Under God" is not only a wonderful thing to force children to say in its tacked-on spot in the pledge of allegiance, it has 21 important vitamins and minerals and is a part of any complete breakfast. Then watch the "brave" democrats- to the fucking LAST ONE- scurry to attach their names to this kind of crap. Because they are terrified of 30 second spots showing some upset little moppet in front of a waving flag, with tears in her eyes because she can't say "Under God", with the voiceover: "Representative Louise Framzplitzplotz voted against the pledge of allegiance. She voted against our children and against God. Why does Rep. Framzplitzplotz hate America's children?"

Why, indeed. But is anyone on our side gonna run an ad with pictures from the 4,800-odd lynchings, along with a voiceover to the effect of: "Why is Trent Lott such an unapologetic motherfucking racist bastard"?

Fuck, no.

2005-06-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

2005-06-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Saw a bird with a tear in his eye
Walking to New Orleans my oh my
Hey, now, Bird, wouldn't you rather die
Than walk this world when you're born to fly?

If I was the sun, I'd look for shade
If I was a bed, I would stay unmade
If I was a river I'd run uphill
If you call me you know I will
If you call me you know I will

Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home

Say what I mean and I don't give a damn
I do believe and I am who I am
Hey now Mama come and take my hand
Whole lotta shakin' all over this land

If I was an eagle I'd dress like a duck
Crawl like a lizard and honk like a truck
If I get a notion I'll climb this tree
or chop it down and you can't stop me
Chop it down and you can't stop me

Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home

Went to the well but the water was dry
Dipped my bucket in the clear blue sky
Looked in the bottom and what did I see?
The whole damned world looking back at me

If I was a bottle I'd spill for love
Sake of mercy I'd kill for love
If I was a liar I'd lie for love
Sake of my baby I'd die for love
Sake of my baby I'd die for love

Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home
I'm gonna find my own way home
-Robert Hunter

2005-06-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

CLASS, PAY ATTENTION: THIS IS
IMPORTANT-

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.

Wow, folks. If only we had a media in this country with a single nut amongst the collective lot of them, combined with a populace that could be bothered for three seconds to give a damn, this here would be just about game. set. match. on this disaster of a Presidency.

If only.

Did You Get The Memo?

2005-06-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

Rude Pundit: Howard Dean Will Fuck Your Shit Up

2005-06-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

So, what I want to know is- WHY DOES THE POPE HATE FREEDOM?

To put it another way, I guess the Honeymoon is over with ol' Benedict XVI. Our erstwhile New Pope, or, as I like to refer to him, "The Esteemed Elderly Gentleman in a Really Big Fuckin' Hat" has put aside all that unity and 'reaching out' bullshit, and come out clearly on the side of the 14th Century. Yes, any hopes that he was 'just joshing' when he bloviated about the intrinsic evil of homosexuality and the pernicious horror of modern relativism were laid to rest Monday, when he waxed pissy about Gay Marriage, Birth Control, Divorce, and Non-Euclidian Geometry.

The Pope, who was elected in April, also condemned divorce, artificial birth control, trial marriages and free-style unions, saying all of these practices were dangerous for the family.

"Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," he said.

Hmmmm. Okay, Ben.. Let me see if I've got this straight. "Freedom", as you define it, only encompasses the right to marry the first person of the opposite sex you want to screw, and spend the rest of your life with him or her, only engaging in procreative acts of copulation and absolutely never enjoying an orgasm that does not take place for the express purpose of bringing another human into the world?

How fucking silly of any of us to have an overly expansive, "anarchic" definition of freedom, namely one that might encompass more life choices than that. Really.

Of course, some might argue that 'anarchic freedom' taken to an evil degree might be a term more accurately applied to men who use the cloak of religious authority to procure postions from which they molest little kids, and furthermore it certainly could apply to an organization which has defied every law of man (and "God", too, if you go in for that sort of thing) in its efforts to protect pedophiles, move them around, cover up their activities and generally get in the way of efforts by victims to recieve justice, even to the extent of shooting-the-messenger style blaming the news media for reporting the abuses in the first place. (Did you guys intern with the Bush Administration, or what?)

But, of course, you wouldn't know anything about that.

Here in California, apparently Team Arnold has been allowing high-paying donors to dial-in for super-secret strategy meetings. But they fucked up and forgot to use their decoder rings, and the Los Angeles Times broke a story about how, during one recent conference call, Schwarzenegger Media Strategist Don Sipple bragged about their plan to create a "phenomenon of anger" at public employee Unions (read: those horribly overpaid cops, firefighters, and teachers) by creating a perception that they are "greedy" and "motivated by economic self-interest". Well, fuck me with a plunger handle, Mr. Louima, but I thought that "motivated by economic self-interest" was right up there with Cleanliness and Godliness in the pantheon of haughty right-wing virtues... Or maybe it's only okay for people vital to the smooth functioning of society, people like Ken Lay, or George Will, or the occasional shitty Austrian action movie star. But if the guy who risks his life to put out your burning house asks for a raise, clearly he's greedy and selfish and only out for your wallet.

Yeah, like anyone becomes a cop, firefighter, or teacher because they think they're going to get rich.

The process of generating anger (a "15 minute hate", if you will) against people the public normally feels generally sympathetic to is, according to Mr. Sipple, "like peeling an onion".

Since he's clearly a community-minded chap with a stunning gift for metaphor, we here at the impeach dubya blog thought we might inquire into this "Don Sipple" character...

Whoa! Lookit that. Allegations have been reported in the major media that he engaged in spousal abuse with two ex-wives. This, from CNN, Sept. 2, 1997:

She had been a model. Her husband, Don Sipple, was a rising political aide. But she says he had a jealous, raging temper.

"He timed me whenever we went to the grocery store just to make sure I didn't have time to meet anyone else," she said.

"He would also get violent if he saw me speaking to another man for a longer period of time that he thought I should, or if I danced with another man at a party, including the governor.

"I was injured a number of times. When I was pregnant and he beat me severely and broke my cheek and my nose, and I had a friend take a picture of my face," she said. "Just in case anything happened to me, I wanted somebody to know."

So... Wait, now, I forgot. Were we supposed to peel the onion, or beat the living snot out of it? Anyway, I do know that police and other "greedy public servants" are trained to take domestic abuse VERY seriously these days.

Could it be that Mr. Sipple has a more personal grudge against Officer Friendly?

Texas Governor to Those God-Damn Queers: Move Somewhere Else

2005-06-04T23:45:00.000-07:00

NY Press: On the Dreaded "Unnamed Source" and Newsweek's Utter Lack of Journalistic Testicles

2005-06-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

So--- Is President Bush Opposed To Contraception, or not? Inquiring Minds May Want To Know, But Press Secretary Scott McClellan Shrewdly Refuses To Answer.

Enjoy the dance.

Q There are news reports this morning that parents and children who were guests of the President, when they visited Congress, wore stickers with the wording, "I was an embryo." And my question is, since all of us were once embryos, and all of us were once part sperm and egg, is the President also opposed to contraception, which stops this union and kills both sperm and egg?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known on these issues, and his views known --

Q You know, but what I asked, is he opposed -- he's not opposed to contraception, is he?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and you've made your views known, as well. The President --

Q No, no, but is he opposed to contraception, Scott? Could you just tell us yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think that this question is --

Q Well, is he? Does he oppose contraception?

MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think the President's views are very clear when it comes to
building a culture of life --

Q If they were clear, I wouldn't have asked.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and if you want to ask those questions, that's fine. I'm just not going to dignify them with a response.

Friday Evening News Dump: Pentagon Confirms Quran Incidents at Gitmo

2005-06-03T01:35:00.000-07:00

Suppressed Abu Ghraib Evidence Ordered Released

Yes, that would be some of the "worse, far worse" evidence that we were told about during the initial outrage around the outrage around the outrage of Abu Ghraib-- until Nick Berg was decapitated on video and all of a sudden we were ordered by the Reality Makers (tm) to forget that there was additional material in the pipeline. Well, we weren't ordered per se- but except for the incessant yapping of a few inconsequential pipsqueaks like Sy Hersh, the integrity-laden Corporate Media was all too happy to play along with the right wing's election year meme that telling the truth about the war in Iraq and, heavens to betsy, releasing photos of the same, was "hurting the war effort" and our image abroad.

Well, fuck a duck-- the more things change, huh? I don't have time to fully explore how Neuteredweek, er, Newsweek, scampered away like a whimpering puppy with their tail twixt their legs from the White House over this flushing-the-Koran deal. First off, if you don't know by now that A) The Flushing Story wasn't new, and B) the evidence, and hence the story, was hardly questionable. (So what, precisely, does "mishandled" mean? Will we ever know? Not bloody likely, under this gang.) and C) The Riots in question in Afghanistan that caused the hubbub and indignation didn't even have anything to do with the Newsweek story, well, Cooter, you haven't been paying attention.

As it is, what we can only strongly speculate was quite possibly another classic Bushco/Rove Fry-The-Press Operation comes off with nary a hitch, and the public gets back to their important business of worrying about Hillary Duff and paparazzi.

