Sniffing out the land mines -- somebody has to do it.

Giant rats to sniff out tuberculosis -- old news, but new to me ..

16 December 2003
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee

"Giant rats in Sub-Saharan Africa are being trained to sniff out tuberculosis in humans. The rats have already been successfully used to detect land mines by their odour.

Preliminary tests suggest the rats could test as many as 150 saliva samples for TB in just 30 minutes. By contrast, human technicians using a microscope can test only 20 samples a day. The World Bank has now provided $165,000 for a full study of the rats' diagnostic potential.

'Tuberculosis is a growing worldwide epidemic,' says Bart Weetjens, director of the rat programme at Apopo, a Belgian research organisation hosted by Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. 'It makes sense to detect those cases to be able to treat them...'"

...The rat study, which will begin in July 2004, will test the olfactory abilities of about 30 giant pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus). The researchers will compare the rats' adeptness with the 95 per cent accuracy of smear microscopy.

****

---Life span: up to 8 years, can reach a total length of 30 inches or more - half made up by the tail, Weight: usually about 3-4 pounds ---

****

Preliminary results look positive. Apopo researchers used bananas and peanuts to reward rats when they stopped beside a target smell. In this way, they sensitised five rats to the smell of TB bacteria in saliva and another five to the smell of TB bacteria grown in cultures.

The rats were then tested using 10,000 saliva samples and identified about 77 per cent of infected saliva samples. Weetjens hopes that using three or four trained rats on each sample will increase the accuracy.

The rats scored better - nearly 92 per cent - with cultured bacteria. The number of "false positives," where rats stopped at uninfected samples, was less than 2 per cent for both cultures and saliva.

The idea came to Weetjens through a clue in his native language, Dutch. The Dutch word for TB is tering, which translates roughly as "the process of developing the smell of tar".

He also had read reports of traditional Chinese healers diagnosing the disease by smelling the patient's saliva as it evaporated over a flame. "In principle, everything has a smell," he told New Scientist. Researchers have already studied whether dogs can sniff out cancers, he says.

The rats, which can grow as big as cats, have been studied by Apopo since 1997. In their first field deployment, 12 rats were sent to Mozambique, where they sniffed out 20 landmines without detonating them.

Link

Cheney Offended by Amnesty Int'l Report --- Hold everything -- yet ANOTHER new, improved definition for CHUTZPAH from this administration

Dick Cheney, the sneering vicious insultingly dismissive hypocrite who changed his opinion from being a father and supportive of his daughter to bending over for the power-wielding religio-psychotic voters, the man who willingly pushed the sock puppet in the Oval Office into killing thousands and thousands of people in Iraq (ours and theirs) just so his old pals could make some money, the man who attacks the patriotism of everyone who didn't dodge the draft the way he did, the man who spends most of his political life in hiding at "an undisclosed location," the man who, when actually elected to congress vehemently opposed any American attempts to influence South Africa away from apartheid -- this venal, vicious, slime-soaked asshole thinks he has a right to be offended by anyone?

Hell, put him in a popularity contest with Himmler, Goerring, and Goebbels and he'd come out a distant fourth.

He's offended that Amnesty International would point a finger at the treatment of prisoners and hostages in Gitmo. As you read the article, please note that, of course, he never denies it. Just raises himself up like some desert lizard puffing out his scales in threat and tells us all "I'm offended." That's what he told Larry King, ex-con, politico fluffer, and world-class softball lofter.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005


Vice President Dick Cheney says he's offended by a human rights group's report criticizing conditions at the prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.


The report Amnesty International released last week said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down. Cheney derided the London-based group in an interview set to be broadcast Monday night on CNN's 'Larry King Live.'


'Frankly, I was offended by it,' Cheney said in the videotaped interview. 'For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously.'


Cheney is the latest Bush administration official to object to the report. On Sunday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers called the Amnesty International report 'absolutely irresponsible.'"

General Myers didn't deny it either, by the way.

Does Mr. Cheney even have an inkling of how unbelievably offensive most ethically-oriented humans are by his sneering, insulting, offensive presence? Perhaps he is and that would explain why he hides out so much.

All the boys in his club (remember, speaking out in contrast to the story Mr. Bush refers to as "propaganda" gets you forcibly retired) are on the same page -- pointing to specifics they can deny, being offended by the ones they can't deny, and hoping no one ever reads the report presenting Amnesty International's point of view.

The number one charge is that the US is holding people prisoner for years without any charges being filed, let alone proven. And the US is doing exactly that. Oh -- they also mentioned our killitary presence in Colombia, and the fact that we still execute children, morons, poor people without lawyers, and foreigners, and refuse to join the World Court or in any way live up to some world-wide standard of decency in behavior.

But the big defense is "Well, these charges come from people who waited until they were released from custody, and are therefore not worth listening to."

Wait a second --they DON'T make these charges while they're being held incommunicado and under total control and THAT means the charges are invalid? Seems to me, that's evidence to the opposite.

So let me put it another way ---

The people who love this country and its people and its Constitution are opposed to our government acting like vicious thugs and speak out against these things.

The people who have NO RESPECT for this country's people or Constitution are the ones who are plundering the treasury, pissing off the world, increasing hostility from the rest of the world (thereby increasing our danger) by killing and torturing and maiming in the name of some sort of national security, and shouting down/denouncing anyone who speaks out against it.

These people are not patriots -- these people are LOOTERS.

In other words:

MR. CHENEY ... YOU OFFEND ALL DECENT SENSIBILTITIES -- UNLESS YOU"RE SECRETLY A GOOD GUY TRYING TO UNDERMINE MONEKY BOY AND HIS RELIGIOUS FANATIC PALS, IF YOU'RE HALF AS INTELLIGENT AS PEOPLE WHO KISS YOUR ASS SAY YOU ARE, YOU WOULD DO WELL TO STAY HIDDEN IN SOME UNDISCLOSED LOCATIONS.

IN SHORT -- YOU AND YOUR PALS DO NOT OWN THIS COUNTRY.

AND WAR CRIMES? WELL -- WE, THE PEOPLE, MIGHT JUST TRY TO BUY OUR WAY BACK INTO THE COMMUNITY OF CIVILIZED NATIONS BY HOISTING YOU UP (on the rope of the Yamashita Principle) UNTIL YOU CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM THERE.

Of course, the Rude Pundit has a somewhat less polite take on the vile display presented by Mssrs King and Cheney.. and, as usual, it's done as an outrageously funny over-the-top obscene snapshot of The Way Things Really Are.

Link

WHY "DYING IN VAIN" MIGHT BE A VERY GOOD THING - THOUGHTS ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

First of all, let me make it clear -- I do NOT think that the deaths of any of our military people, our civilian people, of ANYONE is a good thing. Each death is a loss to the world of what might have been. What I despise is the way these deaths are papered over with cliches and bullshit. It is spinning a loss of life into politically favorable meaning that devalues the life itself, the courage, the fear, the pain, the hopes, the families, the friends -- it is the "Hooray-for-Us" bullshit that flashes a sad smile while it charges wounded vets for their hospital food that is an insult to everyone in uniform. It is flying to Baghdad under cover of night and having your photograph taken holding a cardboard turkey that devalues those lives. Let us at least reap some benefit in grief and understanding to accept the truth -- war always involves a lot of brave, caring, believing people dying in vain. Sometimes, those deaths are ALL in vain. Let us at least honor our dead with the Truth.

