Mr. 3000

Same to you, buddy.







Happy New Year, America.

just read it

Even though it specifically addresses the Iraq war, this paragraph is the best description of George W. Bush's administration ever written:


"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 . . .The Iraq War has been many things, but for its prime promoters and cheerleaders and now-dwindling body of defenders, the war and all its ideological and literary trappings have always been an exercise in moral-historical dress-up for a crew of folks whose times aren’t grand enough to live up to their own self-regard and whose imaginations are great enough to make up the difference. This is just more play-acting."


Read the full post at Josh Marshall's "Talking Points Memo," my first stop every day online. It's clarity like this that made we want to start my own blog.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011729.php

Smoke and Mirrors

Park Service Can't Give Official Age Of Grand Canyon For Fear Of Offending Creationists...

Due to pressure from Bush Administration officials, the National Park Service is not permitted to give an official age for the Grand Canyon. Additionally, a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood is for sale at the National Park's bookstore.

Full Story Here

shame and disgrace

I have never been more ashamed to be an American than I am now. As Americans, we all have blood on our hands now, blood that we have no just claim to have spilled. The United States of America has changed from a bastion of freedom and justice to a travesty of these noble ideals, and I only hope that I live long enough to see the public trials and executions of the poisonous vermin who make up our current administration. We are ruled by criminal scum and we will never be able to wash their stain out of our nation's fabric. We have officially become a failing empire. History will ensure that we reap what we have sown as a country, as many have before us. Welcome to the trash heap of broken dreams, courtesy of George W. Bush. Congratulations, George, you have crushed Nixon's record of abominations in a way I didn't think possible.

Happy new year, indeed.

Chevy, please

I honestly wish nobody ill, but watching the canonization of yet another competence and integrity-challenged dead Republican is turning my stomach. Even a number of liberal bloggers are parroting the conventional wisdom that Gerald Ford was a good and decent man.

Sorry, but count me out. It's not a grudge that I have, it's a good memory.

Gerald Ford gave a full pardon for every misdeed perpetrated in office by Richard Nixon, the only president who could give George W. Bush a run for the first-place trophy for malicious disregard of the Constitution. He pardoned and thus rehabilitated the careers of many of the Nixon cronies who are now (mis)guiding the current path of the United States, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams, Henry Kissinger and more, scoundrels and war criminals who should all be getting forcibly sodomized daily behind bars rather than living in Georgetown mansions. He did all this with full knowledge of the deliberate and intentional crimes against our nation that these people planned and orchestrated.

"Our long national nightmare is over," indeed.

Gerald Ford was the fulcrum upon which our present long national nightmare was levered into power. Mourned with the simple courtesy due a dead president, yes.


Mourned as a great American? Not by me.

I don't feel so good...

RIP James Brown, who today suffered the final insult of being eulogized by FOX News as "the godfather of sole."

How could anyone with lungs like that end up dying from pneumonia?

brought to you by the war on xmas

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

The winter solstice heralds the return of the Sun. Every day from now until the spring equinox. the daylight hours grow as the darkness shrinks.

Bring on the Sun.

sagacity

It is ten years since Carl Sagan passed away. It has been a tough ten years for science. However, one year ago today, Dover v. Kitzmiller was decided in favor of teaching science over superstition.

Carl would be happy.

isn't it obvious?

All of the television newsreaders are atwitter today over Bush the Idiot's proposal to permanently expand the size of the armed forces. One question they all can't seem to find the answer to is "how is the United States going to pay for this larger military?"

Folks, listen up, it's really not that difficult.

Remember how we've already learned how much good that the previous Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have done for the economy and the revenues of the U.S. Treasury which is why everyone is so well-off today?

Well, phase two consists of not merely lowering taxes, but actually giving billions of dollars of tax revenues to the wealthiest one percent of the country's populace. This will cause trillions of dollars to suddenly materialize in the checking account of the United States of America.

Problem solved.


Please pay more attention in the future, okay?

No Clothes?

Gee...do you think folks are starting to notice the emperor has no clothes?

"But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public."

The full story:
White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops

thought for the day

You can't spell "quagmire" without IRAQ.

Topeka, I have found it!

Why does our reality-challenged president insist on staying in Iraq?

I'd be willing to bet that Babs and Poppy G.H.W. used to call Georgie a "quitter" a lot of the time.



Cherchez la femme.

by any other name

Since it seems pretty likely that the Weed is going to send more American service personnel to Iraq after the first of the year in a monstrous wargasm to show the Eye-rackies that we mean bidness and that they had better fall in line, I think we should come up with a great nickname for what is going to happen, something that conveys how impressively macho and successful it will be.


I'd like to be the first to propose "Shock and Awe."

baby needs new shoes

Reports from the media indicate that the currently favored proposition for the New Way Forward of the War on Iraqis is an increase in troop strength, often being expressed by people in the administration as "doubling down." Officials from the Pentagon and the State Department have been rolling this new phrase out for the past couple of days, apparently in response to the Iraq Study Group (they meet at 3:15 PM in the cafeteria every school day) concluding that the United States should withdraw from Iraq as hastily as is safe.

