Saintperle

10/31/05

POPPA CAN YOU HEAR ME?

The love child of the Bush Administration -- y'see they had this great big circle jerk and put all the jizz together and came up with twins -- Batboy and Iraq. Posted by Picasa

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My apologies to Karl Rove -- it is more likely that the Alito Bandito is Batboy's dad -- blood and DNA tests are already in the works -- Look up, yer honor, yer baby boy is coming home ... and happy halloween everyone, wowee -- pretty scary, eh kids? Posted by Picasa

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Sometimes a Burka is kind of cute Posted by Picasa

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10/30/05

Dear Patrick Fitzgerald:

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Ladies and Gentlemen -- the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -- Otis the Frog Boy -- guaranteed to please everyone in the Religious Right...

... hey look up above at Judge Alito -- I was pretty close, eh? So let's see him whip out that long tongue and catch evildoers. Posted by Picasa

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We learn his NEW nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Posted by Picasa

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Patrick Fitzgerald discovers the Plan Book for the Bush Agenda Posted by Picasa

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The monster doesn't fall very far from the cave ... The father ...

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... and Junior

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At last -- we finally get to see what our new energy policy actually looks like.

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Official A?

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Official A?

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That's the man officer. That one there.

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The Rude Pundit

And again (or actually, before -- 10/24/05) The Rude Pundit lights up the dark, shadowy corner where the spinners are doing their work...


Hate the Lie, Hate the Liars:

Here are some festive quotes fer ya:

'Not a single person who works for him seems to have the honor to leave himself.'

'None of his staff, no member of his administration, and almost no... fficial seems to want to hold the president truly accountable for his actions.'

'Are there no honorable men around him? Can his staff and cabinet be lied to without consequence? Is there nothing that will impel them to depart? They need not become vociferous critics of the president. They need not denounce him. A quiet, principled leave-taking would suffice. But it would be refreshing if one of them refused to be complicit any longer in the ongoing lie that is the...White House. Apparently, not one of them is willing to do that.'

'Personal loyalty is an admirable trait, and so is political loyalty. Up to a point. Government officials work for the nation, not simply for the president. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. To remain loyal to a president who lies is to make oneself complicit in his lies. To remain loyal to a man who has brought shame to his office is to make oneself complicit in that shame. At some point, blind loyalty must yield to principled honor. When?'


All the quotes are from William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, from his editorial in the August 31, 1998 issue titled 'Where Are the Resignations?' Kristol was second to none in his outrage over Bill Clinton's lie to the American people, demanding that Clinton resign, fluffing that impeachment hard-on like the frantic young lover of a Viagra-less eighty-year old man..."

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The Rude Pundit says it better ...

Pure poetry....

10/28/2005

Patrick Fitzgerald: The Grown-Up in the Room:
There's a fantasy world that can be spun out among children frolicking in a playroom. The children can take heaping piles of garbage and dirty diapers and empty boxes and colored cloth and construct something they see as an elaborate castle, a wonderland, if you will, where they can enact their epic tales of glories, of princesses and pirates, of villains and dragons, of superheroes and fairies. If you are one of the children, or even a child who comes into the playroom late, you will become a part of the illusionary kingdom, a palette from which fears, anxieties, and wishes are played out to their often extreme ends. It's a beautiful, self-contained environment, the world of children, and grown-ups often harbor secret desires to become part of it.

But sometimes, into the fantastic realms of juvenile imagination, an adult must walk in and point out the reality of the situation. Looking around the destroyed room, the adult calls things by their names: No, Scooter, that's not a unicorn, that's a trash-filled bag with a used paper towel roll on it. No, Ann, it's not make-up and a wig- you're smearing poop from a diaper on your face and putting snot-ridden tissues on your head. No, Sean, you're not a fireman - you've just dropped your pants and pissed everywhere. And you know what, kids? It's time to clean up this goddamn room...


Read the rest here.

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10/29/05

"Just gimme some truth." John Lennon

This is about the so-called Republicans -- I do NOT mean actual Republicans, the people who believe in personal freedom and minimal government intrusion and minimal taxing confiscation and that people can benefit most -- have the most opportunities to pursue their lives -- when there is a strong and vital economy. Those people are Conservatives. I mean the right-wing theocratic neo-Cromwellian crazies who CALL themselves Conservative but who destroy everything in their path like locusts wherever they go.

I am assuming that real Republicans are as embarrassed by the creatures who call themselves by that name as real Democrats are by the nutless and brainless wonders who wander around crowing about being Democrats. With few exceptions on each side (the old-time New England and Midwest moderate conservative people for the Republicans, and for the Democrats, the last few survivors who still believe the primary role of government is protecting people from harm, including domestic conscienceless predators, i.e., Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, and ... well, those two, anyway. Teddy Kennedy, too, actually.)

Anyway -- here's a relevant quote for moving this on:

"The first casualty of war is not truth, but perspective. Once that's gone, truth, like compassion, reason, and all the other virtues, wanders around like wounded orphans." Ente Grillenhaft

This is a relevant quote because what we're talking about is a bunch of guys -- Rec Room Patriots all, men who were too goddamn precious to actually serve their country when asked -- guys who had decided to start a war against the man who Osama Ben Ladn MOST HATED (after George Bush, of course). The same man who kicked back so much money (they say billions with a B) to Poppy George when he was Veep and running the Iraq side of the Iran-Iraq War. That was the war he and Redrumsfeld and Cheney encouraged Saddam Hussein to start, convincing him that HE was the new Saladin, born to save Islam from the Shi'a -- after all, weren't they from the same home town? The same war these same guys use to illustrate Saddam Hussein's monstrosity.

For what good it will do, I'd like to point out a few actual FACTS about this business of Scooter and Turd Blossom and etc... these are in response to the comments I hear from those sociopathic religious fanatics who hide from the men with the butterfly nets by calling themselves Republicans -- you know, the ones who preface any such conversation with "I am 100% behind George Bush and support everything he does." HOLY SHIT! Even Jesus lost it and cursed a fig tree. So you know these are people who are looking for daddies and/or gods and not representatives to do the business of the state.

1. The LIBERALS / DEMOCRATS did NOT set this in motion -- the CIA requested a special investigation because they thought outing one of their agents was a crime. The CIA hasn't been particularly Democratic Party since -- oh, even before a few of their rogues offed JFK.

2. ALBERTO GONZALES appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to run the show (admittedly, this was after a lot of criticism from the Left and Middle about the pretend-investigation that had been going on under Mr. Gonzales' care for about 6 months after the Justice Department had informed Mr. Gonzales who was, at that time, White House Counsel, that there was an investigation beginning. The fact that Gonzales told Andrew Card and then waited 12 hours before suggesting they preserve and not destroy emails and such gave an uneasy feeling to a lot of people who remembered the great Oliver North Shredding parties.) Anyway, he managed to bar the doors to the Good Guys for 6 months and then had to give in, appointing Pat Fitzgerald. And King George approved his choice.

Mr. Gonzales is not exactly a Liberal or a DEMOCRAT. Nor is George W Bush.

3. The TOTALLY BOGUS ISSUE of whether or not Ms Plame was STILL covert, i.e., a field spook is irrelevant. SHE HAD BEEN, and she had used 'assets' out there in the world who worked openly with her, since they did not know she was CIA. Those people were STILL out there, so the revelation that she had been CIA and still was with The Ompany, regardless of her current role, became overwhelmingly likely to lead to: "Hey, Omar, that woman you knew? We'd like to toast your testicles with some electric current while we ask you about what you two discussed."

