Forget Cindy Sheehan and/or various others -- GOD is giving aid & comfort to the enemy

While the post-Katrina scenes in Mississippi and Louisiana are reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch with automatic weapons and helicopters, and the world is sympathetic to the plight of the locals, various hostile members of the Arab-Muslim world -- the Sunni world -- are speaking in a way as sanctimonious and vicious as if they were the Mullah-versions of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.



"Those people are suffering Allah's wrath for supporting George Bosh's crime."



"These are what they call 'Red States,' where people voted for Bosh, that Allah has chastened."



"Do we need more proof that Allah has cursed the American people? He struck down the Shi'a infidels in Baghdad* and the American infidels around the great port of the south. "



We may have only one alternative left to us --- call on the American Atheists in our hour of need. As the friend who steered me intheir direction once said: "People find this hard to accept, but God loves atheists."


* Trampled, crushed against barricades or plunging into the Tigris River, more than 700 Shiite pilgrims died Wednesday when a procession across a Baghdad bridge was engulfed in panic over rumors that a suicide bomber was at large.

Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. Sabah Ali, a senior official in the Health Ministry, said 719 were killed and 383 injured.

There's 'Over There' -- and there's the real thing.

Of course, to some extent, my first thought was that this series -- OVER THERE -- WAS the 'real thing,' as in 'Hey, Monkey Boy and Dick Cheney don't mind walking on fresh graves to make some money for their friends ... certainly Cameron didn't mind dancing on the bones of the Titanic dead for some loot, so why wouldn't Steven Bochco join the parade of making a profit from putting party hats on the bodies of the freshly dead?

"There is a strong sense that people in the States don't understand soldiers, don't understand what's going on in Iraq, they just don't get it. "Over There" was supposed to help solve that problem. To a certain extent, it does."

Hey -- does that mean multi-multi-multi-millionaire Bochco is doing this as a public service and all his personal profits will go to this war's maimed, psyche-fucked, and families of the dead who are getting royally screwed by the govt, who are being denied VA benefits, and who are being juked out of their pensions. A surviving widow gets $12K death benefit? And Bochco gets, oh how much, for re-enacting the improv'd mine that blew Daddy to bits?

Or does Bochco's concern for the men and women who are being pushed into the grinder only go as a far as ratings and residuals?

If you were REALLY doing what you say you're doing, Stevie Boy, you'd be going out-of-pocket to run interviews with every man, woman, and basket case returning from the field of battle giving us a (NON-ACTOR'S) face to the human cost and each one telling us what he or she actually thinks in his or her own words.

It would be ... hmm, what could you possibly call it -- how about REALITY PROGRAMMING?

Why hire a bunch of kids who know fuck-all about committment to others in dire situations to portray idealized versions when you've got REAL soldiers and Marines and National Guardsmen and Reservists right there -- out of work, out of money, and shit out of luck, while you roll down the windows of your limo and tell the world how it REALLY is over there.

If you're so able to time out a show to the perfect number of minutes and seconds, how come you can't seem to recognize when YOU'RE FINISHED?

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Commentary on "I am an Army of One" from The Beast: http://buffalobeast.com/

Do we need any more evidence this man is a sick vicious demon from Hell posing as a Christian?

Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination

"Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

An official of a theological watchdog group on Tuesday criticized Robertson's statement as "chilling."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Do Christians approve of murder for oil and money? I guess I missed that part of the Sunday School info.

I have always thought Pat Robertson was, in fact, a demon, a craven, snide wormtongue that pours poison into the ears of his flock. "I'm not saying that these people are murderers and thieves, but..."

Always insinuating, never having the courage to come right out and say what he means.

A chickenshit coward whose entire life has followed the same pattern as his service in the Marines during the Korean War, when, arriving in Japan, the terrified Lieutenant Robertson telephoned his daddy in Washington and said, "Oh please daddy, don't let them send me to Korea, get me a soft cushy job here in Japan so I can be safe while all my buddies die in that hateful hell."

And poppa got him a gig supplying booze and whores for the brass.

It's about him and people like him that caused the Late Rev. Gene Scott to shout that "there are a lot of preachers out there who convinced people you have to be a dummy to be a Christian."

I kind of think "do as you would have done to you" applies here, and perhaps it's time for someone to shut up that snide, vicious insinuating, mass of venom once and for all.

Hey -- he's the one who said it's a good idea ...


(---a launching pad for Communism? Who actually thinks this man is sane? ---)

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BUSH AFRAID TO VISIT SAN FRANCISCO

BUSH KEEPS S.F. AT BAY / President hasn't participated in 75-year tradition of visiting city -- and he has no plans to do so

"Washington -- Presidential visits to San Francisco have been a tradition since Rutherford Hayes lunched at the Cliff House in 1880.

Presidents arrived by stagecoach and jet. One was shot at. Another died. In all, 20 presidents have visited the city, including every chief executive for the past 75 years.

Except George W. Bush."

WHY?


"Editor -- It is no mystery why President Bush refuses to visit San Francisco. He hates us for our freedom.

DOUG St. CLAIR
Martinez "

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Regarding the post below about Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders -- those of you in other cities who despised the Raiders in their heyday (not worth the energy to despise them now) and somehow think we who live here deserve some blame and are thereby justly receiving our deserts by getting lumbered with the outstanding bill for Commandante Davis' return -- think about it when you and your children and grandchildren are paying off George W. Bush's grab for glory with endlessly rising taxes and lost lives.

And then consider -- did you deserve this?

The black hole / Raiders, public officials look for way out of PSLs fiasco

... in the latest round of negotiations involving the city of Oakland ... The number $65 million has been mentioned as the next bitter pill taxpayers will have to swallow if the remarketing of Raiders personal seat licenses fails...

Suffice it to say that the $10 million in losses that the city and county are averaging each year on the Coliseum complex could increase dramatically unless a way is found to turn the Silver and Black into gold...

The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority ... is wrestling with what to do with the PSLs, which are due to expire after this season. In 1995 they cost from $250 to $4,000, depending on the seat location, and you couldn't buy a season ticket without one.

The PSLs were supposed to pay off the $200 million in publicly financed bonds that paid for the expansion of what is now called McAfee Coliseum, along with a practice facility and other enticements to lure the Raiders back from Los Angeles after 13 years...

