Happy New Year!!

I probably won't be posting anything else today, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

In the immortal words of William Shatner, "Dance, Drink, Screw, cuz there's nothing else to do!"

Friday Dog-Blogging

Here's my precious little angel and the big rawhide bone that Aunt Linda got him for Christmas. He's scared of it, and won't chew on it, he just barks at it.

More Republican-Sponsored Shinanigans in the House of Representatives

You all probably know about the DeLay Rule, a ploy by House Republicans to protect the majority leader from having to be accountable for his criminal behavior. Under the DeLay rule, If Tom DeLay is indicted, he still gets to be the House Majority Leader.

Then yesterday, the House Republicans were alluding to replacing the Republican Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Joel Hefley of Colorado, with a fellow who donated $5000 to DeLay's defense fund, Lamar Smith of Texas.

Many Republicans expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Hefley after the committee reports critical of Mr. DeLay were issued, saying he had allowed Democrats to score political points against Mr. DeLay for conduct that did not merit such scrutiny.

But the potential for change in the chairmanship has drawn fire from Democrats. "It is our responsibility to uphold a high ethical standard," Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said in a statement Wednesday. "Removing a chair of the ethics committee for upholding that standard would be a stain on the House of Representatives."

And today, we find out that the House Republicans want to change the rules again to make ethics violations harder to investigate.

A House leadership aide said a package of rules changes to be presented to the House when Congress convenes on Tuesday could include a plan that would require a majority vote of the ethics panel to pursue a formal investigation. Now, a deadlock on the panel, which is evenly split between parties, keeps a case pending. The possible change, the aide said, would mean that a tie vote would effectively dismiss the case.

So, next time Tom Delay gets busted for illegal campaign finance activities, if all the Democrats want the issue looked into, and all the Republicans don't want it looked into, the case will be dropped.

But they have even more up their sleeves to protect Tom DeLay and future campaign finance criminals:

And Texas Republicans have made it clear that they want to transfer the authority for prosecuting the case away from Ronnie Earle, the Travis County district attorney, and give it to Greg Abbott, the state attorney general.

Andrew Taylor, a prominent Republican lawyer in Austin, recently told The Austin American-Statesman that he expected to be lobbying to legalize corporate donations when the Legislature returns in January.

How can they get away with this stuff?

AARP Can't Get Behind Social Security Reform

The AARP is mounting a $5 million dollar two-week advertising campaign against social security reform.

Here are some of their plans:

The full-page advertisements, to appear next week in more than 50 newspapers around the country, say the accounts would cause "Social Insecurity."

One advertisement shows a couple in their 40's looking at the reader. "If we feel like gambling, we'll play the slots," the message says.

Now, AARP is huge and usually gets what it wants. Come to think of it, so is my grandmother. Incurring the wrath of one old person is enough:

"Why aren't you married?"
"Why don't I have any grandkids?"
"You should go to church more."
"It's cold in here."
"You shouldn't stay out so late."
"Back in my day...."
"It's four o'clock, are we going to have supper soon?"

I could only imagine hearing the resounding echo of 35 million old people grumbling about not getting their full social security benefits. Our legislators should be running scared.

Read more about where AARP stands on the issue here.

A Nice Man in New Mexico

I thought I'd take a break from bagging on Republicans and point your attention to this nice man, Dr. Andru Ziwasimon, in New Mexico.

He offers primary care to uninsured patients at affordable prices. And to pay off those steep medical school loans, he works on the weekends in an ER.

King George Speaks

George speaks around noon today, four days after the Asian tsunami.

President Bush said on Wednesday a $35 million U.S. pledge for victims of the Asian tsunami was only the beginning and any suggestions America was stingy were "misguided and ill-informed."

Speaking of misguided and ill-informed....

Asked whether the United States was adequately protected with early warning systems for residents of the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, Bush said he was in the process of asking government agencies to look into such things.

"I think that our location in the world is such that we may be less vulnerable than other parts," Bush said. "But I am not a geologist, as you know."