4. The plaintive cry of the diehard defender goes like this: "How dare they do this -- that is just the normal way things are conducted around here." In which case, why would they be so agitated if the Democratics get up off their "oh woe is me" bed of pain once in a while and play the same game? In either case, Perjury and Obstruction of Justice seemed to be crimes those people found egregious, just, oh 7 years ago. And those are real honest-to-God genuine felonious crimes.

But THAT WAS DIFFERENT BECAUSE there's this Fundie belief that Sperm is The Apple and Blow Jobs re-create the Original Sin. All I can say is how do we know that Harriet Miers isn't under the desk doing Georgie during those long legal conferences? Why else would he think she should be given the gift of life-long power at the Supreme Court?

("Ahhh Christ, Harriet that was good... what can I possibly do to ... no, I'm not going down on you, stop asking ... what can I give you -- something wonderful -- something that belongs to the American People -- to show you how much I appreciate it when you pop your upper and lower plates out and ... Supreme Court? You got it. Pour me another Jim Beam and write me a speech.")

Only the fact that the image is too hideous to spend much time thinking about prevents that possibility from being investigated.

As to Patrick Fitzgerald, I am reminded of the words of Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC, twice-Medal of Honor recipient, who went on leave from the Marines to be a special investigator in Philadelphia looking into corruption in the City Government. After he was fired for looking at the rot too high up the food chain for the mayor's comfort, he said: "If I had known who THEY were, I would never have taken the job. And if they had know who I was, they would never have hired me." Fortunately for us, even the smug and arrogant Bush administration couldn't find a way to fire Mr. Fitzgerald, who, if they had, might have said the exact same words.

They act all legal and wise, but really, it's just about how the little boys want to play dress-up and war -- with toy soldiers, i.e., other people's bodies. Swaggering around the playground and pushing the weak kids' faces down in the mud, laughing and spitting, then going home to play Dungeons and Dragons with real money from the U.S. Treasury.

I wish them long long lives surrounded by all the wealth they've stolen, insulated and isolated by their wealth. And throughout those long lives of luxury, I can only hope that they may never again be able to close their eyes without seeing the decomposing corpses of those they've caused to die, see them rising up and coming after them. And that the Jesus they preach about and prey to -- the one they seem to think is God of Vengeance -- listens to their prayers for relief and treats them the same way they expect Him to treat those who disagree with them -- He tells them to fuck off, that he's busy with people who actually are trying to live good lives.

Pleasant Dreams, you hypocritical motherfuckers.


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10/28/05

2 years and 2000 dead later -- even white guys understand that Paris was clear and cold and in sharp focus with Sonic Jihad



I'm an old white guy and people used to give me a "whaaa?" when I tried to tell them about Paris.

But I live in Oaktown and first time I heard him (in the 90's when the most excellent Zimmerman Brothers presented him at the Gavin Report Annual Conference) I knew we had another town poet. Not that Ishmael Reed was lacking, just getting on.

The people who regarded this masterwork musical classic as seditious and treasonable in 2003 NOW listen to it and realize he was on a pure beam.

DID the Bushies actually collaborate in the attack on 9-11 to help them gather more power? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, now we know they're that cold, that inhuman and -- but for their general incompetence and ability to fuck up everything they do -- capable of it.

But perhaps he wasn't just giving us the image and mateaphor. Maybe he meant is as actual and now that the White House Hideout Rec Room Patriots are reeling -- I wouldn't be too surprised to see a "surprise" attack that just c0incidentally stops all dissent once more.

The thing is, while Poppy had a less obvious arrogance, both father and son believe they own the country. Poppy because he got elected -- once. Junior because he managed to steal it -- twice.

Check it out -- new or used -- we all need to listen to Sonic Jihad a lot during the next three years.


SONIC JIHAD -- http://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris/sonic_jihad/ Posted by Picasa

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You say yer a Christian...

well I read some of the bible too ...

and that "minor technicality" of lying under oath involves TWO of the top TenCommandments:

Taking the Lord's Name in Vain

Bearing False Witness



As I recall, Bill Clinton only broke one -- the only one that's actually fun -- at least until your wife finds out -- and it wasn't murder (I do NOT want to hear about Vince Foster any more than I want to hear about 2000+ American military people -- dead is dead).


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"What effect will Ms Miers' withdrawal mean to the White House?"

The press were asking that, before the Libby indictment came down.

And talking about how smiling and funny and relaxed Bush was today.

My opinion -- the nomination itself, Bush's behavior throughout and still continuing, all reinforce the probability of the ongoing rumor:

Bush is back on the bottle.

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THREE WEEKS LATER ... ahh, the role of Cassandra is no fun...

Here's what I posted back then:

Monday, October 03, 2005

Tough as nails, and apparently as clever as a bucket of them.

More and more today, I tend to think she's the Red Herring -- an absolutely unqualified crony who helped him cover up the National Guard stuff when he ran for his second term as Governor -- get everyone up in arms, right and left alike, bounce her, and then, of course, they'll all roll over for whomever is the real choice, not wanting to appear contrary...

According to former White House speechwriter David Frum, Miers has been known for her loyalty ...

'In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal:
She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.'

That should be enough to disqualify Miss Miers right there -- "Not approved due to mental defect."

I only hope it's her unbelievably inadequate qualifications for this particular job that does her in, and fast, and not her unmarried status.

Because she's single and tough -- and the code for lesbian is what her former colleagues mean when they say, "We thought she'd come through the Marines."

Bush's base -- those psychotically mean-spirited superstitious folk who laughingly call themselves Christians are so fond of doing hate-whispering about women who might be "Lesbians! and as THEY all know with the absolute certainty of Dogma, lesbians are evil witches who encourage abortions so they can eat the fetuses while they still scream for mercy. And any strong, independent woman they don't like -- which is ANY strong, independent woman -- Hilary Clinton, for example -- they insist must be lesbian.

The only potentially GOOD thing about her is that, if she IS gay, she should have an appreciation for people unfairly discriminated against.

But perhaps it's one more brilliant tactic by the Turd Blossom to reject the first choice and then put in some Borkian-style psycho who thinks Thomas Jefferson's opinion that the function of government is to prevent people from harming each other was waaay too radical and communistic...

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That's what I wrote then -- funny -- I believe that Bush and Turd Blossom, and especially Cheney and Redrumsfeld are creatures fully capable of having collaborated with the destruction of the twin towers on 9-11 for political advantage (oh, at that time, we hadn't YET seen a dire emergency/catastrophe EVERY TIME Bush's ratings dropped). But I don't believe Bush would knowingly harm someone as close to him as his Mommy-surrogate, Harriet. If not because he's too loyal, kind, human to do it, then more likely, because he's too much of a craven cowardly shit to go up against ANYONE face-to-face.

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10/27/05

Regarding the Silence of the Democrats (during the Harriet Miers debacle)


They knew these words of wisdom:

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Napoleon Bonaparte


And, oh yeah -- these too:

"Be careful the asses you kick on the way up -- they're the same ones you have to kiss on the way down."







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School Orders Students to Remove Blogs

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press Writer

October 27,2005 | NEWARK, N.J. -- A Roman Catholic high school has ordered its students to remove personal blogs from the Internet in the name of protecting them from cyberpredators.

Students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta appear to be heeding a directive from the principal, the Rev. Kieran McHugh, to remove personal postings about the school or themselves from Web sites like myspace.com or xanga.com, even if they were posted from the students' home computers.


Right, because Catholic schools have always been (1) so supportive of students' free speech, even when it diverges from teachings, and (2) the various Archdioceses have always been so concerned about youth risking buggery or other sexual fiddle-faddle from adults.

We believe you. But, if you wouldn't mind, try convincing someone else that it's just a thermometer and you're only taking that youngster's temperature, ok?

