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It's not easy to write during the summer. Too many distractions. Friends saying "come on out, we'll float on the lake." Work too demanding, young'in too demanding, not enough time contemplate the workings of the county/city/state/nation/world/odd individuals.

Speaking of odd individuals (no, not Michael Jackson), Caribou Barbie is calling it quits in Alaska. She's resigning as Governor this month.

This crazy bitch actually thinks she's going to run for President. She cuts bait in her home state the minute she starts to take a little criticism and starts to see that the oil revenues are not going to save her forever, so she quits? Dog forbid she actually get the RNC nomination (which actually wouldn't suprise me one bit, given that they seem to all be now a bunch of whining driveling sniveling bullshit shoveling anti-social and just-a-tad-bit-psychotic overgrown babies who want nothing more than to burn down the entire daycare just so they can crow "we won".) If she can't handle the heat in Alaska, what's she going to do when the eastern staters really get a hold of her? She thought she was unfairly and maliciously picked on when she ran for Vice last fall. That was just a taste. She's a Duggar in Versace, and there will be plenty of pundits and talking heads and bloggers in their pajamas who will be more than happy to let her know that.

Stocks dipped again on the jobs report - evidently, there are still a hell of a lot of people unemployed, more are being laid off every day and Wall Street seemed suprised by this. Someone tell me again, explain to me like I'm 5 years old, how the free market could possibly save us all, as the republicans like to yammer, when Wall Street is shocked at news like this? Talk about stating the obvious - what did they expect, to hear that unemployment suddenly dipped to .2% overnight?

So happy 4th of July. If your locality even has one this year - some are so broke they can't afford the fireworks and Tuba Competitions.

But take heart, my fellow Americans, because you can still win the lottery. To see Michael Jackson's memorial, that is.

Cripes - how sick are we, as a society, really?

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6/27/2009

I subscribe to Alternet's email headlines. Alternet usually just gets on my nerves. However, occasionally, they post a real gem like this one.

Look carefully at this picture.

This was taken at a conference where Pat Buchanan and some bozo who calls himself a White Nationalist were wringing hands and gnashing teeth and rending breasts over why they lost last November, and how they can win again.

One of the ideas was to push for English as the supreme language of the land.

(chuckle)...Yeah. Sure.

"Conferenece". On a huge banner hung from the ceiling, no less.

I have to love it. Delicious irony at its best. Thanks for making my day, Alternet.

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6/24/2009

South Carolina Repube Governor Sanford disappeared for 7 days while he was palling around in Argentina with his girlfriend. Now he's apologizing to his wife. I'd like to see a picture of her flipping him the bird. Another republican gets caught with his pants around his ankles. Nope, not suprised here.

The Supreme Leader in Iran is still shooting his mouth off, and protestors are still getting the snot knocked out of them by the al qaeda/hell's angels militia and the government police. Some say he is really pushing his luck, that the tone of this series of protests is different than the one in the 70's, and that the Khamenei could find himself figuratively castrated before this is over. That might just be the best thing for the Iranians.

500 other stories of political intrigue, mayhem, bloodshed and basic higgledy piggledy.

So let's talk about something else for a change of pace. Something cool. Something...a little bit...more.

Saturn's moon Enceladus might have water in its caverns, according to some German scientists. It seems they think they have found sodium deposits, which indicate water beneath the surface, and they think they have found alkaline ph value, which is very good for the formation of complex organic molecules. As we here on earth know, where there is water, there just might be life.

Back here on earth, prehistoric flutes made of bird's bones and dating back roughly 35,000 years have been discovered in Germany. "These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe, more than 35,000 calendar years ago," Nicholas Conard of Tuebingen University and colleagues reported in the journal Nature.

The cave paintings in Lascaux are sublimely lovely in their detailed, airy renderings of beasts and humans, so it is not suprising to find that we humans were also lovers of music, even then, in our societal and cultural infancy.

And in the Sahara, there's a Gold Rush on - for solar power, thanks to a German consortium which seeks to invest 400 billion euros on the project. Plans are tentative, but sound promising:

A 'gold-rush-like' buzz has spread across Germany in the last week over tentative plans to invest the staggering sum of 400 billion euros to harvest solar power in the Sahara for energy users across Europe and northern Africa. Even though European and Mediterranean Union leaders have been exploring and studying for several years the idea of using concentrated solar power (CSP), the Desertec proposition suddenly captivated the public's attention a week ago when German reinsurer Munich Re announced it had invited blue chip German companies such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens and several major utilities to a July 13 meeting on the project. The 20 companies aim to sign a memorandum of understanding to found the Desertec Industrial Initiative that could be supplying 15 percent of Europe's electricity in the decades ahead.

Solar panels in the Sahara. Now why didn't I think of that?

So there you have it - what I've been contemplating today in the face of meandering governors and climate change bills that let the agri-business off the hook and gay rights being denied left and right for no good reason and the market still doing its roller-coaster act and another hundred billion approved for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the way when are those going to end and old people moving in with their kids because their retirements were wiped out with their stocks and don't you know that's my worst nightmare and on and on and on and on.

So I'll take a moment to contemplate that if there is life on Enceladus, what might it look like? Would it glow, like our deep sea creatures which never see the light of the sun? Would it think?

And are the flutes found around the world dating back thousands of years all a collective memory of those first bird flutes found in Germany? And just how long were humans making music before those particular flutes were fashioned? And what would they sound like, and what would they sing about?

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6/21/2009

Every revolution has two elements that spur it, catalyze it and sustain the momentum.

The Civil Rights Movement had as its leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Of martyrs, there were plenty. Emmett Till, whose brutal murder spurred the outcry of "enough!" that was desperately needed to put the revolution into motion. Dr. King himself ended up with his lifeblood spilling onto a hotel balcony before it was over.

The American Indian Movement had Anna Mae Pictou Aquash and Leonard Peltier as it's martyrs, along with those killed during the occupation of Wounded Knee in the 70's. As it's leaders and catalysts, it had Dennis Banks and Russell Means. Charismatic men who felt that the American Indian had taken enough bad treatment and had the means to galvanize an entire people.

What both of these groups' leaders understood was that power of film and tape and documented testimony while the revolutions were in full force. Images of police dogs and cops with firehoses attacking non-violent protestors in Birmingham. The knowledge that the Federal Marshalls surrounding Wounded Knee in 1973 would massacre them all at the site where their ancestors were massacred decades earlier, if the press wasn't there filming it all for the nightly news to be piped into living rooms all over America.

In Iran, today, we see millions of protestors swarming the streets in what seems, from most accounts, to be non-violent protest of what they consider to be stolen elections. I tend to think that the election was indeed stolen, and that the protests are rational responses.

What Iran has now is a potential leader of the revolution in Mousavi, and a martyr in Neda, a young woman shot in the head in the street for protesting the election results. Her death was filmed, and has circled the globe, and, thanks to twitter, might just be the catalyst for the continuation of a revolution which might just change Iran. If they are lucky, it will be for the better.

Revolutions can be "fought" with non-violent means, but blood is always shed. In the age of Twitter and a cell-phone with camera and video capability in every young hand, we can rest assured that no matter what the officials in power try to do to limit the amount and type of press coverage, we all will get a glimpse at what is really happening on the street. Like a hurricane, internet memes can be forces to be reckoned with. This is a lesson that the "winners" of the Iranian general elections are learning as I type. It will be difficult to massacre them all, as the Ayatollah seems to desire, while the world is watching the blood run rivers in the streets.

My heart goes out to Neda's family and friends, but the rallying cry is being twittered across the globe today: Don't let her death be in vain."

In her autobiography Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog recounts a Cheyenne proverb that says:

A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.

Which leads me to wonder, when our own elections were stolen in 2000, we didn't take to the streets to protest, save for small smatterings here and there. Were our hearts on the ground?

The Iraq war was waged without proper justification - and when it became widely known this was the case, we still didn't take to the streets, save for small smatterings here and there. Were our hearts on the ground?

The next revolution here in the States will be our gay and lesbian and transgendered and bi brothers and sisters. They still need to find their charismatic leader, but martyrs they have plenty of already. When the time comes, and it will come soon, will our hearts be on the ground for them, too?

While Neda most likely did not expect to take a bullet for her cause, she still walked into that street to protest for her life and her people. That took bravery - even accompanied by her father, it took bravery. Her heart was not on the ground.

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6/20/2009

Asheville, NC was lovely - great town. I did find out what makes it so liberal - artists, artists and more artists. An entire district devoted to artists, and it's been like that at least since George Vanderbilt built his testament to immense wealth, Biltmore mansion. I can only fault George so much for his excesses - he also had a community center for the african americans in Asheville, and was all in all a pretty good employer, even by today's standards. The local art deco architecture, which abounds in Asheville, is alone worth the trip.