First of all, everyone dies in vain --– there is no glory, no meaning, none of that, regardless of what recruiters tell 17-years old kids to make their quotas. Certainly a person'’s last living act(s) may be admirable and heroic, and if so, that is worth honoring, raising a glass to, lowering a flag for, making a memorial about ... but, for all we'’ll hear that phrase “that they have not died in vain,” a lot this weekend, anyone who has actually seen/heard someone die screaming knows better. (I have, and I am fully aware that what I saw wasn'’t even within shouting distance of what soldiers mean when they say “It was bad.”) We may wish it weren'’t so, that it weren’'t just meaningless noise and pain – and wish it all the more when we know how meaningless it is, but there'’s a reason the great learning of the War in Vietnam was summed up in the phrase:

It don’t mean nothin’

Unfortunately, our country is currently in the hands of a bunch of sock puppets who have never seen the sort of reality show they have voted to create –-- a bunch of rec room patriots who spent the war of their generation watching it on TV with a beer in hand, jerking themselves off in obsolete equipment that they KNEW would not be used in Vietnam, or sneering at the “Dumb fucks who let themselves get drafted.” (Oh come on -- – surely, if you'’re old enough, you remember the attitude back then -- – until it got really covert because it was no longer acceptable, even in the hineymost depths of Texas, to say what everyone heard some nice white businessman say, sooner or later: "“Hey let ‘em draft the niggers. But white kids stay in school."

”

(Hello Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton – you had your work cut out for you.)

Or haven'’t you noticed yet that the amount of sneering and tough-guy act put forth by various persons in this administration seems to be in direct proportion to the amount of time they spent avoiding having to be tested by giving some Little Green Man service to the country that helped them get rich?

Oh, they looove the heroes WHEN THEY”RE DEAD, because it gives them photo ops.

Like all that crap about the “HEROIC firemen of 9-11” – listen -- EVERY fireman ANYWHERE, ANYTIME that goes INTO a burning building is doing an heroic act EVERY FUCKING DAY, trying to save our homes and our stuff and our pets and our families. The NYFD 9-11 people are dead because their walkie-talkies were pieces of cheap crap that cut out inside the steel frame of the buildings, so they didn’t hear the heads up being given to them and the police. Well, hell --– good ones would have cost, – oh, nearly as much as Giuliani’'s limo.

But Monkey Boy got to stand by the hole in the ground and call them heroes (as if the rest weren’'t?) and dance on the bones of those who died as if they had died intentionally just to pull his political ratings out of the toilet ... but neither he, nor Bloomberg, nor Hilary Clinton nor anyone who shed such sincere-looking tears in New York has cut loose any funds to get these heroes better equipment to make them at least a little bit safer while they’re risking their lives for us.

And now we come around to the question of our military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan:– are they risking their lives FOR US? Or are they just being told this is a good thing that actually needs to be done? Because they'’ll do it, regardless -- whether because they believe it'’s needed and/or because class war in America has made it impossible for them to get a college education without joining up.

But what sort of a semi-conscious vicious pissant would send people into combat if it weren'’t necessary? Because win, lose, or draw --– come home in a body bag or maimed, or even with all parts intact -- – that person will never be the same. Never. It is not the education they thought they’'d be getting, but one that will shape their minds more than any philosophy course they'’ll ever sit through.

I will answer my own question and suggest what kind of people these are -- they are signifying, speculating, theorizing, megalomaniacal assholes who think they will pull it off -- get to decide how the people of the Tigris/Euphrates - Mid-Adriatic Rift will live and what they will think so they'’ll continue to play nice and let us plunder their resources while we let them rule with a whip in one hand and a proctoscope in the other.

They seem to be completely soulless (have you noticed that curiosity – that the less seeming spiritual awareness one of them has, the more he or she talks about religion) but that apparent soullessness could just be the result of knowing there’'s not a lot of profit to be had in being too sensitive, – no profit in objecting to sending a bunch of ... ahhh, poor kids --- White, African American, Hispanic – send them to their deaths dressed in desert camo.

So. That’s the context. Here'’s the point:

The greatest contribution these people --– the ones who have died -- could make to the soul and future of the United States is for their deaths to be acknowledged and understood as having been totally unnecessary and in vain. The wars to end wars didn'’t. But

The Memorial to the Brave Young Men and Women Who Died for Total Bullshit

THAT could really help us on the way to denying megalomaniacal assholes the right to wage war just because they WANT to, because they feel -- – not surprisingly--– like total losers, and they want to be -- need to be -- are desperate to think they might actually be REAL MEN and REAL WOMEN while they sit in their offices or smile for cameras and they don’t realize that creating this war just made them bigger LOSERS – historically monstrous fools that future generation will laugh at.

But if we understand that a public mourning for these people who have died and will continue to die, a public grieving at the fact that these were sincere, committed, brave people WHO DIED FOR TOTAL NOTHING BULLSHIT IN VAIN – then perhaps future generations will remember them and revere them as those who gave their lives for nothing so those future generations won’'t have to.

Link

Rice goes to bat for Bolton / In S.F. speech, secretary of state also rips war critics

So the woman some consider the black Ilse Koch (see below) was in town yesterday, and waving the flag for the UN candidate, John Bolt-on (which is, I believe, something like a strap-on, except more painful). But my favorite Bizarro-world moment happened when:

"...Rice's speech at the Davies Symphony Hall was interrupted briefly by four protesters wearing black hoods and robes who stood on their seats with hands outstretched, attempting to evoke imagery from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The protesters, chanting 'Stop the Torture, U.S. out of Iraq,'' were led from the audience by police without incident. The four robed protesters, along with another demonstrator in the audience, were cited for disrupting a public meeting and released.

Rice paused as police corralled the protesters but drew applause when she acknowledged the disruption, saying, 'Isn't it wonderful that we live in a country where people are allowed to speak?''"

---at which several people did NOT applaud, and said, "But they're NOT being allowed to speak. They're getting arrested!"

And, oh -- that OTHER DEMONSTRATOR was a fellow who took off his shirt, revealing a handsome USMC Bulldog tattoo and shouted:

"Hey Ilse -- you wanna make a lampshade out of this one?"

(Or perhaps it was all a fever dream. Oh please tell me it's all a fever dream.)

Link

A question about the Stockholm Syndrome

It seems that whenever Americans or British or other Euro people are taken hostage or prisoner, they often have positive things to say about their captors' behavior when released. The press and more or less everyone else in positions of authority discount such positive statements and say, "Oh, it's only the Stockholm Syndrome."

This syndrome was named for an event in 1973 when bank robbers took over the Kreditbanken of Norrmalstorg, Stockholm and held people hostage there for six days. At the end of that time, many hostages refused to be rescued or to assist the police or testify against their captors. It's considered a normal human survival trait, a psychological adaptation to the continuing stress and danger. A universal thing.

So my question is this -- if Stockholm Syndrome is supposed to be universal -- no more than a normal human survival trait of identifying with the people abusing them:

HOW COME NONE OF THE PEOPLE OUR GUYS HOLD HOSTAGE OR PRISONER (at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib) EVER SEEM TO COME DOWN WITH A CASE OF IT?

HOW COME NONE OF OUR HOSTAGES/PRISONERS EVER REFUSE TO BE RELEASED OR RESCUED?

Link

Message to Viagra users -- a reminder of what Faddah Anthony told you a long time ago:

"IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT, YOU'LL GO BLIND."

"I kick their asses."

Adolf Hitler, former Austrian strongman.



"I lick their asses."

John Bolton, Joey Lieberman, George W Bush, et al.

