I’ve come to the conclusion that (almost) all GOP spokespersons are lying, signifying, hypocritical short-term memory-deficient SOB’s

“What’s a good New York wine?”
“Republicans whimpering that “All those Democrats spout hate.”

Gee, of course none of them ever did that.

None of them can remember or were involved in the 8-year hate-fest against Bill, Hilary, and Chelsea.

None of them accused Bill Clinton and Hilary of murder.

None of them financed social climbing bimbos who made their way up the celebrity ladder by climbing over Bill Clinton’s dick.

None of them were involved in denouncing Clinton’s efforts to find and remove Osama Ben Ladn as no more than cynical attempts to “wag the dog,” to change the subject from the greatest of national security threats in the history of the republic – Monica Lewinsky.

None of them seems to remember the dark suspicions about “What if he revealed states secrets to her while engaged in sexual matters?”.

“You’ve just been bashing Bush all this time. Why do you hate America?”

As I’ve said to Theo-psycho's who grab my coat on the sidewalk and then denounce me as I pull away, saying, “You hate God!!!” --- “No, dummy, I just hate you.”

Whose psychotic hit-bitch is Anne Coulter, the Ilse Koch of River Oaks?

Those big tough Republicans whine like little babies when anyone criticizes them.

I'm reminded of Harry Truman who, when advised by a crowd member to "Give 'em hell, Harry," said "I don't give 'em hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

Starting with Rudy the Prostate-popping hyper-moralistic adulterer and going downhill from there, what I'm hearing is a lot of self-righteous hypocrites lathering the airwaves with blue sky and bullshit.

And oh yeah, whimpering and whining about how slanderous the Democrats have been concerning the man who put us up to our necks in a war that prevents us from pursuing the folk who bombed the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Y'all love to talk about hardball politics and how damned tough you are, and then bawl like 2-year-olds when anyone calls you on the systematic plunder of our treasury and our future for the friends of Monkey Boy and the Man from Halliburton.

As to your "agenda for the future," the one you're putting forth to try to get us to pay no attention to the disaster behind the curtain of the last four years, I'm still waiting to hear anything less abstract than "improve our safety," "protect freedom," and "be true to your school."

If you want to know why so many people around the world hate what they think of as Americans, look in a mirror and see, not an American, but the shifty, sneaky, moralistic, self-justifying hypocrite staring back at you.

Hard to take, isn't it?

Suicide is an option.

"Hey dad, can I be an officer, huh? And a pilot, too? Vroom, vroom?"

"I'm very ashamed" Former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes on getting Dubya into the Air National Guard

There's a reason people like Texans in general, and Ben Barnes shows us why that's so. So take heart -- they're not all like Monkey Boy.

Another bombshell in the battle over Vietnam service that has been raging in the 2004 presidential race exploded on the Web Friday. In a video originally posted on the Web by a pro-Kerry organization in Austin, Texas, Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor of Texas, apologized for his role in getting a young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard while young men who were not from prominent or wealthy families 'died in Vietnam.'

'Let's talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush, and I know them both,' said Barnes in the video, which was filmed at a gathering of about 200 Kerry supporters in Austin on May 27. 'I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas National Guard when I was lieutenant governor, and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do when you're in office, and you help a lot of rich people.'

'And I walked to the Vietnam Memorial the other day,' Barnes continued, 'and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam, and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been, because it was the worst thing I ever did, was help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard. And I'm very sorry about that, and I'm very ashamed, and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.'

Barnes then condemned the Republican attacks on John Kerry's war service: "And I tell you that for the Republicans to jump on John Kerry and say that he is not a patriot after he went to Vietnam and was shot at and fought for our freedom and came back here and protested against the war, he's a flip-flopper, let me tell you: John Kerry is a 100 times better patriot than George Bush or Dick Cheney."

Barnes' story about Bush and the Air National Guard first broke in 1999 as the then Texas governor was mounting his first campaign for the presidency. Bush insisted at the time that neither he nor his father sought Barnes' assistance. "I can tell you what happened," said Bush. "Nothing happened. My Guard unit was looking for pilots and I flew for the Guard. I'm proud of my service and any allegation that my dad asked for special favors is simply not true ... I didn't ask anybody to help get me to the Guard either."

Barnes said at the time that it was a wealthy Bush family friend, a Houston oilman named Sidney Adger, who came to him with the request to help the younger Bush.

So Dubya's account is technically true -- he didn't personally ask for the favor, nor did his father. They got someone else to do it for them, which seems to be a major characteristic of the doings of the Bush family -- getting other people to do their dirty work.

Poppy Bush once asked: "What is it about August?" (because the doo-doo gets hosed away often, this time of year.)

I dunno why -- whether it's because Virgo rules precision and speech, or because the level of surrealistic surrender (especially in Texas) after months of hideous temperature and humidity melts the mind into a different shape, or because continually repeated days of 90-degree weather instills an overwhelming desire for aggravated assault, or perhaps the culmination of 5 months of Houstonian dampness has increased your electrical conductivity with the universe to such a degree that things get spoken ... I dunno WHY ... but things seem to get revealed more often when the sun is in Virgo.

So now can we all move on to matters of real importance to the world -- like the Chinese copyright infringement on Garfield paraphernalia?

Link

BBC NEWS Row over 'political' Cash tribute

Looks like cash is still king where Republicans are concerned.

A planned tribute to late country star Johnny Cash at next week's Republican convention in New York has attracted harsh criticism from some fans. Cash, who died in September, never revealed his political leanings.

Some of us might have thought it was obvious.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times
Johnny Cash Man in Black

Cash's daughter Rosanne said the Cash estate did not object to the event because it was based on the 'personal relationship between our family and [Senator Lamar] Alexander and NOT as a show of support for the Republican agenda'.

Link

Dyke accuses Blair over Iraq war

Way to go, lady!

Well, the Brits do have a history of strong women picking up the fallen banner and cleaning the dirt off it...

The BBC's former director general Greg Dyke has made a scathing attack on Downing Street over the Iraq war and its treatment of the BBC.

In the Mail on Sunday, Mr Dyke accuses Tony Blair of either being incompetent or lying to Parliament about the war in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Oh .. not a real dyke .. it's just his name.

Of course.
No true blue L-word lady would have waited so long to speak up, but would have gone toe-to-toe with the PM at the time.

But it's interesting to realize that even a silly little lap-dog like Blair had it in him to be a thug and a schoolyard bully where someone looking under his skirt was concerned.

He may talk purtier than our stumble-tongued president, but I guess they're kindred spirits after all.

Link

Can we keep them around? fpdw@earthlink.net

www.joshuatreefriend.org

Friends of Prime Desert Woodlands --

If you can't save the world, how about a (beautiful and unique) little piece of it?

