Roberts grows a ball?

Or is he tired of being the WH Spooge Bucket?

It looks like Pat Roberts, of all people, has pulled a fast one on the White House, and hung Mike DeWine out to dry at the same time. We were all gloomily berating the Senate GOP leadership yesterday for caving in to Dick Cheney and nixing a full congressional inquiry into the NSA spying programs after Shooter had pressured Roberts and others to kill any attempt to establish any congressional and judicial oversight of the administration's illegal domestic spying activities. It appeared that Roberts was on the verge of supporting a whitewash proposal by DeWine that would have killed off Arlen Specter's demands for FISA court review of the program.

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The "new" healthcare reform

Ben has a great look (simple enough for people like me who count on fingers and toes to understand) at the Chimp's Health 'Savings' Accounts:

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Allow Rory to raise a couple of points: "Low-cost" for whom? The insurance companies of course. This Health Savings Account (HSA) shit is high-deductible coverage. Some deductibles may be as high as $10,000, according to the AFL-CIO. The "consumer" also know[n] as "the fuckee" by the joint Insurance Industry/bushcheneygovernment/fascist/rapethepeople task force (IIBFRTF) pays the deductible out of his so-called health savings account. And it ain't free. The fuckee still gets to pay a premium.

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Sorry for the light posting today but the Mrs. got in late last night and we got a buncha shit to do.

Dick him if he can't take a joke...

Dick jokes at AlterNet.

"But all kidding aside, and in fairness to Dick Cheney, every five years he has to shed innocent blood or he violates his deal with the devil." --Jimmy Kimmel

"If this story gets any bigger, pretty soon they're going to have to tell the president." --David Letterman

Oh, ever so many more! So sue me...

Simple is as Simple Does

Will Durst talks about Bush and warrantless wiretapping.

Your calls are important to us. For quality control and training purposes, the rest of your life will be monitored.

He's starting to make less sense than a polar bear sipping a sloe gin fizz on an escalator. Said he didn't want any interval standing in the way of fighting terrorism. Hello! George! Tutor time! Go ask Condoleezza; she went to school and actually studied. Have her tell you about the whole space-time continuum deal. How what happens afterwards doesn't affect the speed of what went on before. In other words, killing a chicken does not alter how many eggs it has laid in its lifetime. Might put a slight crimp in the number to be laid in the future, but the past tense is finite. Hell, you said it yourself. "The past is over." Its a reality thing. They may not have lived in the real world at Yale, but I'm pretty sure they talked about it.

And stop with the silly charge that the person who told the press about the program is the real bad guy. That they brought the plan to the attention of Al Qaida. Any terrorist who doesn't know that talking on an open, unencrypted line is on a fast track to 72 perfumed virgins and probably not trusted by the big turbans to do anything more important than run out to get the scorched coffee and day-old baklava. Kind of what you'd be doing if your dad hadn't make his bones with Reagan. Besides, we're never going to understand the mind of Al Qaida. These guys spell their name with a "Q," it's not followed by a "U." They play by rules we don't even understand.

I love that guy.

Getting His War On

In the left sidebar of the Brain is a rude-but-right-on comment by David Rees of mnftiu, creator of the strip "Get Your War On". L.A. City Beat has the first story I've seen about him.

Laughing at real-life horror like cluster-bombing Afghani children or floating bodies in New Orleans is bound to offend, and Get Your War On spares no one. The strip excoriates the Bush administration, the military, religious extremists of all stripes - it has the audacity to laugh at death itself - and exposes the apathy, fatigue, and bafflement experienced by almost every American. It has also become immensely popular, appearing exclusively in every issue of Rolling Stone and getting 25 million hits a year online.

If you're interested, go read. Readin' makes ya smart.

Don't count yer chickens...

I just watched the women's Olympic Snowboard Cross (see yesterday's post). All four gals were about as good as they get. Our U.S. rider, Lindsey Jacobelli, who is the current World Champion, got a good start, took the lead by the first turn, and put an incredible lead on the field of about three seconds (140 feet).

She had the race won a in walk when she did an incredible thing: she threw the race away. She was making the last jump and, being of 20 tender years of age and every bit as mature as that implies, took leave of her senses and did a show-off mid-air trick and crashed upon landing. To put this in some perspective, it's like having a straightaway-length lead at the Daytona 500 (which is this coming Sunday, by the way) and doing a burn-out donut between turn 4 and the finish line on the last lap and hitting the wall.

The Swiss rider, Tanja Frieden, who must have realized she had just been handed the Gold Medal, went on for the win. Miss Jacobelli got up and finished second for the Silver. If the other two riders hadn't had problems of their own and were way behind, she might not have.

