Well, another year shot to Hell ...

Oy, what a year and I'm glad it's over*. Too much personal shit went on this year, too many friends and relatives (and my wife) with health issues, too much craziness at the shop, and too much in general.

We did, however, have a great vacation, Mrs. F got through her health issues without complication, and what can we say about the Election Day win. Hopefully, 2007 will bring a further curtailing of the Chimp's power and see our kids home from Iraq.

I hope 2007 is good for all our readers and commenters. Thanks for all you've done for us (as I've said in the past, without you the Brain would just be grafitti). We fought the good fight this year and scored a major victory. Celebrate safely, remind those who are close to you that you love them, and make a resolution to make a difference.

Happy New Year!

*The reason I'm putting this up now is that New Year's is a special holiday in the Fixer household, very hedonistic in terms of food, drink, and ... other stuff. Don't know if I'll have much coherent to say over the next couple days (though that would be assuming I've said something coherent over the past 2 1/2 years. Heh ...) See yas next year.

Saturday night's all right ...

To blogwhore. Chapter 12 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.

"...there's nothing else this president can get right."

Josh Marshall has a few thoughts about Saddam and Bush's failure in Iraq:

This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

Marty Peretz, with some sort of projection, calls any attempt to rain on this parade "prissy and finicky." Myself, I just find it embarrassing. This is what we're reduced to, what the president has reduced us to. This is the best we can do. Hang Saddam Hussein because there's nothing else this president can get right.

Bush has always been good at executing people. What a talent.

Hanging's Too Good For Us

The three-year charade is over. Saddam Hussein is dead. The Rude One weighed in just prior to the Big Drop:

And once he hangs, as he will any time now, once he's videoed pissing himself while dangling from the noose, maybe even a close-up on his last hard-on, then it's time to go to work. Cut that fucker's head off his corpse and graft it onto George W. Bush's right shoulder, so that it rots away next to him just like Iraq, so the President can watch the decay every time he looks in the mirror and smell it constantly. Rip out Hussein's bones and shove them up the asses of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, and more and more - Saddam's got two hundred something bones, so line up a bunch of neocons and warmongering whores, bend 'em over, and give 'em a souvenir. Dry Saddam's organs and grind them into a powder and pour it into the water supply of the United States so we can each consume a little bit of the man who so drove our leaders crazy that they destroyed our economy, our military, our morality to topple him, yes, let us all drink that in, toasting the hanging of Saddam Hussein as a demonstration of what great and noble and righteous and merciful humans we are. Send his cock to Tony Blair so he can go fuck himself.

There's more.

I would like to study at that man's knee.

The witch is dead ...

Calling all wingnuts, Saddam is dead so now Iraq will turn into this great, shining, peaceful democracy on the hill. Congratulations, you were successful. Saddam will no longer be a threat to Middle East peace and all is right with the world.

So let's look back on 2006 and see all the good works you've wrought in the last year, since the eeeeeevil madman was captured:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

Indeed. Look at all you've done for these people by ridding them of the tyrant, and now they should be even more ecstatic he is dead. Good job, wingnuts. Once again you've proven the Republicans are truly the ones equipped to run this nation and the world.

The 110th Congress will be seated in less than a week and not a minute too soon.

Quote of the Day

Commander Huber on the hanging of Saddam Hussein:

Stand by for things to go ape.

Things are looking up!

Brother Lurch comments on the lessening of his pessimism about the plans of this administration:

I used to figure Messers Bu$h, Cheney and their horse-holders had the most malign plans, and that there might well be a national emergency during the late Summer, 2008 that would require draconian measures, including a temporary suspension of the elections. I think the foreign policy circumstances are too dire now, and with a slight Democratic majority and what seems to be the majority of the Army with rifles in Iraq by then, I'm no longer that pessimistic. Let's face it - you can't impose martial law with an evangelized tactical Air Force.

Good point! Hallelujah!

Idiotic comment of the day

TPMmuckraker

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large -- but that's not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

I feel a lot better now. I guess that little scene I've envisioned with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charlize Theron, and me is a 'success that hasn't occurred yet' as well. Not a failure. Wow, that's a load off!

VA/DoD meet Gilgamesh

From BoingBoing:

In the vein of inappropriate/unexpected graphic adaptations of literature... my father, a psychiatrist with the Veterans Administration, alerted me to a new training video on the VA website that describes post-deployment health evaluation procedure... as an adaptation of GILGAMESH. What genius government employee came up with that one, eh?

There are some odd (though not necessarily helpful) synchronicities: Gilgamesh was the King of Uruk (now in Iraq). In the vid, his friend comes home from battle with Gulf War Syndrome (I'm guessing), and he with PTSD.

Go see. Takes about fifteen minutes.

One would think that health-care professionals wouldn't need silly shit like this to be advised as to how to diagnose things like PTSD or Gulf War Syndrome, but if it helps them get the message...

God help our Veterans.

"...ve haff vays of making you..."

John Dean poses answers to the burning question:

What Should Congressional Democrats Do, When the Bush Administration Stonewalls Their Efforts To Undertake Oversight?

The site is "legal news and commentary", so pack a lunch and put on yer fishin' waders.

"We see a war coming on Capitol Hill," a well-connected Republican attorney based in Washington recently told me, as I reported in my last column on the subject. The clash is not surprising, because Vice President Dick Cheney -- who is at the center of many of the subjects the Democratic Congress will be investigating -- is strongly opposed to Congress's inquiring into these areas. He believes the power of the presidency is at stake. Accordingly, as I noted earlier, he has made it quite clear that he is not going to cooperate with these investigations.

