Thursday, December 7, 2006
Come on and Cry Me a River,Cry Me a River....
I cried a river over you.....
Poor Pathetic Poppy.
When I first saw this I almost felt bad for Poppy. He sounds old,tired and frail. And I do have respect for my Elders. But this man isn't sorry for the hell his oldest son has unleashed on this planet. Nope. He's sorry because the "Bush Family Legacy" is forever tied to W and his demented,delusional and delirious douchebaggery. GOOD.
America,this crime family is precisely WHY political dynasties of any stripe are a very.BAD.IDEA. I don't give a damn what party they're from. I hope there are investigations of the Bush family all the way back to Nazi Germany. I want their ugly,nasty,filthy laundry aired on the public square. They're criminals,thieves and liars. Now they can add murderer and genocidal maniac to their "legacy".
And this guy can kiss my ass.
Tell you what buddy,tell that shit to our troops in that big fucking clusterfuck of a sandbox. I'd bet most of those folks would love to work 3 fucking days a week and then get to spend 4 days with their families you useless piece of crap. Not to mention that your "job" Representative Kingston,doesn't involve getting shot at or RPG'd. You prick,you make 165K a year,paid by the American Taxpayer(not counting your perks and"other income"). And you worked what? 100 days and some change this year? Fuck You. If We the People need you to work 24/7/365 then by god you should do it,with a smile. If that's too much for you,FIND ANOTHER JOB. Quit you little weasel. Read my lips,you are a Public Servant. So serve or get the fuck out of the way. And you had the BALLS to vote against raising the minimum wage how many times?
Or whine to my husband who already this week has clocked about 60 hours of work. And he will be going in to work to put in a 15 hour day tommorrow. You Sir are not fit to shine my husband's shoes. Tell ya what you whiner,trade jobs with my husband for a year. You'll get a taste of what it means to work,and the people of Georgia would have a man in office who gave a damn about working families and poor people. It's a win/win. But,you wouldn't last a week in my hubby's job because a)you'd have to have some actual skills and b)you'd have to get dirty and be outside in the cold.
I'm so sick of grown people who think they are entitled to everything just because they've decided they're better than everyone else. Suck it up and do what everyone else has to. Work and stop your whining.
Poor Pathetic Poppy.
When I first saw this I almost felt bad for Poppy. He sounds old,tired and frail. And I do have respect for my Elders. But this man isn't sorry for the hell his oldest son has unleashed on this planet. Nope. He's sorry because the "Bush Family Legacy" is forever tied to W and his demented,delusional and delirious douchebaggery. GOOD.
America,this crime family is precisely WHY political dynasties of any stripe are a very.BAD.IDEA. I don't give a damn what party they're from. I hope there are investigations of the Bush family all the way back to Nazi Germany. I want their ugly,nasty,filthy laundry aired on the public square. They're criminals,thieves and liars. Now they can add murderer and genocidal maniac to their "legacy".
And this guy can kiss my ass.
Tell you what buddy,tell that shit to our troops in that big fucking clusterfuck of a sandbox. I'd bet most of those folks would love to work 3 fucking days a week and then get to spend 4 days with their families you useless piece of crap. Not to mention that your "job" Representative Kingston,doesn't involve getting shot at or RPG'd. You prick,you make 165K a year,paid by the American Taxpayer(not counting your perks and"other income"). And you worked what? 100 days and some change this year? Fuck You. If We the People need you to work 24/7/365 then by god you should do it,with a smile. If that's too much for you,FIND ANOTHER JOB. Quit you little weasel. Read my lips,you are a Public Servant. So serve or get the fuck out of the way. And you had the BALLS to vote against raising the minimum wage how many times?
Or whine to my husband who already this week has clocked about 60 hours of work. And he will be going in to work to put in a 15 hour day tommorrow. You Sir are not fit to shine my husband's shoes. Tell ya what you whiner,trade jobs with my husband for a year. You'll get a taste of what it means to work,and the people of Georgia would have a man in office who gave a damn about working families and poor people. It's a win/win. But,you wouldn't last a week in my hubby's job because a)you'd have to have some actual skills and b)you'd have to get dirty and be outside in the cold.
I'm so sick of grown people who think they are entitled to everything just because they've decided they're better than everyone else. Suck it up and do what everyone else has to. Work and stop your whining.
Bring back lead poisoning
Think Progress
Lead is dirt cheap, and from an engine's standpoint is actually better than reformulated cleaner-emissions gasoline in terms of lubrication and anti-knock qualities.
When I worked in the Standard Oil refinery in El Segundo "Where The Sewer Meets The Sea" CA many years ago, we had tetraethyl lead gas additive by the tank-car load. It was one of the most dangerous substances in a dangerous environment. One drop could kill you.
Engines don't have that problem. Neither do batteries and paint, just people, but people's health isn't seen as contributing to the lead-using industries' bottom line, only as unwanted, unnecessary overhead, possibly capable of being overcome by greasing Repuglican palms.
We got the lead out of gasoline and paint, most fishing sinkers and shotgun shells, and nearly everything else except automotive batteries, which could do it if they wanted to.
Leave the lead out. If I want heavy-metal poisoning, I'll eat some albacore.
"The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments," the AP reports. "Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits."
Lead is dirt cheap, and from an engine's standpoint is actually better than reformulated cleaner-emissions gasoline in terms of lubrication and anti-knock qualities.
When I worked in the Standard Oil refinery in El Segundo "Where The Sewer Meets The Sea" CA many years ago, we had tetraethyl lead gas additive by the tank-car load. It was one of the most dangerous substances in a dangerous environment. One drop could kill you.
Engines don't have that problem. Neither do batteries and paint, just people, but people's health isn't seen as contributing to the lead-using industries' bottom line, only as unwanted, unnecessary overhead, possibly capable of being overcome by greasing Repuglican palms.
We got the lead out of gasoline and paint, most fishing sinkers and shotgun shells, and nearly everything else except automotive batteries, which could do it if they wanted to.
Leave the lead out. If I want heavy-metal poisoning, I'll eat some albacore.
7 December
Today might be a good day to remember about a nation, in an attempt to maintain and expand an empire built on a desire for hegemony and access to natural resources in a large part of the world, but couched in terms of 'liberation', which pre-emptively criminally attacked another.
I think it would also be good to remember that the nation that was attacked eventually won the conflict and hanged a whole lot of the aggressors by the neck until they were dead.
I think it would also be good to remember that the nation that was attacked eventually won the conflict and hanged a whole lot of the aggressors by the neck until they were dead.
Archeological find
An archeological team, digging in Washington DC , has uncovered 10,000 year old bones and fossil remains of what is believed to be the first Politician.
"Let my river flow..."
Following up on yesterday's post, here is an article and video on the opening of the gates to restore the Lower Owens River. Los Angeles' Mayor Villaraigosa makes a humorous, or perhaps ironic, freudian slip in his address to the assembled throng. Made 'em laugh. Maybe a little nervously. Go see.
LATimes
The most notable movie is Chinatown directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson.
This is a good thing, but besides the obvious benefits of riparian restoration, I hope at some point they let some water flow into Owens Lake. Just enough to cover it to hold down the clouds of alkali dust ("Keeler fog") stirred up when the wind blows, which is pretty often.
One thing at a time.
LATimes
The largest river habitat restoration effort ever attempted in the West was jump-started at 12:15 p.m., when Villaraigosa turned a control knob to open a new clamshell-shaped steel gate at a diversion dam that has been directing the waters that have flowed into the Los Angeles Aqueduct since 1913.
The event marked a brief detente in historic water wars that have boiled in the Owens Valley since the early 1900s, when Los Angeles city agents posed as ranchers and farmers to buy land and water rights in the valley. Their goal was to build an aqueduct that would help transform Los Angeles into a metropolis.