During our daytrip over to the Cherokee reservation, I was pleased to see the nation doing well for itself. Their wholly tribal-owned Harrah's casino has expansion going on with a new hotel, and a new bridge going up over the Oconoluftee river just down the street. New schools, new hospital, the works. After the way native americans have been treated in this country for past 500 years, it's nice to see them doing well for a change - or, at least the nations that own casinos are doing better. They have a very nice Museum of the Cherokee Indian on the Res, just down the street from the casino, so if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend it.

What sucks about going on vacation, though, is the coming back. Especially to this type of highly disturbing news:

Inventory Uncovers 9,200 More Pathogens Laboratory Says Security Is Tighter, but Earlier Count Missed Dangerous Vials.

Oh, that's just lovely - ebola, hemorrhagic fevers from before the Korean War - vials and vials of the stuff, lost.

Lost in the bowels of freezers that hadn't been cleaned out in decades.

Fortunately, those NINE THOUSAND vials of deadly and not-so-deadly diseases were discovered on the premises. However, as the article points out, they could have just as easily have been carried out the front door, since apparently noone was watching the store.

So much for heightened security after 9/11 and the anthrax scares of 2001-2002.

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6/13/2009

Sure, the economy is in a shambles. Sure, we should all hold onto our hard-earned cash if we're lucky enough to still have a job (especially those working in commercial/residential real estate, like yours truly). Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I really, really, truly and madly need a vacation. I've got the wanderlust, and it must be heeded, no matter the cost.

So, the Bee, Mr. Bee and Lil' Bee are taking a break, packing the station wagon and hitting the open road tomorrow morning for a MUCH needed 5 day vacation in the liberal-loving land of Asheville, North Carolina.

How did Asheville North Carolina become such an artsy-fartsy, liberal stronghold in the heart of Appalach and the Smokies?

Well, I have no idea, but I intend to find out.

So keep up the good blogger fight, friends. I might be able to sneak in a short rant, since the hotel has wifi :)

We'll talk soon.

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6/10/2009

Some 80 year old geezer, who also happens to be a white supremecist, walked into the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. today with a "long gun" and the obvious motive of shooting himself some jews.

So, to any right-wingers who might ever wander by my humble abode, why exactly were you bitching about the Justice Department's report on Right Wing Extremists? Guess what: you own this guy. Now own up to your party, because all that fear-mongering you and your talking heads have been doing lately are in direct cause to this kind of bone-headedness going on around this country right now.

Your crackpots are buying every gun they can get their hands on. Your crackpots are murdering doctors at church because they don't like them. Your crackpots want to stomp on a Judge who just happened to be appointed to the low bench by one of your own. Even your crazy elected governors talk about seceding from the union when they can't even keep their own unemployment checks printing.

So what about that Right-Wing Extremists report you were so quick to jump on as "hateful"?? That dog don't hunt.

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6/7/2009

America has its fair share of serious problems such as The Giant Healthcare Scam, racism, misogyny, child abuse, too high an infant mortality rate, too high a poverty rate, too much nasty ideology which lays us all victim to the whims of the few. We have a long history of severe humans rights abuses toward minorities - blacks, Native Americans, hispanics - you name the minority group and this country has at some point treated it like something the dog left behind.

However, we have building codes and zoning codes and regulations placed by states and localities on various parts of the service sector which are crucial to the safety of the population.

Mexico doesn't have much in way of regulation, and even less in the way of enforcing the regulations they do have, particularly of it's daycare industry.

This past week, 38 infants and toddlers were burnt to death when their daycare went up in flames.

When the converted warehouse, next door to a tire and auto warehouse, caught fire, the center cared for 142 infants and toddlers, with only one exit, and only 6 staffers. That equates to one caregiver for every 24 children. A legal ratio in Mexico. A ratio that is unconscionable on a good day, and tragic on a bad day. And only one working exit.

While daycare regulations vary based upon locality here, those numbers are pretty much unheard of.

The people of Mexico are in mourning over those 38 little ones lost in that terrible fire. Tragic, but infinitely more so given that the situation was entirely avoidable.

So when I hear various groups here deny the importance of building codes and various other governmental regulations as unnecessary encroachments upon personal freedom and free market ideology, all I think of that you just don't get these kinds of stories coming out of this country. When a hurricane comes through, we don't hear about 50,000 dying. Imagine the horror of Katrina multiplied by 500 - it could have been a lot worse. Entire cities do not disappear into dust with a strong earthquake. Bridge collapses, while they do happen, are rare occurrences.

Tragedies, whether of nature or man-made in origin, happen here just as they do everywhere else. The difference is that the US, for the most part, doesn't suffer for them as much as many other places in the world suffer.

When was the last time we heard of dozens of children dying trapped in a burning daycare here in the US?

Building codes, zoning laws and public service industry regulations. Those are just a couple of things that really make this country great.

It doesn't take much to make this jaded blogger tear up, but this event tears at the mind. You see, my little one goes to daycare every day. Each room has its own exit - there are sprinklers and alarms and a low teacher-child ratio. The chances are very good that I will never have to face the reality of my child dying in a fire while at daycare. So my heart goes out to the people of Mexico, particularly the families of those 38 little ones who did not have to die that way. That is possibly the most horrific part of this story - it did not have to happen at all.

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5/31/2009

For two decades, George Tiller faced down death threats and the bombing of his clinic. Why? Because he dared to provide women with needed services, including abortions, at his clinic in Kansas. He was even brought to trial on 19 misdemeanor charges of shady financial dealings with a referring physician, and was acquitted of those charges. Where did these charges originate from? He dared to provide late-term abortions, which are legal in Kansas with a referral from a physician that states that the mother's life is in danger if she carries the fetus to term. Shootings, bombings, death threats and criminal charges didn't stop Tiller from providing health services to women in Kansas.

The crazies have been gunning for him for years. In fact, they already shot him in both arms several years ago. Well, today they finally killed him for it, and they got him as he was walking with his family into his church.

Who is they? Who else? The American Taliban, who proved a long time ago that you don't need Allah to launch a jihad in this country. All you need are websites like this:

Operation Save America, which is definitely a misnomer of staggering proportions.

Operation Rescue, though, which has had the "Tiller Watch" up for some time, either just got inundated with hits, or it shut itself down to do some damage control, because I can't even get into their website right now. They did release a statement, reported in the HuffPo: We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice."

Sorry, Operation Rescue, but when you even run a page called the "Tiller WATCH", you don't get to hide behind that statement. You incited the wackos, and told them where to find Tiller, then want to claim "peaceful" and "legal" when one of your followers goes out and commits murder? That dog don't hunt.

All the damage control in the world won't change the fact that websites like Operation Rescue caused this murder directly, by setting up such pages as they probably find funny - wanted dead or alive posters. "Tiller Watch."

The republicans want to cry and moan about muslim detainees from Guantanamo being set loose on the streets of america to spew and spread their hatred. Who gives a shit? We have our own fucking taliban to deal with, and it's high time we start dealing with it. What exactly do I mean?

What I am talking about is this: moderate religious persons absolutely hate it when they get lumped in with the zealotry of the American Taliban, so start lumping them. As far as I'm concerned, the moderate christians let these blood-thirsty killers take over their religions, and their political party, and it's up to them to take it back. Maybe when they get tired of being equated to a snake-handling village idiot with a .45 in one hand and a bible they can't even read in the other, maybe they'll start to shout these POS's down.

So who needs to worry about terrorists being brought to the mainland, when we have plenty of our own homegrowns to worry about?

Suddenly, that Right Wing Extremists report which got leaked a few weeks ago, and which yours truly blogged about when the republicans started crying "foul" looks to be right on the money. Janet Napolitano pulled that report, said they were re-writing it. I hope they have the guts to add some names this time - like Operation Rescue.

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5/31/2009

The American Spectator, another of those republican outlets that I like to peruse when I'm in a particularly self-loathing mood, thinks that the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is an abomination.

(groan).

The repubes have been gnawing their own paws off over this, because they are stuck. Wring those hands - What to do? What to do?

They painted themselves into the corner a couple of weeks ago when they made the pronouncement that they would never, ever accept anyone that Obama nominates to SCOTUS, no matter who they were, where they were from, etc. etc. etc.

So now, Obama has picked a rather centrist hispanic woman who has 17 years of experience on the bench, which was more experience than Stevens, Scalia and the "other guy" had between them. She was appointed by Bush I to the District bench, then promoted to the appellate bench under Clinton. Noone has complained about her in all this time.

But just because "that uppity dar...uh, we meant President Obama" nominated her to SCOTUS, all hell has broken loose in the GOP, to the point where the American Spectator tells the Senate Republicans to stop playing patty cake and start playing...what, competition dodgeball?

Cheney's lobbing insults at Colin Powell, Powell's responding with a series of "you big fat liar!'s" and the GOP has been right on the verge of total nuclear meltdown since November 4. They've got half their constituency turning Libertarian, the other half spewing every racist and misogynistic thought that ever occurred to them and not even having the decency to say "Oops, did I say that out loud?"

Don't even get me started on the ones buying every firearm and piece of ammo they can get their hands on - you can't even get .38 ammunition in this state right now.

