Rice: Congress Shouldn't Micromanage War

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

Well, hell, Condi -- we'd all settle for someone actually MANAGING the war.

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

"I would hope that Congress would recognize that it's very important for them to have the oversight role," Rice said. "But when it comes to the execution of policy in the field, there has to be a clear relationship between the commander in chief and the commanders in the field."

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

Well we all know what that relationship is -- from C-in-C to commanders in the field:

"I'm a rich kid spoiled brat fuckup, but shit flows downhill, so when I trip over my dick, you guys take the fall. I may have been a deserter from my aeroplane boys' club, but I know THAT MUCH about the military."

John McCain -- he coulda been a contender... you know the rest of that line

John McCain -- to quote Alan Rickman's character in the movie January Man: "So many people are just so FINISHED"

I do not intend to make light of McCain’s grit and persistence — even courage -- nor am I minimizng the hideousness of mistreatment during his internment by the people we were dropping bombs on (Gee, I wonder why they were so pissed off)* — but getting yourself captured by the enemy — no matter how well you held up — is not in and of itself actually an accomplishment to brag about.

His ability to kiss ass was integral to his survival and IS, I suppose, an important skill, one he apparently perfected, judging from the way he's been using it so liberally (if you pardon the expression) these past few years.

It’s one thing when a slimebag like Joey Lieberman does it, whining all the way.

But it’s disheartening when a man we ASSUMED had a great deal of integrity turns out to be down on all fours, lined up for his turn to smooch the Monkey Boy’s behind.


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

* Wesley Clark -- a man who SHOULD be president -- said in a recent CSPAN interview: "People ... when you drop bombs on them and kill their family and friends, they get ANGRY."

The interviewer looked at him as if this were an amazingly brilliant, never-before-heard-of concept: people get angry.

Who should raise Anna Nicole's baby? It's easy ---

There's only one person in America I can think of, and that's Mariska Hargitay

Jayne Mansfield's daughter who was also -- in her case, more or less -- too young to really remember her mom from anything but outside sources -- movies, photos, articles, etc. Ms Hargitay was three years old, asleep in the back seat when her mother's car crash left her motherless.

But the point is, she is/was the child of another sex star who was the victim of the fame-lust-media rape that Anna Nicole Smith went through.

("Up on housing project hill**/you can choose either fortune or fame/
You can take one or the other/though neither are to be what they claim..." Bob Dylan)

If there is ONE person in this country who knows what that's like, it's Mariska Hargitay. Of course, she did have a father -- Mickey Hargitay, the former Mr Universe -- and despite her parents being divorced before she was born, he took her in and raised her.

In this case, a test tube will decide who is little Dannie Lynn Hope's paternal parent.

It is appropriate that Ms Hargitay has hit her dramatic stride (so far) playing a detective in a NYPD sex crimes unit -- because what was done to Jayne Mansfield, Anna Nicole Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Jean Harlow, and all the others was the very popular American sex crime of enticing a woman with fortune and fame into being a masturbatory object -- a legal sex crime.

I've always thought, the reason for Bettie Page's sudden abidcation from her throne as reigning queen of pin-up came in an epiphany -- one day she had a vision of all those hundreds of thousands and millions of men whacking off to her image and, after throwing up repeatedly, changed her clothes and took a bus to find a life.

If it's important (and it is) to have a mother who knows and can prepare a child for the pressures of the life ahead, it would be Ms Hargitay. And, having given birth to August Miklos Friedrich on June 28, 2006, little Dannie Lynn would have a slightly old big brother.

Of course, that won't happen, Ms Hargitay being assigned as Maternal Guardian in loco parentis -- it makes too much sense.

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

* Ted Kane, the writer-friendly editor of Crapshoot, points out I was transposing Desolation Row, and had it wrong. Now it's right -- unless I screwed up again.

"When you don't have any money, the problem is food.
When you have money, it's sex.
When you have both, it's health.
If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death."

-- J. P. Donleavy

Japanese Whaling Ship Afire in Antarctic

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


February 15,2007 | TOKYO --

... fire erupted Thursday on a Japanese whaling ship, as the search continued for a missing crewmen from the crippled ship.

Japanese officials said the blaze that broke out in the below-decks area of the 8,000-ton Nisshin Maru where whale carcasses are processed had been brought under control.