The stealth and deception became grist for books and movies that portrayed the dark underbelly of Los Angeles' formative years.
The most notable movie is Chinatown directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson.
This is a good thing, but besides the obvious benefits of riparian restoration, I hope at some point they let some water flow into Owens Lake. Just enough to cover it to hold down the clouds of alkali dust ("Keeler fog") stirred up when the wind blows, which is pretty often.
One thing at a time.
McCain on the ISG
For all those who think McCain would make a good President:
I don't know what the fuck they did to him in Hanoi, but he seems to have a case of Delayed Onset Stupidity. Did he learn anything from Vietnam? Did he forget how many GIs (58,000) were not as fortunate as he was (he actually got to go home)? Did he forget they all died (let alone the maimed and those who came home with demons) in an unjust, optional war and were also victims of the 'let's throw more troops at a failed situation' mindset in Washington at the time? Did he forget his stay at the Hanoi Hilton was a direct result of the policy he's advocating today?
Yes, Senator, let's just send more young men and women into that meat grinder. Two years from now we'll realize we're in the same place we are today, except more of our nation's sons and daughters will have died. It's time to get out now, not send more troops in hopes of salvaging something that will never come close to the objectives stated when we embarked on this folly. This supposed 'future President' is advocating proven failure: more troops and don't talk to our enemies:
Is there any difference between him and the Chimp? Not so much it seems. We have to talk to everyone who might be able to help us get out and has influence with the people carrying AKs and RPGs on the ground. James Baker said as much yesterday:
As I said the other day, it is in Iran and Syria's best interest not to have anarchy prevail so close to their territory:
And for a man who wants to be President to think this does not stem from the Arab - Israeli conflict is either in the pocket of the Israel lobby or totally out of touch with what's actually going on in the world. Every source of conflict in that part of the world is derivative of the Arab - Israeli conflict and our unconditional support for everything Israel does.
It's time to dispel the myth that John McCain is some sort of Patton or MacArthur, anointed by both Right and Left to lead us into the Great Enlightened Dawn. He's just a self-serving piece of shit who will do or say anything to get into the White House.
...
The sharpest break with the [Iraq Study Group] report's recommendations came from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has criticized the Bush administration's war strategy and called for boosting U.S. troop strength in Iraq. He called "tenuous at best" the report's linkage between the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the violence in Iraq, and objected to any "limited timeframe" on the U.S. military presence.
"Only by cracking down on independent militias, reducing criminal and terrorist activity, and protecting the population and key infrastructure - none of which can be accomplished without more troops - can a political settlement begin to take hold," McCain said in a statement.
...
I don't know what the fuck they did to him in Hanoi, but he seems to have a case of Delayed Onset Stupidity. Did he learn anything from Vietnam? Did he forget how many GIs (58,000) were not as fortunate as he was (he actually got to go home)? Did he forget they all died (let alone the maimed and those who came home with demons) in an unjust, optional war and were also victims of the 'let's throw more troops at a failed situation' mindset in Washington at the time? Did he forget his stay at the Hanoi Hilton was a direct result of the policy he's advocating today?
Yes, Senator, let's just send more young men and women into that meat grinder. Two years from now we'll realize we're in the same place we are today, except more of our nation's sons and daughters will have died. It's time to get out now, not send more troops in hopes of salvaging something that will never come close to the objectives stated when we embarked on this folly. This supposed 'future President' is advocating proven failure: more troops and don't talk to our enemies:
...
McCain, who is expected to seek the presidency in 2008, was also skeptical of the recommendation to involve Syria and Iran: "You have to understand that the Iranians and the Syrians do not have common interests with us."
...
Is there any difference between him and the Chimp? Not so much it seems. We have to talk to everyone who might be able to help us get out and has influence with the people carrying AKs and RPGs on the ground. James Baker said as much yesterday:
...
"For 40 years we talked to the Soviet Union during a time when they were committed to wiping us off the face of the Earth," Mr. Baker said. "So you talk to your enemies, not just your friends."
...
As I said the other day, it is in Iran and Syria's best interest not to have anarchy prevail so close to their territory:
...
It's time to get out and let the Iraqis sort out what works for them. Diplomatically, we should enlist Iran and Syria's aid to prevent a failed state existing between them, as Chuck Hagel said yesterday.
...
And for a man who wants to be President to think this does not stem from the Arab - Israeli conflict is either in the pocket of the Israel lobby or totally out of touch with what's actually going on in the world. Every source of conflict in that part of the world is derivative of the Arab - Israeli conflict and our unconditional support for everything Israel does.
It's time to dispel the myth that John McCain is some sort of Patton or MacArthur, anointed by both Right and Left to lead us into the Great Enlightened Dawn. He's just a self-serving piece of shit who will do or say anything to get into the White House.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Alternate Brainfart
This appears in our left sidebar:
One wonders how much those Bobbies raised when they took up a collection to bribe Col. Bryant to take him back...
"You gotta stop thinking with the alternate brain, Sarge." - Col. William 'Stonewall' Bryant to Sgt. Fixer after freeing him from the custody of the London Metropolitan Police.
One wonders how much those Bobbies raised when they took up a collection to bribe Col. Bryant to take him back...
Goodness Gracious! The Truth!
Maureen Dowd on Gates and Rumsfeld:
Gates hasn't even sat in his office chair yet, and already he's light-years ahead of Rumsfeld, in perception at least.
It remains to be seen, of course, what he can and/or will do, or more correctly, what he will be allowed to do.
First Junior took over the house with grandiose plans to remodel it and make it the envy of the neighborhood. But then he played with matches and set the house on fire. So now he's frantically trying to stop the flames from torching the whole block.
Mr. Gates asserted that if America left Iraq in chaos, Iran and Syria could encroach more, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia might jump in to stop the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis by Shiites. "We're already seeing Hezbollah involved in training fighters for Iraq," he said. "I think all of that could spread fairly dramatically."
It was the sort of realistic assessment that never came from Rummy, except when he privately admitted in a classified Nov. 6 memo that their Iraq strategy was "not working well enough or fast enough," offering a silly hodgepodge of wildly tardy or dubious options, like telling the Iraqis to "pull up their socks."
So with the Pentagon deciding whether to Go Big, Go Long or Go Home, Rummy urged the White House to Go Minimalist and simply streamline the spin.
Junior took the advice to manage perceptions by minimizing Rummy two days after he sent the memo. [...]
The old criticisms of whether Mr. Gates massaged intelligence were forgotten; the senators would have embraced an ax-murderer if he had seemed sensible about Iraq.
There was no blathering yesterday about "known unknowns" or "Henny Penny" pessimists. The soft-spoken, vanilla Mr. Gates offered a sharp contrast from the finger-wagging, flavorful Rummy. In a remarkable shift from the mindless bellicosity and jingoism of the last few years, Mr. Gates said he did not favor military action against Iran or Syria.
After lunch the nominee clarified his remarks, saying he had not meant to criticize the troops, that the reversals in Iraq were not their fault. They don't lose battles in Iraq because there are no battles. There's just a counterinsurgency that they can't see and that they weren't prepared or equipped to fight.
Gates hasn't even sat in his office chair yet, and already he's light-years ahead of Rumsfeld, in perception at least.
It remains to be seen, of course, what he can and/or will do, or more correctly, what he will be allowed to do.
A little good news...
As regular readers of the Brain will know, the Owens Valley in Eastern California is one of my favorite places. Thanks to the end of a long court process, the valley is going to get some long overdue environmental relief today. From the LATimes with photos and videos:
Please read the rest and watch the videos.
Suggested reading :
Rivers in the Desert by Margaret Leslie Davis
Water and the California Dream by David Carle
As Mark Twain once said, and California has taken to heart, "Whisky's fer drinkin'. Water's fer fightin' over."