The officials and their highly paid consultants were convinced the 63,132- seat stadium would be sold out with PSLs, or close to it. They were off by about 50 percent. The break-even point was 80 percent of all seats, authority auditor Pat O'Connell said recently. After all the multiple applications and credit card rejections were sorted out, however, only 31,000 PSL/season tickets were sold.

Overly optimistic assumptions extended to stadium naming rights. It was expected that those rights would immediately bring in $1.5 million a year. The rights weren't sold for three years, and when they were, they initially sold for $400,000, O'Connell said...



I was buying something on-line and when I gave my address (in Oakland) the man on the other end said, "Wow -- the Raiders. Are you a Raiders fan?" And I said, "I was for a long time, and I will be again -- once Al Davis is dead and we have confirmed sightings of him in hell."

What I meant was I was absolutely a loyal fan when Kenny Stabler was there, and even (unlike a lot of others) when Jim Plunkett took over, totally different ambience from the Snake, but a man with integrity and class -- and one I'd seen play at Stanford, a player who danced the football field like Rudolf Nureyev (Too young to remember? How about Mikhail Baryshnikov?) before the Patriots put him behind an offensive line made of toilet paper and broke his knees. Like the Snake, Plunkett never complained, never made excuses, and found ways to win. Those were the days when the players lived in Oakland, when you could go into the local sports bar and run into players, give them the high sign, maybe but them a round. And oh, yeah, they won ballgames.

Many of my neighbors have Raiders' logos on their cars and trucks, and we were all hanging out on the street one day when I was asked about it, why I'm not a fan. Here's what I said, with a metaphor of the history:

"So say you have a girlfriend and you're faithful faithful faithful to her, supported her through the tough and awkward years and got her everything she wants and made her into a star, but then one day, she announces -- to the whole world -- she's says, 'You're just a small-time cheap-shit punk. You're not worth my time, and I'm out of here. Fuck you, loser.' And she heads out to Hollywood for fame and fortune, and after a few years finds out one more sort of pretty face doesn't cut it and she shows up and says: 'Here's the deal. I'll come back and be your woman again, but you have to give me $10,000* to get my phone number so THEN you can call me up and take me out.' So, I asked my neighbors, would you do it -- with everyone you know watching you to see -- would you do it? The fact that she doesn't even put out for the price, no kissing or hugging or dressing up nice or anything, that's not even an issue. She dissed you, punk'd you in front of the world and now wants you to pay her to take your phone calls? Forget it. Tell Al Davis to go fuck himself."

Unfortunately, since I live in Oakland, which is a great town, I'm still paying what it cost for the Board of Supervisors' to jerk themselves off over the return of the good old days through my property taxes.

So as I said, because even the cheap-ass York family that ran the 49ers into the ground are better than Al Davis -- when he's dead, and we have confirmed sightings of him in Hell, and they actually sell enough seats for us to see them on TV, then I'll put some black on my silver car.

I know a lot of the players are good guys who deserve better, and I feel bad for them to be on a team that the locals all know is ripping us off, but sorry -- kind of like being a really good guy and a brave and talented soldier when Hitler was the C-in-C.


*The original PSL price

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Response to Belisarius's comment to the Pope Post below:


Thanks Belisarius -- I posted this response to your comment on Bad Attitudes here, and I agree -- although I think a true conservative would not be (unlike Senator McCain) willing to governmentally interfere with a woman's right to determine her own reproductive situation. That's theocracy.

I can admire him as a stand-up (sometimes) guy, but not for that. Not getting the govt involved in reproductive choice, sexual orientation, medical (and otherwise) marijuana, literary and/or film/tv choices (whether Dickens or Russ Meyer or Ron Jeremy) -- these and more are all CONSERVATIVE positions -- all Roe V Wade said was that the govt had no business involving itself in a woman's reproduction. Because opposition seems to be all theocratic stances. Hell, Barry Goldwater said it, and he was conservative, no?

"You can't legislate morality."

At this point, I don't care if a candidate is Conservative or Liberal -- I want to see someone who is honest, stands behind his/her statements and decisions -- so in that case, while I disagree with McCain, he fits the bill. So Does Chuck Hagel. So does Barbara Boxer and that smurf with the bad toupee who ran in the Democratic primaries -- can't remember his name. HONEST. INTELLIGENT. STANDUP. and living by the Golden Rule "Do unto others..."

The first money minted and printed in this country (1776) was the Fugio (I FLY), and had printed on it "MIND YOUR BUSINESS" on one side and "WE ARE ONE" on the other. With 13 circles linked together -- a reminder to all the theocratic assholes who want supreme court justices to follow "ORIGINAL INTENT"

Intend this, hypocrites.

Or as one of the few sensible things a woman I used to know used to say, more succintly, I repeat to all of them: "LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE."

The Place where we all lost it?

At a Salvation Army in Hayward, CA the other day -- building was formerly a bank and the books are all in what was the vault...

On one shelf was a hardbound book titled Ronald Reagan and God.

After a moment it occurred to me that a very major shift in our consciousness -- and not a good one at all -- was revealed when a book with a title like that could be published and not be Humor, but actually taken seriously.

(I think the late Mr. Reagan might have agreed.)

Pope seeks immunity in Texas abuse case

August 17, 2005
AP

VATICAN CITY -- Lawyers for Pope Benedict XVI have asked President Bush to declare the pontiff immune from liability in a lawsuit that accuses him of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys by a seminarian in Texas, court records show.

The Vatican's embassy in Washington sent a diplomatic memo to the State Department on May 20 requesting the U.S. government grant the pope immunity because he is a head of state, according to a May 26 motion submitted by the pope's lawyers in U.S. District Court for the Southern Division of Texas in Houston.

Joseph Ratzinger is named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit. Now Benedict XVI, he's accused of conspiring with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to cover up the abuse during the mid-1990s.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Gerry Keener, said Tuesday that the pope is considered a head of state and automatically has diplomatic immunity.

Lawyers for abuse victims say the case is significant because previous attempts to implicate the Vatican, the pope or other church officials in U.S. sex abuse proceedings have failed -- primarily because of immunity claims and the difficulty serving Vatican officials with U.S. lawsuits.


The Pope has LAWYERS? It was enough of a shock to find out, back in the 70's, when the surrealist artist tried to stab Pope Paul VI at the Manila Airport, that the Pope has BODYGUARDS! I mean, the Vicar of Christ on Earth is afraid to die? But this?