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Bill Would Punish Frivolous-Lawsuit Filers

By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press Writer

October 27,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Lawyers could lose their licenses for a year for repeatedly filing frivolous lawsuits under a bill headed for passage in the House as part of the Republicans' drive to crack down on what they consider costly abuses of the legal system.


Funny how every goddamn thing they propose in Congress (and by THEY, I mean the congressmen and women) either costs the middle- and lower-economic strata more, decreases their rights, increases the profits of the people who give them what are laughingly called "Campaign contributions," or gets people not in their families killed.

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"I hate to see a woman go down this way. I really, really do."

-- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Harriet Miers' cancelling the job interview.

How does she like to see a woman go down, then?

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Oh dither oh bother -- whatever can we do in the face of 'dat old time corporate-state merger they used to call FASCISM --

---here's one possibility -- MOVE TO VERMONT


Jumping From the Sinking Ship of Empire: Vermonters Move to Secede From USA



James Howard Kunstler, author of the book about Peak Oil The Long Emergency, will be the keynote speaker at The Vermont Convention on Independence to be held in the House Chamber of the State House in Montpelier, VT on Friday, October 28th, 2005. Sponsored by the Second Vermont Republic, the convention, which will begin at 9 am and conclude at 5 pm, is open to the public and free of charge. This historic event will be the first statewide convention on secession in the United States since North Carolina voted to secede from the Union on May 20, 1861.

Organizers of the convention say it has two objectives: First, to raise the level of awareness of Vermonters of the feasibility of independence as a viable alternative to a nation which has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable. And second, to provide an example and a process for other states and nations which may be seriously considering separatism, secession, independence, and similar devolutionary strategies. The Second Vermont Republic describes itself as "a peaceful, democratic, grassroots, libertarian populist movement committed to the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791..."

Earlier this year, Vermont secession activists published their opening salvo, the Middlebury Institute Letter. It declared: "We believe that, of the options open to those who would dissent from the actions and institutions of a government grown too big and unwieldy and its handmaiden corporate sponsors grown too powerful and corrupt, the only comprehensive and practical one is some form of separatism. Exploring this option is not a step to be taken lightly, because there are established forces that will hamper and resist, and yet it is a legal and viable enterprise, squarely in the American tradition...

"Moreover, the accumulating signs point to a series of major crises that will seriously disrupt and may even destroy the American system in the near future. These include economic disruptions in the wake of global “peak oil” production before 2010, deterioration of the power of the dollar through mounting and uncontrollable national debt and trade imbalances, continued degradation of vital ecosystems on which the nation depends, climate change and severe weather causing widespread devastation of coastal areas, extended use of military force worldwide leading to increased terrorism and the reinstitution of the draft, [and] judicial takeovers at the Federal level by rightwing ideologues capable of altering fundamental legal rights... Those who want to absent and cushion themselves from suchlike devastations would reasonably want to explore ways of removing their communities and regions from dangerous national political and economic mechanisms that are incapable of reform." Read the complete Middlebury Institute Letter


---Maybe it's not for you, maybe it is -- but, before you piss all over the idea, consider this:

We can't stay here the way we've been, and we can't go along with the Program --

DO YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA?

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10/25/05

Robert Louis Stevenson: Robin and Ben: Or, The Pirate and the Apothecary

From MORAL TALES

Come, lend me an attentive ear
A startling moral tale to hear,
Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben,
And different destinies of men.

Deep in the greenest of the vales
That nestle near the coast of Wales,
The heaving main but just in view,

Robin and Ben together grew,
Together worked and played the fool,
Together shunned the Sunday school,
And pulled each other's youthful noses
Around the cots, among the roses.

Together but unlike they grew;
Robin was rough, and through and through
Bold, inconsiderate, and manly,
Like some historic Bruce or Stanley.
Ben had a mean and servile soul,
He robbed not, though he often stole.
He sang on Sunday in the choir,
And tamely capped the passing Squire.

At length, intolerant of trammels -
Wild as the wild Bithynian camels,
Wild as the wild sea-eagles--Bob
His widowed dam contrives to rob,
And thus with great originality
Effectuates his personality.
Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight
He follows through the starry night;
And with the early morning breeze,
Behold him on the azure seas.
The master of a trading dandy
Hires Robin for a go of brandy;
And all the happy hills of home
Vanish beyond the fields of foam.

Ben, meanwhile, like a tin reflector,
Attended on the worthy rector;
Opened his eyes and held his breath,
And flattered to the point of death;
And was at last, by that good fairy,
Apprenticed to the Apothecary.

So Ben, while Robin chose to roam,
A rising chemist was at home,
Tended his shop with learned air,
Watered his drugs and oiled his hair,
And gave advice to the unwary,
Like any sleek apothecary.

Meanwhile upon the deep afar
Robin the brave was waging war,
With other tarry desperadoes
About the latitude of Barbadoes.
He knew no touch of craven fear;
His voice was thunder in the cheer;
First, from the main-to'-gallan' high,
The skulking merchantmen to spy -
The first to bound upon the deck,
The last to leave the sinking wreck.
His hand was steel, his word was law,
His mates regarded him with awe.
No pirate in the whole profession
Held a more honourable position.

At length, from years of anxious toil,
Bold Robin seeks his native soil;
Wisely arranges his affairs,
And to his native dale repairs.
The Bristol SWALLOW sets him down
Beside the well-remembered town.
He sighs, he spits, he marks the scene,
Proudly he treads the village green;
And, free from pettiness and rancour,
Takes lodgings at the 'Crown and Anchor.'

Strange, when a man so great and good
Once more in his home-country stood,
Strange that the sordid clowns should show
A dull desire to have him go.

His clinging breeks, his tarry hat,
The way he swore, the way he spat,
A certain quality of manner,
Alarming like the pirate's banner -
Something that did not seem to suit all -
Something, O call it bluff, not brutal -
Something at least, howe'er it's called,
Made Robin generally black-balled.

His soul was wounded; proud and glum,
Alone he sat and swigged his rum,
And took a great distaste to men
Till he encountered Chemist Ben.
Bright was the hour and bright the day
That threw them in each other's way;
Glad were their mutual salutations,
Long their respective revelations.
Before the inn in sultry weather
They talked of this and that together;
Ben told the tale of his indentures,
And Rob narrated his adventures.

Last, as the point of greatest weight,
The pair contrasted their estate,
And Robin, like a boastful sailor,
Despised the other for a tailor.

'See,' he remarked, 'with envy, see
A man with such a fist as me!
Bearded and ringed, and big, and brown,
I sit and toss the stingo down.
Hear the gold jingle in my bag -
All won beneath the Jolly Flag!'

Ben moralised and shook his head:
'You wanderers earn and eat your bread.
The foe is found, beats or is beaten,
And, either how, the wage is eaten.
And after all your pully-hauly
Your proceeds look uncommon small-ly.
You had done better here to tarry
Apprentice to the Apothecary.
The silent pirates of the shore
Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more

Than any red, robustious ranger
Who picks his farthings hot from danger.
You clank your guineas on the board;
Mine are with several bankers stored.
You reckon riches on your digits,
You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets,
You drink and risk delirium tremens,
Your whole estate a common seaman's!
Regard your friend and school companion,
Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion
(Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery,
With Heaven knows how much land in dowry),
Look at me--Am I in good case?
Look at my hands, look at my face;
Look at the cloth of my apparel;
Try me and test me, lock and barrel;
And own, to give the devil his due,
I have made more of life than you.
Yet I nor sought nor risked a life;
I shudder at an open knife;
The perilous seas I still avoided
And stuck to land whate'er betided.
I had no gold, no marble quarry,
I was a poor apothecary,
Yet here I stand, at thirty-eight,
A man of an assured estate.'

