Foreign policy

There's a reason for diplomats other than going to parties. They know how to use a stiletto rather than opt for a bludgeon. They understand the consequences of our actions and choose a path that hopefully avoids creating pitfalls for us in the long run. Unfortunately, the Chimp considers Condi and John Bolton diplomats.

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But in another setback to the Bush Administration, and showing their gratitude for what Bush just gave them for violating the NPT, India and Iran announced today that despite White House opposition, the two countries and Pakistan would work towards agreement on a major gas pipeline in June. The project would feed Iranian gas to India and forge close economic ties amongst the three countries.

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Like Ahmed Chalabi and his band of thieves did to us with Iraq, we've been played again. These folks have been playing the game for 2000 years before anybody even thought of the New World. We're like the guy from the farm in Iowa getting suckered into a 3-card Monte game on the street in NYC.

Supporting the troops

'Jenna', 'Not-Jenna', Clueless, "Teledildonics". Hearing those words, I naturally think of Neil Shakespeare.

Death wish

I could sue somebody into oblivion for infringing on one of my copyrights. Imagine what George Lucas could do.

Thanks to Skippy.

Insecurities

Why don'tcha just enlist, you chickenshits?

Less is more...

If you're not reading Commander Huber on a regular basis, you should. You don't? Drop and give me 50! Seriously, on defense issues, there's no one better. He looks at what our military really needs (cuts right through the Rummy-speak) in language even a civilian can understand:

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So here's my proposal. Start by cutting the Department of Defense Budget in half. Don't cut corners by chipping away at military veterans' benefits. Get rid of stuff, and quit making more of it. Dump at least two aircraft carriers and only produce one per decade, at most. Cut off funding for further procurement of Cold War dinosaurs like the F-22 fighter and the B-2 bomber. Bring along the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and make that the last of the manned combat aircraft. No new classes of submarines. The ones we have now are swift and silent enough. No new classes of naval surface combatants. If we didn't get it right with the Arleigh Burke missile destroyers, we never will. The tanks we have now are fine. You want them to burn less gas, give them new engines. If you want them more invulnerable, give them new armor.

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Know what? The B-52s did the job in Vietnam and continue to complete the mission today, the youngest of them is 45 years old. Time to use some of the money we waste on defense to make this world a better place. And a note, follow the links at the bottom to his 'Next World Order' series. Excellent reading.

I'm with Karena...

We don't need to go backward:

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I am going to tell him [John Kerry] not to expect my vote again ever. Oh, and Hillary too. And Dean, that includes you. Al Gore, sorry, babe, but that includes you too.

Much as I like Gore and Dean, we need a new face up there, not the same old, same old. May I suggest Russell Feingold?

Friday Cattle Dog Blogging

No Cattle Dog this week. I'm giving the Princess a break. Heh...

Slippery slopes

The Chimp's White House and the Republican Party have taken us down one:

Reading this interesting article in Forward about the potential consequences of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities (presuming we even know where they are) I am struck once again by the right's willingness to violate important taboos. (Some of you may not find this surprising considering their rather shocking public obsession with bestiality, but this goes beyond their usual bedroom hypocrisy.)

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First, they declare that the taboo against wars of agression, formed in the blood of more than 70 million dead people in the 20th century's two world wars, is out. Not even a second glance at that taboo. They simply repackage it as "pre-emptive" war, changing the previous definition of troops gathering on the border to somebody some day might want to attack us so we must attack them first.

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The Criminal-in-Chief, his minions in Congress, and the bought and paid for 'news media' are doing their damndest to desensitize us to their crimes. They want us to come to the point where they'll drop a nuke on someplace in Iran 'intelligence' tells them is a WMD site, and we'll all just shrug our shoulders, just as we did when they invaded Iraq.

We've set up camps in Eastern European nations for the sole purpose of torturing human beings, many innocent. We have secret courts in Guantanamo and American citizens are detained for years without charges filed. Shades of Hitler and Stalin but we just shrug our shoulders.