So, anyway, only a year or so after we were first photographically introduced to Mistress Lynndie England, it seems we may- may, mind you- actually see some of this Abu Ghraib evidence, although we are well safely past the point when shockingly atrocious evidence might have made Ken Blackwell's job as -cough- minister of fair elections in Ohio a little more difficult. Perhaps we will even find out what was behind Hersh's allegations of tapes pertaining to the sodomization of a 14 year old boy while under U.S. Guard. (You are not supposed to remember that, either, citizen!) Of course, the Bush admin. is appealing the ruling... but their stated reason, their logical argument- man, what a piece of work. See, they argue that releasing the evidence would Violate the Geneva Convention rights of the prisoners in the pictures and videos.

Say what you will about the Bush Administration, they sure have brass balls. And the truly sad thing is, some percentage of the population probably buys that as some form of rational argument, on some level or another. Another percentage apparently isn't even aware that we're at war, much less that it's going really badly.

Anyway, supposedly under the Freedom (what we're allegedly fighting "for", remember?) of Information Act and thanks to those godless commy dirtbags at the ACLU, we may actually find out a little bit more of what was done in our name (but I'm not holding my breath). At least what was done in our name until Donald Rumsfeld banned digital cameras from our secret gulags.... er, what I meant to say was, until the few "bad apples" responsible for the requisite "isolated incidents" were caught; and clearly this kind of shit never took place again.

Clearly.

Disturbing Video - Fallujah: The Day After

More Heartland Bible Belt Values In Action

Judge Who Apparently Hasn't Read The Constitution: Parents Can't Teach Pagan Beliefs

2005-05-24T23:42:00.000-07:00

It would seem I am going to spend a good chunk of my blogging week on this:

Never one to miss a right-wing indignation bandwagon, our good friend Debra Saunders has weighed in on the Star Wars fiasco:

The Empire Meets Middle Age

Bitch, Bitch, Moan, Moan. How dare they criticize Bush and all that blah, blah blah. I'll say one thing for D. Saunders. When she wasn't stealing her hairdon't from Juice Newton, she was obviously paying at least a little bit of attention to what was happening in the first Star Wars trilogy, and as a fellow nerd, I salute her for her slavish devotion to triviata around what are, after all, movies:

No, the big problem was the fact that Darth Vader, who had killed countless souls without hesitation and destroyed an entire planet just to make a point, nonetheless wholly redeemed himself by refusing to kill his own son. Thus Vader won a coveted spot in the afterlife sitting by the eternal campfire with Jedi good guys Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda.

The dead Darth-turned-Anakin looks happy too. You can imagine him turning to his old chums, and saying, "Sorry about Alderaan. Have a nice day."

Well, technically, Peter Cushing gave the order to blast Alderaan, although Darth Vader did hold Carrie Fisher's shoulders as she gave a classic Lucas bad-acting underreaction to the destruction of her entire planet, something to the effect of ..."...Um, No". So blame Grand Moff (what's a Moff, anyway? Are there minor moffs, as well as grand moffs? Medium moffs?) Tarkin for that one, Deb.. I wonder if that move was deliberate on Lucas's part, but the reality is that Vader didn't personally... uh...

did I mention that I'm a nerd?

Anyway, I actually agree with her- the whole "my entire life of really bad acts can be redeemed on my deathbed" thing sat a little funny with me, too. However, if she's looking for the origin of that particular philosophical peculiarity, it isn't coming from Lucas's new-agey Marin hot tub chums... in fact, unless I'm wrong, it is a bedrock assumption of many conservative Christian doctrines that the acceptance of JCAYOPS - even by a horrible sinner on their deathbed- is the one and only deciding factor of who gets in to heaven. Therefore, if Hitler "repented" and accepted Jesus on his deathbed, vioila! he gets in.. whereas the relatives on the Jewish side of my family who died in Hitler's camps are shit out of luck.

Fuck, at least Vader killed the gnarly-ass emperor in the process.

I happen to find that "Christian" notion- that it doesn't matter what you've done in your life, as long as you pay the proper lip service to the proper interpretation of the faith- far more offensive than anything George Lucas had to do to make his multi-generational Joseph-Campbell-in-space mythos hang together. Vader HAD to be redeemed at the end. There wasn't any other way to do it, as far as I see. I don't know, maybe when Luke saw Yoda, Obi Wan and 'Anakin' (I bet Hayden Christiansen hopes he's not going to end up looking like that bald guy, whoever he was, in real life) in force-o-vision at the end of Jedi, they should have been smacking him on the ass. Waterboarding him. Having him make their coffee... or forcing him to watch the NBC summer lineup.

Ouch.

Reviewers have been quick to note the nexus between President Bush's statement, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," and Anakin Skywalker's pronouncement, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." A coy Lucas told an audience in Cannes that he started writing "Star Wars" when Richard Nixon was president, and he sees strong "parallels" between Vietnam and Iraq.

Let me credit Lucas with this much. "The Phantom Menace" produced complaints that he engaged in facile racial stereotypes that demeaned Asians, Arabs and Africans. Since then, it is clear, Lucas learned that there is only one facile stereotype that is safe in Hollywood: Republican equals evil. Bush bad.

Right. Just like James Pinkerton, Saunders is operating under some kind of crazy fucking delusion that George Lucas gives a shit what ANYONE else thinks. Here's a clue, lady- he doesn't when he's right, and he doesn't when he's wrong.. if he had wanted to apologize for jack diddly shit in Ep. I & II, he would have done so... he wouldn't have slyly tried to curry favor with.. who? by engaging in Bush-bashing.

I don't understand what is so fucking difficult to grasp for the right wing- some of us really DO think Bush is bad -quite possibly the WORST president in a century- and the Republican party these days IS pretty fucking evil. Saunders prides herself on her libertarian, pro-choice, "moderate" style of Republicanism...which really means she hates paying taxes, like all of us do, but doesn't posess the mental wherewithal to realize that it's not Reagan's bon-bon eating welfare queens who are living high on the hog off her dinero, it's fat Halliburton, Bechtel, Chevron and Lockheed-Martin Execs. But despite her "moderate" pose, note that she doesn't have any problem supporting the GOP's efforts to pack the federal judiciary with goons slightly to the right of Torquemada. (When job #1 is protecting your tax cuts, one has to be a team player, and all.. I'm sure.)

Fine by me. If Lucas wants to take the mantle of the Bush critics, be it understood that he spent jillions of dollars and made six epic -- and let me add, very watchable -- movies, just to make the point that a man can wipe out entire civilizations and still have a germ of cuddly goodness in him.

What's more, that germ of goodness means more, at movies' end, than the countless children he has killed, the void with which he replaced entire communities and the dull misery he inflicted wherever he went.

Uh Huh. But if, instead of saving his son's life and killing the Emperor, he had accepted Jesus Christ as his own personal savior, Saunders wouldn't be complaining.. because that, dear kiddies, is someone's deeply held faith and as such we're not allowed to question its logic--- or morality. Good thing for her, the Jedi don't have tax exempt status, a hundred million followers, and flatulating buttheads with big hair hectoring people about their sex lives on television.

But, like Pinkerton, the essential thesis of Saunders' piece- that Lucas's political flavoring to the film is somehow a new addition and as such, suspect, is, again, not borne out by the films themselves or what Lucas has consistently said over the years about them. The films have always been anti-imperialist... and have always contained elements pertaining to the corrupting nature of absolute power and the battle of technology vs. nature, and the conflicting machine and organic parts of our souls.

Thus, we discover, as Obi-Wan says before the final light-saber duel, that the Sith are evil (despite their germ of good?), not just for what they do, but because, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." In Lucasworld, moral relativists are the real good guys in a universe of gore.

Which doesn't make sense because the Jedi do trade in absolutes, as does every tribe. They've got their rules, too -- and they're pretty good rules, if they do become overly cumbersome, hoaky and dangerous at times.

Am I the only person who knows that the word is supposed to be "hokey"? Ah, I weep for the future. But no matter.

That "blammo" sound you heard in the background was Pope Benedict's head exploding with righteous indignation as that line about "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" was read. Actually, WE know that in GOP fundy-land, it's the "moral relativists" who are the real problem, because at least even the evil Muslims we have to wage crusades against (when we're not playing kissy-face with them to get better gas prices) believe in a relatively similar all-powerful invisible man in the sky, with a relatively similar series of up/down, black/white, good/bad rules- gays are bad, sex is evil, and women are dangerous and must be oppressed. Really, it's mostly the headgear that differentiates our fundamentalist nutjobs from theirs.

And of course, according to Pat Robertson, liberal judges really are a "greater threat than people who fly planes into buildings". No shit.

Here's a sign, early in the movie, Lucas gives moviegoers that Anakin Skywalker is drifting toward the dark side. After hacking to death everybody in his path, Anakin has an evil mastermind at his feet. Kill him, the future emperor coos.