So now that he's head of state, he can't be sued? Is that legal? I mean if George W. Bush had been caught committing camelingus on one of the Ben Laden family herd when visiting Riyadh as a private citizen years ago, and the statute of limitations had not expired, would he be immune from suit? Didn't they go after Bill Clinton for stuff they thought he might have done BEFORE he became president? And the Pope has LAWYERS?

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The late Vaughan Bode understood how it works (or actually, how/why it doesn't work).

Yet another area in which America leads the rest of the world!

Mission ALMOST accomplished

Dreams of starring in a Dr. Strange Comic

Dreams of starring in a Dr Strange Comic.

A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City

A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City
by Anonymous/bell

Publisher Comments:

For six weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman, alone in the city, kept a daily record of her and her neighbors' experiences, determined to describe the common lot of millions ... Clear-eyed and unsentimental, she depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. And with shocking and vivid detail, she tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject: the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.

ISBN: 0805075402
Subtitle: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City
Translator: Phillip, Boehm
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Language: English
Pages: 288


Excerpt of review from Salon.com

"The diarist and her neighbors sweat out waves of air raids, knowing all too well that the respite from American and British bombers will only come with the Soviet occupation: "Better a Russki on top," they joke nervously, "than a Yank overhead." "Our fate is rolling in from the east," the diarist laments, and early reports leave little room for optimism: "Let's be honest," one woman in the cellar ventures, "none of us is still a virgin, right?"

... Though the precise statistics will never be known, existing estimates are breathtaking: 2 million women were raped in Germany, many of them more than once. In Berlin alone, hospital statistics indicate between 95,000 and 130,000 rape victims. Many women killed themselves rather than "concede" -- as some women put it -- to the Soviets; some men killed themselves and their wives rather than suffer the indignity of rape."


This is a document showing close-ups of various things about war, one of which is that the people who suffer the most are rarely the ones who have had ANYTHING to do with inflicting suffering. It is true that by that time, the people of the Soviet Union had suffered 20,000,000 dead, had been living on virtually protein-free diets for months and months on end (brain-damage), and had experienced roving companies of German Army killing the entire populations of villages throughout Ukraine, Byelorus, and Russia, herding them into barns and then burning the barns to the ground with the still-living people inside.*

That does not justify the crimes described in this book, but it explains some of the insanity involved.

It is also true that the people of Berlin despised Hitler from Day One -- considered him a country bumpkin, a thug, a soulless monster and a hick. Berlin was a sophisticated, cultured and genteel cosmopolitan center. Hitler NEVER had support of a majority in Berlin.


*For a devastatingly moving (but non-graphic) tale of what happened, the Russian movie "Come and See", directed by Elem Klimov in 1983, is available on DVD. The DVD (from Kino Video) also includes news footage cntemporary with that era, about partisan groups finally assembling to fight back. And, once they have the upper hand, to become what they had fought against. An uncompromising film about the dehumanizing nature of war -- no good guys, no heroes.

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Why Bush Believes His Lies (Justin Frank writing in The Huffington Post)

... As a psychoanalyst who has been studying Bush's words and behavior in hopes of better understanding his mind, I'm heartened that so many critics have drawn the nation's attention to Bush's need to repeat points and phrases -- even after their inaccuracy has been established. Now critics see clearly his distaste for having to meet with the people whose lives he has forever changed.

"... the most serious problem is that George Bush now believes what he says." Like many of my hospitalized patients, Bush has created a vast, detailed but vague delusional system he feels compelled to maintain at all costs. This system helps him manage the terrifying anxiety that threatens to make his already endangered inner world more chaotic.

The second answer is made clear by his reaction to Cindy Sheehan: he believes his lies because he feels his survival depends on it. He cannot help her mourn; he cannot take responsibility for his destructiveness. If he could he would. His inner need to be right would not just be modified; his entire internal mental structure would be shattered.

Psychoanalytic theory suggests that Bush's true enemy is an aspect of himself -- the overwhelming anxiety he works so hard to manage. For Bush, lying remains a central defense mechanism in managing his fears; he lies foremost to himself, altering his perception of external or internal reality to fulfill his psychic need to maintain order. His anxiety is so great that he cannot shift his thinking to account for new information --especially the fact that patriotic families of patriotic soldiers demand that he speak with them.


*********************
Justin Frank M.D. is an expert in the field of psychoanalysis. A clinician with more than thirty years of experience ... He is the co-director of the Metropolitan Center for Object Relations in New York, a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, and a teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

Dr. Frank used the principles of applied psychoanalysis to assemble a comprehensive psychological profile of President George W. Bush in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (ReganBooks).

Dr. Frank did his psychiatric residency at Harvard Medical School and was chief resident at the Cambridge Hospital. Dr. Frank was also awarded the DuPont-Warren Fellowship by Massachusetts General Hospital..

Dr. Frank lives in Washington D.C. where he teaches and practices psychoanalysis.
**********************

Pretty scary, eh kids? The REALLY scary part comes when he can no longer defend his beliefs and then we'll find out if he goes catatonic (as on 9-11) or goes the Jeffrey Dahmer/Heinz Kissinger/Richard Nixon totentanz route and becomes the RED DRAGON, the DESTROYER of WORLDS, and screams in orgasmic insanity as he lets it all come down.

I know it may be considered irresponsible for a psychoanalyst to do a public diagnosis without having met the person, but it really seems to fit, and God knows we've seen enough public pathology from Monkey Boy to make even a 5-year-old kid ask "Hey, what's the matter with that man?"

One might wonder if the nuking of American cities may come from Crawford and not Riyadh or Kabul. Let's hope there's someone in the admin to do the job Al Haig did when Nixon went bonkers, keeping Tricky Dick's finger off the trigger and keeping ambitious generals from capitalizing on the mental break period.

**************
---my thanks to Ambidextrous for pointing to this article ---

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Election Fraud Continues in the US

The facts are as follows:

In 2004 Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republican votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties. Bush managed these remarkable outcomes despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000, and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points. We also know that Bush "won" Ohio by 51-48%, but statewide results were not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater than the number of registered voters.

More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. However, It was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from the final count. According to Dr. Steve Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the exit polls were wrong by chance. In fact, where the exit polls disagreed with the computerized outcomes the results always favored Bush - another statistical impossibility. .

---And here we all thought the only level on which Bush and his Hench-Admin were thieves was plundering the treasury for their pals....

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Bush's explanation on why he won't meet with Mrs. Sheehan...

He had this to say:

"..I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say... I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life ... I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy. And part of my being is to be outside exercising. So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so.''

