HERE'S A QUESTION:

Sing George W Bush's entire act is part and parcel and firmly attached to "The Base,"

And Osama ben Laden is smack dab in the middle of "Al Quaeda" (ie., "The Base" in Arabic) --

are they multi-national divisions of the same company? (e.g., Red Cross and Red Crescent)


And if not, shouldn't one group or the other sue for copyright infringement?

Whatever happened to the "Do not call" registration to eliminate telephone ear-spam,?

I used to be kind to those poor bastards who were reduced to getting the bottom-of-the barrel leads to call and hit up for funds:

"Hi -- I'm calling for the Blah-Blah Police Department, you know, The POLICE!"

"Good morning Mr. Saintperle, and how are you today?"

"I'm calling for a selected survey and..."

I used to say things like: "Sorry, I'm working, but good luck," or "Wow, if they're giving you my name as a lead they have NO RESPECT for you at all."

But, of course, the assholes in congress decided that there would be exemptions (based on who voted for them, paid them off, to whit:)

Non-profit organizations.

Tax-exempt organizations.

People with whom I do business. (** This one is the Catch-22 trap.**)

In other words, the psychotic religious fanatic al quaeda (Arabic for "the Base") of the current administration.

I'm sorry, I may sympathize with Planned Parenthood (ahh, would that they could have legally aborted the hysterical thugs outside their clinics who glory in terrorizing teenage girls), and the Nature Conservancy and the Libertarian Party (with whom I'm registered), Public Radio (at lkeast the station that plays jazz 24/7 without commericals -- KCSM in San Mateo, CA), Lighthouse for the Blind, Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, and others, but only if they're considerate enough to send my mail -- physical paper mail that I can open and read at my leisure.

But I do not care to hear what I regard as filth -- audial pornography -- sadistic sickness, i.e., tales of the end 0f days and the punishments of those who aren't signed up for the club, punishments dreamed up on long nights by emotionally-stunted monks shivering in their cells with cold and terrified guilt.

But those are the kinds of people who voted for George Bush and his Nazgul minions.

So I ask, first of all:

WHY DO THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE MEAN-SPIRITED INVISIBLE FRIENDS GET A FREE PASS IN OUR SOCIETY?

Because they paid off the people who write the laws.

So I'm no longer polite to these people who call any time they feel like it. Now my answers are:

"I'm working -- Go away."

"Fuck off."

"Give me YOUR home phone number and I'll call you back" (if I'm in a whimsical mood).

or, if I'm not:

"Eat shit and die."



** See, here's the trick shot. If you bought something at a Radio Shack (just an example), and they're part of a gigantic mega-corp monster (which they are), then any and/or all of the other divisions of that mega-monster can legally call you -- financial services, credit card people, mortuaries (lot of profit there, and the independents have all been eaten by the biggies), airlines, car rental agencies, sewer and plumbing services, etc... etc... etc...
In other words, you didn't actually think those peollke who nominate themselves for our voting choice were going to let US have control over which companies we want to give our money, did you? I did, but then, I'm a fantasist.

Bush Aide: No Silver Bullet for Gas Prices

By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer

April 30,2006 | WASHINGTON -- President Bush's new chief of staff said Sunday that the White House plan to address high gasoline prices will have only a modest impact and the ultimate goal must to be reducing dependence on foreign oil.

"This is a very large problem," Josh Bolten said on "Fox News Sunday" in his first interview since taking over April 14 as Bush's top aide. "It's built up over many years -- decades, in fact. It's not going to be solved in the short run by some silver bullet."

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

The NEW Bush the "HONEST" Bush White House -- in other words, "OK, I'm being honest -- I'm an incompetent doofus who's going to finish my lame-o duckie term paying off my pals in the oil industry. Sorry, but it's the only thing I know how to do. Don't I get points for being honest?"

Well, I don't know -- why don't you ask all the people you killed -- male, female, American, Iraqi, Afghani, English -- if they give you points, then so will I.

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

Bush OKs Dubai Firm Operating U.S. Plants

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

By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer

April 28,2006 | WASHINGTON -- President Bush has approved the takeover by a Dubai-owned company of American plants that make parts for jets and tanks after a review that seems to have satisfied lawmakers who helped block an earlier Dubai deal.
*****************
And I'll bet our men and women who have to fly/drive those beasts are just happy as clams that their equipment is being made by low-bidding Muslim Arabs who were still laundering Al Quaeda money just a few years ago.