Once was a time when an American could say, 'no, my country would never do that', and be reasonably certain he was justified. Not saying we're angels, but Americans generally did the right thing. An allegation of torture (especially torture of innocents) would shock us all and we'd demand Congress get to the bottom of it. Now, as long as it doesn't confront our sheltered lives, we don't much give a shit.

We've given up a boatload of civil rights, enough so we should all be outraged, yet we just shrug and continue on, business as usual. Thirty-odd percent of us still support the people who are committing these crimes, willing to go along with whatever the government tells them.

'Be afraid', the regime says. 'There's a terrorist under every rock', they warn. And the chickenshits among us nod their heads and relinquish the last little bit of control they do have. 'They're keepin' us safe', the sheep say as they kiss of the last of their self-respect, of their dignity, goodbye in some sort of sacrifice to the Oracle of Fear.

Maybe it would be good for the United States to have its knees cut out. Something on the order of the Great Depression (something caused by this government's counterparts of that age) might be in order to make Americans realize how much we've lost, and to give us a taste of how others in the world have to struggle for the basic necessities. We've become too comfortable and the criminals of the Republican Party know it, and they're using it.

They know that as long as our comfort level can be reasonably maintained, we will allow them to do whatever they please. Had the debacle in New Orleans not happened (or FEMA's response been trouble-free) and had gas prices not steadily risen, do you think the Chimp would be looking at poll numbers as low as he's getting lately? He'd probably still be up around 60%.

Katrina showed us that the government doesn't give a shit about the average guy and the gas prices highlight the close relationship between the White House and the energy sector. These two events have done more to open people's eyes than any Downing Street Memos or Fitzgerald investigation or Cindy Sheehan or Richard Clarke or Joe Wilson or The Generals, or anyone else. Know why? Because these events intrude on our comfort zones.

All you comfortable people better get off your collective ass come November and run these bastids out, because once the takeover is complete, comfort will be something you harken back to, like the Good Old Days.

All you need to know...

About why oil prices are so high in 3 easy graphs.

We know Paris Hilton sucks but...

So does the corporation that shares her name:

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Since October of 2003 Marty O'Brien and Hal Koster have been providing a free "Friday Night out on the Town" at Fran O'Briens Stadium Steak House for thousands of severely injured soldiers and marines who are recuperating nearby at Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Hal, a Vietnam vet, and his partner Marty, have made it a policy to continue continue doing this ... UNTIL THE LAST SOLDIER WOUNDED IN THIS CONFLICT HAS GONE HOME FROM WALTER REED AND BETHESDA.

That is stunning. What is even more stunning is how their landlord, Hilton Hotel Corp., responded. Hilton served Fran O'Brien's with an eviction notice. Why? Hilton doesn't want to spend the money to provide equal access for disabled people.

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It's all about the Benjamins.

Tell me again

How that fat bastid at Exxon/Mobil walks off with a half-billion dollar bonus and Exxon shows its best 1st Quarter profits ever and I'm looking at this?

Update:

It's us or them. At least those are the options Harry Reid is giving to Preznit Dicknose. Bob Geiger:

Senate Democrats are now hammering on George W. Bush to drop his lifelong loyalty to Big Oil by supporting a Senate bill that would work to eliminate gasoline price-gouging. With the family vacation season almost upon us, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and 15 Democratic Senators sent a letter to Bush this week asking for his support of S. 1735, a bill that would provide some degree of protection to consumers during any future oil crunches.

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Hug a librarian

Froggy reminds us it's School Librarian Day.

The Great Revulsion

Heeeere's KRUGMAN!

"I have a vision -- maybe just a hope -- of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."

I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.