Update:
Passerby left us this comment:
Next time, PB, check for this feature, common amongst the better accommodations in the area:
Just look for a lotta cats hangin' around!
INDEPENDENCE, Calif -- Hundreds of spectators led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are expected to gather today to watch the 62-mile-long Lower Owens River ripple anew with its first surge of High Sierra water in nearly a century.
The largest river habitat restoration effort ever attempted in the West (my em) will launch with Villaraigosa's push of a button, opening a steel gate at a dam that has been diverting the Lower Owens' water into the Los Angeles Aqueduct since 1913.
If all goes according to plan, within five years nature will transform the revived river's lazy loops into a lush serpentine oasis of willows and cottonwood trees, wetlands for waterfowl and shorebirds and warm water fisheries for bass, catfish, frogs and crayfish.
Please read the rest and watch the videos.
Suggested reading :
Rivers in the Desert by Margaret Leslie Davis
Water and the California Dream by David Carle
As Mark Twain once said, and California has taken to heart, "Whisky's fer drinkin'. Water's fer fightin' over."
Update:
Passerby left us this comment:
Man, we caught so many trout out of the Owens River one day that we nearly got nauseous cleaning 'em all in the bathtub of our hotel...
Rainbows and browns till our arms were tired. Never seen anything like it.
Not sure those hotel maids ever saw anything like that, either.
Next time, PB, check for this feature, common amongst the better accommodations in the area:
Just look for a lotta cats hangin' around!
Been there ...
The one and only Paul Rieckhoff, citing a story on NPR, via Blondie:
In my case, I was sitting in my van with a pistol to my head.
Fortunately, when I began to deal with these symptoms (instead of snorting coke and drinking myself into oblivion daily), I was already out of the military and married to an understanding woman who helped me through it. This treatment is downright unconscionable and obscene.
Memos won't do it. Prosecution and jail for officers and NCOs who harass their people when they need serious help will.
Soldier Tyler Jennings says that when he came home from Iraq last year, he felt so depressed and desperate that he decided to kill himself. Late one night in the middle of May, his wife was out of town, and he felt more scared than he'd felt in gunfights in Iraq. Jennings says he opened the window, tied a noose around his neck and started drinking, "trying to get drunk enough to either slip or just make that decision."
...
In my case, I was sitting in my van with a pistol to my head.
...
Five months before, Jennings had gone to the medical center at Ft. Carson, where a staff member typed up his symptoms: "Crying spells... hopelessness... helplessness... worthlessness." Jennings says that when the sergeants who ran his platoon found out he was having a breakdown and taking drugs, they started to haze him. He decided to attempt suicide when they said that they would eject him from the Army. [my em]
...
Fortunately, when I began to deal with these symptoms (instead of snorting coke and drinking myself into oblivion daily), I was already out of the military and married to an understanding woman who helped me through it. This treatment is downright unconscionable and obscene.
...
It's time for the military to step up. Just last week, they finally released new guidelines for troops suffering from mental health problems in theatre. It's a good start, but just issuing another memo isn't going to make difference.
...
Memos won't do it. Prosecution and jail for officers and NCOs who harass their people when they need serious help will.
Hebeas Corpus
In the truest sense of the term. My pal Lambert reminds me that he and the guys and girls at CorrenteWire have been chasing the 'Bush Gulag' story for over a year. Yesterday I directed you to a post over there about the camp at Stare Kiejkuty, Poland. Today, Lambert follows up with one on the wherabouts of the 7,000 - 35,000 'detainees from the War on Terra' that were presumably interned at the '21st Century Gulag Archipelago':
Hitler, Stalin, Bush, birds of a feather.
Let's do some arithmetic on how many prisoners Bush is holding in his gulags.
1. We know that there are thousands of prisoners (estimates range from 7,000 to 35,000).
2. Gitmo holds only 500
3. So, where are the missing thousands? The only alternatives I can think of:
a. They've been released
b. They're still in jail
c. They've been disappeared.
Barring divine intervention, the bodies of the missing thousands occupy time and space in this world. Where are they?
...
Hitler, Stalin, Bush, birds of a feather.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
The Army you have ...
ANNISTON, Ala. -- Field upon field of more than 1,000 battered M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles sit amid weeds here at the 15,000-acre Anniston Army Depot -- the idle, hulking formations symbolic of an Army that is wearing out faster than it is being rebuilt.
...
Equipment shipped back from Iraq is stacking up at all the Army depots: More than 530 M1 tanks, 220 M88 wreckers and 160 M113 armored personnel carriers are sitting at Anniston. The Red River Army Depot in Texas has 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 450 heavy and medium-weight trucks, while more than 1,000 Humvees are awaiting repair at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.
Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs. In the spring, a funding gap caused Anniston and other depots to lose about a month's worth of work, said Brig. Gen. Robert Radin, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir. [my ems]
...
They're gonna be hitchhiking from the airport to the Green Zone soon. Didn't the idiots in the White House think this shit would break? Good God.
Big tip o' the Brain to Montag for the link.
And you people thought I was crazy ...
When I said we should give Saddam the keys back and say, 'never mind' ...
Gates Says U.S. Is Not Winning Iraq War
Think Progress
I can't believe Faux News showed that!
Whatever is in Gates' past, or his present motivation, at least he gave the right answer.
Incoming Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin's (D-MI) first question to Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates: "Mr. Gates, do you believe that we're currently winning in Iraq?"
Gates' answer: "No, sir." Watch it:
I can't believe Faux News showed that!
Whatever is in Gates' past, or his present motivation, at least he gave the right answer.
Mutiny at the White House
Steve Young at HuffPo:
That White House 'insider' must have realized that the future of the nation, not to mention his own soul, demands the collapse of this administration, and he's helping by outing its seedy machinations by any means possible.
It doesn't matter much if Bush gets the message or not, just that someone does who can take him down. Or get him committed.
Update:
Drips in the White House
Clueless or not, he's still a liar.
In the spirit of mutiny, I volunteer to pull Bush's rope when we keelhaul him. I hope the bottom of the ship hasn't been de-barnacled recently, too.
I don't want to go Woodward and Bernstein all over you, but last week, just after Air Force 1 lifted off towards a meeting with Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki, someone in the administration who had had enough of the President's insistence that he knows what he's doing, sent a message that everyone seems to have missed: an administration mutiny is in the offing.
The coup d'état warning came in the form of a leaked memorandum that national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, had sent Bush three weeks ago describing, as the New York Times editorial put it, "how Iraq was being pulled apart by sectarian hatreds and warning that Mr. Maliki was either 'ignorant of what is going on' or unwilling or unable to stop it."
Some say the President may actually heed the memo and his public pronouncements of Rumsfeldian praise ("Maliki is the right man for the job") prior to dismissal is just the Bush M.O. at work. That Maliki's Medal of Freedom is already in the smelter.
Which gives further indication the warning shot was not aimed towards Maliki, but just above the President himself; a notice to POTUS that if he continues to ignore the reality of his failed strategy in Iraq that the whistleblower(s) just might keep leaking to the American public that what Bush maintains as a victory or nothing policy, is far worse than nothing, That it is, in fact, so disastrous, an administration intimate is willing to jeopardize his position to out the boss.
That White House 'insider' must have realized that the future of the nation, not to mention his own soul, demands the collapse of this administration, and he's helping by outing its seedy machinations by any means possible.
It doesn't matter much if Bush gets the message or not, just that someone does who can take him down. Or get him committed.
