Just checkin'

I'm 12 days into my hiatus and I'm happy to report things are going well. I should be able to get everything done that I planned. The next book is ready to go to the publisher next week and I'm making good headway on Empires. I'm still gonna post it at creativity when I'm done because I promised. I just wanted to say thank you to my partners, Gord and KR, and to Philippe and Dianne, our esteemed guest bloggers, for taking up my slack. I really appreciate it. I'll be back in a couple weeks, give or take, ready to raise some Hell.

Is Falwell dead yet?

It's Gettin' Drafty 'Round Here, Ain't It?

From Truthout:

Washington - If American forces aren't pulling out of Iraq in a year, a draft will be needed to meet manpower requirements, military analysts warned Wednesday.

With recruitment lagging and no end in sight for U.S. forces in Iraq, the "breaking point" for the nation's all-volunteer military will be mid-2006, agreed Lawrence Korb, a draft opponent and assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration, and Phillip Carter, a conscription advocate and former Army captain.

Korb, assistant secretary defense for manpower from 1981 through 1985, said the current rotation is unfair to the "patriotic" men and women who volunteered for military service and are stuck on a cycle in and out of Iraq. Since only a tiny segment of the populace is sacrificing, there is no political pressure to change the system, he said.

"If you had a draft right now, I think you'd be out of Iraq," Korb said. (my emphasis)

The American society "hasn't gotten the message that we're at war," agreed Carter.

"Those at peril are completely divorced from those in power," said Mark Shields, a syndicated columnist and TV commentator who moderated the symposium. "It's 'Patriotism Lite' -- you put a sticker on your SUV."

"America has a choice," wrote Carter. "It can be the world's superpower or it can maintain the current all-voluntary military. But it probably can't do both."

If that's all it would take to get out of Iraq and quit killing American troops and Iraqi civilians for evil ideology and oil, then fire up the draft. Hell's Bells, I'll go if I can get my stripes back. The Marine Corps needs more Corporals with forty years in grade! Especially if they don't have to do the stuff they did when they were nineteen! Been there already.

Good To Go

Ever prepared, the Voice Of America has prepared obituaries for many world figures.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Voice of America - the US government's news outlet to the rest of the world since 1942 - released its audio obituaries for two world leaders who aren't dead: Fidel Castro and Boris Yeltsin.

After receiving the cassettes, DC-area researcher Michael Ravnitzky asked for other advance obituaries, but VOA has refused to comply, saying that releasing their Castro and Yeltsin obits was a mistake. In fact, they will no longer send these two obituaries to requesters, a clear violation of FOIA law. However, they did provide a list of prominent figures for whom they've already written (and in some cases recorded) obituaries (see below).

I must be doing OK. I'm not on the list. Go see if you are, at The Memory Hole.

Hybrids

I was gonna put this post in The Fixer & Gordon due to its automotive subject matter when I suddenly realized it's not just us gearheads who need to know about it. It's not just automotive news, either. It's geo-political and environmental as well.

From Newsweek:

April 4 issue - The higher gas goes, the better those hybrids look, right? If you're still having trouble justifying the price, or those long dealer waiting lists, here's some help. The Web site 40mpg.org features a calculator that will demonstrate your savings in dollars, gallons of gas and pounds of pollution.

If you typically drive 10,000 miles a year, pay $2.10 (the national average) for gas and get 23 miles per gallon, you'd save roughly 235 gallons of gas, 4,696 pounds of carbon-dioxide pollution, and $493 a year. Which is about how long you might have to wait to get those new wheels.

Go check out the site. It's only been up for a coupla weeks and is extensive. According to them, the average fuel efficiency of 2005 model year hybrids is 49.9 MPG. That's impressive.

The big advantage of hybrids is that they generate their own electricity. All-electric cars need fuel to be burned at a power plant so you can plug 'em in to recharge. Besides that, they just move the air pollution to the area of the power plant.

Mrs. G and I are contemplating the purchase of a new vehicle to update our aging fleet. We live in snow country, so we need four-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive. We've been looking at all sorts of rigs, but with the price of gas going up and our idiot president getting lotsa folks killed and planning to rape pristine land just so we can get motor fuel, we've put our plans on hold while we check out the hybrid offerings.

We like the Toyota Highlander Hybrid but we've got plenty of time to think about it. If enough folks take to hybrids, there'll be lots of new models available in the near future.

Styling is important too. I'm kinda taken with this sexy Italian job, but Mrs. G says it's not practical. Ah, what do women know about manly stuff anyway?

Aaaaggghhh!