---Oh you bet your lying reptilian ass we want a President who can make good, crisp decisions, sort of a Tostitos Corn Chip of a President.

And oh, Casey Sheehan -- he DOESN'T have a life to live, thanks to your vainglorious self-serving war.

This is NOT being political here, this is total disgust that the new behavior-chip, the one they update in this animatronic thing every August, still doesn't seem to get "HUMAN."

"I am just a mechanical toy --- I am just my mother's boy."

The difference between the man who wrote those lyrics (Charlie Manson) and the man who I'm pretending is singing them?

Mr. Manson killed fewer people.

So -- hey, didn't they used to have Lynch Mobs in Texas?

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A Time of Change

Israelis, Palestinians and the Disengagement

As Israel's evacuation of approximately 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank gets under way this week, The Chronicle is following one settler family as they confront the reality of losing their home.

--I get it, I even have to salute Ariel Sharon, a man I consider to have spent his life as a murdering beast, for taking what may be the only step possible toward a peaceful future....

What I don't get is why, once the settlers are out of there, the IDF is going to tear down the houses. Some sort of 'dog-in-the-manger' gesture? "We're leaving YOUR land, but we're taking all the toys we can and destroying the rest? Meaning the Palestinians will not only have to build anew, but also have to clear out the rubble left behind.

There was a "poor them, oh boo-hoo" article about a family from the United States that moved there 6 years ago, and how terrible it was to leave their home. The fact that they will receive $500,000 compensation AND free land was buried down in the 10th paragraph.

Did the Palestinians receive any compensation when they had to leave?

I am NOT an enemy of people who live in Israel, Jews or Christians or Muslims, but can some concept of FAIRNESS be appreciated, at least, even if not practiced?

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Weird -- I was trying to post this for sale on eBay, start the bidding at $40, and they wouldn't let me -- said it glorified criminals and murder. And I said, "But every one of them was caught, tried, sentenced and did time, and died in prison, or died soon after release, or else was shot down by the G-man without a trial, so how does that glorify crime?" So they said, well, it could be offensive to the survivors, family members and friends of the victims. And I said, ok, I understand that consideration, but then how come James Cameron can make millions dancing on the bones of the Titanic dead, and then going back to the watery grave again and again to do TV specials, and sell DVD's on eBay, then how the hell can this be different? And how come they sell Titanic souvenirs on eBay? Oh well. No point in arguing -- I like their service too much. But if anyone wants to buy it, it's the entire box, still shrinkwrapped, 36 packs of 12 cards each ... original 1992 issue, Series One. I don't want to make this a commercial site, just want to vent frustration, but hell, if you want it, email me: Saintperle@mindspring.com -- make me an offer. 50 bucks takes it. I just want to move it out.

Special command performance at the ranch in Crawford.

Our hero -- or so we thought. HE would have approved of Gay marriage, at least for himself.

Bush raises option of using force against Iran

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.

"He could consider" -- that means, we're gonna do it come hell or high water.

"Last Resort-- that means, we're gonna do it and we gotta figger out some way to make it look good.

The problem with insular administrations -- and this one is the most insular ever -- is they never see the ground shifting. (There's actually an electrical current pun in there somewhere.)

The first war of choice -- Iraq -- people went along grudgingly, sort of "Well, if you say so..."

This one -- the people will just say "That boy's not right. In fact, he's just stone-cold fucking apeshit crazy and we gotta get him the hell out of there."

They won't be talking about Saddam Hussein or the Ayatollah Winky-Dink, either.

In the words of Bob Hansen, a good friend and wise neighbor I haven't seen in some time -- "They ALWAYS make the same mistakes."

And as Napoleon said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake." I doubt that anyone in the Dumbocratic Party is sharp enough to know that, though.

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In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line

"The mission in Iraq is tough because the enemy understands the stakes," Bush said, alongside Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld."

Well of course they do -- they LIVE THERE. It's the American public that doesn't understand the stakes, because for us, the only stake is the one the above-mentioned brigands are driving through the heart of the American economy, the American Constitution, and the American Society.

We haven't even been given REASONS that can hold up more than a month before being disproven. And all those fellows above can do is curse the people who do the disproving. As if they're saying "This is WAR. It's treason to introduce TRUTH into the debate."

It occurred to me the other day that if George W Bush were a mole for the Democrats, he couldn't do a better job of destroying the Republican Party. And if he were Osama ben Ladn's catpaw, he couldn't do a better job of making Al Qaeda more powerful.

Maybe it's time -- especially given his family and the Ben Ladn family's long, close association, to wonder, just which side is he on?

Not quite "j'accuse." Just a sort of "j'wonder wottehell he thinks he's doing."

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An amusing observation

I find it bizarre and amazing that whether it is Republicans-Democrats, Israelis-Palestinians, Catholics-Protestants, Palefaces-People of Color, etc ... that members of every group seem to think they're DIFFERENT from the fellows on the other side of the EM-dash.

They're not.

Chocma baboons think Hamadryas baboons are stinky, but they're both baboons..

Siberian Huskies and Samoyets seems to hate each other on sight -- but they're both sled dogs.

In every case, they're no more than (and often less than) two sides of the same coin.


But hey, we're supposed to pick a team and it doesn't matter which.


The joke is -- it really DOESN'T matter which -- they're all the same:



Setting free the fly
Causes the spider to starve,
Rooting for a team

For one family, giving up Gaza ends a dream

The evacuation of 8,500 settlers in Gaza and the West Bank begins Monday. By Joshua Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
GAN OR, GAZA –

Soon to be evacuated and later demolished, the house of Shimon and Sara Snir now sits in shambles.

The painting of a wizened rabbi rests on the salon floor amid a maze of Israeli army-issued boxes brimming with toys and puzzles. A power screwdriver whirs as bed frames are undone. Outside, a ditch has been dug around an olive tree that will be uprooted.

Thirteen years ago the couple followed faith and a dream to Gaza, which they believed to be part of the biblical birthright of the Jewish state. Now, like many of the 8,500 Jewish settlers bracing for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza next week, their family of nine has reluctantly begun to gather up their belongings. The moving truck arrives Sunday...

On Monday they will get their eviction notices and Israel's long-anticipated evacuation of 25 settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank - a landmark pullback from territory conquered in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians as part of a future state - will officially swing into motion...

The family, which is eligible for $500,000 in compensation will be fined more than $100,000 if they stay past the 17th, but, they say, money is little solace when you're forced out of home and community.