Yes, indeed, folks, the republicans have gotten themselves into a sticky situation with this one. They talked a big game during the McCain campaign about reaching hispanic voters, and died a slow death on that front, when the majority of latino voters went to Obama. Now, if the rhetoric keeps up like this from that idiot FORMER lawmaker Tancredo keep up, that party may very well not exist in any substantive way in another year or so. Thank the dog that a Media Matters rep was there to try to dispel this guys bullshit:

Tancredo yammers on and on about La Raza, labeling it a racist organization. Here we go with ACORN all over again - any organization that tries to further civil rights for any particular societal group is a "racist" organization to the racist republicans, because we all know how they spurn civil rights.

According to La Raza, the term can mean race, but in this case, means "The People." Fine with me, as a quick perusal of an online spanish to english dictionary shows that the word, like many english words, has many meanings, depending on context. I'll take La Raza's explanation over Tancredo's anyday.

And yes, he does call her Latina KKK. How anyone could be so dim-witted and still be breathing is beyond me.

And so it goes. The republicans dispersing themselves to the winds, because like the self-indulgent toddlers they are, they cannot accept that they lost this round last November, so they look to the idiocy of the likes of Rush and Hannity and the half that are brain-numbingly ignorant and who choose brain-numbingly ignorant fools for leaders.

So I say, while the fire is hot and the true colors of the GOP "base" is blazing forth in all its hoary, degraded glory, let's just start these confirmation hearings tomorrow, and let the republicans in congress talk themselves into oblivion.

On a lighter note, the President and the Mrs. went to a Broadway play, of course to the jeers of republicans saying "how can you go on a date night?? Don't you know you have to clean up all that shit we threw on the walls for the last 8 years?" They seem to have forgotten that their nonesteemed leader was on vacation for MORE THAN TWO YEARS of the 8 years he was president. (groan). I actually feel embarrassed for these dummies sometimes.

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5/27/2009

Everyone knows by now that President Obama's choice to replace Justice Souter is Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Last week, the repubes were telling us how they would fillibuster any choice Obama made, and in fact already had their lawyers putting together their opposition of anyone that Obama nominated for the position. Even NOW likes her, and NOW doesn't really like anybody.

And then Obama pulled the rug out from under them with an obvious move: nominate a highly intelligent, decent-hearted hispanic woman.

It is beautiful. MSNBC.com says that the GOP better watch itself with how it deals with this turn of events.

Even Michelle Malkin is strangely...subdued in her raving, waspish mania. It's as if even she knows there is a line. A very fine line. And if she crosses that line, there may be trouble, and that no matter how much she really, really, REALLY wants to, she probably shouldn't cross that line. Because it just might be the final nail in the GOP coffin. Then again it could just be that she's ethnic, too, and doesn't want to go there. But then again, that never stopped her before, so why would it now?

Meanwhile, we learn that President and Mrs. Obama plan to host the 9th annual Book Fair held on the National Mall in Washington DC.

And I'll bet you that the President will be reading something a bit heartier than "My Pet Goat."

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5/24/09

The New York Times thinks that closing Guantanamo has given the republicans a Wedge Issue.

Not really.

Consider this: Two old ladies arguing over how to clean up the overflowed toilet. This is the republican party's "wedge issue." Nothing more, nothing less, than a bunch of old ladies pooh-pooh'ing the activities of what they see as the help, but not having a single clue as to how to clean up that mess themselves. Meanwhile, pooh is dripping through to the ceiling below and drywall threatens to cave in at any moment on the poor schmucks living below.

We are all the poor schmucks living below.

The only wedge issue here, is whether or not the republican party can dislodge that wedgie that Obama gives them on a regular basis.

Old ladies arguing that Obama's plans for closing Guantanamo won't work, will put us in danger, is socialist, is communist, will destroy our american way of life and jihad will be spread through the prisons because of millions of converts to islam if ONE single detainee is sent to Pelican Bay and then it will spread to the streets of Duluth because Obama is going to let all those heathens loose in the streets to rape and pillage and spread their heathen ways!

Meanwhile, the democrats in Congress who still haven't figured out that they won last November, keep on letting the republicans frame that argument (see rant below on 5/21/09 on what Harry Reid said) for them. Democrats should be standing up and saying "Hey! Assholes! We're cleaning up your shit! Do you really want to go there with us? Because we're ready to remind everybody that this is YOUR shit we're cleaning up! That YOU are the ones who threw it on the wall, so don't dare come back and tell us we're not cleaning it up in a good enough manner for you! We could subpoena every single one of you and drag you into the Senate to explain to everyone just why you threw this shit on the wall in the first place!"

No, instead, the Democrats like to follow the repube lead of throwing Nancy Pelosi under the bus because....well, evidently, because 1) she probably didn't know a damned thing, but the CIA says she did, and we all know the CIA follow the boy scout oath religiously and never, ever lie and 2) because they're too damned stupid to turn around and tell the republicans to go F...well, you know.

So I have to ask: What Wedge Issue?

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5/21/2009

Every now and then, someone says something so incredibly plug stupid that it makes me cringe. I actually feel embarrassed for the person who let this half-baked sentence leave their lips. Like when I was a kid, watching Little House on the Prairie, and would feel embarrassed when Laura would say something astonishingly thickheaded. Then I just feel angry that someone who managed to get himself elected to Congress could make a statement like Harry Reid made a couple of days ago when the Senate voted to block funding for the closing of Guantanamo:

"I can't make it any more clear," Reid said. "We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States."

(close eyes, count to ten, take deep breath) HARRY YOU F-ING DOLT, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELEASE AND RELEASE INTO CUSTODY!!!

Whew, that feels better.

Evidently noone explained it to Harry and the rest of the morons who voted against funding because they thought terrorists would be set asail from Guantanamo Bay in a dingy, pointed toward Miami Beach, where they would magically wash ashore and the Federal Marshals would then give them a cookie, a soda, and take them to the nearest SuperMax that this isn't actually what Obama and his crew have in mind. And why didn't someone explain this to them? Because it shouldn't have to be explained! Sometimes in life there are givens. It's a given we're all going to die one day. It's a given that the sun will come up tomorrow. It's a given that Obama is not that stupid, but obviously the Senators who voted against closing Guantanamo because they don't know the exact in's and out's of how prisoners will be transferred to the mainland, are that stupid.

Obama is not telling them the date of departure, the time of arrival, the manifest for the boat or plane that will bring them here, the plate numbers of every car from the federal pool that will be driven, because they are too damned stupid to have this information, and they will tell the entire world every detail they are privvy to.

The Turkeys of the Week Award goes to our illustrious US Senators.

Now I hear tell that some of Congress are worried that these detainees, if put into an american prison, will spread their cancerous dogma to the other prisoners.

Kind of like every white supremecist group and coast-to-coast gang out there.

These guys won't be anything special. Especially considering the good possibility that most of them didn't even do anything other than piss off a neighbor who turned them in for the bounty. Or just got themselves rounded up because they were brown and wearing a scarf on their head.

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5/17/2009

President Obama gave the commencement speech at Notre Dame, and boy has the right-wing been howling about that. Now I know, and you know, that there are a few catholics in the so-called "pro-life movement", but you and I also know that most of that constituency is evangelical christian. Since when do the evangelicals pal around with the Catholics? Oh, yeah - since that Roe v Wade thing. Well, not quite - since the anti-abortion crowd decided that in this one instance, they do have at least that one thing in common with the catholics. Next week they'll be back to crowing about that idol-worshipping papacy.

While Obama was speechifying in his particularly excellent manner, outside the protestors were rending breasts and gnashing teeth about child murderers and other such nonsense, all because Obama believes that a woman should have some semblance of control over her own body, particularly if she is a victim of rape or incest. He also believes that all those embryos left over from infertile couples trying to breed should be put to good scientific use, rather than left to gather freezer burn in the back of the frigidaire.

Obama acknowledged that "no matter how much we want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." But he still implored the University of Notre Dame's graduating class and all in the U.S. to stop "reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that always has been the Notre Dame tradition."

The views of the two camps are indeed irreconcilable, so long as the one camp holds that its self-righteousness is the end-all be-all of the universe, and that everyone everywhere must bow down to their moral superiority. Make no mistake, convictions of moral superiority are indeed the underpinnings of the anti-abortion movement. Have you ever noticed that they tend to be the same crowd that excoriates Disney for including "objectionable content" in the form of an imagined woody that appears for one frame, or a fraction of a second, during The Little Mermaid? I went looking for it - didn't see it. Big surprise. Just like you won't see all those "serial abortionists" at the local free clinic. You know, those women who like to get pregnant just so they can have that abortion! You don't see them, because they don't exist anywhere but in the fevered if repressed imaginations of the overly-religious crowd.