No, George, you are not a geologist. And you are not a scientist, an economist, a statistician, a doctor, or a spiritual leader. So for the love of God and all that is holy, stay out of our science and health classes, our uteruses and our bedrooms and quit messing up the economy.

Mr. Bush's Long Christmas Vacation

Mr. Bush has been notably absent since the tsunami tragedy. A lot of the other world leaders have made nice statements expressing their condolences, but ours hasn't.

In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cut short his vacation and returned to work in Berlin because of the Indian Ocean crisis, which began with a gigantic underwater earthquake. In Britain, the predominant U.S. voice speaking about the disaster was not Bush but former president Bill Clinton, who in an interview with the BBC said the suffering was like something in a "horror movie," and urged a coordinated international response.

And after being called stingy for only pledging $15 million in aid, and then increasing it to $35 million under pressure, you'd think Bush might want to be a little bit nice and empathic (rather than just pathetic) to the other people on the planet.

But then what can we expect from him given his stellar track record of pissing of the greater part of the European Union and the rest of the world with our ever-so-accomodating-and-cooperative foreign policy.

In other news, Georgie was seen padding around on the ranch in his Rudolph slippers mumbling "well if the rest of the world leaders jumped off a cliff, should I jump off a cliff too?"

The Ministry of Propaganda

Wow. Was all I could think when I read this.

The Pentagon has created its own 24-hour television channel to cut out the middle man — the national media — in covering news events at the headquarters of the world's most powerful military.

Cut out the middleman-national-media 'lest our courageous men and women in Iraq start hearing rumors that the war in Iraq is all fucked up.

The Environmental Pollution Agency

I think they should change the name of the the Environmental Protection Agency to the Environmental Pollution Agency - at least until we get an administration in there that wants to protect the environment instead of destroy it.

They want to allow the dumping of barely treated sewage into "rivers, bays and waterways". Rivers, Bays and Waterways... hey, that rhymes...

There was fresh water back in the days
In our Rivers, Bays and Waterways

Now the Bush Administration
is messing up the country's hydration

And The EPA is starting to stray
Amidst all of our frustration.

This would have a really bad effect on Florida and stuff, because our beaches would be stinky and the tourists will stop coming if the beaches are stinky. And then we'd have to have a state income tax if the tourists stop coming. This could contaminate drinking water and mess up the fishing industry too. I'm kind of surprised that George would want to do this to his baby brother, Jeb!. My house is right by Hillsborough Bay, and I don't want it to be stinky either.

This new and exciting proposal would also take away the rights of citizens to challenge polluting sewer operations.

Not only that, but Mr. Bush and his friends want to cut a loan program by $500 million that helps communities upgrade their sewer systems.

Why do George Bush and his friends in the EPA hate the environment?

Elizabeth Stroud files an Appeal with the Methodist Church

They voted to defrock her after she publicly admitted to being a lesbian and having a same-sex partner. And now she is appealing the decision.

Ms. Stroud said she hesitated to appeal because she is tired and dislikes being in the spotlight, but "there are questions the larger church needs to discuss and wrestle with."

She says that Methodist law, "calls us as a church to stand against every form of discrimination" and "treat all people as equally loved by God."

one factor in her decision was something retired Bishop Joseph Yeakel, the judge who presided at her church trial, said to her after the verdict. Yeakel told Stroud "the day will come when the church apologizes for this decision."

Now, if he thinks the church is going to apologize for this decision some time in the future, perhaps they could have just eliminated all the pain and the future apology and made a different decision.

I really respect and admire Ms. Stroud. She's standing up and fighting for something she believes in, even though she's not really a standing-up and fighting kind of gal. She's not just doing this for herself but for all the god-fearing homosexuals and other minorities out there as well as for the future of the Methodist Church. Kind of reminds me of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.

Secretary of Election Fraud, Kenneth Blackwell

Mr. Blackwell has been busy ducking a deposition in a lawsuit regarding election fraud from the Ohio Supreme Court. And then his buddy, Richard Congianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, is trying to get a court order so Mr. Blackwell doesn't have to testify under oath.