Update:
Drips in the White House
The famous discipline of the Bush administration has completely broken down. This level of leaking suggests administration aides no longer feel the sense of cohesion and teamwork - or the fear of retribution - that kept them from leaking in the past. A leaker may go to the papers to make himself or his agency look good, or because the president, or those close to him, aren't listening. But in any case, the public venting of private information suggests factionalism and infighting that can't be peacefully controlled or contained. Even if these were authorized leaks - meant to influence the debate without official fingerprints - it suggests that the Bush administration has so little credibility left that the press and public won't listen unless we think we're eavesdropping.
Even before last week, administration leaking had grown to a steady drip. Senior officials at the State Department, Pentagon, and CIA had already learned to fight their battles by leaking inside stuff and offering anonymous opinions to the papers. (It was an interagency spat of this kind that produced Valerie Plame's outing.) Other leaks have appeared in the many books to be found in the "Finger-Pointing and Recriminations" section at Barnes & Noble.
[...] Perhaps this is the message the struggling administration now wants to send out about Iraq. OK, the president's a liar. But he's not as clueless as he looks.
Clueless or not, he's still a liar.
In the spirit of mutiny, I volunteer to pull Bush's rope when we keelhaul him. I hope the bottom of the ship hasn't been de-barnacled recently, too.
Leahy: Bush Should be "Terrified"
In the Green Mountain Daily, Odum writes about Senator Leahy's address at the post-election party sponsored by the Vermont Democratic party.
Ba da bing!
And finally there was our Senior Senator, Patrick Leahy. For those who've heard Senator Leahy speak, you know that his delivery can vary quite a bit. It can be easy to tell when he's tired, physically or mentally - so Leahy on the stump doesn't necessarily mean the same thing twice. But Leahy of late has had a fire in his belly, the likes of which we haven't seen in a while. His sadness at the loss of comity and the discarding of basic Constitutional values under the Bush GOP has turned into outrage, and he has been consistently riveting in front of a crowd in recent months.
But since the election, that outrage has turned into inspiration, and it's an inspiration he passed on to the crowd tonight. Like the speakers before him, Leahy was funny, thankful, exuberant... but there was an edge that was very serious. He related a conversation where he was recently asked if President Bush should be "worried" that he was now to be Chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. The crowd started cheering.
"No, no" he said, calming the crowd, as if to be prepared for a softening of his rhetoric.
"No, he shouldn't be worried. He should be terrified."
And the room exploded.
Ba da bing!
Iraq Study Group
Brother Jo Fish echoes my sentiments toward the Baker-Hamilton Report that will be released soon:
This was just a play for time and nothing will happen beyond that. The Chimp ain't gonna take their recommendations and Congress won't force him to unless they defund the mission in Iraq. That ain't gonna happen neither.
Stealing Krugman's quote from Gord's post yesterday:
Know what? Not interested. I don't think it's going to offer anything more than cover for an idiot president, and the enablers in Congress and his administration who should have been monitoring and overseeing this mess from it's misbegotten inception to it's unseemly demise.
...
This was just a play for time and nothing will happen beyond that. The Chimp ain't gonna take their recommendations and Congress won't force him to unless they defund the mission in Iraq. That ain't gonna happen neither.
...
So all the spin and other hype aside, there will be no good outcome from the whole thing. Yet another 'plan' consigned to the trash heap of history by the Decider and his sycophantic minions. After all, accepting the premise of the report is admitting that the whole Excellent Adventure has been a colosally mis-managed fuck-up...
Stealing Krugman's quote from Gord's post yesterday:
How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully's ego?
Insurance ... revisited
More on NOLA from our pal Scout Prime:
Seems the money's tight for the Corps of Engineers (no shit, it's all going to Iraq) and they estimate the city to be at risk until 2010. I posit that if they drag their feet so long, there won't be a NOLA by then. Scout gets to the crux of the biscuit:
We'll know in the next few weeks. The big boys will follow Travelers first, once their legal departments determine they won't be answering lawsuits for the next 10 years. "Exposure" is the operative word in the insurance industry and the lowest exposure is what's best for the bottom line. Premiums collected vs. claims paid and all that. Expect the auto insurers to jump also, when they get finished tallying up their claims for all the vehicles destroyed and adjust their reserves. My gut feeling is the government will have to put a federal insurance system in place resembling the 'flood insurance' program they already have. That won't happen until next summer at the earliest.
An all around shitty situation down there. Great thanks to Scout for keeping this in the forefront.
That's right, the Corps of Engineers is taking a "strategic pause" between essentially completing repair work to broken levees and "strengthening flood protection in New Orleans" according to the NYT
...
Seems the money's tight for the Corps of Engineers (no shit, it's all going to Iraq) and they estimate the city to be at risk until 2010. I posit that if they drag their feet so long, there won't be a NOLA by then. Scout gets to the crux of the biscuit:
... How many more will follow Travelers Ins. out of the area? ...
We'll know in the next few weeks. The big boys will follow Travelers first, once their legal departments determine they won't be answering lawsuits for the next 10 years. "Exposure" is the operative word in the insurance industry and the lowest exposure is what's best for the bottom line. Premiums collected vs. claims paid and all that. Expect the auto insurers to jump also, when they get finished tallying up their claims for all the vehicles destroyed and adjust their reserves. My gut feeling is the government will have to put a federal insurance system in place resembling the 'flood insurance' program they already have. That won't happen until next summer at the earliest.
An all around shitty situation down there. Great thanks to Scout for keeping this in the forefront.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Quote of the Day deux
Paul Krugman
Well, here's a question for those who might be tempted, yet again, to shy away from a confrontation with Mr. Bush over Iraq: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully's ego?
Quote of the Day
The Chief:
... I guess they take us for fools, Honor means nothing to some of these feather merchant sons of bitches ...
If the people who made the mess ...
Are tasked with cleaning it up, odds are you'll have a bigger mess.
These are the geniouses who are now calling for more troops.
Hel-lo, McFly?
These are the same geniouses who called General Shinseki a traitor when he advised Congress of the need for 250,000 troops or more before the balloon went up. These are the same people who believed it would be over in six months. These are the same people who refused to learn the lessons of Gulf 1, when we needed a half-million boots to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, analogous to liberating Rhode Island. Iraq is 20 times the size of Kuwait with 10 times as many people, who don't like us, and serious sectarian divisions.
You could put a half-million troops on the ground now but all they will be are targets for both sides. Those of you old enough to remember Vietnam will recognize the strategy all too well. We had 500,000 under arms in that toilet and look what it got us. That's where we should have learned our lessons.
It's time to get out and let the Iraqis sort out what works for them. Diplomatically, we should enlist Iran and Syria's aid to prevent a failed state existing between them, as Chuck Hagel said yesterday.
Unfortunately, I don't think the Chimp is ready to make that act of contrition.
...
The people writing the lessons learned on the Iraq disaster are the very people who created it, and who have a vital stake in rewriting history before anybody figures out they're the ones responsible for one of history's most profound fiascos.
...
These are the geniouses who are now calling for more troops.
Hel-lo, McFly?
These are the same geniouses who called General Shinseki a traitor when he advised Congress of the need for 250,000 troops or more before the balloon went up. These are the same people who believed it would be over in six months. These are the same people who refused to learn the lessons of Gulf 1, when we needed a half-million boots to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, analogous to liberating Rhode Island. Iraq is 20 times the size of Kuwait with 10 times as many people, who don't like us, and serious sectarian divisions.
...
Insurgent forces, especially successful ones like the ones we face in Iraq, don't engage in decisive battles with superior, conventional military units. That's Asymmetric Warfare 101 stuff. It doesn't surprise me that Kristol doesn't know that, but why anybody still listens to Kristol or any of his cronies in the Big Brother Broadcast Network is a mystery mini-series to me.
...
You could put a half-million troops on the ground now but all they will be are targets for both sides. Those of you old enough to remember Vietnam will recognize the strategy all too well. We had 500,000 under arms in that toilet and look what it got us. That's where we should have learned our lessons.
