Repub "Legalize Weed" scam to register voters

Here's a scam that may be coming to a venue near you. From the Central Valley page of the S.F.Bay Area IMC.

The attractive young woman says to me, "would you sign our petition to legalize marijuana?" I don't have to think twice and say "sure, where do I sign?" That is when it got interesting. She says, "Do you have your ID with you?" "Well, yes I do, but what does that have to do with..." I say as she responds with "oh, we just have to verify your ID." Thinking that this has something to do with making sure they have valid names for a ballot initiative I comply.

As I'm filling out my name and address on the petition I notice that the young lady is filling out a very official looking form. Probably just the ballot initiative form, I think to myself. Then, she says "is it OK if I register you as a Republican?" "What?!?" I say "yes, I do mind! What are you doing?" She says that if I register Republican she will get an extra 10 cents. But, I complain, "I don't want to re-register." She explains that this is just to update the records for the County Clerks office. I repeat that "I do not want or need to update my records." I am repeatedly told that it is OK and that they just want to update my voter registration records. She also tells me that she is working for the Republican party, being paid hourly, and that the ploy about the "10 cent bonus" was not accurate.

This Republican party employee goes on to tell me that she is there to attract people to the table that is set up in Fresno's Courthouse Park, and that the legalize marijuana petition is just a prop. She confirmed that there is no ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. She said that the petition will be given to an elected official in Sacramento. I have my doubts about that.

No doubt in my mind. The "elected official" is probably the Sheriff of Sacramento County or the District Attorney.

At this point in the conversation, she called over her "boss" who was talking with someone a short distance away. I introduced myself as the editor of the Community Alliance newspaper and said I was interested in writing a story about the petition campaign and their registering people with the Republican party. I guess that wasn't the right approach to get him to open up to me. The "boss" gave me no information. He even refused to give me a copy of the marijuana legalization petition I had just signed.

Later that day I called Victor Salazar, the Fresno County Clerk. Salazar said that the process sounded deceptive and that I might want to call the Secretary of State fraud investigation unit. I called the number for the fraud investigation unit repeatedly today. Apparently, nobody was in the office today and all I got was an answering machine. I will continue to call.

I also went back to Courthouse Park today to see the Republican Party project was again in full operation. They seemed to have different approaches to different groups. To white men that looked like they might be attorneys, they asked if they were registered to vote. When Latinos walked by they would throw out the legalize marijuana angle.

A copy of a really lame - even for a phony - petition follows, along with a photo and some comments.

They're trying all kinds of tricks like this. Signing petitions for ballot initiatives is a good thing, but make damn sure what you sign.

Curmudgeons, Unite!

Give Jack Cafferty a Show by signing the petition.

Why neocons loves them some Lieberman

Today's 'must read'. Glenn Greenwald

But the most noteworthy aspect of Kristol's column is what comes next, when Kristol plans Lieberman's post-Senate career:


There is a political opportunity for the Bush administration if the Democrats reject Lieberman. If he's then unable to win as an independent in November, he would make a fine secretary of defense for the remainder of the Bush years. . . . Is it too fanciful to speculate about a 2008 GOP ticket of McCain-Lieberman, or Giuliani Lieberman, or Romney-Lieberman, or Allen-Lieberman, or Gingrich-Lieberman? Perhaps. But a reinvigorated governing and war-fighting Republican party is surely an achievable goal. And a necessary one.


So, one of the most extreme neoconservative ideologues in the country not only supports Lieberman's candidacy, but appears to have Lieberman as his first choice for Defense Secretary -- the holy grail for war-loving neoconservatives -- and even for Vice President (alongside the likes of Newt Gingrich, George Allen or Mitt Romney).

The love which right-wing extremists have for Joe Lieberman isn't based on the fact that he's a "centrist." If Lieberman were a "centrist," extremists would not care about him. They would not be vigorously urging his re-election, or praising his potential appointment as Bush Defense Secretary, or touting him as a Vice-Presidential running mate for George Allen. They do that because he is one of them -- a neoconservative extremist who is with them on virtually every major issue of the day.

The United States is on the brink of extreme disaster in the Middle East, both in Iraq (where we have no viable exit strategy despite the rapid collapse of that country) and elsewhere (where we are poised to repeat the same mistakes on a much greater scale). And all of that has been used to justify unprecedented abridgments of basic liberties at home. The policies which brought us to this point were championed -- and still are championed -- by the Joe Liebermans and Bill Kristols and their neoconservative comrades. Where one stands on those issues is, far and away, the most important determinant of one's political character, and any residual doubts about where Lieberman fits on the political spectrum are fully resolved by reading Bill Kristol's full-scale defense and embrace of his candidacy.

Based on the discussion in comments, and even Gingrich's comments, there is another notable aspect to this race which is accounting for so much of the intensity on both sides -- the complete failure to demonize Ned Lamont as some sort of radical, subversive, Vietnam-era pacifist.

A Lamont victory -- indeed, Lamont himself -- provides a very visceral illustration of just how mainstream anti-war (and anti-neoconservative) sentiments are, which is a significant factor as to why a Lieberman victory has become so important for neoconservatives.

Lieberman - and anyone associated with the neocons - must go. Now. The future of the world, not just our country, is at stake.

The beginning of a return to near-sanity must begin tomorrow in Connecticut.

One Ring To Rule Them

Juan Cole has some disturbing thoughts on the "Peak Oil Theory" of why we're promoting the Israel-Lebanon war.

It doesn't make any sense.

Moreover, the Lebanese government elected last year was pro-American! Why risk causing it to fall by hitting the whole country so hard?

I've had a message from a European reader that leads me to consider a Peak Oil Theory of the US-Israeli war on Lebanon (and by proxy on Iran). I say, "consider" the "theory" because this is a thought experiment. I put it on the table to see if it can be knocked down, the way you would preliminary hypotheses in a science experiment.

The presentation got kind of freaky then. He said the US government wanted to stop state-controlled Iranian or Chinese (or Indian) companies from controlling the oil. JFR says the US Government is convinced that this battle will decide the future of the world. It sounded like he was talking about 'the one ring' in lord of the rings. he who controls Iran controls them all.'

China and India could get Iran, and Iran could get Lebanon, and as non-OPEC energy production decreases, the US and Israel could find themselves out in the cold on the energy front.

It may be that that hawks are thinking this way: Destroy Lebanon, and destroy Hizbullah, and you reduce Iran's strategic depth. Destroy the Iranian nuclear program and you leave it helpless and vulnerable to having done to it what the Israelis did to Lebanon. You leave it vulnerable to regime change, and a dragooning of Iran back into the US sphere of influence, denying it to China and assuring its 500 tcf of natural gas to US corporations. You also politically reorient the entire Gulf, with both Saddam and Khamenei gone, toward the United States. Voila, you avoid peak oil problems in the US until a technological fix can be found, and you avoid a situation where China and India have special access to Iran and the Gulf.

The second American Century ensues. The "New Middle East" means the "American Middle East."

And it all starts with the destruction of Lebanon.

More wars to come, in this scenario, since hitting Lebanon was like hitting a politician's bodyguard. You don't kill a bodyguard just to kill the bodyguard. It is phase I of a bigger operation.

