target practice

In another sad incident of domestic terrorism, a man went on a shooting spree today in a big-box store at a mall in Kansas City, Missouri, with at least a couple of fatalities already known. This latest incident adds a horribly ironic twist to the kind of story we've heard many times before.



He was shooting at a Target.

primitive savages

Breaking news:

Hundreds of thousands of pro-secular citizens flooded the nation's capital today to demand the resignation of the government, which they fear is leading the country towards theocratic rule. People from all walks of life marched together to protest the merging of religion and politics and to protect the rule of law and the equality of all citizens, regardless of their religious preferences.

Sounds like some sanity is finally starting to return to the USA, doesn't it?




It would, if only this story was about the United States.

You know we're in trouble when Turkey is a beacon of enlightenment for America.

and another

RIP Stinky, 10-31-88 until 4-26-07.



You were everything a cat should be. All of your brothers and sisters will miss their Uncle Stinkbug. I know I will.

Quantum Leap

Full story from Washington Post:
Stephen Hawking Takes a Buoyant Ride on a Zero-Gravity Flight

and press release from zeroG:

Stephen Hawking Experiences the Freedom of Weightlessness

another passing

My mother, 9-23-30 until 4-25-07.




I wish I could have showed her how to be happy.

mission accomplished

This is what democracy looks like in George Bush's Iraq. It's clearly a much better place than it was under Saddam Hussein. I guess we'll be calling these bits of modern architecture "Freedom Walls." Thank goodness we're winning the war on terror, I'd hate to see what it would look like there if we were losing.

Doesn't it make you proud to be an American these days?

when science imitates art

First, there was this from the Associated Press:

'Kryptonite' found in Serbia
April 22, 2007

LONDON -- A mineral discovered in Serbia has the same composition as kryptonite -- the fictional substance that robs Superman of his powers -- the British Museum said Tuesday. While the mineral isn't a perfect match, its chemical breakdown is strikingly similar.

"Towards the end of my research, I searched the Web using the mineral's chemical formula, sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, and was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film 'Superman Returns,'" said mineral expert Chris Stanley at the Natural History Museum.




Then came this, from Reuters:


Scientists spot most Earth-like planet yet
April 24, 2007

European astronomers have spotted what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures that could support water and, potentially, life. They have not directly seen the planet, orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581. But measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it, the researchers say in a letter to the editor of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

"This one is the first one that is at the same time probably rocky, with water, and in a zone close to the star where the water could exist in liquid form," said Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, who led the study."We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees F), and water would thus be liquid."

Most of the 200 or so planets that have been spotted outside this solar system have been gas giants like Jupiter. But this one is small. "Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans," Udry said in a telephone interview. It appears to have a mass five times that of Earth's.





Let's see. First they find Kryptonite on Earth. Then they announce the discovery of a new planet, a planet that orbits a red dwarf star, which is a red sun, and is one of the nearest stars to the Sun. The planet is half again as large as the Earth, has a surface temperature like Earth's, is a rocky world that may have oceans, and has a surface gravity almost two and a half times as strong as Earth's.

We've found Krypton! Now all we need to do is find the Kent family and we'll finally have the hero that we need to save our skins!

Perhaps there's hope after all.

scenes I'd like to see

The administration trotted out Dick Cheney today to attack the multitudes who think we need to stop this misbegotten misadventure in Iraq and while doing so to sneeringly insult the four-fifths of the country that can't stand him. I'd sure like to see Pat Leahy get the chance to rebut the Dick in a fashion he understands in a deep, instinctive way:




"Fuck yourself, Cheney."

this should be fun

UPI report, 4-24-07:

Wiccan symbol approved for veteran graves


WASHINGTON April 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to include the Wiccan pentacle among the religious symbols made available for the headstones of veterans.