It's time to get out and let the Iraqis sort out what works for them. Diplomatically, we should enlist Iran and Syria's aid to prevent a failed state existing between them, as Chuck Hagel said yesterday.
Unfortunately, I don't think the Chimp is ready to make that act of contrition.
Sunday, December 3, 2006
The last honest Republican
That would be Chuck Hagel:
And he calls Holy Joe on his stupid, Bush-sucking, warmongering, bullshit. Hagel's the only Rethug I have any respect for.
...
No, that's not the point. Of course the Iranians and Syrians are not going to come to our assistance. Of course not. But they are going to respond in their own self-interest. All nations respond in their own self-interests. Tallyrand once said that nations don't have friends. They have interests. He was right. Ahh, it's not in the interest of Syria or Jordan or Iran to have a failed state that would be a complete mess for the middle east.
Why did the Iranians help us in Afghanistan? Why did they cooperate with us in Afghanistan on intelligence matters and other issues? Because they didn't want a failed state next to them which comes with all the problems. They didn't want heroin moving into their borders. What we're not getting here, is we're not getting a full and comprehensive wide-lens appreciation of interests. And the other fact is that there will be no peace in the middle east which we haven't talked about
...
And he calls Holy Joe on his stupid, Bush-sucking, warmongering, bullshit. Hagel's the only Rethug I have any respect for.
Insurance
My good pal Scout Prime was on my ass about this first thing this morning (as well as a whole bunch of other bloggers I see ... heh ... she's a pit bull).
I showed this to Mrs. F, an executive in Japan's largest insurance company, and she agrees that other insurers will most likely follow suit. Any excuse to limit exposure. The insurance companies will all jump on this statement by the insurance commissioner:
The one to blame for this is your Commander-in-Chief and what he's done to FEMA and the entire emergency management infrastructure of the federal government. Don't expect anything to happen in NOLA until the Corps of Engineers rebuilds the levees to withstand Cat 4 and 5 storms. The insurers won't risk their bottom line to underwrite properties that can be washed away as easily as they were during Katrina. Let's hope something can be done before too much time passes and NOLA becomes nothing but a fond memory.
And just an observation. I give Mrs. F the willies when I can speak of combat, death, and destruction in a cool and detached manner. She does the same thing to me when she can talk about the value of a human life or property in purely clinical, actuarial, bottom line terms.
St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc., Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider, plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery.
While the St. Paul, Minn., company refused to say how many commercial policies will be affected or specify where the cuts will be in South Louisiana, two insurance brokers who were briefed by the company this week say Travelers will not renew any property insurance for businesses in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and eastern St. Tammany parishes. Cuts will also affect individual businesses in other parts of South Louisiana, including St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes.
...
I showed this to Mrs. F, an executive in Japan's largest insurance company, and she agrees that other insurers will most likely follow suit. Any excuse to limit exposure. The insurance companies will all jump on this statement by the insurance commissioner:
...
"They cited the state of the rebuilding of our levee system as the primary reason for their decision," [State Insurance Commissioner Jim] Donelon said.
...
The one to blame for this is your Commander-in-Chief and what he's done to FEMA and the entire emergency management infrastructure of the federal government. Don't expect anything to happen in NOLA until the Corps of Engineers rebuilds the levees to withstand Cat 4 and 5 storms. The insurers won't risk their bottom line to underwrite properties that can be washed away as easily as they were during Katrina. Let's hope something can be done before too much time passes and NOLA becomes nothing but a fond memory.
And just an observation. I give Mrs. F the willies when I can speak of combat, death, and destruction in a cool and detached manner. She does the same thing to me when she can talk about the value of a human life or property in purely clinical, actuarial, bottom line terms.
Heroes vs. Whores
A little from the lovely Eleanor Clift:
I still say Webb shoulda put the Coward-in-Chief on his ass. Goes to show, in both cases, the peanut doesn't fall far from the tree. Good article.
Update:
Jo Fish:
...Webb could have asked how the Bush girls are doing, partying their way across Argentina. He could have told Bush he was worried about his son; the vehicle next to him was blown up recently, killing three Marines. Given the contrast between their respective offspring, Webb showed restraint.
...
I still say Webb shoulda put the Coward-in-Chief on his ass. Goes to show, in both cases, the peanut doesn't fall far from the tree. Good article.
Update:
Jo Fish:
...
It would be nice if the one George was more careful and intellectually honest than the other, but apparently that's not to be. Interesting how we get two fools named George in one city and both are so full of themselves that they can never be wrong, isn't it?
...
Housekeeping
As you'll notice, thanks to FeedBurner, you can now get the Brain on any newsreader or even your cellphone or Blackberry (or via email, just fill out the form). Just see the 'Feeds' section in the left sidebar and click on the service you use.
Quote of the Day
Driftglass:
...
To be sure, on November 7th, the Right certainly got their collective noses bloodied and asses sawed off and served to them on the good china.
This happened when a majority of the voting public finally showed its contempt for a clique that had literally done nothing with its One Party Rule but endlessly hector everyone else on morality, while happily giving aid, shelter and comfort to a menagerie of Pious, Jebus-luvin' liars, traitors, briber takers, bribe makers, war profiteers, war criminals, looters, child sex predators and, just for goofs, gay-hooker-frequenting, meth smoking preachers ... so long as they puked up the correct slogans or voted the right way.
...
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Saturday Night Out West
I was goin' through some old (!) photos and found one of me'n Mrs. G out on the town.
Wildwood Weed
This is an old country song by Jim Stafford:
The name of this song is 'The Wildwood Flower'
Now 'The Wildwood Flower' is an old country classic
It gained a whole new popularity
The song isn't any more popular
But the flower is doin' real good
The wildwood flower grew wild on the farm
And we never knowed what it was called
Some said it was a flower and some said it was weed
I didn't gave it much thought...
One day I was out there talking to my brother
Reached down for a weed to chew on
Things got fuzzy and things got blurry
And then everything was gone
I Didn't know what happened
But I knew it beat the hell out of sniffin' burlap
I come to and my brother was there
And he said, 'What's wrong with your eyes?'
I said, 'I don't know, I was chewing on a weed'
He said, 'Let me give it a try'
We spent the rest of that day and most of that night
Trying to find my brother, Bill
Caught up with him 'bout six o'clock the next mornin'
Naked, swinging on the windmill
He said he flew up there
I had to fly up and get him down
He was about half crazy
The very next day we picked a bunch of them weeds
And put 'em in the sun to dry
Then we mashed 'em up and we cleaned 'em all
And put 'em in the corncob pipe
Smokin' them wildwood flowers got to be a habit
We didn't see no harm
We thought it was kind of handy
Take a trip and never leave the farm
A big ol' puff on the wildwood weed
Next thing you know
We's just wandering behind the little animals
All good things gotta come to an end
And it's the same with the wildwood weed
One day this feller from Washington come by
And he spied us and he turned white as a sheet
And he dug and he burned
And he burned and he dug
And he killed all our cute little weeds
Then he drove away
We just smiled and waved
Sittin' there on that sack of seeds
Y'all come back now, ya hear
The name of this song is 'The Wildwood Flower'
Now 'The Wildwood Flower' is an old country classic
It gained a whole new popularity
The song isn't any more popular
But the flower is doin' real good
The wildwood flower grew wild on the farm
And we never knowed what it was called
Some said it was a flower and some said it was weed
I didn't gave it much thought...
One day I was out there talking to my brother
Reached down for a weed to chew on
Things got fuzzy and things got blurry
And then everything was gone
I Didn't know what happened
But I knew it beat the hell out of sniffin' burlap
I come to and my brother was there
And he said, 'What's wrong with your eyes?'