Here in Richmond, VA, we have an excellent community theatre which has been around for decades. Manager Bruce Miller in the Barksdale Theatre Blog has a legitimate beef to pick with parents and teachers who object to the "questionable and offensive" content of Annie. Yes, you read correctly - Annie. Annie evidently is a hotbed of moral inequity because Daddy Warbucks and President Roosevelt say damn and hell in a discussion about the Great Depression. (Nevermind the question if you can't use the words damn and hell in a discussion about the Great Depression, then dammit, when the hell can you use those words?) One teacher was so self-righteously incensed, that she had her class write letters to the theatre asking why were they exposed to such lewd language. You read correctly. A Teacher. Who had her class do her complaining for her. To this mentality, a cute little Oliver face exuding "please sir may I have another" asking a theatre manager why he would inflict those horrible words on the sensitive ears of young'uns would make him re-write the play next time - even though that is patently illegal. I my little plot of the world, I have seen anti-abortion crowds with their 8 year olds holding signs of allegedly aborted fetuses in full technicolor and blown up to 10x scale, because those pitiful little faces might make us hard hearted murderers change our minds and say "you know what? I don't care if that woman was brutally raped, she should have that child, by god, and be happy she was brutally raped! Even if it was by her own father!" It will take more than an angelic little face to rid me of my pragmatism on this point.

Adults hiding behind their children to get a point across does not convince me that the woman who is brutally raped should have to carry that fetus to term and be happy with it. It actually disgusts me that an adult would hide behind a child to get their point across - whether it be anti-abortion points, or "I don't like Peter Pan because noone warned me there would be pirates!" Call me old-fashioned, but I figure that if an adult has a point to make, they should suck up the courage to make it themselves.

President Obama wants to have a fair-minded discussion about abortion - he wants the debate to continue, and for both sides to stop demonizing each other. Well, I hate to break it to him, but so long as one side holds the bible in one hand and a flaming sword of self-satisfaction in the other, that will never happen. I reserve the right to point out the moral inequities of the side that never once stops to put itself into the shoes of a woman who has found herself in one of the most emotionally deblilitating positions a woman can find herself in - legs spread wide for the world to leer at, either way, be it rape or abortion. These Hellfire and Brimstone moral self-absolutists tend to be those most in favor of torture, the death penalty, and those most in disfavor with any social programs geared toward the poor and the children of the poor. The world must work their way, and no other way, because they are right, and the rest of us are all going to hell for not agreeing with trumped up biblical'isms.

Be it art or science, medicine or social justice, the talibangelicals will attack it if it offends their precious sensibilities and their provincial notions of how society should be. I reserve the right to attack disgusting displays of theocratic tendencies when I see it. I reserve the right to call bullshit when I smell it.

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5/13/2009

Bee is sick - mold count sky high - full blown sinus infection impending - so tonight's post will be a shortie.

The Stupid Headline of the Week is: Cheney Attacks May Not Help Republicans.

DUH! Maybe I'll change the title of my blog to "No Shit, Sherlock!"

'nuff said. Where's that Sudafed...

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5/10/09

Turns out those 100+ civilian casualties were at least partly our doing. I do have to respect the apologies from our highest leaders, and I do believe that those apologies are heartfelt like BushCo's never were - or did he ever even apologize? I seem to remember talk about collateral damage, a term I have thank the dog not heard from this administration, unless I missed it.

However, apologies don't cut it. I am sick in my heart and mind of seeing pictures of babies burnt by U.S. bombs on the front pages of every fucking website out here.

My message to the Obama administration is simple: This WILL be another vietnam if the status quo is followed.

This war needs to end, and it needs to end soon. Obama, Clinton, Gates, listen up: Find another way. BushCo turned the U.S. into the supreme terrorists to parts of the world. You were charged to end this madness last November, so end it. Yeah, yeah, I know you're working on it, but work faster. While I believe the Taliban were most likely guilty of using civilians as human shields - that is one of their typical M.O.'s. You ordered an airstrike that went badly, and women and their children died badly for it. So find another way.

Just stop. Find another way, and find it fast, because this shit isn't working.

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5/6/2009

Secretary of State Clinton regrets that Afghan women and children were murdered. Dozens, perhaps as many as 120 according to a "former Afghan government official" were killed. The presumed culprit is an American bombing run. Others say the Taliban killed those people to make it look like they died in an American bombing run.

A brigadier general has been sent to head the investigation. We'll see how this plays out.

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5/4/2009

BRING OUT YOUR TEABAGS! because Obama's going to raise taxes! On the wealthy and the off-shore money hoarders!

How dare he! This will DESTROY America!!! Those mega-corporations hiding money in off-shore accounts, and screwy tax benefits for "choosing" which nation to pay taxes to on foreign profits is being targeted by Obama - he's going to try to put an end to offshore tax shelters!! He will! It's his socialist plot to reassign wealth! My wealth! This will UTTERLY DESTROY AMERICA! THE RICH WILL ALL MOVE AWAY! JOBS WILL BE LOST! JOBS WILL BE LOST BY THE BILLIONS! IN DULUTH ALONE, BILLIONS OF JOBS WILL BE LOST! IT WILL DESTROY AMERICA! FELLOW IDIOTS...I mean FELLOW CONSERVATIVES UNITE! TAKE YOUR TEABAGGING INTO THE STREETS! SHOW THIS SOCIALIST COMMIE FAKE-BIRTH-CERTIFICATED PRESIDENT WHO REALLY CALLS THE SHOTS IN THIS COUNTRY! Don't let this uppity dar...I mean President Obama...tell you who will be paying the taxes! The middle class has been bearing the tax burden for years - we won't stop now! He can't make us!!! We'll get out into the streets and make EARL GREY! TAKE THAT, OBAMA, YOU SOCIALIST COMMIE YOU-KNOW-WHAT!

On Tomorrow's Show: YOU CAN KEEP YOUR LEZBO LIBERAL ELITE SUPREME COURT NOMINEES! I'LL KEEP MY GUNS AND MY CHANGE!

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4/30/2009

Reagan looks like a far-left liberal compared to the face of today's republican party, even though they all like to pretend that they've styled themselves after (ahem...cough) The Gipper. They've all had a big snoot full of the Kool-Aid, and it's kind of bitter.

The party is in rags over...let's see, where to begin. Losing the elections last November...and losing badly. Losing the elections in 2006, and losing kindof badly. Letting their mouthpieces be Rush, Beck, Hannity, Coulter and every other nasty piece of work they could possibly find (don't let me forget Malkin and the certifiably insane Michelle Bachmann). Voting in big blocs of outraged idiocy every chance they get. Teabagging (still haven't wrapped my head around how they missed the imagery that term would produce). An alternative budget, all 18 pages of it. Complaining about impending socialism and communism and antagonism and wombatism and hyperthyroidism...

What they can sing the blues about now is that Arlen Specter finally made the switch, jumped ship, said sayonara to the repubes, and is now a democrat. They are tearing themselves apart over it, which seems to be a popular fad within their societal group now. Maybe we should re-name them the "drama queen party."

"We strayed from our principles of limited government, individual responsibility and economic freedom," said Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman who is head of Club for Growth, a group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it considers insufficiently conservative. "We have to adhere to those principles to rebuild the party. Those are the brand of the Republican Party, and people feel that we betrayed the brand."

Notice the operative wording in the above paragraph: FORMER Indiana Congressman. Bet he hasn't figured out why yet, either. Here's your sign.

But Republican leaders in Washington argued that Republicans would be permanently marginalized unless they showed flexibility on social issues as well as economic ones.

I would call that an astute observation. Of course, we don't get to know how many "Republican leaders in Washington" are arguing this point. They do name 2 Republican leaders, so I guess it's...all two of them. Or 3. Maybe 4.

Michael Reagan says "It's interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we've done...We've been closeted for the last eight years; it's time for the right to come out of the closet."

That last line made my blood run a bit cold. If the Right has been closeted for the past 8 years, I really, really hate to see what this Right Michael Reagan is talking about looks like. My guess is it includes Skinheads, jackboots and the "average joe" mountain men from "Deliverance." You know the ones I'm talking about.

Most of the republican leaders have lost their minds. They drank the Kool-Aid pushed by Rove and Cheney, and to some lesser degree the village idiot himself, and it had to be bitter going down. A lot of followers of that particular cult of sadism said "enough, I'm not drinking anymore of that poison" last November, and the GOP is gnawing its own paws off because it can't figure out why so much rejection, after only 8 years of failed policies and dangerous rhetoric and reprehensible theocratic behaviour masquerading as virtue.

I do not particularly want a one-party system in this country. However, the republican party needs to be wrapped in a strait-jacket after its 35 year sugar-binge after Reagan, because it has crashed. And burned.

Which is better, though? One party that might lose its sanity, or 2 parties where one already has?

Where is that damned Green party when you really need them, anyway?

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4/27/2009

They must be kidding. The party of foolishness, a.k.a. the GOP, wants the CIA to hand over records relating to classified congressional briefings about the torture of detainees. They want the records handed over to...themselves. They must be kidding, because this is the most see-through bluff I've ever seen.

