Bidding for Rove's Mein Kampf Languishes

Can a book be be remaindered before it's published? The bidding for Rove's proposed tome is less than spirited.

Willard Romney, The Decider!

Watch Romney here on Meet the Press deciding who has been insulted by whom and what the second party owes to the first. Authoritarian, arrogant prick!

(Warning, you must watch an ad to get to the actual video.)

They Must Corrupt All Legal Process

The Bush Administration continues it's efforts to corrupt every system in the country.

Big Tech, Big Brother

The person who structured this conference understood the word "orwellian".

They Eat Their Young

Surprise! Conservative publisher cheats its conservative authors.

Still, I'm not sure why they are complaining. They do, after all, have the same (im)moral code.

These Hypocrites Still Have No Shame

From today's Washington Post:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Turkey, said the United States had "made clear it does not support extra-constitutional measures because those measures take Pakistan away from the path of democracy and civilian rule."

"Whatever happens we will be urging a quick return to civilian rule," she said, and a "return to constitutional order and the commitment to free and fair elections."

That's right, these slugs will criticize Musharraf for suspending Pakistan's constitution while continuing to ignore the United States Constitution which they are sworn to uphold. The Democrats continue to suborn the Republicans in Congress and this Administration in the most egregious violations of law in our nation's history. They should all be ashamed of themselves. Deeply ashamed. But then again, we all know that shame is not characteristic of either sociopathic or psychopathic personalities.

Another Stupid Media Feeding Frenzy

For CNN, especially, and the major network news, the only one truly newsworthy event occurred in the world yesterday evening in Minneapolis and has been rehashed endlessly since. Wall-to-wall coverage of nothing new and black and white file footage of every bridge collapse or wild swaying since film was invented.

Even our local news is covering it, as panicked political officials close, willy-nilly, local bridges in a lovely effort to shut our barn door after our neighbor's horse has run away.

I am sympathetic to all of the people affected by this bridge collapse. Now, what else is happening in the world?

NIE: al Qaeda Stronger, Wants to Strike U.S.

So, the most recent National Intelligence Estimate says al Qaeda is stronger than ever and determined to strike in America. The head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, says his "gut" tells us we'll be hit again soon. Well, why haven't we secured our borders and our ports? Why are we still in Iraq? Bush is destroying the American military through attrition just as it appears it will be direly needed to prevent extremist, murdering Muslims from retaking Afghanistan and toppling the military government of Pakistan thereby coming into possession of a large stock of nuclear weapons.

This is to say nothing of the Muslim government of Iran, so threatened by this arrogant, financially and morally irresponsible, eavesdroppping, warrantless-wiretapping, criminal, murdering, torturing, slug of a U.S. President, that it cannot feel at all safe without a nuclear capability of its own. And, of course, they're right because without WMD you either surrender or get murdered whenever someone like Bush decides he wants to invade your country to control its resources.

He must be impeached and handed over to the World Court along with every member of his Administration shown to be complicit in his crimes against humanity starting most especially with his deeply evil Vice President, Dick Cheney.

Kucinich Favors Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

It is the one issue on which I think he and most of the Democrats are dead wrong and it is why I believe those in the middle class and below are being and will be damaged deeply no matter which of the two parties has power. If the Republicans are in power every form of criminal behavior by the rich and therefore powerful will be either tolerated or legalized except illegal immigration, their one spoken concession to the rule of law. If the Democrats take power, they will legalize the invasion of the U.S. by millions of people, mostly through our southern border, people who are responsible in part for depressing the wages of all working class Americans and some of whom are, no doubt, terrorists.