I said, 'I don't know, I was chewing on a weed'
He said, 'Let me give it a try'
We spent the rest of that day and most of that night
Trying to find my brother, Bill
Caught up with him 'bout six o'clock the next mornin'
Naked, swinging on the windmill
He said he flew up there
I had to fly up and get him down
He was about half crazy
The very next day we picked a bunch of them weeds
And put 'em in the sun to dry
Then we mashed 'em up and we cleaned 'em all
And put 'em in the corncob pipe
Smokin' them wildwood flowers got to be a habit
We didn't see no harm
We thought it was kind of handy
Take a trip and never leave the farm
A big ol' puff on the wildwood weed
Next thing you know
We's just wandering behind the little animals
All good things gotta come to an end
And it's the same with the wildwood weed
One day this feller from Washington come by
And he spied us and he turned white as a sheet
And he dug and he burned
And he burned and he dug
And he killed all our cute little weeds
Then he drove away
We just smiled and waved
Sittin' there on that sack of seeds
Y'all come back now, ya hear
Best Christmas Lights Ever
I found this at Maru's:
Excellent creativity but if this guy lived across the street from me, I'd burn the place down after the second night.
Excellent creativity but if this guy lived across the street from me, I'd burn the place down after the second night.
Bah Freaking Humbug
I've decided I hate the holidays.
When my kids were little,I enjoyed this time of year. Putting up the tree,buying presents and hiding them,those middle of the night gift wrapping sessions,even cooking the big ass dinner.
Nowadays,not so much.
I'm not the "typical" female as in I HATE shopping(the only exception to this is the bookstore,my only shopping weakness). This time of year is THE worst time to do it. People are mean,in a hurry,and there's always at least one spoiled brat(an adult one)who has to be an asshole because his/her gift choice isn't there. The parking lots are crowded,and full of people who don't give a fuck if they run you over. The stores are a trainwreck by 10 AM,with shit strewn everywhere. And why is it a store will have 50 damned cash registers but never more than 10 open?
Maybe it's all those years I spent working retail,maybe I'm getting cranky in my old age,or maybe I'm sick of working my ass off making the Holidays nice and pretty for everyone else. Maybe it's that my birth family has nothing more to do with me or my kids,and my inlaws don't travel for Christmas so it's just me,the kiddo and the hubby here on Dec 25th. Maybe it's a combo of all the above. But whatever it is,I just can't get all worked up about Christmas anymore.
Personally,I'd rather get gifts for no special reason at all,rather than get them because someone deemed the day a must give situation. And no jewelry,I never wear it,and if I do,I end up losing it. I'm not a blingy type of gal,never have been. Hell,my wedding ring is a tattoo for gods sake,so is the Hubby's.
Next year,I want a vacation for Christmas(or from Christmas). Go somewhere that has snow and a roaring fireplace where the meals are served to me for a change. Someplace I can ride a horse and hear hooves crunching in the snow. Where there's mountains and clean air. Where I can lie in the snow and make snow angels or get into a snowball fight. Short of that,I'd settle for Peace on Earth,Goodwill and all that stuff (hahahahaha,like that's gonna happen).
Sure,I'll buy all the kids in my life gifts,that's really who the season is for anyhoo. But really,I could do without all the rest of it and not miss it in the least.
And you just try keeping two rambunctious cats out of a Christmas tree,go ahead. Last year we had no tree,they literally had it tipped over 10 minutes after I got it wrestled into the tree stand. I ended up dragging it out on the back porch and decorating it with stuff the birds and squirrels would eat. I decorated my son's room instead,with a little fake tree and all the lights I could find.
And guys,much as I love ya all,it's a well known fact that without the women in many of your families,Christmas wouldn't happen. You would not believe the amount of pressure there is in some families to have a Martha Stewart style holiday. You also wouldn't believe how fucking neurotic that makes some women. I know,I used to be one of them. It's incredibly liberating once you get over yourself in this regard. And for some incredible reason,it's also alot cheaper. I know some people who don't get the previous Christmas paid off before the current year's holidays come 'round again. Fuck that.
Oh,and if you spend more than a dollar or two on a roll of wrapping paper,you're an idiot. And bows? Who needs 'em? Why in the hell would you spend money on something that gets ripped up and thrown in the trash in 5 seconds? That's why God gave us Dollar Stores. And gift bags. My grandma,god love her,used to carefully unwrap gifts and try to save the paper and bows. But she never re-used the damned stuff,so I have no idea why she even bothered.
Yes,I know,I'm such a buzz kill. But I quit. Why should I spend 6 hours cooking for a meal that lasts 20 minutes and then takes another hour to clean up after? And decorating,just so I can spend a few more hours taking it all down after a week or two and store it for another year?
This year,the meal is being cooked by the Honeybaked Ham store. The gifts will be shipped to me via online stores. The only thing I'll have to do is wrap and ship to family far away. And no more stupid card sending either.
A very merry UN-Christmas to all,and to all a.....oh hell,I don't know.
When my kids were little,I enjoyed this time of year. Putting up the tree,buying presents and hiding them,those middle of the night gift wrapping sessions,even cooking the big ass dinner.
Nowadays,not so much.
I'm not the "typical" female as in I HATE shopping(the only exception to this is the bookstore,my only shopping weakness). This time of year is THE worst time to do it. People are mean,in a hurry,and there's always at least one spoiled brat(an adult one)who has to be an asshole because his/her gift choice isn't there. The parking lots are crowded,and full of people who don't give a fuck if they run you over. The stores are a trainwreck by 10 AM,with shit strewn everywhere. And why is it a store will have 50 damned cash registers but never more than 10 open?
Maybe it's all those years I spent working retail,maybe I'm getting cranky in my old age,or maybe I'm sick of working my ass off making the Holidays nice and pretty for everyone else. Maybe it's that my birth family has nothing more to do with me or my kids,and my inlaws don't travel for Christmas so it's just me,the kiddo and the hubby here on Dec 25th. Maybe it's a combo of all the above. But whatever it is,I just can't get all worked up about Christmas anymore.
Personally,I'd rather get gifts for no special reason at all,rather than get them because someone deemed the day a must give situation. And no jewelry,I never wear it,and if I do,I end up losing it. I'm not a blingy type of gal,never have been. Hell,my wedding ring is a tattoo for gods sake,so is the Hubby's.
Next year,I want a vacation for Christmas(or from Christmas). Go somewhere that has snow and a roaring fireplace where the meals are served to me for a change. Someplace I can ride a horse and hear hooves crunching in the snow. Where there's mountains and clean air. Where I can lie in the snow and make snow angels or get into a snowball fight. Short of that,I'd settle for Peace on Earth,Goodwill and all that stuff (hahahahaha,like that's gonna happen).
Sure,I'll buy all the kids in my life gifts,that's really who the season is for anyhoo. But really,I could do without all the rest of it and not miss it in the least.
And you just try keeping two rambunctious cats out of a Christmas tree,go ahead. Last year we had no tree,they literally had it tipped over 10 minutes after I got it wrestled into the tree stand. I ended up dragging it out on the back porch and decorating it with stuff the birds and squirrels would eat. I decorated my son's room instead,with a little fake tree and all the lights I could find.
And guys,much as I love ya all,it's a well known fact that without the women in many of your families,Christmas wouldn't happen. You would not believe the amount of pressure there is in some families to have a Martha Stewart style holiday. You also wouldn't believe how fucking neurotic that makes some women. I know,I used to be one of them. It's incredibly liberating once you get over yourself in this regard. And for some incredible reason,it's also alot cheaper. I know some people who don't get the previous Christmas paid off before the current year's holidays come 'round again. Fuck that.