Now the great revulsion has arrived. The latest Fox News poll puts Mr. Bush's approval at only 33 percent. According to the polling firm Survey USA, there are only four states in which significantly more people approve of Mr. Bush's performance than disapprove: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. If we define red states as states where the public supports Mr. Bush, Red America now has a smaller population than New York City.

So what's left of the conservative agenda? Not much.

That's not a prediction for the midterm elections. The Democrats will almost surely make gains, but the electoral system is rigged against them. The fewer than eight million residents of what's left of Red America are represented by eight U.S. senators; the more than eight million residents of New York City have to share two senators with the rest of New York State.

And there is also, of course, the real prospect that Mr. Bush will change the subject by bombing Iran.

Still, in the long run it may not matter that much. If the Democrats do gain control of either house of Congress, and with it the ability to issue subpoenas, a succession of scandals will be revealed in the final years of the Bush administration. But even if the Republicans hang on to their ability to stonewall, it's hard to see how they can resurrect their agenda.

In retrospect, then, the 2004 election looks like the high-water mark of a conservative tide that is now receding.

Halle-fuckin'-lujah! I'm tired of treadin' water.

President Hu meets president "Huh?"

Dana Milbank

But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

NYTimes

Mr. Hu apparently no longer feels, as past Chinese leaders did, that he must come to the United States bearing gifts. And the Chinese, ever sensitive to questions of status, made clear they felt slighted by Mr. Bush's decision not to offer up a full state dinner for the leader of 1.3 billion people; instead, Mr. Hu got lunch.

And in return, Mr. Bush got vague promises that China would continue doing what it is already doing - at its own pace.

BBC News

"China can stop buying dollar-denominated bonds, increase buying of US products and gradually reduce its holdings of US bonds," he said.

In European trading, the US dollar fell against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.

Dammit, Georgie, your protocol rocket scientists called Mr. Hu's country by the name of its enemy, diminished the importance of his visit, and stiffed the guy on dinner, and as a result the dollar's now worth fifty cents!

I think it begs the issue to even mention letting the Falun Gong lady in with a day pass. I believe in free speech, but that was ridiculous coming from an administration that is so good at closed, scripted meetings and ignoring protesters. Highly discourteous. If they planned it, and I don't doubt it for a minute, much worse.

Business as usual from this administration. These idiots couldn't throw a beer party in a brewery.

A tip 'o the Brain to Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Sing a Song

Our Fearless Leader has a somewhat limited songtrack on his I-Pod One. He likes country but any new sample lists he might download aren't likely to include tracks by The Dixie Chicks or Steve Earle. (I wonder if he accidentally downloaded Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by Crashtest Dummies thinking it would be a sensitive and poetic ballad?) However, music as a mediator of values and ideologies is something our Dear Leader appreciates. Patriotic and religious songs have helped people to uphold their faith and national identity through the hardest times as we all know. In this spirit of community building the White House Easter Egg Roll 2006 was dedicated to the Katrina Children and to celebrate everything that has been accomplished in that hurricane-ravaged region, eggs were rolled and songs were sung. The Katrina Kids serenaded Dear Leader with a song dug from the depths of their young souls and experience, sung to the tune of Hey Look Me Over:

Our country's stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade.
Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand.

The Rude Pundit thinks this means that Dear Leader has just beat the old Soviet Union at its own game, as if Dear Leader was nothing more than the center of a cult of personality rather than the current chief executive the people of the United States vote for every four years. What should the Katrina Kids be singing anyway, This Land is Your Land or Glory, Glory Hallelujah? Or perhaps Row, Row, Row Your Boat?

You know you suck when...

-- your own propaganda news channel can only force a 33% approval rating. A new low for the lower-than-low president.

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I'm giggling my motherfucking ass off.

Bush pardons Republican donor

The Carpetbagger Report

On the surface, Franchi's story seems fairly routine. He was convicted in 1983 of tax evasion, served two years' probation and paid a $20,000 fine, before completing eight hours of community service. This week, Franchi was one of 11 people to receive a rare Bush pardon.