Bob Costas interviewed Miss Jacobelli. I told Mrs. G the question he should ask her and, by gum, he did it - "What were you thinking?"

To her credit, the young lady fessed up and admitted getting all excited and screwing up.

That's more mature and honest than most of the people we post about here, and I congratulate her for her Silver Medal and being a good sport, which is, after all, one mark of a true champion.

She's young and has plenty of time to set the world on fire, but it must be agonizing for her to know that she beat herself out of a Gold Medal at the first-ever Olympic Snowboard Cross. Don't ask me how I know this, but nothing can deflate your ego like getting caught doing something stupid, moreso I'm sure when the whole world is watching! She'll be the better for it. I bet she never does that again.

Start swimming

Greenland's glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly Earth's oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday.

The new data come from satellite imagery and give fresh urgency to worries about the role of human activity in global warming. The Greenland data are mirrored by findings from Bolivia to the Himalayas, scientists said, noting that rising sea levels threaten widespread flooding and severe storm damage in low-lying areas worldwide.

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So, are we gonna wait until we're hip-deep in water before we do something about global warming? I'm praying the Chimp's environmental policies don't poison the planet completely or destroy the weather systems before some folks with sense can stop it. We have to retake Congress this fall.

And by the way, Blogger sucks my big white ass today.

Gals with Balls...

Austin Chronicle

Driving 19th Street in Lubbock alongside the sprawling edifices of Texas Tech, the little tin-can car in front of me sported quite a bumper sticker: SORRY WE MISSED CHURCH, WE WERE BUSY/LEARNING WITCHCRAFT AND BECOMING LESBIANS.

That bumper sticker won't cost you in Los Angeles or Austin, but it takes rare nerve to paste those words on your tail in the Bible Belt. (Lubbock has, I am told, more churches per capita than any city anywhere.) The tin can had Texas plates, and any Texan knows that sticker won't be taken lightly around here. I had to see who was driving that car. I pulled up alongside. The driver and her passenger were women of about 18, maybe 20. They wore tractor hats or maybe baseball caps, with brims pulled backwards, and they were laughing. They didn't notice me salute them, and they couldn't know that I was thinking, Next to these kids, I'm a wuss.

I write under the ever-flimsier protection of the First Amendment. They drive around a famously right-wing town daring anyone to say them nay.

It is the signature of our era that we live in a world so unstable that its limits may be tested merely by a bumper sticker - or, as in Europe and Islam right now, by a cartoon.

This a Hell of an op-ed on what our country and our world has - and will yet - become. Highly recommended reading.

Hit Refresh?

Normally, I don't much care for the WSJ Op-Ed page or this broad, but this one is kind of interesting, so I'll just hold my nose and do it.

The Dick Cheney shooting incident will, in a way, go away. And, in a way, not--ever. Some things stick. Gerry Ford had physically stumbled only once or twice in public when he became, officially, The Stumbler. Mr. Ford's stumbles seemed to underscore a certain lack of sure-footedness in his early policies and other decisions. The same with Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit. At the time Mr. Carter told the story of a wild rabbit attacking his boat he had already come to be seen by half the country as weak and unlucky. Even bunnies took him on.

Same with Dick Cheney. He's been painted as the dark force of the administration, and now there's a mental picture to go with the reputation. Pull! Sorry, Harry! Pull!

George Bush, and so the men and women around him, will want the next Republican presidential nominee to continue the U.S. effort in, and commitment to, Iraq. To be a candidate who will continue his policy, and not pull the plug, and burrow through.

This person will not be Dick Cheney, who has already said he doesn't plan to run. So Mr. Bush may feel in time that he has reason to want to put in a new vice president in order to pick a successor who'll presumably have an edge in the primaries--he's the sitting vice president, and Republicans still respect primogeniture. They will tend to make the common-sense assumption that a guy who's been vice president for, say, a year and a half, is a guy who already knows the top job. Anyway, the new guy will get a honeymoon, which means he won't be fully hated by the time the 2008 primaries begin.

This new vice president would, however, have to be very popular in the party, or the party wouldn't buy it. Replacing Mr. Cheney would be chancy. The new veep would have to get through the Senate, which has at this point at least three likely contenders for the nomination, at least two of whom who would not, presumably, be amused.

Plus there's more quiet anti-administration feeling in the party than is generally acknowledged, and the president's men know it. A lot of people would find such a move too cute by half. The contenders already in line--and their supporters, donors, fans, staff and friends in the press--would resent it. Big time.

Of course, all this is exactly like the sort of thing people blue-skied about in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was in trouble and a lot of people urged him to hit refresh by dumping Dan Quayle. He didn't. George W. Bush loves to do what his father didn't.