James R. Dicks, Miami County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, also filed a motion to block subpoenas in ten key Ohio counties. Other local election officials slated to be deposed, such as in Claremont County, have also refused to answer attorney questions.

Meanwhile, the Election Protection legal team has collected new statements under oath describing more voting and vote-counting problems on November 2.

Ya think they have something to hide??

But the funniest part of this article is this:

On January 12, 2005, Blackwell is scheduled to speak at the exclusive Scioto Country Club on the topic of “Ethics in Leadership.” Blackwell became nationally known after disenfranchising voters who had not registered on 80-pound bond paper stock under an archaic Ohio law. He reversed longstanding Ohio tradition that allowed voters to cast provisional votes by county by ruling that none of these votes would be counted unless the voter was in the right precinct. He also was recently censured for running a “get out the vote” campaign for Issue One, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and spousal benefits.

Blackwell speaking on Ethics in Leadership. Ha! I almost peed my pants when I read that.

An Update on Ohio

Yesterday, the Kerry/Edwards campaign filed a motion with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to preserve evidence related to alleged election fraud, and to get a sworn deposition from some folks from Triad (the company that produced and maintained the voting machines in Hocking County, OH). This comes after The nice people in the Green and Libertarian Parties filed similar motions.

this filing amounts to a "Me, too" from the Kerry/Edwards campaign. This case would not exist in any form without the dedicated efforts of Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik. Though the inclusion of Kerry into this matter strengthens the case significantly, Cobb and Badnarik deserve the lion's share of credit for carrying the matter to this point.

I guess this technician from Triad showed up unannounced and said he was there to see if they had any questions about the recount. Then he went into the back room where the tabulator was and said there was a problem, the computer had a low battery and had lost all it's data. He then started swapping out parts from another PC. Some people think he might have had spare parts in his jacket because it was really heavy. When he finally got it re-assembled, he told them not to turn it off.

Now, I've had a 386 PC back in 1994 that had a low battery, and I was instructed not to turn it off, but this still seems a little odd. If he replaced the battery from another PC, they wouldn't have had that problem. With a working battery, they could turn it on and off all willy nilly all day long. And if "the data was lost," how did he "get it back?"

Then, he then asked which precinct would be counted for the 3% recount
test, and the one which had been selected as it had the right number of
votes, was relayed to him. He then went back and did something else to
the tabulator computer. The Triad Systems representative suggested that
since the hand count had to match the machine count exactly, and since
it would be hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed
to get the count to come out exactly right, that they should post this
series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by
observers."

Jesus, a Communist???

Evidently, my big brother, has done a bit of Bible reading over the holidays and come to some startling realizations.

Acts 4:32-37
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of
his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With
great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy
persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or
houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the
apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

I also like his version of Matthew 25

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed
by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since
the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you cut my food stamps, I
was thirsty and you poisoned my water, I was a stranger and you shunned
me as a foreigner, I needed clothes and you let me freeze on the street,
I was sick and you cut my health insurance, I was in prison and you came to torture me.'

And let's not forget:
...I wanted an education and you cut my Pell Grant.

Practice What You Preach

It's awfully generous of Mr. Bush to try to give the Sunnis a guaranteed part in the government, even though they make up only about 20% of the population in Iraq and some are scared to vote.

The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections.

But it seems contrary to the way things are done here in Bush Country. With Bush claiming a mandate with 51% of the vote, the talk of "the nuclear option" in the Senate to prevent any input by Democrats into judicial confirmations, and the new and exciting DeLay rule, I think we could use some help here at home in trying to have a true democracy.

Corporal Punishment

I've always been a big fan of corporal punishment, because it's kind of naughty, and sometimes when you are a bad girl, you just need to be reprimanded.