False Religion, Mitt Romney, and George W. Bush

In discussing Mitt Romney's religion (Mormonism) and whether or not voters have a right to or should make it part of their consideration before they vote Richard John Neuhaus says:

I believe that many Mormons are Christians as broadly defined by historic markers of Christian faith. That does not mean that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christian. It is indisputably derived from Christianity and variations on Christianity, but its distinctive and constituting doctrines are irreconcilable with even a very liberal construal of biblical Christianity. It is, as Rodney Stark and many others have argued, a new religion and, by the lights of historic Christianity, a false religion. It is true that there are Mormon scholars who are working mightily to reconcile the LDS with Christianity, and one wishes them well, but they have their work cut out for them.

I wonder if he has considered that all of the Christians who voted for Bush because of his professed deep faith in Christian values and Jesus, his favorite philosopher, might be feeling the slightest bit betrayed to discover they helped to elect a torturing, mass-murdering, corrupt, lying criminal to the presidency of the United States. I wonder...

I also wonder how anyone can rationally describe one religion as false and another as true. Religions are man-made and man-used, and, often, contrary to their most fervent professions, for the most deeply evil ends.

I use the word religion here to mean "an institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity*" with heavy emphasis on the word "institutionalized." These are structures dedicated to creating and exercising power through force.



*The definition is cobbled together from two entries in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition.

Dennis Kucinich!

Okay! I'm over it! I'll close my eyes and vote for Dennis. 'Tis better than holding my nose and voting for Hillary. Obama reminds me a lot of a large freshwater fish: when you draw it to the boat and pick it up to get a look at it, it wriggles, slips from your hands, and disappears back into the water.

Yeah, yeah, I know you have to close your eyes and listen to Kucinich, but I'm gonna do it. I am!

Mitt Romney

A man who not only sees the many sides to each issue, but has taken them.

"Skooter skates" (sic) Pelosi Whines Ingenuously

That's the headline at cnn.com after Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence. I expected nothing less from the criminal scumbag occupying our White House. We all know this administration has committed numerous criminal acts and dared the Democrats to call them on it, maintaining that they are the law, above any other law. And the Democratic failure to call them on it is nothing short of obstruction of justice. Whether they have the votes for impeachment or not they must try or they are complicit.

Listen to the Speaker of the House on Bush's corrupt gift to Libby(from CNN):

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California
“The President’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people. The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable.”

Umm, dear Madam Speaker, it is your job to hold his administration accountable, not his. He and his are the criminals you have failed to hold accountable. You committed a criminal act when you said there was to be no impeachment, that it was off the table. You no longer have the right to complain: Impeach or shut the fuck up!

America's Last Chance

In his June 12, 2007 column, Rich Lowry, speaking of the Bush Administration and the most recent Congresses, says: "A government can't ignore its own laws without creating deep suspicions about its motives." I don't think suspicion is the appropriate response. A government can't ignore its own laws and also maintain its legitimacy. The Bush Administration and the Republicans in the present and last Congress have treated the law of the land as something only to be applied to their opponents and enemies. They have violated the Constitution and/or their oaths to support and defend it. The Bush Administration has violated the Constitution, federal and international law. They are lawless.

The U. S. government in its current behavior is illegitimate. Listen, please, to the words from our Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government... "

We don't need a new Constitution, we need to remove the criminals from office immediately that they violate the law of the land along with all of those in government who obstruct the justice due these people. Ah, but you see, as long as Republicans control or can block the law enforcement mechanisms of the government there will be no justice from within the system.

If Americans do not vote almost all Republicans from office, America will continue to be a criminal enterprise controlled by that party. Electing Democrats and holding them to the same standard is the only possible step before legitimate revolution.

The Criminal Party Has Its Way Again

The Senate was unable to vote no-confidence in the corrupt, warrantless-wiretapping, torturing Attorney General, Alberto "Abu" Gonzales, because all but seven of the Republican Senators said that disapproving of this Administration's behavior as exemplified by Gonzales was just a political stunt. The bottom line is that the Republican Party is mostly an organized criminal gang.