Which brings up the current war riddle:

"What's the difference between a camel and an Abrams Fighting Machine?"

"A camel keeps going in the desert."

Let's be fair -- surely it's only a coincidence that all of the pals of Bush, Cheney, Poppy Bush, Poppy Bush's long time partner, Poppy Ben Laden -- and the Carlyle People (Kissinger, Schultz, etc) and Rumsfeld (CEO of Gilead which makes Theraflu, chosen to be the anti-Avian flu drug) ... ONLY A COINCIDENCE that all of the Busha Nostra have gotten filthy rich, richer. richestin the past 5 years while the average American is scraping up enough to fill the tank to get to work -- if he or she still has a real job.

Surely talk of a conspiracy is ridiculous, since the plunder is right out in the open.

It MUST BE just be a coincidence that they get richer while the rest of us get the fiscal equivalent of anal rape.

Right?

Isn't that right?

Just A Coincidence?

An apology for the slur against Monkey Boy I posted below -- that loose "gay" tag was supposed to be an insult, but I have no idea whether or not the man goes one way or the other or both or includes farm animals, so it was improper of me to insult gay men everywhere by combining the actions of this mother-obsessed sadistic little chicken-shit with the possibility of being gay. Other than some theater folk, few if any of the gay men I've known are sadistic. Most are -- like all the rest of us -- looking for love, affection, consideration, kindness, courtesy, and general civility.

Actually, other than Condi Rice, no one in this administration dresses well enough to be gay.

So, to all the rainbow flag warriors -- my apologies.

Spelling correction to the posting just below --

It's

Scott McClellan not

Scott McClellanD --

Apparently his balls and self-respect weren't the only things he had to give up for the job ... that final D had to go, too.

Well, we all useta hear about how Monkey Boy liked to rename all the moths who gathered around his (daddy's) money flame.

A little passive-aggressive homoerotic creepy way of humilitating other people (all in good fun, eh turd blossom?) -- but after a while, even the Press Corps, all asses and elbows bown on the floor fighting for scraps, even they started to notice how so many of them -- all mean spirited -- deal with anuses and penises.

Well, wottehell, Archie -- Laura isn't the first wife who had to deal with finding out her husband is gay. But in that family, the threat of a public divorce can equates to a single-car fatal crash.

And it's not as if she has to whine and wheedle to get the doc to top up her bottle of Xanax.

Unspoken (but explanatory) quotes

Busha Nostra: "We believe what we believe and that's all we're willing tobelieve."

FDA: "Well, we could refuse to debase 1000 years of medical research and lose our jobs ... or ... nahh, why even consider that stuff you call... what was it? Integrity?"

Scott McLelland: "Fuck you -- I'm out of here and the Bushwahs owe me big time ... BIG TIME! -- for letting the entire world see what an asshole I am."

George W Bush: "Can I ride my bicycle in California?"

Ahrnold Schwarzenegger: "Why did I think deciding to be Republican was a good idea?"

F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana

By GARDINER HARRIS

Published: April 21, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 20 — The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by a panel of highly regarded scientists.

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

Right, as I pointed out recently, they prevent prevent prevent any legal research into such drugs so they can say "no credible scientifi evidence..."

And if there IS credible evidence, well, just understand that if you lie lie lie and say there isn't, perhaps 51% of the people out there won't know there IS. (Alternately, if you lie lie lie and say there's an actual connection between blood enemies Saddam Hussein and Osama ben Laden, a majority of the people might assume there IS.) --

Remember, in school, the kids whose intelligence was AVERAGE? Well, HALF the people in the country aren't that smart.

Ask anyone with AIDS, Cancer, Post-polio Syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and more than a few other hideou ailments if THEY think there's a medical benefit (or at least, an anti-nausea and/or palliative one) and they'll be solidly affirmative.

But wottehell, what's the value of the "anecdotal" evidence of the experience of several million pain sufferers compared to "We believe what we believe and that's all we're willing to believe."

And if we DON'T believe it, well then, given that growing pot in your backyard or windowbox costs very little, and FDA-approved drugs cost a lot a lot a lot (and even more since the Medi-plunder Bill), well then, as Upton Sinclair observed:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

The best government money (and superstition) can buy.