Oh,and if you spend more than a dollar or two on a roll of wrapping paper,you're an idiot. And bows? Who needs 'em? Why in the hell would you spend money on something that gets ripped up and thrown in the trash in 5 seconds? That's why God gave us Dollar Stores. And gift bags. My grandma,god love her,used to carefully unwrap gifts and try to save the paper and bows. But she never re-used the damned stuff,so I have no idea why she even bothered.
Yes,I know,I'm such a buzz kill. But I quit. Why should I spend 6 hours cooking for a meal that lasts 20 minutes and then takes another hour to clean up after? And decorating,just so I can spend a few more hours taking it all down after a week or two and store it for another year?
This year,the meal is being cooked by the Honeybaked Ham store. The gifts will be shipped to me via online stores. The only thing I'll have to do is wrap and ship to family far away. And no more stupid card sending either.
A very merry UN-Christmas to all,and to all a.....oh hell,I don't know.
Quote of the Day
Pudentilla, good to hear that name again, blogging at Skippy's about George Will's whiny diatribe in the WaPo:
...
And then, in a somewhat embarrassed tone, the advertiser will gently explain to the crack WaPo publishing team, that the comments prove that the overwhelming majority of WaPo readers think that its highest social utility ranks somewhere between birdcage liner and fishwrap. So could they please lower the rates?
Am I the only one ...
Who's had enough of Rachael Ray? We just came back from the grocery store and her face is plastered on everything. I see her on TV, on billboards, and on the side of city buses. Enough already.
Cough ... cough ... cough ... revisited
Riffing on the thread from Gord's post last night, I think Froggy hits the nail on the head, partly, in comments, quoting Chris Rock:
We all know the death grip Big Pharma has on the FDA, thanks to its huge campaign donations. No one can make money, except the marijuana paraphenalia makers, on something anybody can grow in their backyard. But it has more to it than that. It's the denial of pleasure, thanks to the continuing influence of the Jesus freaks. Jeff, no the other one, lives it every day (we in NY haven't had Blue Laws in 30 years) and fills in the other half of the equation:
Heaven forbid the public is too happy. It's like sex. The Jesus freaks in the government came up with this stupid shit* recently:
Why? Because people having fun don't have time for church? They don't have the time to sit around for an hour and listen how some guy upstairs is keeping score of their transgressions according to some fable in a dusty old book? You know, I've noticed the highest rates of 'out-of-wedlock' births come in states where Jesus freakery is widespread. Gee, so are the rates of divorce. Wow, will ya look at that, so are the rates for domestic violence and teen pregnancy.
Man, it makes me wonder how we in decadent NYC even suvived so long; how our great city hasn't been struck down like another Sodom and Gamorrah. I mean, with all the drag queens and transtesticles running around, mixed marriages, and all them different color people, God must be pissed. Come on, people. This is the 21st Century, for crying out loud. Our President is fucking up the world and we worry about sex, reefer, and religious bullshit that hasn't been relevant in 2000 years.
Hel-lo, McFly?
God put cannabis and erogenous zones on Earth for one reason, for us to use them. If he didn't want us to derive pleasure from sex, only wanted us to procreate, he would have given us the means to fuck ourselves (I'd never leave the house ... heh). If he didn't want us to use the plants he gave us, they'd be poisonous. Jesus H. Christ, he is God, you idiots. I need a dube just thinking about this lunacy.
...
Chris Rock made the point that the government doesn't like pot because they only want you to use THEIR drugs. Vioxx was fine to give to people; reefer is bad. Go figure.
We all know the death grip Big Pharma has on the FDA, thanks to its huge campaign donations. No one can make money, except the marijuana paraphenalia makers, on something anybody can grow in their backyard. But it has more to it than that. It's the denial of pleasure, thanks to the continuing influence of the Jesus freaks. Jeff, no the other one, lives it every day (we in NY haven't had Blue Laws in 30 years) and fills in the other half of the equation:
...
It really is about power and control: the power to deny pleasure.
...
Heaven forbid the public is too happy. It's like sex. The Jesus freaks in the government came up with this stupid shit* recently:
...
It is the only viable explanation. It is the only way to account for something like, say, the latest twist in the Abstinence Education Program from Bush's increasingly laughable Department of Health and Human Services, a $50 million slice of embarrassing government detritus that is now actually encouraging all states to tell their single, youngish residents that they should -- how to put this so you don't shoot coffee through your nose? -- that everyone should avoid sex entirely, until they turn 30.
...
Why? Because people having fun don't have time for church? They don't have the time to sit around for an hour and listen how some guy upstairs is keeping score of their transgressions according to some fable in a dusty old book? You know, I've noticed the highest rates of 'out-of-wedlock' births come in states where Jesus freakery is widespread. Gee, so are the rates of divorce. Wow, will ya look at that, so are the rates for domestic violence and teen pregnancy.
Man, it makes me wonder how we in decadent NYC even suvived so long; how our great city hasn't been struck down like another Sodom and Gamorrah. I mean, with all the drag queens and transtesticles running around, mixed marriages, and all them different color people, God must be pissed. Come on, people. This is the 21st Century, for crying out loud. Our President is fucking up the world and we worry about sex, reefer, and religious bullshit that hasn't been relevant in 2000 years.
Hel-lo, McFly?
God put cannabis and erogenous zones on Earth for one reason, for us to use them. If he didn't want us to derive pleasure from sex, only wanted us to procreate, he would have given us the means to fuck ourselves (I'd never leave the house ... heh). If he didn't want us to use the plants he gave us, they'd be poisonous. Jesus H. Christ, he is God, you idiots. I need a dube just thinking about this lunacy.
*Big tip o' the Brain to C & L for the link.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Quote of the Day
Creature:
Our vice president has been summoned by a dictator, our president has been stood up by a puppet leader, and now the bipartisan panel charged with finding domestic political cover for a situation out of our control has reached a toothless compromise as they jerk each other off, pat themselves on the back, and enjoy their Oprah moment.
...
The trouble with pot
Andrew Sullivan (!)
Ain't that the truth.
A reader hits the nail on the head:
The difficulty with marijuana is that it produces a side effect that our government cannot tolerate. This side effect is so severe that any drug that produces it must be severely restricted or banned outright. And it is an insidious side effect. It is so insidious that it is nearly impossible to detect through measurments of body chemistry, metabolic function, critical organ functions, or tissue damage. You simply cannot find any harm caused by this side effect, but it's there.
The side effect, of course, is pleasure. Our government will never allow it.
This is the nub of the issue, I think. Sometimes, you hear attempts at justifying the ban on pot that point to marinol, a THC-based drug that allegedly helps nausea. They're for that, if necessary. And they much prefer it to marijuana, even though smoked or vaporized THC is much more effective. Why? Because marinol doesn't provide pleasure. And pleasure, even harmless pleasure, is evil and must be prevented. Once you allow people to enjoy life, there's no end to the dangers. Unless, of course, pleasure is backed up by vast industries rendering hefty taxes, like tobacco and alcohol. Then it's fine.
For my part, I find the attempt to ban any naturally growing plant to be an attack on reality, and a denial of some of the most basic freedoms. I guess that's why today's GOP is so in favor of it.
Ain't that the truth.
Economic Storm Signals
Paul Krugman on the bond market as a predictor of the economy.
That's like saying a tortilla is about as flat as it's going to get.
Here lies technical shit, yada, yada, yawn.
Shorter last paragraph: the economy is toast.
Before I explain what the bond market is telling us, let's talk about why the economy may be at a turning point.
Between mid-2003 and mid-2006, economic growth in the United States was fueled mainly by a huge housing boom, which created jobs directly and made it easy for consumers to spend freely by borrowing against their rising home equity.
That housing boom has now gone bust. But the optimists and pessimists disagree both about how bad the bust will get and about how much damage the housing slump will do to the economy as a whole.