The decision was made to settle a lawsuit brought by the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The department previously had 38 religious symbols available for headstone engraving. Richard Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United, said it generally takes a few months for the department to approve a new religious symbol, but it took 10 years and a legal battle to win approval for the Wiccan emblem.

"The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment," the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, told the Times. "They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else."


Make some extra popcorn, because we are going to see the christianists' heads explode over this.

I want to know when we finally get headstones for all of the atheists in foxholes.

say what?

Some amazing new time-lapse photography of our home star, the Sun, has been recently released, amazing because it is the first 3D film of the Sun. Two satellites at a distance of about 160 million miles from each other took photos of the Sun daily for several months in multiple wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, with one satellite's photo providing the left-eye perspective, and the other the right. Particular attention was paid to the more dramatic events on the Sun's surface, the events known as solar flares and prominences, which can have serious effects on electronic equipment and on climate on Earth. Watching one of the 24-hour news networks offer a segment on this today provided a clearer understanding of why science is suffering so badly in this country.

A news reader was interviewing the network's "Science Correspondent" about these new images, and during the conversation about the solar flares and prominences the "Science Correspondent" remarked that "solar flares, which are called Coronal Mass Ejections by astronomers, an unpleasant term, are..." and then moved on to make his point.



I'm afraid I am unable to tell you what the point was.

I was so dumbfounded at the idea that a so-called "Science Correspondent" found the technical phrase "Coronal Mass Ejections" to be "an unpleasant term" that I didn't even hear the rest of the sentence.



"Unpleasant."



Really?

Is it the "Coronal?"

The "Mass?"

The "Ejections?"

The combination of the three?

Is this term part of some sort of cussing lexicon that I am unaware of? Is it some kind of peculiar sexual practice? Does it just sound dirty? Am I missing something here?



I really don't have much of a point to this post other than my own dismay that a completely neutral term of astronomy and physics can in the sweaty-palmed mind of some pinhead who gets labeled as a "Science Correspondent" on major cable television, be excused as somehow being "icky" for no apparent or explained reason. This presupposes that science is icky. Polite people have to excuse themselves for discussing science.

Just remember, John Galt is the collective scientists of the world, and the motors of the world are going to be shut down soon, not by the scientists, but by the idiots like this who are shutting science down.

You've been warned.

alien love flu?

In the second incident emanating from there in a couple of months, a man today barricaded himself in Building 44 at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and shot and killed a female hostage who was apparently employed in the building, and then to have turned the gun fatally on himself in what looks likely to have been another relationship gone bad.

While this is certainly a tragic story, I can't help but wonder if anybody was wearing a space diaper.

isn't it amazing

Harry Reid is under attack by Republicans for saying that the war in Iraq is lost.

It seems to me a classic case of blaming the messenger. They should be blaming George Bush for losing the war in Iraq, don't you think?

Just a Reminder...

It's not ALL Texas's fault!

Get the cane....

Massacre, Day 2 - Electric Boogaloo

I'm beginning to suspect that there's no minimum IQ requirement for news anchors. MSNBC is promoting its wall-to-wall coverage today of yesterday's school shooting incident. Whatever vacuous news-reader that was doing the voiceover for the promo breathlessly told the viewing audience that today the network would be examing the effects of this senseless tragedy on the "close-knit family of Virginia Tech."

The school has 26,000 students. I've spent half of my life living in towns with smaller populations than this "close-knit family."

This country has finally normalized utter stupidity. Our leaders are idiots, our press is idiots, our people in management positions are idiots, and a huge portion of our population are idiots.


It's no damned wonder Iraq is such a mess.

punched in the face by irony

We have had non-stop media coverage for several hours of the Virginia Tech shooting and the media is attaching huge significance to the number of victims with the thirty-one now known to be dead, already labeling this event as "the worst mass-shooting in US history" and "a tragedy of monumental proportions."