Who would it be? Someone who's a strong supporter of Iraq, and, presumably, the Bush doctrine.

Who would that be? That's what I suspect the president's men are asking themselves. But silently.

Out loud would be better, but I'll take 'silent'. As long as they throw the Dark Lord overboard. Go read the rest.

My new favorite winter sport

No, not throttlin' up my snowthrower on a big powder day. Not any more.

We've been watching the Winter Olympic Games every night. We watch at least a little of each event, yes, even Curling. In a masterpiece of timing, they show that at bedtime. I go right to sleep watching that. Better than counting sheep, as that just gets me aroused...

But I digress. Last night was the first-ever Olympic Snowboard Cross. I hadn't seen this before, but now I'm a fan.

Most events are individuals or teams racing the clock one at a time. Snowboard Cross is four competitors racing each other down a 900-yard course with turns, jumps, and beatin' an' bangin'. Sorta like a quiet, dust-free Motocross. It's exciting to watch. The only way they could make it better is if they could figure out a way to get those things to go uphill so they could do ten laps! I'm hooked.

From Slate:

Shortly after the snowboard cross heats began, two different friends got in touch with me, unprovoked, just to say how much they were grooving on this new event. Indeed, it rocks. Close quarters bumping and maneuvering, crazy turns and jumps, and a new heat starting every two minutes or so. It's like roller derby on snow. This is a winter sport I can get stoked about - while luge, bobsleigh, and alpine skiing all suddenly feel outdated and lusterless. No doubt, snowboard cross is the breakout hit of Torino.

My only suggestion is that they should permit not just "incidental" contact, but also "violent, mean-spirited" contact. Also, weapons. Some of the boarders should be issued bicycle chains, while others get two-by-fours with nails sticking out. One guy should get a bazooka. Basically, I want it to look as much as possible like SSX Tricky - one of my all-time favorite video games.

The LATimes has a more newsworthy report on the event including a real good Photo Gallery.

Prior to Snowboard Cross, my all-time favorite, if fictional, event was the "Chinese Downhill" in Hot Dog: The Movie, sort of Porky's in the snow, which was filmed here and used a lot of my friends as extras. Some of 'em even paid me what they owed me for motorcycle repairs!

The women's Snowboard Cross is tonight. Check it out.

Friday Cattle Dog Blogging

Princess Shayna says George Bush is an environmental disaster in progress and worries for the green spaces where all her little furry friends live. "Somebody should pee on his leg," she was heard to say.

Truth

Kreetcha [/NY accent] with a great cartoon.

Suck boy

Can Pat Roberts be any more of one?

Debts

Or, 224 to 4. I'm a fiscal conservative. That's why I became a Democrat.

Update:

And speaking of fiscal conservatism, enough is enough.

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This is fourth time in three years that the Bush administration has asked for additional funds, and this time it is even higher than expected.

The $65 billion requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is $2 billion higher than expected.

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Time to pull a Grover Dicktwist and 'starve the beast'. Maybe a Dem Congress (even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a while) might be able to pull it off.

Gay Caballero & Cultural Progress Dept.

From Eclecticism comes the lyrics to Willie Nelson's new (well, recently released, anyway. It's been in the closet for 20 years.) song "Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other":

There's many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas;
There's many a young boy who feels things he can't comprehend.
Well a small town don't like it when somebody falls between sexes,
No, small town don't like it when a cowboy has feelings for men.

Well I believe in my soul that inside every man there's the feminine,
And inside every lady there's a deep manly voice loud and clear.
Well, a cowboy may brag about things that he's done with his women,
But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other,
Say, what do you think all them saddles and boots was about?
And there's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels for his brother,
And inside every cowboy there's a lady that'd love to slip out.

And there's always somebody who says what the others just whisper,
And mostly that someone's the first one to get shot down dead.
So when you talk to a cowboy don't treat him like he was a sister,
You can't fuck with the lady that's sleepin' in each cowboy's head.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other,
What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?
And there's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels for his brother,
Inside every lady there's a cowboy that wants to slip out. And inside every
cowboy there's a lady that'd love to slip out.

The following lyrics (one verse and two versions of the chorus) aren't included in Willie's version, but are apparently in a version of this song that was recorded by the punk band Pansy Division.

Ten men for each woman was the rule way back when on the prairie,
And somehow those cowboys must have kept themselves warm late at night.
Cowboys are famous for getting riled up about fairies,
But I'll tell you the reason a big strong man gets so uptight:

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other,
That's why they wear leather, and Levi's and belts buckled tight.
There's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels towards his brother,
There's many a cowboy who's more like a lady at night.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other,
Even though they take speed and drive pickups and shoot their big guns.
There's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels for his brother;
There's many a cowboy who keeps quiet about things he's done.