Afterward, Anakin notes it is not the Jedi way to kill an "unarmed" man. Forget that this particular villain can't be unarmed as long as he has his mind. Forget that he is the reason so many others died, and the Jedi didn't fret about their end.

Well, actually, if you had been paying attention to this movie (as well as the past two) the neat way Lucas got around the moral conundrum of the "good guys" having to kill lots of "bad guys" was by making the army they are fighting generally consist of robots. Maybe a fine distinction but it's a little difficult, for me at least, to call slicing up a bunch of machines "hacking to death everybody in his path"

sigh. In younger times, Lucas had a unique and dashing vision. Among dazzling special effects and in a universe far, far away, there was a hero, with the simple message, "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."

But after years of accolades, spin-off corporations and merchandising deals, the word is now, to put it politely, decidedly middle-aged: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

Right, Deb. It's all about the merchandising deals. Surely anyone who makes a statement against Emperor Dipshit Dubya is selling out, (because what better way to display you have no integrity than by criticizing the most dishonest and dishonorable administration in US History?) although how you come to that logical conclusion is way fucking beyond me. Actually, since you're familiar with Return of the Jedi, here's a quote for you:

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to, depend greatly upon our own point of view"

Aaaah! There goes the Pope's head, again. Really, why don't you and Pinkerton admit it; your shorts were in a wad about Star Wars because when Luke Skywalker said that 'rescue' line, you heard it as.. "I'm Luke Skywalker.. and I'm here to rescue you.. from onerous environmental legislation, the separation of church and state, and the threat of socialized medicine" I'm not sure how this new movie could have satisfied y'all, because it's not Lucas who has changed in the past 30 years, it's our government.. specifically just how rotten and bald-faced undemocratic it has become, even compared to the Reagan days. Maybe if Lucas had made the Emperor destroy the Jedi because of their support for a fucking flat tax, you people would be happy. I dunno.

Meanwhile, back in this galaxy. The Supreme Court is going to decide whether it's legal for parental notification laws about abortion to state that girls can't get an abortion without notifying their parents- even in a medical emergency. Oh, this is fucking rich.

One question facing the court in the current case is whether parental-notice laws, or by extension, any abortion regulations, must explicitly provide exceptions for those women whose continued pregnancy is a threat to their health. Beginning with Roe v. Wade in 1973, and including the court's most recent decision, which invalidated Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law in 2000, the court has held that the government may not constitutionally ban an abortion necessary to preserve a pregnant woman's health.

...

The First Circuit applied that analysis in the New Hampshire case to rule that even if most pregnant teenagers do not have health problems requiring a termination of pregnancy, the law's requirements, which include a 48-hour waiting period after parental notice, pose an undue burden on a large fraction of those who suffer from such conditions as eclampsia or premature membrane rupture. Consequently, the law was unconstitutional, the appeals court ruled.

...

On the health question, the state is arguing that a teenager with a health problem can go before a judge, who can take health into account even though the statute itself does not mention it.

Surely you've seen all those judges, hanging around emergency rooms. 17 year old girl comes in bleeding internally, doctor agrees that she needs to get an abortion- now- except, wait! call the court. Shit, it's sunday, and 3 am to boot.

This, among other reasons, is why I'm pro-choice. This is why I think that, whatever your views on abortion, legislators shouldn't be getting between women and their doctors. Period. Of course, Kelly Ayotte, the NH atty general, had this to say about the potential for those little sluts (sorry, young women) to end up in situations where they are having serious pregnancy-related health problems while waiting to get in touch with a judge- she hopes that the Supreme Court will make it harder to overturn laws "just because they might inconvenience a few people".

So picture a 17 year old girl with an abusive father and a pregnancy gone horribly, medically wrong, showing up at the Emergency Room.. what's the big deal if the State of New Hampshire decides to "inconvenience" her--- by preventing doctors from giving her medically advisable treatment?

Yeah. That's why I'm pro-choice.

2005-05-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

So, I went and saw Episode III today. Today's entry comes with the standard disclaimer-- Yes, I am of that indiscriminate Gen-X age range whereby I was a pre-pubescent lad back in 1977 when the original "Star Wars" hit the theaters. I think, while other demographics do exhibit some enthusiasm around the franchise, people- particularly younger ones who weren't around back then- don't always get what the big deal for folks in my age group about Star Wars is, and was. I mean, sure, the movies are cool-- but in the time since 1977, certainly far bigger effects extravaganzas have held sway. And the exciting larger-than-life narrative style that Lucas returned in updated form to cinema has become de rigeur, so it's hardly unique or noteworthy anymore.

However, for a kid- particularly male- back in 1977, Star Wars was like your first orgasm-- and it lasted two hours long. Wait, strike that- to use a sexual metaphor, it was like being a perpetually horny teenager who'd never been kissed, and suddenly having a really hot teacher take you home and blow out your pipes for two crazy hours.. way back in the day before such things led to jail sentences, illegitimate children, and secret weddings.

And, truly, the fact that the original film even looks cool by today's standards is a stellar fucking accomplishment.. Considering what the state of the art back then was, and how the only other sci-fi film to even approach that standard, 2001, looks a bit hokey and dated when you watch it now.

But I don't expect people who weren't around back then to "get", necessarily, what a big deal it was for kids alive then, but reiterating that should go a long way to explaining why, for pretty much every 30something active in the arts today, "Star Wars" is a touchstone which infects much that they do.. (witness Kevin Smith) And, furthermore, I think it explains why there has been so much disappointment and downright anger with Lucas over the prequels. Now, hey, I'm not going to jump on the bash I & II bandwagon. I found things worthwhile about both films- really, I did. Ray Park and the lightsaber stuff in Phantom Menace almost- almost- redeemed all the other problems, and even though Jar Jar Binks should have been shot in the head with a wookie crossbow at the earliest opportunity, in 2005 people tend to forget that, back in 1999, creating a CGI main character who was so believably annoying that you would WANT a Wookie to fry his floppy head was a major technological achievement.

Attack of the Clones, I thought, was pretty cool, although the "love scenes" were admittedly some of the most painful and or/funny-but-not-on-purpose moments ever put on film. And even those could have been saved by the judicious use of a Natalie Portman nude scene... or two.

Or five.

Oh, come on. Like you never thought of that.

So, Star Wars is part of the collective mythology now, and of course the nattering nabobs on the right have to go nuts when anything people like seems to offer even the slightest bit of criticism of their agenda and activities. Sort of like, the truth hurts. But James Pinkerton, asshat extraordinaire and writer for Newsday, took this perennial right wing culture clucking to a new level with this piece on Star Wars III, which just blew me away in that he managed to cram so much utter bullshit into four or five paragraphs:

W. is the dark side of new 'Star Wars'

The politics of the "Star Wars" movies have twisted around for the past three decades, but now, in the final episode, director-creator George Lucas has made a bid for critical acclaim - even if it costs him commercial success.

But that's OK. Lucas, now in his seventh decade, has his billions. What he needs now is absolution for past sins of political incorrectness.

Essentially, Pinkerton is asserting that George Lucas- someone who clearly doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks with regard to his following through on his own artistic vision- is now, "suddenly" injecting the Star Wars franchise with liberal politics. Apparently, according to Pinkerton, Lucas is trying to atone for.. uh, something.. by taking swipes at Dubya in the film.

Now, clearly, some stuff in the film can be read as swiping at Dubya and our current descent into an un-democratic, quasi-totalitarian Emprie situation.. But that has always been the political backdrop of the six films. It would be irresponsible, not to mention impossible- given what has been going on in the USA for the past 5 years- for a film touching on these topics to not allude to the dangers of militarism, jingoism, and hyper-nationalism.

Americans embraced the first "Star Wars" in 1977. Its energy and optimism seemed like a sparkling tonic during a dreary decade of decline. Then in the 1980s, an obscure congressman from Georgia named Newt Gingrich insisted that "Star Wars" had prefigured Ronald Reagan's election to the White House.

To Gingrich and other Republicans, it all made sense. Darth Vader led an evil empire; so did the Soviet leaders in the Kremlin. Thus Americans - the Huck Finn-like character of Luke Skywalker being an honorary American - would lead the good-guy rebels to victory in real life, as well as in reel life.

Movie critics writing for the liberal-leaning mainstream media - which was all there was back then - didn't want to hear, of course, about the greatness of the Gipper. But Lucas kept his head down, denying any political overtones in his films.

Actually, that's not true AT ALL, and as far as Lucas not referring to political subtexts to his films, that's bullshit as well. None of this shit is new, and Lucas's political leanings have never been secret since he slipped a mild anti-vietnam undercurrent into the end of American Graffiti. Of course, back in those days, pretty much everyone acknowledged that the Vietnam war was a human disaster and an imperialistic misadventure... but just in case no one was clear, when Lucas released "Return of the Jedi" he specifically mentioned that the Ewok battle against the Empire was a specific reference to the Vietnam war, and how a highly technological, imperial power could be bogged down and ultimately defeated by low-tech guerilla fighters.