Non-stop, wall-to-wall, exhaustive coverage on every single news channel since it started, all due to the tragedy of 31 people who died in a single violent attack this morning as they went unsuspectingly about the normal daily business of their prematurely extinguished lives. While this is obviously a horrible event, it is being treated like a national catastrophe. Even Congress had a "moment of silence" broadcast by the television media and George Bush is going to make a public statement shortly.

Yet, when thirty-one Iraqis meet their fates under similar circumstances in their home town, the result of our country's reprehensible invasion of a sovereign nation, it seldom rates more than a paragraph on page 13.



What the fuck is wrong with this country? Every single day we are fed some form of the story that in Iraq, this would be a "growing pain" that is just barely noticed by the broader Iraqi society, yet here it turns into hour after hour of incessantly self-pitying and gratuitous news coverage?

we'll be really sorry, but...

The big news today is that a student of Asian descent killed at least 22 people, including himself, at Virginia Tech, after a morning rampage with dual 9mm handguns that is reminiscent of Columbine, particularly because of the closeness of the calendar dates of the two events.

Sounds to me like we better start locking up Asians. I propose we start with Michelle Malkin, and I'm sure she'll agree that it's the right thing to do for the sake of public safety and the greater good.


I mean, you can't be too careful, right?

changed, indeed...

A respected middle-aged science professor at a prestigious college takes illicit drugs, starts an evening career as a popular and risque nightclub performer, and in the process, successfully hits on a nubile, dewily naive young blonde co-ed who also happens to be one of his students.


This week's Dateline NBC?
The next Nancy Grace show?
The latest Most Wanted fugitive on COPS?





No, the plot for Jerry Lewis' "The Nutty Professor."

moment of silence

Ninety-five years...

times really have changed

The firing of the odious Don Imus last week was followed by a flurry of commentary from many which essentially amounted to "black people say 'nigger' so why can't we?"

Apart from the inflammatory nature of the word, there is a valid point buried in the subconscious racism of many making that argument.

When I was a young college student in upstate New York, back when I was starting to become politically - heck, conscious in any way - I had the treat of seeing Dick Gregory, who at that time was still known primarily as a comedian, give a speech (for want of a better word) about racism in the United States, and in particular, the use of the word "nigger."

Mr. Gregory spoke with incredible passion and clarity, remaining eloquent even as he dissected language that elicited pain and shame in some members of the audience, and embarrassment and unease in others.

At the end of his presentation, he delivered a simple summation of what he wished he could see happen. I wish I could reproduce it exactly, because the content has stayed vivid for all these many decades, but the best I can do is paraphrase it. He said that he wished the word "nigger" would become the most common word in the language. He wanted to see every person in the country take the word, use it frequently, get familiar with it, get comfortable with it, make it their friend.

He quietly explained that if the word became so ubiquitous that everybody used it unconsciously, it would lose the power that it had to hurt, to inflame, to marginalize, to have all of the negative effects that a simple combination of vowels and consonants and vibrations in the air could have on human beings. It was like a spotlight was turned on in my head. The ultimate expression of the "sticks and stones" verse was to turn the word back on itself and force it to destroy its own power.

This week's Time magazine cover photograph was a close-up of the ill-fated and ill-considered Don Imus with the caption "Who can say what?" covering his mouth. The article discusses, of course, the fate of Imus and the general perceptions of the United States, as well as proffering the already-tired argument that "rappers started it, why are they so special?"



It's true.

It's time that the African-American population of our country realizes that it can't be "their" word any more. By permitting and supporting the popularization of the word in black culture in this country, to the extent that it is almost impossible to find a radio station or television program about music that doesn't broadcast multiple and frequent uses of the word, our fellow American citizens who are of African descent have, whether they wanted to or not, made the word acceptable.

No longer is it the exclusive communal language of shared ethnicity. It has been shouted from the rooftops at the tops of too many lungs for years now, and by virtue of that, it has become public property. The law of unintended consequences has acted, and with the last ritual sacrifice that starred Don Imus (who deserved to be sacked even without his remarks) all of these community words that were only acceptable for some to use are now the legitimate domain of all.