'Well,' answered Robin--'well, and how?'

The smiling chemist tapped his brow.
'Rob,' he replied, 'this throbbing brain
Still worked and hankered after gain.
By day and night, to work my will,
It pounded like a powder mill;
And marking how the world went round
A theory of theft it found.
Here is the key to right and wrong:
STEAL LITTLE, BUT STEAL ALL DAY LONG;
And this invaluable plan
Marks what is called the Honest Man.
When first I served with Doctor Pill,
My hand was ever in the till.
Now that I am myself a master,
My gains come softer still and faster.
As thus: on Wednesday, a maid
Came to me in the way of trade.
Her mother, an old farmer's wife,
Required a drug to save her life.
'At once, my dear, at once,' I said,
Patted the child upon the head,
Bade her be still a loving daughter,
And filled the bottle up with water.'

'Well, and the mother?' Robin cried.

'O she!' said Ben--'I think she died.'

'Battle and blood, death and disease,
Upon the tainted Tropic seas -
The attendant sharks that chew the cud -
The abhorred scuppers spouting blood -
The untended dead, the Tropic sun -
The thunder of the murderous gun -
The cut-throat crew--the Captain's curse -
The tempest blustering worse and worse -
These have I known and these can stand,
But you--I settle out of hand!'

Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben
Dead and rotten, there and then.

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At long last, sirs and madames, have you no shame? No ...

No consciences. No grasp of reality?

You pezzonovante assholes IMPEACHED President Clinton for lying about something every man in the world would be inclined to lie about -- did you take the sleazy road with the chubby little intern and cheat on your wife when she was out of town?

(As Lenny Bruce -- a true philosopher of post WWII America said, It doesn't matter, deny deny deny. If she walks in on the two of you in bed you tell the wife that the young woman's father just died and she was finding it hard to breath so you took off all her clothes and then she was embarrassed so you took off yours just to comfort her and then she was going into hysterical convulsions so you lay down on top of her to keep her from hurting herself and...)

The point being, that having to admit he went along with the rotund little adventuress -- hell, the man worked 18 hours a day and from morning to night the first and last thing he heard every was "You stink," "You're a monster," "You're a murderer," etc..."

And then this chubby little cutie comes in with a pizza and tells you the sun rises and sets with you and ... it's late, you're lonely, it's understandable, but to admit you failed your vows to your wife would be hard enough -- to do it to the whole world ... sheesh... he was ashamed and embarrassed, and ultimately -- other than the Radical Fundamentalists who believe sperm is the apple and therefore a blow job re-creates the Original Sin -- he and his marriage were the only ones harmed...

BUT -- let's have some memory, now, post 9-11 -- when Clinton went after Osama Ben Ladn, they (the GOP) all screamed "YOU"RE WAGGING THE DOG, TRYING TO TAKE THE FOCUS OFF MONICA."

AND NOW -- when Kaye Bailey Hutchinson (and all the rest of the little GOP
robots) are parroting:

"Criminalizing politics."

"Perjury is just a minor thing -- it's a technicality." (Right, just a minor impeachable felony.)

--and since they can't conceivably convince anyone that Mr. Fitzgerald is partisan, they go for: "He doesn't understand the way things work around here."

I think of what H L Mencken said:

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

The death toll of US Military personnel in Iraq hit 1999 yesterday -- the casualty toll (physical and mental) is at 34,700 according to some sources.

The polls show the American public is almost to the point of storming the fucking White House, Dept of Defense and Capitol Hill and getting out the tumbrels --

The insanely manic cries of the 30's radicals "Hang 'em from the lamp-posts" sound so wonderfully nostalgic now, kind of the same as listening to early Swing Music -- you listen to those old guys and you think "Damn, sure sounds like those musicians were having a lot more fun making music than our Jazz people today."

I say no fucking quarter for any of them -- they're so goddamn tough, forget Club Fed ... let 'em serve their time in Chino -- is it still The Gladiator School? Do they still issue newbies a garbage can lid and a stick and send 'em intothe yard to fight it out?

Let Cheney and Rove and Scooter talk tough and tell Rasheed and Rasullalah of the Black Warriors how they integrated their administration with Condoleeza Rice and Coilin Powells. Let 'em tell Clyde and Billy Joe of the Aryan Brotherhood how they're REALLY all for white guys. Let 'em tell La Raza and La Familia about how much they love Hispanic folk.

THESE GUYS THINK NOTHING OF KILLING PEOPLE to improve their personal fortunes and their political positions (actually, having others kill on their behalf) ...

They're fair game.
Let 'em play it out the way they decided to play it in ... tough guys ... We're ALL tired of paying for what THEY'RE afraid of (and what they're afraid of is someone taking away their privilege).

The hell with them --

If I outlive any of them, I'd be delighted to piss on all their graves if it weren't for the fact that, like Rosa Parks, my feet hurt andI don't like having to wait, standing in a long line.

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10/24/05

By Saintperle

"....All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist,it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions."

Albert Camus, NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS (1946)

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10/22/05

AESOP ON TODAY's PRESS IN AMERICA

There's a REASON the "Official Press" (Judy Miller, New York Times,
Washington Times, ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Washington Post, et al) have talking point threads that include an obligatory contempt for/sarcasm about disparaging of the
Blogosphere...

Let me tell you Aesop's story about the starving wolf meeting the well fed dog through the fence outside the master's house (aka the Blogger and the Big Time Journalist)

This wolf is on his last legs, hasn't eaten anything but some berries and roots and a mouse in days, crawling with lice and covered with sores and he comes up to a house with a chain-link fence around it and behind that fence, a dog. The dog seems friendly so they begin to talk.

The dog tells him about how he gets fed all the time and combed and brushed and has a soft bed and all of that and all he has to do was bark when bad guys came around -- protect the master's home.

And he tells the wolf that he could come in and get a great job like that too ...

And the wolf says, "Fucking-a great" and starts for the gate, but then stops and asks:

"But wait -- what's that mark around your neck, where all the fur is rubbed down?"

And the dog tells him about the collar and the leash and some other stuff, and that the collar isn't so bad, and besides why would he want to go anywhere else when he has it so good... and the wolf says:

"And they cut off WHAT? I'll starve, thank you."



(Except for Helen Thomas.)

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10/20/05

Marijuana megadose may build better brains, curb depression and anxiety, study suggests

Study turns pot wisdom on head

Lab rats given drug 100 times as strong as pot


by Dawn Walton, The Globe & Mail [Toronto]


Calgary, Canada -- Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.

While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form... researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses..

"This is quite a surprise," said Xia Zhang, an associate professor with the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

"Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months," he added.


Stoned today -- Nobel Laureate next year?


The research by Dr. Zhang and a team of international researchers is to be published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, but their findings are on-line now.

The scientists also noticed that cannabinoids curbed depression and anxiety, which Dr. Zhang says, suggests a correlation between neurogenesis and mood swings. (Or, it at least partly explains the feelings of relaxation and euphoria of a pot-induced high.)

Other scientists have suggested that depression is triggered when too few new brain cells are created in the hippocampus. One researcher of neuropharmacology said he was "puzzled" by the findings.


Maybe he just hadn't smoked enough dope.


As enthusiastic as Dr. Zhang is about the potential health benefits, he warns against running out for a toke in a bid to beef up brain power or calm nerves.

The team injected laboratory rats with a synthetic substance called HU-210, which is similar, but 100 times as potent as THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the compound responsible for giving marijuana users a high.