There are some unique and irreplaceable living creatures in that arid cancerous construction/ de-construction zone we call "Southern California. " In that sort of environment, reproduction and growth is tight-fisted, slow, careful.

But they were all doing more or less just fine until humans came along, or to be more precise, until the Americans came along and displaced the Indios and the Spanish, both of whom actually had a clue about what was going on in the natural order.

The Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), for example, was doing fine for about 67 million years until the advent of dirt bikes and off-road vehicles.

Other SoCal Desert denizens who are up against it include the Arroyo Toad (Bufo californicus), the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard (Uma inornata), and the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), the last which is right now holding its own due to a multi-multi million dollar full court press of breeding, reintroduction, and protection.

And then there is the beautiful Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia), not endangered but Threatened. Joshua Trees don't transplant well, grow best when in large groups of their own species, and do not tolerate close human presence.

The Friends of the Prime Desert Woodlands are trying to protect them, and specifically, protect a stand of them in the City of Lancaster, CA, a city which actually represents the Joshua Tree on its flag.

They're not looking to make the desert off-limits to campers and hikers -- they're trying to do one small thing -- protect 21 acres inside the city on which are some 250 trees, many of them more than 200 years old. Those 21 acres are scheduled to be razed for construction.

TWENTY-ONE LOUSY ACRES LEFT ALONE -- IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

Apparently.

The construction people have fenced off the area, usually meaning they're about to bulldoze it.

This is a chance to do one thing. This is a part of government which is still under our control. If you think it's worth a few moments of your time, go to their web site, read what they have to say, and contact them at fpdw@earthlink.net

It's a good thing to do.

Link

In Memory of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

The Angel of Death Loves You
for Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

I

The Angel of Death loves you
wanting you
through this veil of dreams
to please remember who you are
and where you're going.

The Angel of Death
black for laughing gods amusement
colors ... colors...
Deadpan reaper,
bittersweet breath
no smile
no words can clothe the truth.

Gentle to the sunset
dark dream love of yesterday,
catching fireflies,
the summer nights await.
In the velvet of that sky (seek nothing)
find your dreams.

Stand alone on a silver spire hold
around the corner up ahead
the place where dreams are born.

Party is forgotten now
the rounds you've made
(or was that someone else?)
all left behind.

Familiar eggplant-rounded face on doorknob
reflections in a mother's eye,
touch of flash,
changing partners.

All is left behind.

Understanding Now
the Why
of Home and Family
of Mother, Debts ... all the rocks
you've pushed around this foolish hill.

The Angel of Death loves you
wanting you
to see beyond the birthday cake and candles
to where you live and who's at home waiting.

II

The bubble that is things we call by name
is coming to an end.

The membrane stretches
thin beyond belief.

Even generally accepted lies are now transparent.

The bubble
is about to pop
and fear is growing
as armies halt their march
to listen to a strange new sound.

The muted meow
of stretch beyond all size and form
is louder now --

Hear it just below the murmur of the waves?

The water's rising --
few will learn to swim
for all the good it does them.

Form is gone.

Form is gone.

Form is melting away like the wicked witch of the East
till all that's left will be the sea of all
that once was all of us.

The battle's ending as the bubbles
(within bubbles)
cry to tell each other
it just ain't so.

Destroyers of form are weeping now.

Creators of form are weeping now.

Purveyors of form are weeping
now that form and sense are going
gone down to the sea in shreds
becoming waves for someone else's seashore.


III

Nothing ends but is forgotten.

In this dream we race along lost paths
slide
dimension after one another
matrix into matrix
the curve is closed.

Die and be reborn
the curve is closed.

Leave the path
your journey done, go all the way
and now it starts again.

The curve is always closed.

The business always finished.

All the ends are starts,
we move so slow
we meet ourselves
coming back to where it all began.

Open up and speed along,
you've been this route before
you know you've seen that day
you've felt that breeze
you've touched that flesh before
and will again.
The curve is closed.

Work your will.

Your way a blob of changing form.
The artist has your face.

The curve is what you will
and where
and when
and all ways open. (always closed)

Touch the ones
the things you touch you'll touch again
(and touch your self.
Is very soft a blob a curve
of moving loving jelly.
Spread around)

Hurt -- the blob will wither
fry in pain of senseless crying acts.

Become your self
the curve comes wide
it opens grows
but no there is no out, the way is in,
the curve is always closed.

Forget yourself and navigate.
Nothing ends but in forgetting.


1971

Link

NY Court Denies Anti-Bush Protesters

And they're actually saying this with a straight face --- amazing.


NY Court Says Anti-Bush Protesters Can't Use Park
By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A judge on Wednesday denied anti-Bush protesters permission to rally in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention, leaving open the question of where possibly hundreds of thousands of demonstrators will go after a march through midtown Manhattan.

The decision by New York Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann is the latest in a running legal battle between the protest group and the city. She sided with city officials, who say they fear the grass on the park's Great Lawn would be damaged and security could not be ensured for the huge crowd.

The lawn was restored seven years ago at a cost of $18 million.

"We fully recognize the vital importance of First Amendment rights," said Jonathan Pines, lead attorney for the city, in a statement following the ruling.

So what they're saying is "The First Amendment is cute, but when the re-sodding of the lawn area is at stake, those Constitutional Rights just have to give way to Gardening Issues."

Amazing, and Bloomberg isn't even a real Republican.

As to where the protesters CAN go, there's always Newark.

This is not a slam at Republicans, or at least not ONLY Republicans. When the Democrats held their convention in San Francisco in 1984 (Mondale-Ferraro), Mayor Dianne Feinstein had the homeless methodically rounded up in the weeks before and bussed over the bay and through the hills to someone's Grandma's House, there to remain until after the cameras were gone.

Link

BBC NEWS -- Smallest 'Earth-like' planet seen

Scientists are on the lookout for Earth-like planets European scientists have discovered what they describe as the smallest Earth-like planet orbiting a star outside our Solar System.

The planet is 14 times the size of Earth - not so large that it qualifies as a gas giant - and is close enough to the star that it is unlikely to be icy.

Dr Nuno Santos, of the University of Lisbon, said the new planet could be thought of as 'super-Earth-like'.

Those of you who have read Nova Express by William Burroughs' will recognize this discovery as the home planet to the Cheney-RedRum-Ashcroft-Perle-Little Monkey Boy-et al Nova Mob, the one they will retreat to when their work here is done, which seems as if it may be any day, or, as one of them sez in the novel:

"So pack yer ermines Mary 'cause the whole shit house is about to go up in chunks."

(And those going to the Nova Express link above will recognize the players of this administration, even though the book was published in 1964.)

Link

BBC NEWS -- Microsoft's Linux ad 'misleading'

I know there's an old Texas saying that goes: "If you don't cheat, you don't care about winning."