Of course, dumb-ass extraordinaire, John Boehner, is in on the act. They want to root out those democrats who allowed this torture to happen! At a time when the country was run by a majority republican congress and a republican White House! How dare those democrats!

The GOP is running scared because in the end, if there are indictments down the pike, they know good and well that there will be a big hefty-bag of republicans stuffed into it, and they know we'll drown them like kittens. They just want to drag a few dems along for the ride down the river. They might get a couple, and it's all good with me, because in the end, I'll know it was mostly republicans who pulled this sick circus off. If some dems were in on the act, and didn't blow the whistle, then they can go down river, too.

The really delicious part of all this is that this is such a dumb move by the GOP that it will end up going down like the "republican budget" they released a couple of weeks ago. One big fat joke that might get more than a few of them indicted in the long run. Seems to be the standard m.o. for Boehner - screw it up and move on to the next, even bigger screw-up.

I was leaning toward the possibility of a Congressional inquiry into the torture plans, if Justice wouldn't get involved. However, I don't lean that way so much anymore. After more thought, there are just too many in both houses of Congress who were too involved in all of this nasty mess, and I sure as hell don't want them running the investigations. Any congressional hearings would have to be run by short-timers who weren't around to get themselves mixed up in all of this. That means slim pickings.

The Bee is calling for full on CSI style investigations by the Justice Department, and let's see a nice watertight case go before a Grand Jury. Let the JD guys'n'gals call their bluff. Should make for more fun the Watergate.

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4/24/2009

A serial killer in training stalking Craig's List. Highly disturbing.

Veterans given a colonoscopy and HIV in a VA hospital in Tennessee, where equipment was not being sterilized. The basic tenet in healthcare - sterilization. And they weren't sterilizing equipment. Horrifying.

A woman gave birth to twins right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Bizarre, but happily satisfying - the babies are premature, but seem to be doing just fine.

Al Gore, who wasn't much 8 years ago, has since come into his own. He insists that the US can fight global warming and become the world's leader in sustainable energy sources. Newt Gingrich, who by all rights should have disappeared into the netherland of utterly disgraced and maligned former politicians, insists that doing anything about global warming will cost too much. Maddening.

In a nutshell, this world is a world of greed, fear, loathing, war, pestilence, plague and rot. With a few happy-news moments thrown in to counterbalance the nastiness and ugliness and stupidity.

But the Hubble telescope turned 19 years old today. The beauty of the Hubble is that it gives us an opportunity to look beyond this sorry excuse for a planet that we humans have created, and see beauty in the cosmos.

Happy Birthday, Big H, and thanks for this pic of galaxies performing a 100,000 light year dance. Wonderfully breathtaking:

When we are all dead and gone, most likely of our own devices, and when this little planet either ceases to support life or is obliterated in the searing heat of a spasming sun, the universe will neither know, nor care.

I find that to be strangely comforting.

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4/22/2009

Tonight I have a special treat. A guest post by my favorite curmudgeon. Mr. Bee went on a lengthy and rather hilarious rant last night about the National Service Bill, so I asked him to write it up for mass consumption. Enjoy.

There was yet another great achievement by President Obama yesterday (so many now I've lost count) when he signed the national service bill. I think it's a great idea. Something that few people want to admit, especially religious whackadoos, is that we humans are not born civilized. No God instilled in us an overpowering instinct to be nice. We learn it. And what this bill does for the nation's youth is the same as I'd require of my own child. Yet, predictably, some Republican'ts are already calling it a plan to institutionalize fascist training camps for the indoctrination of our youth in all things liberal like communism and socialism and environmentalism and cannibalism and cubism and dadaism and atonalism and anal organisms and any of the other ten thousand -isms known to make traditionalists froth at the mouth.

However, what Obama wants has nothing at all to do with fascist training camps. When Bill Casey, head of the CIA under Ronald Regan, spent billions in Afghanistan to arm and train Muslims from all across the Arab world to fight the Red Tide and who eventually morphed into the Taliban and Al Qaeda, those were fascist training camps. It's also extremely ironic that whatever fascists there are in the USA typically vote Republican. We call them Social Conservatives and the Far Right when we want to be nice. But why should we be nice to fascists? The KKK, the SBC, the ICR, the ACLJ - These are the American Taliban, those who would be thrilled to see the USA become a theocracy ruled by Sharia based in the Old Testament...and they vote Republican...when they vote. When the foam coming from Repugnicunt mouths stops sticking to the tiny black square mustachio so many of them proudly display, I might bother to pay them some attention when they play the "Nazi" card. Until then, my advice to Retroblicans: if thine own eye offends thee, pluck it out.

I understand one of the bill's provisions gets grandparents in on the act. They too can do community service and raise money for their grandkid's schooling. You gotta hand it to Obama. He can be subtle but I think I'm starting to get a handle on him. You have to admire the awesome scope of his plan. What he wants is to gather all the old people, another group that tends to vote Republican (imagine that...), and ship them off to Fuddy Duddy Fascist training camps so they can be brainwashed with communism and homoeroticism while holding special nightly bowling competitions on the Wii. Just imagine a whole generation of Depends-clad Manchurian Candidates with their wraparound-sunglassed-snipereyes and their laser-sighted AK-47's trained on anyone who would stand in the way of socialistic progress!

But seriously...

This is a brilliant idea in so many ways. This gives the group with the most desire, or at least the most ability, to assist in the education of the youngest generation a method for doing so. And last I heard, the fallout from the WW2 baby Boom is still coming at us full steam, like the Red Tide of eld. Many young people see the retiring generation as a liability, something that will cost them a lot but give very little in return. The AmericaCorp bill has the potential to make the outgoing generation an asset by giving them a direct stake in the fortunes of the incoming one. Let's be realistic. Within the next fifteen years America is going to be hip-deep in old farts. Having them sit around and devour the country like an army of fifty million Mr. Creosotes ain't gonna cut it. This bill will help the Greatest Generation to not only get what it deserves but also to give what it owes, what we all owe, to the prosperity of future generations.

With this bill in place, when we ask of ourselves "Is our children learning?" the answer just might be "yes." And when politicians talk about the importance of education it might be, for the first time in many years, more than hot air.

And people wonder why I married him...

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4/21/2009

Yesterday I said that I would reserve my anger and righteous wrath concerning Obama's message of "no prosecutions" until the situation played out a bit, because in Washington DC, no rarely actually means no.

And it begins. Obama yesterday went and paid a visit to the CIA employees, with some calming words of praise and promises that their jobs would be a bit different going forward. I'm sure that resonated with some, because I doubt that the entire staff of the CIA is thrilled with the way the agency was run during the BushCo years. They are human, after all.

Today he says that potential investigations, possibly followed by prosecutions,...is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that. In other words, well...if Holder wants to go after them, that's his bailiwick...or if Congress would like to open a "truth commission", then that's their purview. Michelle Malkin, who wouldn't know a chess board it if reached up and kinged her on the head, calls it "flip-flopping." I call it smart as hell.

Obama knows it is not his purview to instigate investigations, and he needs to keep a distance, given how the Bush Oval Office nearly destroyed the Justice Department with partisan hack'yism and interference. Hallelujah, someone with more than 2 brains cells fighting for possession at the helm of the country. (Now, if I could get him to stop listening to the so-called "economic experts" so much, we might be okay.)

So, something is brewing...can you smell the smoke?

And while all this is brewing, he signed the National Service Bill, which while promoting community service, will help kids get to college. Great idea, and it will be (and already has been called) mandatory training camps to indoctrinate our youth in socialism/fascism/communism and whatever other 'ism the rightwing's parallel plane of reality can dream up.

Screw 'em, though, because I've got a 5-spot in my pocketbook that says my Ditto-head republican co-worker will be scamming off of that to get her kids through college next year, the fucking hypocrite.

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4/20/2009

When the President released the four Torture Memos, the backlash from the liberal sectors of the net went into overdrive calling for prosecutions of those responsible. The backlash from the "conservative" sectors went into overdrive decrying the danger that the President put us all in jeoparty by letting al Qaeda know the Bush Administrations favorite interrogation methods. As if they didn't already know.

The memos are a walk through a sadistic nightmare-scape, but the methods have already been common knowledge since at least the 2007 Red Cross report on detainees in CIA custody.

The difference is while the Red Cross report was based upon interviews with former detainees, the Torture Memos are the one-sided legal justification that Bush was looking for when he sanctioned the torture of detainees. These Memos put it right in our faces, and force us to take a good, hard look at the Bush Administration mentality. A twisted mentality as evidenced in the earliest of the memos, which cites various legal precedents, but fails to mention the most important precedent in play here - the Geneva Convention. A serious legal oversight, to say the least. Bad lawyering, by any lawyer's standards. The later memos don't get much better, and keep their one-sidedness in their attempts to rationalize distinctly heinous activities.

