Day off

Everybody gets the day off tomorrow as I'm starting the move to the new Blogger software. Atrios survived so I figger I take the chance before Blogger forces me to do it anyway. I'll be starting at 0500 tomorrow and we'll be back whenever the bots finish the job.

Keeping this on top today, new posts begin below.

I was wrong ...

I thought it would take 6 months before we actually considered what it might take to reinstate a Draft. It won't even be a Friedman Unit:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Selective Service System is making plans to test its draft machinery in case Congress and President Bush need it, even though the White House says it doesn't want to bring back the draft.

...

And one F.U. ago, everybody said Charlie Rangel was crazy when he brought it up. They say the test won't be ready to run until 2009. I'd bet they'd be ready to run it one F.U. from now if it keeps going to shit in Iraq. I'd betcha they could get a Draft up and running by this time next year if they really wanted to. Are they still making kids register when they turn 18? Thought so.

While Nero fiddles

While Chimpy McFucknuts is decidin' what to do in Eye-Rack, the meatgrinder rolls on.

My kinda holiday!

Fuck Christmas, this is it.

Minimizing the damage?

Christy at FDL looks at the maneuvering by Dems so they're not painted as the 'surrender monkeys' they were after Vietnam. You remember the lines; "if we were only committed to victory", "if we would have sent more troops", "the peaceniks and Democrats sabotaged the war effort". She takes a quote from Kevin Drum:

The question here isn't so much about withdrawal, which I believe Ackerman, Farley, and Lemieux all support, but about how to handle withdrawal politically in order to minimize damage to the Democratic Party.

It's real simple. The Dems who supported the war have to admit they were wrong and ask forgiveness. Period. [If the Dem Presidential candidate in '08 voted for the war, they'd better apologize before they get my vote] Second, they have to call it what it was, an illegal act of war. Third, they have to impeach the President and Vice-President and put them on trial for war crimes. [If the Dem Presidential candidate in '08 doesn't support impeachment, they don't get my vote] It's not the fact that the Dems want to leave Iraq, but the fact the war was illegal in the first place and should never have happened. While some Dems were culpable in giving the Chimp the authority, they sure as hell didn't dream up this craziness.

No one paid the price for Vietnam except the 58,000 troops whose names are on that black marble wall in Washington. They have to show, decisively, that we demand accountability from our leaders and to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that invading Iraq was an illegal act. Hopefully, Henry Waxman and John Conyers and the rest can bring the illegalities to light and get them on the record. After the Clinton/Lewinsky fiasco the Rethugs fabricated, impeachment is the only avenue at this point. If we do not impeach, it will say we take more offense at an extramarital blowjob than we do the premeditated murder of 3,000 U.S. troops and countless Iraqis.

It's not time to play CYA on the Dems' part. It's time to take the high road and let the chips fall where they may. Christy says it best at the end:

Even better, if the chorus of ridicule over Bush's cowardly posturing from a strong, morally based Democratic party is effective enough, we may even browbeat the loser into changing course in Iraq. Why should we be content with just playing the role that Republicans want us to play?

And just an addendum to those who can't wait to see Cheney sweat on the witness stand in the Scooter Libby trial: Do not think for a second Dick Cheney will ever see the inside of a courtroom, and do not think there will be any new revelations from it. In fact, I think the Chimp will pardon Libby long before the jury is seated.

I've been saying it ...

For 2 years. Now they're floating that trial balloon:

NEW YORK -- President Bush's secretary for Veterans Affairs said Thursday that "society would benefit" if this country were to bring back the military draft, and said it shouldn't have loopholes for anyone who is called to serve.

...

Wait, if we're still bogged down in Iraq in a Friedman Unit*, we'll be discussing this seriously.

*1 F.U. = 6 months

For the children

Again, San Francisco leads the way...

Twenty women took off their clothes on Wednesday to make the world a better place.

And one of them did an X-rated dance in stiletto heels with a giant stuffed dog, because it was the right thing to do for the children of San Francisco.

Debbie Licious may not be her real name, she said, but the $10 bills that customers kept poking into her various garment straps were very much genuine. She and her caring colleagues at the Gold Club on Howard Street were turning over the proceeds of their lap dances to benefit the San Francisco Fire Department's annual charity toy drive.

I see the common element between firefighters and strippers: must be the pole - dance around it, slide down it - it's a bond. And then I read further:

"That pole is too thin to be a fire pole," Lopez said, studying the situation very carefully. "But it's a good pole for other purposes."