Remember this one?

 
    VIETNAM 2 PREFLIGHT CHECK
  
    1. Cabal of oldsters who won't listen to outside
   advice? Check.
  
    2. No understanding of ethnicities of the many
   locals? Check.
  
    3. Imposing country boundaries drawn in Europe,
   not by the locals? Check.
  
    4. Unshakeable faith in our superior technology?
   Check.
  
    5. France secretly hoping we fall on our asses?
   Check.
  
    6. Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses?
   Check.
  
    7. China secretly hoping we fall on our asses?
   Check.
  
    8. SecDef pushing a conflict the JCS never wanted?
   Check.
  
    9. Fear we'll look bad if we back down now? Check.
  
    10. Corrupt Texan in the WH? Check.
  
    11. Land war in Asia? Check.
  
    12. Right unhappy with outcome of previous war?
   Check.
  
    13. Enemy easily moves in/out of neighboring
   countries? Check.
  
    14. Soldiers about to be dosed with *our own*
   chemicals? Check.
  
    15. Friendly fire problem ignored instead of
   solved? Check.
  
    16. Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
  
    17. B-52 bombers? Check.
  
    18. Helicopters that clog up on the local dust?
   Check.
  
    19. In-fighting among the branches of the
   military? Check.
  
    20. Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night?
   Check.
  
    21. Local experts ignored? Check.
  
    22. Local politicians ignored? Check.
  
    23. Locals used to conflicts lasting longer than
   the USA has been a country?    Check.
  
    24. Against advice, Prez won't raise taxes to pay
   for war? Check.
  
    25. Blue water navy ships operating in brown
   water? Check.
  
    26. Use of nukes hinted at if things don't go our
   way? Check.
  
    27. Unpopular war? Check.
  
    VIETNAM 2 YOU ARE CLEARED TO TAXI
 

 

---and now we can add this:

 

28. Looking like it's going to be the LONGEST war in US History?

Check

Hullabaloo

Regarding Bush's stand against stem cell research...

"I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is - I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it.''

Digby's comment:

"... It looks to me as if the best way to convince Bush and his followers to support stem cell research is to propose that we only use arab embryos. "

For the full effect, check out Digby at Hullabalo

Make it a habit.

Link

The Senate Committee on Cover-Your-Ass and Improving the World's view of Freedom as Slavery

What's wrong with this picture?


Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: "U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Title: Oil For Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians Under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program
Date: 5/17/05
Time (EST): 9:30 AM
Place: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 106

Witnesses Testimony...

... Panel 2
George Galloway , Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow , Great Britain
Mr Galloway did not submit a statement

It ... it must have just been a dream I had, that Galloway said a thing or two.

Does the old nasty saying, "What do you mean? That's a thermometer and I'm just taking your temperature" apply here?

Can't remember where I read it...

... on one of the blogs I read -- I was on the run all day yestrday and failed to note it down, so I can't give the attribution, but some blogster pointed out that for all the hullaballo about the Newsweek article and the Koran-flushing, and the adminsitration slapping of Isikoff, and despite Newsweek's retraction...

NO ONE IN THE PENTAGON HAS ACTUALLY DENIED THAT IT HAPPENED.

So thanks, whomever. Good point.

Ruthless Reviews -- one of the reasons to love the Internet

What can I say? I found them when I decided on a whim to Google "cocksucker" for the review of "Deadwood" just below this. Just read this portion of the first paragraph of their review of REVELATIONS, the TV series, and you'll know if you want to bookmark their page and subscribe to their weekly rant update email **

The verdict is in, ladies and gentlemen, and Christians, once thought to be poor, unfortunate saps afflicted with advanced insanity -- tinged with a bit of self-delusion -- have now graduated to dangerous and morally suspect; murderous, schizophrenic beasts so beyond the grasp of reason that round-the-clock shock treatments would do little but deepen the dementia. After one jaw-dropping episode of NBC's Revelations, based on the New Testament's dumbest book, we now have lasting proof that the Religious Right has secured the mainstream for its sinister agenda, I have never been so afraid for the future of this country. I'd run and hide, but these people have infiltrated every hole, sewer, and open pit in their quest to transform this country from a backwater hovel of superstitious yokeldom to a shining, crisply ordered behemoth of lockstep and zealotry.

Still undecided? Then check out their page delicately titled "Fuck Creationism."

**The Weekly Rant eMail Mailing List:
Once a week or so they'll send out an email telling you what's new and/or caustic at Ruthless Reviews. ... Oh yeah, we're going to try to sell you T-Shirts soon, so get your wallets ready.

To join the Ruthless List, simply send an email to list2@ruthlessreviews.com/

Put "Put me on the Ruthless List" on the subject line of the email.

They promise not to give your email address to anybody but they ARE ruthless (Of course, as anyone who knows me and my feelings toward a certain woman named Ruth who married into my family -- being Ruthless is OK with me.)

Link

About "Deadwood," the HBO series

The thing about Deadwood, the town, was that it was Dakota Territory and outside the legal jurisdiction of the United States -- gold and anarchy -- and more or less everyone there was there for the gold, of course, but more often because there were arrest warrants awaiting them back in the states, big ones for murder and such.

There's a good article in Salon.com, orienting toward Democrats and Republicans and their role-model relationships to South Park and Deadwood:

"Let conservatives co-opt 'South Park and 'The Incredibles.' It's time for liberals to get in touch with the free-range, foul-mouthed, gunslinging antiheroes of 'Deadwood.'"

...Eleven years after the Gingrich revolution there is evidence galore that the two armies in the culture wars have simply switched sides after swapping the reins of power. The Republicans are now the party of big government and optimistic Wilsonian adventures abroad, while the Democrats flirt anew with federalism, fiscal sobriety and sour isolationism. Within this realignment, and the religious right's continued overreach in the Terri Schiavo case and others to follow, lies a golden Democratic opportunity for cultural re-branding. Yes, cocksuckers, it's time for liberals to get in touch with their inner "Deadwood." It's good politics, better philosophy and (most important of all?) damned fun..."

It's a fine article, just doesn't happen to mention the influence Pete Dexter's thoroughly-researched and mostly historically accurate novel Deadwood had on the show.

But an idea is not responsible for its followers, and in this case, you should know that Dexter doesn't find the fecund abundance of the word "cocksucker" used in the TV series to be either useful or true to the time:

"It seems to me it's condescending to the viewer to think that throwing those kinds of words often makes a style point."

And from another writer familiar with that period:

"Men might say 'damn' ... or call each other 'bastard' or 'son of a bitch,' " but not the more modern cussing heard on Deadwood, says Frederick Bozeman, who has researched gold rush life in Montana and is working on a book due out in the fall."

I have never found the use of that particular word to ring true, either, and the sheer excess of it was difficult to accomodate, even though, in a place such as Deadwood, with minimal hygeine, it would indicate an individual with certain lack of standards.

And the novel has the repeated rape of of young lad in a covered wagon early on in the book that just might include such business. Still, by the end of the first show, with early 20th blues songs playing over the closing credits, the point is not whether or not it's accurate, but that there is literary license going on.

Well, in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, "Nonetheless..."

The scripting and acting and directing of Deadwood is extraordinary with multi-level oblique conspiracy ongoing with more or less everyone. Most people have noticed -- of course -- the amazing stellar performance of Ian McShane as Al Swearengen. But EVERY actor in the ensemble series is revealed, sooner or later, to be doing something above and beyond what might be expected or even hoped-for, with complex unstated undercurrents enriching each one, whether it's the perennially-underrated Brad Dourif as Doc Cochran or William Sanderson in an insanely grotesque portrayal of the devious, semi-literate and sensitive E.B.Farnum, or the truly amazing Robin Wiegert as Calamity Jane.