Bush's hypocrisy makes me want to scream:

... Especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence
of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life. (from an article on CNN about Terri Schiavo's death; emphasis added)

The man must be deaf, because if he could hear his own words, surely even he would cringe. Every action he has taken since assuming office has been to crush the weak. And when he was governor of Texas and there were questions as to the guilt or innocense of death row inmates, did he presume in "favor of life"? I don't think so. And Iraq...well, I could write all day about that.

Right Wing Bullshit!

The thing that pisses me off the most in the case of Mrs. Schiavo is this:

The misleading and flat-out wrong assertion by the pseudo-christians and the media that Mr. Schiavo and the legal system are murdering Mrs. Schiavo by "denying" her food and water. This makes it sound like the docs are keeping a plate of Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings just out of her reach and cackling like fiends.

Listen up, you heartless motherfuckers.

That tube didn't have no fucking Happy Meals being shoved through it, of that you can be sure. She's been kept alive by the medical intervention of nutrition and hydration very much like, and I use these carefully chosen following words, growing a hydroponic carrot. If she could eat or swallow on her own, she would, and no one would think of denying her anything. If anybody had gotten through to her with a cup of water like they were trying to do, it would have probably drowned her, and that's murder.

Will all you retarded assholes please let the lady's soul fly out of its meat prison and quit using her for your Satanic retardiligious right-wing ends? All you're doing is showing the rest of us how fucking stupid and cruel you are, and we already knew that. May my God have mercy on your worthless empty souls.

Gotta Love that Culture of Life

From CNN:

Michael Schiavo's sister-in-law said a man threatened to shoot her and her family if Terri Schiavo dies, Philadelphia police said Tuesday.
...

(Joan) Schiavo told police, the car stopped and the man inside yelled "murderer," then added, "If Terri dies, I'm coming back to shoot you and your family."
...

Monday, a man accused of soliciting offers for the murder of Michael Schiavo appeared in federal court in Asheville, North Carolina. Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, allegedly circulated an e-mail to friends and members of the news media offering $250,000 for the killing of Michael Schiavo and another $50,000 for the death of Florida state Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed on March 18.
...
Last week, police arrested an Illinois man they said robbed a gun store in Seminole, Florida, as part of an attempt to "rescue Terri Schiavo."

Boy, howdy, these moonbats are about as "pro-life" as the Grim Reaper. Keep it up, folks, the 2006 elections aren't that far off, and you all are registering at 8.7 on the crazy meter. I thought that us Democrats were in for an uphill battle. With the neocons' help, we practically can pour ourselves a beer, get comfortable, and watch the game from the sidelines. Looks like you have plenty of rope to do the job right.

Ha!

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MSNBC Breaking News
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Evangelist Jerry Falwell hospitalized; condition is unclear -

Die, you sanctimonious, hypocritical bitch.

Back under my rock, but I had to add my 2 cents.

Colorado Court Bars Execution Because Jurors Consulted Bible

If the Neo-cons can just get the judges replaced with officials with a 'higher authority' things like this won't happen. Imagine striking down a sentence of death because jurors consulted a Bible! Maybe all is not lost in America, not yet anyway.

In a sharply divided ruling, Colorado's highest court on Monday upheld a lower court's decision throwing out the sentence of a man who was given the death penalty after jurors consulted the Bible in reaching a verdict. The Bible, the court said, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the court called a "higher authority."

Read the rest here

Shut the FOX up!

Under the heading of neat-but-unnecessary-gadgets is an electronic filter/political statement called the "FOX Blocker" being marketed by a guy in Oklahoma. Now, I know we can "block FOX" with the remote, but for $8.95 the guy will send an e-mail of your comments to Faux News' 10 largest advertisers.

Here's what Daily Kos has to say. Lotsa links and comments.

Gee, I wonder if we could cut through the shit and go directly to the source of it by screwing one of these into Scott McClellan's mouth?

Rabbi convicted of blocking West Bank bulldozers

Rabbi Arik Ascherman has spent years planting himself atop doomed Palestinian homes, reading extracts of international law to Israeli forces as they demolish the buildings beneath his feet.

Along the way he has been a persistent embarrassment to the Israeli government as a fervent Zionist who claims to reflect the true soul of the Jewish state by resisting its oppression of Palestinians. He has been arrested many times but this week, for the first time, the 45-year-old director of Rabbis for Human Rights was convicted for his form of resistance.

The rabbi was arrested when he objected to the Israeli security forces tying a Palestinian to the front of a jeep as a human shield against stone throwers. On other occasions he has been attacked by club-wielding Jewish settlers.