They found that the rats treated regularly with a high dose of HU-210 -- twice a day for 10 days -- showed growth of neurons in the hippocampus. The researchers don't know if pot, which isn't as pure as the lab-produced version, would have the same effect.

"There's a big gap between rats and humans," Dr. Zhang points out.

But there is a lot of interest -- and controversy -- around the use of cannabinoids to improve human health.

Cannabinoids, such as marijuana and hashish, have been used to address pain, nausea, vomiting, seizures caused by epilepsy, ischemic stroke, cerebral trauma, tumours, multiple sclerosis and a host of other maladies.


Hey -- it cures what ails you. And what it doesn't cure, you forget you have it.


-------the rest of the article is here

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Pentagon refuses to pay promised bonus for Nat'l Guard and Reserves who re-enlisted

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has reneged on its offer to pay a $15,000 bonus to members of the National Guard and Army Reserve who agree to extend their enlistments by six years, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle).

The bonuses were offered in January to Active Guard and Reserve and military technician soldiers who were serving overseas. In April, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs ordered the bonuses stopped, Murray said.

“This is outrageous,” the senator said in a telephone interview. “It makes me angry that this administration has broken another promise to our troops.”

“They can spin it anyway they want,” Glass said. “But this is a promise they are trying to explain away.”


Does the phrase unconscionable lying jive-ass deadbeat motherfuckers sum up this pile of steaming shit we laughingly call the Bush Administration? It does for me.

The bonus offer was part of the Pentagon’s effort to retain Guard and Reserve members at a time of declining enlistments in the regular Army.

Army officials have said they face the toughest recruiting climate since 1973, when the draft was dropped and replaced with an all-volunteer military.

Roughly 3,400 members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade were serving in Iraq at the time the bonuses were offered.

The bonuses were tax-free because they involved soldiers stationed overseas.


--"Sure boys and girls -- you just turn your lives completely upside down so you can go do another year in a crossfire, and if you're lucky enough to come home with all your parts -- mental or physical -- assuming you come home at all anyway but in a box ... well we'll show you what kind of integrity WE have."

The fact is, Monkey Boy could pay them all out of the billions-with-a-B in kickbacks that Poppy Bush got from Saddam Hussein and Col Noriega when he was sitting at the right hand of Ronald Reagan. Cheney could do it as a petty cash expenditure.

But no -- these lying scumbag pieces of shit who were too goddamn precious to answer the call when their country asked them to do SOMETHING (except for Monkey Boy whose daddy's friends got him into the Texas Boy Scouts -- Obsolete Fast Jets That Can't be Flown in Vietnam Division) think nothing of putting people in the line of fire with bullshit empty promises.

These people are coming home to lost jobs, lost homes, lost families, and now this. As one who -- naiively, many say -- believes there is some possibility of JUSTICE in this world, I can only hope they're coming home locked and loaded and looking for the people who lied to them.

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Dear George -- image how things would be if you hadn't gotten bored trying to bring Osama Ben Ladn to justice.

Why, people might even think you're NOT just some bible-thumping incompetent putz.

People might even think the United States of America stood for something other than acting like a pompous hypocritical bullying bullshit.

You see, the world doesn't really separate the hypocritical bullying bullshitter (YOU) from actual Americans (if you can read, then read the constitution to find out what American means. Hell, you and Harriet can read it to each other -- it'll be a new experience for both of you.)

Meanwhile -- Osama ben Ladn is laughing at you, Monkey Boy, because he knows you're just a drunken popcorn fart.

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Bush promises to 'do his job'

October 20,2005 | WASHINGTON -- President Bush vowed Thursday to avoid the "background noise" of criminal investigations and other Republican political problems to focus on the nation's needs.

"The American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to," the president said.

Any day now, Monkey Boy -- let us know when you plan to start.

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The Cheney-Rumsfeld "Cabal"

The Cheney-Rumsfeld "Cabal"
From Salon.com's War Room

In an extraordinary speech Wednesday at the New America Foundation, Col. Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that a "cabal" led by Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been making decisions on "critical" international issues without the knowledge or participation of others in the administration. The Bush administration and the American people are now "paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret," Wilkerson said.

As the Washington Post notes, Wilkerson has a long working relationship with Powell and was often thought to be someone who would say aloud what Powell thought himself but was too cautious to reveal. If that's what was happening Wednesday, the former secretary of state has a lot to get off his chest
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----Ok, you KNOW the administration is circling the toilet bowl when their threats to keep people silent don't work anymore.

Wilkerson says the administration has "courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran" and has failed to prepare for disasters back home. "And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence," he said.

Although Wilkerson had some praise for the president he served, he said that Bush's ignorance of -- and lack of interest in -- the details of foreign policy left an opening for Cheney and Rumsfeld to take over. He said Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility, that Condoleezza Rice has traded away her independence in order to win favor with Bush, and that former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith is one of the dumbest men he's ever met. He also argued that top Pentagon officials "condoned" the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.


We can expect more and more of these revelations to come out as the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove Gang of Four gets weaker and weaker.

Not quite like rats leaving the sinking ship (I KNOW rats, and these guys have a looong way to go to work their way UP to that level -- and even then, I doubt they have what it takes) -- More like Nazi's saving a Jew or two as the Russian Army moves west to Berlin.

Remember, Powell and Wilkerson and the rest we have yet to hear from took the money and the perks, played the game, rained death on strangers according to orders.

Ultimately, "Silence means assent."

So while we're grateful for the information coming from these former war criminals, well, the Gang of Four couldn't have done it without them squealing like little piggies to get their perks and limos and swagger-rights and the best-tables at restaurants.

Just because the journalists who knew all this and said nothing are MORE despicable, doesn't make the government boys good guys.

Just bad guys looking to deal for a reduced sentence.

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10/19/05

Guardian Unlimited -- Chomsky is voted world's top public intellectual

He is in his 70s and first became known for his theory of transformational grammar - and now he is top of the thinkers' hit parade. Noam Chomsky, the linguistics professor who has become one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy, has won a poll that names him as the world's top public intellectual.

Chomsky, who was underwhelmed by the honour, beat off challenges from Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Vaclav Havel and Christopher Hitchens to win the Prospect/Foreign Policy poll.


He is -- God help us all -- as was Immanuel Velikovsky, finally being exonerated as the professionals in his field finally recognize that what he was saying was the result of pure clear observation, not simply partisan polemic.

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Nominee Backed Ban on Abortion in 1989 Campaign - New York Times

Well, I said it before and I'll say it again -- Bush promised he could guarantee that this bimbo of his would always be biased against a woman's right to Choose her own reproductive decision regardless of the case and the Constitutional question.


"WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - Harriet E. Miers, the Supreme Court nominee, disclosed on Tuesday a 1989 survey in which she supported banning abortion except to protect the life of the pregnant woman. The disclosure alarmed abortion rights supporters but failed to assuage the concerns of some conservative Republicans..."

"If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prohibit the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature?" the survey asked.

Ms. Miers answered yes. She told the group she would support a state ban on abortion, oppose public financing for abortions, participate in "pro-life" events and use her "influence as an elected official" to "promote the pro-life cause."



In other words, the way Sam Watterston does it on the Law & Ordure shows:

"Miss Miers, the question is this -- were you lying then or are you lying now?"



The White House was quick to emphasize that Ms. Miers's personal views should not be used to predict how she would rule on any case.

"The role of a judge is very different from the role of a candidate or a political officeholder," said Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman.


Ms. Miers, Mr. McClellan said, "recognizes that personal views and ideology and religion have no role to play when it comes to making decisions on the bench."