But come on ... is Mssr Gates & Co so insecure that the time of Windows, like that of the dinosaurs, the dodos, and the passenger pigeons, is passing. And with only, as Richard and Mimi Farina sang in "Morgan the Pirate," "One or two hard feelings left behind."

The UK watchdog upheld complaints about a magazine advert which claimed that the open-source operating system Linux was more expensive than Windows.

Referring to research, it read: 'Linux was found to be over 10 times more expensive than Windows Server 2003'.

The ASA concluded that the comparison was misleading because the operating systems ran on different hardware. "

All this tells us is you're feeling threatened and desperate.

Come on -- the imitation of MAC display called Windows is cumbersome and bad enough without trying to condemn us to staying with it longer than we've had to, the past decade or so.

Let it go.

Let us keep nodding our heads in approval at the admirable and worthy works you're doing -- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; saving the Bettman Archives, and other things.

Become the admirable icon all that money and success can buy, rather than continuing on with the tactics that got you there -- the Nixonian below-the-belt low-class asshole methodology this sort of thing represents.

Link

Cheney rejects gay marriage ban -- he's still a dick

And now, the amazing 'Where's Waldo' Vice President comes out of hiding as if it were Groundhog Day, sees his shadow and makes a dazzling Flip-Flop as if trying to show up Senator Kerry as an amateur, show him what it looks like when a Master takes both sides of a question.

First -- the seemingly good news:

BBC -- US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said he does not support a federal ban on gay marriage, apparently contradicting President George W Bush's stance.

Mr Cheney was addressing a campaign audience in Iowa that included his daughter Mary who is openly lesbian. He said the issue of legalising gay unions should be settled by individual states rather than by Washington.

So ok, he can't actually look his daughter in the eye (and/or sit that close to his wife) can't actually say that this person sitting right there in front of him has no right to a full and legally recognized marital relationship.

Well, we already knew he was a craven sort of fellow. Besides, it's one thing to spout bizarre self-righteous judgmental crap about THEM when sitting around with the boys -- it's another thing to say it when the people whose lives are being crimped and crushed are right there.

As the saying goes: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." So, he continued:

Vice-President Cheney said he and his wife "have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with".

Regarding the issue of same-sex relationships, he said, "my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone". People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.

"The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that's been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage," he said.

And then came THE AMAZING TRIPLE-TWISTING FLIP-FLOP denying gay people the rights he just said they should have:

He also said the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed into law in 1996, may be enough.

"Most states have addressed this and there is on the books the federal statute, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, and to date, it has not been successfully challenged in the courts and may be sufficient to resolve the issue," the vice president said.

In other words, "I can support your right to marriage because I can blame the law against it on someone else." What a man, eh?

Carve a better one out of a banana -- an overripe one.

Link

Thatcher on bail over coup plot

Thatcher has been released on bail by a South African court following his arrest in connection with an alleged coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.

The son of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was ordered to pay a bail bond of two million Rand and hand over his passport.

Mark -- didn't your momma tell you -- you have to fool enough of the people some of the time to do that sort of thing more or less legally.

Link

Donald Rumsfeld and the Yamashita Principle or They Hang War Criminals, Don't They? How about Abu Ghraib?

After WWII, Dugout Doug MacArthur ("I shall return ... after the fighting is over.") set up a Court Martial to try Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita for war crimes.

Yamashita's combat troops had violated an Open City agreement made for Manila, and Yamashita, left with only clerks and cooks, was unable to stop them from running amok -- and they did credit to that term, "running amok."(Perhaps their standard was "When in the Philippines, live up to the local customs")

Cynics and realists believe the real crime was that MacArthur and his family owned property in Manila -- a great deal of property -- and Yamashita's soldiers damaged it. MacArthur put him on trial.

CASE NO. 21
TRIAL OF GENERAL TOMOYUKI YAMASHITA
UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSION, MANILA,
(8TH OCTOBER-7TH DECEMBER, 1945),
AND THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
(JUDGMENTS DELIVERED ON 4TH FEBRUARY, 1946).

Here's the official language:

Part I

Responsibility of a Military Commander for offences committed by his troops. The sources and nature of the authority to create military commissions to conduct War Crime Trials, Non-applicability in War Crime Trials of the United States Articles of War and of the provisions of the Geneva Convention relating to Judicial Proceedings. Extent of review permissible to the Supreme Court over War Crime Trials.

Tomoyuki Yamashita, formerly Commanding General of the Fourteenth Army Group of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands, was arraigned before a United States Military Commission and charged with unlawfully disregarding and failing to discharge his duty as commander to control the acts of members of his command by permitting them to commit war crimes.

The essence of the case for the Prosecution was that the accused knew or must have known of, and permitted, the widespread crimes committed in the Philippines by troops under his command (which included murder, plunder, devastation, rape, lack of provision for prisoners of war and shooting of guerrillas without trial), and/or that he did not take the steps required of him by international law to find out the state of discipline maintained by his men and the conditions prevailing in the prisoner-of-war and civilian internee camps under his command.

Let's check that charge out again:

...that he did not take the steps required of him by international law to find out the state of discipline maintained by his men and the conditions prevailing in the prisoner-of-war and civilian internee camps under his command.

(An aside -- eyewitnesses have made it clear that some of those POW Rapees were 100+ nurses who were removed from the evacuation vessels and left behind in order to put several valuable grand pianos belonging to the MacArthur family on those LSTs.)

The defense argued, inter alia, that what was alleged against Yamashita did not constitute a war crime, that the Commission was without jurisdiction to try the case, that there was no proof that the accused even knew of the offences which were being perpetrated and that no war crime could therefore be said to have been committed by him, that no kind of plan was discernible in the atrocities committed, and that the conditions under which Yamashita had had to work, caused in large part by the United States military offensive and by guerrilla activities, had prevented him from maintaining any adequate overall supervision even over the acts of such troops in the islands as were actually under his command.

In other words -- "No one told me. I didn't know." OK.

And the verdict? (Some legal language deleted below.)

The Commission sentenced Yamashita to death and its findings and sentence were confirmed by higher military authority. When the matter came before the Supreme Court of the United States ... the majority of that Court, in a judgment delivered by Chief Justice Stone, ruled ... that the offence of which Yamashita was charged constituted a violation of the laws of war, and that the procedural safeguards of the United States Articles of War and of the provisions of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention relating to Judicial Proceedings had no application to war crime trials.

Yamashita was executed on 23rd February
1946.

So -- does RedRum Rumsfeld fit that definition?

Well, all that twisty legal language sent down from the High Place about how to get around the Geneva Convention would suggest they not only set the conditions for it, they also provided the perps with a defense argument in advance.

The last time this issue -- the Yamashita Principle -- came up, it was around the end of the war in Vietnam and connected General Westmoreland with Rusty Calley et al. A fellow named Ed Everett wrote about it which is how I came to know the case. Our conclusion, back then, was that only the winning team gets to set the rules on how to punish the other guys' players.