The prosecution has asked the court to sentence Rabbi Ascherman to do community service after he was convicted of obstructing the demolition of illegally built Arab homes in East Jerusalem by standing in front of the bulldozers. It is a dangerous business; an American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, was killed doing the same in the Gaza Strip.

There are people in the world that bring hope. I am thankful for the hearts of those like Rabbi Ascherman.

Insurance Companies: “Forget Antibiotics, use Shrimp instead”

Since it's the weekend, here is some light hearted fun (satire I found on The Spoof). Enjoy :-)

---

Take Three Shrimp in Cocktail Sauce and Don't Call Me in the Morning

Minnetonka, Minneapolis -- Led by managed care giant United Healthcare (NASDAQ code: X$%^&*$#%^$^ subscribers), all major HMOS in the United States have removed all antibiotics from their formularies due to rising pharmaceutical prices and the necessity of keeping executives' salaries high.

This decision follows last year's decision to eliminate all mental health coverage and replace it with a cassette of pop music and pithy saying that subscribers can play at stressful times, provided they purchase the "dedicated" cassette player (only $49!) needed to play the relaxation tape.

"We have found that much of the shrimp imported from Asia is an excellent source of choramphenicol, which is a very very powerful antibiotic," said a spokesperson for United. "Accordingly, we don't feel that we need to pay for antibiotics when our subscribers have a bacterial infection. They can just eat shrimp according to our peer-reviewed and credentialed guidelines."

Here's how it works: a patient who suspects an infection in himself/herself or a family member calls a 900 number (only 49 cents a minute!) and provides a few relevant facts to the TeleNurso such as fever, weight, age, and symptoms such as pain, coughing, sneezing, ear pressure, or runny nose. The TeleNurso will then calculate the amount of shrimp required to cure the infection and, free of charge, provide a recipe.

... here is the full article

Freethought of the day

Mrs. G turned me onto this. From the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

“The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.”

-- A.E. Housman, No. 12, Last Poems, 1922

Voice of the Sierra Foothills

While I'm blogging today, I'm listening to the best community radio station that I know of. We're just able to get it here lately, but we've listened to it for years for about twenty minutes at a stretch when we cruise west on I-80.

The station is KVMR-FM, located in Nevada City, California. That's our county seat and is located 65 miles away, on the other side of the Sierra Nevada.

They play great music with all-volunteer deejays. Right now I'm listening to some country tunes that you'll never hear on commercial stations, but they play lots of different stuff.

Go visit. You can listen live through the electronic miracle of streaming audio. You can confuse the livin' shit out of 'em, too: if you like what they offer, send 'em some money from far away.

A Few More "Nuclear Options"

The Republicans would very much like to see the end of the filibuster, but they've got more in the works than just that. Reason Gone Mad has 14 more rules they will impose - on everybody but themselves, of course. Go read. Here's a coupla my favorites:

3. When a roll-call vote is required, the clerk shall call the name of every Republican senator and record each senator's "yea" or "nay" until all Republicans have voted. At that point, the clerk may leave for the day.

5. When a Republican senator drops a new bill into the hopper on the clerk's desk, it shall immediately become law.

6. Senate Democrats may no longer use a filibuster to thwart the daily 5:30 p.m. vote on the "Looks Like It's Time to Send the Democratic Senators Out to Buy Us Some Chips and Beer" Act.

13. FYI, next Thursday the Senate Rules Committee will be replaced by a laptop computer running Diebold's new IronFist™ Legislative Debate Management software.

That last one would eliminate any pesky holdover "ethics" that may still be slowing the Republican agenda, huh?

Since I stole all this from Grannyinsanity, I owe it to her to post a couple of her additional recommendations:

Any Rebublican Contributor may parade any Senate Democrat around naked on a leash after Church on Sundays.

Oh boy! Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd! I can hardly wait!

All medical decisions for the Proles will henceforth be made by gun wielding anti abortionists.

Oh boy! Gunfights with bad guys! Some of us gun-totin', white hat-wearin', former military good guy Democrats would just fuckin' love that, you betcha!

US Dollar Hegemony and the Iranian Threat

The costs of sustaining the US's new 'Empire' will become apparent to its public only when these costs directly accrue to them. This will happen, as this article suggests, only when other nations stop subsidising the US's imperial adventures by colluding in them and the dollar loses its role as the world's reserve currency.