As reader K.Z. noted, however, Franchi is also a generous Republican donor. Since Bush took office, Franchi has donated nearly $4,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Given the way Republicans manufactured "pardongate," coupled by how unusual a Bush pardon is, isn't it worth exploring the question of impropriety here? The natural response would be that Franchi's $4,200 in Republican contributions isn't that much money by GOP standards, but isn't it possible that pardons are cheaper under Bush?

Put it this way: if it were Clinton, wouldn't this be all over Fox News?

Bush knows ya gotta dance with the one whut brung ya.

Sensible Observations

Another of Mrs. G's e-mails. Sometimes I wonder what she does for all that money...

1) "When I die, I want to die like my grandfather--who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." --Author Unknown

2) Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children." --Author Unknown

3) "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." --Drew Carey

4) "The problem with the designated driver program, it's not a desirable job, but if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house." --Jeff Foxworthy

5) "If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base." --Dave Barry

6) "Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, the day before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp." --Bob Ettinger

7) "My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.'" --Paula Poundstone

8) "A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: "Duh." --Conan O'Brien

9) "Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God.... I could be eating a slow learner." --Lynda Montgomery

10) "I think that's how Chicago got started. Bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough. Let's go west.'" --Richard Jeni

11) "If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead." --Johnny Carson

12) "Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography."--Paul Rodriguez

13) "My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that's the law." --Jerry Seinfeld

14) "Remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?" --Warren Hutcherson

15) "Bigamy is having one wife/husband too many. Monogamy is the same." --Oscar Wilde

16) "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

17) "Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Afghanistan." --A. Whitney Brown

18) "You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'" --Dave Barry

19) Do you know why they call it "PMS"? Because "Mad Cow Disease" was taken--Unknown, presumed deceased

20) "Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer." -- W. C. Fields

Numbnuts's Nucular Nutzoidness

Robert Scheer

The quandary in which Bush finds himself regarding Iran's apparent quest for nuclear weapons is only the latest example in an astonishing series of national security blunders.

A once swaggering president, who so convincingly wielded a bullhorn and modeled a flight suit, now has assumed the pretzel pose of a supplicant attempting to cajole our old enemy in Tehran into dropping its nuclear ambitions while simultaneously initiating talks with Iran aimed at bailing us out in Iraq. After the fiasco of using the blunt instrument of military force to "democratize" Iraq, Bush now resorts to mild talk of U.N. sanctions on Iran, the very weapon he had derided in relation to quarantining Hussein. Bush's nutty nuclear braggadocio on Tuesday -- "all options are on the table" -- was a sign of weakness, not strength, hobbled as he is by various self-created impediments.

One is that he has lost the trust of Americans, foreign leaders and even many Republicans by lying about Iraq -- crying wolf, in essence -- and then fumbling the occupation. Another invasion would be a tough sell, both here and abroad.

Two, Iran is, as Republican Sen. Richard Lugar put it subtly, "part of the energy picture." In other words, it exports gobs of oil. U.S.-Iran tension already has sent crude prices above $70 a barrel. "I believe, for the moment, we ought to cool this one," Lugar warned the White House. "We need to make more headway diplomatically to be effective."

Three, the United States is highly dependent upon Iran-trained Shiite religious factions in Iraq for what is left of the tattered welcome mat Bush & Co. told us to expect when we came to overthrew Hussein. Key Iraqi Shiite leaders have stated they would support Iran in the event of a U.S. attack. Cozying up to the Shiite fundamentalists in Iraq is a bargain with the devil, born of weakness, the pattern for this president.

Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq. See more of Robert Scheer at TruthDig.

Zillow

Just to take a little break on Bush-Bashin' Thursday, check out Zillow.com. It's kinda like Google Earth, except when you type in your address, it tells you approximately how much your house is worth.

Just for fun, I typed in Fixer's address. It came back with "No information available in the Twilight Zone". Hmmm.