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

Fine, fuck 'em -- let 'em all drown or burn to death. There are those of us who think those whales have at least as much right to live as those sailors who get paid to kill them.

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


The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

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

And I'm NOT sorry I gave the whales all those matches.

Two thoughts on Bush's speech today:

1. Watching him read the speech someone wrote for him, realizing it's only taken him 6 years of coaching to get the body language up to the level of a high school player doing Mr Roboto...

("Don't move your eyes when you look across the audience -- you look really shifty doing that. Rotate your head ...do NOT move your eyes -- is there something we can give him, like botox, to keep those eyes ... that little mark on the prompter means for you to make a SUBTLE emphasis .. does he know how to do subtle? .. just a bit of a smile, a TINY bit .... " etc)

I kept thinking of the song by Charles Manson:

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

2. If he's so goddamned hot for what he so laughingly calls "FREEDOM," then why has he and his masters made it more or less illegal to say anything -- like the old Texican saying -- "A horse-whipping might do that boy some good."

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

I see the rest of the country has caught up with my long-time lonely perception that the man is a liar, that if he told me the sky was blue AND I looked up to see it LOOKED blue to me, I would immediately call my Optometrist, the beautiful Dr. Moonsamy, and make an appointment to have my eyes checked.

I do not believe ANYTHING he says. Nor anything Dick Cheney says (the man who insisted he would testify before the congress but ONLY if he didn't have to swear an oath to tell the truth -- how obvious is that? Either he knows he is a liar OR he's the sort of creature who would touch a bible and scream "IT BURNS! IT BURNS!") Nor anything any of the hench-creatures says -- Rice, Feith, Hadley, et al.

It's not as if he didn't earn that reputation.

Tim Hardaway -- not in any immediate danger of being offered a Macarthur Grant *

San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 2007


Retired Miami Heat guard Tim Hardaway said Wednesday (regarding former NBA player Amaechi coming out about being and having been gay) that he hates gay people, but later said he regretted the remarks.

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," he said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."
*******
Well, it certainly seems like Tim Hardaway is an asshole (and a big one, physically as well as emotionally, too) and the only reason anyone even knows or cares about is because his supreme achievement in the world was (1) to have parents with tall-growing genes, (2) to be able to throw a round ball through a round hoop (from anywhere on the court except when standing still at the foul line), and (3) to push and shove other guys around.

He's made millions playing a game neatly described by a non-basketball-playing character in Jeremy Larner's book: Drive, He Said (later made into a "sort of OK" movie, Jack Nicholson's first stab at directing) as:

"To you it's poetry in motion -- to me it's staying after school in your underwear."

Although, the movie was notable in being the first to ever show black basketball players playing with their (own) visible willies as they fool around in the shower by hanging from the plumbing.

Mr Hardaway seems to be too ignorant or stupid to know that fewer than 50 years ago, EXACTLY the same thing was being said by basketball fans in regard to African-Americans ("I hate n---ers ... I don't like n---ers and I don't like to be around n---ers.")

*************
The article continues:
*******************

... how he would interact with a gay teammate.
"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team. And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."

If he did find out that a teammate was gay, Hardaway said he would ask for the player to be removed from the team.

"Something has to give," Hardaway said. "If you have 12 other ballplayers in your locker room that's upset and can't concentrate and always worried about him in the locker room or on the court or whatever, it's going to be hard for your teammates to win and accept him as a teammate."
Amaechi also detailed his life, in his autobiography "Man in the Middle," which was released Wednesday. He hoped his coming out would be a catalyst for intelligent discourse.

"I'm actually tempted to laugh," Amaechi told The Miami Herald. "Finally, someone who is honest. It is ridiculous, absurd, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far."
Hardaway later apologized for the remarks during a telephone interview with Fox affiliate WSVN in Miami.

"Yes, I regret it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said I hate gay people or anything like that," he said. "That was my mistake."
**********

These guys are so fucking tough, at least to hear THEM tell it, but scared shitless that someone might look at their weenies in the locker room -- and enjoy it.

In other words, they're terrified that some other man might look at them the way they look at and think of women.

And notice that Mr Hardaway said (no doubt on the advice of someone with a functioning brain) that he "shouldn't haver said" the comment.