But I put this thought forward: if John Kerry wins this election, and the electronic voting machines actually record it, then prosecution of Rumsfeld and Doug Feith and Cheney and a few others might be the quickest way to restore respect for us in the world, show them all that we are NOT a criminal nation, just that we have gone through a coup in which criminals ran the government.

Clint Eastwood for AG and Hang 'em high.

Omigod! They're stealing the painting I'm IN!

Scream stolen from Norway museum

BBC NEWS August 21, 2004

Armed robbers have stolen the iconic Edvard Munch painting The Scream from the Munch Museum in Norway.

Two masked thieves pulled the work and another painting, Madonna, off the wall as stunned visitors watched on Sunday.

And I'm sure the witnesses all put their hands up to their faces in shock... just like ... hmmm

Link

It's baa-aack ... Donnie Darko, The Director's Cut

A few years ago, my friend Thomas flew into town from Texas for the annual AppleCom and he dedicated our traditional bookstore tour to including finding me a DVD copy of Donnie Darko, which he praised to the skies.

He was right. It was lovely and dark and fascinating. The narrative style was fresh and innovative, Jake Gyllenhaal as fascinating as a blank-visaged basilisk, and the recurring elements bizarre and perfect. Left me thinking.

The following morning, my smarter-than-me-but-she-lets-me-use her-best-lines wife said: "You know that movie we watched last night? It was It's a Wonderful Life."

Well ... yes, ok, if you stuck your hand all the way down the throat of It's a Wonderful Life and pulled it inside out, it would be Donnie Darko. (I don't think it gives too much away to say that in this case, the question might be, "What would the world be like if I didn't die?")

The movie may have something to do with time travel or perhaps not.

Roger Ebert seems to have come to really like this movie the second time around, despite the fact that, as he says in his review:

"I'm no closer to being able to explain the film's events than I was after seeing the 2001 version, which was about 20 minutes shorter. The difference is, that doesn't bother me so much. The movie remains impenetrable to logical analysis, but now I ask myself: What logical analysis would explain the presence of 6-foot-tall rabbit with what looks like the head of a
science-fiction insect?"

The DVD actually allowed for a bit more comprehension, the excised scenes, while rightfully deleted, adding some insight to the depth of the story.

It was a victim of inadvertent bad timing in its first release.

A dark tale about a jet engine falling from the sky was not exactly what the public thought they wanted in October of 2001. (The Donnie Darko story takes place in October.)

For the story of the long strange path from there to here, check Adam Burnett's article on Indiewire.

Legislators may quash casino deal

What? Elected officials reneging on an agreement with Native Americans? Is that possible?

The Pomo -- a complex assortment of seperate tribes who lived in the area from Mendocino south to Bodega Bay and east to Clear Lake and thereabouts. They were made into slaves by the Euro-trash we call "The Settlers," and massacred when they objected to the treatment.

Of course there were treaties made with them in 1850 and 1851, but they disappeared before they could be ratified -- the feds said they just "got lost" in the wake of the Gold Rush. (A lot of things got lost then.) But they found the treaties a little later -- in 1906.

The issues:

It was the specter of a huge casino, not the surrounding details, that caused more Bay Area Democrats on Thursday to join a growing chorus of opposition to the deal, with one calling it "inappropriate" and another branding it "nuts."

There's always a 'good' reason to fuck over the native Americans, isn't there?

Even so, it was Republicans who became the compacts' most strident critics as they learned that the five new compacts contain the same union organizing provisions that they reluctantly agreed to in Schwarzenegger's first round of compacts in July.

Ahh, that's the big one, isn't it -- the GOP doesn't want a union shop.

Sounds like a job for the IWW.

They did it before -- they can do it again.

Of course, this time, perhaps the union won't make their first official act the smooching of the butt of management and throw them out.*


*******************************************

*From "Don't Mean Nuthin' " in April, 2004 Crapshoot

Consider, for example, the 1936 seamen’s strike, demonstrating against the Matson Line on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Matson’s response was to have his guards fire on them from their vantage point up in the tower. The goons fired down and shot some 600 would-be union folk, a couple dozen of them killed...

...And what about those seamen who struck Matson Lines and were shot down? As soon as they won the struggle, they turned on the people who got them the prize.

“First thing we did, we kicked out the commies,” said one man who had been there.

By that he meant they bounced the Wobblies – the IWW -- the men and women who chained themselves to fences and water pipes, who spoke out and were jailed and killed, hanged under bridges and beaten to death in culverts in California. (So many of them were killed that to even use the phrase: “hanged under bridges” is a tired cliché.)

In other words, the first thing that union did was turn around and kiss the ass of management by expelling the most committed of their lot, the people who got them their union. A lot of other new unions mimicked their ingratitude. The bosses weren’t stupid, just venal. They knew the workers would be easier to control without the Wobblies and made their exile a condition of contract.

Link

The First Lady of the Press

From The Progressive, August 19, 2004

Helen Thomas on lapdog reporters White House bullies and the evolving role of the media. "

I still believe that Dubya's downfall kicked into turbo the day he moved Ms Thomas to the back of the room. The Goddess does not view such indignities lightly.

Link

United likely to terminate pension plans

Aug. 19, 2004 CHICAGO (AP) -- Cash-strapped United Airlines said in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday that it "likely" will be necessary to terminate and replace its employee pension plans.

The carrier cited the size of further cost cuts and the need to find bankruptcy-exit financing as reasons for such a drastic move.

The Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based airline said it "must have the cash flow and liquidity that the financial markets are willing to finance."

If United ends its four employee pension funds, it would represent the largest pension default ever by an airline. The action would dump billions of dollars in future pension obligations onto the already-strapped Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

For all the high-minded bullshit American execs throw around, keeping their word isn't part of the doxology. No loyalty, no principles, no ethics, no conscience. They say they're so tough, but none of these guys would last a day in the sort of real prison they deserve.

All I can say to United Airlines employees is this: whatever you do to these guys -- there isn't a jury in this country that will convict you.

We would all regard it as scraping dog-doo off'n the national shoes.

Link

San Pablo -- Politicians shocked by casino deal. Size of project alarms mayor, congressman

(All italicized copy from San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2004)

Alarm spread quickly Wednesday over a pending agreement between the state and an Indian tribe that would create a huge casino in the heart of the Bay Area, with even the congressman whose legislation helped it along questioning the deal.

Golly gee, those White Eyes sure do get upset easily.

From Washington to Sacramento, leaders were left with mouths agape by the scope of the compact to be announced today between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, which will herald the likely development of a six- to eight-story casino with 5,000 slot machines in the center of San Pablo, less than a quarter mile from Interstate 80.