(In Turkey -- Istanbul) in the 50's, the people ran amok, dragged merchants out of their shops and hanged them for short-changing people. (Of course, they were Jews, so they felt it was all right.)

On the other hand, we, as Americans, reward the "steal-a-lot" thieves with public office.

But if we DID react in the Turkish manner, we'd say "Well, remember, they're politicians, so it was all right."*

And celebrate with a party featuring halvah.

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

*NB -- lest anyone think I'm advocating this sort of behavior, let me say flat out without conditions or reservation: IT'S NEVER ALL RIGHT. Not even for the son of the Bush family business partner and friend, Mr. Ben Ladn. There's no frontier left. Frontier justice should be gone, too. Give 'em a fair trial first -- THEN hang 'em.

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

Link

In New Job, Spymaster Draws Bipartisan Criticism - New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 19 — The top Republican and the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee have disagreed publicly about many things, but on one issue they have recently come together. Both are disquieted by the first-year performance of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

******* John Negroponte -- From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. Armed them to the teeth, increasing military aid from $4 million a year to $77+ million a year. And the death squads ran free all that time.

While most believe he gave them a wink and a nod, Ronnie the Great and his Pals being terrified of Communistas, others just say sarcastically: "During those 4 years, he was the ONLY MAN in Latin America who DIDN'T know about the death squads. "

Phillips Exeter and Yale ... life-long Busha Nostra.

*****************
The fear expressed by the two lawmakers, Representatives Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, and Jane Harman, Democrat of California, is that Mr. Negroponte, the nation's overseer of spy agencies, is creating just another blanket of bureaucracy, muffling rather than clarifying the dangers lurking in the world.


***************** That's the fear "EXPRESSED." The fear contained is that, as President 41's Luca Brasi*, he's doing the same for Prez 43 -- finding out who's been naughty (i.e., not agreeing with the Shit-Flinging Primate in the White House) and who's been nice (the bend-over ranks of Washington DC journalists, for example.)

He's an enforcer, not a manager.

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

* In Godfather I, Michael tells Kay about the Hollywood connection:

"So the next day, my father went to see him; only this time with Luca Brasi. An' within an hour, he signed a release, for a certified check for $1000. [Kay: "How'd he do that?"] My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse. [Kay: "What was that?"] Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract. That's a true story. That's my family, Kay, it's not me."

Link

A 'Pulitzer Prize for Treason'

April 18, 2006

Yesterday, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau received well-deserved Pulitzer Prizes for "national reporting" based on their (yearlong-delayed) disclosure of the president's illegal NSA eavesdropping program. That award has unleashed a slew of bitter commentary from Bush supporters, including Bennett, proclaiming that Risen and Lichtblau belong in prison. On his radio show this morning, the great free press crusader (Bill) Bennett said:"I think what they did is worthy of jail."

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

Those degenerate gamblers -- always blaming someone else when they lose a bet... must have put his money on Brit Hume to win.

Link

The Lancet: Reviving research into psychedelic drugs

From The Lancet 2006; 367:1214 -- (15 April 2006)


"That psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and MDMA (ecstasy), can be effective treatments for various psychiatric illnesses is an old idea. Once considered wonder drugs for their effects on anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and other mental illnesses, they have been effectively banished from medical practice after legal rulings banned their sale and use. Although such bans were largely put in place to quash concerns about rampant recreational drug use fuelling the counter cultures of the 1960s and 1980s (LSD and MDMA, respectively), criminalisation of these agents has also led to an excessively cautious approach to further research into their therapeutic benefits.

So do illicit drugs have therapeutic benefits that outweigh their substantial social harm? The evidence is scant. But the case of a man who emerged from a decade-long period of intensive MDMA use—during which he is estimated to have taken 40 000 pills—with no signs of the profound neurotoxicity that has long been feared to result from even limited consumption of ecstasy, has re-energised calls for more research into the real side-effects, and therapeutic potential, of psychedelic drugs. Although some small-scale research projects using LSD, MDMA, and the active components of cannabis are now underway, the blanket ban on psychedelic drugs enforced in many countries continues to hinder safe and controlled investigation, in a medical environment, of their potential benefits.