Sam Harris: Strange Sociology, Strangled Truth

As I was reading Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation , I came to a dead stop on page ninety when I read this: "There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape." Now, there is much in Harris' sophomoric, hyperbolic style, which often masquerades as logical argument that I can overlook, the source considered, but this I cannot. If you were going to argue this, you'd have to argue that this act is more natural even than breathing, eating or sleeping. But, of course, Harris doesn't argue this. He asserts it to be true. Which on the most cursory examination, it isn't.

Granted Americans and the world need people willing to confront and dispute the irrational and sometimes lethal beliefs and hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christians, but what they don't need is more lies or more irrational propaganda. That is, they don't need Sam Harris.

Bush Fears For America's Soul; Me Too

In this piece Bush is quoted as saying, "I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul." Me, too, because electing this deeply evil man twice to the Presidency of the United States and supporting his screw the poor policies, his murderous invasion and occupation of Iraq, and his appointment of profit-first corporatists to gut every federal agency charged with protecting the American people and the land that sustains them says loud and clear that America's soul is dying, murdered by the Republican Party in general and George W. Bush in particular.

I can almost hear the slug laughing in the Oval Office at his genius for saying evil is good and good evil, getting a majority of Americans to believe it or claim they do because by doing so they profit. Yes, America is losing its soul by failing to oppose and defeat first George W. Bush, the Republican Party and then the Democratic Party, which while protesting, (far too much), has caved in and thus supported every deeply evil policy they were elected to oppose.

Ledbetter vs. Goodyear- Reorganizing the Supreme Court

It is clear following the decision in this case, which made it legal for employers to discriminate in employee pay based on gender provided they were able to keep their discrimination secret for 180 days, that the Supreme Court now consists of only four Associate Justices. Other members of the Court are Chief Injustice John G. Roberts, Associate Injustice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Injustice Antonin G. Scalia, Associate Injustice Clarence Thomas, and Associate Injustice Anthony M. Kennedy.

What most Americans who work or have worked know is that employers almost always forbid them under penalty of discharge to discuss their pay levels, thus making it a ho-hummer for the employer to discriminate on any basis it wishes to with little or no fear that the employee will discover the discrimination within 180 days if ever. It means that the Injustices applaud the employer's ability to obstruct justice and reward it. May the five of them rot in hell for at least 180 days for justice denied.

Talking Points Memo, Just That

So, I'm a dolt. I didn't realize until today that Talking Points Memo is just that, talking points, propaganda and opinions of the left that are not to be commented on or disputed, just regurgitated by the party faithful.

What brought this to my attention was this piece whining about a Washington Post editorial that compared Jack Murtha to Tom DeLay after Murtha threatened to block any and all future earmarks Republican Mike Rogers might ask for because Rogers had the temerity to criticize and attempt to block a $23 million dollar earmark Murtha wanted for his district.

The comparison was apt. Murtha's screaming corruption was apparent and much like DeLay's. To attempt to whitewash this is hypocritical and corrupt in its own right. What the American people need is honesty not propaganda and partisanship. When the Democrats act like corrupt Republicans they should be called out and tarred with the same brush.

What's particularly aggravating about Talking Points Memo is that contrary to the norm of allowing readers to comment and dispute with the authors publicly, Talking Points Memo does not have a comment facility. Open discussion is apparently not one of their values. Slugs.

When Will Someone in the MSM Confront the Jerk?

Bush continues to make stupid assertions about the war in Iraq and al Qaeda. Stupid assertions like: if we leave Iraq before we finish the mission, they'll follow us home. And no one I've seen in the mainstream media bothers to confront him.

Follow us home? I guess he believes the only nineteen al Qaeda terrorists who knew where the United States is died on September 11, 2001? The rest of these people will have to wait for our military to leave a trail for them to follow in order to strike on our soil again. Ridiculous!