It would be the ultimate of hypocrisy for the black community to now maintain that the word is somehow still toxic when it gets casually bandied about in every kind of social situation. Sorry folks, but that tacit approval in the black community for so many years has now put the word "nigger" legitimately in the hands of everyone, even those who use it to display hatred and disprespect, and there can be no more complaining about it.




Dick Gregory is getting his wish, just not quite the way he asked for.

not so hard, is it?

The tiny-handed Scott McClellan parroted the administration line once more for old time's sake as he participated in the panel segment on Bill Maher's HBO program "Real Time" this evening. During a discussion about Iraq, Scott made the accusation that the Democratic party needed to make up their minds and decide whether they want to "pull the funding or support the troops," the classic straw-man argument that has been the Bush junta's ever-predictable deflection of criticism of the monumental botch that has occurred over the last four years.

It struck me that Scott just demonstrated what the problem is. The Republicans don't seem to understand that the legislation Congress has offered already shows what choice the Democrats have made.

We don't have to choose between pulling the funding or supporting the troops.

Our decision is clear, as is our message.



We are supporting the funding and pulling the troops.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

Crap.


If we give Imus his job again, can we get Kurt back?

So it goes...

A sad farewell to one of my favorite authors and a great human.

Kurt Vonnegut

I have many great memories from reading his books--memories of not only the stories but how they related to my own life experiences and what was going on around the world at the time.

I remember I finished reading Sirens of Titan just a few days before Voyager passed by Saturn. At the time, they still could not get details of Titan but I KNEW what was going on behind that thick atmosphere because I'd READ THE BOOK!

He'll be missed.

hello, Imus be going

Bye-b'Imus.

A Time to Fire

Lots of pundits and personages have been coming to the defense of the indefensible Don Imus over the last few days. The usual reason is that with Imus' public apology for the latest in a long series of racist slurs, many of them think that he was "sincere" in his apology so he deserves "forgiveness."

Fuck forgiveness. Forgiveness is a way of the forgiver seeking to absolve themselves for their own inner demons.

Forgiveness is something that should be used sparingly at best. Forgiveness voids, for the select few who receive it, the penalty that the less-famous and connected pay on a daily basis. Forgiveness is frequently used as a means of tilting the playing field in favor of those who have enough fame, fortune, and friends so that they don't have to be subjected to the consequences that average people experience. It is usually argued for based on a subjective evaluation of the circumstances built around the preformed opinion of the perpetrator's innate goodness. If there is to be forgiveness, it should be reserved for the weakest of us, not the most powerful.

Nearly all of the current supporters of forgiveness for Imus that I have seen were people who were openly vindictive about Bill Clinton when aspects of his sex life became public, and not a one of them advocated forgiveness for him after his own public mea culpas. A scalp was the only thing that would please them.

Where were these noble souls when Stanley "Tookie" Williams was being pumped full of the fluids of lethal injection? It could certainly be argued that his conversion and the sincerity of his regret was more demonstrable and consistent than that of the repeat-offending Imus.

The fact is that Imus is trying to claim that he is only a poor, persecuted l'il shock jock in it just for the humor when in reality he is an extremely powerful figure, second only to Oprah in ability to catapult the career of authors and political figures, and he freely blurs the line between his "comedy" and his political statements. He's welcome to do that on his own dime, but when it comes to the airwaves that are owned and regulated by and for the people of the United States of America, Imus is playing both sides of the game and that is not right and should not be permitted any longer. He has abused his position one too many times and he must go.

If you think that it was all right for Imus to say what he said about some intelligent, industrious, accomplished and respectable young women on the air, then that means that you should also think it would be all right for somebody like Al Sharpton to have a conversation about young white debutantes who happened to be momentarily caught in the spotlight of publicity but were not public personages and refer to them as something like "bleached blonde trailer-trash blowjob queens" at the moment they were in the midst of some admirable and respectable pursuit that just happened to catch the media's fickle attention.