But -- dare I suggest the President of these United States is not making sense? -- He made his case BASED on her PERSONA -- who she IS and WHAT SHE BELIEVES -- AND insisted he had NO IDEA of what her views on abortion actually were.

So -- Mr.President/Mr. McLellan (the sock puppet's sock puppet):
the question is:

"Were you lying then -- or are you lying now?"


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10/18/05

Cheney resignation rumors fly

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

OK -- so they didn't snuff him while he was under anaesthesia for his popliteal aneurysm. Which would have been a sure sign the people who make things happen were getting set to 86 Monkey Boy -- same way Agnew had to go before they could dump Nixon. But this tells me it's still open season on the drunk in the Oval Office.

"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."

Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn't get the job or run for president in 2008.

"Isn't she pro-choice?" asked a key Senate Republican aide. Many White House insiders, however, said the Post story and reports that the investigation was coming to a close had officials instead more focused on who would be dragged into the affair and if top aides would be indicted and forced to resign.

"Folks on the inside and near inside are holding their breath and wondering what's next," said a Bush adviser. But, he added, they aren't focused on the future of the vice president. "Not that, at least not seriously," he said.

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"Two previously unseen paintings by Leonardo da Vinci have gone on public display for the first time in Italy, the BBC reported.

One is an alternative version of his "Virgin of the Rocks," with the infant Jesus and the infant John the Baptist.

The other, showing Mary Magdalene, is thought to have been completed by Leonardo with the help of one of his pupils about 1515.

Both paintings, from a private collection, are being displayed at the Mole Vanvitelliana museum in Ancona."

The painting of Mary Magdalene, which shows her holding a veil over her belly, was only recently discovered and authenticated. "
NY Times 10/17/05


The picture above is -- like Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show back when -- cropped to only show above the waist -- but it is actually full-length and --

"A VEIL OVER HER BELLY?"

Hello Baigent and Leigh, Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Da Vinci Code people.

There's your Holy Grail (her womb).

There's your "Divine Right of Kings" (his bloodline).

There are the Three Marias.

There's Ms Magdalene looking very much "ohbaby ohbaby ohbaby oh baby."

There's your Jesus and Mary, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.


(Hey -- it's a Mystery Religion, right? Well, it's a mystery.) Posted by Picasa

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Miers Supported Ban on Most Abortions

"Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, according to material given to the Senate on Tuesday.

'If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature,' asked an April 1989 questionnaire sent out by the Texans United for Life group.

Miers checked 'yes' to that question, and all of the group's questions, including whether she would oppose the use of public moneys for abortions and whether she would use her influence to keep 'pro-abortion' people off city health boards and commissions..."

"A candidate taking a political position in the course of a campaign is different from the role of a judge making a ruling in the judicial process." said Jim Dyke, a White House spokesman.


Pay no attention to the Fundie Fascist behind the curtain, eh?

--- JIM DYKE? Ah, a pity Charles Dickens couldn't have lived to be 193 to see this.

There was a basic concept involved in the founding of this country:

Anyone is free to live by the premise: "This is what I will do with my life."

No one has the right to dictate: "This is what YOU must do with YOUR life. Least of all religious fanatics.


(I define a religious fanatic as anyone who refuses to allow another to disagree on spiritual matters, to follow his or her own path in life, even if it is not one the demagogue would choose for himself or herself, who refuses to recognize that each person must make his or her own decisions.)

This concept was even an integral part of the first coin minted in this country -- the famous Fugio cent of 1787 -- stamped into the metal were the words: "Mind Your Business."

I can hardly believe anyone in this current administration does not live by the adage MONEY TALKS.

Those are the concepts that SHOULD be held dear by so-called ORIGINALISTS.

In other words -- morality arguments aside, it's time to once again tell the Miers and the Falwells and the Robertsons and the Dobsons the simple American message:

"DON'T TREAD ON ME."

(Or updated: "BACK THE FUCK OFF, BIBLE BOYS.")


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10/17/05

New Scientist: cancer vaccine doesn't pass the Fundies' Morality Test

Will cancer vaccine get to all women?

Debora MacKenzie

Good news,right?

DEATHS from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer - but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.

Well, not if a reduction in deaths from cervical cancer interferes with your theo-political power plays.

The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.

In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group...


These people are endlesly bizarre -- they still believe teenagers NEED encouragement to get horny.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus...

And look for this argument -- "We don't even know that it WILL prevent cervical cancer.

While vaccination could slash infection rates, its cancer-preventing benefits will not be evident for decades, as it will take that long for vaccinated girls to reach an age when they might otherwise have developed cancer...

The BEAST -- source of the link that took me to this article in The New Scientist, offered this opinion:

These people are sick in the head... They'd rather let the "sinners" suffer and die than eradicate a disease they see as an asset in their battle for the antiquated abstinence canard.


He's got their number -- these people all talk Jesus till your ears will melt, but, while they would NEVER read (or admit to reading) the Marquis de Sade, they seem to get off regularly and in a major way enjoying the punishment of those people they consider "sinners."

A wise man once said "Beware of people in whom the desire to punish is strong."


If there's any weight to "By your works shall ye be known," I figure, with all the cruelty and pain and suffering they inflict in order to compensate for their feeling of inadequacy with a solidly reinforced posture of self-righteousness, they're working for the other side.

Won't they be surprised when they find out who's waiting for them when they get Home?

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10/15/05



Ok, he is -- and as they say -- you can't fool all the people all the time, but if you do it once, it lasts for four years.

Then you can rig the voting machines next time around. Posted by Picasa

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Nobody did it better Posted by Picasa

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That ain't 'hook 'em horns,' junior ... that's warding off the evil eye. As if there was one out there more evil than any of his hench-fiends. Posted by Picasa

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Oh baby oh baby oh baby oh baby. Posted by Picasa

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Ahhh ... thinking about that sociopathic drunken fool in the White House is too depressing when there are so many other things happening in this world... here's one just arrived... Posted by Picasa

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10/13/05

On Washington Journal this morning, Minister Farrakhan was interviewed.

(Just to put this in context, I was born into a Jewish family and raised with some nominal religious training. Of course my general sense of Palestine-Israel, even as a child, of "Hey, what about those people who already lived there?" has put me firmly outside of that community.)

I found I agreed with Minister Farrakhan on some points (such as who cares what Mr. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has to say -- he's overused his authority with his continual shrieing and screaming until his howls of outrage are now little more than 'cry wolf' static, thereby completely devaluing anyone's VALID claims of anti-semitic bias), and I disagreed with him on some others (that the Irish and Italians and Jews in America were not denied employment and educational opportunities as was the case under the post-slavery Jim Crow laws and also since they were taken off the books.)

I decided Doing the Right Thing (which I think Minister Farrakhan is doing) is not the same as actually being right.

And that Speaking Truth (to Power) is not the same thing as Speaking FACTS (to Power). Truth can be subjective and still be true. Facts can not.

His energies are dedicated to his calling, and that concerns the treatment of and opportunities for people of color, and the role that Islam can play in improving them.

If he's not concerned with the treatment of White Folk, well, there are others who are looking out for them -- and it's pure chickenshit to criticize him on that basis.

(I remember when Jimmy Carter was running for President, and the New York Press criticized him harshly for not knowing enough Jews. His comment was "How many Born-Again Christians do THEY know?")


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A caller on Washington Journal(CSPAN) this morning made it clear that the Koran does NOT condone such things as suicide bombings.

In fact, I realized that of the BIG THREE Western religions neither Islam nor Judaism (in which it is a sin against G-D and the life that has been given to you to give it up voluntarily for any reason) condone it.

Since a case can certainly be made that suicide bombings are a political act intended help bring liberation to others, of the three, only Christianity could be considered to give suicide bombings a nod with the basic tenet (as exemplified by the Dogma that Jesus died for my sins) --

"Better love hath no man than who gives up his life for another."