Exaggerated risks of harm have contributed to the demonisation of psychedelic drugs as a social evil. But although this dangerous reputation—generated and perpetuated by the often disproportionately stiff penalties for their use—is helpful for law enforcement, it does not correspond to the evidence. Rather, the social prescription against psychedelic drugs that hinders properly controlled research into their effects and side-effects is largely based on social and legal, as opposed to scientific, concerns. To maximise research into therapeutic benefits without exacerbating real social harms a legal structure that recognises this distinction is sorely "

*********************
Criminalizing psychedelic drugs (to effectively eliminate legal research and allow the Cromwellian puritans to say "Well, there hasn't been any research to prove they're useful...") is like criminalizing penicillin and tetracycline so that sex-crazed teens couldn't screw their eyes out and then cure their veneral diseases.

Link

Easter Bunny Accused of Hitting Customer

Without comment.

Link

Breaking the silence

The overwrought response to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's brave paper only confirms its thesis.

By Juan Cole

April 18, 2006 | John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government have put their hands into a hornet's nest with their paper in the London Review of Books, titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." As political scientists who routinely analyze U.S. foreign policy, they have gained a reputation for lucid and principled argument, but outside the halls of academia are not exactly household names. In daring to simply describe the well-known operations of the Israel lobby, however, they have made themselves targets of a massive smear campaign. Ironically, this reaction is just what their paper predicted.

Fair and gentlemanly to a fault, and widely respected in their discipline, the two professors are impossible to imagine as fire-breathing racial bigots, devious purveyors of blatant falsehoods or wild-eyed conspiracy theorists prone to ignore obvious evidence, but these are the sort of epithets being hurled at them by their critics.

In "The Israel Lobby," Mearsheimer and Walt argue that U.S. policy toward the Middle East has been dangerously skewed by a powerful pro-Israel lobby, which inhibits free discussion of the issues and has made the pro-Israeli position a political sacred cow. Congress, they point out, virtually never criticizes Israel: It is an untouchable subject. And this taboo has had enormous consequences, which are themselves off limits for discussion. Because America's blank-check support for Israel arouses enormous Arab and Muslim rage, Israel is a strategic liability, not an asset...

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

As an American of Jewish birth and upbringing (during the great hoo-rah and hoo-hah over the newly-created state of Israel), I can agree whole-heartedly with Juan Cole's comments about this, his own article, on his blog and elsewhere.

It amazes me that this -- the topic of the power of absolutist lobby in America -- is still an issue.

Several years ago, an American general stated that if it were not for the influence (control) the American Israeli Lobby had over the media, we would not be committed to defending the state of Israel..

He made it clear he was speaking purely from a military position -- that a pure military analysis without any other factors would find this tiny state strategically and tactically impossible to defend.

And then, in a country (ours) obviously bereft of any sense of irony, he was beaten into a public apology by that same media for saying that they were a tool of the Israeli-lobby policy-makers and would silence any disagreement.

****

And again, years later, the authors of this thoughtful essay are toast. Mr. Cole continues:

"The substance seems to me unobjectionable. A congressman told me not so long ago, "Juan, I'm glad you're speaking out on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, because we can't." He meant by "we" the US Congress. What has happened to Mearsheimer and Walt is illustrative of what he meant by "can't." Mearsheimer admits that the two of them will never now be considered for a government position (e.g. National Security Council).

In contrast, a known Neocon sleazeball, who shredded the US Constitution and lied to Congress, such as Elliot Abrams, can be forgiven and then brought into the National Security Council to run US policy toward . . . Israel and Palestine. After Abrams lied to them, Congressional leaders vowed in the late 1980s that Abrams would never be allowed to come before them again. But they just rolled over when W. brought him into the White House."

***

Elliot Abrams is an alleged human who makes every Jew in America shudder in disgust at the fact that such a virulent lying vicious creep would have to be a Jew -- he's the kind of man that makes one think "Well, if Hitler thought ALL Jews were like that, I can start to understand his insanity."

***

Again, it amazes me this is still an issue -- this 800-pound gorilla Israeli Lobby has been written about by Israelis, by Europeans, by Americans.

Any objections a person makes about the crimes committed by Israeli politicians (Menachim Begin, Ariel Sharon, Bibi Netanyahu, et al) has seen the person denounced as either an anti-semite (if a non-Jew) or a self-hater (if a Jew).