Or maybe, they just can't spare another nineteen or even five to cross our borders or enter our ports that Bush has left defenseless because they need every one of them to ... to do what? Fight our military in Iraq? Right, like bin Laden and his cronies are so stupid they'd rather commit all of their people to fight and die in skirmishes against our best killers in Iraq instead of killing hundreds or thousands of innocent American civilians going about their daily lives as they have done before. Yeah, right. Isn't it a lot more likely that some of bin Laden's people are teaching Iraqi terrorists, born of Bush, to kill civilians and Iraqi and American military personnel, while others are free to be trained for and assigned to other nefarious tasks?

It's about time people in the mainstream media began to confront Bush when he makes such patently stupid statements because it implies that they believe him, that he has credence. It also makes it easier for others to believe him.

Cowards or Criminal Frauds?

The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate have decided to cave in to the demands of the felon in the White House for more money and no end to the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq along with all of its criminal consequences not the least of which is the corrupt and criminal expenditure of the money appropriated. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are either cowards or criminals. They are either afraid to do the right thing despite the backing of two thirds of the American people or they are truly in support of the criminal acts of the Bush Administration and all of their handwringing and whining over giving in to him is just to create an air of plausible deniability. That air stinks obscenely of fear and/or corruption.

Spineless or corrupt, Pelosi, Reid and all of their supporters need to be removed from office along with the criminals they support.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I stopped by my local Subway to Eat Fresh! this evening. I asked the sandwich chef for a Subway Club on wheat. She responded, "Do ya want the roast beef on that, because if you do it'll take about five minutes for me to thaw it out."

Gingrich Creates a New Group to Fear and Hate

According to Bob Lewis' piece, in his eulogy of Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich continued Falwell's practice of hate-mongering by creating a new threat, a new group of people so threatening that they are creating a culture, a culture that "declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded." These are people, Gingrich tells us, who are hostile to American history. These are he tells us the "radical secularists."

Oh, gosh, I'm just quaking in my boots. Afraid. Afraid that Gingrich won't follow Falwell soon enough into silence.

(Can you imagine being such a slug in life that Newt Gingrich is your eulogist?)

Jerry Falwell Dead at 73

I won't miss him.

His spokesman said Falwell died in "the mansion at Liberty University." I guess he didn't understand the irony of that statement.

Jesus...

Why Expensive Haircut Stories Are Important

It seems fashionable to say that the avalanche of stories about John Edwards' $400 haircut are about painting him as effeminate, or unmanly. They aren't. These $400 haircut stories are about telling a huge share of potential Democratic voters that Edwards is not like them and will not represent them well. Most of these people would like to be paid $400 a week and would never think of spending it on a haircut. They are rightly suspicious that someone who would spend $400 on a haircut might not understand and, perhaps, should not be trusted to represent, their interests.

This story and other similar ones, always about Democrats, are designed to say: these are rich people, who do not understand average families and by their actions as seen here would not represent their interests. A large number of potential Democratic voters can be wedged away by the beliefs these stories evoke to Republicans, who claim, quite falsely, to represent families and family values.

Impeachment is Absolutely Essential

Why? If the Democrats fail to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Gonzales, it is a clear statement that America is no longer a nation of laws and that no one is above the law. It means simply that the Democrats are in league with the Republicans in ruling America as a criminal empire.

We Are Better Than You

"Wolfowitz Vows to Fight Back" screamed the headline, and you can hear him telling anyone who will listen, "I did nothing wrong." In his mind, a mind similar to all the Bushpeople, he believes he did nothing wrong, for he firmly believes like Bush, that he can do no wrong because the laws and rules do not apply to him or the rest of them. Lies, corruption, bribery, theft, mass-murdering invasion of a sovereign nation, none of it is wrong because they chose to do it. They are the law; they are the rules. They are gods and goddesses, better than all other humans, worth more than the rest of us who should bow and obey.

This looks like the end of everything America was supposed to stand for, destroyed by a deeply evil group of rich, privileged adolescents.

