You can't keep a good man down

The guy who had a huge inspirational effect on me and set the stage for Fixer to ask me to grab a bucket and start bailing contribute to the Brain is South Knox Bubba. He's back in the cyberether on two blogs, KnoxViews and Facing South. He's not using his real name, but rather one I think his parents made up.

The guy is worth reading.

Thanks to CAFKIA for the tip.

Another SOTU game, right after anal sex...

Cookie Christine nails it, so to speak...

Just scroll down to "The Alternative Lifestyles SOTU Address Game" and "The Real State of the Union Address Party Pack". If you don't want to read how butt slammin' yer buddy* is Constitutionally protected and as American as apple pie, just click.

* Credit for that sensitive phrase goes to Andrew Dice Clay.

Reign of Witches

William Rivers Pitt on the SOTU:

The state of this union is not good. We are poorer, frightened, faced with the swelling ranks of enemies our leaders have created, and hell-bent to do away with the most precious aspects of our system of government. We are surveilled, propagandized, intimidated. We empower the radicals and disenfranchise the common good. We are fed swill via the television and thus convinced that what they tell us is what we already believe. We are bought, and we are paid for.

The radicals running this country have long desired to destroy the government's ability to govern - they found things like taxes intrusive, which is amusing when one hears them now defending warrantless spying on Americans - and they are well along the path towards success. The budget is destroyed, spent on tax cuts and the Iraq occupation, while millions of Americans suffer the loss of necessary services. The one percent of the one percent is making a killing, and the rest of us are left behind.

If there is hope to be found in all this, it is in the words of Thomas Jefferson, written 208 years ago after the passage of the Sedition Act.

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

That gives me a great idea of what to do with witches and a stake...anybody got a match?

The Lie of the Year

The Chimp will be on tonight, giving the Big Lie that will mean nothing 90 days from now. No drinking games for me tonight. I plan to be asleep before he gets on. Thank God they didn't preempt NCIS.

Got the plates, Louie?

David takes us down a road I've passed but never thought of taking. Who needs nukes when you can destroy the economy?

Note to Dems

Unless you voted with Kennedy and Kerry, 'no' on cloture, don't expect any help from me in fall (the DNC gets nothing). At this point it doesn't matter whether you retain your seat or not, not if you basically vote Republican. I'd rather have a Rethug in your seat because this way I won't be disappointed, I won't expect them to stand up for Democratic principles as I expected you to do. You let us down, you let the party down, and you let the United States down in a big way.

This Alito thing showed your true mettle and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. To those Dems who refused to stand up and be counted, I have a list of all of you pinned up in my office. Not only will I not support you, I will work actively against your reelection. If we can't count on you when the chips are down, what the fuck are you there for in the first place? I demand your resignations within 24 hours. Get the fuck out of the Senate and get the fuck out of my face. You're as useless as tits on a bull.

Buffy and the Cloture Demon

As we all know by now, the effort undertaken by my 2 Senators, Ed Kennedy and John Kerry (wikkid pissahs, both of them), to defeat cloture and allow further debate on Alito's nomination, failed today, 72 ayes to 25 nays. That would be about 20 more nays than I'd have thought possible even one week ago, due in no small part to a powerful netroots movement generated via blogs like this one that mobilized individual citizens to phone, fax, write and even meet with Senators, the TM and others to let them know that we pay attention, we vote, and we care. The 25 Senators who voted nay deserve thanks, help and support. As for the 11 Dems who went along with the repubs: What part of why do you hold on to that Democratic Senate seat if you're just going to vote "yes" to each and every Republican whim do you not understand?

For those few of you who don't know who Buffy is, I'll provide a short intro. "In every generation there is a chosen one... who will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer." Our Buffy knows this is her destiny, and even if she just wants to live a "normal" life, she knows the demons are out there right now so she can't turn her back on the battles. 'Course Buffy is not alone in this, and she and her "missfit" friends form a truly effective demon-smashing, vampire-slaying team, apocalypse now, apocalypse again.

So as Buffy says as she girds up for another fight with evil:

"Now, we can do this the hard way, or... well, actually there's just the hard way".

Yep, there's just the hard way. So let's get on the way, there are demons out there.

Even the Russians

Even the fucking Russians see it. Pravda via Maru:

...

Bush's attitude to the massacre in Darfur, Sudan, is another example of the USA's "success" in the fight for global democracy. When Osama bin Laden was hiding in Sudan, the USA did not think twice to launch missiles and drop bombs on the country. Nowadays, when the US administration spends billions of dollars to maintain the nation's military predominance, the American budget does not have any funds for a peacemaking operation in the region.

...

Scalito

Attaturk says it best:

...

American women, please have your uterus report to its new owner at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. by 9 a.m. eastern, Monday, February 6, 2006.

The George W. Bush 2006 State of the Union Drinking Game

Will Durst

6. Whenever George W talks about bi-partisanship, the last person to grab his throat in a choking motion has to eat 4 Li'l Smokies.

7. If either the Vice President Dick Cheney or First Lady Laura Bush are caught napping, last person to sing "Wake Up Little Susie, Wake Up," has to drink three shots of beer.

9. Three shots of beer if he mentions New Orleans. Five shots of beer if he mentions Brownie. Two full beers if he mentions Abramoff.

11. Whenever George W quotes the Bible, last person to fall to their knees and cry "Hallelujah!" drinks two shots of beer.