Of course, Christian dogma still holds that you can't just take your own life because you're in a world of fatal agony -- that would be selfish.


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10/12/05

Bush: Miers' Religion Cited in Court Nod

... Bush, speaking at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that his advisers were reaching out to conservatives who oppose her nomination "just to explain the facts." He spoke on a day in which conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on Family, said he had discussed the nominee's religious views with presidential aide Karl Rove....

In other words, Karl Rove is at it again, this time GUARANTEEING the doubters that Ms Miers can be COUNTED ON to ALWAYS BE BIASED, that they can relax, knowing, whatever the facts or consitutional issues of any case that will ever come up involving abortion, or the line between church and state, or gay rights, or any of the other things the finger-shaking scolders hold dear, Ms Miers has already made her decision.

Ms Harriet Miers, the Judicial slot machine -- put in a nickle and out comes Anti-Choice, Anti-Gay, Pro-Death Penalty, etc.

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AVIAN FLU -- THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

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10/11/05

Here's what's weird about this Miers thing ...

Bush is telling people to trust him, i.e., his nominee is guaranteed to be biased in the way he wants in any abortion case that comes before the Supreme Court.

(Is that NOT what "Trust me" means?")

Bush is telling people he has no idea what her thoughts on abortion might be, so better not trust him.

Bush is telling people that he CAN GUARANTEE that his nominee WILL NOT LEARN ONE THING between now and the year 2025 --- that MUST BE what it means that she won't change her opinions in the next 20 years.

I still say, anyone who thinks George W Bush is "the most brilliant man" she ever met is not only not qualified for public office, she couldn't be tried for murder because of mental defect.

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Kristol: “I hate the criminalization of politics.”

Kristol: “I hate the criminalization of politics.”

And Digby sez:

I'll bet he does. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he and his little friends used the Independent Counsel Statute and majority status in the congress to normalize character assassination, bogus lawsuits, election stealing and partisan impeachments...

Yes, that criminalization of politics is a real bitch, isn't it Bill? Now that Republicans have a professional federal prosecutor on their asses for serious crimes they are, predictably, stomping their tiny feet and wailing like a big bunch 'o babies.

Tell it to Bill Clinton and all the people who worked for him who were never convicted of anything but had their careers ruined by Kristol's hit men during the 90's --- a decade of nonstop trivial GOP smears to which he gladly lent his stentorian hectoring about about morality and "the rule of law."

Now we have a full-fledged criminal enterprise and illegal patronage machine running the government and they are squealing hysterically because the law is finally catching up to them --- and without any help from the hapless Democrats who have no power to do jack shit.



They've ALL always been like that -- big tough hard-chargers, they tell us how fucking tough they are, push and shove and laugh at Democrats who suggest there were some people conspiring to take the Prez down, but NOW -- it's a big fucking full-fledged conspiracy, because after all --- and this is the scary part -- they've pretended to be Christians so well, they must be sacrosanct and holy, right? The worst part for them is that the real Christians, the ones who have sincere beliefs, who were so easily worked because their moral codes made it impossible for them to accept Bill Clinton's behavior, the people they've postured to, are, well, as Wm Burroughs used to say, "The mark's comin' up on us."

I say, fine, let 'em drown in their own venom.



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10/9/05

I know it's unseemly to laugh at the disintegration of the Bush Cabal, so...

...only one laugh for each smirk we endured the last 5 years.

... and a chuckle for each "heh, heh, heh" Mad Doctor ejaculation.

... And a hearty "FUCK YOU, MONKEY BOY" for each person who died so Monkey Boy could act like a Big Man, fucking up yet another job bought for him by Daddy and his friends, playing out his role as some sort of Rich Dyslexic White Trash Protestant version of David Berkowitz, whining that it's not HIS fault --

"DOG TOLD ME TO DO IT"

What a second rate bunch of animated fecal protoplasm we got this time around.

Is it any wonder they refused to join the World Court?

Remember, the World Court would only have jurisdiction in countries where the legal system was unable to function.

They said, "Our poor soldiers," but what they really meant was "Join an organization where rich privileged people like us can be held accountable? Never1"

It would resemble the Nuremberg Trials, Bush - Cheney - Rove -- Rumsfeld -- Goerring -- Himmler -- Hitler -- Goebbels -- Eichmann -- Rice... et al.

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Thoughts on Bush going Green --

It's Mr. Conservation.

Why, ask the journalists?

Hey -- even hard-core Nazis starting saving a few Jews once they saw the end was near and the Red Army bearing down on Berlin.

The one thing these ignorant greedhead pricks named Bush and Rove and Cheney DO know is when their voted-tenure is in danger and the spoils of Daddy and his pals are being threatened. So they're preaching CONSERVATION because they're planning to hike the price of oil EVEN HIGHER. You think $3 a gallon is anything?

You can set your watches to it -- investigations = indictments = smokescreens = Flop Sweat (no one's laughing at their jokes anymore) = party members playing to their own re-election/contributions (bribes) and throw you overboard = grab everything you can and get the hell out of town --- they're in the Wm Burroughs Nova Mob mode, i.e. --

"So pack yer ermines Mary, 'cause the whole shithouse is going up in chunks."

They're picking up the pennies off the eyes of the dead men they killed.

Nice guys, all of them.

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10/6/05

God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers

In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"


We called it something else, back at the Funny Farm, when David Berkowitz said the same thing.

We all knew it, but let's say it one more time: "The boy's not right."



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Harriet Miers -- feminist activist?

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Daily news: 10/06/2005

For someone both heralded and feared as a potentially conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet E. Miers has played a key role in exposing college students to some unmistakably liberal ideas.

In the late 1990s, as a member of the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, Ms. Miers pushed for the creation of an endowed lecture series in women's studies named for Louise B. Raggio, one of the first women to rise to prominence in the Texas legal community. A strong advocate for women, Ms. Raggio helped persuade state lawmakers to revise Texas laws to give women new rights over property and in the event of divorce.

Ms. Miers, whom President Bush announced on Monday as his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not only advocated for the lecture series, but also gave money and solicited donations to help get it off the ground.

A feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, delivered the series's first lecture, in 1998. In the following two years, the speakers were Patricia S. Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman widely associated with women's causes, and Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Ann W. Richards, the Democrat whom George W. Bush unseated as governor of Texas in 1994, delivered the lecture in 2003.

Other speakers in the series have included Geraldine Laybourne, founder of Oxygen Media, a cable-television network for women; Gwen Ifill, moderator of public television's Washington Week and a correspondent for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer; and
Colleen Barrett and Herb Kelleher, both top executives at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, who teamed up to give the lecture in 2004.

A description of the lecture series on Southern Methodist's Web site says it "brings role models of vision and achievement to SMU to speak on gender and women's issues."


--makes me think the foam-flecked rightwingers, the ones who call themselves Christians (which they are, I suppose, if Jesus was actually Pontius Pilate) are going to be in a quandary about the relative merits of defecating or becoming vision-impaired.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

From the always excellent Blondesense


"If...President Bush were to tell me that it's sunny outside, while a lowly mule was telling me that the sky was falling, I would without hesitation go down to the basement and stay there until the mule told me that the sky had stopped falling.

And although the mule could stay in the basement with me, I would not permit the President the accommodation.

The Dark Wraith would not have enough extra food for both a wise mule and a dumb ass."

-- The Dark Wraith

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Where have I heard that before?

Bush: Islamic radicalism doomed to fail - Oct 6, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush told Americans on Thursday that evil men must be stopped "before their crimes can multiply" and that Islamic radicalism "contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure."