If the theory is even remotely correct, then global warming is not the only danger in continuing to rely so heavily on hydrocarbons for energy. Green energy--wind, sun, geothermal-- is all around us and does not require any wars to obtain it. Indeed, if we had spent as much on alternative energy research as we have already spent on the Iraq War, we'd be much closer to affordable solar. A choice lies ahead: hydrocarbons, a 20 foot rise in sea level, and a praetorian state. Or we could go green and maybe keep our republic and tame militarism.

"Taming militarism" is the key. As long as there is megabucksandpower in oil, it will be very, very difficult. The above is today's recommended read.

Update:

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe

Could Bush and the neoconservatives really be that cruel - destroying an entire country as nothing more than a chess move in the Great Game? Real men and women and, of course, real children too - lots of them - their lives spent as part of a Machiavellian scheme that is sure in the end to blow up in our faces anyway, just like everything else these would-be Churchills touch.

This would be so much crueler than even Iraq; the same pattern of lies, to be sure, but at least in Iraq they could claim to be trying to bring a better life to the Iraqis, even if that was never the actual goal. But how is Lebanon supposed to benefit from this? Where’s its supposed payoff for having its infrastructure (and citizens) blown to hell?

Could the neocons really be that cruel?

And if they are, when does bad policy at last become something more than bad policy? When does it become a crime? (my em)

It has already become a crime. The question is, when do they get held accountable for it? It better be soon.

A tip o' the Brain to Lurch for making me aware of this.

The Spy Who Shagged Us

Go see this video: The Story Of How The Neocons Were Duped By An Iranian Spy That Led Our Country Into The Iraq War And A Warning That The Same Fanatics Are Aiming For Additional Targets.

When you get done watching that, here's a link to Seeds of Doubt referred to at the end. A little lighter fare, like the pickle in a sandwich.

Also see Iran: The Next War by James Bamford at Rolling Stone.

The shift in official policy has thrilled former members of the cabal. To them, the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th, could hardly restrain himself. "Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he conclude

The neocons allowed themselves to be cornholed to get what they wanted. They passed it along and the United States is the one with the sore asshole. Watch out. They're fixin' to do it again. It'll be almost as easy this time if our heads are still in the sand.

November. Impeachment. Hangings. Many, many hangings. Send Bush and his neocons to Hell where they belong.

"The country's great debate is in their hands. "

Taylor Marsh on tomorrow's Connecticut senatorial primary:

It's really simple. The people of Connecticut, through the candidacy and voice of Ned Lamont, have found a way to stand up and push back. They're doing it with their voices, their blogs and on Tuesday they will be doing it with their votes. But they're not simply doing it for themselves. It's for all of us, every American who has had it with George W. Bush, the rubber stamping Republican incompetence, the Democrats who still can't say this war was wrong, and everyone in between who refuses to change course and do it now. Mind you, it's heartbreaking to think of withdrawal and the aftermath of this defeat. But the time has come for this great nation to admit her mistakes, make amends and begin repairing the incomprehensible losses this war of choice has cost. Unfortunately for Joe Lieberman, he is one of the mistakes we are attempting to make right, because he didn't have the courage to do it for himself.

Many of us have been behind the people of Connecticut and Ned Lamont, with blogs like DailyKos, MyDD and Firedoglake, as well as many local Connecticut blogs, leading the way, but we've all been behind this anti Iraq war whoop meant to get the job done because the politicians refused to correct the course themselves. We've tried to give the people of Connecticut whatever national megaphone we can to raise the entire country's collective voice about the Iraq war, so the voters and Ned Lamont would know they were not alone. That even though it was their state and their Senate seat we all had a stake in this shot. A shot to stop this war of choice in its tracks; a war that has plunged this country and the people of the Middle East into a political hurricane of uncertainty and carnage that has worldwide implications that could last for decades.

There are many issues, but life and death comes first. It's represented in the Iraq war. Connecticut is America this week. The country's great debate is in their hands.

Amen.

This day in history

Geov Parrish at Working For Change

8/7/1960: Fidel Castro announces plans to nationalize all U.S. holdings in Cuba. U.S. takes the moral high ground, begins its non-stop campaign to assassinate him.

1964: After a reported U.S. confrontation with North Vietnamese forces that, it was later discovered, never occurred, Congress nearly unanimously passes the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, authorizing the President to use "all necessary steps" to "win" the war in Vietnam.

1990: President George H.W. Bush (and former CIA head) orders deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.

How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine

Video at HuffPo. Easier than changing a vacuum cleaner belt or clearing a jammed shredder. And, oh yeah, if these machines can't print a paper copy, what are the 'printer power' pins for?

Oh I know precisely how to fix this problem,really fast.

Before you come back to comment,please read all the links in Amanda's post. There's alot to go through there,and there's some good stuff in the comments(I have a feeling this one is going to generate alot of discussion on feminist blogs,rightly so,so the comments may go nuts )

I'm no prude,but I do have boundries that are comfortable for me.That comfort zone has changed many times over the years.When I was young,I was alot wilder than I am now. I believe it's perfectly normal and ok to be sexual and have some fun with that,but be careful and be smart,it's a zoo out there,in more ways than one.

Girls Gone Wild is different,it's not fun,and I spotted it early in,just from the commercials. Maybe it's because I have a daughter close to the age of the young women who have made this douchebag wealthy(along with a little group of his pals) and my Mom Radar went off like a motherfucker seeing these commercials. Then I started hearing little stories about general assholery among the men present at these filmings and frankly it makes me fucking sick.

As Amanda points out,there are plenty of young women who enjoy being exhibitionists,and if that's their thing,I say go girl,but remember,it really is a zoo out there.Be smart,be safe,and have a blast.Just know that you cannot control every situation you'll run into,don't ever think you do,because that will get you hurt or dead eventually.

What I am about to say will initially seem to run counter to any notion of me being a feminist. And Women,especially Mothers of young women of the GGW age also need to be confronting this issue.However,because this particular enterprise has at it's very heart a deep hatred of women,any female resistance or confrontation to these fucking creepy scumbags won't be taken seriously and won't put the fear of god into the men responsible for this shit.We need men to step up with us. This needs to be shut down. (and note,I do not feel this way about porn in general,there's an element to GGW that differs from what someone like Larry Flynt does.Larry doesn't hate women.)

I just get the feeling that a few dozen really pissed off fathers,older brothers,uncles and boyfriends showing up at Spring Breaks,various resorts and bars on the beach,confronting these assholes and putting a barrier between them and their prey(and make no mistake,there's a HUGE preditory element to this,and it's open,blatant and cheered on.That's very scary to me as a female person)would put a stop to it.Stalk the bastards and have a group show up every place they show their faces.Kind of a Patriot Guard type thing.Run the fuckers out of town and let the kids party without this crap in their midst.

You know,it also does our young men no good at all to allow this kind of shit to go unchecked.Yes,I know these are young adults,and they're gonna screw like bunnies,and that's pretty much none of Mom and Dad's beeswax.Throw in alcohol(and other stuff that shows up at parties),large groups and all those dynamics and people will get hurt.It's pretty inevitable.Teaching guys that this is ok,and seeing guys get away with it and get rich off it is not really going to serve these young men well in the event that they actually do want to have healthy relationships with women at some point.Being an asshole shouldn't be a quality to earn admiration,or a free pass.GGW is abusive,and really,this is something tangible that could be confronted and stopped. Not just out of a protective instinct towards the young women involved,but the young men too. The business communuity should not be allowing these people into their venues either.If I owned a bar or resort,the second I saw these assholes show up they'd be gone.