However, I'd never thought of Koranic Justice vs. US Justice in the same manner as Brad Plummer and the fine folks at the New Republic. I couldn't read the New Republic article because you need a subscription. But Brad was nice enought to give us a free excerpt.

At least in regard to cruelty, it's not at all clear that the system of punishment that has evolved in the West is less barbaric than the grotesque practices of Islam. Skeptical? Ask yourself: would you rather be subjected to a few minutes of intense pain and considerable public humiliation, or to be locked away for two or three years in a prison cell crowded with ill-tempered sociopaths? Would you rather lose a hand or spend 10 years or more in a typical state prison? I have taken my own survey on this matter. I have found no one who does not find the Islamic system hideous. And I have found no one who, given the choices mentioned above, would not prefer its penalties to our own.

Public flogging anyone?

More Reports of Prisoner Abuse

What in the living hell are we doing over there?

They say military personnel beat and kicked them while they had hoods on their heads and tight shackles on their legs, left them in freezing temperatures and stifling heat, subjected them to repeated, prolonged rectal exams and paraded them naked around the prison as military police snapped pictures.

In some allegations, the detainees say they have been threatened with sexual abuse. British detainee Martin Mubanga, one of Mickum's clients, wrote his sister that the American military police were treating him like a "rent boy," British slang for a male prostitute.

No wonder the rest of the world hates us.

A Poetry Contest

The American Street has a poetry contest. Write a poem using the phrase "You go to war with what you have." Here's my entry-

A Limerick For Donald Rumsfeld:

To the troops, our Rummy doth gab
His words, no consolation or salve
Where is our armor?
The troops they do ponder
"You go to war with what you have."

If At First You Don't Succeed....

...nomimate the previously-rejected judges again.

So, Mr. Bush is renominating a whole slew of judges to the federal appeals court and federal district courts who have been previously rejected.

Here are some of his choices:

Justice Owen of the Texas Supreme Court was filibustered four times. At the center of the debate were her strong anti-abortion legal views, notably in her largely unsuccessful efforts to make it difficult for teenagers to obtain abortions without parental consent.

Mr. Pryor, who was named to the appeals court by Mr. Bush during a Congressional recess, thereby sidestepping the Senate, is a former Alabama attorney general. He was known during his tenure in Alabama as an outspoken opponent of legalized abortion and an advocate of a greater role for religion in government. His work as a judge has been largely unnoticed, but he did provide a critical vote upholding Florida's law against adoption by gay couples.

William G. Myers III, nominated for the Ninth Circuit, was opposed because his critics said he could not be fair on environmental cases, citing his long career as a lobbyist for the ranching and mining industries.

And my personal favorite:

William J. Haynes IV, the Pentagon's general counsel, who has been deeply embroiled in controversy over memorandums he wrote or supervised that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. Mr. Haynes's nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., was suspended when the issue erupted and he was asked by the Judiciary Committee to provide material about his role in the issue and failed to do so.

Imagine There's No Rumsfeld....

It's easy if you try
No prisoner abuse fuss
No WMD lies...

read the rest here

Happy Holidays!

Well folks, it's time for me to go away for the holidays. I'm not sure if I'll be posting during the next five days, but if my relatives go to bed early, and there is a lot of wine in the house, I just might come up with some insightful stuff, or get sick on the carpet, or maybe both.

Happy Holidays (or whatever Bill O'Reilly wants me to say) to all three of my loyal readers!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

As y'all probably have heard, Bill O'Reilly has been on a crusade against folks that try to be politically correct and wish others "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas." Not everyone celebrates Christmas, so I think it's awfully thoughtful to wish all folks a season of happiness regardless of their religious beliefs. Other conservative-religious types have also jumped on the bandwagon. This whole "stealing Christmas" thing has gotten quite a bit of press lately, with folks on both sides of the issue yip-yapping about it.

Now, I would think that Mr. Bush would be aware of this little contraversy, and be extra careful how he words his holiday greetings, but.....

in his news conference today, he says:

Good morning and happy holidays to you all

I guess he really doesn't read the newspapers, watch the news, or read news on the internets.