Of course, on an allegorical level, that does reduce General Vo Nguyen Giap, arguably one of the keenest military minds of the 20th Century, to a midget in a teddy bear outfit. Nevertheless, Lucas's intent with the first trilogy was always pretty fuckin' clear.. Which didn't stop conservatives- like they are wont to do- from co-opting the series as their own and as a blanket endorsement of their own militaristic, jingoistic policies, mostly because they figured a blue-eyed, blonde haired white kid who was a "freedom fighter" HAD to be on their side.

Really, what Newt Gingrich did was take a popular social phenomenon and try to hijack it. But since your average uptight conservatives have as much trouble deciphering or interpreting cultural trends as they do finding the clitoris, they fucked it up-- as usual. In fact, George Lucas was not happy at all that "The Gipper" started using the phrase "Star Wars" for his useless space-defense boondoggle and pork festival.

What this really is? "Born in the USA" redux. Cultural conservatives assume- ASSUME- that anything having to do with America or widely beloved by Americans is somehow an endorsement of them and their agenda. They couldn't be bothered to listen to the lyrics in the Springsteen song, and they couldn't see the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist subtext of Star Wars. They saw evil--- and they assumed it had to be representing the Kremlin. Bruce Springsteen talks about pride in Americans and writes a song with "USA" in the chorus? He MUST be on the gipper's side!

Except the dumbfucks are still using that song. And they're still clueless. So, fortunately, Lucas did throw some pretty obvious zingers into the new film- you'll get no argument from me there- particularly, Natalie Portman's character has a line where she says, essentially, "What if we're not the good guys?" This is, of course, blasphemy to the 12-year-old mentality of your average jingoistic conservative. We MUST be the good guys, and everything we've ever done is pure and good and righteous; except maybe when Bill Clinton did it, of course. Killing villagers in Southeast Asia who were fighting for their OWN national freedom, or oppressing indigenous people in Central America to protect the profits of United Fruit? Clearly, since the USA was behind the ball, it was done for "peace, justice, and freedom", as the newly minted Darth Vader puts it.

What the conservatives never seem to want to get is, a measure of the evil done by people can often be directly correlated to the level at which they are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are right.

And I don't want to hear any bullshit about how that translates to "loving America". I love America enough to call a spade a spade with regards to the wrong things we've done, as well as the good ones- and I respect this nation enough to expect that hopefully we will live up to our ideals, although that's not going to happen under the current lack of leadership.

...even more shrewdly, Lucas has outed himself, ideologically: He compares George W. Bush to Darth Vader. In a line that the critics are raving about, Anakin/Vader says, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." That's a clear play on President Bush's famous line from his speech to Congress on Sept. 20, 2001: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." So there you have it: In Lucas' imagination, America is the evil empire.

Yet, in addition to Bush-bashing, Lucas went even further. He now confides to reporters that none other than President Richard Nixon inspired him to create the original "Star Wars" back in the '70s. Nixon, of course, is the all-time Great Satan of liberal political demonology. Lucas went on to draw parallels between the Vietnam War then and the Iraq War now.

Yes, it's "Shrewd". He's trying to curry favor with the liberal elites (and probably the French) because... uh... well, according to Pinkerton, Lucas is trying to "atone" for Jar Jar Binks. Which makes really no sense at all, particularly since it's not possible. On a personal level, I say that if he's going to start atoning for the stupid shit he's put in his movies, he needs to go back to that ridiculous blue elephant he had playing the piano back in Return of the Jedi, and work his way forward...

But, again, Pinkerton acts as if all this political positioning from Lucas is new, and as such it's some kind of "pose". Which ignores the fact that none of this has been any kind of secret, for the past 25 or so years.

No wonder so many critics love the new movie. Writing for Slate.com, David Edelstein praises the "anti-fascist politics" of "Sith." And who's the fascist? Well, that would be the president. Playing on the name of the film's arch fiend, Darth Sidious, Edelstein lauds Lucas for taking a "palpable swipe at our own Darth Dubyous." The allegorical politics of "Sith" are so unmistakable that the headline in The Hollywood Reporter reads, "Lucas film strikes back at Bush."

Will American audiences flock to a Bush-bashing movie? Perhaps not. But there's more to life than money.

Right. American audiences certainly won't pay good money to see a film that bashes George W. Bush-- why, just ask Michael Moore!.. I mean, this paragraph is just fucking precious- Conservatives accuse US of living in a fucking bubble? The last election was a squeaker for Bush even with the widespread disenfranchisement.. which means, under the best case scenario for Dubya, nearly as many people who were allowed to vote and had their votes legitimately counted voted against Bush as voted for him. Yet according to Pinky, the slightest whiff of Bush-bashing is clearly box office death, even for one of the most popular cinematic franchises of all time...

Buddy, you MUST be high.

I guess he thinks that, once word gets out of an "anti-Bush" stench to Episode III, the culture will do the greatest about-face on a wildly popular phenomenon since Beatles albums were burned in the south after John made that Jesus comment.
Of course, since Jesus and Bush are pretty much fucking conflated in the collective conservative unconscious these days, such delusions are understandable.

Writing in The New York Times, A.O. Scott commends "Sith" for warning audiences about the dangers of militarism, Manichaeanism and thinking in "absolutes." And so, Scott concludes, it's better than the original "Star Wars."

Lucas' comeback plan has worked. Maybe fewer tickets will be sold here, but more will be sold overseas, where Bush-bashing sells. In the meantime, Lucas will have those awards, honors and "top 10" lists to look forward to. There are some things that can't be bought with money; they can only be bought with ideology.

Waaaaaah! Blind absolutism is the neo-cons' bread and butter. How dare Lucas (a Marin hot tubber-- it figures, huh?) incite audiences to even question it! Right. I'm sure that is exactly why Lucas did that, too...- so he could sell more tickets overseas... Clearly, it couldn't be from a postion of deeply held belief and concern about the anti-democratic tendencies of this adminstration. ("And who is the fascist? Why, Dubya!" Yeah, right, James. Perish the fucking thought.)

Maybe he thinks Lucas is trying to get a bulk discount on French Bread and Berets. Dude, if George Lucas wanted to win over the fucking French, he would have stuck a CGI Jerry Lewis in there-- instead of a lightsaber-wielding Yoda.

Of course, when the film kicks major USA box office ass, this dipshit will have to find a new theory. What I'd like to know is, how the fuck was George Lucas supposed to make a film about an unscrupulous, power-mad politician who uses fear, disinformation, manfuactured wars based on lies, trumped up nationalism and jingoistic, misguided patriotism to dismantle democratic institutions and take over a once-free society... without alluding to Dubya?

I dunno. All I know is, this attitude is far too typical among these fucking limp-dick, bedwetting conservatives. They control the Congress, the White House, and by 2009 Dubya alone will have replaced 1/3 of the Federal Judiciary (that's far fucking scarier than Darth Vader, IMHO) but if someone issues a sideways criticism of their golden retard in the White House, or even suggests via 3 lines in a Science Fiction film that maybe once in a while people should question things like blind patriotism and mindless flag-waving militarism, they have to go off the deep end and piss up a rope. Typical.

So what kind of agenda can we expect from this third of the Federal Judiciary shoehorned in there by "Darth Dubyus"? Let's Ask Rick Santorum:

He says he does not believe that a right to privacy -- the basis of court decisions legalizing abortion and overturning sodomy laws -- can truly be found in the Constitution, and he says he fears that the same legal reasoning could be employed to legalize gay marriage. Returning in 2003 to the Heritage Foundation to speak on ''The Necessity of Marriage,'' he said: ''The notion of a right to privacy is not about the common good, but about 'me.' Starting during the sexual revolution with contraception, it quickly evolved to abortion, and now it has found its way into today's marriage debate.''

To Santorum, who is married and the father of six children (as well as one who died shortly after birth), marriage is primarily about procreation and child rearing, and a union without at least that possibility need not be legally sanctioned.

Got that, kids? Decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut, which established that pesky "right to privacy" Santorum doesn't think exists, were bad and need to be reversed. Griswold v. Connecticut, which made the radical assertion that married people should have the right to use contraception-- without fear of arrest and jail time.

Um... okay, cue Imperial Death March.

Oh- and as for the movie itself? It may not make you a liberal, but it's still a rip-roarin' good yarn.