George Tenet: Just Another Criminal

Thirty minutes of George Tenet on 60 Minutes was more than enough for me. We learned from Tenet that honesty and truth have little place in his world, only trust and honor do. Sounds like a member of organized crime doesn't it?

What else did we learn from Tenet? The American government in general and CIA in particular does not "torture"; we use "enhanced interrogation techniques." Lying, torturing, murdering, scumbag.

As far as helping to sell the war on Iraq by supporting his bosses' desire to claim that Iraq possessed all sorts of weapons of mass destruction? Tenet's explanation is faith-based intelligence: we believed it. Did they have evidence that would have stood up in criminal court? Nope, maybe, civil court, which means we had some data which we could make look good enough to fool many people. Nevermind that it would be used to murder hundreds of thousands of people.

Tenet's real anger is saved for those in his bosses' inner circle who threw him to the public as the guy who used the phrase "it's a slam dunk" to put together the case for Hussein's possession of WMD. It's not that it was a lie that bothers Tenet, it's that his bosses used it to paint him as the reason they invaded Iraq. They blamed him publicly and in doing so showed Tenet that in this gang of criminals there is no honor, and trust in criminals is for for suckers. Tenet got suckered by his criminal cohorts; George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and Andrew Card.

Tough luck, George. They have no honor and neither do you.

We Believe These People?

Last night on the NBC Nightly News, a talking head made my head clank when he said the speed of light was "186,000 miles per hour." That would be per second unless light had slowed down a great deal and I had missed the reports. I might not have blogged that fact except that less than an hour later, another talking head on a local news spot informed me that the device I was looking at which showed temperature and humidity was "a sling spectrometer." Clank again! A spectrometer is an optical instrument. A sling psychrometer is used to measure and/or calculate very local relative humidity and temperature.

Well, maybe, time had passed me by, but a Google search yielded only a single hit for sling spectrometer and that was in a list of things a college science class would be doing: "calculate relative humidity using a sling spectrometer; calculate the relative humidity in the classroom using data from a sling psychrometer." Most tellingly, at least for me, was: no one in the links provided had a sling spectrometer for sale.

These two items clanked in my mind with what I knew. One of them was definitely false, the other probably false. So, I was left wondering, what about all of the other "facts" these people report for which I have no framework, nothing for these to clank against?

Why do we believe these people? Why do we trust them?

I Won't Miss Don Imus

Shock jock this, shock jock that. Just another euphemism meant to cover something contemptible: shock jock equals professional hate-monger.

One down. Dozens to go.

They Model the Behavior They See That Gets What They Want

Friday, Eric Alterman posted this:

"I was playing foosball with an 8-year-old the other day, and the score miraculously changed while I was answering the phone. We had a talk about cheating and how the reputation of being one can ruin a person's life, and she replied: 'But what about George Bush? Everyone knows he's a liar and a cheater and he has a great life.'"

My eighteen year-old learned a great deal from high school debate and Ann Coulter's books. It isn't about facts and truth, Dad, it's about winning and destroying your opponent in the process. I love it when I can make my opponent cry. This kid lies constantly about things important and unimportant. No amount of discussion or loss of privileges has changed that behavior. Why? "Because I win lots more than I lose."

My kid idolizes Republicans and their spokespeople. Why? "Because they're winners, Dad. They may not have hearts or souls, but they've got everything. They've got it all. I want it all and I want it now."

My wife and I model empathic, responsible, and only moderately materialist behavior. Our behavior has no effect. We are losers.

No More Actors, Please!

As I watched Fred Thompson, Law and Order's former District Attorney and Tennessee's former U.S. Senator, announce that he was considering a run for the Presidency in 2008, a dull ache invaded my abdomen. Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fred Thompson.

In Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, George Lakoff asserts that while issues are important, issues are not the reason voters choose one candidate over another. People choose to vote for someone because they appear to represent their values, appear to connect with them, appear, therefore, trustworthy, appear authentic. Yes, it's all about appearances and trust.