The characters are generally debased, brutalized, opportunistic, and murderous, but, other than perhaps Powers Boothe's presenting a brilliant Face of Evil as Cy Tolliver, sooner or later we find that every one of them has some standards, some principles, complexity, even something one might call a personal morality.

You can continue all the way down the cast list and see what might be "personal-best" performances from damn near evereyone -- Jeffrey Jones as A.W. Merrick, Paula Malcomson as Trixie, Molly Parker as Alma Garrett, W. Earl Brown as Dan Dority, Geri Jewell as Jewell, Keone Young as Mr. Wu, Sarah Paulson as the monstrous Pinkerton agent Miss Isringhausen, Dayton Callie as Charlie Utter, Kim Dickens as Joanie Stubbs, Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock, John Hawkes as Sol Star, Powers Boothe as Cy Tolliver, and the unnamed actor portraying a character gradually emerging as a viewer-favorite, Richardson, factotum to E.B. Farnum (Sanderson) -- and what is the matter with those cocksuckers that run the HBO Deadwood site? They don't think he's important enough to list?

Have I missed anyone? Of course I have: Leon Rippy as Tom Nuttal, Garret Dillahunt as an advance man for Hearst who somehow manages to play the character as simultaneously soulless and tortured.

This series makes the Sopranos look sort of like Laverne and Shirley. But then, the law of the dojo is this: "The student owes it to the teacher to surpass him."

Link

The Seven Deadly Judicial Nominees

So who are they?

Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the District of Columbia Circuit

…currently sits on the California Supreme … Republican Gov. Pete Wilson appointed her his legal affairs secretary, and then to a seat on the state Court of Appeals in 1994 …prior to her appointment she received a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association. Here’s a quote: "Where government moves in ... the result is a debased, debauched culture, which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."

She has a strong – possibly absolute -- ideological opposition to government and regulation of private enterprise. But she's black and the Republicans always count on "Liberals" not being able to criticize minority people.

William Myers III, nominated to the 9th Circuit Court

long history of working … as a lobbyist on behalf of the mining and energy industries … the 9th circuit has jurisdiction over the Western states and covers many of the same industries whose interests he has spent his career lobbying or representing in court.

… Myers has minimal courtroom experience and has never been a judge. He received a "qualified" rating from the American Bar Association, the ABA's lowest passing grade, with a minority voting "not qualified."

Priscilla R. Owen, nominated for the 5th Circuit Court

She hired Karl Rove to run her first campaign for the Texas Supreme Court, where she has served as a justice since 1995. Her opinions thus far on the Texas court indicate strident opposition to reproductive rights, workers' rights, civil rights, consumers' rights and environmental protection.

Former White House counsel and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales criticized of Owen as trying to implement "an unconscionable act of judicial activism" for interpreting a parental-consent statute to please antiabortion interests. Owen has proposed a particular view that abortion law be interpreted with a "religious awareness" standard.

…Texans for Public Justice, a legal watchdog group, reports that Owen favored donors to her judicial campaigns 85 percent of the time when they appeared before her in court.

Richard Allen Griffin, nominated to the 6th Circuit Court

He advocated excluding prisoners from protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act in Doe vs. Michigan Department of Corrections… the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) did apply to prisons and prisoners. Griffin reversed a trial court decision against the prisoners, stating that he found in favor of the prisoners "only because we are required to do so ... Were we allowed, we would ... affirm the holding of the trial court" that the prisoners' case should be dismissed. "We urge Congress," he continued, "to amend the ADA to exclude prisoners from the class of persons entitled to protection under the act."

David W. McKeague, nominated to the 6th Circuit Court

Repeatedly reversed by the 6^th Circuit Court for "abuse of discretion."

Opponents point toward his bias on the bench against workers' rights, civil rights and prisoners. For example -- In 1994, he sided against the U.S. Justice Department, which sought an investigation into widespread reports of sexual abuse of women in state prisons.

Henry Saad, nominated to the 6th Circuit Court

His career has been based on defending large corporations from sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits (Ford, G.E., Eli Lilly).

--- these six make up a pretty disgusting pile of choices. But WAIT!
Here’'s the turd-cherry atop the shit sundae Bush and the GOP are presenting to us:

William H. Pryor Jr., nominated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

He was Attorney General of Alabama until last year(1997-2004), called Roe vs. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history"; in 2002 he argued in the Supreme Court for states' to have the right of execution of mentally retarded inmates; he called the Voting Rights Act "an affront to federalism and an expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness"; he guaranteed, in 2003, that extending the civil rights of same-sex couples would logically extend to legal acceptance of necrophilia and bestiality; and he – the only state attorney general in America – challenged the constitutionality of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, asserting that land use and wildlife protection should remain free of federal government regulation.

So my question is this – even with the pressure of party “loyalty” are there NO Republican senators who will stand up and invoke e e cumming’s Olaf?

Do none of them have the courage to say loud and clear:

“I will not kiss your fucking flag ...

There is some shit I will not eat.”

Is there no limit to how much shit the Senators will eat in order to run with the pack?

I guess not.

Mine are bigger than Laura's, so there -- but it's really A-Rove-ing that I want to go.

Mary Carey to Dine with President Bush

LOS ANGELES - Porn star and former gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey (above) will be joining her boss, Kick Ass Pictures president Mark Kulkis, in attending a dinner with President Bush in Washington, D.C. on June 14.

Kulkis was invited to attend the event by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which is organizing the event. Over a two-day course of NRCC events preceding the dinner, Carey and Kulkis will be attending a meeting with presidential advisor Karl Rove, giving their recommendations on important national issues.

“I’m hoping to run as Lieutenant Governor of California next year,” Carey said. “Since Arnold {Schwarzenegger} is a Republican, I thought this dinner would be a great networking opportunity for me.”

“I’m honored to be invited to this event,” Kulkis said. “Republicans bill themselves as the pro-business party. Well, you won’t find a group of people more pro-business than pornographers. We contributed over $10 billion to the national economy last year.”

“I’m especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove,” Carey added. “Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he’s against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn’t so bad!”"

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Defendants in the dock at the Ango-American War Crimes Trial of 2010, held at The Hague under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. -- This photo and article courtesy of Whiskey Bar -- http://billmon.org/ -- where the rest of this delightful fantasy takes place.

Scarlet Uniforms Linked to Success in Sports -- Go Niners

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com:

"Scarlet Uniforms Linked to Success in Sports"

Competitive athletes are always seeking ways to improve their performance. The results of a new study indicate that they need only look in their closets. A paper published today in Nature suggests that athletes wearing red uniforms experience a slight advantage over those decked out in other colors."

The Truth? You can't handle the truth!

Jack Nicholson's character said it when on the witness stand in A Few Good Men, after Tom Cruise asked for the truth ... and then, I thought, "No Colonel YOU can't handle the truth -- you're a passed- over colonel never gonna get a star, a tin soldier failed-career Marine guarding a fence around some land stolen from the little island you're on, and jerking yourself off daily by telling yourself you're defending America from the gigantic horrible Godzilla threat of Cuba. You're not in danger, not protecting anyone, just a washed-up officer washed up in a Caribbean tidepool and YOU can't handle the truth."