This, From Kos: Brave Right-Wing Shit-Talking Soldiers of the 102nd Playstation 2 Brigade--- Royally Smacked Down By Members of Actual U.S. Military, in Star Wars Line:

"We're winning. Why else would the insurgents do these large attacks that they know they can't win? It's frustration, or make sure they stay in the news. Things are getting better there all the time, but you probably can't see it at your level."
"If we're winning, how come the insurgents are even able to stage these large attacks? If we had that level of control, they wouldn't have any safe assembly areas from which to attack us in any numbers. All we can do is react to them, which means they have the initiative. That's bad," I said.
"They're attacking mainly Iraqis now," said one. "They're afraid to come out and fight us" she said. "Three things," said Richie, "one, attacking Iraqis is a great way to start a civil war-that's a lovely thought-a three-way civil war with us in the middle, and two," he said, "they're attacking us more than enough as it is, thank you, and three," he asked, "are you in the military?" "No, but I support the troops and our Commander in Chief," she replied. "Then what's this 'WE' shit? It's not your ass over there getting IED'ed and RPG'ed and shot at and mortared, so who the fuck are you to talk about 'we'?" "Come on, I'm sure the young republicans here all have yellow ribbon magnets on the SUVs their daddies bought them-go easy, man. They support us," I said. (One could, in fact, hear the italics in my voice.)
"He's been there, and got the t-shirt," Richie said, making a twirling motion with his finger to me. I turned around so they could see the image on the back of my shirt.
"Well, with attitudes like yours, we won't win," one of them said.
"Then why don't you join up so you can go over there and show us how it's done?" asked Richie. They looked away. "That's what I thought," he said, "so why don't you all shut your fucking yaps since you don't even believe in your own shit enough to stand up for it?"

2005-05-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

Did I say Aaron Magruder? I meant Tom Tomorrow. YOU sir, are my hero.

In other, sort of related (meaning that it has to do with the religious right peddling bullshit to our children) news, our friend Tina Marie Holewinski, or at least someone doing a relatively convincing imitation of her, is apparently an impeach dubya blog reader! Wow. Well, Tina Marie, consider yourself fortunate- you now are part of an exclusive cabal of uber-elite, latte sucking liberal impeach dubya blog readers, who, on a good day, may number as high as the double digits!

Am I upset about that? Shit, no. I'm always pleasantly surprised when anyone reads the blog, but really I do this to keep the steam pressure in my head from causing an aneurysm. Really, though, we thank you for stopping by. (Aint Google wonderful?)

Tina Marie had some choice words about my coverage of the Bozeman, Montana school incident where a local father (and probable dirtbag commie librul) had the nerve to 'complain' that Tina Marie was 'pushing religion' on the students vis a vis her abstinence only anti-sex hector, er, lecture. Why anyone would object to religion being taught to kids in a public school in the first place is, of course, beyond us, after all, don't we want the little ones to get things that are good for them, be it a healthy dose of fear-based misinformation on a subject like sex, or merely the "good news" that Jesus wants them to stop using their higher brain functions, pull up their pants, and get thee hence to a place of proper worship and tithing?

But, 'Tina Marie' apparently didn't like that I covered the Bozeman story, and at the end of her comments she had this aside to say to your humble blogger:

then again, that's what i do...expose the lies of the media. that's my life's passion and mission...what's yours??

Well, Tina Marie, that is an excellent question.. Actually, I'm not so solipsistic (anymore) to believe that my life has a singular, special "mission".. (I used to think I was Napoleon, but thorazine helped with that significantly) Like most Americans not employed in the prison, military, or petroleum industries, I am trying to get by and make a decent life for myself and my family in this increasingly debt and inanity-ridden nation. As for a life's "Passion"? Well, I have several. Live music, good art, cunnilingus... there are plenty of things that make existence on this ball (did ya hear? It's round!) worthwhile. Currently, however, if I had to choose I would say my passion is doing my darndest to make sure that the religious right nutjobs who have taken over our government and much of our society are prevented from turning this great land of freedom into some weird corporate theocracy. I'm passionate about the separation of church and state, I'm passionate about human rights, the environment, and real individual freedom... I'm passionate about improving the lot of humanity, including the millions of people getting an increasingly raw deal under Bush's "Christian" regime. Unlike you, however, I am not so "passionate" about keeping high school students from f*cking just as they have since time immemorial that I am willing to take $1,500 to sell them a bale of religious right agit-prop and distorted misinformation, if not outright lies.

But I find that really interesting- you say you are passionate about 'exposing the lies of the media' and, in fact, it is your life's "mission and passion".

Okay, then.

Since you're on the case, here are some lies previously and currently promulgated by this media you speak of.. Maybe, if you have time, you can do us a favor and work on exposing a few of THESE LIES:

There is "Legitimate Scientific Debate" on subjects like Evolution and Global Warming - LIE

The Michael Jackson, Laci Peterson and other "show" trials are Earth-shatteringly important news stories worthy of the disproportionate share of news airtime that they have received and continue to receive. So, too, are "stories" like the runaway bride, which celebrity is hooking up with whom, and how quickly they plan to divorce. - LIE

The Iraq War was NOT a wholly illegal, criminal enterprise deliberately sold to the American People based upon a pack of deliberate, unmitigated falsehoods. - LIE

Furthermore, evidence pertaining to the deliberate "fixing" of intelligence and widespread bullshitting of the American People vis a vis Iraq has not been available since many months
prior to the start of that war, and even if it was, that doesn't constitute "real news" - LIE

We have "already seen" the worst evidence from places like Abu Ghraib, and the abuses there and at Gitmo and other places were the work of a few (surprisingly female) "bad apples"- certainly not anything related to a widespread policy of torture and abuse on the part of higherups in the Government. - LIE

Democrats are "unfairly" blocking 6 of Bush's judicial appointments-- after confirming all the rest, while the GOP was perfectly justified in blocking some 40% of Clinton's nominees. - LIE

George W. Bush "Won" the 2000 and 2004 elections legitimately, with no help from government officials in Florida and Ohio, specifically people like Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell - LIE

Furthermore, there is no evidence of any widespread, co-ordinated attempt on the part of the GOP and its affiliates to disenfranchise minority and other democratic voters in swing states, led by Mr. Blackwell in Ohio as well as persons such as Nathan Sproul of "Voter Outreach, inc." fame. - LIE

Gays and Lesbians represent a far graver threat to America's families than mounting deficits raised in the face of an illegal war and larceny of the treasury on the part of the GOP and their corporate cronies. - LIE

A blowjob and a semen stain on a dress were worth an $80 million investigation and the impeachment of the last legitimately elected President of the United States and an accompanying two year press circus, but 8 Billion dollars mysteriously vanished from Iraq, billions in "no-bid" contracts to companies like Bechtel and Halliburton, the deliberate "outing" of a CIA agent, along with dangerous levels of contempt for a free press and democratic institutions at home and abroad... are not even worth cursory media attention. - LIE

So, Tina Marie.. Which of these truths (I can list about 1,000 more, if you'd like) being ignored and/or lies being promulgated by our media are you interested in battling, as part of your life "mission"? Or are the only kind of "lies" you and your organization are interested in fighting, ones like this: "a night of hot, sweaty sex with a nubile young woman is clearly a shitload more fun than sitting in a fluorescent-lit room with several other pimply-faced teens reading bible passages and listening to Amy Grant CDs... but if you're going to do it, you should use a condom"...?

After reading the other day's post, Tina also said she was going to "pray for" me. Gee, whiz.

Hey, Tina, here's an idea... Why don't you pray for the "Christian" anti-abortion extremist and internet psycho who brags on FOX News about how he grew up having sex with barnyard animals, instead?

Sibel Edmonds: Gagged, But Not Dead

2005-05-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Wonder where all the fucking REAL NEWS went? Or, are you excited about and proud of the crack reporting done on subjects as Earth-shatteringly important as the runaway bride and the Jackson trial? Well, some in the media are finally admitting what the rest of us have known for a loooooong time... Here, ABC news admits that covering the Iraq war is "too hard":

Brides gotta run, planes gotta stray, and cable news networks gotta find a way to fill a lot of programming hours as cheaply as possible. (CNBC gets to talk about the booming April retail sales numbers, and the NRA's television network will replay the Secretary of State on Larry King over and over.)

We say with all the genuine apolitical and non-partisan human concern that we can muster that the death and carnage in Iraq is truly staggering.

And/but we are sort of resigned to the Notion that it simply isn't going to break through to American news organizations, or, for the most part, Americans.

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. And how many Americans know that a recently released #10 Downing St. Memo confirmed -smoking gun, style- what we loony America-hating lefties have been saying for two plus years? Namely, that the Bush administration deliberately fudged the intelligence to lead us into invading Iraq?

Then ask yourself how many Americans know what the guy Paula Abdul may have fucked looks like.

2005-05-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

Holy Cognitive Dissonance, Batman!

From the Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Weirder Department.

What is it with right-wingers and weird sex? Is it the ever-present frission that is obtained by combining years of guilt and repression with not getting out a whole hell of a lot? I mean, obviously with lots of these people there's a tempest brewing underneath their control-freak exteriors.. From J. Edgar Hoover on down, you don't have to be Carl Freaking Jung to figure out that lots of extreme homophobes are closeted gays, many anti-sex crusaders and would-be virtue mavens have more than a few skeletons in their respective closets, and lots of the religious right nutjobs... like, anti-Abortion kook and web manager Neal Horsley, whose site is responsible for disseminating personal information about abortion doctors to well-meaning Christian nutjobs and heavily armed cranks nationwide, was recently a guest of FOX News's Hannity and Colmes show, where he.... umm.... well, let's take a look:

In the course of the interview, however, Colmes asked Horsley about his background, including a statement that he had admitted to engaging in homosexual and bestiality sex.