----ahhh, yes, my father, born in 1909, a man who got through college working for the bootleggers, who supported the Wobblies and the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, and in whose house I learned all the words to The Four Insurgent Generals, Tachanka,** Freiheit, The Peat-Bog Soldiers, Meadowlands, Minstrel Boy, The Three Ravens and others, (mostly from the 1947 collection: The Fireside Book of Folk Songs), who gave me a 78 RPM set of Paul Robeson singing Ballad for Americans for a birthday present.

When I was young and he had had a few -- he would say:

"The inconsistencies of capitalism will prove its downfall."

Someone recently said, as a joke, that if Bush and Rove were moles for the Socialist Workers Party dead set on the long term plan of destroying the Republican Party and totally discrediting the Conservative Movement, they'd do EXACTLY what they're doing.

I figure it must be Rove, because I doubt that Bush understands what "inherent contradictions" are.

(And I notice -- unless I missed something -- that Capitalism hasn't quite fallen yet.)*


*Writer-philosopher Robert Anton Wilson holds -- and makes a pretty good case for it -- that during the 20th century, Russia did NOT have a Socialist Revolution, but the United States DID.

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**
The tachanka was a four-wheeled cart used in the Ukraine. During the Civil Wars, the partisans would equip it with a machine-gun, with one or two men handling the gun and one driving the horses. They would cover gunners and gun with straw, drive into an area being controlled by either the Tsarist Army or the Cossacks, and when in the midst of many of them, throw off the straw and fire and fire, allowing them -- for the first time ever -- to match the superiority of the cavalry. The song is what today would be called 'sociopathic:'

"See a cloud of dust arising/ Where the horses dash ahead/
And their danger recognizing/Bird has flown and beast has fled./
Ah, tachanka, little Rostov wagon/Of your beauty we are proud/
Little wagon of the Land of Azor/Dashing wildly through the crowd."


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Re-posted (riposte again?) from February 2005

Our Fearful Leader

People keep saying:

"How can anyone not see what a phony he is?
How he's just saying lines?
And that weird convulsive chittering shudder he gives that's supposed to be a laugh?
Always ends with him forcing a smile and sort of looking around,
to maybe see if his Master approves?
How can anyone believe anything he says?"

To which I can only say -- "You ever watch sitcoms? Soaps? Actors with all the craft we see in high school plays? Well, the people who watch them think that's real ..."

And remember, kids -- remember high school, the kid who was supposed to be "average?"
Well consider: half of the people are LESS INTELLIGENT than he was.

Still got a question?

Try Brave New World --
"We're Deltas and we're the best. Alphas are elitist snobs."

Mencken hit it on the nose when he described our form of government as a "boobocracy." And since them, the biggest change, is that the boobs still run things, but at least -- until Ashcroft and his heterosexual panic and Colin Powell's kid (who must be a disappointment to his dad, who at least accomplished SOMETHING before he turned into a company whore) -- we at least get to SEE some boobies.

(No country since at least the Golden Age of Greece has ever worshipped bodily perfection more than we: 6-packs and buns of steel, buff and tan and all that ... and yet the former Attorney General of the United States was so terrified of physical nature, he ordered a classical statue to have its breasts covered.

My father once said to me, speaking of the Third Reich German High
Command, that "there was something sexually sick about all of them." Perhaps it's only coincidental the number of connections these current guys have to the old Black-and-Red Swastika Gang, but ditto.

In the words of Saint Lenny of Bruce -- "If you have a problem with naked bodies, take it up with the manufacturer -- that's the way they come.")



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Tim Grieve on Harriet Miers' qualifications:


The White House on Miers' critics: Sexist, elitist or both?


... There might have been ways for the president ... to sell his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Arguing, as he did earlier this week, that Miers was the "most qualified" candidate and the "best person I could find" clearly wasn't one of them.

... what neither Democrats nor Republicans will be able to gin up is evidence that Miers graduated from something other than a third-tier law school, that she learned at the feet of a federal appellate judge, that she's written seriously about constitutional issues, that's she ever judged anything or that she's ever argued a case before the Supreme Court.

So what's the White House doing now? What it always does: Going on the offensive against its critics. Having failed to persuade its conservative base to look past Miers' middling credentials and trust Bush about her right-wing bona fides, the White House now seems ready to simply smear Miers' opponents as elitists and sexists...

The sexism charge is silly...

As for elitism? Guilty as charged, your honor. Call us crazy, but we think that the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court ought to be selected from among the best developed legal minds in the country. For better or for worse, that means we expect our justices to have undergone the rigors of an education at a top-flight law school and then to have shown, through a lifetime of work at the highest levels of the legal profession, an extraordinary ability to deal with the difficult constitutional issues that sometimes come before the court...



And then, in a later column, he referred us all to Ann Coulter, and was as surprised as any of us to find he agreed with at least some of what she had to say (see post below).



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Is it possible? Ann Coulter is actually making sense? And I'm actually nodding my head yes to her column?


THIS IS WHAT 'ADVICE AND CONSENT' MEANS

by Ann Coulter
October 5, 2005

I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country.

Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues — loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ...

Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.

I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court.

First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years. Among the coalitions that elected Bush are people who have been laboring in the trenches for a quarter-century to change the legal order in America. While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right...



... and she goes on, finally Coultering it, turning her mean-spirited (but witty) shots back to the true traitors and enemies of all that is good and just --- the liberals. In fact, telling us that the real tragedy here is that the Republicans are acting like the Democrats! (Ok, so at least we know the world hasn't gone completely off its axis -- Ann Coulter still hates Liberals)

But bear this in mind -- Ann Coulter thinks Joe McCarthy was a true American Hero, misunderstood and unfairly portrayed, so her attack on Bush and his pet lawyer is coming from a very different place than, say, someone like Teddy Kennedy, when she tells us in so many words that Harriet Miers is still working her way up to being second-rate -- but that she hasn't got what it takes.

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10/4/05

People say David Frum later deleted a paragraph from his attack on Miss Miers. This is it:

BlondeSense: "'She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.'"

I guess it goes to that thing of Monkey Boy needing to have worshipful serving maidens peeling his grapes, some sort of substitute for Mommy. They're all single one way or another. I guess if you have no male in your life, Monkey Boy is a fair substitute, for the perqs if nothing else.


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Conspiracy Or Crap? The beauty of the blogosphere is that you can decide...

Here's a QuickTime lecture

in which Michael Rupert (From the Wilderness) discusses the involvement of Dick Cheney, et al in the 9-11 events.

This via the delightful Angry Old Broad

to which we were referred by Blondesense Liz

The issue raised -- the IMPORTANT issue raised is whether or not it's acceptable to question, wonder, even (dare I say it) think about whether or not we believe the story we got, and if not, then what would be the alternative?

Is Michael Rupert insane?

Possibly, but then I am reminded of how I assumed Lyndon LaRouche was insane when -- years and years ago -- he went on and on about the danger we faced from the Islamic Brotherhood. I finally had to come to this conclusion: Yes, Lyndon LaRouche is probably insane --- but he was right.

So the issue of sanity is moot. As the punchline to the old joke goes: "I may be nuts, but I'm not stupid."


Check it out. Let yourself wonder if it makes sense or not.

Takes about 10 - 15 minutes or so, but is worth it.



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Why the Wall Street Journal thinks Bush's choice stinks

Cronyism

Alexander Hamilton wouldn't approve of Justice Harriet Miers.

They have surmised what Alexander Hamilton would say in THIS situation -- from Federalist No. 76:


"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."


But perhaps she's the MOST QUALIFIED person in the United States? Right.



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