It's OK, guys. You can put your albums of show tunes out with the C&W now.

Onward Macho Killers

Two posts on hunting. This one by James Wolcott on Cheney's style of rich man's killing spree:

"This line of talk reveals a strange, even warped vision of authentic Americanism - one that ignores the fact that the huge majority of Americans live in cities or subdivisions, and hunt only for bargains on Playstations, flat screen TV's, and gasoline.

"It also gives a style of hunting that can charitably be described as shooting fish in a barrel with fine Italian shotguns far more old-fashioned American macho credit than it deserves, as if wealthy hunters driving Hummers around a private ranch to blast away at cage-raised 'prey' hold any fair comparison at all with the kind of tough, ready men of the outdoors..."

Rich guys pretending to be Jeremiah Johnson is one of the many fascimile editions of rawhide authenticity being successfully peddled in the media with no one willing to stop and say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on animals should be a source of sin and shame, and that the decent thing to do would be to break Cheney's shotgun in two before anyone or anything else is harmed by his buffoonery.

And this one, courtesy of Cleek:

What got me thinking, though, was this: yes, I've done all that: I know all about guns and gun safety, hunting and being a big macho slayer of smaller animals. But these days I have zero interest in doing it again. I no longer think of the animals that I used to shoot as little animated targets; I realize that they have their lives to live, just as I have mine. That they don't know how to speak or type an email doesn't give me the moral authority to kill them as a way to boost and soothe my own ego. I'd rather feed squirrels and birds then kill them. I have absolutely no interest in killing a deer or a bear. And if ever offered, I'll politely decline the chance to shoot farm-raised birds. Yes, I'm sure it's a great challenge to hit a fast-moving bird from 100 feet, and I'm sure the VP takes great pride in the accomplishment; but beyond a test of hand-eye coordination that I can duplicate with a copy of Half Life 2, the point of killing birds eludes me. I don't need to stand on a pile of little corpses to feel like a man.

Those are my sentiments exactly. Some humans, on the other hand, are desperately in need of killin' and I would have no qualms about fulfilling that need.

On second thought, in the spirit of compassion for all living things, a coupla .44 Specials in the kneecaps would be much better.

Arrogance of Power part deux (just for today, of course), or, "Who's really in charge here?"

Editor & Publisher

While Vice President Cheney continues to catch flak for grossly mishandling the aftermath of the shooting in Texas last Saturday, it is amazing that, relatively speaking, his boss, President Bush, is not drawing just as much blame. True, Cheney deserves extra scrutiny for breaking several cardinal rules of hunting when he plugged Mr. Whittington, and for whatever else he may be hiding.

But as for the slow reporting of the incident - with a nod to Watergate we will call it "the 18 ½ hour gap" - why is the media dumping it mainly on Vice when perhaps it should be versa? Isn't the president in charge here?

Good question.

Hell no, he's not. Some of us knew that already.

But consider another possibility, which has the added benefit of also being an explanation for all of the above: that the story that Bush learned about Cheney's as gunman Saturday may not be true... that the president was among the millions of Americans that Cheney wanted to keep in the dark about this detail.

In any event, Bush is now trapped. If he'd admitted that no one woke him up to tell him, and that's why McClellan didn't know until Sunday morning, that would have painted a very troubling (though not fresh) picture of a disengaged #1 man who is actually, at best, #2. But at least it would suggest that Bush took action and ordered the story out when he did find out about it.

Yet in declaring that he did know about Cheney’s role at 8 p.m. Saturday - and did absolutely nothing to tell anyone about it - an even more disturbing, and perhaps sinister, picture of the true arrogance of power may emerge.

If all takes are a few shootings for the country at large to find out who's pullin' Bush's strings, and who feels free to tell him to get fucked in matters of national interest, and just who's spineless enough to let him get away with it, fire at will. Better yet, fire at Cheney.

An Arrogance of Power

Excellent editorial by David Ignatius in the wake of the Texas chainsaw massacree lawyer shoot.

Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy's delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969. That story, and dozens of others about the Kennedy family, illustrates how wealthy, powerful people can behave as if they are above the law. For my generation, the fall of Richard Nixon is the ultimate allegory about how power can corrupt and destroy. It begins not with venality but with a sense of God-given mission.

I would be inclined to leave Cheney to the mercy of Jon Stewart and Jay Leno if it weren't for other signs that this administration has jumped the tracks. What worries me most is the administration's misuse of intelligence information to advance its political agenda. For a country at war, this is truly dangerous.