But well, Rob Reiner and Kevin Pollack and Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise -- they all had mortgages and pool cleaners to pay...

And of course, now, we find -- in a perversely different way -- WE CAN'T handle the truth -- that these brig guards have systematically tortured and killed ...

My point?

Ask anyone who has ever been in the Army Navy Marines Coast Guard -- hell, even the bible-thumping Air Force -- ask them what they think of MPs, SP's, etc... what they think of the people who run the brigs and the stockades. Most of the people I have ever talked to think that the Ernest Borgnine character in "From Here to Eternity" was a pretty good generalization -- a vicious, sadistic, hateful, angry thug -- except not usually quite so out of shape, and they pray no one will meet these people and assume that's what everyone in that particular service is like.

Get it?

Abu Ghraib ... Gitmo ... none of the horror stories had anything to do with lack of training or lack of supervision ... they were the result of POLICY -- THAT'S WHAT BRIG GUARDS DO -- THAT'S POLICY, THAT'S TRADITION -- that's the calling card of their trade, i.e., being the Internal Affairs Punishment Corp that gets to inflict harm on the real soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen.

Or as a Gunny Sergeant once said to me whan I asked about it -- "Well, private, that was when you were sent to the brig FOR punishment instead of AS punishment."

Or when - God help you, when they're convinced you've done whatever you're supposed to have done and will inflict pain and humiliation on you until it's easier to say ok and ask them what it is they want you to confess and to please just be kind finish them off quickly -- behead them. But we don't do that -- "This ain't the desert, Mohammed -- we don't got a lot of sand here and no one wants to clean up your blood."

And those redneck pissants in the executive branch have the temerity to suggest that psychotic Muslims are in some way more crazy than our home-grown variety.

Hey -- there are people who are vicious, monstrous and dehumanized EVERYWHERE. And we have a whole lot of them at Gitmo -- on OUR side of the wire.

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What bothers me is this...

... as we watch the entire Middle East disintegrate into civil wars, insurrections and chaos ... and as sociopathically fanatical as some of the uneducated Muslims may be (not unlike our very own redneck fundamentalist Christians -- or don't we all remember them burning Beatles' records, lynching negro people, killing Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney, hearing TV personality Art Linkletter (admittedly after the death by suicide of his daughter, Diane) calling for the populace to attack Timothy Leary and the Beatles "... stomp on them with hob-nailed boots") There ARE, absolutely, a whole lot of monomaniacal religious crazies over there without even a peaceful Jesus to ignore (or don't we remember Cat Stevens saying that "The fatwah on Salman Rushdie was just because he mocked the Prophet in his book, so yes, he SHOULD die.")

THIS TIME the result was triggered by our arrogant invasion, standing up as the new colonial lords and telling them we were going to GIVE THEM FREEDOM. Telling them what we've been giving them IS freedom. THIS TIME, we lit the fuse.

What Monkey Boy and his puppet-masters (including, unfortunately, the required Jews to blame it on -- Wolfie, Perlie, etc) are introducing into their societies is at LEAST as radical as was integration, LSD, hippies, intermarriage, the Industrial Revolution, etc. What we are trying to "give" them is turning their society -- whether we deem them primitive or backward or just very very different -- upside down.

Or to use the wonderful words John Cage used as the title of his published diary:

How to Save the World -- You'll Only Make It Worse.

So for all my venom, for all my sense that these people (our administration) are the lowest, most soulless scum of the earth) I STILL am taken aback by the possibility that this rampant chaos WAS THE PLAN -- either to bring on the end times to satisfy their own religious sociopathology or that of "The Base," or, as has been said, "When there's chaos, there's always money to be made." (Interesting -- translate "Al Quaeda" -- it means "The Base.")

Because the Muslims went nuts the same way the GOP knew the Iranians would go nuts if Nelson Rockefeller could convince Jimmy Carter to give a compassionate visa to the former Shah so he could be treated for his cancer at Sloan-Kettering.

And I'm actually taken aback to realize that -- in my opinion -- these people are capable of that sort of cold murderous psychotic scheme.

NY TIMES to charge for reading columnists on-line?

Well, all they will do is diminish the influence those columnists have on the ongoing internet dialogue, leading to diminishing the general influence the newspaper itself has on the internet dialgoue.

Reading the columnists -- and the Times itself -- is like browsing free porn sites -- amusing, but not worth paying for. Some of them are still hard-edged and fine, but the news itself has long since lost its bite.

Without the crossword puzzle, what are they actually offering these days other than a trembling small voice asking: "Please Ms Rice, may I disagreee with you a little bit?"

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Ted Kane plays "Got Your Nose" with Michael Jackson

This just in from Ted Kane...

Just got back from Santa Barbara, where I had an exclusive sit down interview with Michael Jackson.

Kane: Michael, if you are acquitted...

Jackson: Oh, I will be acquitted. The Children know that this is all vicious lies and slander.

Kane: Alright. So let's say after the trial, then. Do you have any plans to go back to the studio?

Jackson: Oh, yes. I'm very eager to get back and record something special for All the Children who have kept their faith in me throughout this terrible ordeal. In fact, "Birds of a Feather," my new duet with R. Kelly, is set to come out just as soon as the trial is over....

Continued at http://www.epinions.com/content_4352942212

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Yet ANOTHER new Definiton of CHUTZPAH from this administration

Rice, in Baghdad, Urges Sunni Role in Constitution


By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: May 16, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 15 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Iraq on Sunday to urge its new Shiite-dominated government to greatly increase the involvement of Sunni Arabs in writing the Iraqi constitution, amid growing administration alarm that a chance to draw the Sunni minority into Iraq's new democracy is slipping away...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, outfitted in a helmet and flak jacket, just after her arrival Sunday in Salahuddin in northern Iraq...

Ms. Rice, in an interview, said she had told the leaders here that their efforts to punish Sunni Arabs linked to the old government must 'respect the fact that there now needs to be an inclusive Iraqi process and an inclusive Iraqi government.'

----- Oh I love that. There's the Bitch of the Beltway, in flak jacket and helmet, telling the Iraqi's to "do as we say, pay no attention to what WE do." Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands Shi'a and Kurds are doing their John Wayne impersonation, i.e., "I'm lookin' for the men who killed my paw .. and maw.. and brothers and sisters .. and my cat..." And Sleezy is telling them, "Oh, just forget about it, that these guys dropped the hammer on your family and friends. Because we (who put Saddam in power in the first place) are asking you to do so."

... The anxious atmosphere surrounding Ms. Rice's journey was compounded by a further wave of the violence that has shaken the new government. Iraqi officials announced the discovery of 46 bodies at sites in and near Baghdad, three suicide bombings and three shootings, including one that killed a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shiite cleric...

"And oh, by the way, just because they're STILL killing your friends and family, dozens every day, doesn't mean you can't give them some power in the new government. Even though they refused to vote." (Not that her boyfriend will tolerate anyone even disagreeing with us or allow them a say in the way WE govern.)

... In an interview after the talks, Ms. Rice said she had specifically cautioned the Iraqis that de-Baathification - the process Shiite hard-liners favor of purging the government and the new armed forces of all who served at senior levels under Saddam Hussein - should not be so severe as to impede the creation of an 'inclusive' government...

Ahh, yet another "Do as we say."
I especially like how the new York Times' reporters are bending over for the Teeth Mother's Strap-on, using the words she gave them... "Shiite hard-liners... 'inclusive government..." Because you folks are so exemplary at forgiving opposition people and commuting sentences for killers.