I spent my early life meeting Israelis -- sabras (native-born) who treated me and other American Jews pretty much the way the Germans on the street were told to treat Jews, i.e, disparage them with contempt -- they told us we weren't really Jews at all, but enemies of the new state of Israel. Called us Hitler-lovers. Did everything but spit on us.

So, while I'm glad the poor bastards left alive after the Hitlerian Dream-Quest for Impossible Perfection* was over had a refuge, I have to tell those people:

"No, dummy -- it's YOU I hate --not myself. I don't treat people that way, as if I'm some sort of circumcised SS man."

(I don't hate them -- just find them repugnant and, like those things that live under rocks with Elliot Abrams, best avoided.)

****

As Americans, we can talk about almost anything we want -- we can talk about whether or not the "Nuke Iran" scare is a sham intended -- with the American public demanding we leave Iraq -- to give one final big payoff to the Bush-wah Buddies over there (oil at $70 a barrel).

Or we can ask and/or speculate about what's really behind this policy or that one. (Well, that one is sort of an historical memory of actual free speech.)

But we may never question any policy towards Israel.

And ultimately, it kind of makes one finally just not really give a shit about anyone who lives there, even including people (I know some of them) who have defied threats and risks (from other Israelis) over the years to establish community relations with Palestinians, who have long opposed the IDF and their interventions let alone their excesses, and who want Palestinians to have the same rights and accesses given to Jews.

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


* Term coined by/used by John Aes-Nihil of the Archives of Aesthetic Nihilism and which goes so aptly to the root of the reality in referring to Nazi's (or the guilt-crazed, finger-pointing desperate to get clean 700 Club Crazies, for that matter), I've given up on trying to improve on it.

Link

SKILLING'S DEFENSE: I'M A PUNK -- DON'T HIT ME

Skilling Pits His Word Against Witnesses'

By KRISTEN HAYS AP Business Writer

April 16,2006 | HOUSTON -- It's his word against theirs.

"..It's an uphill battle," said Michael Wynne, a former federal prosecutor in Houston who has observed much of the trial, including Skilling's testimony, firsthand. "Skilling would have this jury believe every other witness has lied, perjured themselves, and his is the only correct version."

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

Dear Jeffrey -- if you were any kind of a man -- even within shouting distance of the tough standup dude you always claimed to be -- you'd take your punishment -- you had the free ride -- stole all the employee's pensions -- and now you're whining like a 10-year old.

What a piece of shit you are.

No one likes a thief, but even more so, no one like a whining, lying, chickenshit thief.

You'd better hope -- for your sake -- that you and your bitch Kenny Boy get convicted.

Because if you're not -- all those people whose retirement you stole know where you live.

Vegetable Compounds Combat Cancer (from Scientific American online 4/5/06)

Vegetable Compounds Combat Cancer

In the ongoing war on cancer, researchers have enlisted a new series of soldiers: roots and vegetables. New findings presented at the American Association for Cancer Research show that a grocery list of vegetables including ginger, hot peppers and cauliflower show promise as cancer-combating agents.

Pharmacologist Shivendra Singh of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues showed that a chemical released when cruciferous vegetables--such as cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage--are chewed helps control human prostate tumors grafted into mice. Phenethyl-isothiocyanate, or PEITC, prompted the prostate cancer cells to kill themselves in a process called apoptosis. By the end of a 31-day treatment cycle, treated mice had tumors nearly two times smaller than their counterparts.

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

--------------- and cauliflower bits dipped into hot green salsa or such makes good munching consistent with the Pritikin diet principles -- calories per ounce, i.e., no one can eat enough cauliflower or broccoli to gain weight. Another tip for the heart and for the pancreas.

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

Link

Ken Lay Redux from last July -- still hangs in there

Sweet KenLay's Baadasssss Song

I know that Ken Lay had turned himself in back a ways..

To be expected.

But on the other hand, wouldn't it have been nifty for him to try a getaway? On the run? Crawling through sewers and broiling in deserts? Chased down from one country to another by Interpol, Californians and the retirees whose pensions he stole? Sort of the whitebread version of Sweet Sweetback.

And the Greek Chorus of Oilmen's Club Members would ring through his ears:

"You can't get away, Kenlay -- the old folks know your name."

"I can run faster than they can."

"They got walkers, Kenlay."

"I can run farther than they can."

"They got Depends, Kenlay."

"If Sweetback could do it, so can I."