"Here is where your life is. You build it from start to finish," says Shimon, his skin a rich bronze from years under the Gaza sun. "We won't go like they want us to. They will have to carry us. You have to understand, a person doesn't abandon his house willingly."


He's right, of course -- it's painful and life-wrenching and traumatic ... and yet it never seems to occur to people -- not just Jews or Zionists, but people, that this is exactly what was experienced by the previous inhabitants of that land, wherever it may be.

I find that whatever benefits religion confers upon people, empathy for others not part of the club rarely is among them.

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Pohl & Kornbluth Justified -- Chicken Little becoming reality

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists aim for lab-grown meat

An international research team has proposed new techniques that may lead to the mass production of meat reared not on the farm, but in the laboratory.

Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say.

Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget.

In The Space Merchants(1953) Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth -- arguably the greatest writing team in science fiction history, perhaps in literary history ("Literature is news that stays news." Ezra Pound) presented us with a gigantic throbbing growing sphere of chicken flesh known as 'Chicken Little' to those prisoners sentenced to circle the growing entity on catwalks in an underground, hot, humid environment,slicing off the sections that had become ripe.

And now, here we are, only 53 years later. (Oh, for those who haven't read the book -- it's wonderful fine -- most of the other predictions about corporate schemes and advertising/marketing outragfes have already come to pass. If you're one of them, get a copy of the book and enjoy it.)

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Poor Christians, so abused, so helpless...

I read a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, vehemently protesting Mark Morford's outrageously funny recounting of a non-visit to a Xtian mega-church rally. The writer begins so pleasantly, inviting open and civil discussion:

I cannot, in good conscience, ignore the malicious, hateful, anti-Christian column written by Mark Morford ("Huge crowds, rabid devotees and no Mick Jagger in sight. Are you afraid?" Aug. 3) without responding. This article would not have been published had it been about Muslims, Buddhists or people of different sexual orientation..."

First of all, lady, we don't read MarkMorford for the respectful (or craven) go-along attitude you apparently seek. We read his column .. well.. you told it perfectly:

Let's look at just some of the vocabulary used to describe churches and Christians attending these larger churches: "creepy"; "eye-glazed weirdly repressed"; "God-fearin' biz", "arena-scaled piety polished up and bloated out and aimed like a giant homophobic cannon"; "gloomy"; "tacky"; "hateful radio brain-washin' "; "malicious teenage abstinence seminars"; "surreal spectacles"; "all-paunchy-married-man revue"; "bizarre pious cheerleading"; "mutant species"; "snarlingly pious"; "violently militant"; "frothy"; "terrify"; "mad throngs of confused"; "contaminate"; "soul into rancid cheese"; "codify homophobia"; "right-wing misogynist"; "frightening and viral upsurge"; "coagulating like a tumor to the right"; "anxious, quivering reaction"; "delirious throngs of blind believers" -- and I'm only quoting parts of his disgusting column.

We read his column for all the items you mentioned and more -- because of his fabulous style: "snarlingly pious!" "bizarre pious cheerleading!" Wow.

GADDAMN, lady, the man can fling them words around like diamond-studded Shuriken Stars.

And oh, as to "had it been about Muslims, Buddhists, or people of different sexual orientation," how many times have you heard a pugnacious 'love it or leave it' thugs yelling:

"This is a Buddhist country, so if you don't like it..."

or, better:

"This is a Gay country, founded by Gay men to insure freedom of sexual orientation. So if you can't take it up the ass..."

But we do hear your comrades-in-faith yammering all the time (and incorrectly) that "This is a Christian Country founded by Christian men..." with the implication (or outright statement) that Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or anyone in violation of the Christian posturings of the most fundamental, literal humorless types, i.e., gay men and women, pornographers, etc., had best get with the program or get lost.

And oh, by the way -- the Founding Fathers were DEISTS, not Christians, and one of them, Thomas Jefferson, the darling of the States' Rights set wrote, for his tombstone, not that he was President, but that he had written the Virginia Law separating Church and State -- keeping clergy out of the government and keeping the politicians out of the church.

SO, as to attacks on Christians -- oh boo-fucking-hoo. Might I respectfully suggest you blow it out your ass?

Thank you and God Bless America.

New Pope Benedict XVI a Strong Critic of War

OK -- I was wrong to get ad hominem about Il Papa (or does that mean "The Potato?") whichever -- when he denounced Evolutionary Theory in what seemed a turnaround from what I, an unbeliever, had come to understand was the position of the Holy Roman Church ("We're a mystery religion -- we don't presume to know HOW God did it.")

I was wrong to throw verbal fecal matter at the man himself when it was a policy statement with which I disagreed. Since I am NOT a member of the club, "infallible" is not something I find possible in this world ... just think about how much George W Bush acts as if he is.

But this article in the Houston Catholic Worker(by Michael Griffin of the Catholic Peace Fellowship) shows me he is either:

(1) A man cast in the mold of the traditional saints and martyrs who holds firmly to his faith and his principles regardless of the intensity of any and all attempts to sway him away from them, or

(2) A rigid ideologue who refuses to change.

Actually, the two may be the same thing, depending on whether or not you agree with the person in question.

In this case, I find the former (#1) to be appropriate. He is perhaps the ONLY person in the world who could say these things and not be denounced as "partisan," because it is obvious he is speaking from principle and established dogma.

Of course this tells me he will also be as absolute in his opposition to a woman's right to make choices about her reproductive options, but, unlike our reptilian president, the new pope seems to be a person one can respect, even when in heated disagreement with him.

He are some excerpts from the article:


"The election of Benedict XVI as pope brings hope for the continuation of peacemaking as central to the papacy. Just as John Paul II cried out again and again to the world, "War never again!" the new pope has taken the name of the one who first made that cry, Benedict XV, commonly known as "the peace pope..."

As a Cardinal, the new pope was a staunch critic of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. On one occasion before the war, he was asked whether it would be just. "Certainly not," he said, and explained that the situation led him to conclude that "the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save..."

Even after the war began, Cardinal Ratzinger did not cease criticism of U.S. violence and imperialism: "it was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction...It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world."

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'..."