...She said she also made clear that the Bush administration was deeply concerned that the parliamentary committee drafting the new Iraqi constitution had only 2 Sunni Arabs among its 55 members.

American officials, she told the Iraqi leaders, have 'concerns about the committee that was appointed and the Sunni representation on that committee.'

--- HEY -- the Sunni's didn't vote -- the Shi'a didn't even have to have Diebold hack the machines or make Sunni's stand on line for hours and hours... THEY decided they didn't want to participate in the new government. It's called "Democracy," something you should have read about when you were at Stanford.

... The vote, which drew millions of Iraqis to the polls, was seen as a major boost to the American plan to build a Western-style democracy here.

But that political momentum was largely lost in the three months of negotiating and maneuvering it took for the new government to emerge, and a brief lull in violence has given way to one of the war's bloodiest passages, with at least 70 car bombings and nearly 500 people killed over the past two weeks.

Note it well: THE AMERICAN PLAN ... to let them have all the sovereignty and democracy we're willing to give them ... as long as they don't make choices we don't like.

I love it -- THEY should open their arms to mass murderers when the Republicans are denouncing Democrats as "enemies of God," because they disagree with 5% of the substandard fanatics Monkey Boy was told to appoiunt to the judiciary...

But the Sunni Arabs with links to the Baathist past are the exact people who could help reach out to insurgent leaders, including Sunni tribal chiefs, who, American officials say, have sent preliminary signals that they may be ready to negotiate."

Kind of like giving the former torturers for Batista the franchise to determine state and national elections. Works for them.

Ms. Rice's strategy appeared to be to try to win the Kurdish leaders' backing for a more conciliatory attitude toward Sunni Arabs.

The Jaafari government's relations with Sunni Arab leaders were jarred even before it took office, with the Shiite leaders vetoing a wide array of Sunni nominees to the new cabinet before agreeing to seven slots in the 35-member ministry for Sunni officials who have been disparaged within their own community as Shiite pawns.

Sure -- what does it matter that these are the same people who killed thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of YOUR family and friends? Can't y'all be Christian about it?

... Many Shiite leaders, particularly those of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Islamist party, strongly favor exhaustive de-Baathification. In the early stages of the occupation, American officials in Baghdad also favored wide purges of Baathists.

Dr. Jaafari and other Shiite political leaders are trying to balance the urgings of American officials with the demands for justice by their constituents, who were widely persecuted under Mr. Hussein and the Sunni Baathists...

Kind of like De-Nazification? Just say, "Oh well," and smuggle them into the US?

She puts on her boots and leather and pretends no one notices we have a new Ilso Koch wannabe in the house doing the dirty workthose Rec Room Patriots are too delicate to do for themselves. ("Let the black gal do it -- those liberals won't dare criticize a black gal...") Only they don't use the word 'black'

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Crisis? What crisis?

PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE

James Wolcott: Sunday Sermonette

James Wolcott reminds of us of the clear-thinking and generally-forgotten Robert Ingersoll, philosophic forerunner of Secular Humanism, a political position demonized by those who believe in demons, because its premise -- that kindness and consideration for others is a personal choice, a good one, but one for which the individual takes personal responsibility -- doesn't encourage or even regard highly the people who love the idea of punishment far too much and who demand obeisance to the version of an invisible friend they have created in their own images, to insist that it was the putative HIM that sets the rules for personal behavior and those rules -- known in their entirety only to them, may be disobeyed or questioned only under pain of the sort of sadistic monstrous torture they will so gleefully describe to anyone who stops moving long enough:

"'... Governors and Presidents should not issue religious proclamations. They should not call upon the people to thank god. It is no part of their official duty. It is outside and beyond the horizon of their authority. There is nothing in the Constitution to justify this religious impertinence.'"

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Regarding James Gannon

Well, as unsavory as it may be, the fact that the man was (is?) an online gay whore means he's the ONLY one in that White House crowd actually putting HIS OWN ass on the line.

As this San Francisco hooker said many years ago:

"I'm not selling anything that doesn't belong to me.
And there isn't a politician or a businessman that can make that same statement."

Too bad Gannon went from leading the righteous life of an honest whore to fall in with a bad crowd like politicians and their ilk.

The party of ideas

"In addition to having a number of family deaths among them, the Democrats' other big idea – too nuanced for a bumper sticker – is that many of them have Jewish ancestry.... And that, boys and girls, is how the Jews survived thousands of years of persecution: by being susceptible to pandering."
Ann Coulter

Well, perhaps Ms (or Mr) Coulter would like to lead the charge of bleach-blonde Nazi-crossdressing wannabe's into Beth Israel for a roundup?

oh but he/she goes on (and on and on...):

"The Democrats' urge to assert a Jewish heritage is designed to disguise the fact that the Democrats would allow the state of Israel to perish as Palestinian suicide bombers slaughter Jewish women and children."

In other words, Democrats are Jews and Jews are murdering monsters ...

The only answer to that is/was a blogsite with a title that referred to a (gasp!) liberal taking M. Coulter home and having anal sex with him/her ... hard. But alas, it seems to have vanished from access.
Anyone found it lately?

---------- ahh, still there

...and there's even more

both courtesy of Fleshbot because sometimes pornography IS an art form ...

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Closing military bases for WHAT reasons?

OK -- let's overlook the statistics posted yesterday here as provided by Daily Kos (via Ambidextrous) that the bottom line of this business was this:

Blue States lost 27, 138 jobs
Red States gained 14,710 jobs

(Don't those innocent coincidences just amaze you?)

There have been two reasons given for the base closings:

1. To save money, specifically, $48.8 billion over 20 years. To put that in perspective, that's the cost of about one month in Iraq. And speaking of which:

2. To re-structure for post-cold war needs.

I have to wonder, in what way have any of these monomaniacal morons in the Bush administration demonstrated an ability to know what is needed militarily anywhere, anytime?

Their great success in Iraq where they prepared for a battle that would last "Not months, but weeks," as old Redrumsfeld said?

Their insistence on their right to re-interpret intelligence reports (which is probably so) but that every time they used their own judgment, they were WRONG.

Their refusal to listen to general officers who actually knew from both study and experience what happens in combat situations?

Their callous and casual "too bad" approach to sending Americans in to slaughter Iraqi civilians and BE slaughtered because they were not equippedwith either training or equipment to deal with the locals getting pissed off.

And I think that last point may be the key -- they actually believe that not only should they be allowed to do ANYTHING they want, anywhere, anytime, regardless of the requirments of the Constitution, the will of the people, or the cost in lives and mutilations and money -- but that NO ONE should EVER DARE to OBJECT.

NO ONE -- questions are to be slapped down as seditious.
Disagreements are tantamount to treason.
Perhaps I can ask, sarcastically:
"Why do they hate the American system of government so much?"

If they were dogs and behaved this way, they'd be put down.
But dogs wouldn't behave this way unless they were seriously sick.
Which is, perhaps, the case with this band of Executive Miscreants.

Ok, now do you all get it...

... why those who were inside always referred to the Bush family as "the most vindictive sonsofbitches in American politics."

Petty, too.