If you're not cool with that, then you are probably just seeking to forgive yourself for secretly wishing you could voice your own unconscious racism.

no more suspense

Since the truth is coming out in a few minutes anyway, let me go ahead and break the big headline. Remember, you heard the real story here first.








I am NOT the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby.









...See? Told you.

note to congressional Democrats

Let the fucking idiot veto the Iraq spending bill.


If he wants to veto it, Americans will have to come home. And then it's his fault. Don't any of you wimps have at least one ball?

sweet, sweet progress

On today's fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi people marched in the streets and protested the American occupation of their country.

In response, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said this demonstrates that Iraq "is now a place where people can freely gather and express their opinions, and that was something they could not do under Saddam."




Really?


I'm not a smart White House spokesman, but I'm pretty sure that Saddam would have been cool with massive anti-American protests in the streets of Baghdad.

built Ford-tough - and explosive

An interesting story over the last few days has become even more interesting. The CEO of the Ford Motor Company, Alan Mulally, told reporters that during a visit to the White House last week where Ford was exhibiting a hydrogen-powered hybrid car prototype that he had to practically wrestle the president down to prevent him from accidentally plugging a power cable into the hydrogen tank of the car and causing an explosion.

Mr. Mulally is quoted as telling reporters "I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front. I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?"

The problem with the story is that it didn't happen. As videotape of the event was played on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on MSNBC, it was clear that Mulally's version of the events was fabricated out of whole cloth. The White House, usually very quick on its feet to attack any adverse spin, has been entirely silent about the story, despite its easy debunking.


One can only wonder, if this wasn't true, and if Mulally told a completely fabricated story that is embarrassing to the president, a story that has not been rebutted nor even commented on by the White House, who had what to gain?


The part of the story that leaps to my eye is the implication by Mr. Mulally that accidentally getting the electric cord (which is routinely plugged into the car to recharge its batteries) close enough to the hydrogen fuel inlet valve could cause an explosion catastrophic enough to endanger the life of the president, to the extent that the CEO of a major manufacturing company was willing to throw himself in the way of the bullet, so to speak, and to lay hands on the head of the United States of America in spite of the serious security and protocol breach that represented. Alan Mulally just said, in a roundabout way, that this prototype vehicle was a dangerous bomb.



Did the CEO of Ford Motor Company just kill electric/hydrogen hybrid automobile research and development in this country?

let me know how it works

It seems that some toy company is bringing out a line of "action-figures" of 80's hairband Bon Jovi. Each band member will have their own figurine, complete with guitars and other appurtenances of their metier, and apparently their target market is "fans and groupies" of Bon Jovi.





Yeah, I'm sure there's a big market among 45 year-old women for Richie Sambora dolls.

oh, I see

CNN's Susan Lisovicz just explained that gas prices have gone through the roof over the last few weeks because of Daylight Savings Time. You see, since the daylight extends later into the evening now, people all over the country are driving around at night for an hour longer to enjoy it.

Do I ever feel dumb.

I was thinking it had something to do with the increasing difficulty of sucking petroleum out of the ground at ever-diminishing rates and the global geo-political instability that our president has incited by an illegal invasion of a sovereign country that happens to be right in the middle of the primary oil-producing nations of the world, places that are filled with people that don't like us much anyway.



Thank goodness I have smart people like Susan Lisovicz to correct my simplistic and uninformed hypotheses.

Iraq - almost like a Chrysler warranty

"Five long years, or fifty thousand lives!"

second of Zen

Her name is Testaceous, but I just call her Shelly.

I mus' go.

"Nappy-headed ho's."