As a reader at Talking Points Memo notes, the more proper term in these circumstances would be "double or nothing," since in gambling, "double down" means to take advantage of a strong hand to increase your profits. In this case, it is a far more of a hail mary pass by a president who has squandered away the assets of our country with no planning or regard for the consequences.


All of which leads me to wonder, did somebody let Bill Bennett start directing the Iraq policy?

They're just trying to set themselves up for that raise....

Colbert's opening tonight....made me laugh out loud.

"Tonight--Congress moves up to a 5-day work week. How much time do you need to say 'yes sir, Mr. President'?"

pronouncements from the closet

Tucker Carlson just said that Al Gore "memorably and pathetically called Princess Diana 'the people's princess.'"

"Pathetically?"

Much as I hate to admit it, he must be right. If anybody knows what being pathetic is all about, it's little closeted cake-boy Tuckie Carlson.


Will somebody please beat this little fuckwad into a permanent coma? Please?

enough already

I thought things were going better. I was wrong.

Goodbye Taz. I'm sorry I gave you the jinxed name. Say hi to your dad for me. I miss you both.

Almost Saturday Cat Blogging

Is he cute, or what? So what if he's half deaf, half blind, and has half the brains god gave a doorknob? He is definitely the most photogenic cat I've ever had.

How do they know?

This morning sometime before 6:00, I was awakened by pitiful squeaky crying. Sounded like a kitten and I immediately flashed back to last January when we found an 8 week baby on the front porch.

I ran to the front door (without my glasses/contacts--really helpful since I am so blind I wouldn't be able to see anything) but found our Mini (who is a squeaker) staring out the front window next to the door. I leveraged her out of the way and saw a shadow of a kitty face just outside. David followed me and he went out as I ran to clear all breakables and rugs from the guest bathroom (aka kitty kwarantine) so we could whisk it right in upon entry.

The cat did not run, it allowed him to pet it, and then slipped under the chair on the porch for shelter from the wind. Obviously it was not feral.

I grabbed my glasses and ran back to finish cat-proofing the bathroom. When I was done I stepped out onto the front porch to see the baby. It was full grown and looked, in the dark, a lot like the cat next door. When I saw her paws and watched her turn and walk, I realized it WAS the cat from next door.

“Sassy!” I called, and she perked right up, squeaked and purred and headed back to me doing that pony hop. She’s a squeaker, too. Just like Mini, hence he chorus that sounded like a desperate kitten that woke us up.

Yes, the cat from next door, and her “sister” Daphne, have the house to themselves. They’re de-clawed and need of a home. Mummy and Daddy adopted two more human children this fall and when they moved to their new home, realized from the timing of the daughter’s symptoms, that she was highly allergic to the cats. Sassy and Daphne have been living next door, a house to themselves, while we try to find someone who can adopt two lovely girls with no claws. I go over and visit occasionally, and their mummy and daddy take them food and water and play with them, too. Obviously someone must have been over to feed them yesterday or last night and Sassy must have slipped out without their knowing.

I picked her up and cuddled her, purring to reassure her, and took her into the bathroom with David corralled our troops and got some food and water. I called Sassy’s family to let her know we had found her and she was fine and we’d take her back to the house.

We took her back, and found Daphne frightened and alone, hiding in the loo. We re-united them and all was well when we left.

Milo, I think our houses must be marked by hobos (or the cats themselves) in the old “hobo code”. Note the sign for “kind lady”, (or perhaps in these modern days, a cat lover) resides here: Hobo Code and that is how they find us.


As a postscript, if there’s a regular reader out their who might take pity and be interested in a couple of loving cats that need a home, their Daddy told me he’d buy a hunky gift certificate for the new parents to get food a plenty for the girls to get started in their new home. I’ll bet that could be traded in for shipping costs if someone out of town or out of state might be feeling the holiday spirit and would like to meet a plane with two adoptees ready for their forever home. They've always depended on the kindness of strangers... Bill Frist need not apply…

Milo queried some of us recently, wondering how cats in distress know which house to target for rescue...

just lemme do it myself, mom

Tony Snow, looking more haggard and hollow (selling your soul bears a heavy price) every day, just defined the administration's response to the newly-released commission report on Iraq.

As near as I can figure, our decider-in-chief's position seems to be "thanks for your report, and that's exactly what we've been doing and will continue to do."


No wonder George's dad burst into tears the other day. He has watched his oaf of a son destroy his name and his family's reputation forever. I've never liked the Bushes, but even though the old man is crass and self-serving to a fault, he at least has some grasp of reality and can't help but realize that the Bush name will be synonymous with "catastrophic failure and compulsive liar" for ages to come.

Nostradoofus

I've eaten my predictions before, but I really have a strong feeling about this one, so I'll go out on the limb just so I can be the first.

In 2008, Al Gore will be elected to the Presidency of the United States by a landslide of 1980 Reaganesque proportions.