At first, Horsley laughed and said, "Just because it's printed in the media, people jump to believe it."

"Is it true?" Colmes asked.

"Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool, I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I..."

AC: "You had sex with animals?"

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."

Colmes said he thought there were a lot of people in the audience who grew up on farms, are living on farms now, raising kids on farms and "and I don't think they are dating Elsie right now. You know what I'm saying?"

Horsley said, "You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually. You're naive. You know better than that... If it's warm and it's damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it."

Whoa, dude. I bet you meet a lot of ladies, with stories like that.. But, seriously-- you are a madman! Like that time you and your friend stole that cow.. and your friend tried to make it with the cow.. I want to party with you, cowboy!

Read more about it here: Bizarre Sex Habits of the Extreme Right Wing.

I mean, seriously- it's like Vegas and Salt Lake City being so close to one another.. flip sides of the seriously conflicted, uptight, repressed, and bursting-at-the-britches bible belt 'Merka. As far as Mr. Neal Anti-Abortion Zealot and Nutjob Horsley (or was it Horsey?) does anyone suppose that maybe his inability to get his penis anywhere near a female with less than four legs might have something to do with what we can only suppose is his festering hatred for sexually active human females, particularly the ones who want to control their reproductive systems by exercising choice? Any kind of choice- they choose not to be pregnant, and I can only imagine that they similarly choose not to have anything to do with his sorry, sick, animal-fucking ass.

I noticed this at the March for Women's Lives last April in DC... remember that? When 1.2 Million Americans came out to the mall to stand up for reproductive freedom, in the largest peaceful demonstration ever in our Nation's capitol, and the cable news networks spent the day talking about the death of Estee Lauder and the ever-elusive (but undoubtedly Bush-backing) NASCAR voter? Well, during that march, there were approximately 200 or so 'pro-life' screamers, screechers, and chanters lining the route, including Randall Terry with a bullhorn.. and my non-professional impeach dubya assesment of most of these folks, looking at their haircuts, outfits, and general energy and demeanor-- I would estimate that the lot of them hadn't had a satisfactory orgasm since somewhere around mid-1974.

Patriotic American Larry Flynt has uncovered some more weirdness around the Nomination to UN Ambassador of rage-crazed John "I am the Walrus.. Moustache, that is" Bolton...

Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton's first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department despite inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato's Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"The first Mrs. Bolton's conduct raises the presumption that she fled out of fear for her safety or, at a minimum, it demonstrates that Mr. Bolton's established inability to communicate or work respectfully with others extended to his intimate family relations," said Mr. Flynt. "The court records alone provide sufficient basis for further investigation of nominee Bolton by the Senate."

Yet you turn on cable news... and you might think the most important story of the past two weeks was who did or didn't fuck Paula Abdul.. Thank god we have real, responsible journalists like Larry Flynt, in a world of smut-peddlers like the media whores of CNN.

Our favorite Senatorial ass-kicker, Barbara Boxer, has taken the unprecedented step of placing a "hold" on the Bolton nomination.. although no word, as of yet, whether or not Bolton's alleged forcing of group sex on his wife (one wonders if he ever hung out with would-be Illinois Senator Jack Ryan) had anything to do with Ms. Boxer's important move. One suspects that it is more because the guy is full of shit, and a flaming asshole to boot.

Seriously, with all these rage-drunk, crazy, blind-with-anger conservative white dudes running around, isn't it somehow surprising that more heads just don't spontaneously explode? It's like someone took that nutjob white, male sixth grade teacher- you know, the one with the screw loose and the perpetual ball of spittle on his moustache, the guy who used to throw desks down flights of stairs and blow a gasket at no provocation whatsoever... yeah, it's like someone cloned that asshole 50 million times, gave him a fleet of Ford pickup trucks, and set him loose on the Merkin countryside, with radios tuned to the proper AM frequency to keep the hate tank filled up and to deliver proper instructions on where to direct all that rage.

Meanwhile, what passes for "truth" with regards to sex for the right wing, when they aren't forcing their wives into orgies our out behind the barn fuckin' bessy the cow, just keeps getting farther and farther afield from reality. I suppose that when schools hire an organization called "true lies" to disseminate sex education information (or thinly veiled religious right agit-prop, for that matter) they should expect a heapin' helpin' of unmitigated bullshit. However, apparently one Ms. Tina Marie Holewinski, representing the aforementioned true lies organization (not to be confused with the film starring Arnold Schwarzenneger and Jamie Lee Curtis) made a $1,500.00 paid appearance at a Bozeman, Montana school, whereupon she laid the following zingers upon the impressionable ears of the student body:

Condoms cause cancer.

The Birth Control Pill is only 20% effective.

Abortion is permitted on demand all the way into the third trimester.

Apparently the $1,500 the school paid for her time ran out before she could regail the kids with news about how WMDs really were found in Iraq, George W. Bush is a genius and an animal lover, and science has proven Jesus's divinity beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Our crack internet research staff has discovered the following about Ms. Holewinski (what kind of name is that, anyway?) :

When Tina's not speaking, you'll find her mowing down some steak and baked potato, traveling, drumming, scuba diving, doing photography, cooking (look for the smoke) and reading a book on how to find the love of her life. Tina loves life and yearns to inspire the young minds of America! She will EXPOSE, EDUCATE and ENLIGHTEN! The True Lies presentation, will open your eyes, ears and heart and will challenge you to live to your fullest potential!

What is your favorite color?
black...is that a color? It's mysterious and goes with anything. I'm a fashion hazard.
Favorite food?
you name it....I eat it...especially a big honkin' steak and baked potato
Favorite TV Show?
MacGyver was the man and what about the Muppets?
What CD is in your CD player right now?
A Christian Techno CD called "Deep"
What is your most embarrassing moment?
let's not go there right now...fine...I'll admit it. When I was on stage in 4th grade during a choir concert I had a "little" accident. When the teacher told me to wait 5 more minutes, I taught her a lesson. When I gotta go, I gotta go...needless to say, I smelled like pee for about 7.5 hours...man, did that burn!
Are you married, and do you have kids?
no, but keeping my eyes open for my man

Yeah. For some reason they bolt--- somewhere between the story about wetting herself and when she tells them the condoms they're wearing will cause their johnson to fall off.

Surely, though, from the aforementioned bio, Ms. Holewinski- who looks like nothing so much as a poor man's Tori Spelling- is surely qualified with the brains and world experience to garner some grand-and-a-half an hour to spew total bullshit at kids.

Well, shit-- it beats being one more extra in Hollywood who never gets called back, I guess.

IT'S OFFICIAL: AMERICAN PUBLIC DEEMED BY NETWORK EXECS TO HAVE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE LEVEL OF A CARROT

2005-05-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

People say I am knee-jerk anti-Republican. This is a plain, bald-faced, lie. In fact, there is one Very Prominent Historical Republican who, while certainly he made some major mistakes and allowed massive CIA-spawned geopolitical disasters to occur on his watch, nevertheless had some extremely cogent things to say which remain pertinent to this day. I refer, of course, to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Ike had this to say on the subject of social security: (May 2, 1956)

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again.... There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt...a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Wow. The more things change, huh? ...And H.L. Hunt... now--- where have I heard that name before? Hmmm. One wonders what other 'Texas Oil Millionaires' he was talkin' bout, Willis...

Of course, there is the ever-prescient reference to the Military-Industrial Complex, beloved by conspiracy geeks everywhere, delivered in his farewell speech to the nation, Jan 17, 1961:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Certainly, Eisenhower's reign can be noted for his fuckups, large and small- particularly, a direct line can be drawn from the 1953 CIA adventurism in Iran to the United States' trouble in the Mideast today.. (Which is why, whenever anyone starts to blather about how we are "bringing democracy to the Middle East", I am overcome with the urge to sneeze... "Mossadegh!") ... Likewise, it is clear that many times Ike should have been waging the fight for Civil Rights that he must have known, in his heart, was inevitable, he preferred to play golf. Yet compared to the Republicans of today, the man was a tower, a genius, and a Great American.

2005-04-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Guckert/Gannon - The Gift that Keeps on Givin'.

The Raw Story tells us that newly released FOIA documents pertaining to Mr. GannonGuckert's repeated forays at the White House show what can only be described as bizarre patterns of visitation for a reporter... or even for a "reporter".

Now, let's keep everything in persepective here.. A hired administration hack, with practically nil in the realm of actual, professional, journalistic qualifications--- working under a false name, and who also happened to be a male escort, yet somehow managed to breeze past the most rigorous secret service on the planet...was apparently skulking around unaccounted for at the white house for, in at least one case, almost six hours... In addition to coming early or staying late, GuckertGannon was also in the WH on days with no press conferences scheduled. On several days, he apparently neglected to check in, or out, of the White House at all.

Certainly we are not implying anything untoward, but we have to wonder... just what sort of jobs required him to blow in and out of the White House in such a bizarre, unaccountable fashion?