I wouldn't touch that line with a. . .well, you know...

Firefighters union President John Hanley applauded the strip club and said he "hadn't heard one kid complain" about the source of the toys. And Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said the club is a "legitimate taxpaying business" and the strippers were "doing the right thing."

One club regular, who appeared to have been slaking his thirst from something besides a fire hydrant, kept slipping folding money into various posteriors.

"I'm giving back to the community!" he hollered.

Now that's civic-mindedness!

"Forget all that holly-jolly hoo-ha..."

Where else but the EssEffChron?

At the First Satanic Church party, there's music, burlesque and other sinfully rich ways to forget all that holly jolly hoo-ha

Black X Mass has been a San Francisco tradition since 1997. Over the years the audience has ranged from people who don't celebrate Christmas, to those who want to detox from a day of heavy dysfunction with their celebrating relatives and contemplate the possibility that they were adopted, to people who have recently moved to San Francisco and have no local family with whom to celebrate.

Black X Mass is presented by the First Satanic Church and its founder and high priestess, Karla LaVey.

"It's basically a variety show. There are outlandish acts that are really good musically. There's a lot of burlesque," LaVey says. "It's all crazy, wild and I guess a lot of people might call it sinful. Everyone has a good time and leaves in a better mood. All are invited to join the festivities. "

Included among the guest emcees is Monkeyman, the founder of Pirate Cat Radio, the station where Karla LaVey broadcasts her show, "The Satanic Church," every Wednesday night. Monkeyman started the unlicensed radio station more than 10 years ago, and it continues to broadcast on 87.9 FM in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as online at www.piratecatradio.com.

Black X Mass won't be a typical night at the club. "It's a party atmosphere, it's not just everyone sitting down and watching a show," LaVey says. "Everyone mingles, and there will be cake and snacks, too."

Dare to come in full costume and be ready for anything.

Sounds like fun. The only costume I wear to things like that is skivvy shorts, shower shoes, and a light coat of oil.

Why Impeaching Bush Is Good for Our Species

AlterNet

Ask yourself this: If our species is not predisposed by evolution to be both deceptive and gullible in equal proportions, how is it that we are so completely susceptible to propaganda, photo-op rhetoric, televangelists and backseat affirmations of love?

Very "wise guys" make up these lies and we believe them because it's easier than trying to figure out why we shouldn't (i.e., because we lack critical-reasoning skills). So, given our species' proclivity for deception, a more fitting Latin nickname might be homo sapiens fallaxcis ("wise guy who lies").

Considering both the ease with which President Bush bamboozled most Americans into supporting an unjust-and-illegal war against Iraq, and their subsequent lack of outrage at this affront to their sapient selves, one has to wonder if our species has not arrived at one of those telling evolutionary moments?

Ten thousand generations hence, might not they use the Bush Y-chromosome as their genetic marker to signal a crucial turning point in the evolution of homo sapiens fallaxcis, the fateful point where our generation foolishly chose to protect that which makes us fallaxcis at the expense of that which makes us sapiens, and we branched off into the genus homo fallaxcis? Ecce homo fallaxcis! Behold deceitful man!

However, if we follow congresswoman McKinney's lead, and impeach this World Class Deceiver for his lies and their dire consequences, we might send a signal to future generations that we consciously sought a different, far wiser evolutionary path.

Good points. One more fine reason to impeach the sonofabitch.

In the larger context of saving our species and the planet I think we need the 'bigger hammer' approach: mandatory sterilization of Repuglicans.

'Round Up' Olbermann, Damon, And 'Put Them In A Detention Camp'

Think Progress

Yesterday on Fox News, talk radio host Mike Gallagher said the U.S. government should "round up" actor Matt Damon, "The View" host Joy Behar, and MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann and "put them in a detention camp until this war is over because they're a bunch of traitors."

Gallagher was upset over Behar's comment that Time magazine should have chosen a controversial "Hitler-type" like Donald Rumsfeld as its Person of the Year. Gallagher said Damon should also be incarcerated because he "attacked George Bush and Dick Cheney"; he didn't explain why he wanted to imprison Olbermann. Watch it:

By all means watch it.

Advocating locking up folks for utilizing their Constitutionally protected right of free speech to dissent is about what we've come to expect from wingnut gasbags. Say anything you want as long as you agree with us. Otherwise you're a traitor. I wonder if this Gallagher asshole understands the meaning of the word "irony"?