...perhaps what upset U.S. neoconservatives most, that John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger did not show more deference to the state. Perhaps because of their own experience with violent regimes, they seemed to grasp the biblical axiom from the Acts of the Apostles: "we must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29)

Such a decision to not obey men nearly cost the young Joseph Ratzinger his life. In 1945 he made the decision to desert his post in the German army. When he was spotted and stopped by SS troops, he could have been shot on the spot. They did not, using his wound (his arm was in a sling) as an excuse. Yet in his memoir, Milestones, Ratzinger gives the deeper reason for his escape from death. Those soldiers, he wrote, "had enough of war and did not want to become murderers."

So it comes back to that -- the person who has seen war on his own land (as did John Paul II, and also the French, the Russians, and the Germans) is not as fast or glib in making a decision to resort to mass killing.

Perhaps this Pope will make it clear that being opposed to war is NOT a partisan stance.

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A heads-up for bears: The hunters are coming

NorthJersey.com

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

By RICHARD COWEN
STAFF WRITER


New Jersey's black bears moved out of the political crossfire and back into the hunter's crosshairs on Tuesday, as the state Fish and Game Council voted unanimously to allow a six-day bear hunt this December...

The bruins' fate was sealed by a sharp, 60 percent increase in the number of nuisance complaints lodged against them this year - and by a few, all-too-close encounters between bears and hikers recently, raising fears that New Jersey had too many bears, too many people and too little habitat.


---OH. NUISANCE COMPLAINTS! Oh well then, shoot 'em all ...
East coast cities, such as those in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, used to post signs that said "COMMIT NO NUISANCE HERE." They meant "Don't pee on this wall." But they didn't kill you if you did. *

And with the increase in bear activity has come several encounters with humans that have increased worries.

On July 13, a camper sleeping in High Point State Park in Sussex County was bitten on the leg by a bear that tried to drag away his sleeping bag.


--- One of them bit him on the leg! Better Kill 'em all.

Just last weekend, state conservation officers had to destroy two bears who had wandered onto campsites looking for food - one at Camp Mason in Blairstown, the other in Frankford.

"You have to manage wildlife; you can't just let it manage itself," said John Messeroll, a member of the Fish and Game Council.


---"You can't just let it manage itself." The same might well be said about the sleazy little Graftettes at Fish and Game who regard Real Estate as the only form of Protected Wildlife.


The rules of the hunt are almost identical to the one that New Jersey held in 2003, when hunters killed 328 bears...

As in 2003, the state plans to make up to 10,000 permits available free of charge to hunters who complete a one-day bear hunting seminar.

---10,000 PERMITS?
---ONE-DAY SEMINAR?
The only good news here is the prospect of all those drunken New Jerseyans, loaded for bear as it were, shooting each other.

Of course, there may be more than a few Earth First! activists getting permits and heading out there singing, "If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone..." and hunting with a different kind of nuisance in their sights. Or so one can hope.


*With the possible exception of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to Mark Twain, the total destruction of the Cities of the Plain was punishment for peeing on the wall. Twain considered it unfair and excessive, especially since the women who were killed weren't even physically capable of committing that crime.

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Too good to not remember: Ambidextrous posted this today -- I pass it along

Verbatim quotes from when Clinton was committing troops to Bosnia:

"You can support the troops but not the president."
---Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years."
---Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
---Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
---Sen Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
---Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
---Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
---Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"
-Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
-Governor George W Bush (R-TX)


HI KIDS -- CAN YOU SPELL HYPOCRITES?!?

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Sticker shock over shell shock

--From Salon.com, by Mark Benjamin

"The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war."

Amazing -- I would have thought THIS administration would be MORE understanding about this debilitating disorder, given that the Commander-in-Chief suffered PRE-traumatic stress disorder during the Vietnam war while completely immune from any possibility of being sent to Vietnam, but still unable to complete his term of monthly service in Texas and Georgia.

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Hey -- nothing wrong with reptiles...

Back when Bush choked on a pretzel, the "He's ok now" report said he'd was doing fine and back to his resting heart rate of THIRTY-SEVEN!!?!

And I thought "Thirty-seven is reptilian."

(Ha-ha, or so I thought.)

But when he decides again to spend August in Texas, I have to wonder if there was more truth in that joke than I knew.

I have actually spent August in Texas -- more than once.

The only creatures that might do this out of choice are snakes and lizards.

Hot hot hot lying on a rock then cool cool cool slithering UNDER the rock to get out of the direct sun, lying there in the shade where it's only 110 degrees.

That might explain his inability to blink. Or empathize.

Hmmm.

"What I am kicking around is this notion: that KNOWLEDGE either goes for the CENTER or it's inevitably a State Whore -- which American and Western education generally is, has been, since its beginning... it's a question of re-establishing a concept of knowledge as culture rather than a question of what's wrong with the schools..."


Charles Olson, The Human Universe

Written Threat Found on Plane in Houston

- - - - - - - - - - - -

August 05,2005 | HOUSTON -- A note found in a Southwest Airlines seat pocket claiming a bomb was on the plane prompted a landing and evacuation of 136 passengers at an isolated end of Houston's Hobby Airport.

No one was injured and no explosives had been found as of Friday afternoon.

--In other words, everyone is pissing their pants in fear so much at the recognition of being mortal even if they work out and have hair transplants and eat anti-oxydol foods that all the kids have to do to have some fun is shout ""BOO!"

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George Galloway says Blair and Bush 'have blood on their hands'

---Of course they do -- they're on top of the pile. Did you think there was EVER any other way those people got there?

And by the way -- who doesn't? The guys the next tier down? The MP's? The commuters who use the oil? The bicycle riders who use the petro-chem based plastics?

Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today.


---so it's about HOW MUCH blood you have on your hands, is it?

Do you have MORE blood on your hands if your ride uses MORE gas and oil? Do you have less if your bicycle only has a LITTLE BIT of plastic and the rubber tyres are quite narrow so only a few plantation workers went down under the ground for your spiffy little two-wheeler?
Or is it like "a little bit pregnant?" Isn't it "Out out damned spot," all the time, whether a river or a lake, a creek or a puddle...

He said that the "al-Qaida phenomenon" had arisen directly as a result of western policies in the Middle East.

Gee, took some real digging to figure that out? Lessee -- The Crown sent Tee-Hee Lawrence into Mesopotamia to push out the Turks, disconnect the Kurds, and carve a country called Iraq out of the whole mess, because there was oil there. Didn't you know that?

And you were right about that, Georgie Boy, but you should have let it go at that. Because anyone who's ridden a tram or a lorry, a car or a mototcycle, turned on the electric lights or heated the house with gas owns a piece of that hot Middle Eastern death.