This from Daily Kos via Ambidextrous


Base Closings: Red vs. Blue breakdown

Blue States: 27, 138 jobs lost

Red States: 14,710 jobs gained

Blue States gaining jobs: 8
Blue States losing jobs: 13 (includes DC)

Red States gaining jobs: 14
Red States losing jobs: 16

Total of Blue States job gains: 11,351
Total of Red States job gains: 40,328

Total of Blue States job losses: 38,489
Total of Red States job losses: 25,618

Electoral votes of Red States gaining jobs: 171
Electoral votes of Red States losing jobs: 110

Biggest Red State job gainers: Georgia, Texas, Colorado
Biggest Red State job losers: Alaska, South Dakota, Missouri

Number of Blue States gaining more than 1,000 jobs: 1
Number of Red States gaining more than 1,000 jobs: 11

Number of Blue States losing more than 1,000 jobs: 10 (includes DC)
Number of Red States losing more than 1,000 jobs: 8

Those are the numbers.

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

SO, y'all feel safer now?

Question

Why do most of the members of congress seem to be people -- regardless of party -- you wouldn't have as guests in your own home?

"Hot Tub Tommy" DeLay says there's someone other than him that has "no class?"

Following the current standard of those so-called 'conservatives' to never appear in front of any audience in which any person who might disagree with or question the particular human impersonator standing up there while he and his pals rake in the loot and build the "boot on the face" Orwell talked about bigger and heavier to make sure the old and sick and poor they're stealing from can never get up, Tom Delay pranced in front of a packed house of lobotomized cheerleaders, each of whom supposedly paid $2,000 to watch him do his act, and act that consisted almost entirely of attacking the hapless Democrats in order to direct attention away from his own felonious approach to government.

"Pay no attention to the thieves behind the curtain," he said "those orphans WANTED me to have that money. Besides, that Abramoff thing -- you think I'd deal with a Jew? A Yankee Jew?"

"No ideas, no leadership, no agenda," Mr. DeLay said in a speech to hundreds of conservatives gathered at the banquet. "And in just the last week we can add to that list: no class."

Well, the Democrats' ideas of a government that serves the people (not as dinner for corporate executives) by "insuring the general welfare" with services and resources -- those ideas have been systematically demonized for decades as the right-wing has painted the sick and the poor and the elderly as "special interests."

In fact EVERYONE is a Special Interest except the corporate biggies who send him and the rest of them their annual bribes ... correction ... "campaign contributions."

But "No leadership" seems true enough, and if the Demo's have an agenda, I haven't heard about it.

But the idea that "Hot Tub Tommy" could point his bug-killing finger at ANYONE ELSE at having 'NO CLASS" beggars the imagination.

Except to the brain-damaged fundies who eat spoonful after spoonful of his shit and smack their lips and say "Yummy yummy yummy, it's so good in the tummy -- O please sir, may we have some more?"

This is a man with NO HONOR, NO INTEGRITY (someday these assholes will learn that blind loyalty is not the same thing), and NO SENSE OF DECENCY -- this so-called man is dissing someone else?

This is someone about whom people would have to stop and think which choice to make if offered a quiet dinner with him or the late Jeffrey Dahmer.

Ultimately, this is a person who -- along with Monkey Boy and the people who have their greedy hands up Monkey Boy's Sock-puppet ass -- will destroy the Republican Party. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I only know, in future times, those myriad people who spit on likenesses of George W Bush, will save a little saliva for Tom DeLay.

Actually, I have some to spare right now.

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Is there any question left -- any argument at all -- that he's just a sock puppet riding a bicycle?

From Salon.com

It took the White House press corps a whole day, but members at least started asking questions about why officials waited 47 minutes, and until President Bush had completed his Maryland bike ride, to inform him Wednesday that all hell had broken loose in Washington, D.C., when an errant aircraft had penetrated the city's strict, post-9/11 no-fly zone and seemed to be zeroing in on the White House. In all, 30,000 people were evacuated, including the vice president, first lady and Supreme Court justices. But Secret Servicemen who were bicycling with Bush, and who were made aware of the unfolding situation, chose not to interrupt his exercise routine...

The Palm Beach Post notes, "The alarm was going off at his house. His wife and a close family friend were home at the time. The neighborhood was evacuated. Fighter planes were scrambled to intercept an aerial threat.

"But President Bush, biking in Maryland, was not told about the incident that caused the evacuation of the White House, the Capitol and other government buildings Wednesday until long after it was over."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, hanging onto the phrase "protocols" like a life raft (as in 'proper protocols were followed') still insists, "The president was never considered to be in any danger, and protocols that were put in place after Sept. 11 were followed," he said.

And then there was the White House Q & A:

Q: The fact that the president wasn't in danger is one aspect of this. But he's also the commander in chief. There was a military operation underway. Other people were in contact with the White House. Shouldn't the commander in chief have been notified of what was going on?

McCLELLAN: John, the protocols that we put in place after Sept. 11 were being followed. They did not require presidential authority for this situation. I think you have to look at each situation and the circumstances surrounding the situation. And that's what officials here at the White House were doing. ...

Q: Even on a personal level, did nobody here at the White House think that calling the president to say, by the way, your wife has been evacuated from the White House, we just want to let you know everything is OK?

McCLELLAN: Actually, all the protocols were followed and people were -- officials that you point out were taken to secure locations or evacuated, in some cases. I think, again, you have to look at the circumstances surrounding the situation, and it depends on the situation and the circumstance. ...

Q: Nobody thought to say, by the way, this is going on, but it's all under control?

Somehow, the fact that it's protocol, protocol, protocol to NOT tell Monkey Boy of potential disasters such as this one, but to let him just ride his bicycle -- that actually eases my mind a bit. ... or was it a tricycle?

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Those whose asses John Bolton kissed like him a lot -- a real good smoocher, they say

Mark Kleiman posts this:

John Bolton, we have heard, is "a 'kiss-up, kick-down' sort of guy.

In today's New York Times, two of the people who were in position to be kissed up to by him -- James Baker and Ed Meese -- say that, as far as they know, he's a splendid fellow, who "knew his place" and "took direction."

Why am I not reassured?

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

James Baker and Ed Meese -- now THERE are two sterling examples of bullies who made their way via the kiss up and kick down highway...

---we can all take heart from the old tried-and-true adage:

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

We can only hope we get to see it -- not only for Bolton, but for the rest of the thugs who think "I kick your asses" ISN'T Nazi Philosophy, only without the expensive holocaust.

BOLTON = DEATH TO THE ENVIRONMENT

All the oblique scheming...

Tax cuts and a totally unnecessary war intended to bankrupt the economy, thereby justifying cutting any and all social welfare programs, i.e., Social Security, Medicare, etc. (and as bright an evil monster Karl Roverer may be, this policy was actually established under the patronage of Saint Ronnie, the smiling creepozoid).

And John Bolton?

Well, what particular kind of policies would be successfully destroyed by his encystment into the UN? (An aside -- I actually caught Condo-Sleazy Rice last night-- ahh, that play on name is too easy sleazy -- more properly fitting would be "Condo-smarmy" or "Condo-smugly" -- on the news ALMOST making a complete slip of the tongue as she began to refer to that international organization as "the United ... uh, the UN." As if the name, "United Nations" might somehow be too positive for this band of I-Me-Mine thugs to allow)

Well, anything global ... like ocean and air treaties, endangered species protection (whaling, dophining, oceanic strip-mining), hydrocarbon moderation, etc -- anything environmentally protective -- all these cross those imaginary lines we call borders -- all require multi-lateral co-operation, with some countries taking economic hits and needing some way to compensate for their loss other than growing opium and cocaine. (Most people would be surprised to learn how many of the "nice people" are financing their own hopes of dynasty with international drug cartel money. Hell, a lot of people would be surprised to find out how many nice clean godly white New England families ran the slave trade in this country -- Slaves, Rum and Molasses is what built those beautiful homes along New England's coast -- even nice white families from places like Kennebunkport, Maine.)