Was any information of any use to anyone ever even obtained through these methods of interrogation? Conservatives like to point out that there was not another terrorist attack on US soil after 9/11. I would point out that there was not another terrorist attack on US soil by a foreign terrorist organization for the remainder of Clinton's tenure after the initial WTC bombing. Clinton wasn't running clandestine torture camps around the world, or at Gitmo. One could argue that the terrorists shot their wad at the first WTC bombing, and that it took them 10 years to execute another attack. Too many experts say no, there is no benefit, because the interrogators will only be told what they want to hear, if they are told anything at all. The CIA even has agreed that interrogators often could not tell the difference between a real bit of useful intelligence and a lie to make them...just stop.

The Memos are out in the light of day. And amazingly, with negligible redactions.

So what happens now? Do we just say "Ok, we have some idea now of what happened, let's move on." This seems to be the way that the Obama administration wants to go. Obama himself said there would not be prosecutions of CIA officials who may have acted in good faith by following the orders of their higher-ups, and who believed that the legal justifications were sound. This statement has created a giant firestorm of indignation in every dem, indy, liberal and moderate on the great big WWW. And for good reason, at first glance.

But I've got a gut suspicion that there is more going on here, just beneath the surface, than we are unaware of.

My suspicion is based not on what Obama has said regarding prosecutions, nor what Holder or Emmanuel have said, but rather on what they have not said. What they have not said is that there will be no prosecutions. They have said that CIA officials who acted because they believed their orders to be legitimate will not face prosecution. As Glen Greenwald also mentioned in Salon, noone has said anything regarding no prosecutions for higher government officials who sanctioned torture methods, and indeed even seem to have commissioned the OLC to find a way, any way, to legalize those methods. I also didn't hear anything saying no prosecutions for those who were...let's say, a little too "enthusiastic" in following their orders

What would I be doing if I were Obama and Holder? I would be making these memos public, and I would be saying "no prosecutions." I would hold those cards close, though, by not specifically including in my statement higher CIA officials and members of the Bush cabinet. I would do this in hopes that those lower level operatives, knowing that they have been publicly absolved of potential prosecution for following their orders and knowing that they would not be made the scapegoats for those who gave the orders and then rationalized it with those memos. By making those absolutions public, I would be hoping that those lower level operatives would now feel free to come to Justice to tell me all about the activities of their seniors, with names, dates and specific incidents. Because I don't want the little fish - I want the whales.

So I might put my name on a petition, but for the moment, my anger at the for-now apparent lack of justice will be put on hold. Sometimes what is not said is more important than what is. Could be wishful thinking on my part - but I smell smoke. A lot of righteous indignation from the public is useful, and it keeps the ball rolling. I'm going to save my righteous indignation for when I feel it is called for. I don't think the time is right. Of course, I, like many others, would like to see prosecutions of the very top of the BushCo machine. However, I want not just prosecutions, I want convictions, and for that, a watertight case will need to be made. I don't believe that 4 months out of the Bush presidency, anyone can be anywhere near a watertight case against anyone involved.

Make no mistake, this nightmare most certainly goes all the way to the top. Total culture shifts within the Federal Government don't come about from the bottom up, they develop from the top down. Our Federal Government for the past eight years was a textbook lesson in pathological behaviours in many ways, and the Torture Memos really put the cherry on top of the whole putrefacted cake of acceptable "wartime" practices.

My gut tells me something is brewing in the bowels of the Justice Department and in the Oval Office. I don't know what, but I've learned over the course of my lifetime to trust my gut - because it's very sensitive, and usually right on the money.

Usually.

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4/19/2009

RIP. JG Ballard died today at the age of 78.

'nuff said.

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4/14/2009

I have been writing recently about the Coming Revolution as espoused by a co-worker who aims to arm herself.

It seems that the Department of Homeland Security is keeping an eye on the right-wing extremists, as well. Homeland Security released a standard report today to various law enforcement agencies warning them that the right-wing extremists are getting out of hand. At least now we can say that the DHS is finally good for something.

This from Reuters:

Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials.

The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name.

DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."

But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists."

"To the extent that these factors persist, right-wing extremism is likely to grow in strength," DHS said.

The report warned that military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat skills could be recruitment targets, especially those having trouble finding jobs or fitting back into civilian society.

The department "is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities," the report said.

DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban said on Tuesday the report was one of an ongoing series of threat assessments aimed at "a greater understanding of violent radicalization in the U.S."

A similar assessment of left-wing radicals completed in January was distributed to federal, state and local police agencies at that time.

"These assessments are done all the time, this is nothing unusual," Kuban said.

"Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years," the report said.

The Internet has made it easier to locate specific targets, communicate with like-minded people and find information on bombs and weapons, it said.

Extremist groups are preying on fears that President Barack Obama, the first African American U.S. president, would restrict gun ownership, boost immigration and expand social programs for minorities, the report said.

I said a couple of weeks ago that when the wackadoos start making runs on the gun shops and gun shows, and dealers cannot even keep enough high-caliber/high-rounds in stock to keep the nutters happy, we might have some serious problems brewing. Throw into the mix an utterly irresponsible television/radio network which cavorts around masquerading as "news" while it riles up the rabble, and yeah, things are a lot different than they were in the 1990's, before Faux News even existed, before anyone had heard of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and all the other far-right crazies.

Conservative bloggers Michelle Malkin, acting the usual part of the apologist for the right-wing scum they like to call their own, called the report "crap" and "vague" and a "sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear."

What the "conservative" blogger Malkin didn't mention was that the report, which can be viewed here, does provide some evidence that right-wing extremism is gaining ground, just as they usually do when the economy goes down the toilet. Despite Malkin's protests to the contrary, the idea that they may be targeting veterans, mostly young men, returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and finding that their homes have been foreclosed on and their jobs are non-existant isn't all that far-fetched of an idea.

The report cites right-wing extremist chatter on the Internet with everyone including the Jews blamed for the economic blight, and DHS assesses this trend is likely to accelerate if the economy is perceived to worsen. Nothing far-fetched in that statement either, as this is normally when extremist factions gain the most, and most loyal, converts. Just ask Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, et. al.

The report also says:

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

For the past 8 years, extremist fundamentalist christian ideology has had its demagogue in George W. Bush Co., and enjoyed an unprecedented period of power, which it in turn attempted to wield with an iron fist, as that kind of power usually does. Last election day, that kind of power was repudiated soundly by the voters. That kind of power doesn't go away quietly, however, as we have seen from the rending of breast and gnashing of teeth since November 4, 2008.

The report:

On the current front, legislation has been proposed this year requiring mandatory registration of all firearms in the United States. Similar legislation was introduced in 2008 in several states proposing mandatory tagging and registration of ammunition. It is unclear if either bill will be passed into law; nonetheless, a correlation may exist between the potential passage of gun control legislation and increased hoarding of ammunition, weapons stockpiling, and paramilitary training activities among rightwing extremists.

Again, hardly far-fetched, as I posted a couple of weeks ago, given the runs on gunshows and gun shops.

The report goes on to talk about their fear of the traditional right-wing bugaboos: Commies, Socialists, we're all going to start speaking French and eating Brie, End-times prophecies of "One World Goverments," and all the paranoid nonsense that really gets fostered and nurtured during times of economic duress.

One of the points in the report that Malkin cries "foul" over is the idea that soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could possibly get sucked into a radical and dangerous right-wing organization. According to the report, a 2008 report from the FBI noted that returning soldiers are already joining these extremist groups.

Malkin says In Obama land, there are no coincidences.

You're damned right, sister, because in Bee-land, where there's smoke, there's fire. The far right side has been swinging the unhinged door back and forth too much for the last few months, and that door is about to fall off those hinges.

So, here is a stubborn fact: the right-wing "soapbox" has whipped the non-thinkers into a gun-buying frenzy, and the real extremists are waiting with open arms in the wings to invite all those self-perceived "disaffected and disenfranchised" american citizens into their little Montana training camps where they learn to hunt...and target shoot...and sniper shoot...and build neat little mailbox bombs. Young, still too young, too impressionable soldiers, are returning home from wars they shouldn't even be fighting to those same open arms. A fast-approaching-middle-aged single-mother who never opened a newspaper in her life before meeting her right-wing, survivalist type boyfriend less than one year ago, is talking about buying handguns and shotguns and rifles to protect herself during the coming revolution.

Am I worried? Maybe a little. I doubt I'll lose sleep over it tonight. Frankly, though, for all this hullabaloo, I fully expect to see some bloody riots on TV tomorrow night from all the "tea parties" that are supposedly going to attract millions of protestors. Otherwise, all this will just kind of fizzle...like a deflated birthday party balloon. It won't even be the hindenburg and go up in a giant sparked-helium conflagration. No, it will just let out a little squeak, and drop limply to the floor.

However, give this economic downturn another year or more, odd are that we'll end up with another Oklahoma City bombing before this is over. Bad enough, though, don't you think?

What Malkin also didn't acknowledge was that this was the unclassified report. I don't even want to see what the Classified version had to say on all of this.