Does this make me a meddling old biddy? I just know that if this phenomenon had been around when I was that age,all my male relatives and family friends wouldn't have put up with it(and the women I grew up around would have made damn sure the men knew about it if they didn't).There would have been a line of formidable men wielding ax handles to deal with these guys.Most of the men I grew up around would have been appalled that these guys were showing up where young people gather to party and preying on females and they wouldn't have been scared to confront it.

Besides,there's enough GGW footage to splice and re-splice together"collections"to create more weatlth than most people dare to see in a lifetime.If the now rich owners of this franchise went totally out of bidness tommorrow,no one's gonna suffer much.Where's the backlash?

Did ya miss me?

First of all,Bellsouth blows giant iguana weenies(little iguana weenies too).Our DSL connection went down Saturday,and just try to talk to a live human being at that company,jeebus.I spent many hours of my life I'll never get back waiting on hold(92 minutes the last time),or talking to a guy who I simply could not communicate with effectively(when I did talk to a live human,it was the same guy every time,what are the odds?).That part's probably my fault mostly,because I'm sitting here staring at this electrical box thingy in the garage trying to explain to him how all this crap is hooked up.Turns out the problem wasn't in our house,but at some main box/connection/cable down the street.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not on the internets,lol. Yesterday me and the kiddo went through his room and cleared out a massive amount of old books,toys and clothes.Then we prepped the room to be painted.When he was little,I painted the room to look like he was sitting in the middle of the solar system,surrounded by planets and stars on a midnight blue backround.But(as he reminds me all the time)he's about to become a teenager(cue scary music now),so it's time for some updating.We're going with a skateboard dude/graffiti theme this time around.Or chinese dragons,he's still deciding.

Anyhoo,if I happen to disappear for a day or two again,blame Bellsouth.I really need to find another internet provider.

Ned!

A reminder to our Connecticut Democratic friends and neighbors. Tomorrow is Primary Day. It's time to stop talking about how great Ned Lamont will be for Connecticut and the nation and step up to the voting booth. For all your CT primary news, go see the great bloggers at My Left Nutmeg.

Joe must go!

From the man himself:

I am running for the US Senate because we deserve a Senator who will stand up for Connecticut and stand up for our progressive democratic values. Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day in Iraq, it is time for America to refocus on issues back home: fixing our health care system, upgrading our schools, and rebuilding our aging infrastructure. We will start winning in Iraq as the Iraqis take control of their own destiny, just as America has to start investing again in our own future.

I would have led the opposition to Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, which may soon be considering the South Dakota law which outlaws a woman's right to choose even in the case of rape and incest. I will push for energy conservation and efficiency standards as the best means to energy independence and a cleaner environment.

In other words, I am running to be your Democratic Senator.

'Insurgency' in CT

Think Progress. Warning: Neut alert! Video if you can stand watching him.

This morning on Fox News, Newt Gingrich claimed there is a "legitimate insurgency in Connecticut, which needs to be met head on," made up of people who say Iraq "is so hard, it is so frightening, it's so painful, can't we come home and hide?" Gingrich said that if the "insurgency" wins, "it will be the beginning of extraordinarily important period in American politics, and in American history."

No, Neutie boy, it's not because it's hard, or frightening, or painful, although it is certainly all of those. It's because it's imperialistic, illegal, an expensive waste of blood and treasure, wrong-headed, futile, and un-American.

Run home and hide? Not from the likes of you and your neocon wingnut coward friends, motherfucker. You gotta bring some to get some, so bring it on! All most of you people have to bring is your big fat mouth. Frankly, I don't much care whether I take you on in the voting booth with a #2 pencil or the parking lot of Wal-Mart with a fuckin' jack handle. I'm sick of you bastards. We'll see who runs and hides.

To this 'insurgent', the "important period in American politics and history" will be the one where we get rid of this criminal fascist imperialist insane administration and start the hard, frightening, and painful resuscitation and rehabilitation of democracy in our nation.

At the time I saw this, there were 246 comments. Here's the first one:

No longer "traitors" for asking legitimate questions, we are now describing Americans as insurgents? That seems to move beyond shrill name calling to a more serious accusation. Is this "insurgency" to be crushed by tanks as well...? A frightening prospect in a country that is led by a group whose only response to an enemy is brute, physical violence.

One more 'reason why' to add to Fixer's "States' Rights" post.

Stick it

Check out these bumper stickers 'n stuff. I like the 'Coexist' one. Enter code ALT for 5% off.

Assault on the Head

I was reading an interesting post about Soldier's videos from Iraq at MediaShift when I ran across this one. Don't miss it!

I changed the title of this post from 'Snuffy Films' cuz I figured folks might not know what a 'Snuffy' is and think I had linked to a video depicting murder.

Don't despair, Joe - Help is on the way!

According to this article at The Nation, Lieberman has the crooked politician/evil crazy bitch/neocon warmonger vote sewed up. It must be a great comfort to him. Heh.

He's also got Republicans calling for him to switch sides if he loses the primary. I think that would be a mere formality.

"States' Rights"

It's a term the Rethugs like to bandy about when they are advocating teaching creationism in the schools, or denying a woman's right to choose, or denying civil rights to a portion of the population. Seems they don't give a shit about states' rights when it's inconvenient for them.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The nation's governors are closing ranks in opposition to a proposal in Congress that would let the president take control of the National Guard in emergencies without consent of governors.

...

The measure would remove the currently required consent of governors for the federalization of the Guard, which is shared between the individual states and the federal government.

...

I don't have to explain why they want to do this, do I?

Huge tip o' the Brain to Peter of Lone Tree.

Mercenaries ... revisited

As regular readers know, I have zero respect for 'private' soldiers. I don't care whether they live or die. When you sell your allegiances to the highest bidder, you relinquish any honor you might have had to begin with. Matt, blogging at FDL, has a great post up about what really goes on over there. 'Private' security companies are nothing more than havens for psychopaths who enjoy killing.

Priorities

Tell me again who supports the troops.

Back

Back from Boston and we had a great time. The bride was beautiful (but I knew that when she was a baby) and the groom (whom I finally had a chance to sit and talk with) is an impressive young man. Samantha made an excellent choice. I wish them all the happiness Mrs. F and I have found.

That said, I had time constraints getting home. I had to get to the vet on Long Island by 3 to pick up Shayna or I couldn't get her until Monday. Mrs. F nagged at me from Providence to New Haven for my excessive speed (95 mph straight through) but we made it to the vet by 2:50.

Also, we stayed in Braintree, MA which, for me, was very cathartic for we were only a few miles from the home of my hero, President John Adams and his wife Abigail.

A note from the road: We saw a bunch of Ned Lamont bumper stickers going through Connecticut. Not a single one for Lieberman. We caught Holy Joe's ad on WPLR 99.1, the one where he says 'experience matters' and had a good laugh. And to the city fathers of the City of New Haven, thank you very much for fucking up I-95 through the city. Good lord what a horrendous traffic pattern (thanks to construction). To the yahoo from Texas in his pickemup truck in the left lane, going 45 mph, towing a piece-of-shit ancient camper with no brake lights, I hope a Kenworth runs your moron ass over.