Automatic Declassification

NYTimes

It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.

At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records.

Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.

And every year from now on, millions of additional documents will be automatically declassified as they reach the 25-year limit, reversing the traditional practice of releasing just what scholars request.

I hope there are legions of researchers lined up to get at this stuff. Inquiring minds want to know.

Billionaire Radio

The Billionaires are at it again. The lovely Encino Lady informs me via email that the Billionaires for Bush will be on the radio and streaming live on the interwebs:

Break out the eggnog nog and the gold-plated champagne flutes
and enjoy a visit with the Billionaires


Christmas Day, December 25, 2006

at 5:00 PM Pacific Standard Time

on KPFK 90.7FM Los Angeles, 98.7FM Santa Barbara
and streaming worldwide at www.KPFK.org

Mrs. F's cousin Encino Man also makes an appearance as Homer Phobe. If you're into satire, the Billionaires are not to be missed.

I told ya

God is pissed. Shouldn't a plague of locusts come next?

Who says?

'Real' Americans won't do the jobs we use illegals for? Via Xan, seems a company that was raided by immigration has more legal applicants than it knows what to do with. Imagine that. I've said many times that the only reason corporations and the government push this meme is to keep more money in corporate, and political, pockets. Pay Americans a decent, living wage, and they'll take any job you offer.

Re: Blogger upgrade

I'm gonna do it this weekend, probably at the wee hours so if I fuck something up, most folks won't see it. What the hell, if it sucks it'll give me something else to bitch about.

Thanks for all your comments.

Update 05:40 Thursday:

I don't know if anybody else noticed but Blogger has been moving Atrios since last night (I've been getting this page when I head over there). Seems to me there might be a bit of a problem? I'm sure Atrios will let us know when (if) he gets up and running again but it's making me rethink doing the move.

Science fiction goes political

LATimes

In books out now, President Chelsea Clinton hosts Osama bin Laden while most of the country lives under Sharia law.

Be afraid, conservatives. If you survived the victory speeches of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and allowed yourself to think, "Things can't get any worse," get over it. They can.

Two years from now, terrorists under the banner of the "Progressive Restoration" will take over Manhattan in a larger attempt to overthrow the government. Thirteen years later, President Chelsea Clinton and Vice President Michael Moore will haul out the good White House china for Osama bin Laden's state visit. By fiddling with your radio, you may be able to catch an underground broadcast by Sean Hannity. If you own a radio, that is; folks living in states that are under Sharia law won't even be that lucky.

Remember, after use, fold the top of the barf bag toward you.

Orcinus and Yglesias weigh in on this as well.

The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

The Union of Concerned Scientists has produced a pro-fesh-un-al scientific lookin' point 'n click chart. Go see.

Stuck in denial

Craig Crawford

There are those in the White House who are struggling to get the president to do more than listen. Perhaps that is why the planned pre-Christmas speech has been delayed: They saw the president again leaning toward a status quo speech despite their carefully choreographed efforts to show him mulling change.

Indeed, there is nothing short of an intervention under way here. And yet Bush, like so many targets of a family intervention, appears stuck in denial, unable to take that first step toward getting help.

Bush is a drunk for sure, drinking or not. I can only hope that his denial brings him jail, poverty, loneliness, sickness, and death, like it would any other alky who needs help and refuses to get it.

U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq, Bush Says for 1st Time

WaPo

President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.

As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has now adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. "We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, "Absolutely, we're winning."

Among the options under review by the White House is sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq for six to eight months. The idea has the support of important figures such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and has been pushed by some inside the White House, but the Joint Chiefs have balked because they think advocates have not adequately defined the mission, according to U.S. officials.

The chiefs have warned that a short-term surge could lead to more attacks against U.S. troops, according to the officials, who described the review on the condition of anonymity because it is not complete. Bush would not discuss such ideas in detail but said "all options are viable."

Anyone who thinks a short-term surge is the silver bullet to turn around an inevitable loss better study up on The Battle of the Bulge. Or maybe Banzai charge is closer:

...it is considered honourable to do a last desperate charge at the enemy and perish together with them instead of dying in cowardice.

That's fine, if you ain't the one doin' the chargin'...and dyin'.

A big round of applause ...

To Brother Lurch, who we think is kickass too.