And MSNBC thinks a "my bad" after 48 hours is adequate?

words fail me

A CNN report I just finished watching told the tale of how many American military personnel are left with no choice but to have their pets executed (under the auspices of "being humane") in order to comply with their orders to deploy to Iraq, which often give them only a week or so to prepare for departure, and leave them unable to arrange for longterm care for their beloved furry family members.


Imagine having to decide to take your trusting animal friends off to be killed at your own request in order to fight and possibly die for your country.


I can't even begin to explain to what extent the utter inhumanity of this sickens me. The wealthiest country in the world forcing those, who are in many ways demonstrably the most patriotic citizens of our nation for putting their lives on the line for the ideals this country was founded upon, to murder the living creatures they have committed themselves to being responsible for simply because they are inconvenient.



But it's tainted dog food that gets the headlines.



Go to www.netpets.org if you can help. Even with my herd, I'm going to see if there is any way I can. Please help, even if it is just contributing money to this most honorable of causes.



UPDATE:

I just saw the report again on CNN, and everybody kept saying that these military people had to have their pets "put to sleep" before they left for war.

No, they didn't.

They had to have their pets executed.



When you have an animal "put to sleep" it is a sanitary way of saying that an animal is so incredibly sick or injured or in pain that a quick and intentional death is the only way of avoiding inflicting further suffering upon it. It is also the only way to deal with animals that have proven themselves to be violent.

When you take a perfectly innocent, healthy, and happy house pet somewhere and have it put down because it is inconvenient, in my book that is murder and I would like to see it made prosecuteable as a felony. Call me crazy, but I don't find any difficulty in my position. The inability to speak or make tools does not make these creatures any less self-aware or worthy of living. When people decide to accept an animal into their life, they should understand it to be the same kind of commitment as bringing another human into their life. Once you accept the responsibility, it is yours until the end.

In this particular circumstance, the owners of these animals are given no choice in the matter if they are unable to place them in homes or boarding with friends or family and it horrifies me that our country finds that an acceptable practice. Our government has no right to expect that kind of sacrifice from our military people and with the trillion dollars spent on ruining Iraq, a few hundred million to find some ways of handling this situation better would not even be noticed. It would not be difficult to set up a foster-parent-for-pets program to "support the troops" and it would be an ennobling action on the part of our country.



Too bad pets aren't frozen embryoes...

revolting

Impeach the bastard.


http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-enemy-of-people.html

not to be outdone...

I love digital holidays. Happy E-Ster to all of my peeps!

Hoppy Easter!

Whether you're religious or not, no one can resist the chocolates, the peeps and the bunnies....

or pseudo bunnies....

winds of change

I've been saying for several months that we have finally started seeing the socio-political pendulum swing the other way. It is moving slowly and ponderously to be sure, but at long last we are beginning to reverse the incredible influence on our cultural and political sensibility that the current authoritarian neo-Victorianist christianism has exerted.

A lot of my friends have scoffed at me, and I've noticed a deep resignation in a few, a belief that no matter what we do that we are already over the edge and plunging into the abyss of fascism.

I must admit, my own perception that the tide is turning is pieced together from tiny bits of evidence found here and there, but I recently noticed something that I think is the true canary in the mineshaft that makes me certain that our country is going to self-correct the same way that it did in the Sixties and Seventies up until that horrid moment that a C-list actor was elevated to the office of the presidency.

I had occasion to go for a good long drive recently, almost nine hours for the round-trip total. After the first few hours, something struck me, a slight and almost invisible difference in my surroundings. I started paying closer attention, and by the time I returned home, I was sure of it.

We are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the dark years our country has gone through during the Bush presidency.


The canary in the coal mine? It is simple evidence that you can easily track for yourself and see if you agree.