And lastly, I'm pretty tan on my upper body, but I wear long pants all day at work so my legs don't get as much sun. It was really sunny today (and I wore shorts driving home) and it seems my left leg was exposed to the sun for the entire trip (3 1/2 hours) home. I got a wicked sunburn:

Are you Rapture Ready?

Sadly, No! has the definitive audio-visual Rapture propaganda. I would say that this film, for 'film' it surely is, is a perfectly good waste of ten minutes except for the fact that it predicts global warming better than anything else I've seen, and it's older than I am, fer chrissake!

This is yer grandparents' Rapture, folks. There's nothing new except for the hateful attitude of today's Rapture cultists.

Get off the pot, George!

"...the powerful keep the ganja out."

Today's Joemoment

Go see this video clip. Liquid alert! Many more at The Young Turks.

About what we've come to expect from this poseur

A little break in The Madness, part deux

First, if you read posts from the top down like I do, scroll down one and read An Angry Old Broad's post. Are you back? OK, read this one.

Since AOB's kinda The Brain's adopted Mom/den mother/warden, and on the theory that "if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!", I figured I'd go quietly and play "Better Know a Blogger" too. Then too, since Fixer's gone for the day, "when the cat's away, the mice will play".

Re Sturgis: Officially known as the Black Hills Motor Classic but commonly known as the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it's one of the two or three biggest 'sickle get-togethers in the country, and one of the oldest. The first one was in 1938 and was sponsored by the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club. If ya like bikes, those links'll thrill ya!

I was a Harley-Davidson mechanic for half of my ongoing 30+ year career in the motorcycle biz, both at o-fish-ul dealerships and independent shops ("scab shops" to the dealers. Snooty bunch!). When it was time for a big run like, say, The Redwood Run, I'd go the other way. I worked on the damn things all week, and if I ended up at the same run as my customers, which happened a coupla times before I wised up, somebody'd always snitch me off and I'd end up working on the sleds of guys who were too cheap to bring 'em into the shop before they actually broke down. On my days off. For free. Swell. If I refused, then of course I was a money-grubbing asshole and not a true "bro" etc., etc., so I'd let myself get suckered in for the sake of my employer who depended on these guys for a living.

Anyway, I developed a technique for when someone'd hit me up to spend my weekend working on their load for free, sitting in the dirt, with whatever tools I (never them) could scrounge up, no parts or handcleaner for miles, in amongst a buncha drunks who didn't seem to mind if I didn't get to party too: I'd get ahold of a hammer, the bigger the better, swing it around in my upraised hand, pretend to be knee-walkin' drunk, and launch myself at the 'sickle kinda slurrin', "Sure! You betcha, bro, glad to! Lemme at the sumbitch! I'll fixsh it up good fer ya!". It got my message across and they thought better of it, just in case I really was that drunk. Everybody had beer on their breath, so who could tell? I only actually did that once, but it worked. I quit goin' on runs after that.

I try not to work on Harley-Davidsons these days. When folks ask me why, I tell 'em, "Oh, I hit myself in the head with a hammer and forgot everything I ever knew about 'em." They'll usually say, "Oh, that's too bad" and I'll reply, " The worst part was how many times I had to hit myself in the head before I found the right spot!"

The demographics of the riders, and the whole scene, has changed to where it just isn't fun for me anymore. F'rinstance, in my younger days, the point of a run was to ride, then party around various campfires, camp out when you'd had enough, then wave goodbye and ride home the next day or whenever. These days, there's as many guys who tow their trailer queens behind their motor homes as actually ride there. You can party uninvited at a stranger's campfire and make new friends. Try that in a stranger's $100K motor home and watch what happens. In my day the crowd were motorcyclists, first, last, and foremost. These days, they're pretty much weekenders in on a faddish trend. Kind of an exclusive trend as well. Go price a Harley-Davidson and you'll see what I mean. It's a big money deal now, and it kinda wrecked it for this dyed-in-the-wool ol' broke 'sickle tramp. Us dinosaurs just can't catch a break anymore.

By the way, I own a couple of H-Ds, but in my always-in-the-saddle younger days I always rode a Triumph. Before "electric legs" they were easier to start, and lighter and faster than Hogs. Cheaper and more reliable, too, if you knew what you were doing.

In those days, if you couldn't fix it, don't travel on it. We would take off on a weekend ride with ten bucks, maybe less, in our pocket. Nobody had a credit card, and if the damn thing broke, we'd fix it on the spot if we could, or throw it in the run truck if there was one, or whatever it took as a group effort. Today, the bikes don't break near as much, and when -no, if- they do, the riders whip out their cell phones and call their tow service and then cuss, or maybe sue, their mechanic for not anticipating the problem with their $30K machines. Like I say, things have changed.

Enough snivelling. That was fun!

I hope Mr. AOB has a good time. I just know he'll be so sick of seein' scantily-clad tattooed big-titted blonde gals that he'll be glad to get home.

Husband,meet thin ice

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah...

1)What's your favorite childhood book or story?

I used to really like the WWII potboilers for kids. The war hadn't been over all that long then, and there were a lot of them left over. The ones I remember usually featured an RAF Spitfire (never a Hurricane, perish the thought!) pilot with a name like Rex Upright-Studley or some such, who was always in the process of giving it all for King and Country, dogfighting the Hun, always outnumbered, canopy, landing gear, control surfaces, radiator, parachute, ten cylinders and a third of his prop all shot away, low on ammo ("I gave the FW-190 a two-second burst from my dwindling supply..."). He always won, nursed his ship home to a pancake landing, ran to a new plane and went at it again. No wonder we won!

I was a good reader early on, and read a lot of stuff that was above my age level. I like Westerns, detective stories, Sci-Fi, history and historical novels, almost anything, but these days there's so much non-fiction that I feel I have to read just in order to keep up that I don't read anywhere near as much fiction as I'd like to. Someday, when The Madness has abated...

Having said that, I never miss a new Harry Potter!

2)What's your favorite thing to eat in the summertime?

Ice cream. I loved Oregon Blackberry but Baskin-Robbins quit making it after about fifty years, the bastards! Chocolate, French Vanilla, Coffee, all OK. With caramel topping.

3)Favorite black and white movie?

Grapes of Wrath without a second's hesitation, followed by Sands of Iwo Jima (I liked the colorized version too) and Dr. Strangelove. I like b-westerns as well.

4)Whatcha Readin'?

Leatherneck Legends by Dick Camp. Follows the careers of several famous Marine Generals from WWI up through Vietnam. Some of those old boys were still in the Corps when I was. They should be proud!

Water and the California Dream by David Carle. Fascinating to this native Californian. Traces the history and greed/growth of my state from Spanish days 'til the present. If you only read one book about California in your life, read this one. As Mark Twain said, "Whisky's fer drinkin'. Water's fer fightin' over!"

One book I should have read and haven't is Special Operations by Richard H. Wood, which I got as a Christmas present from the author. It's quite the weighty tome and I haven't read it because I'm afraid the damn door will slam shut!

5)If failure was off the table,and impossible,what would you do with your life that you aren't doing now?

Run for President or Vice-President on a ticket with Fixer. Not everybody'd like us, but everybody else would. We'd tell some uncomfortable truths, right a lot of wrongs, hang a lot of people who deserve it, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, boy would we ever!