The optimists include Alan Greenspan, whom some accuse of letting the housing bubble get out of hand in the first place. On Tuesday, he told investors at a conference that the worst of the housing slump is over, saying that "it looks as though sales figures have stabilized."
That's like saying a tortilla is about as flat as it's going to get.
Maybe the best answer is to look at what the financial markets say. Not the stock market, which is a notoriously bad indicator of the economy's direction, but the bond market. (Paul Samuelson, the Nobel Prize-winning M.I.T. economist, famously quipped that the stock market had predicted nine of the last five recessions).
Here lies technical shit, yada, yada, yawn.
How serious a slump is the bond market predicting? Pretty serious. Right now, statistical models based on the historical correlation between interest rates and recessions give roughly even odds that we're about to experience a formal recession. And since even a slowdown that doesn't formally qualify as a recession can lead to a sharp rise in unemployment, the odds are very good - maybe 2 to 1 - that 2007 will be a very tough year.
Luckily, we've got good leadership for the coming economic storm: the White House is occupied by a man who's ideologically flexible, listens to a wide variety of views, and understands that policy has to be based on careful analysis, not gut instincts. Oh, wait.
Shorter last paragraph: the economy is toast.
Now this is serious!
Illegal and unnecessary war? Imperialistic occupation of a foreign country? The Constitution highjacked by fascists? The economy circling the drain? Monkey feces on the White House wall? Serious? Sure, but they pale in comparison to a heinous fraud perpetrated on the American public as noted in the LATimes:
FAKE GUACAMOLE??? Oh, the horror! Get a rope!
To protect yourself from the forces of evil, I recommend you make your own guac, which takes about ten minutes, or read the label (there are brands which actually use avocados in their product), which also takes ten minutes.
Peanut butter is made from peanuts, tomato paste is made from tomatoes, and guacamole is made from avocados, right?
Wrong. The guacamole sold by Kraft Foods Inc., one of the bestselling avocado dips in the nation, includes modified food starch, hefty amounts of coconut and soybean oils, and a dose of food coloring. The dip contains precious little avocado, but many customers mistake it for wholly guacamole.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles woman sued the Northfield, Ill.-based food company, alleging that it committed fraud by calling its dip "guacamole." Her lawyer says suits against other purveyors of "fake guacamole" could be filed soon.
FAKE GUACAMOLE??? Oh, the horror! Get a rope!
To protect yourself from the forces of evil, I recommend you make your own guac, which takes about ten minutes, or read the label (there are brands which actually use avocados in their product), which also takes ten minutes.
A Predisposition to Invade
Part Three of Elizabeth de la Vega's hypothetical Grand Jury investigation into how Bush et al defrauded the U.S. into war continues at TomDispatch.
Fictionalized testimony follows. Then, like any dope dealer with something good to sell, and entirely within the spirit of "the first one's free":
Assistant U.S. Attorney: Good morning everyone. We're back here in the case of United States v. George W. Bush et al. Let's start by looking at Exhibit 1 in your packets. It's a chart that lists the main points we're going to cover in the grand jury.
Ex. 1
Evolution of the Fraud
* Bush, Cheney, et al. were predisposed to invade Iraq even before they were elected.
* They secretly began to plan the invasion immediately after September 11. Bush requested an Iraq war plan in November 2001 and began escalating military activity.
* They enlisted biased political appointees to find evidence to justify a war beginning in October 2001.
* They began, without a reasonable basis, to imply that Iraq was linked to the September 11 attacks and posed an urgent threat in the fall of 2001.
* They began a massive fraud campaign in September 2002 to overcome weak public support for an invasion and manipulate Congress into passing an authorization allowing the President to use force against Iraq.
* They invaded Iraq in March 2003, knowing that their stated grounds for war were false, fraudulent, and without reasonable basis.
Today, we'll talk about the administration's predisposition to invade Iraq.
Now, why is that relevant? Remember I told you that many fraud conspiracies begin as legitimate enterprises? They evolve into criminal activity when people begin to deceive others in response to problems or obstacles to achieving their goals. So, in any fraud case we need to know what the defendants' original objectives were.
Fictionalized testimony follows. Then, like any dope dealer with something good to sell, and entirely within the spirit of "the first one's free":
[Note: For Part 1 of Elizabeth de la Vega, "A Fraud Worse than Enron" click here; for Part 2, "The Indictment," click here. For the final five days of grand jury testimony, be sure to pick up a copy of United States v. George W. Bush.]
I don't care what anybody says ...
We ain't leaving. My fine-feathered friend Mimus:
Ain't nobody on the 'R' side of this equation making plans to leave Iraq.
"But F-man," you say, "this is to prosecute the entire 'War on Terra'."
What has that 'global struggle' become, I ask you?
Most of the military's assets are focused on the Iraqi occupation, only token units are fighting al-Qaeda in other parts of the world - 15,000 in Afghanistan (we see how that's going), another 1800 in Africa (though it's generally believed Somalia, remember them, will be the next Afghanistan), and a few other, even smaller, units. The occupation of Iraq eats up the lion's share of any appropriations for the 'War on Terra' and don't let anybody tell you differently.
No one is making any plans to leave Iraq, nor are they in any big hurry to combat al-Qaeda, the abidication of al-Anbar province being enough evidence of that.
For al-Qaeda is nothing to the White House if it isn't, first and foremost, a prop to increase the fear factor in this country, as we've all seen in the past several elections. As I've said many times, neither Osama nor Bush can live without the other.
The only way we can credibly fight the War on Terror is to pull our troops out of Iraq, let those poor people put their nation back together however they can, and focus our attention on the people who really intend to do us harm.
...
Which begs the question of what the definition of the global war on terror actually is. If the military brass is asking for that much money on top of the half a trillion already granted by Congress, it must be pretty damn broad. And to further enliven things, this story appears right as a report that the Iraq Study Group plans to call for a major withdrawl of American troops from Iraq appears -- even though this is highly unlikely as long as Bush is president. The inflated figure could also be interpreted as evidence that an invasion of Iran is inevitable, no matter how foolhardy it would be.
...
Ain't nobody on the 'R' side of this equation making plans to leave Iraq.
"But F-man," you say, "this is to prosecute the entire 'War on Terra'."
What has that 'global struggle' become, I ask you?
Most of the military's assets are focused on the Iraqi occupation, only token units are fighting al-Qaeda in other parts of the world - 15,000 in Afghanistan (we see how that's going), another 1800 in Africa (though it's generally believed Somalia, remember them, will be the next Afghanistan), and a few other, even smaller, units. The occupation of Iraq eats up the lion's share of any appropriations for the 'War on Terra' and don't let anybody tell you differently.
No one is making any plans to leave Iraq, nor are they in any big hurry to combat al-Qaeda, the abidication of al-Anbar province being enough evidence of that.
...
But here's an even funnier thing. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Peter Pace, who also says al-Qaeda is the main culprit in Iraq, is pulling troops out of the al-Anbar province, al-Qaeda in Iraq's base of operations, and putting them in Baghdad, smack in the middle of the civil war between Shiites and Muslims that both Bush and Pace deny is occurring. A recent Marine Corps intelligence assessment said that the battle for al-Anbar is unwinnable without a major infusion of more troops in the region. You'd think that Pace, a Marine himself, might pay heed to that report, and might suggest that rather than take troops out of Anbar to reinforce Baghdad, we should take troops out of Baghdad to reinforce Anbar.
...
For al-Qaeda is nothing to the White House if it isn't, first and foremost, a prop to increase the fear factor in this country, as we've all seen in the past several elections. As I've said many times, neither Osama nor Bush can live without the other.
The only way we can credibly fight the War on Terror is to pull our troops out of Iraq, let those poor people put their nation back together however they can, and focus our attention on the people who really intend to do us harm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)