Not: "I'm sorry that I have just reinforced the Klansman image of African-Americans as brain-damaged Stepin Fetchit moronic coons. Maybe I should re-examine my own prejudices in light of that."

Not: "Am I an asshole or what? Have any of those guys ever harmed me? Maybe I'm just a stupid baby."

Not anything that would suggest his life amounts to anything more than being able to throw a round ball through a round hole ... but then, maybe that image is what ... nahhh.

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

*(Macarthur Grants, often referred to as "Genius Money")

It's a Biz - biz - biz- Bizarro World -- Seven Footprints to the New World Ordure

So ok:

1. The Bush-wahs want to get it on with Iran, militarily -- bringing up that old schoolyard taunt: "You and whose army?"

2. The Bush-wahs won't tell us where they get their intelligence for basing their Charlie Brown and the Football Iran policy -- but they send journalists to jail for not discolsing the sources of stories they didn't write.

3. Little Joey Lieberman -- what is it about that slack-mouthed whining little bitch from Connecticut that makes him so accepted by Republicans (because if he actually WERE Republican, they wouldn't put up with his whining fawning cavilling little puppy-dog peeing all over himself subservience for a minute). And then I realized -- that big, slack-mouthed, loose-lipped smile -- he's not only fellating the Big Boss Man politically and psychologically in public. I once knew a woman with those very same lips and an equally creepy desire for approval...

4. The Republicans in the House are attacking the Democrats (for their non-binding statement) --as "staying the course." What? What course? Who's been staying the course?

5. The Democrats in the House WERE (until maybe someone told them we haven't ALL lost our short-term and mid-term memory) attacking the Republicans for a potential filibuster, saying "This deserves a straight up-or-down vote." Haven't I heard those words before? And not so long ago, coming from the other side.

6. One Republican in the House was shouting that the Mid-Term elections CLEARLY showed the the American Public WANTED Bush-wah to institute The Surge. WHAT? It's more like the American Public felt the SURGING GEORGE was a RISING GORGE.

7. If THOSE PEOPLE (politicians) want to play the games they play -- AND GET AWAY WITH THEM, it's simple (and budget-balancing) -- eliminate the War on Drugs and let everyone get stoned legally and without fear of even the minimal risk of arrest. And then we'll all say things like "Congress declared war on the Moon? Far out."


---Many years ago -- as what I thought of as a joke -- I proposed that we could do better than term limits -- put congress on hiatus, refurbish both House and Senate in plastic with big drains in the floor, and when they reconvene, issue them axes, swords, knives, and Morningstars as they enter. Whoever is left alive gets his or her bills passed ... and is taken out and hanged as a danger to Public Safety for being too savage and sociopathic to be allowed to live.

Mainstream Press? What Mainstream Press?

I have many friends who regard the "mainstream press" dealing with political news as conspirators who diligently refuse to report on stories (or who have editors who diligently refuse to print them) that discuss issues outside what they have decided are "the norms."

Get real.

You ever talk to a mainstream reporter?

These are devolved mutant canid predators bred to do one thing -- hunt aggressively for that which is dead, dying, swarming with maggots, and is also not big enough to fight back.

For this reason, press reports of -- for example -- the unwholesome Mr Cheney have been noticeably missing in recent years, so I assume he has more weapons than the virulent stinkeye he laid on Wolf Blitzer during his recent interview.

The Bush family, of course has ALWAYS made it clear that any criticism of their doings would result in removal from access, meaning that a Washington Correspondent (or an Austin one in former days) was going to be back in Ozona at 1/10th the salary and his precious babies would not be getting braces or going to private school.

The old axiom: "Set a thief to catch a thief," holds true here. In the case of political reporting, it's "Set a ghoul to catch a ghoul."

The few exceptions are such people as Lou Dobbs, who at least has the decency to dress like a gentleman, the education and courtesy to use the English language properly, and the balls to follow up bullshit answers with actual, potentially embarrassing questions.

Weird dream this morning

One of those dreams when you've been unable to fall back asleep and have it thinking you're still awake.

I was talking to an actress I used to know-- haven't seen her in many many years -- except once in a while as character on a network TV show episode (no clues -- she was a very nice lady, no reason to believe she'd want her name tangled up with the sort of virulent nonsense I put on this blog).