"Yeah, but everyone was cheering for Sweetback to make it. Everyone's cheering for you to get caught and strung up by your balls."

"I can hide."

"You bled their momma. You bled their poppa."

"Well they won't bleed me."

"You bled their sisters. You bled their brothers."

"They won't bleed me."

"You want to bet on that? Here come those old folks now, swinging their canes."

"Well..."

"You can't hide in California, not there. They want their money back and now you're broke. Can't hide in Houston, they know you there, too, and they want their pensions back. Bush won't answer your phone calls, Kenny Boy, he says 'Kenny who? I may have met him once, but...' Or maybe he just forgot. Either way, you're all alone. You can't get away."

"I can turn state's evidence, rat out everyone I ever knew, everyone who ever helped me, tell the feds what they got in return."

"Well, Kenlay, in the words of your pal's Mentor in the Veep's office, 'Go fuck yourself.'"

"I can tell 'em I'm a hapless hopeless schmuck who didn't know what was going on"

"They know you're a schmuck, Kenlay -- they've also figured out you're a thief."

"But you're my angels. You're supposed to help me."

"You're gonna roll over on the people who got you all your goodies? Fuck you. And stop insulting rats -- you don't have half their integrity."

"But I didn't know what they were doing, didn't know how they were doing it."

"That's why you were always the perfect fall guy, 'cause you don't really know how to do anything. That's why you got that house in River Oaks."

"But it wasn't my idea to cheat like that."

"Of course not, Kenny Boy -- you didn't get that job because they thought you were smart. You weren't expected to have ideas. You were expected to stand there just as you are, holding the bag with a dumb, pissed off expression on your face. Because there's only one question they need to ask: 'Did you take the money?' "

"Well, uh, yeah. "

"Well, uh, yeah, then -- we'll see you in 20 years ... and, oh, don't drop the soap."

A tip of the hat to Melvin van Peebles, who, in 1971, answered the incredibly stupid question "We already did one negro movie. How many do you people want?" by starting a revolution.

(An example -- SHAFT was going to be a white Private Eye until Sweetback, for which Mr van Peebles had to rent each theater and 4-wall since no one would actually book it, grossed second to LOVE STORY. )

And to Mario, who has been carrying it on.

Here's a bit of an Ohh-mahj using the format of the Greek Chorus of the movie -- the chorus of boojy angels telling Sweetback he should just give up, lie down, and take what's coming to him.

Government zeroes in on Bonds

Right, like they don't have anything more important to concern themselves with.

And again, if all those baseball players used steroids how come (1) Barry Bonds is so much better than any of them (as Brainhell pointed out, words to the effect that if you add a teacup of water to a gallon you'll always have more than if you add the same amount to a pint).

(2) They're going after the black guy?

I am sick unto vomiting of these white guys protesting how "Oh no, it's only a coincidence we're going after a nigg... uh, after an African-American."

And every time someone of color points out -- quite appropriately -- that there seems to be a racial thing going on, the white boys all scream "UNFAIR!"

Link

A modest note to all those Republicans who voted for Bush -- twice -- and who gave the rest of us -- Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, etc -- a lot of grief, questioning our patriotism and all that jazz (as many still are when we express dismay at the prospect of nuking Iran) ---

Now that your poster boy -- and all his friends from Tom DeLay to Dick Cheney to Bill Frist to Duke Cunningham, etc -- have been revealed as lying, cheating, scumbag, treasonous thieves who have betrayed every one who put trust in any of them -- don't you think you owe the rest of us an apology?

Or as they say:

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

Thank you, and good night.

This is important to remember during Easter Week -- and every other week.

We all keep asking why journalists don't get on the case of public figures who distort, spin, alter facts, tip the facts upside down for their own benefit, and -- frankly -- just outright lie -- here's Garry Wills doing exactly that:

Christ Among the Partisans

By GARRY WILLS

Published: April 9, 2006

THERE is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program...

The Romans did not believe Jesus when he said he had no political ambitions. That is why the soldiers mocked him as a failed king, giving him a robe and scepter and bowing in fake obedience (John 19:1-3). Those who today say that they are creating or following a "Christian politics" continue the work of those soldiers, disregarding the words of Jesus that his reign is not of this order...

Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan "What would Jesus do?"