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4/13/09

In 1984, Richard Bachman wrote a not-great-not-terrible little novel by the title of Thinner. A few years later, we found out it was Stephen King all along, and of course? Seriously, who else could write a story about a guy who gets cursed by the Gypsy woman he ran over, and gets thinner, and thinner, and thinner...until the horrendously thin ending? His buddy, though - his buddy gets the worst of it, in my humble opinion. His buddy dies of runaway acne.

Well, it turns out there really is runaway acne, and it's of the rather evolved sort which is becoming resistant to regularly prescribed anti-biotics.

And while the superbug MRSA is a widely known threat in the general medical community, some patients are surprised to learn that the P. acnes bacterium is equally capable of rebelling against drugs and developing superpowers.

The next plague? So long as the religious reich has it's way, it will be - they don't like that evolution stuff, and by god no american child will learn about it! Which means that their endtimes could really end with the world dying of...an out of control, super-bug "I make MRSA look like a cold sore" acne.

I could write a book. I wonder if Zondervan would publish my book if I pitch it as all about the endtimes plagues where acne and gingivitis kill us all in the end - except for those chosen few who will go to heaven where every day is Christmas and There's great films on TV, 'The Sound of Music' twice an hour, And 'Jaws' One, Two, and Three.*

Enter zombies.

Ok, maybe not.

Maybe it needs vampires...yeah, that's the ticket, everything is better with vampires.

Do vampires get acne?

*Lyrics by Monty Python, "The Meaning of Life"

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4/10/09

I listen to Rush Limpbucket every now and then, and sometimes I go over to Faux News to see what kind of drivel they are touting as "news" or as "fair and balanced," which we have all known since...let's see, election night 2000, isn't the case at all.

However, most of the times I have been over to Faux News, the headlines on the front page have pretty much coincided with the headlines for the other MSM major outlets (msnbc.com, cnn, the usual suspects), with the really batshit stuff buried down below the string of ads halfway down and all the way across the screen, where they keep the rest of the headlines.

Today, they are batshittier than usual, it seems. They are crowing at the top of the page about Hilary Clinton "selling" Bill for a day. Clinton, says Faux, is trying to pay down her campaign debt by raffling off a day in NYC with Bill. I'd take her up on that, as I think it would pretty interesting to spend a day with who was, until the Monica crap, a very popular president. Faux crows like this is something new - well, the Junior League here in Richmond VA has been doing this for years. Big deal.

Media Matters did a BANG UP good job of ousting Faux for riling the rich rabble with their hosting, organizing, funding and general schmoozing of this Tea Party nonsense. Let the rich whiney spoiled brats who don't think it's fair that they can't rape and pillage and generally roust the poor and middle class of every cent they can lay their grubbing hands on have their little pretty-princess-panties-in-a-wad-hissy-fit, so that everyone else can get on with business as usual. As for the ones who will be "attending" these tea parties and don't make any more than I do, and probably less? They're too stupid to continue breathing. Seriously, with that level of stupidity, one would think their brain would have stopped sending signals to their lungs around birth. Nature finds a way, though, I suppose.

The headline that really grabbed me, though, was Obama's Apparent Bow to Saudi King Outrages Conservatives. Are they kidding me? They must be kidding, because they can't possibly be that bloody-eyeballed stupid. Obama dares to bow in respect to the leader of another sovereign nation, and they have a problem with it? Bush & Gang were sucking Saudi Arabia's tailpipe daily for the past eight years, and the "conservatives" didn't seem to have a single f-ing problem with that. In fact, Bush's entire weasley little family has been in bed with the Saudi Kings for years. Shrub sold us all down the river to the Saudi kings, but Faux didn't have a problem with that incestous relationship at all.

Well, of course Faux is that stupid. Look who their talking heads are - Beck who is dumber than a box of Rice Krispies, and Hannity who is just...

Sorry, had to stop for a minute, couldn't even go there.

So now, just to find something to get their knickers in a twist over, the "conservatives" criticize Obama for "bowing" to King Abdullah. I don't think he bowed, from the video it looks like the guy is at least a head and a half shorter than Obama, and Obama just missed his cue, a theory of which I was gratified to find that a staff reporter with the Chicago Sun-Times agreed. Obama's a geek, and geeks get physically awkward sometimes. And if he did bow - so the hell what? Who cares, beyond brain-dead republicans who aren't happy if they don't have anything to cry over? Dog-forbid that our President show some respect to a foreign leader, even if said foreign leader does own a huge stake in the US - especially if that foreign leader owns a huge stake in the US, thanks for Obama's predecessor. Why weren't they crying when Bush, within months - months of taking over the White House in 2001, managed to wipe out the surplus that Clinton left, and make Reagan's deficits and foreign-owned US debt look like monopoly money? Where was the crying and wailing then? Oh, that's right, they were right behind that particular sell-off of the American dream, because "Dubya" was the "Prez", and they were able to rip-off the entire economy and society at will and with total impunity. With the encouragement of the White House, and the opening of the way by government agencies suddenly run by the mind-blowingly crooked.

Inflatable pool toys, the whole lot of them.

Personally, I'm waiting to see the entire republican contingent of the Virginia House get their hineys booted some next mid-term for voting to turn down needed stimulus money that would have (GASP) extended unemployment benefits to our people who have been laid off. If you take the time to go to that link, read some of the comments to that article. I was happy to see a few of the more 'liberal' persuasion, but many were of the traditional self-serving virginia republican asshole variety.

I am sick to my eyebrows of the wrong-wing and their constant crying and whining. I can't even use the word hypocrite anymore - they have taken it to such extremes that it has become a useless cliche. So...what can I call them instead...maybe for now I'll just stick with Inflatable Pool Toys.

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4/9/2009

Or at least, should my plan work, tomorrow evening around this time, 8:22 p.m. e.s.t, I will probably wish I were dead.

After 24 years (OMG, did I just write that? Where the hell did my life go? anyway...) after 24 years of sucking the cancer sticks, I'm quitting. Tomorrow.

So wish me luck, dear readers and dearer friends, wish me luck, because it is a monkey that I've tried hard to get off my back before with little success.

So I'm heading up to Walgreens for a few dozen boxes of the patch, a couple dozen boxes of the nicotine gum (I hear they have it in orange now), and I fully intend to use all of it. Tomorrow.

Saturday...well, I'll blow up that bridge when and if I cross it. Mental note: Make sure self is off of bridge before deploying C-4.

I have never publicly advertised my intentions to kick the habit before, well, because I guess I never really had the nerve. That and the disappointment in the faces of people who care even the slightest bit? That really sucks.

So, this time, I'm advertising my intentions, putting my hard little heart on my sleeve, putting my personal resolve to the test and stocking up on nicotine supplements.

Ever see a girl with 5 sticks of nicotine gum packed into her cheeks and 6 patches on each arm (and a couple more in other nondescript places)? Not pretty. But I'm willing to do what I have to do this time. I fully expect hurling to occur.

Here's a blast from the past designed to instill mental image: Remember when Steve Dallas in Bloom County tried to quit? He nearly killed Opus, was strapped to a chair sweating cursing bouncing around and generally creating massive higgledy piggledy? Yeah, that would be me.

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Lovely Eleanor, with your unique sleek ufo-inspired lines and futuristic feel, your dark burnished solar panels and your 80 mph top speed, and room for an adult to sit without being folded up like an accordian. You are our future, Lovely Eleanor. The savior of our world, the Amazon Queen who will destroy global warming with your purring sun-powered engine.

And damn, but how the Bee wants one! This is what I'm talking about - a car that is nothing but a big solar panel, that goes 200 miles in the pitch dark, and rates a top speed of 80mph. Maybe 80 is a little slow, but on today's congested roads, where the hell can you go any faster without laying out cash for a turn on a nascar track? Maybe in the desert, but I'm in central Virginia, where traffic isn't so bad, but you can't do 80 on a straight-away without Harold and Mamie Old Fart pulling over in front of you doing...35.

I am a car freak. Always have been - got it from my dad, who raised me to be the son he never had. The football didn't take, but the V-8's did. I was five years old and remember well that Dad had a '67 and a '69 corvette. They used to tuck me into the cargo caves when we took them out. At the same time, he had a '56 Chevy Bel Air on blocks, 2 Ford econoline vans, 2 Ford Pintos and a Ford F-100 pickup. Mom drove me to kindergarden in an Austin Healy 3000 with 3 deuces and a hole in the floorboard so you could watch the road go by. There was even an Aztec kit car. Every single one of those cars was a rag, but from those cars I developed my love for speed and American Rolling Steel. Particularly of the muscle car variety. My first loves were a '65 Mustang GT I drove to high school in, and a later-in-life '66 Mustang coupe.

But Eleanor...designed and built by our resident geniuses at MIT, Eleanor is the epitome of the new style - She's fully solar powered, and about to race in the Australian Outback. So, I am about to utter a blasphemy - you can keep your 1970 GTO Judge, I'll take Lovely Eleanor.

Will she be murdered on the chopping block of big oil and irrational responses to global warming? I hope not, because I want Eleanor like I wanted that first mustang...and that's a heart-stopping vein-popping load of desire.