So, tell me why you would even consider trusting the appearance of someone whose profession, whose most outstanding skill, is making people believe they are someone they aren't? Isn't there something fundamentally stupid about that?

Poor Scooter?

Folks who served on the Scooter Libby jury as well as others whose opinions have been broadcast by the media say they feel sorry for Scooter because he was just a fall guy for those higher up in the Bush Administration. What kind of misguided sympathy is that? Do you really think Libby didn't know what was going on, didn't use the same tactics with those under him somewhere along the line? Do you really think he isn't going to profit from this? If you do, you aren't thinking and you aren't paying attention. It's that simple.

Quiznos, Treat Me Right

You've seen the ad; I've seen it far too many times: if you are not completely satisfied with your Quiznos sub, you'll get a free sub.

Why would I want more of what was unsatisfactory to begin with? Give me my money back and let me go somewhere else. Treat me right, maybe I'll give you another chance.

Pelosi Backs Bush and Iraq War

Contrary to what you've been hearing Nancy Pelosi actually backs the Bush war on and occupation of Iraq. Here is what she is quoted as saying in the Washington Post:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday linked her support for President Bush's war-funding request to strict standards of resting, training and equipping combat forces, a move that could curtail troop deployments and alter the course of U.S. involvement in Iraq."

"'If we are going to support our troops, we should respect what is considered reasonable for them: their training, their equipment and their time at home,' Pelosi said in an interview with a small group of reporters. 'What we're trying to say to the president is, you can't send people in who are not trained for urban warfare . . . who are not prepared to contend with an insurgency.'"

So... the invasion and occupation are fine, she just wants the troops to get more rest, training, and equipment. I guess we aren't going to see any real changes with a Democratically-controlled House. What does that say for the future America?

Howard Kurtz Needs a Fact and Spell-Checker

In this piece from today's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz refers to the Catholic League's President, William Donohue, as Donohoe, not once, but at least five times. The only place the man's name is spelled correctly is in a quote attributed to Amanda Marcotte, the person whom Kurtz maligns in the piece along with her former employer, the John Edwards' campaign. Kurtz features Donohue's assertions along with support from those other bastions of critical thought, Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin, while "balancing" these with one not-quite-on-point quote from someone who supposedly represents the left on the issue. In the supposed Marcotte quotes one finds "calvacade" instead of "cavalcade" and in the supposed-supporter's quote "though" instead of "through." Were these truly their errors or more of Kurtz's shoddy, slanted stuff (journalism, it's not.)

After this piece, I have come to agree with Roger Ailes: Kurtz is a slug.

Safe from Terrorists? I-Conn?

"In 2004, the Senate endorsed the idea of a strong privacy and civil liberties watchdog to keep vigil as the government launched a full-bore effort to make the nation safe from terrorists," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.)" quoted in a piece in the Washington Post today.

"Full-bore effort to make the nation safe from terrorists"? If that were truly the goal, the first thing they would have done was secure our borders and ports. That still hasn't been done, not because it isn't necessary, but because it conflicts with their masters' desire for cheap labor. Why else tolerate the illegal entry, nay, invasion of our country by more than ten million illegal aliens?

And while we're here, I was just wondering, I-Conn? Israeli from Connecticut? Yeah, yeah, I know, but I can't stand Lieberman. He was never a Democrat. He represents Israel's interests, the interests of the rich, and of corporations.

Secret Frank and Open Discussions??!!

In an AP piece published on Yahoo, we can read about Bush speaking at a House Democratic retreat. We read that:

"After Bush's remarks, reporters were ushered out of the room while lawmakers asked the president a few questions. ... White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the question portion of Bush's appearance was closed to be consistent with his appearances at gatherings of congressional Republicans. At those events, Bush spoke in public but the questioning was closed "to provide frank and open discussion," Stanzel said."