Before the conflict develops, it might seem helpful to go over the rules of the game -- to appreciate who is on solid ground, who is on shaky ground, and why this is the case. But as it happens, there are no rules!

Of course, there are precedents, and even U.S. Supreme Court rulings, in this area. But they have virtually no applicability when the contest involves Congress and the White House. Also, while forests have doubtless been consumed to publish copious learned treatises, essays, articles, and reports on this subject, at bottom, this is a matter not of law, but purely of politics. There is, however, evidence regarding this matter that can be drawn from history.

I'm glad he's a lawyer and not a dentist. He 'draws evidence from history' like a dentist would extract teeth through your ass, but he gets the job done, I think.

Thus, if the 110th Congress, controlled by the Democrats, fails to get the information it needs -- and the public wants -- about the workings of the Bush/Cheney presidency, it will not be because it does not have the tools with which to obtain that information. Rather, it will be because it lacks the will to use those tools.

When Congress plays hardball, it gets the information it wants from the president. The Congressional Reference Service (CRS) has prepared a complete manual on oversight, which they updated recently. In the manual, CRS has laid out all Congress needs to know to crack any stonewall Bush and Cheney may erect to block their oversight efforts.

Lou Fisher, one of the authors of the CRS manual, catalogued a number of the methods available to Congress in his essay: "Congressional Access To Information: Using Legislative Will And Leverage." Drawing on historical examples, Fisher shows that Congress has a host of tools, of various size and shape and depending on the situation, to "extract information from the President."

When it comes to ways to "extract information from the president", I lean towards the old burning bamboo slivers under the foreskin whilst the unit is clamped tightly in an ice-cold vise method, but then I'm old-fashioned.

This is good 'process' stuff and you should go familiarize yourself with it, but it makes no difference if one-ten ain't got the sack to do it. Pray for Congressional balls.

Park Service stifles godless liberal commie geologists

This one is pretty much just for laughs, although it's indicative of a trend we've noticed the last few years to downplay reality and facts in favor of ideological fantasy.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.' "

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

"As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan," Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book. "We sincerely hope that the new Director of the Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job."

The funny part, to me, is the administration's continued pandering to an increasingly irrelevant group of prominent Repuglican fundie supporters by giving moral equivalence to what is essentially a Chick tract.

Everywhere you go in Grand Canyon National Park there are posters, plaques, signboards, etc. showing the various layers of the Canyon with their geologic age right next to them. The Park Service has been doing this shit for many years and it can't be undone by bureaucratic bias.

I found this and this in less than a minute, just f'rinstance.

6000 years, 550 million years, 5 billion years, mox nix. Makes no difference to the Creator, only to a buncha wingnut fundie idiots with access to your tax money.

Our government needs to get out of the slide to the Dark Ages in general, but this one's just funny in an unfunny kinda way.

See what I mean ...

When this whole Duke Lacrosse Team rape case came up, I cautioned bloggers not to jump the gun until all the facts were in. Sex crime allegations, even if proven false, can haunt someone forever. A lot of people had a lot to say about these boys back then, two of them from my area, and now I hear nothing. Now these boys will have this stigma follow them throughout their lives. I believe quite a few of us owe them an apology, not silence, especially since the District Attorney who filed the case is now up against an ethics charge.

I hope the D.A. and Duke University get their asses sued off.

You know you suck when ...

You poll lower than the Devil ... by a lot.

Decency

Gord's post yesterday quoted that dipshit and paragon of morality and decency Bill Bennett:

You're a former President Mr. Ford, show a little more decency to the incumbent who is in a very, very tough place and trying to do the right thing....you may recall those days and positions yourself.

Yeah, you know, like St. Ronnie of Ray Gun.

The Silence of Section 60

Please go read this.

Do the 'decent thing' now that you're dead, president Ford

Normally I wouldn't post anything from Bill Bennett, but this one takes the fuckin' cake! From the Nat'l Review:

Since "decency" seems to be the watchword of the day and the consensus modifier for Jerry Ford (a view with which I generally concur), may I nevertheless be permitted to ask this: just how decent, how courageous, is what Jerry Ford did with Bob Woodward? He slams Bush & Cheney to Woodward in 2004, but asks Woodward not to print the interview until he's dead. If he felt so strongly about his words having a derogatory affect, how about telling Woodward not to run the interview until after Bush & Cheney are out of office? The effect of what Ford did is to protect himself, ensuring he can't be asked by others about his critiques, ensuring that there can be no dialogue. The way Ford does it with Woodward, he doesn't have to defend himself...he simply drops it into Bob Woodward's tape recorder and let's the bomb go off when fully out of range, himself. This is not courage, this is not decent. The manly or more decent options are these: 1. Say it to Bush's or Cheney's face and allow them and us to engage the point while you're around, or 2. Far more decently, say nothing critical of Bush will be on the record until his presidency is over. There's a 3. Don't say anything critical of George Bush to Bob Woodward at all.

You're a former President Mr. Ford, show a little more decency to the incumbent who is in a very, very tough place and trying to do the right thing....you may recall those days and positions yourself.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

I just couldn't resist...

Ain't it the truth!

Envision World Peace

Pic courtesy of Cute Overload.

Anything is possible if you work hard enough at it.

You see why ...

I'm not on the "Gerry Ford was a good man and a good President" bandwagon. He was just another for whom the 'good of America' placed a distant second next to the 'good of the Party':

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

...

How well do you think the Chimp would have fared had the former President allowed this interview to be released at the time it was given? I believe we would be referring to 'President Kerry' at this point.

Do yourself a favor and read Froggy's obit too.

Tip o' the Brain to Atrios.