That is not a question his disciples ask in the Gospels. They never knew what Jesus was going to do next. He could round on Peter and call him "Satan." He could refuse to receive his mother when she asked to see him. He might tell his followers that they are unworthy of him if they do not hate their mother and their father. He might kill pigs by the hundreds. He might whip people out of church precincts...

No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine...

He was never that thing that all politicians wish to be esteemed — respectable. At various times in the Gospels, Jesus is called a devil, the devil's agent, irreligious, unclean, a mocker of Jewish law, a drunkard, a glutton, a promoter of immorality.

The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats.

Read the entire article HERE

The Stuff of Which Conspiracy Theories Are Made

People like solutions. People do not like such questions as "Why would someone do that?" left hanging, even though, in life, there's almost NEVER an actual answer. But people want to resolve the question, so they come up with label crap like "He's Gay," or "His mother abused him," or "He hates America."

And then everyone goes, "Oh, yeah. I figured it had to be something like that."

So when Michael Cherkoff, the director of Homeland Security attends a meeting of chemical manufacturers last month and says not one word of criticism or even good-natured chiding about how none of them have done zip to improve security around their chemical plants, makes one wonder.

So first we have to ask, "Does he just not care?

And if he doesn't care, then why not? Why wouldn't he be nervous about 30 tons of phosgene gas being released into downtown Denver?

At which point we begin to generate many imaginary scenarios, the most persistent of which is this:

HE KNOWS THERE WON'T BE ANY MORE ATTACKS.

Which would have to mean that the muckety mucks -- and Cherkoff is/was a long-time close pal of Bushie ("Doin' a heck of a job, Bushie") -- were collaborative or complicit or indulgent of or knew in advance* that SOMETHING was going to happen to pull Bushie's ratings back up out of the toilet they were in on NINE-TEN-2001, and allow them to impose all the authoritarian faith-based Big Brother controls they could imagine.

To be fair, perhaps they assumed it was just going to be the American Embassy in Paris, and that 7 minutes was the result of "Whaaa? They weren't supposed to do THAT!!!"

But it's that blithe blissful blase attitude that makes people wonder about how far into the game our people were.

When you add in the fact that we have satellites that can read license plates from orbit but we can't find Osama ben Ladn -- and as long as BenLadn is out there, they can keep telling us to be O000-eee-ooo scared.

But as my dear old pal Fletcher said to me when I first talked with him about this "It's not that we think theyDID it ... but we're certain they're the kind of people who ARE CAPABLE of doing such a thing."

This could be total crap, of course.
I'm merely pointing out why and how people think in terms of conspiracy.

And since we KNOW Bushie and Blairie DID conspire ( CON+SPIRE breathe together) to fabricate reasons justifying a desired war in Iraq, there's plenty of fuel to add to that fire.

And, I think, if someone decides he WANTS to go to war regardless of there being no threat from the people he's going to war against, but just because HE WANTS TO -- wouldn't that be mass murder? Or in deference to the high and mighty-ness of a head of state, the more polite term: Crimes Against Humanity?

Is that all it's about? Money? Oil? Water? Wanting more more More MORE!?

You see how it goes? Because once we start thinking conspiracy**,
then it's almost mandatory to start filling in the details.

And the beauty of conspiracies is this:
First of all, it allows us the comfort of thinking SOMEONE'S in charge of this mess.
And if there's no conspiracy, there's no evidence.
But if there IS a conspiracy, then there won't be evidence either because it's been covered up and destroyed.
(If you remember, that was the way Redrum Rumsfeld played it -- remember? When he said words to the effect that "The fact that we can't find any WMD's is not proof that there aren't WMD's.")

Of course not.

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*SOMEONE called Willie Brown, then Mayor of SF, on 9-10 and told him -- strongly -- "Do NOT fly tomorrow."

** Why, would you prefer we go with David Icke's theory that they're all flesh-eating lizard-people from outer space and have been controlling us for thousands of years through The Illuminati?

I prefer to think in human terms, i.e., plain old greed and fear of the future equals willingness to suspend conscience "for a greater good" and kill a few thousand here and there.

Rationalized by considering how you're saving the world.

Which may be why John Cage wrote the lovely broadsheet titled:

How to Save the World: You'll Only Make it Worse."


But maybe mommy and daddy will be impressed.

If they're ALL taking steroids (that large percentage of ML Baseball players), how come Barry Bonds plays the game so much better than any of them?

Make 'em answer that one, Barry.