Interestingly enough, today is the 70th anniversary of the plebiscite that gave total power to Adolf Hitler, reminding us that this deal isn't the worst one in recent political history.

The nine-acre site came to the Lyttons as part of legislation by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who sought to allow the landless tribe to have a parcel of land placed into trust. The tribe currently operates a card room on the land.

"Now, you are talking about a facility that will have huge impacts on the surrounding communities." A multi- story casino, he said, is "a much different concept than was anticipated when we authorized the tribe to buy this piece of land."

Hmmm -- "a much different concept than was anticipated..."

Tell that to the the folks who helped the Pilgrims through their first winter.

Let's ask the Native Americans, "Hey, how'd you guys like the Iron Horse? How'd you like General Custer at Sand Creek? How'd you like Wounded Knee, either the first one or the second one? Did those events have any adverse impact on your communities?

More to the point of transforming communities: our first president, old Wooden Teeth George Washington, once the revolution was done and wanting the weak new country to avoid any wars with the Natives, made it clear that he saw the Indian as "like the wolf" in that "they follow the game for their food," and that our expanding settlements would drive the game away and therefore the injuns would go away -- eco-destruction as one of our earliest policies.

Oh -- If you're curious about just why it is those Natives didn't have any land, why it took Rep. George Miller to get them some, and you really haven't already guessed the answer, read up on the history of the Pomo in California.

In short, there was this gold, see, and these local basket makers were in the way of the white Americans, see...

By the way, the Pomo (Medocino south to Bodega Bay, east to around Clear Lake) and the Ohlone (San Francisco Bay south to Monterey Bay), weren't actually tribes, but aggregations of complexly interrelated individual peoples with similar cultural aspects, but different languages. Both Pomo and Ohlone may have been village names. Those inclusive names were given by the Spanish, but of course, the local Euro-trash settlers referred to them as "wormeaters."

Link

Is it too soon to recall Ahhhnold?

He's turning out to be too dumb to even be Governor of California, and as Gray Davis and Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian proved, you don't need to be able to spell S.A.T. to do that job.

He's forgotten the most basic element of all the action movies he was in, to whit -- the only reason the baddies and the other guys went along with him was that they were being paid to do so -- actors, Ahnold, actors. You didn't get Linda Hamilton to ride with you cuz you were cute. She was well paid and.. .well, finally, even money wasn't enough to get her to ride with you.

But it's the same thing with politicians, maybe even more so. You don't get the recalcitrant members of the legislature to come along by calling them "girlie men." (The jock-sniffers who swoon when you blow cigar smoke their way -- those ones you can call girlie men.)

He plays ambush tricks like waiting till the budget is completed and allocated before addressing the multi-billion dollar debt for rebuilding the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Meaning it's the locals who commute who will pay it off with a toll of $4 or $5, even though the bridges are state-owned. This sort of thing MIGHT work once.

(Yeah, I know -- Jerry Brown wanted a prettier bridge, looking to the long term of regional pride and aesthetics, and Willie Brown wanted a B&B and yuppie setup on Treasure Island, looking to the short term of paying off his troops. But it was Republican governor Pete Wilson who said, "Don't retrofit -- build a new eastern span.")

He attacked recall election opponent Cruz Bustamante for being too much beholden to Indian Casino people, and has negotiated deals with them which make the Little Big Horn reception of George Armstrong Custer look like a Tupperware Party. They saw that big dumb Arrogant Aryan coming a mile away and took him for everything they could think of.

This week, he finished authorizing the Lytton Tribe of Pomo Indians to build and operate the third largest casino in America to be located in San Pablo, just a few miles north of Oakland, and excluding any other tribe from setting up a casino within 35 miles of them, meaning monopoly in the Bay Area. And the state of California? It got about what the Pomo got -- bupkes.

Informative digression begins:

Let me make one thing clear. I am absolutely delighted that the Native Americans, after several hundred years of being killed and starved and pushed off their land, get to set up their own cash machines. I am bizarrely amazed at people who are pissed off that "they're too rich."

Other than merely wanting justice, a concept at which most politicians laugh, the principle and precedent is this: if Jews, of which I am one, have ANY claim to living in Palestine at all, based on history that goes back 5000 years, then the Pomo and Wintu, having only been gone about 100-150 years, have every right to get their property back. And that includes most of California.

If you want to know what sort of genocidal terror was involved in settling the Golden State, read a novel called California Bloodstock by Terry McDonnell. Or, failing that, read any really graphic book on Hitler's Holocaust and, to paraphrase Sam Goldwyn who, when he was told he couldn't film Radclyffe Hall's Well of Loneliness because "it's about lesbians," said, "well, where there are lesbians, make 'em Mexicans." In this case, where there are Jews, or, an even more apt comparison, Gypsies, make 'em California Indians. Cuz the Gypsies didn't then, and don't now have any political clout in Europe or America or pretty much anywhere, no one to hear their cries.

Informative digression ends.

We all knew he was a thug and a bully, not just in the movies, when he finally condescended to participate in a debate prior to the election and spent his time shouting down Arianna Huffington, Peter Camejo, and Cruz Bustamante.

In other words, Ahhnold does tricks that might play when they're scripted with actors who are being paid handsomely to go along with them, and might work ONCE when played out in a real life Sacramento ambush. But if he thought actors have the most gigantic egos in the known world, he really never met any of these pissant politicians from some crossroads district in the desert. The pettier the venue, the bigger the ego.

So, again, he's proving himself incompetent and an embarrassment, and would actually improve his image right about now by doing a Governor McGreevy announcement about the Gay Life in the world of Speedo-wearing greased-up iron-pumpers. It would increase my respect for him as a person.

Is it too soon to do another recall?

I think this is how it's supposed to work,
this business of life.

A message to our presidential candidates: stop whining and making excuses

First, the GOP.

I am so gahdamn tired of this "It's Bill Clinton's fault. Don't blame us for 9-11. We were only in office for 9 months."

Nine months? I thought you were going to "hit the ground running."

Remember -- the FIRST attack on the World Trade Center happened on February 26, 1993 -- only 5 WEEKS after Bill Clinton became President, and he didn't whine and point fingers at Poppy Bush.

And it's not as if you weren't warned and warned and warned. (Let us not forget, every time Bill Clinton went after Ben Ladn, you guys yelled "Wagging the dog! You're trying to distract us from what's more important -- Monica Lewinsky.")

And then what about the Hart-Rudman report Clinton commissioned and which was presented to you and congress before the time of your inauguration -- and about which Monkey Boy and Condoleeza Rice both said, "I'll give it to Dick Cheney and he'll look at it and he'll see if it's worthwhile." Because obviously two years of intensive research by ten experts wasn't good enough to get the information needed -- Dick Cheney had to look it over.

The Hart-Rudman Report insisted in 1999 that an attack was coming, one which would "cost thousands of lives." And former Senator Hart kept warning about it, both publicly and privately, the last time when he met with Condoleeza Rice on September 6, 2001.