In other words, had Lawrence and Faisal and the rest not killed and killed and killed some more, and Saddam Hussein not been installed to keep on killing and Bush I burying thousands and killing hundreds of thousands more with his embargo and Clinton bombing the crap out of the "No-Fly" zones, and Bush II -- admittedly rather more of an asshole than the rest, but still --- without them committing their crimes, and getting you the technology on which you depend, you couldn't have gotten to that lovely place of moral superiority where you could throw shit at them like some sort of great white ape in a zoo, pretending the keepers haven't been feeding you all
along.

(Oh, we loved you when you came over and flung feces at Bush and Cheney and the rest ... but then what? Should have quit while you were ahead. Columbus discovered America and let it go at that. He didn't feel a great need to discover Australia or New Zealand. No, he just decided to join the establishment and became a vicious soulless murdering despot inthe New World. )

Yes, they're and scum and murderers and they kill for greed, but please, let's not forget you're not living in an unlighted croft somewhere in the Highlands, climbing down to the water to cast the string into the sea with a hook made of bone to catch and eat fish. My guess is you're just as guilty as the rest, shouting "Hear Hear" in Parliament as if you were some whoopty-hoopty elegant lord instead of the backalley brawler you had to become to get to where you are today.

Everyone is guilty -- it's just that Tony and the other George are not as good at it as you have to be to get away with it.

So take a break from the moral horseshit and either do something to change it or shut up. It's too fucking easy to throw shit at the Sociopathic Cowboy and his Pet Boy, Tony.

They're waay too easy, especially with Tony now channeling Winston Molehill and telling everyone how he'll slap down anyone who tries to think about how things may look from the other side. You're in for a long dark night over there, and... gee don't you wish there were some sort of MP who would stand up, acknowledge his part in the society, and try to make it better?

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It's always fun to see Dubya running around in circles***, but...

I have to agree with what someone said the other day --- the neo-phrase “global struggle against violent extremism” sounds like something the Democrats would come up with.

Bush, a can-do** sort of guy, showed executive power and leadership, stamped his foot, threw a hissy fit and threatened to hold his breath and turn blue if Karen Hughes didn't let him go back to "War on Terror."

The only satisfaction one can find these days is to register Libertarian -- even if the whole thing called United States of America falls apart -- which it seems to be doing -- at least you get the simple pleasure of calling Republicans "Liberals* " and "Lefties*."


---*Topics with which to dance on their heads: Taxes, Spending, Starting a War (they always used to point a finger at the Democrats as "getting us into war"), Spending, Acting like True Christians by having Tolerance for Gay people (Nominating for Supreme Court Justice a man who participated -- PRO BONO -- in the Landmark 1996 Gay Rights Victory -- overturning Colorado's odious pro-discrimination intitiative -- Romer v Evans), Spending, and for all libertarians, both Big-L and Small-L -- instituting a Theocracy, and Spending.


** My apologies to a dear and valued friend, an intelligent, moderate, thoughtful person and a Republican, a man whose comments often make me think and reconsider my assumptions, for japing a comment he made to me the other day about the "can-do" guys in this administration ...I'd rather make light of things said by ignorant dumbass right-wingers, but moderate, thoughtful Republicans are the only ones who are even willing to talk with me.

***An older lady accosted me as I left the post office the other day, having overheard my conversation, and tore into me about how the Valerie Plame business and etc was all lies and, she said, "You people will do ANYTHING to get President Bush out of office ..." She ranted on and on, and I interrupted her and said, "No, you're right. It's true -- I would do ANYTHING to get him out of there -- I think he's a liar and thief and has done nothing but steal and kill to line his pals' pockets, so yes, you're absolutely right about that."

AP Poll charts another drop in public belief in Bush as a Mensch -- CBS Poll shows they believe him to be a Nixon

--Not yet up to the point where we remind the schoolkids about the rate of free-fall acceleration being 120 feet per second per second, but that old image of Bush's level of popularity being not unlike a Turd (or a Turd Blossom) dropped off the top of the Bank of America Building is cropping up again.

"Only 42 percent of the public approve of the president's job performance; 55 percent don't. The same poll shows that, by a 50-48 percent margin, Americans now believe that their president is dishonest. Only 38 percent approve of the way he's handling the war in Iraq...

...In the latest CBS News poll, 77 percent of the American public believe that the Bush administration is either lying or hiding something about the outing of Valerie Plame. Only 12 percent say the White House is telling 'the entire truth.'"

In plain talk -- it's bad enough that he and his lads are forcibly sodomizing us all, but what often causes the American public to rise up in anger is when the Big Boys try to convince us it was just a thermometer and they were taking our temperature as part of their National Health Coverage. (Like the Medicare Drug Benefits.)

Galloway praises Iraq 'martyrs' -- Decides he's Jane Fonda

In the most startling move British MP George Galloway could make short of announcing a sex change, he decided to become Jane Fonda. Ms Fonda, during the Vietnam war, decided that if the United States was wrong to invade Vietnam (they were) that somehow made the Viet Cong somehow sweet selfless good guys (they weren't).

So if the US was wrong to invade Iraq (probably) it doesn't make the other side right -- usually -- and a politican with his experience should know this -- the opposite of wrong is usually a different kind of wrong

The right-wrong assumption may be an ok conclusion for a cat-faced cutie whose only real attribute was having a perky bubble ass, but seems rather shockingly naive from a member of parliament:


Mr Galloway claimed the insurgents were ordinary Iraqis defending their country against "foreign invaders".

"It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony."

In one speech, the MP said: "These poor Iraqis - ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons - are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable.

"We don't know who they are, we don't know their names, we never saw their faces, they don't put up photographs of their martyrs, we don't know the names of their leaders."

Granted, the suicide bombers are committed and desperate, and could be termed "martyrs" in the literal sense of being willing to die for their beliefs but ...

He told Syrian Television: "Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad.

"The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will.

"The daughters are crying for help and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters."

Mr Galloway said Tony Blair's idea of a "war on terrorism" was absurd as terrorism was a tactic, not a strategy...

...that's the same tactic Tee Hee Lawrence used to take the Turks out of the oil-rich three countries England cut into the one Iraq ... the same tactic Menachim Begin and the Irgun used to run the Brits out of Palestine and take Jerusalem... the same tactic the Viet Cong and the Viet Minh used to run the French out of Vietnam -- twice -- and then to run the Americans out, a bit later.