When the country was back on the right track, I'd get me a Civil War surplus forty acres and a mule and grow hemp and pot, which would be legal to do by then. I'd style around in a screamin'-motherfuckin'-yellow, or maybe red, '59 El Camino that I imported from Free Cuba. I might wear out, but I'd never rust.

Thanks for comin' up with this deal, AOB. It was fun. We won't miss a thing - The Madness will still be there when we get back to it.

Happy Anniversary, too.

Since it's Friday,A little break in the madness

What a week,what a mess,eh? Since I don't have an Ipod,I can't do the bloggy Friday shuffle thingy.My digital camera is with the husband on the road to Sturgis(he SO owes me.He forgot our 13th Anniversary and left here without so much as a mention of it.His ass is mine when he gets home,heh,heh.He won't do that again,trust me.The Electra Glide is getting deocrated with Hello Kitty and sparkly rainbow and unicorn stickers if he so much as looks at me sideways.Husband,meet thin ice),so no new pics of kitties or gardens today.

Sooo,instead of the ususal Friday bloggy things people do,I thought maybe we could play Better Know A Blogger(or blog commenter for those of you who are blog free).

1)What's your favorite childhood book or story?
Mine are:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak(I have a "wild rumpus"t-shirt,and all the Todd McFarlane Wild Things figurines,I love that book)

Heidi by Johanna Spyri (I think I read that book at least 20 times when I was around 10 yrs old.I wanted to move to the Alps something awful when I was a kid because of that book)

Almost any Dr Seuss book(except the Cat in the Hat,I think I read it to my son every day for 3 yrs,yikes)

I was such a nerdy little kid that I spent many an hour reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica set my grandma had at her house too.

2)What's your favorite thing to eat in the summertime?
I gotta go for ice cream,an obvious choice.Almost any flavor will do.
But I LOVE pasta primavera with fresh veggies from the garden.I make a mean white cheese sauce with lots of parmesan and romano,olive oil and fresh,organic whipping cream.Yummy.Oh,and roasted red peppers,man,I could eat those every day.

3)Favorite black and white movie?

I'd go with the old Hitchcock movies,Rear Window is high on my list.And then there's To Kill A Mockingbird,Mr Smith Goes to Washington,and the original Manchurian Candidate.

4)Whatcha Readin'?

I've got two books I'm working on now.
The Tao of Willie for right before bedtime. I love Wille Nelson,he's just so cool.

Endgame,Vol 1,The Problem of Civilization by Derrick Jensen.Jensen is not easy to read at ALL.He's an amazing writer,but the atrocities he delves into make his books tough going.
Here's a little excerpt from the book's intro,which I know all you vets will appreciate:

"I just got home from talking to a new friend,another long time activist. She told me of a campaign she participated in a few years ago to try to stop the government and transnational timber corporations from spraying Agent Orange,a potent defoliant and teratogen,in the forests in Oregon. Whenever activists learned a hillside was going to be sprayed,they assembled there,hoping their presence would stop the poisoning. But each time,like clockwork,helicopters appeared,and each time,like clockwork,helicopters dumped loads of Agent Orange onto the hillside and onto protesting activists*.The activist's campaign did not succeed.

"But",she said to me,"I'll tell you what did".A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhauser,Boise Cascade, and other timber companies saying,"We know the names of your helicopter pilots and we know their addresses".

I waited for her to finish.
"You know what happened next?",she asked.
"I think I do",I responded.
"Exactly",she said."The spraying stopped".

(*For those of you who don't know,timber companies,almost without exception,ALWAYS spray crap all over the ground before and after they clearcut a forest.Why?So nothing else will grow there naturally.Oh,they'll sometimes come back and plant trees so they can say they have some sort of environmental concern,but what they plant is most often one or two single kinds of poison resistant trees.This practice is called monoplanting.This is not replanting a forest,forests are not neatly monoplanted and then they recover.I've walked massive clearcuts before,it's one of the saddest experiences I've ever had.)

5)If failure was off the table,and impossible,what would you do with your life that you aren't doing now?

Anyone who knows me or has read anything I've written knows my answer.I wanna be a farmer.I want a totally self sufficient and sustainable farm I can leave to my kids when I die so I know they have something to eat and a roof over their heads even when times get tough.Give me 20 or so acres,a horse or two and some tools and a little tractor,and a nice little farmhouse,and I'd be deliriously happy.

Happy Weekend everyone.Stay cool,stay safe, and if you can't behave,try not to get caught.

World War III

About to leave for Boston so I thought I'd leave you something to chew on. According to Billmon, it's inevitable:

...

What's become clear to me is that the Democratic Party (even it's allegedly anti-war wing) will not try to stop this insanity, and in fact will probably be led as meekly to the slaughter as it was during the runup to the Iraq invasion. Watching the Dems line up to salute the Israeli war machine, hearing the uncomfortable and awkward silence descend on most of Left Blogistan once the bombs started falling in Lebanon, seeing how easily the same Orwellian propaganda tricks worked their magic on the pseudoliberals -- all this doesn't leave too much room for doubt. As long as World War III can be sold as protecting the security and survival of the Jewish state, I suspect the overwhelming majority of Democratics will support it. [my em]

...

It's time for a little awakening in this country. It's time to separate calling a spade a spade, with regard to Israel, from the cries of anti-Semitism. As long as we take the position that Israel can do nothing wrong, and support every action she takes in the region, the chance of an all out world war will exist with a high probability.

This crap they are engaged in now is as fruitless an endeavor as our occupation of Iraq. If, after three weeks (more) of constant bombardment, Hezbollah is able to launch 200 rockets into Israel, something is extremely wrong. The 'war plan' has failed and continuing this folly will only galvanize Iran's hold over the hopeless and disenfranchised in the region.

With our nation's reputation unbreakably tied to Israeli policy, we can no way distance ourselves from the hate people of the region feel for Israel. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to pay for my own sins (and the sins of my nation) when the day of reckoning comes, but until Israel becomes the 51st State, I refuse to take responsibility for theirs.

I'm tired of the Israelis shitting all over the region in the name of self defense and our elected leaders coming out four square behind them. Don't tell me this is a fight that began thousands of years ago. Hezbollah and Hamas are the children born of Israel's policy (and ours by proxy) toward the Palestinians over the past forty years.

It's time in this country for us to dispel the conventional wisdom that criticism of Israel is somehow a slight of the Jewish religion. I happen to be very happily married to a Jewish woman, (the granddaughter of Russian immigrants escaping that tyranny) and have the utmost respect for her beliefs, but her loyalty is to the United States, not Israel.

We've fought for a long time to dispel the meme that we, because we criticize the Bush administration's policies, are anti-American or traitors, I will certainly not stand for being called an anti-Semite because I criticize Israel. I certainly will not stand for Israel leading us into a war that will eventually cost more American lives. We've lost enough thanks to the failed policy in Iraq, it would be a crime to lose more thanks to Israel's failed policy toward its neighbors.

As I've said many times before, Israel has every right to live in peace and retain its sovereignty, but they created Hamas and Hezbollah (as we created Osama bin-Laden) and I do not see our obligation to bail them out when every policy they've impelemented over the past forty years in the name of 'self defense' has been a colossal failure. I mean, if they were successful, Hamas and Hezbollah should be nothing more than a bad memory by now, right?