Opposite Day

My friend called yesterday and said it was Opposite Day because her boys were being good boys, when they usually are bad boys. She asked me if it was Opposite Day, and wondered if anything odd was happening to me. Besides spacing out and pouring my Cheerios into a pan on the stove intead of a bowl, everything was pretty normal.

But then I read this post, and I think yesterday really was Opposite Day. Or more to the point, every day is Opposite Day at the White House.

It is a favored tactic in the Bush White House to take on tough criticism by boldly asserting the opposite.

Keeping clean air regulations from forcing further cuts in emissions is labeled a "clear skies" initiative. Judicial nominees who would bring the government into our bedrooms are defenders of liberty. And a scheme to gut Social Security and turn it into a money machine for the securities industry is a plan to "strengthen" that same system.

The latest in this series of 180-degree misdirections - reminiscent of when kids play "opposite day" - was Bush's assertion at a White House conference last week that moving forward with his proposals on Social Security would send positive signals to financial markets

Then it goes on to talk about the Social Security Privitization thingy. It explains it all pretty well for those of us that got C's in Economics.

Oklahoma...

... where the ignorance comes sweepin' down the plain.

For the first time in over ten years, the godly residents of Mustang, Oklahoma defeated a bond measure for education. This one would have built them a new elemetary school.

And all because the superintendent, acting on legal advice from the school board attorney, chose to remove a nativity scene from the school Christmas play.

So, the fine folks in Mustang are denying their children a good education because of this. How can people's priorities be so out of whack?

WTF?

Bush is Time Magazine's Person of the Year, and Power Line is the Blog of the year.

President Bush's bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2004, its managing editor said on Sunday.

"clear but election victory?"

48% voted for the other guy, didn't they? Because it was such a clear cut victory, is that why they are doing all the recounts and fraud investigations? And as of the latest counts, He was only ahead by 110,000 or so in Ohio.

"uncompromising leadership"

That describes Karl Rove a lot better than Bush, doesn't it?

And Power Line? What about Daily Kos and Eschaton? Not only is Power Line very right-wing, it doesn't even allow comments, which is a good thing, or they would be ripped to shreds by Daily Kos and Eschaton readers and other members of the reality-based community.

Has Time Magazine gone off the deep end, or is their editorial staff just made up of a bunch of partisan hacks?

This, from the St. Pete Times...

I think Santa just told him what Bush is wanting to do with Social Security.

Kerik's Withdrawl Letter

LETTER FROM BERNARD KERIK FORMALLY WITHDRAWING FROM ANSWERING QUESTIONS FROM SOME LOUSY GOODY TWO SHOES STICKING THEIR FAT NOSES WHERE THEY AIN'T GOT NO BUSINESS ANYHOW...

read it here

Does Anyone Feel a Draft Coming On?

It seems that the Army National Guard's recruiting has fallen 30% below thier goals during the last two months, and the Army National Guard makes up 40% of the troops in Iraq. So, the Army National Guard is giving out higher enlistment bonuses and increasing the number of recruiters. Wars that not too many people want to fight are very, very expensive, and this one isn't getting any cheaper.

"We're in a more difficult recruiting environment, period," General Blum told reporters in disclosing the new figures and the new incentives.

No shit, Sherlock. Who wants to go get their head blown off for no good reason.

"There's no question that when you have a sustained ground combat operation going that the Guard's participating in, that makes recruiting more difficult."

I don't think young men and women today are a bunch of cowards who are afraid of a little "sustained ground combat operation", but don't you think if we were fighting the right war, and the people were behind it, recruiting wouldn't be so difficult? If that was the case, people would be lining up to help the cause.

In a related story, Ret. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf last night on Hardball with Chris Matthews (I couldn't find a full transcript) claims that the wounded men and women at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and just itching to get back on the battlefield.

Dirty Spot-Stealing Dog

So, I get up to use the bathroom, come back to bed and look who's in my spot. Of all the nerve!