12. Whenever George W smirks during a standing ovation, take turns drinking shots of beer until the audience sits down. Do it double time if his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

Don't miss this one. Warning: If you try this game with cheap vodka instead of beer, you'll never make it to the end of the lie-fest speech.

Additions

This is sort of sudden, but I get to make command decisions around here. The lovely Nina who clogs up my comments sections with blog posts of her own (heh) has been asked to blog here instead, freeing up space for others to comment (wink). She'll add her wit and wisdom to what I think is the best team in Blogtopia (y! sctp!). Make her feel at home.

Welcome aboard, darlin'.

Enemy of the State

I was told to raise my right hand and was sworn in. Then the interrogation by an assistant to the state attorney general began. She asked questions about my political activities... questions about my political writings. She had copied all of them from the Internet and waved them about with great emotion. She seemed excited by the fact that some of my articles had appeared on a web site that has a four-letter word in its name. Obviously, she thought that this would embarrass me. It did not. I calmly explained to her that I do not have a web site and I have no control over what name other people give to their web sites. I don't know if she believed me or not.

Then the interrogation got even more interesting. She asked questions about my sex life. She asked questions about my marriage that had ended 35 years prior. Then she started to ask detailed questions about the fact that I had been the victim of a brutal rape. The rape, which is irrelevant to this case, had occurred 40, yes 40, years ago during a time when I was working in Florida. By now, it had become very clear to me what was happening. There was no doubt in my mind that this was an attempt to intimidate me."

This lady was rear ended by a vehicle owned by the state. The quoted incident above happened when she gave a deposition in the case against the state. This is unconscionable. Get the whole story and maybe offer her a hand.

Thanks to Michael the Tubthumper for pointing me to this.

Biased Truth

Paul Krugman at Tennessee Guerilla Women:

"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.

Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."

Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn't. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.

So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.

Pardon me, Mr. Krugman, I know you know a lot more about this shit than I do, but "DUH!"

Gay sex

If you want to see fellatio and sodomy, go watch Bugman on Nutball tonight and watch Lardass turn into DeLay's suck whore.

Big Time

I'm honored to be quoted by the Columbia Journaism Review on my post below concerning Bob Woodruff.

"For three years you've been reporting on the casualties as pseudo-TV fiction characters, with your disingenuous false pity for the families. How's it feel now that two of your own will probably be turnips for the rest of their lives? Are you now going to take a realistic look at the waste of lives in the Chimp's folly? I hope so, and I hope you start giving the American people the truth about all we've lost in that dry hole in the sand."

However, it seems they expected me to be delicate. In the next sentence:

Making the same observation, but a bit more delicately, Iggert wonders if this "might just be a way of bringing Iraq a little closer to the backyards of those who don't or have not been able to relate to the war?"

I ain't cute, I ain't pretty, and I sure as Hell ain't delicate.

Update:

Shakes not only says it more delicately but better too. Is this link love or what?

I feel terrible about Woodruff and Vogt - and I feel terrible every single time I read a headline about more troops getting killed or injured, not to mention more Iraqi civilians getting killed or injured. And I get angry when I watch a news anchor blithely reports those deaths or injuries - "Twelve marines died today when a roadside bomb exploded..." - and then segue without irony into a report about President Bush or one of his minions giving a speech on how well the war is going or how we've turned a new corner or how Cindy Sheehan is nothing more than a publicity whore. I don't want to celebrate that this horrific spell of cognitive dissonance might have finally been broken by a tragedy, but, at the same time, I do hope that makes a few people reconsider the ways they've aided and abetted an administration and its war of choice that has caused so many unnecessary deaths.

Re: Bob Woodruff

The impression I get, watching the news heads talk about the incident, is that the news folks are finally realizing this war in Iraq is not a video game and that it just as easily could have been them in the hatch of that APC. It's really something to see them waking up. About time, you motherfuckers. For three years you've been reporting on the casualties as pseudo-TV fiction characters, with your disingenuous false pity for the families. How's it feel now that two of your own will probably be turnips for the rest of their lives? Are you now going to take a realistic look at the waste of lives in the Chimp's folly? I hope so, and I hope you start giving the American people the truth about all we've lost in that dry hole in the sand.

Silence!

NEW YORK: NASA's chief climate scientist has claimed the Bush administration tried to stop him from speaking out after he gave a lecture calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

In an interview with The New York Times, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen said officials at the agency's headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard website and requests for interviews from journalists.

...

Why do I get the sickening feeling that we are farther along the road to irreversible Global Warming than the Chimp wants us to believe? I'm sure the truth will come out if we ever get the Rethugs out of power.

Enron

The trial begins today. After what the government did to Martha Stewart, these guys should get life sentences. Personally, I'd like to know exactly how much Enron money made it into the Bush and GOP campaign coffers and how much of it was connected to JackOff Abramoff.

Just sayin'.

Tides

They will change when this hits home. Wanna bet the pressure on the Chimp for some sort of plan in Iraq just went up big time?

Coverup...revisited

Via AMERICAblog from The Mail:

A White House leak revealing astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm.

A new book exposes how the two men connived to dupe the United Nations and blows the lid off Mr Blair's claim that he was a restraining influence on Mr Bush.

He offered his total support for the war at a secret White House summit as Mr Bush displayed his contempt for the UN, made a series of wild threats against Saddam Hussein and showed a devastating ignorance about the catastrophic aftermath of the war.

...

In the far off distance, I can hear the sound of shit hitting fan.