Now, I'm troubled by that. Why is the press, the only possible, though not necessarily good, representative of the citizens of the U. S. excluded "to provide frank and open discussion?" The criminality of this government will not cease as long as we are excluded from the frank and open discussions. I said government because it is quite obvious that the House and Senate are obstructing justice by not bringing actions against this Administration. All we can expect from the secret "frank and open discussions" is that our representatives will seek to maneuver to their own advantage and interests, the Constitution and interests of the vast majority of citizens of the U. S. be damned.

The Ministry of Truth: Bush and the AEI

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), stuffed with Bush supporters and funded by ExxonMobil, has sent out letters to scientists offering $10,000 and more, if they will write essays critical of the new U.N. report on global climate change, according to a piece in today's Guardian.

I wonder why anyone who would accept one of these bribes should be rightly called a scientist.

I also wonder why The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer has slugs from AEI as commentators on their program so frequently and I wonder why they are not identified as paid shills for ExxonMobil and the Bush Administration masquerading as people of character.

If That's Logical Then...

I heard Dick Cheney tell Wolf Blitzer that since there had not been another terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11/2001, their Administration must be doing one heckuva job. If that's logical, then they are the only Administration ever to have failed to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil.

What a major-league slug the Vice President is.

Words Matter - The Weather is Misbehaving

After informing us that the temperature reached a high of sixty degrees Fahrenheit here today, one of our tv meteorologists cheerfully added, "That's twenty-one degrees more than it should be!" Should be? The weather has "should's" to which it is expected to conform?

Bad weather! Bad, bad weather!

*grins* Actually, it was comfortable...

Health Insurance Proposals: Another Cruel Shell Game

The evil ones are rushing to propose health insurance reform before the honest and decent ones get a chance. Here's one example from today's Kansas City Star: "The proposal by the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured, composed of 16 national groups, includes initiatives to expand children’s coverage and Medicaid eligibility and provide health insurance tax credits for low-income people."

Health insurance tax credits for low-income people? Low-income people cannot use tax credits. They don't have enough income to pay Federal Income tax and they damn sure don't have enough money to buy health insurance. Things haven't changed. The evil ones are still running the same old shell game. There's no pea under any of the shells and no affordable healthcare for the increasing number of uninsured and mostly poor Americans.

The current boss of bosses for the evil ones will propose a similar abomination in his State of the Union speech this week. The shells will be moving faster in this game and the chatter will be distracting, but the goal will be the same: those most in need will, under the slug's proposal, get no help while those who are well off will get a tax credit greater than what they will be made to pay. The difference will just be added to the Federal debt.

Cowards of the Senate

There they were, Biden (D-Delaware), Hagel (R-Nebraska), and Levin (D-Michigan), all seriously announcing and supporting a cowardly and corrupt non-binding resolution telling the President that he was terribly wrong in his latest strategy for Iraq, but hey, they'd pay for it.

Predictably and quite reasonably the Administration laughed up their collective sleeve saying this meant nothing, would have no effect on them.

Shame on all of them.

New Scumbags, Much Like the Old Scumbags

I almost boiled over as I heard and saw Carl Levin (D-Michigan), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, say on CNN, while he opposed Bush's latest policy in Iraq, he was not in favor of using the power of the purse to stop it as it might send the wrong message to the troops. Umm... so the message is: I will not taken action to stop the implementation of a policy that I know is sure to kill many more of you as well as many more Iraqi's because I don't want to send you the wrong message. The message I'm sending is: I don't give a rat's ass about you or the Iraqi's; I'm covering my position, hedging my bets.

While he's bent over covering his bets, he ought to be kicked clear over the horizon. Dirty rotten no-good cowardly scumbag. Dirty rotten...

Is this what we are going to get for voting these slugs a majority of both houses of Congress? Dirty rotten no good scumbags. Dirty rotten...

Vietnamization?