What's Another $40 Million When Over 1000 Soldiers Have Died

Mr. Bush is going to have quite a shin-dig for the Inaugural festivities. It's going to cost somewhere between $30 million and $40 million and the theme is going to be "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service."

All this coming from a wartime president that couldn't show up for his job in the Texas Air National Guard, is trying to limit out freedoms here in the US, and who's military troops don't have enough supplies.

Denial is the First Step

First he denied that global warming is happening, then he denied that 49% of the US people exist, then he denied that the missle defense system doesn't work, then evolution, then he denied that abstinence-only education actually makes teen-pregnancy rates go up, then he denied that his social-security plan is going to cost trillions of dollars. This probably isn't in cronological order, but you get my point, right?

And now it seems like he denying that Clinton was the President for eight years. Clinton's portrait in the White House was "taken down to make room for Christmas decorations." Maybe they can just re-write history, and pretend that those war-free eight years of a stellar economy never existed.

Now, according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, there are five steps in the grieving process: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. If Bush is in Denial right now, I wonder what the Anger stage is going to be like?

The Anomalies of the Missile Defense System

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and their friends are trying to get a missle defense system working and they have been having a lot of trouble. Yesterday, they tried again to get it to work and it didn't work because of "some kind of anomaly." They aren't telling us what that is, it's probably something silly like they forgot to plug it in, or push the little red button.

They have delayed this test for several days because of the weather. I think that's kind of funny, because I bet the bad guys will attack us just as much on rainy days as sunny days.

And another funny part of this is that Bush and his friends are pressuring Canada to support this even though public opinion polls in Canada show that most Canadians don't want to.

Prime Minister Paul Martin said in television interviews Tuesday night that his country will participate in a U.S. missile defense system only if it does not have to contribute money, no missiles are based in Canada, and Canada has a say in how the system is run.

What is it that Mr. Bush and his friends wants Canada to do if they are not contributing money, or agree to have missles in Canada? Maybe I just know enough about this missle defense thingy.

This whole thing is pretty embarrassing for Mr. Bush because he made it a big part of his campaign. I think people think the whole shooting-missles-out-of-the-sky-thingy is pretty neat. But if it doesn't really work very well, I think they should test it more, or find a better way to do it.

And then when the Pentagon officials were asked about actually implementing this system, Lawrence Di Rita said:

"the test was not connected to any decisions about operational capability"

That's what I really like to see in the defense department. Deciding that this system is operational, even though the test aren't successful. That's really scary.

A Cheer for Mr. Reid

Mr. Reid and his friends in the Senate are going to start holding some hearings so maybe we can hold the Bush administration responsible for some of the mean and nasty things they are doing to our country and the rest of the world.

He's going to start with how some of the contracts were dealt with in Iraq and then move on to other weighty matters such as Medicare prescription drug benefits, "No Child Left Behind" and global warming.

Mr. Reid has a big job ahead of him, so I wrote a cheer for him. He needs all the help he can get dealing with the pond scum that is the Bush Administration.

Reid, Reid, he's our star
He'll be going mighty far!

Our elderly will get their drugs
and Reid, he will expose the Thugs!

Reid, Reid, he's our boy
Education is not a toy

"No Child Left Behind" is bull
over our eyes they will not pull the wool!

Gooooooo Henry!!!!!!

I like "JOE KLEIN"

I like reading stuff by "JOE KLEIN" who is guest blogging for Wonkette this week. His indepth reporting on tbe White House presenting the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet and Bremer is truly inspirational, where he states:

David Wade, Kerry spokesman said:
My hunch is that George Bush wasn't using the same standard when
honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees like
the Pope, Mr. Rogers, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.

and "JOE KLEIN" responds:
But that doesn't seem entirely fair. We're pretty sure Mr. Rogers
only got his award in spite of his bungled invasion of the
Neighborhood of Make-Believe. After all, setting up the puppet regime
led by King Friday and Queen Sara cost billions of dollars and hundreds
of lives.