It's time for us to rethink our policy of appeasement for Israel and come up with some serious, new diplomatic initiatives for the region. If we continue on this course, not only will we plunge the entire region into war but make us less safe at home. As we've seen on 9/11, they can get us here. If we don't change the way we deal with the region, it will come back to bite us eventually. It's time for us to realize we are Americans first. If your first loyalty is to Israel, maybe it's time for you to move there.

Link thanks to Attaturk.

"He started it! He hit me back!"

Pissed-off Patricia nails Israel/Lebanon and our non-response:

Let's say you have a nine year old son and I have one too. We are neighbors. We look outside and see our kids fighting. They are hitting one another with big pieces of lumber and both are bleeding. Which do we do first? Do we try to figure out a way to keep them from fighting in the future, as they continue to beat the hell out of one another? Or do we stop the fight, get the kids cleaned up, see to their wounds, and then work on a way to stop them from fighting in the future?

Too right-thinking and logical for overcompensating pencil-dicked power-mad imperialists and fundies to deal with.

Bush walks right into Castro's trap

Fixer touched on this in his post yesterday:

A word of warning to the Chimp and the neocons. Don't think, because Fidel is ailing, you can dick around in Cuba. You don't need an Iraq 90 miles off our coast.

David Sirota, obviously a daily reader of The Brain, follows up:

Open today's New York Times, and you will see that the Bush administration is now publicly bragging that once Castro dies, America is planning for a full-on take over of Cuba. In one story, we find out that "Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, made it clear on Tuesday that the United States would take an active role in shaping events on the island if the Cuban leader dies." That is the kind of declaration easily interpreted/spun by anti-democratic forces in Cuba as no-holds-barred diplomat-ese for the very imperialism Castro has been warning his people about for the last half century.

In another story, we discover that the administration is now announcing that if Castro dies, "the United States would also send special monitors and advisers to Cuba in the weeks after a full transition began." In the wake of the Vietnam War, which infamously started out with U.S. military "advisers," again - this is clearly fodder that could be easily spun to confirm Castro's own message. And it is especially stupid and destructive to our long-term goals/credibitlity when, at the same time our government is haughtily strutting around making these proclamations, the White House is also saying "it viewed attempts by Venezuela or other countries to influence the transition in Cuba as unwarranted intervention."

The same thing goes in the situation with Cuba. The stupidest thing American officials can do is publicly walk into Castro's portrayal of our ambitions. By doing that, we are confirming the negative suspicions that many Cubans must have, considering they've been hearing about it over and over and over again for the last 50 years.

I think I can safely say that whatever Bush does will be wrong, and that we and the Cubans will pay for it for years.

If it was up to me, I'd drop the embargo, permit and encourage travel and trade, help 'em out with a little humanitarian aid should they require such a thing in a workers' paradise (rolls eyes), and let Cuba decide its own future for itself without foisting any Chalabi-type exiles off on 'em for his own gain at our expense. Fuck a buncha Republican votes in Florida.

No-fucking-shit.

...

Since the Vietnam War era, it has been common to say that wars are begun by powerful men whose sons stay home, while the sons of men and women with calluses on their hands and dirt under their nails cross oceans to fight, and perhaps to die.

...

A White House aide, who requested anonymity because his information was preliminary, said Wednesday that he knew of no top Bush administration official who had a relative who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...

This didn't surprise anyone, did it? Off to get the Mrs. from the train.

NYT via Dave Johnson.

Interesting statistic ...

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. [my em]

...

I could believe they looked the other way.

Link via George.

And just a note: The Mrs. and I are heading up to Boston early tomorrow morning for a wedding tomorrow afternoon. I seriously doubt I'm taking a laptop because we're heading home early Saturday. So if I don't post over the next 14 hours, I'll see you sometime Saturday evening. Gord's in charge. Listen to the old man.

The Indian and the White Guy made me do it

I got this joke from Williams and Ree years ago. For some reason, it's runnin' around in my head, and my demons tell me I'll never get it to go back in its hole if I don't tell it, so here goes:

Q: Whaddya call an old English drummer and Daniel Boone's friend playin' a word game in an obscure African dialect?

A: Ringo and Mingo play Mandingo lingo Bingo.

Thanks. I feel better now.

The Sins of Condibel

I hate to admit it, but this picture of Condi got me hot! Those lips! That scowl!

Rummy UA*

Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he essentially was too busy to testify at a public hearing on the Iraq war, raising a new furor on Capitol Hill over the three-year-old conflict.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters Wednesday, Rumsfeld said he thought it was enough for him to attend a private briefing with the entire Senate on Thursday. Citing his crowded calendar, he declined the Senate Armed Services Committee's request to testify publicly on Thursday morning.

Come November, they won't be requests and I'd like to see him try anddecline a subpœna, the arrogant prick. A bench warrant, a ride in the back seat of a Crown Vic sittin' on his hands, and a coupla nights in the stony lonesome won't hurt him, but it'll make me feel good.

Rumsfeld also offered an explanation for why as many as two-thirds of the Army's brigades and many National Guard units are rated not ready for combat. He said the Pentagon is wrestling with standards that would best describe the condition of the units. And he noted that highly experienced units coming home from Iraq leave a lot of equipment behind, and as a result are considered not combat ready.

"The Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years ago," he said. "It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's better trained and more experienced."

I don't know whether he's senile, in denial, living in a parallel universe, scared of spending the rest of his life in jail, or E) all of the above, but he's definitely as wrong as he possibly can be. All the spin in the world can't cover up his failures.

If he actually believes any of his own bullshit, he's off his rocker. Maybe he's a sociopath for whom lying is just the normal means to an end. It's everybody else's fault for not believing him.

He needs to be removed from office NOW and held accountable for his egregious mishandling and subsequent destruction of the military, his roles in the bungled occupation of Iraq as well as in the decision to criminally invade and occupy Iraq in the first place. He's not the only culpable one by a long shot, but he's one of the big ones.

*UA = Unauthorized Absence. The Marine Corps equivalent of AWOL, for which you go to the brig.

Update:

I guess Rummy showed up anyway. Wonkette:

Defense Secretary's Senate Testimony Equal Parts Smug, Delusional

Developing.

Update II:

Here's a 9:53 video of Sen. Clinton laying out Rumsfeld's pathetic record and his responses.

Nowhere did I hear him answer her actual question, which was, "Why should we believe your assurances now?"

Mel's dual diagnosis

I'm sorry about this. I know I told you I'd keep the Mel Gibson shit to a minimum but this was too good not to share. From Bill Maher, whom I don't like a lot of the time either.

[...] Yes, liquor releases demons, but I want to know why the demon in Mel Gibson is hatred of the Jews to begin with (I know, the father). Why, when Mels's id is released, its about the Jews fucking everything up, just like it was with Hitler. Except Mel Gibson, when his id is in check, I believe, really knows how wrong that is, and how stupid. He, I believe, at least fights with himself about this.

But he'll never win as long as he's so religious, because, I hate to tell you, the disease isn't alcoholism, the disease is religion.

Alcohol and religion have their place, but abuse of either one can fuck you up. What the results of an abusive amount of both of them might be staggers the imagination, but it can't be good, as Gibson seems to be proving.