This article argues that if the US’s ability to undertake imperial conquests like that of Iraq depends on its obvious military supremacy, this in turn is ultimately based on the use of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It is the dominance of the dollar that underpins US financial dominance as a whole as well as the apparently limitless spending power that allows it to keep hundreds of thousands of troops stationed all over the world. Destroy US dollar hegemony, and ‘Empire’ will collapse.
The Soft Underbelly of Empire

Iran does not pose a threat to the United State because of its nuclear projects, its WMD, or its support to “terrorists organizations” as the American administration is claiming, but in its attempt to re-shape the global economical system by converting it from a petrodollar to a petroeuro system. Such conversion is looked upon as a flagrant declaration of economical war against the US that would flatten the revenues of the American corporations and eventually might cause an economic collapse.
The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro?

Both these articles are very interesting. Even if you have nothing to say about them I recommend the reading.

The Islamization of the Republican Party and Ayatollah DeLay

From Juan Cole:

The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called "bringing to account" (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, "Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion." Hisba is a medieval idea that had all be lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality).

But the most frightening thing about the entire affair is that public figures like congressmen inserted themselves into the case in order to uphold religious strictures. The lawyer arguing against the husband let the cat out of the bag, as reported by the NYT: ' The lawyer, David Gibbs, also said Ms. Schiavo's religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic were being infringed because Pope John Paul II has deemed it unacceptable for Catholics to refuse food and water. "We are now in a position where a court has ordered her to disobey her church and even jeopardize her eternal soul," Mr. Gibbs said. '

In other words, the United States Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. Both of these public bodies interfered in the private affairs of the Schiavos, just as the fundamentalist Egyptian, Nabih El-Wahsh, tried to interfere in the marriage of Nawal El Saadawi.

Like many of his fundamentalist counterparts in the Middle East, Tom Delay is rather cynically using this issue to divert attention from his own corruption. Like the Muslim fundamentalist manipulators of Hisba, Delay represents himself as acting on behalf of a higher cause. He said of the case over the weekend, ' "This is not a political issue. This is life and death," '

Republican Hisba will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn't different from his counterparts in Iran. (my emphasis)

Fundamentalists of any stripe have no business being anywhere near the formulation of public policy. Anywhere.

It's Empathy, Stupid!

And Bush just doesn't get it.

Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.

. . .

"From all over the world we are getting letters of condolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian who is the founder and national director of the American Indian Movement here. "When people's children are murdered and others are in the hospital hanging on to life, he should be the first one to offer his condolences. . . . If this was a white community, I don't think he'd have any problem doing that."

To paraphrase Clinton's first campaign, "It's empathy, stupid!"

Read the whole article at MSNBC.

Girlie-Man-In-Chief

Will Durst nails Bush's pansy hide to the wall.

Wimps rejoice. The glittering realm of wimpdom is vacant no more. "Long live His Wimpiness King George II." Yes, friends, the wimp is back and he's wimpier than ever. As the Arnold is wont to say: "He's a girlie man." Punked-out mamma's boy. You know if he were in prison, he'd be shaving his legs, wearing mascara and calling his cellmate "Sushi Lips." Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying.

I'm referring to the sorry spectacle of the president flying back to D.C. from Texas to jump on the holy-roller bandwagon entangling a brain damaged coma victim's feeding tubes in its spokes.

But any way you cut it, it's rare to see this kind of world class brown-nosing from a termed-out politician. His staff loves to say Bush is a man who doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit." Well, apparently he's not all that conversant with the word "shame" either.

I can understand Bill Frist and Tom DeLay orchestrating these weasel moves, as they're still ambitious poisonous little suckups with big Christian-right butts in their crosshairs, but shouldn't George be working out of the downtown plaza of Legacy City right now, cleaning up his contribution to a presidential library by shredding documents? And it turns out, he's just a big fat sissy boy like his dad. Isn't that sweet?

Damn, that's good! I've been complimented as having a "vicious wit", but next to Mr. Durst, I'm "Sushi lips"!

Political comic Will Durst has a feeding tube. It's a brown bottle that says "Anchor" on the outside and holds 12 oz. of frothy nutritious liquid on the inside.

I'll Have a Side Order of Gloating

Amid all the Schiavo stories on the news tonight was dear ol' Randall Terry, henchman extraordinaire for Operation Rescue. Seems Randy and his cadre are mighty upset with the Bush Brothers for not delivering the goods and keeping Terri Schiavo alive. (Cue violins) They're feeling let down. (Kleenex, please) They're going to take their votes elsewhere next election (where else? Surely not to us godless, life-hating, baby-aborting, plug-pulling Democrats!).

Seems the barking moonbats of the Reichwing are experiencing a bad case of buyer's remorse because the products they purchased aren't working as promised. I could say "I told you so," but instead I'll just rub my hands together and gleefully say, "Tee hee hee!"