But --

Since I hadn't seen her in many years, we were talking about her career and what she'd been doing, etc and then she said "Of course those shows are just gossip -- with guns."


And I said, "Well, don't undervalue gossip. Modern medicine is based on it. Middle ages and leeches and evil humours and flux -- and two so-called doctors in a medium-sized town in Germany were talking about doctor stuff -- how to get more fees, golf scores, etc -- and one of them said to the other: 'I have an idea. Let's spread the word that we know how to cure the pox. Then we'll not only get more patients, we'll find out who's been screwing who and have enough good gossip to be invited to dinner all the time.' And of course, as years wen't by, they actually had to begin to find an actual cure.'"


And then I woke up.

I'm getting scared now -- he's actually made himself king

This is scary...

Feb. 1, 2007 | Washington was treated to a curious American spectacle on Monday. A president repudiated by virtually every sector of the political system has responded by arrogating more power to himself.

Under the executive order Bush signed Monday, federal regulators will answer to a new set of Bush appointees in each agency, who will determine whether their proposed rules properly serve the Bush agenda. As Peter Strauss of the Columbia Law School told the New York Times, "Having lost control of Congress, the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch."

OK, my worry? There are something like 300 million guns in this country (not in my house, but I always was out of step).

I have wondered for a while why no one has shot this fool. JFK pointed out that no matter how many guards you've got, someone can get through, if they really want to.

(Of course it makes it a lot easier if the ones trying to get through are government people. Now people are pointing at GHW Bush - #41 as one of the conspirators. Let's give it up -- we're never going to know WHO. We can pretty well conclude there were some government people involved -- perhaps even a CIA person or two -- not "THE CIA" but perhaps one or two individuals who were IN the CIA. Or not. But anyone who knows actual names is either dead or one of them. People have spent 40+ years trying to fix blame. But no one's really working on fixing the problem -- the murder of the dream.)

All I can say to anyone who might go ballistic at this latest power grab -- there aren't enough numbers to count the dollar amount of theft and plunder the Resident and his Hench-creatures can pull off with this new self-coronation -- but all I can say to anyone who may be tempted to use those expensive weapons:

PLEASE DON'T!

DON'T DO IT!

REALLY -- DON'T DO IT!

DO NOT MAKE THIS MAN INTO AN AMERICAN MARTYR.

It will only embolden the slime-molds that think he's a decent human being.

(Not decent. Not a human being)

It may seem intolerable to suffer this thieving murdering fool one minute longer, but PLEASE -- for the sake of the country, let it play out. Let this piece of detritus rule the length of his term, smirking and swaggering, lying and stealing -- so despicable and monstrous in his arrogance that FINALLY, when he's sent back to Texas, America will no longer tolerate any of this:

War as a whim

Plunder of the treasury for friends and masters

Arrogant contempt for law, constitution, and human decency

Ok so I'm an optimist.

But PLEASE -- DO NOT MAKE THIS MAN A MARTYR

Let him stay in office until even the last 30% can see what a foul unwholesome reptilian virus he and his mob actually are.

Even though he's now actually trying to cheerlead a war with the Persians.

Even though he steadfastly refuses to point an accusatory finger at Saudi Arabia, which is supplying money and arms and humans to the insurgency in Iraq.

Even though he adamantly refuses to acknowledge that ALMOST ALL of the 9-11 murderers were SAUDI ARABIAN RICH KIDS. Psycho sociopathic offspring of rich oil people -- sort of like him.

Stay your hand and let him finish his term so EVERYONE can FINALLY see what sort of creature this thing and his masters are -- see the criminals exposed and rebuked.

And then, with a new president and congress -- let's turn them ALL over to the World Court for trial on charges of Crimes Against Humanity.

And NEVER let it happen again.

Never -- which in the USA means something like 20 years or so. But if he dies in office, he'll become a saint and a model for the future and we won't even get a 20 year respite from this egregious perversion of our world. (Besides, by that time, his family and pals will own it all and won't need to steal anything else for a while.)

Besides, maybe -- I'm from the Quaker City -- maybe he'll have an epiphany, find redemption, realize that conspiracy with the undead like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell is playing for the OTHER team, the one that kills, terrorizes young women, beats up people who don't get sexually excited by the same things as they do, and etc.

In other words, renounce the devil.

It's traditional, you know.