Tesla, take a look at your future competition.

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Beyond the schizoid false prophets of Wall Street gains in the past couple of weeks, the recession shows no real signs of slowing, and unemployment benefits are running out soon for upwards of 700,000 people. Another 663,000 people laid off as of the quarter ending March 31, and more sure to follow.

And the fault lines are starting to fracture. Stress levels at all time highs, and violence is the outlet, just like it always is. Every economic downturn/recession/depression comes with the price tag of lives lost, families destroyed and blood running like rivers. Since this downturn/recession/depression is worst than most, the price tag will be a lot higher, in the end, than inflation or deflation or stagflation or devalued currency.

In New York state, Jiverly Wong, a troubled man who it is claimed thought people made fun of him for his poor english skills, and who was laid off from his job at a vacuum plant, had his last stand at the American Civic Association. He blocked the back door, walked in the front door armed for a small military exercise and killed 13 people before killing himself when the sirens arrived. This man, probably not the most stable of individuals in the first place, snapped. How wonderful that he had concealed weapons licenses for all those heaters he walked in with.

Richard Poplawski, 23 years old and pissed off at losing his job and scared that Obama would take away his guns, ambushed the Pittsburgh cops who responded to a domestic disturbance call and killed 3 of them. Maybe Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh should be arrested for conspiracy to murder, since they've helped fuel this "We're all gonna lose our guns!" freakout. Poplawski had an assault rifle along with the usual stash, so those cops didn't have a chance.

Last weekend someone else snapped, and shot up a North Carolina nursing home, which yours truly talked about last sunday.

In Washington State, a diesel mechanic shot and killed his 5 kids and then shot himself down the road in the casino parking lot. Wonder where he got his gun.

Probably the only thing that I have agreed with that nutcase Glenn Beck about is that the drug war situation on the Mexico border is out of hand. Mexico asks why Attorney General Holder is shying away from an assault rifle ban. I can answer that, based upon conversations I have overheard in my office full of Beck/Limbaugh listeners and true believers that they are arming themselves for the coming revolution. Kind of like Richard Poplawski was ready for the coming revolution when he snipered three of Pittsburgh's finest. Wonder who he was listening to just before that deadly hissy fit? When the revolutionary wannabes start swamping the gun shows and gun dealers to lay their hands on every piece of shooting iron they can get hold of, there are serious problems brewing. Eight years of weakening of gun laws and cuts to federal funding toward law enforcement along with two ridiculous wars across the globe, where most of our national defense happens to be, makes for a weakened state of security here at home. Given all of that, I strongly suspect that Holder, at least, is a little worried about a firestorm erupting here at home. Should we be worried about a coming revolution waged by the 50% here who are about as smart as an inflatable pool toy but are also armed to the teeth?

President Obama supported reinstituting the ban on assault rifles during the campaign trail, as does Holder. However, when pressed, Holder doesn't think that the ban will be reinstituted this year.

But his comments roused the gun lobby. The National Rifle Association quickly sent out "action alerts" to its members. Sixty-five House Democrats signed a letter saying they would oppose any new ban—as did Montana's two Democratic senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester. "Senators to Attorney General Holder: Stay Away From Our Guns," read a press release sent out by Baucus's office. In addition, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid both shot down the idea that Congress would take up any new assault weapons ban this year.

Mexico, which could really use some help down there on the border are saying "WTF man? They're getting their guns from the U.S., they're kidnapping your own out of Phoenix by the hundreds, and these mean bastards are putting heads on pikes just across your own border as warnings!" Sorry, Mexico, our security forces are pretty much all used up, and you're on your own seems to be the constant mantra. Until, of course, the drug wars start to infringe on wealthy white americans in the border towns and cities, then maybe the U.S. might get on the stick and pitch a hand.

Considering the way assault weapons have been flying off of store and gun-show shelves, I am not convinced that a ban on assault weapons now would make much difference. The inflatable pool toys are already arming themselves for armageddon, and from the rhetoric spewing, it sounds like they will jump on any bandwagon waged by a multi-millionaire con-man disguised as a Fox News talk-show host who eggs them on to speed up end-times scnenarios they have been indoctrinated with for the last 15 years.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and all the other wrong-wing masterminds of the inane like to compare the President and anyone who voted for him as the coming fascist/communist/socialist/whatotheristtheycanthinkof regime, but let's face it. The morons who listen to them, who stockpile weapons and build bunkers in their back yards - well, we've seen them before. They were perfectly happy to abuse their jewish neighbors in the street and cheer them on to certain death in the ghettos and concentration camps. They were perfectly happy to see college students shot down on a college campus in Ohio for daring to protest another bad war. They were perfectly happy to lay the blame on everyone but themselves for 9/11. They were perfectly happy to watch the poor flounder in flooded New Orleans after Katrina, and cheered right along that Brownie did a good job. Now, they will be perfectly happy to have us all living under the fist of a theocratic regime run by madmen who claim that jesus is on their side.

So am I worried about a coming revolution? Yeah, maybe a little, because I hear everyday in real life just how backwards-thinking the inflatable pool toys really are. But, while some may consider me to be a tree-hugging/hippie/commie/pinko, this hippie also happens to shoot like Annie Oakley.

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For the last eight years, we have all seen what can happen when the highest prosecutors in the land are ruled not by the rules of evidence and law, but by the rules of cronyism and politics. This is why I believe that President Obama hit it out of the park when he appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General. Holder seems to know, and respect, the rules of evidence and law. We don't have to be happy with his decision to drop the case against former Senator from Alaska Ted Stevens, but we do have to respect Holder's decision. Stevens, who was indicted and convicted of ethics violations for not disclosing "gifts" in excess of $250,000, will walk free on a technicality. And I agree that he should walk.

Notes were found in the former prosecutors files. Notes that would have helped Stevens defense attorneys to cross-examine the testimony of Bill Allen, whose testimony helped convict Stevens. Notes that were not provided to the defense team during discovery. Notes that might have cast doubt on Allen's testimony, which suddenly doesn't look quite as bullet-proof as it once did. Notes that were required by the rules of evidence to be turned over to the defense.

And there were other problems during the trial that probably should have resulted in at least a mis-trial.

The judge repeatedly scolded prosecutors during the trial over a series of incidents in which they concealed important information from defense lawyers that might have been used by the defense.

Judge Sullivan recently ordered that some of the government lawyers involved be held in contempt of court, including the two top officials of the Justice Department’s public integrity division, the section that prosecutes official corruption.

Some of the prosecution team now face charges for ethics violations themselves.

Holder made a good and fair decision today, which ultimately affects us all. It could not have been an easy decision, but then, doing the right thing rarely is easy. Why did the prosecutorial team make so many mistakes? Or were they not mistakes? Were these prosecutors so inculcated with all the twisted rationalizations of BushCo that they were perfectly willing to risk the entire conviction of a crooked politician in service to the culture of corruption that defined nearly the entire Bush presidency? After seeing the nasty underbelly of the Justice Department under Bush and the heinous perversions of law for the past eight years, I have to believe this to be the case.

When the highest prosecutors in the land think, and rationalize to the end of their last breath, that the rules of evidence and law which protect all of us Joe Normals from the long arm of the state can be disregarded with such blatancy and cynicism, then naturally other prosecutors on the state, and local levels, will follow suit eventually. We are all in danger when that happens, because our protections disappear, and that was the real potential of just how badly the Bush Administration could cause irreparable damage to our entire legal system. We already know what the culture of corruption can do to entire orders - any look at headlines about Wall Street for the past 8 months can us all we need to know about how far-reaching corruption can be, and how devastating its consequences.

Stevens is crookeder than a dog's hind leg, probably has been for most of his political life. He deserved to be convicted, but he deserved to be convicted in a fair trial, because that is a right that all must be able to count on. His trial was tainted, so Holder was left with no decent choice but to have Stevens' convictions voided. Which will probably have adverse effects on any possible conviction of his cronies whose investigations are still on-going.

Those notes could have been destroyed. They could have been ignored, burned with a match, taken home and stuffed down the toilet, or disposed of in any number of imaginative ways, and Stevens' conviction would have stood. But it would stand tainted. A tainted conviction, of which there are entirely too many, considering the number of death row inmates exonerated based upon DNA evidence which voided their convictions, is a taint upon the society which allows it to stand. Stevens was guilty of the ethics violations he was tried for, of that I have no doubt. However, someone who is innocent of the crime of which they are accused might walk away from the long reach of the state if more prosecutors leave behind the Cult of Corruption and the damnable crusade of "win all convictions, no matter how." Those harpies of the second amendment would like us to believe that a firearm protects us from the whims of the state, but it is really a legal system where the rules are obeyed which truly provides that security.

Holder cleaned house today, and dusted the moldering cobwebs from those oft maligned but ultimately useful books wherein lies the rules of evidence and law, long discarded and long forgotten seemingly by all but a few. For that, I have no choice but to respect his decision.

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