So, ultimately, it looks as if Junior may fulfill the hopes of both his grandfathers and establish a Fourth Reich -- a country that stands alone, dominating by brutality and weaponry .. and ... uhh, well, maybe not -- these bozos still don't realize they're punching the tar baby in Iraq, and all the other countries in the world -- all the ones whose pleas of "Stop fucking with us" culminated in the monstrous destruction of the World Trade Center Towers ("Babylon, you mighty city, broken in the dust again...") are muttering happy thoughts about "the bigger they are the harder they fall."

Just to be clear -- I don't approve of the slaughter of 3000+ civilians at work in the World Trade Center any more than I approve of the slaughter of 100,000+ civilians in Iraq -- they're both the product of soulless dehumanized monsters having a pissing contest.

So -- back to the original point -- the up vote of John Bolton will signify the next stage in the Fundamentalist insanity trying to bring on the end of the world -- "use it all up," and James Watts said.

I would love to be wrong about this -- but I'm not.

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."

An observation from George Santayana in Life of Reason.

I thought of this as I read the news today O boy --
the daily increase in numbers of deaths PER DAY in Iraq -- 20 - 40 - 50 a day and more.

Now there was a George who actually knew something.

Any questions?

So what SHOULD we call these guys?

Specifically the Untied Airline execs and Judge Eugene Wedoff (or, in the words of a former Untied Airline employee -- Judge Cheesedick Payoff) who decided that having absolutely NO HONOR was better than having NO MONEY and shit-canned the employees' pensions.

How about we call them two-faced, thieving, low-life, backstabbing, treacherous, traitorous, signifying sonsofbitches?

For a start.

Poor Untied Airlines, hasn't got a clue how to compete with Southwest or JetBlue without being given a huge head start, and even then ... so they have to figure it out -- NOW what should they do?

How about betraying, fucking over, and stealing from their employees -- the people who gave their working lives believing the executives had some sense of honor or decency? Believing that a contract was a contract, and that when the employee was too old to work or get another job, the company would honor its commitments? Rather than just buying a judge to let them run away to their offshore bank accounts.

Why in hell does it matter if Untied goes out of business?
Another airline will buy the routes and equipment.
And that airline will need more employees.
Only the name would change and the only people who lose would be the ones who had been riding high all along, the ones who rode the company into the ground because they didn't have a clue.

But they saw how George W Bush and his people bent over for Ken Lay and his people and decided they'd rather not face up to the results of their piss-poor management ability.

Jerry Garcia was right when he said: "The thugs always take over the revolution."

THEY'RE ALL THUGS.

Why blame MonkeyBoy and his Leg-breakers like Bolton and Cheney?

We have an unredeemed thug serving (for a little while) as Governor of California. A thug and a bully, and -- I do not say this lightly -- acting more and more like a 1930's Nazi than any other model around -- attacking the government of which he was a part, insisting that THE PEOPLE will not stand for the behavior of the people THEY ELECTED, and still bullying, threatening, doing everything but putting on his father's Brown Shirt.

We have an unredeemed thug/cheerleader in the White House acting like a cross between his video game heroes and the craven piece of shit he is -- crawling on his belly when in Latvia and Russia, licking Putin's boots in public (when you KNOW Putin bitch-slapped him in private, laughing at him and calling him a punk), waiting until he comes home to his safe White House nest to speak tough and harsh to THOSE people.

Remember (does anyone?) BEFORE 9-11? When the Chinese took down our plane and wouldn't give it back unless we apologized? And he did. And then, when we had it back, he did a revolting "Nyahh-Nyahh" from the safety of his bodyguards' embrace. Chickenshit, craven cowardly custard.

We have thugs running corporations -- from Ken Lay ("Oh I didn't know why I was getting rich") to Martha Stewart -- thugs and bullies.

And thieves.

Jean Medina -- the mouthpiece for the biggies who are hiding behind their boardroom doors. She smiles and tells us how much money they need to save -- even though they haven't changed jackshit about their piss-poor ability to compete with Southwest and JetBlue.

Jake Brace -- CFO (Chief FuckOver Officer) told us that Untied has NO CHOICE but to fuck the employees (because the bankers are the ones they're afraid of.

When I was growing up, there was a vestige of remainder from the rhetoric of the 30's, and I recall something about hanging the sonsofbitches from lamp-posts.

HL Mencken was a keen observor of those times, a man who understood politics and big business:

For example:

"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."

But the one that seems most appropriate, i.e., more in harmony with the way things are being run in this country (and most others) is this:

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

I have long held that the way to make change is to use the law.

But when the law has been bought, sold and re-written to protect the Board-Room Bullies, well, that's when you find people who have decided to meet them in the parking lot with tire irons.

Not that I advocate it.

But when the powers-that-be have shredded the law along with the incriminating documents for their own benefit, well, I just see that as the way things work -- it's the way Bush works. It's the way Ahnold works. It's the way Untied Airlines works. It seems it's the way it works for top to bottom and bottom to top. And it's the way -- you can count on it -- some older former Untied employees who have just lost their homes will work it.

remember another quote from another fellow who knew how things worked:

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and Corporate power."
Benito Mussolini

How dumb do they think we are, Johnny?

I swear, they really do think they can bend us over their bullshit and rape us every which way they please and tell us it's just a thermometer and they're taking our temperature:

The U.S. military has cleared a Marine who shot three unarmed insurgents in a mosque at the height of fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, in November, NBC News reported Wednesday.

Marine commander Lt. Gen. John Sattler has ruled the soldier involved fired his weapon in self-defense - and no charges will be filed against him, according to NBC.

And while we're on the subject, just how dumb does a Marine have to be to blow away three semi-comatose unarmed men while his bozo buddy is filming it?

Oh -- an insurgent is anyone we killed ... kind of like back when, if it was dead, it was VC.

Link

The Last Action Hero

My favorite of all Ahhnold's movies was The Last Action Hero in which Ahhnold's character finds out he's not a superhero after all, but just some big lug who fell in love with his own pecs but was STILL worshipped by one of the most annoying child actors in film history.

My favorite part of this bullying thug's gubernatorial administration is now, when he's finding out he's not a superhero after all, but just some big lug who fell in love with his own pecs and ran for governor but was STILL worshipped by the most annoying of the Kennedys. (Poor Ahhnold -- he is finding out the hard way that EVERY state senator and representative is as much of a self-adoring aggressive asshole as he is -- just not so well iron-pumped.)

There was one other favorite time relating to this Unter-mensch -- that was when terrorists (so-called) bombed Planet Hollywood, and that was a fantasy in infinite regression of reflections.

First of all, no one got hurt, which is why it could be considered funny.

But given that it was owned by Ahhnold, Bruce Willis, and Sly Stallone -- three men who made their living making amazingly bad lowbrow movies about men who claimed justification for being psychotically violent and spiritually dead, in those movies pretending to be the ones you call in to take our the bad guys -- it seemed to me a lovely intersection of fantasy and reality -- image and substance... and at the time, it amused me to think they might have to hire Steven Seagal and CLint Eastwood to wreak havoc on those who might dare to sully their cash-machine.

---As to "terrorists" firebombing the place -- it was so obnoxious, such a visual and auditory eye- and ear-sore, it could have been the neighborhood nun Sisters of Mercy or members of the Kiwanis or Odd Fellows or Rotary Club or even rogue elements of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.