Of course neither Hart nor Rudman were asked to testify before the 9-11 Commission.

So, to quote Monkey Boy (who was, I believe, quoting his mom's opinion of his "drunk-and-40" life:)

"Put some calcium in your backbones."


As to you, John Kerry, as dearly as I want Monkey Boy and his band of subhuman plunderers out of the White House and out of our lives, and as much as I admire and respect your wife (and in fact, still not knowing what the hell you stand for, am willing to vote for you only because if SHE is willing to stand by you, you must have SOME integrity left from your last stand in 1972), I cannot but say:

"WHAT!?! You would have gone into a totally unnecessary war with Iraq ANYWAY, knowing what you know now?"

I would respectfully suggest to you, Senator Kerry, in the approximate words of Dick Cheney: "Go fuck yourself!"


As to Ralph Nader, I am trying to remember the difference between "egotist" and "egoist." I think one was supposed to mean a person who is totally self-centered while the other indicates someone who doesn't even recognize the fact that there's an actual world out there, outside of one's own mental masturbation. (A solipsist wouldn't need to run for office.) I would offer you the same advice I just gave to John Kerry, but I think that's what you're already doing.

So:

One candidate is trying to ignore a totally disgraceful record of plunder, intimidation, and failure over the past four years by telling us what his agenda might be for the next four years.

Another one is trying to remind us all of what he did 30+ years ago, but is giving us little clue of what he intends to do or how, except to do the same disastrous things the incumbent did, only "do it better."

And the third one is running on "I know I'm going to fuck it all up and help re-elect the worst presidential apparat in living memory, but remember? You thought I was a good guy a long time ago. "

All of you:
Grow up.
Debate the issues.
Take off the masks (as terrifying as it might be to see your true faces).
Learn the difference between communication and manipulation.

You all seem to have forgotten one important thing:

This is not YOUR country -- it's ours.

Right now, Alien vs Predator seems to sum up the situation quite accurately.

(Add in Ralphie, and it's Alien vs Predator vs Abbot and Costello meet the Wolfman)

Got it?

A timely warning from the League of Independent Voters.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, troops - marijuana fights brain cancer

BBC news reports tests done on mice -- researchers said it seems to work the same way on humans --inherent chemicals in marijuana called cannabinoids impede growth of new blood vessels.

Neovascularization -- growth of new blood vessels -- is what a tumor needs to grow -- new blood to feed the growing malignancy. Without the blood, the tumor shrinks and ultimately dies.

Pretty simple concept.

They went after glioblastoma multiforme, the most common form of brain cancer and the hardest to treat. None of the usual therpies -- radiation, chemo, or surgery -- is effective.

So they tested cannabinoids on mice.

The key element in neovascularization is vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Relative success can be determined by measuring the VEGF amounts, see if the amount decreases. It worked in mice, reducing the VEGF significantly.

They then took glioblastoma tumors removed from two humans, neither of whom had responded well to any of the above forms of therapy and injected cannabinoids into the samples.

And down went the mean old VEGF levels.

The bad news (for some):
Smoking the weed will not be the drug-delivery method.
On the other hand, companies like Glaxo might just make a nice bid for the plants you're growing under lights in the basement.

Link

Ben Franklin on war and peace

Having been born and raised in Philadelphia, I'm especially fond of Ben Franklin. His name is everywhere in that city, seen adorning all sorts of fine things from the Free Library system to the University of Pennsylvania, each tagged with a sign that reads:

"Founded by Benjamin Franklin in ..."

William Penn's dream remained a dream until it was brought into being 100 years later by Franklin.

Two-Hundred-Twenty-One Years and a fortnight ago, he wrote a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, then in Passy, which said:

"I hope ... that Mankind will at length, as they call

themselves reasonable Creatures, have Reason and

Sense enough to settle their Differences without

cutting Throats: For in my Opinion

there never was a good War,

or a bad Peace."


This insight from a man who knew about both.

He had seen war. The enormous amount of blood-letting and massacre done during the American Revolution is not often discussed in our histories.

As to Peace -- he is said to have fathered more than 100 children in London and while Minister to France, and enjoyed making quips, puns and wordplay.

Link

The (mostly) Grecian people cheered the American athletes

I'm delighted to have been proven wrong re my bitter prediction that the American athletes would be booed at the opening of the Olympics.

I had forgotten that the people of Greece remember from recent experience what it means to live under a junta that does what it wants without regard for the will or even the consent of the governed.

I know there are thoughtful people who think the Olympics are no longer interesting because the cold war is over and the rah-rah Us versus Them, Good versus Evil is no longer an issue.

But it was important.

In a country whose population overwhelmingly despises this war in Iraq -- the country that invented Democracy -- the people showed their continuing affection for America and Americans, despite the Coup d'Fou that has encouraged the dark powers of fear and revenge to dominate.

Their cheers reminded us all that this too will pass, and that despite all the petty attempts to bury, crush, and piss upon Democracy -- it has NOT been lost.

As they say in the old movies, "Thanks -- we needed that."

Straight from the Pampas to Melbourne, the Argentinean ant... not (or so I hope) life size

It's a long, long way from out in the Indian Ocean to down there in Melbourne, but then, ants don't give up ... expect a clash somewhere around 2158.

Peace. it's not so wonderful when Argentinean ants move to Australia

Super ant colony hits Australia

What is it about Australia, first convicts, then rabbits, now ants ... imported species running amok?

A giant colony of ants stretching 100km (62 miles) has been discovered in the
Australian city of Melbourne, threatening local insect species.

The ants were imported from Argentina and are right up there among the world's 100 worst animal invaders. Back home, their natural aggression amongst themselves kept their numbers under control so population never exploded and they were no threat to other plants and animals.

But...

In the words of Dr. Elissa Suhr from Monash University, Melbourne, who has been watching them:

"When they arrived in Australia, in 1939, a change in their structure occurred, changing their behaviour so that they are not aggressive towards one another. This has resulted in the colonies becoming one super colony ... the Argentine ants have killed native ants, and consumed many other insects, posing a major threat to biodiversity ... Argentine ants could even displace native species by taking over local habitats and preying on insects commonly eaten by Australian ants."

Don't laugh at them -- Australia is not alone in this:

"In California, they have displaced native ants, decreased the diversity of other native insects, affected the dispersal of seeds and even decreased lizard numbers."

And now they're checking, because they're worried that IF they also share common genetic structure with the ant colonies in Perth and Adelaide, a super colony several thousand miles wide could spread across southern Australia.

But wait -- isn't there any good news here?

Maybe...