As a heroin addict I once knew said when comparing alcohol and heroin, and which I think applies to the misuse of religion as well: "Same soup, different bowl." I take that to mean that the "disease" is addiction whatever the substance: you know it's wrong to use it the way you do, but you do it anyway.

Perhaps we need to come up with a word that describes religious extremists in socially negative terms, along the lines of 'wino' or 'junkie', and then get them off the street and into treatment. For their own protection and, more importantly, ours. It's too bad they don't stagger and piss themselves and pass out in public, or commit burglaries and stickups for money to support their hatred and intolerance, so we could identify them easier.

Maher concludes:

And Mel, let me remind you: The Jews have not started all the wars in the world. But they have greenlit all the movies.

Heh.

Yellow Elephants in CT

From Kos hisself.

Look who's getting organized on behalf of Joe Lieberman:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:52:09 -0400
From: "[windows-1252] College Republicans"
Reply-To: College Republicans
To: collegerepublicans@PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Unconventional Primary Campaign Opportunity (LIEBERMAN)

People interested in campaigning for Lieberman in the Democratic Primary will have lodging accommodations paid for (by his campaign), as well as food and transportation.

Lieberman's campaign will be offerind lodging accommodations and food for College Republicans.

If that ain't the last nail in his coffin, there ain't one! Ooops! Bad analogy, but I'm right again: persons of the Hebrew persuasion don't have nails in their coffins. So sue me! He's toast.

Say what you will ...

I know I'm supposed to be a tough guy and all, but one of my favorite websites is Cute Overload. I have to stop there at least once a day and smile.

AOB's Rule # 5.

Get well soon

Regardless of his politics, ya gotta respect Fidel for giving the finger to 8 or 9 U.S. Presidents and living to tell about it. I hope he lives long enough to give the Chimp the finger once more.

A word of warning to the Chimp and the neocons. Don't think, because Fidel is ailing, you can dick around in Cuba. You don't need an Iraq 90 miles off our coast.

Texas goes first

connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it.

Wingnuts.

You know you suck when...

An Air Force weenie puts up this sign and doesn't get in trouble for it.

Hopefully the last...

There's a Hell of a lot more important shit than this going on, but here's MoDo on Mel Gibson via Voxefx:

"Moreover, it is the elders' considered view that whereas alcoholism may require a process of recovery, anti-Semitism is a more intractable and less chic failing. This was not a moment of insanity, even if Gibson is insane. His hatred of Jews was plain in his movie and in his twisted defense of it, which was made when he was sober under the influence of his primitive world view. Perhaps he thinks that all he needs to do is spend a few months in AA - Anti-Semites Anonymous - and find some celebrity sponsor and run for absolution to Larry Zeiger, I mean Larry King, where he can say with perfect sincerity that the Holocaust was a terrible thing and gut yontif.

"But the elders have instructed Larry to be strict with the uncircumcised offender. He is to appear only opposite 'American Idol' and in the company of David Gest.

"We understand that Gibson cannot do it alone. But why do we have to do it with him? We would find it hard to be in a room with him unless, of course, he wants to count some money with us. Why doesn't he turn to the vast number of his Christian brothers and sisters who show no trace of anything resembling his disgusting prejudice?

"Mad Max is making Max mad, and Murray, and Irving, and Mort, and Marty, and Abe. But we're not completely heartless. If he wants to do Shylock at dinner theater, fine. If he agrees to fill his swimming pool with Kabbalah water, fine."

I don't give a rat's ass about Gibson. This might hurt him a little in the movie biz or public opinion for a while, but he's richer than Crœsus so who cares? It's not really going to hurt him, but if it makes him take stock of himself it might even help him. So what? What's one crazy bastard more or less in the overall scheme of things if he has no political power?

An unfortunate side effect of the 1st Amendment is that obnoxious assholes are allowed to spout despicable damfool bullshit. He's free to say what he wants. He can take the consequences, too.

This crap is enough to give a guy religion, any religion, just so he can pray, "Please, dear God, make this nonsense go away."

Any and all of the attention paid to the constant meaningless shenanigans of celebrities is somewhat akin to the "bread and circuses" prior to the downfall of Rome. We got more important stuff, such as the downfall of the United States under Bush, to concern ourselves with, and we better get to it as a nation and stay on it. Save the side trips 'til we're safe from the likes of him.

"If I lose the primary, I'll run in Cuba"

"Heavy G's Smartass Monday Wednesday" seems to be on a roll. I have plenty of help from The Satirical Political Report.

[Given the overlapping developments of troublesome polls in Connecticut, and the sudden illness of Fidel Castro, Senator Joe Lieberman announced today that if he fails to beat Ned Lamont in next week's Democratic primary, he intends to run for the position of El Commandante in Cuba.

Lieberman emphasized that he would look forward to running under Cuba's electoral system, where he wouldn't be subjected to the type of degrading primary challenges that a three-term U.S. Senator has to put up with.

Senator Lieberman also discounted any problems created by cultural differences, saying that as an orthodox Jew, he would have no problem growing a Castro-like beard.

"Besides," Lieberman added, "the Cuban and Jewish people have a lot in common; they both prefer Florida to their home countries."

Lieberman, anticipating the worst-case scenario in the Connecticut primary, also went out of his way to praise Cuban culture, asserting "that unlike some former President who shall go nameless, Cubans know what to do with a good cigar."

In related news, President Bush, sick of trying to clean up his own messes, cited the developments in Cuba as a precedent for handing power over to brother Jeb. However, this met with strong objections from a bi-partisan majority in Congress, who expressed a preference that Bush be succeeded by Raul Castro.

Finally, asked about the scenario of a Jew getting embroiled in the politics of a Latin communist dictatorship, Woody Allen was quoted as saying that it was absolutely "Bananas."]

I about went "bananas" trying to pick a quote from that for you, so I didn't.

Bush and the "Lord of the Flies"

A BuzzFlash editorial

Okay, we are back to our primary theory about the Bushevik Neo-Con one-party government: if you pile failure on failure, they believe it will add up to success.

It's kind of (as we implied yesterday) like sweeping up the dung of an elephant (how appropriate) and hoping that if you get the pile high enough, it will turn into mouth-watering fudge.

Yum! Please, Sir, may I have another?

Of course, behind every man who believes that he has God like powers, there is a Beelzebub (Satan's assistant) pulling the strings. Dick Cheney, you can come out of the bunker now.

"According to the renowned 16th century occultist Johannes Wierus, Beelzebub is the chief lieutenant of Lucifer, the Emperor of Hell, and presides over the Order of the Fly." (Wikipedia)

And, of course, flies feed off of dung.

From 'Comments':

There once was a Bush King of Dung,
who spewed forth much crap from his tongue;
When he opened his mouth,
shit would spew and fall south,
whence his praises by fools would be sung.

I worked with an old gentleman once who wouldn't say 'shit' if he'd had a mouth full of it. One day he got frustrated with something and couldn't quite express it. The boss gave him some advice that I will pass on: "Say 'shit', Clarence. It helps."

A 26 Count Indictment? Whee!

TPM Muckraker

The Bush administration may have broken over two dozen federal laws and regulations -- some of them multiple times -- according to an unreleased report from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats.