Those crappy, jingoistic, yellow "support our troops" ribbons are disappearing.

no-spinning out of control

I can only conclude that Geraldo must have said "Olbermann" to have caused this full-falafel meltdown:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Gwz-2qB7o

nose for news

By the way, to any of you who actually believed that Keith Richards snorted his father's ashes:





YOU ARE FUCKING IDIOTS.

o frabjous day

What a funhouse ride the news has been lately. Bush meeting stony silence at his speech to soldiers. Cheney lurking in the bushes like a peeping tom at his idiot-boy's petulant press conference. Rove practically wetting himself scurrying to safety while being pelted with trash by protesting college students. McCain showing himself to be a doddering fool. Rudy publicly supporting abortion rights. Gonzales demonstrating his mendacity and incompetence for all to see. Newt being, well, Newt.

Add to this those South Park boys holding Bill Donohue down and forcibly sodomizing him in effigy and you have a great day to be a pissed-off, vengeful liberal.

The best part is going to be watching Donohue's head swell up and explode over the next forty-eight hours. It'll be just like the big scene in "Scanners."



Minus the brains.

just askin'

Our fearless loser has been on a tirade for several days now, accompanied by all of his usual lackeys, incessantly bitching about how obstructionist the Democrats are being by putting all of this "pork" (you know, reconstruction for Katrina, health insurance for children, services for veterans) in the Iraq spending bill which of course is forcing George's hand and making him veto the bill. This, needless to say, will leave the military in a Barney Fife-like position of running around with one bullet and no protection, and it will be the Democrat's fault, not the president's for waiting until the last minute to seek funding.

Furious George tells us that it is the responsibility of Congress, whom he apparently thinks are his employees, to get these funds to him immediately and that unless they take care of this right away and send him a "clean" funding bill that it will result in the deaths of countless Americans which will be entirely the fault of the Democrats.



I'm just curious about something.

If this is so damned important, why did the President wait until the last minute to request funds? Isn't the "commander-in-chief" supposed to plan ahead to keep the military funded and supplied? You would think he would have been working on this appropriation months ago to be prepared well in advance to properly run the war. Lives are at stake, right?

If this is so damned important, why are the Republicans on vacation this week? You would think that they would have stayed in Washington and entreated the Democrats to postpone vacation until this appropriation issue was cleared up. Lives are at stake, right?

Or is it that this is all just political theater, and that the Republicans have no scruples about using the military to advance their political cause without requiring themselves to sacrifice their spring vacation? Surely the Republicans wouldn't do anything so crass. Lives are at stake, right?


They wouldn't be that hypocritical, would they?


Lives are at stake, right?

poissons d'Avril

Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani announced their engagement today. Although we don't yet know what kind of gown Ms. Giuliani will be wearing for this historic same-sex marriage, given past appearances we can only say for sure that it will be "fabulous." The happy couple will honeymoon at Mr. Kerik's former bachelor pad overlooking Ground Zero in New York City, and will then reside in the state of Denial.

April Fools?

There is a big impeachment circle-jerk showing up on numerous low-level blogs today. I'm not going to link to them and propagate it any further, but this article (partial excerpt follows) has been posted to at least a dozen blogs I've seen this morning:


"The first article of impeachment against President George W. Bush was passed by the House Judiciary Committee in an emergency special session late Saturday. The article appears to have been prompted by new evidence that the FBI had abused its power under the direction of the president, who had blocked further investigations into the matter. Each of the thirty nine members of the committee seemingly voted along party lines on the measure, which passed by a vote of 22-17.House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has issued a statement on the allegations being brought forth; though a full disclosure on the charges of "high crimes and misdemeanours" against the president will be made available to the public during a Monday press conference scheduled at 11AM EST."


Nobody would be more pleased than I if this were the truth, but a quick visit to John Conyer's website and personal blog revealed NO MENTION of this story anywhere. It could be that it's too new to have been posted, but that beggars credulity because of the potential magnitude of the story.

So, don't get your hopes up. We could be getting punked in the most disappointing manner.



We'll know tomorrow. Caveat Lector.

new baby

ARP 2600, perched atop the Novatron Mark V. It's the ice cream sundae of keyboard rigs.