And "JOE KLEIN" seems a little amiss when reporting on George Bush celebrating Hanukah with a rabbi in Boca Raton (Probably one of those South Florida jews that voted for Buchanan):

You wouldn't necessarily think a holiday that celebrates the victory
of a small band of religious insurgents over an occupying foreign power
would be one of Bush's favorites.

He's funny. And I bet he's cute too.

Matthew's Social Security Plan

I'm not very good at math and stuff, but I thought this made a lot of sense. This is what Matthew would do if he could build Social Security from the ground up. He's really smart.

Some of the things he suggested are:

What you almost certainly wouldn't do is create a huge
intergenerational wealth transfer scheme funded by a very high and
regressive tax that pays out money according to a formula whose mild
progressivity is undermined by the way it favors the (predominantly
wealthy) long lived over the (predominantly poor) short lived.

...instead of the benefit level being calculated based on how much
you used to pay in taxes when you were working, it would be based
around how poor you are. The poorest people would get the most
generous checks, and it would phase down so that well-off people
weren't getting any public assistance.

All workers would be made to contribute a fixed portion of their
payroll income to a tax-free retirement account. Since the idea here
would be to try and minimize the extent to which your "welfare for old
people" scheme needs to be utilized, you would want to prevent people
from making extremely high-risk investments unless their forced nest egg
was very large. Thus, the first X number of dollars per year in forced
savings would have to be invested through a limited menu of schemes. The
Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees is, or so I understand, a good
model for such a plan.

You could make the forced savings plan progressive by incorporating
some fully refundable tax credits into the income tax system so that, de
facto, lower-income people would be having their savings subsidized by
higher-income people. You would make it so that people couldn't ordinarily
draw down their savings account until they reached a certain age, and you
would limit the amount of money that could be withdrawn in any given year
up until then. You might also want to make it possible to borrow against
your retirement account for the purpose of other equity-building activities
such as purchasing a moderately-priced first home.

Now, if we could just get some of our congressmen and women to read Matthew Yglesias, maybe the world would be a better place.

The Religious Right and Hypocrisy

So, it's OK if Rush Limbaugh says "dick" on his radio program in refering to the medical procedure known in some circles as "add-a-dick-to-me operation"

But it's not OK to even say the word "vagina???"

One is a legitimate part of the body and the other is a vulger and obscene term used to describe a part of the body. What is happening here??? No wonder kids today are so confused.

The Return of the Dark Ages

... only instead of Bubonic Plague, we'll have outbreaks of teenage pregnancy, botched abortions, AIDS and other exhilarating STD's.

This from the New York Times:

Energized by electoral victories last month that they say reflect wide
support for more traditional social values, conservative Christian
advocates across the country are pushing ahead state and local initiatives
on thorny issues, including same-sex marriage, public education and
abortion

And here's a few of the fun things that they have in store for us:

In Texas, conservative Christians are backing an amendment to prevent
human cloning, a measure that would also block the kind of cloning used
in embryonic stem-cell research.

In Georgia, advocacy groups hope to win approval this year of two
measures limiting abortion, after redistricting helped Republicans take
control of the state legislature

In Kansas, conservatives have won a majority on the State Board of
Education, which is expected to introduce changes this spring to the
high school science curriculum challenging the theory of evolution.

State Representative Cynthia Davis of Missouri prefiled two bills for
the next session of the Legislature that she said "reflect what people
want." One would remove the state's requirement that all forms of
contraception and their potential health effects be taught in schools,
leaving the focus on abstinence. Another would require publishers that
sell biology textbooks to Missouri to include at least one chapter with
alternative theories to evolution.

and Ms. Davis says:
"It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11
and took people to a place where they didn't want to go," she added.
"I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country
somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is
our country and we're going to take it back."

Liberals have taken our country somewhere we didn't want to go???? WTF? Does she mean teaching real science in public schools so our children can be educated and we can compete internationally with other countries in the fields of science and technology? Yeah, no one wants to go there.