The document, an update to the Democrats' December 2005 report, "A Constitution in Crisis," will be released later this week, according to knowledgeable sources. It is several hundred pages long, with over a thousand footnotes.

In earlier days such a report would be easily ignored. But with the looming possibility of Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives in November, Conyers' charges pose a potentially serious threat to the Bush administration. After all, it takes only a simple majority vote in the House to impeach a sitting president.

On their face, the laundry list of alleged wrongs form a natural basis for impeachment proceedings -- but Conyers has insisted he has no intention of rushing to impeach. No, a slow walk to possible impeachment (preferably down a path that includes months of hearings) is more what the would-be chairman envisions, he has said.

My call to the White House was not immediately returned.

My instinctive reaction is, "Get a rope!". It's too bad we can only hang the sonofabitch once. Upon reflection, it'll be more fun to roast him slowly on a spit rather than toss him into the fire, but we need to get him out of his stolen office yesterday.

I hope this gets legs and goes somewhere - forward, not into the bin.

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

Vanity Fair or Truthout

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day - and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up.

Quite long, but well worth a read.

Related, from today's WaPo:

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon

For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances. Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington.

In fact, the commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.

This stuff is taking a long time to come out, but come out it surely must. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine.

Note to Justice: Speed it up. Us Olde Fartes (Lctp*) would like it to happen in our lifetimes, thank you very much.

*Lurch coined that phrase.

Meetings ...

I was kidding Gord in the comments of his post yesterday on the combat readiness, or the lack thereof, of a good percentage of army units.

F: Didn't I tell you I'd be fixing Humvees in Kuwait?

G: Fixer, after you fix it, you're likely to be stickin' out the top of it with Ma Deuce in yer hands.

F: With my luck, probably.

G: On the bright side, I may be the one feedin' ya ammo. Every cloud has a silver lining!

I've been saying that a Draft is just around the corner since I started this blog, only half kidding when I said my boss Harry (another Vietnam vet like Gord), Gord, and I are gonna be sharing a tent or a barracks room in the Middle East one day.

With the state of the Army today, should another conflict arise (or a major escalation in the Mid East, which seems closer on the horizon than ever), a Draft is a serious possibility. With the problems Gord points out, and the fact recruiting quotas aren't being met, and the caliber of people they are accepting, I don't see how it can not happen. Well, there's one way, but I don't think even the Chimp is stupid or desperate enough to use nukes or another form of WMD on the region.

Remember that in November, you folks who use a conventional voting machine. Those of you who will be using touch-screen well ... it doesn't matter. Think about your high school or college age kid carrying a rifle in Iraq (or Iran or Syria), or riding in a Bradley or Humvee, a target for any moron with an RPG or AK. This election might just well be the difference between a Draft and bringing our troops home and starting to heal our reputation in the world. Face it:

Everybody. Hates. Us.

And if we expand this folly, we will only lose more credibility, blood, and treasure. Get them out of Congress in November, the lives of your children and the fate of Planet Earth (the only home we have, by the way) depend on it.

Tell me again ...

How glorious war is:

...

The Lebanese soldiers were trying take down the names of all who had died, but I found a man with a clipboard who had taken down 40 names, and he said that they weren't accurate, because some of the children were blown into bits and they couldn't fit them together accurately and there might be -- they couldn't put the right head on the right body, and therefore they might not be able to have an accurate list of the dead. But he was doing his best in the circumstances of war to maintain the bureaucracy of government.

...

So ...

Holy Joe takes Wal*Mart money.

The Last Plantation

If there's anybody who thinks there's no racism in our country, go see this video at Guerrilla News Network.

By now, you've probably heard about the March 29th run in between Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and a Capitol Hill police officer. But you probably have not yet heard this side of the story. In true GNN fashion, we go beyond the superficial coverage of the mainstream press to uncover a different perspective on the story. GNN's Ian Inaba, director of the new documentary American Blackout talked to four police officers about allegations of racism on Capitol Hill and the now infamous incident.

The folks they're talking about are Members (heh) of Congress and the Capitol Hill Police, not some backwoods bozo (button it!) with a Stars 'n Bars sticker on his old pickup. Disgusting.

The bottom of the barrel

Raw Story

Experts: Not a single Army Combat team left ready to deploy

A group of national security experts formed by Democratic leadership has reported to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) that, "there is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy," RAW STORY has learned.

"The bottom line," the group concludes in a letter to Democratic leadership, "is that our Army currently has no ready, strategic reserve."

This degraded readiness condition stems from the heavy deployment of combat forces the Army has sustained these past four years. Predictably, this has resulted in accelerated wearout of large quantities of Army equipment, disruptions in training schedules, and strains on meeting recruitment and reenlistment goals. We called attention to this looming problem in an earlier report, "The US Military: Under Strain and at Risk," January 2006, but that report was met with indifference and denial by the administration. This problem can no longer be denied.

The administration's willingness to put our nation at such strategic risk is deeply disturbing. And its failure to adequately support the soldiers who are risking their lives for this nation is unacceptable. The readiness degradation that has already occurred could lead to a downward spiral that will take years to correct unless promptly addressed. Under these conditions, it is important for the Congress to step forward to exercise its oversight responsibilities for equipping and training the Armed Services.

Bush and Rumsfeld have taken the best Army in the world and broken it from overuse and abuse and they have no intention of trying to mend it, like a rich kid with an expensive 4x4 who just keeps rammin' rocks with it but who's scared to ask daddy for money to fix it because daddy'll figure out what he's been up to and take it away.

If something like Grenada should happen, they'd have to send the cooks and bakers. I'll skip the jokes about how being forced to eat army chow would make anybody surrender and probably violates the Geneva Convention to boot.

Point is, the U.S. is in deep shit if anything should come up, and it just might, given Bush's big mouth.

As far as Congress stepping forward to exercise its oversight responsibilities, they haven't done so yet in any matter involving removing their lips from Bush's unit. There's no reason to believe they'll start now.

November. Our only hope.

The Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006

Raw Story

A piece of legislation sponsored by Democrats in the House of Representatives seeks to withdraw authorization for President George W. Bush to make war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

The Iraq War Powers Repeal Act of 2006, H.R. 5875, was introduced on July 25 by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat of California. The bill employs the rationale that since President Bush declared "mission accomplished" in May 2003, the US has been engaged in an occupation, not a war, which Congress never authorized.

"It's become very clear that we're not in war," Woolsey explained last week. "We're occupying Iraq and the president never came to us and asked us for permission."

And Bush lied his ass off as to his true intentions to get the permission he got.

Naturally I'm in favor of this bill, but I doubt it will go anywhere. I sure would like to see it brought to the public's attention, though.

Ned Lamont on the Colbert Report

Video and transcript at Crooks and Liars. Go.

A thought ...

Before I leave for work (the Mrs. and I overslept this morning so I'm running late).

Are you uncomfortable in this heatwave? I know I am, having to work on hot cars all day, in and out of the shop. Here's something to think about as you go through your day, trying to stay somewhat cool.

In Iraq, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines deal with this every day, many doing their jobs wearing 75 - 100 pounds of gear. That's not counting getting shot at, blown up, and having to deal with the stench of death and sewage all the time.

Could you do it? In my book, the only definition of "support the troops" means bringing them home.

And if anybody cares how I spent the hottest day of the year.