Reps. Conyers and Slaughter have written Scott McClellan asking for more answers about G/G's unprecedented levels of unmonitored access... asking, among other things, "at what point is a 'hard pass' required?"

Beavis, if you have to ask, you'll never know. Huh. Huh. Huhhuhhuhuhuh..

In other news, last night I had a dream about Dick Cheney-- and he was wearing a blue dress. I wonder what it means...

2005-04-23T02:50:00.000-07:00

Chicagoans Line Up To Worship Giant Concrete Vagina

Okay, now.. We on the left, us loony, loveable losers who are so horribly out of touch with the American People that we keep surprising the fuck out of GOP politicians when they find out how many people agree with us.. well, particularly since the last blowout of an election (kaff) we have been hectored about how we need to show more respect for the ultra-religious members of our society, and in particular, we should under no circumstances- none whatsoever!- make fun of them.

But.

Really.

Come.

On.

I mean, have these people never heard of rorschach inkblots? Much less water damage?

And if you can see the Virgin Mary in there, can't you at least be open to the possibility that, all aesthetic considerations being equal, what it REALLY looks like is a cross between Aria Giovanni's poon--- and the radiator grille of an Edsel?

Don't believe me?

Let's have another look.

Well, at least someone put the event in proper, somber, holy perspective- when they spraypainted "Go Cubs" on the wall next to this deal...

Sorry, mac, but there are some miracles even the Virgin Mary herself can't accomplish.

I like this CNN headline: "Some See Virgin Mary in Underpass Stain"... I swear, I had to read that one four or five times to convince myself that it didn't say "Underpants Stain"

..Imagine the headlines on THAT one: BVM found in BM.. in BVDs!

But this woman's quote, reported worldwide (aren't you so glad there isn't REAL news to report on?!) just summed it up beautifully:

"This is the first time I've felt something so deep in my heart. There's something in the air. Her energy is here," Raven Leroux said. "It's a combination of incredible sadness that human beings have forgotten how to love God, then this joy by realising that these stories are real," the 57-year-old said.

Yes, sadly, human beings have forgotten how to love God. Which is why he dutifully provides salt trucks to wear away concrete underpasses, upon which he displays the um-yeah-well-I-might-be-able-to-see-it-as-that countenance of the Virgin Mary. Wouldn't one hope that a loving, caring "God" might have better shit to do with his energy? Like, oh, stopping the genocide in the Sudan-- instead of doing graffiti on the Kennedy Expressway?

If this experience could possibly be good for anything, the only thing I would hope -and admittedly, it's a thin hope- that some people might get out of it would be a consideration of the role their own brains play in molding their perceptions. Surely when we were all small children, unless we were those slow kids who ate paste, we lay on our backs and looked at clouds, imagining them to be dragons, or castles, or (in the case of your humble blogger) Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. We retain that ability as adults, but we are so wedded to the notion that our personal artistic interpretations of things ARE 'reality' that we forget, we neglect, the principal role our brains play in filtering down, modifying, and interpreting the often chaotic, fractal jumble of sensory input that constitutes "real" reality. We project outward our interpretations onto things, and since we're human, one of the things we most commonly turn random visual stimuli into are other human faces. This is why the lunar surface, which really doesn't look much like a face at all, becomes the "man in the moon". But our brains are even more complex than that, and we have layers of culture and semantics on top of our basic human neurology--- this is why when Christian people see a pattern on toast that could remotely resemble a human face, it's not just any human face- it's Jesus, or the Vigin Mary, depending on things like what could be a preponderance of facial hair.

Certainly, people seem to find surprisingly Catholic iconography in strange places; and also surprisingly, their piety doesn't seem to prevent them from cashing in relatively large sums of money for things like burnt waffles.

This Florida woman recieved $28,000 for this piece of toast containing the "Virgin Mary"...

Well, shit, call me crazy but that Virgin Mary looks awfully sultry, and really resembles to me nothing so much as Marlena Dietrich, or Marilyn Monroe. Maybe Deborah Harry.

Catch me if I'm wrong, but nowhere in the Vatican, as far as I know, is the BVM portrayed with such pouty, succulent lips.

Okay, now... THIS guy. I'm no subgenius, but I can tell you right there that that is J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

I mean, come on- Jesus Christ, What A Pipe!

I look at this one, and all I can see is a puff of smoke coming up from the grassy knoll---

as the President's motorcade passes.

Of course, the media's obsession with this ridiculous overpass deal is undoubtedly related to the Pope-o-Rama hoopla going down now, where some people are apparently genuinely excited that the replacement for the old, stodgy, conservative, anti-gay, anti-birth control leader of the Catholic Church is another old, stodgy, anti-gay, anti-birth control guy. Except that Cardinal Ratzinger apparently doesn't have the same tact that Karol Wojtyla possessed on these issues- and while his numerous outlandish statements on the subject of gays, priest child abuse, and Judaism, among other things, should have brought him to your humble blogger's irascible attention sooner, really when they started going on about "Ratzinger" a couple weeks ago I thought they were talking about Dustin Hoffman's character in Midnight Cowboy...

So, yes, we have a new Pope, now, and isn't it exciting...

Just know that as far as this blogger is concerned, Popes and Virgins and Freeway abutments are all well and good-- particularly if they make you happy..

but please try to remember that they are projections of YOUR mind, to do with..or ignore-- as you wish.

2005-04-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Long overdue update from your much-remiss blogger..

Whew. What a month. As many of you know, we here at the Impeach Dubya blog just returned from our whirlwind celebrity blog tour, greeted by screaming fans and young, nubile impeach dubya groupies at every stop. And what a wonderful time to be touring this great land of ours. Of course, we had to spend several days down in Florida, keeping an eye on that rightwing circus known as Schiavo-palooza-- Always nice to see the people who claim to be concerned about the "sanctity of life" out there, putting their money where there mouths are.. at least, while their mouths aren't busy making death threats against people like Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer.

Really, this Christian Fundamentalist fascination with death threats against the people who disagree with them always takes me by surprise. Certainly, the people who made the death threats against the lawyers fighting Chief Justice "Ramblin' Roy" Moore down in Alabama a couple years ago had to win some kind of blind irony award.. The mind boggles as to.. well, what do you suppose that phone call was like?

"listen heyar you sekoooolahr humanist noo york lawyer... we're gonna keep that biiig rock in the courthouse that sayuhs 'thou shalt not kill', see, and aint nuthun' you gonna do about it.. Or.... Or.... Or... someone shalt kill you"

Talk about eating the menu and reading the meal.

Right. See, but, intimidation of the Judiciary, on all kinds of levels, is the new project of the conservative loonbags who are goose-stepping all over our constitution. It's no accident and it's no surprise, really. The main thing (the last thing, really) standing in the way of their total transformation of American society into a theocratic corporate disneyland is, of course, an independent judiciary doing what the Constitution mandates them to do, namely, interpreting the laws and making sure they gel with the Constitutional rights of the citizenry. Many of my liberal brethen were shocked this week when Senator John Conryn of Texas actually made some noises that sounded like justifications of violence against judges, or even weird veiled threats.

Now, some of you may remember John Conryn- he was the individual who compared gay people to turtle fuckers. What kind of wackjob imagination does this guy have? I mean, Rick Santorum with his "man on dog" comments- hey, at least that's physically, logistically possible.. But how the flimmin' flarb does someone fuck a turtle?

Maybe your dick is that small, John, but mine isn't.

But the problem with the separation of powers, and an independent judiciary, is that sometimes they make decisions the right wing doesn't like... and you see the kind of dangerous, irresponsible temper tantrum throwing which marked the entire Schiavo debacle, at least until the pollsters informed the "principle driven" GOP that, um, the American people don't like the idea of the federal government muscling into their hospice bedrooms and telling them how and when they can die. Shit, that called for some damage control! What to do? Why, comission a new poll, of course! Some Ralph Reed nitwit finally got the idea this week to call up Zogby and have him float a drastically reworded, disingenuous, bullshit poll (note the judicious use of the term "disabled") to soothe the religious right and reassure them that, yes, the American People really are 350 million people who wear black buckets on their heads, churn their own butter, and fuck solely for the purpose of marital procreation...

Anyway, if Zogby was so fucking infallible, John Kerry would be President.

But it's certainly no accident that judges are now public enemy #1 in the eyes of the Republican Party, and it doesn't matter one whit that many of them, like Judge Greer, are Conservative Republicans themselves... And don't bother trying to mention the realities of the Schiavo case, the fact that the medical consensus unanimously agreed (Bill Frist's absurd fucking television diagnosis--- "she could get better any day now"--- notwithstanding) that Terri Schiavo was not conscious, not aware, not alive by any stretch of the definition... and courts have decided that, in Florida, the spouse is the individual who has the right to make the call to remove life support. Note that precedent doesn't say "the courts have decided that the spouse has the right to make the call-- unless the call happens to piss off the pro-life community"... but that is essentially what DeLay and co. wanted. Actually, they passed a law specific ONLY to one Terri Schiavo, which, to my 10th Grade Civics Class understanding of the United States Constitution, is a major no-no. Sort of like saying "Bob Smith can run red lights whenever he feels like it", or "Batman doesn't have to pay for shoes"..