Because the other bad news might work out -- This report showed up over a year ago, in February of 2003:

Killer ants threaten Australia

An infestation of ants which is attacking numerous animal species in Australia is threatening to spread across the country, scientists have warned.
Described as one of the world's most vicious species of ant, the Yellow Crazy Ant sprays formic acid into the eyes of other animals, leaving them vulnerable to attack and unable to feed themselves.

YELLOW CRAZY ANTS ?!!

Ants that spray formic acid into other animals' eyes?!!

They call them "crazy" because they go postal when a nest is disturbed, and they're mean muthas:

The ants have already wiped out up to 20 million red crabs, as well as birds and other animals on Australia's Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean since 1989, and have since spread to 63 locations in the Northern Territory on the mainland.

They're originally from India and best guess is they were introduced to Australia about 60 to 70 years ago.

Which leaves us with only one question -- will the Argentinean ants meet up with the Crazy Ants of the Yellow Peril and go head-to-head? And then we shall see:

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Formicidae Smackdown!

No prisoners, no survivors, last ant standing wins!!

It's been a long time coming and now the showdown we've been waiting for -- they finally meet near Ayers Rock (see map) with no holds barred!

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

(Be early and climb high -- the only safe spot is the top of the rock)

But not to change your schedule yet -- Australia is big, and the Crazy Yellows are up Northwest while Melbourne is down Southeast... figure on the big showdown somewhere around March or April of 2168. Put it on your calendar so you won't forget.

Link

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)

Dacha Dude Weblog -- well worth the click

An antidote to what I think of as "vanderleunism," e.g., the pathetic spectacle of a once-brilliant mind having devolved through years of kissing up to second-raters, fear, and the compensatory arrogance, into a camo-sniffing war-worshipping shrieker trying to drown out all disagreement.

Dacha Dude has a good sense of humor, great links (not just the one to me, but I thank you whomever you may be, I'm flattered to be included and otherwise I wouldn't have found the blogsite), and even dotes on Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), creator of the most elegant art of nature-forms ever done, the man whose observations led to the famous and rather overzealous and not exactly correct conclusion that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." (They were/are only good friends. Oh, FYI, Haeckel coined that term, "phylogeny," also the word "ecology.") Besides, right or wrong, without that quip, we'd never had had such variations as "Ontology resuscitates philately," "Doxology misunderestimates degeneracy," or "Philology decapitates anemones."

Haeckel was regarded as a racist for a long time, since his belief that "politics is applied biology," was a favorite of the Nazi propagandists. And perhaps he was -- he saw a world of racism, nationalism and social Darwinism, and there were few people who wanted to admit that he might be right, that it might be the norm rather than the deviation. Besides, as William Blake put it -- "An idea is not responsible for its followers," and the hakenkreuz homies also thought the world of Mozart and Beethoven and Bach, so what does it all mean?

I digress, but hey, we don't see people getting excited about Ernst Haeckel very often.

Check it out -- do the click and take some time playing with a more healing form of insanity than the one we see so often.

Link

Bush ads attack Kerry and his wife: the pot calls the kettle white

Wait a second .. supporters of George W Bush, the rich kid who was drunk until he was 40 years old, are dissing John Kerry in radio commercials being broadcast in African-American communities by calling him "rich, white and wishy-washy."

And then they go after Teresa Kerry, mocking her quips about being "African-American," because, despite being from Mozambique, they think she wasn't poor enough growing up.

This in praise of a man who could only be called "rich, white and a yeehah redneck," whose wife seems more like a plushie than a real woman and whose public comments could have been written for a "Hump Me, Elmo" doll.

Bush isn't white? Kerry is too white?

It's still only August and we've already left the planet, heading for who knows where.

Link

Here's a question as yet unasked about the events of 9-11-01

Might response time have been as rapid as it was supposed to be on September 11, 2001, had Reagan and his cohorts not broken the Air Traffic Controllers' Union back in the 80's?

Was 9/11 where we finally saw the effects the union warned us about, the effects of that display of presidential petulance, in which the execs countered their grievance that they were being stretched to the limit, to impossible limits, by stretching them even further?

And if so, is any action being taken to correct that huge hole in our airborne safety?

Just a thought.

Bush similar to Hitler? Oh slander, oh perfidy!

The GOP and its mouthpieces are screaming wildly and painfully at the calumny of comparisons between Bush and Hitler. How Dare They!?! How dare they slander the president and/or any of his cronies?

Well, this may be a good opportunity to check out a long-held theory of mine, that you can find out exactly what THEY are doing by paying attention to the barbs and accusations they throw at THE OTHER GUYS -- because it's always what THEY are doing themselves.

So:

Glen Beck of Clear Channel Radio compared Fahrenheit 9/11 to "the [Joseph] Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda, where they would take truths, half-truths, and out-and-out lies and mix them all together."

Tucker Carlson compared Democrats to Nazis, dissing "Democrats who keep track of racial data more assiduously than Himmler ever did."

Bill O'Reilly compared [Michael] Moore to Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels: "I believe that he [Michael Moore] has power now. He has more power than probably anybody else other than Kerry and Edwards. It's scary. It's scary. You know this happened in Nazi Germany. ... Who was the most powerful person in Nazi Germany other than Hitler and Himmler and Goering, who? You guys know? ... Goebbels. The propaganda minister. That frightens me when truth no longer exists, gentlemen. It doesn't exist for Michael Moore, it doesn't."

Oh, yeah -- O'Reilly also compared Michael Moore and Al Franken to Goebbels and Hollywood celebrities to the Nazi faithful.

Michael Savage, foam-flecked radio ranter who invented his own credentials with nonexistent academic degrees, used Nazi military titles for Democratic leaders, such as "Obergrupenführer Clinton," "Grupenführer Carter," and "Brigadeführer Daschle."

Oh, and he also called Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt "the president of planned deathhood action fund" and compared her to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

And again: "And yet John Edwards has the nerve to say that he fought for the little guy by fighting HMOs and insurance companies. It's utterly -- It's a big lie. It's absolutely a Goebbels lie that if you tell a big lie often enough it becomes the truth. It's the absolute opposite of what he did."

And once more: Savage compared philanthropist George Soros [a Hungarian-born Jew who lived through the Nazi occupation of Budapest] to "Hitler's media man" -- in reference to Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels -- and repeatedly called Soros "Goebbels".

So who's pointing the "Hitler finger" at whom around here?

As to smearing for the sake of smearing, here's a current ongoing demonstration of pathology --Jerome Corsi who co-authored the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out attacking Kerry really has an attitude a mile long. For example:

• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"

• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

And in the miscellaneous category of pure bilious hate: Too bad the plane didn't crash into the TV set of the NBC show "THE LEFT WING" -- especially when Martin Sheen was "acting."

(And oh, you have heard, have you not, that NONE of the Swift Boat Vietnam Vets quoted in the book actually served with Kerry on his boat.)

for more of his filth, click the link.