It's called killing killing killing, maiming, mutilating, terrifying, and ok, you can look at someone willing to strap on a C-4 vest and blow himself up along with a bunch of people eating pizza or applying for a job, and you can say, "Wow! That's one desperate guy." Even "Wow, that's one committed guy."

But while the CAUSE of repelling the invaders (JIHAD) may be a noble one, the tactic of random mass slaughter is just monstrous crap that only makes things worse. It may succeed, but the cost catches up down the line -- there's a difference between dying for a cause and murdering for one, and anyone with a name like Galloway should know that.

"Wars, politics, causes -- for thousands of years we've ended up with a sack of shit -- it's time we learned to think." Charles Bukowski

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Down-Home Diplomacy

By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer

August 04,2005 | CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush has turned his remote ranch into a stage for down-home diplomacy, where a barbecue grill and a pickup truck have become his favorite tools for dealing with world leaders...

"You only invite your friends into your house," Bush said when Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first head of state to visit in November 2001. "Occasionally, you let a salesman in, or two...."

Bush has used his private residence for entertaining heads of state in a manner unlike any other president in 40 years. The others have preferred to host their counterparts at the White House or the presidential retreat at Camp David.


---I suppose people will think it partisan of me to mention that his "private residence" is barely older than his presidency. He bought the ranch in 1999, and the house was built in 2000.

In other words -- a stage set.

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Intelligent Design -- or Pigs is Pigs

It's interesting to notice the general lack of intelligence among the people who lobby for "Intelligent design" (aka Stealth Creationism) .

I used to think something similar about people who told me "Pigs is REALLY smart, y'know? REALLY intelligent." Most of the people who say this have seen pigs cry when they hoisted upside down and cut their throats.

Same with Pope Bent-Dick the Impaler leading the charge against Evolution (and Harry Potter for that matter.)

When I used to teach Zoomobile, take animals to school classrooms, and the school was Catholic, I would always mention "You know, this lesson you requested has a lot to do with evolution. Is that going to be a problem?"

And the answer I got, whether from nun or priest was essentially the same as one so beautifully-said by a nun:

"We're a mystery religion. We don't presume to think we know how he did it."

Apparently the new Pope does presume to think that.

Whew, remember the old saw: "power tends to corrupt? And absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely?"

Well, the New Vicar of Christ on Earth may have resisted the temptation to pork little boys (even though he managed to smile indulgently on those who do) but he lasted -- what? -- three days in the job before he seemingly said "Fuck it. I AM the Lord!"

(Who me? An enemy of God? Not a chance. I don't hate God -- I just hate signifying, hypocritical, sadistic, power-freaks who try to pretend that THEY are the ones, that the only way to commune with said God is to kiss their ring, or kiss their robe, or kiss their ass, or kiss their willies.

I don't even know if there IS any thing like what they call God, so how could I hate that putative being? I only know that pederasty or not, according to the brightest Catholic School grads I've known, whether you put it in their ears as the absolutist terror-fear-death-hatred syndrome they call "God's Love" or up their butts as "Now Willy, I'm your priest and I know what's best," its ALL child abuse.)

(Just for the record, pigs are quite intelligent, although I can't necessarily say the same for their propagandists. After all, they only say that because the porkers consistently beat them at chess. Animals are intelligent, they just -- mostly -- don't play video games or crave instant messaging -- and if evolution is an intelligence test, then apparently they're a lot more intelligent than humans, from turtles to tarantulas, from viruses to vultures, from alligators to zebras. How long have THEY been around? And how long have/will we?)

Is America's War Winding Up? - by Pat Buchanan

"Is America preparing to pull out of Iraq without victory?

Are we ready to leave that war-ravaged land without any assurance a free, democratic, pro-Western Iraq will survive? Is President Bush willing to settle for less than we all thought?

So it would seem. For it is difficult to draw any other conclusion from the just-completed Rumsfeld mission.

Standing beside our defense secretary in Baghdad, Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari called for the speedy withdrawal of U.S. forces. The top U.S. commander, Gen. George Casey, also standing beside Rumsfeld, said "fairly substantial" withdrawals of the 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq could begin by spring.

This seems astonishing, when hawkish critics of Bush are saying we need more, not fewer U.S. troops, if we hope to win this war..."


Or it's possible that even the blockhead sociopathic god-mongers in the Bush administration have actually accepted some reality:

1. We toppled the regime of a blood enemy of the Iranian Shi'a and drove the entire country of Iraq into a close alliance with Iran ("Axis -- Bold as Love" replaces "Axis of Evil?")

2. Someone finally realized that our presence in Iraq is what is driving the Resistance, it's US they want out of there. Or, perhaps they finally got some Arabic-speaking intelligence agents to explain tothem that "JIHAD" means "Driving the invaders out."

3. Bush may not need to run for re-election, but all the Republican congressmen do, plus 1/3 of the senators, and they're back home now, for the month, hearing what the "boots on OUR ground" have to say about this administration pissing away all our money on George W Bush's latest failure (same as every other unfinished failed project he started) and causing thousands of American guys in uniform to die, be maimed, or mentally mutilated by the horror of it all, merely to enrich Cheney and his pals from Halliburton. (Anyone acutally LOOKING for the most recent missing 9 BILLION dollars?)

4. Maybe it's just Bush's Attention Deficit Disorder (see # 3) and he's bored.

5. Or, to address Mr.Buchanan's last question posted above: no one actually believes we can win this war anymore ... either reality or depression has settled in.

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Two Prosecutors At Guantanamo Quit in Protest

By JESS BRAVIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 1, 2005; Page B1

Two Air Force prosecutors quit last year rather than take part in military trials they considered rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Maj. John Carr, then a captain, and Maj. Robert Preston accused fellow prosecutors of ignoring torture allegations, failing to protect exculpatory evidence and withholding information from superiors. Altogether, the actions 'may constitute dereliction of duty, false official statements or other criminal conduct,' Maj. Carr wrote in a March 15, 2004, email summarizing his complaints to the then-chief prosecutor, Army Col. Fred Borch."

TWO PROSECUTORS quit -- ashamed of what they'd had to do...

So it seems appropriate to resurrect a posting of mine from May 18th this year:

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."

...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 been a regular 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."

Apparently that's the rule AGAIN.

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 tell us that the psychotic Muslims are in some way more crazy than our home-grown variety, as if degrees of viciousness and insanity were some sort of defense. ("But hey -- he's a LOT crazier than I am.")

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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