No matter how you slice it, the Terri Schiavo case was a tragedy- you'll get no argument from me, there. But I believe the tragedy happened 15 years ago, and the grief of this family was not helped by the right wing circus (complete, as Leonard Pitts points out, with jugglers) engendered by the crowds of agenda-driven kooks seeking to use this poor, braindead woman as a springboard towards further implementation of their crazy Theocratic agenda.

Oh, yeah, then the Pope died. As many of you may know, I'm not exactly a Catholic. I will say one thing for the man, he was like the energizer bunny... He kept going, and going, and going, and I often asked myself why the church had to be so sadistic as to keep dragging out this poor, feeble old man who most obviously would prefer to be back in bed at the Vatican watching Iron Chef. But the papacy is, apparently, like what we've heard about the CIA, or the mob- the only way out of the gig is through the cemetery gates...

I could blather on and on about how damaging the pope's opposition to all forms of birth control has been, but I find it far more upsetting that would-be popes behind the pharmacy counter all over this great land seem to be issuing, with greater and greater frequency, their own little "Papal Bulls" on the issue, refusing to fill birth control prescriptions- in some cases, lecturing women about religion or sex, in others actually holding the prescription hostage... Rape victims have been denied emergency contraception in several cases, in others young women have been literally interrogated as to their marital status or sexual behavior as a condition of getting their prescriptions filled.

Now, I've been accused of exaggeration or overreaction countless times in the past several years, after asserting that abortion was only one front in the religious right's jihad on people's control of their own bodies. Many good Americans just can't believe- and rightly so- that the same folks who claim to express concern about the unborn would really want to limit access to birth control methods that can and do prevent the very same unwanted pregnancies that end in surgical abortion. You would think that safe, effective birth control would be the area where both sides in the abortion debate could agree- yes, if all pregnancies were planned and wanted, abortion would cease to be the same kind of issue that it is.

You would think, of course, but you would be wrong. Because the agenda of the religious right isn't about "saving" anyone. It's about telling people to stop fucking, take a cold shower, and use all that pent up energy in church, or at the gun range or something. It's also about the state, and the church, controlling every aspect of our most intimate life choices, from birth to death- that's what the Terri Schiavo thing was really all about. And what they are ramping up for next is a concerted war on birth control, particularly the pill. Just watch.

Link To Petition on Pharmacy Prescription Access

2005-03-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

YOUR MERKIN TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, MARCH 2005 EDITION

As the deficit continues to grow and endanger the economy, you folks currently assembling (or putting off assembling, if you are anything like your humble blogger) your data for your 2004 returns will be pleased to note that your tax dollars are currently financing, (along with other inanities like a non-functional missile "defense" program and a war on terminally ill people in pain and cancer-ridden pot smokers) a "public service" ad campaign designed obstensibly to encourage safety among SUV drivers-- but that really amounts to a 30 second AD for the god-damn things... including an over-the-top sexualized glorification of how, and this is a fucking quote, here..."SUVs are Big.. and powerful... and on top of one, you feel almost invincible.. ...Now, that's good..."

Got that? Your government is not only giving people tax breaks for buying these automotive travesties, they are telling people that they will compensate for their puny manhood... and that it's good that they feel 10 times more poweful than god by threatening other drivers with their oversized, gas-guzzling shit-mobiles.

No, I am not making this up.

Check Out The Site and Then Watch The commercial.

They are right about one thing, although perhaps unintentionally... SUVs are big, blundering, smelly, ugly beasts, as often as not found accompanied by low-i.q. redneck morons.

But the best part of the "public service" message is that the "safety" aspect is directed entirely and solely at preventing rollovers- i.e. saving the ass of a shitbrained, out of control SUV driver. There is no mention of the fact that maybe, say, these assholes might be sharing the public roads with other, smaller vehicles, many carrying small children for example-- and maybe those folks "ridin' the wild esuvee" ought to drive like human beings and not rodeo clowns.... for those people's sake, as well as their own.

A perfect message for Bush's "Values" constituency. Other people don't matter, just you-- and your 8 mpg penis substitute. Ride 'em, cowboy.

2005-03-02T15:33:00.000-08:00

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry, You Better Not Pout, I'm Tellin' You Why...U.S. Sponsored Death Squads Are Comin'... To Iraq.

John Kerry: "The corporatization of the media has taken away some of the muckraking"

No duh! I think by "some", you mean "all", John.
But seriously- thanks for pointing it out..

2005-03-01T03:42:00.000-08:00

In Case Your Local Paper Felt The Need To Censor It Yesterday:

Fuck Ferris Bueller. Aaron Magruder, you're my hero.

2005-02-26T02:11:00.000-08:00

Liberals want to ban the Declaration of Independence in Cupertino and children have been punished and disciplined and kicked out of school and taken to jail for reading the Bible at lunch and anti-war protesters are all dirty hippies who spit on returning soldiers and they hate America because all liberals hate America and they laughed after 9-11 and said those people deserved it and they hate the flag and they burn the flag and they eat the flag and wear the flag as a diaper oh wait that was kid rock and he rocked out for bush so I guess thats o.k. but the liberals all hate Israel and they are all anti-semites nevermind the fact that the people in the drivers seat of the GOP are end-times fundamentalist Christians who are perfectly happy to let Jesus send the Jews to hell once he's done with them not to mention Israel but there's no need to tell them that because John Kerry eats babies and the socialist left wants to take our guns away and they're sending the black helicopters along with Kofi Annan to force our daughters to put condoms on 12 inch black dildos and the French are in on it too not to mention the Germans because how you gonna keep em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus and of course liberals have joined forces with fundamentalist Islam because they all hate America and they have so much in common with each other unlike say Fundamentalist Christians who like Islamic Fundamentalists may hate gays and want women subservient because they deeply fear their sexuality and would like to make their religion the law of the planet and hell even the Bush administration and the Vatican have teamed up with fundamentalist Islamic governments from Iran and Sudan to oppose Europe on international conventions on Womens and Reproductive rights but the difference is no Islamic fundamentalist has ever come out in favor of a flat tax therefore obviously the liberals have much more in common with those folks than we do and anyway what the useful idiots on the left fail completely to understand is that we are in a clash of civilizations where the enemy is Islamofascists who hate us for our freedom so the first thing we must do is toss as much of that freedom overboard as possible and meanwhile the Terrorists are constantly plotting to topple our way of life and this is the most important battle of our lives on which we must focus all of our energy because after all if we take our eye off the ball we could be dealing with a mushroom cloud that is how all important this war on terror is but by the way we really think the first thing the Bush administration should do in its second term is go after the people who make those smutty movies would that be possible because each time we go to the video store the smirking clerk tells us we have a late fee for something called sorority boo-kok-ee 23 and we tell that darn kid that we are good christians and our husband would never rent a sex film after all we dont even have sex although there was that one time I found one in the dvd player but ralph swore up and down that he was just doing research for the AFA so clearly something needs to be done about all this filth not the filth in the fish mind you nor the filth in the air or the filth in the water or the lettuce from the rocket fuel because without rocket fuel how would we have the missile defense shield which clearly we most certainly need since government is too big and too bloated and I dont like paying taxes because spending is out of control except for the military and prisons we can always use more money for those nope cant have enough socked away for those good folks but anyway that environment crap is junk science perpetrated by leftist commie college professors with pony tails I mean what kind of nut would think the world is getting warmer just because people drive hummers I like my hummer and it runs on Iraqi oil ha ha ha ha ha and anyway screw the fish and the dolphins and the whales and trees its ridiculous to claim that there is any pollution anywhere its like saying god doesnt exist and we came from monkeys and if we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys that man who asked that question is brilliant and he single handedly shot down all this darwin science crap and I am just waiting to open Scientific American and right next to a big story that says sorry we were wrong the Earth is 4000 years old and dinosaur bones were planted by Jesus will be a headline saying if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys shit why didnt we think of that boy are we silly but we believe in science not the bible so of course we are silly but anyway all those studies that say mercury and perchlorate are poisioning our bodies and hurting our babies development at best need more study since the only thing that hurts babies is abortion and birth control and people having sex and once they are born they should fend for themselves and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a school lunch but I will certainly pay to lock up a pharmacist for distributing that murder weapon known as the pill but back to the rocket fuel and mercury just like global warming that leftist science crap is a load of baloney because if it was true it would mean all this shit were pumping into people is making them dumber and that cant be true I mean just look around

2005-02-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

Rest In Peace HST

"He had some strange rhythms.. but he Stomped on the Terra"

2005-02-19T16:02:00.000-08:00

Americablog: Twice The Gannon Goodness, Half The Guckert Calories!

KOS: Was Gannon, along with fellow swinger Roger Stone, behind the CBS/TANG Forgeries?

The Washington Post has finally decided this is a story. Where the fuck is the rest of the media?

Leonard Pitts Nails it, As Usual.

Will Pitt On Negroponte