As to liberal darts of Hitlerocity thrown at Bush and his henchmen, the usual disclaimer is invalid. There is no holocaust, and no one is saying there is, or at least only a mini-one among the thousands and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, so it's important to stop thinking anyone is saying that. And it's not just a "compare him to the most horrible person you can think of" either. There are some possibly valid comparisons to think about:

Both took a shot at world domination. Both fell pathetically short, but only after inflicting untold amounts of suffering on the locals who were in the way.

Both thought it ok to invade other countries for the same reason Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest. ("Because it's there.")

Both managed to get the entire world pissed off at and unified against them.

Both moved forcefully to institutionalize the merger between corporate and state, with the state jumping to the commands of the corporations. In days of yore, that was called Fascism and/or National Socialism (N.A.Z.I.).

Both were chartacteristically vindictive toward anyone who disagreed with them.

One big difference between the two -- both of Bush's grandfathers were Nazi sympathizers and supporters, selling bonds for Hitler to pay for the munitions used against Allied and USA military until congress made them stop in Fall of 1942, some 10 months after we were at war with Germany. As far as we know, Hitler's family were NOT pro-Nazi.

Oh, one other comparison -- both were semi-literate hypocritical soulless pricks who rose to power as the tools of the big boys, spouting slogans of patriotism.

So perhaps the question is, do we want any of these people and/or their pals anywhere near the corridors of power? Do we want them to have access to authority over our lives? I don't think so.

Let us go then, you and I, and hear another election-year lie...

From Media Matters via Eschaton -- a bit of varnish removal from the slick and slimy "Anti-Kerry Swift Boat" ad -- an ad John McCain has already denounced as 'dishonest and dishonorable.'

It's about how those fellows disparaging his leadership under fire didn't actually serve with him. Here's an excerpt and for the rest, go to Media Matters:

In the new ad, members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claim that they "served with John Kerry."
While the veterans attacking Kerry in the ad are veterans of the Vietnam War and may have served at the same time as Kerry, as The New York Times reported on August 5, the Kerry campaign noted that "none of the men had actually served on the Swift boats that Mr. Kerry commanded." Adm. Roy F. Hoffman,* one of the veterans in the ad, has even "acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on May 7, "and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally."

*Admiral Hoffman? On May 6, 2004, he had this to say:
"Kerry was an opportunist, an exaggerator, even a liar. He had absolutely no respect for the military. His idea was to get some medals and gild his future ambitions."
BOYOBOY! Imagine what the admiral might have to say if he'd actually known John Kerry!

Link

New Meaning to the Term "Mile-High Club"

According to the BBC World Edition News:

Viagra 'protects climbers' lungs'

The anti-impotence drug Viagra can protect mountaineers from developing lung problems sometimes associated with high altitude, researchers have found...
A lack of oxygen can trigger the heart and lung condition pulmonary hypertension. But University of Geissen, Germany, researchers found Viagra prevents this.

"Was it good for you?"
"Absolutely tip-top."

Link

Maybe Benedict Arnold saw it coming

If we want to get seriously post-modern, perhaps we should deconstruct the traditional attitude about Benedict Arnold being a traitor and consider whether or not he foresaw a pack of feral manipulative cannibals like the Bush administration. A band of self-serving conscience-less vermin who -- to use a common Texan expression -- "they'll use you till Hell won't have it."
Consider:

Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

Was it one of them thar mistakes in intelligence? Or just one more incident of -- GASP!? --"Fuck 'em -- let 'em hide under their beds and duct tape their windows -- as long as we stay in power forever forever forever..."

"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that."

Well, gee, it must be an enigma wrapped in a mystery and packaged as a Happy Meal. Wake up -- these guys got in on a coup collaborating with some corrupt judges and state officials.
Why in Hell would we expect them to run for their second act in any manner resembling candor, honesty or honor?

Surely they couldn't be playing with us, could they?
Surely Tom Ridge, that exemplar of Hannah Arendt's treatise on the banality of evil, wouldn't lie.
Surely he doesn't seem bright enough to lie.

Mr Ridge rejected partisan criticism that the timing of the latest warning was designed to knock John Kerry out of the headlines following his nomination as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate last week.
"We do not do politics at the Department of Homeland Security," Mr Ridge said. "Our job is to identify the threat."

Oh well, then, if Tiny Tom says it was important, it must be so.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says some leading Democrats believe that the Bush administration is playing the terrorism card for all it is worth.

Those damned Democrats .. how dare they cast asparagus at those hard working Bush-leaguers? They act as if they believe this is an administration that is lying when it tells us over and over again:

"Bend over...
I'm tellin' ya this is a thermometer.
I'm only gonna take your temperature."

The fact that we all find it painful to sit down is purely circumstantial.

Michael Moore was being tactful and diplomatic with Fahrenheit 9/11.

It would take the late William Burroughs at his Nova Express level to accurately depict these creatures that hide in dark damp places and conspire with any form of interstellar vermin that helps them stay in power. (Although I must admit I admire the way they manage to keep projecting human form -- it must require a technology far beyond that of mere humans. )

I don't care if anyone is tired of hearing it -- mark it well -- these creatures hovering around the dark shadow of George W Bush will do anything, without regard for human life or decency, in order to stay in power forever. The most terrible thing that could possibly happen to these people is for them to have to actually inhabit their own minds.

I can only recommend James Morrow's chilling and wonderful book, This is the Way the World Ends for anyone with the desire to see who these people are, and who are willing to risk the nightmares that come with seeing them sans masks and excuses.

For a more extensive (but similarly choleric view of this slimy event) check out Whisky Bar.

Hmmm, and what beats a straight flush?

During a break in the Grand Prix de Paris poker tournament, two armed men wearing ski masks entered the Aviation Club and made the players and staff lie down on the floor while they robbed the casino. French police later described the gunmen as "well informed" because it appeared that they knew the precise stations where the casino kept its cash. The thieves collected about 76,000 euros ($92,902).

The way I learned poker, the progression of hands is as follows:

High card
Pair
Two pair
Three of a kind
Straight
Flush
Full house
Four of a kind
Straight flush (a Royal Flush is the Ace-high straight flush)
... but my mentor stressed that I always remember one thing:

"a sawyer (sawed-off shotgun) beats everything."

These two fellows knew that rule.

Not that it all went off without a hitch:

Upon exiting the Aviation Club de France, the casino robbery took a wrong turn as the thieves had somehow lost the keys to their getaway motorcycle.

Still, in the finest tradition of rooting for the bad guy:

So they stole a refrigerated truck. Still, the pair managed to elude the pursuing police as well as a taxi driver who joined in the chase (until he realized the men were armed and then it didn't seem like such a good idea). The truck was later found, absent the robbers and the cash. Rumor is Inspector Clouseau is coming out of retirement to find the renegades.

The entrepreneurial spirit is not dead.

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