Bush and Cheney are in the bunker. That's the only way I can make sense of their actions. They are steaming in a broth of daily intelligence reports that highlight the grim terrorist threats facing America. They have sworn blood oaths that they will defend the United States from its adversaries -- no matter what . They have blown past the usual rules and restraints into territory where few presidents have ventured -- a region where the president conducts warrantless wiretaps against Americans in violation of a federal statute, where he authorizes harsh interrogation methods that amount to torture.

When critics question the legality of the administration's actions, Bush and Cheney assert the commander in chief's power under Article II of the Constitution. When Congress passes a law forbidding torture, the White House appends a signing statement insisting that Article II -- the power of the commander in chief -- trumps everything else. When the administration's Republican friends suggest amending the wiretapping law to make its program legal, the administration refuses. Let's say it plainly: This is the arrogance of power, and it has gone too far in the Bush White House.

No shit, Sparky. Go read the rest.

One of those forests would look nice over by the oil wells, huh, Sheikh?

A few days ago, Fixer posted about Bush selling off National Forest and Park land. It's gettin' pretty close to home for me. I live smack dab in the middle of the Truckee District of the Tahoe National Forest. From my local fish wrapper paper, the Sierra Sun:

More than 2,000 acres of Tahoe National Forest land is on the chopping block, part of a list of 300,000 acres of federal land that could be sold to fund schools and roads in states across the nation.

A proposal to raise $800 million over the next five years, a reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-determination Act, was announced last week by the U.S. Forest Service. Rural counties hurt by reduced revenue from lower timber production would benefit from the land sales, which are slated to be up for adoption later this year.

Forest Service officials said they are considering the sale of parcels that are isolated or difficult to manage.

"These are not the crown jewels we are talking about," said Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the plan "a terrible idea based on a misguided sense of priorities."

"I will do everything I can to defeat this effort," she said.

Not only is the Bush administration proposing to sell off public lands to help finance the president's budget, the move also won't sufficiently fund the rural schools program, which has helped California and other states, Feinstein said.

In 2005, California received $67.4 million from the act. Nevada County collected $770,856, according to the U.S. Forest Service Web site.

Although the Tahoe National Forest has sizable chunks of land on the proposed sale list, including several parcels just north of Truckee, the majority of the land that could be sold is in the northern reaches of the state.

The Plumas, Lassen and Klamath Forests hold 75 percent of the land on the list, said the Forest Service's Holguin.

California alone has eighteen National Forests and a shitpot full of National Parks, National Monuments, Historical Sites*, and Recreation and Wilderness Areas. 2000 acres (about three square miles) isn't much, and swapping out NF land for different purposes goes on all the time. Under 'normal' circumstances, it doesn't bother me very much. Sometimes it does, but that's for another time.

What bothers me about this latest sale proposal is that this particular administration works for the moneyed interests instead of us and I just flat don't trust 'em to do the right thing. I think their track record bears this out.

These seemingly small sales are just the camel's nose under the tent, so to speak.

*You sharp-eyed folks, ladies especially, check this one out just for fun.

Dems continue rapid-fire shooting into own foot

NYTimes

With a shove from party leaders, Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett abruptly quit a key Senate race in Ohio and further exposed a disconnect between the Democratic establishment and Internet-fueled challengers.

The political novice withdrew under intense pressure from party leaders in Washington, clearing the field for Rep. Sherrod Brown -- a 30-year veteran of Democratic politics with more than $2.5 million in the bank.

"Hackett brought credibility on the No. 1 issue facing the nation -- the war in Iraq," said Jon Soltz, an Iraq combat veteran and executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Political Action Committee. "The Democratic Party loses credibility on that issue because he is no longer running, and because they had a hand in his decision."

So it's the same old, same old once again. Business as usual.

One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. The Democrats in Ohio, or Washington, or both, must be insane as well as clueless.

Update:

Go read this highly apropos piece by Robert C. Koehler:

Two ghosts stalk the national Democratic Party in its pitiful, 21st century incarnation. One is George McGovern, who taught them that only Republican values matter in a national election. The other is Ralph Nader, who taught them who the real enemy is.

The present hamstrung state of the party is the result of its abject fear of these ghosts, which has given it a permanent moral stammer. A party that doesn't believe in itself is doomed to lose over and over, even if it represents the majority of the people and even - as Al Gore demonstrated in 2000 - when it gets the most votes.

As the Republicans of 2006 shoot themselves and otherwise self-destruct, the Democrats have a chance to make significant gains in this year's elections. All that's stopping them are their own ghosts.

Is he saying that whistling past the graveyard will keep you out of it? Fat chance.