So, it seems that the Bush Administration has harkened back to the Nixon Administration for advice on what to do when you find yourself in an unwinnable guerilla/civil war in a land far from the U.S.. No, it's not just that Henry Kissinger has been resurrected by the media to tell us what to do, it's the eerie echoes of failed policies in Bush's latest "strategy."

Pacification. Kill lots more people indiscriminately. Maybe, begin mass-murdering, call a temporary halt, if the people left are on your side, too terrified to fight back, or simply of numbers so small that a police force can handle them, then stop, else resume slaughtering.

Widen the war. Blame neighbors and begin bombing them. Laos and Cambodia are now Syria and Iran.

These people must be stopped!

Have the Criminals Won?

In a piece published on Huffington Post yesterday, Gary Hart says, justice for Bush and his criminal accomplices in the Congress will be left to histories written by U.S. Constitutional scholars. If that is true, then those scholars will be like scholars of Plato and Aristotle: scholars of antiquities. For surely, if we cannot try these people for the crimes they have committed under our current constitutional system, then the criminals have won, for the U. S. Constitutional system is no longer capable of fulfilling it's promise to provide a framework for a system of democracy and justice. Americans will live in a tyranny, then, as we do today, while Bush remains in office violating the Constitution he swore to protect and defend with the compliance of a criminally negligent Republican- and now Democratically-controlled Congress.

And just as other societies have succumbed to authoritarian personalities such as Stalin, Hussein, Hitler, et. al., so has the United States of America.

Want to Go to MIT? Free?

Okay, you don't really go to MIT and you don't have access to their faculty, or get a degree or certificate, but a vast array of MIT course materials is available free online that will enable you to pursue independent studies in most any field you wish.

ExxonMobil Pays for Lies About Global Warming

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report yesterday showing how ExxonMobil has been paying to support groups and individuals who deny global warming in order to stir up confusion so that humanity will delay making changes which would improve its and other species' chances for survival.

U.S. citizens could be really angry that their government gives tax breaks to these slugs who are willing to harm all life on earth for their short-term profits.

Justice Delayed or No Justice Period?

After listening to Nancy Pelosi carefully, I am beginning to think that nothing is about to change in Washington except the record that says: now, there has been a female Speaker of the House. I am deeply troubled at her pronouncement, "impeachment is off the table." So, George W. Bush is above the law per Nancy Pelosi? Americans will have seen their civil liberties, international law and the U.S. Constitution violated with impunity by Bush, Cheney, et. al., and now the party elected to power to bring them to justice will not? Because Nancy Pelosi says so?

Rule changes to improve ethics? The House already has plenty of rules which they ignore. What Pelosi is about to give us is more rules that she knows will be ignored while blatantly refusing to pursue the serious violations of our laws that she is charged to enforce.

Are we to trade our country's reputation, Constitution, and international law for the long overdue and just raising of the minimum wage? Too steep the price. Pelosi should not be allowed to condone the Bush Administration's criminal behavior. I suggest we give her 100 hours to begin the impeachment process or lobby to have her removed from her Speakership and investigated for possible charges of obstruction of justice.

Definitely Too Serious a Matter

From The Portable Hannah Arendt:

"Now, the existence of a nation is definitely too serious a matter to leave to wealthy men."

Make that wealthy people and you've got it.

Similarities

At Huffington Post, Bill Katovsky wrote:

"It's just that dictators like Saddam Hussein believe that they live and breathe as demi-gods who will never expire, immune to the laws of mortality and morality. They rule as arbitrary dispensers of who gets to live and who gets to die. "

Couldn't something similar have been written about George W. Bush? Something like:

It's just that tyrants like George W. Bush believe that they live and breathe as instruments of God's Will, will be celebrated throughout eternity, immune to the laws of the land, beloved by God. They rule to dispense this God's arbitrary desires for who gets to live and who gets to die.

What remains nauseating to me is that more than 30% of Americans still support this evil slug and whatever atrocities he wishes to commit, but it is a lesson explaining Germany in the first half of the 20th century.