Or does she mean teaching real health issues and real sex education so our children will be equipped to be sexually responsible, disease free, and have the tools and knowledge available to put off parenthood until they are ready for it? No, no one wants to go there! We'd rather have skyrocketing teenage pregnancy and a bunch of kids that don't know how to properly use condoms with sores on their tallywhackers that they don't know what are. That's what America needs!

I think Anthony D. Romero of the A.C.L.U says it all right here:
"...we need to ask, where is the morality when a partner of 20 years
is denied hospital access because a state doesn't believe in gay marriage?
Where is the morality in forcing a teenage girl into a back-alley
abortion?"

I Learned a New Word Today: Vetting

According to dictionary.com:

To subject to veterinary evaluation, examination, medication, or surgery.

Does this mean that Bernard Kerik is an animal that was in need of a veterinary examination, medication, or surgery, as are all of Bush's fine picks for Cabinet positions? I have this image in my head of the look on my doggie's face when the vet goes in for the stool sample - hehe.

You guys probably already know all the dirt on Kerik, but in case you were drunk all weekend and would like to read up on it, here it is in a nutshell.

Ezra from Pandagon does a fabuous job of putting it all in one sentence in this riveting recap of the exiting things the Bush Administration has done since election day:

...promoting Bernard Kerik to Homeland Security, only to have his nomination fail because the supposed head of America's immigration and security laws had hired an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper, had ties to the mob, had an affair with an underling, left his job in Iraq early and under questionable circumstances, and had a warrant out for his arrest.

Fuzzy Math, Courtesy of the White House

Now, I'm not very good at math, but I'm pretty sure that $25 billion is not half of $200 billion. But according to Mr. Bush and his friends it is. I think they need to go back to 3rd grade math and bone up on their division and multiplication tables.

$200 billion is a whole lot to spend on a silly war that we don't even know why we are fighting. And this whole Social Security privitization thingy is also going to be really expensive and we don't really even need it according to "Democrats and ecomomists".

I have a theory that if Osama bin Ladin is tyring to bankrupt the US, that Mr. Bush is part of the plan. He's certainly doing a mighty fine job of it so far. He and his oil buddies have always had their snouts up the Saudi's butts, it just makes sense.

Tampa Bay Residents Surprisingly Productive on Sunday

Tampa residents were amazingly productive on Sunday. As it turned out, the Tampa Bay Bucs didn't play until 4:15pm, thus contributing to an increase in laundry, yard work, sleeping in, and holiday shopping.

"Because of the late game, I was able to sleep in." stated Patty. "I usually get up around eleven and am schnockered by half-time, which is usually around 3pm, but I was was able to put off that getting out of bed and starting to drink stuff until later in the day."

However, the late game had more dire consequences for long time Tampa Bay area resident, Jim. He was able to play some basketball with some local kids. But due to his advanced age and deteriorating physical condition, he is now nursing a pulled calf muscle. "I'm just lucky is wasn't a groin muscle," Jim reported, continuing to mumble something about "kids today" and "whipper-snappers."

Though most Tampa Bay residents were not pleased with the outcome of the game, they were pleased with the later than normal 4:15 game. Those who were watching the game from an outdoor location found it to be a little chilly towards the end.

Seeing Red

Is it just me, or do all progressives find this Bank of America ad on our 'My Yahoo' pages offensive?

Who Would Jesus Enslave?

There's this booklet called Southern Slavery, As It Was that tries to provide a biblical justification for slavery, and it's part of the curriculum at Cary Christian School.

Pretty scary, I thought. Because in Sunday School, I learned that we should be nice to everyone and I don't think enslaving someone is being very nice to them.

I also ran across this nice book review by Gen. JC Christian on Amazon.com. I think you'll like it.

What would Jesus Do?, December 10, 2004
Reviewer: Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States)

That’s a question many of us good, God-fearing Christians ask ourselves many times a day. Douglas Wilson has the answer. Jesus would buy and sell his neighbors.

It’s refreshing to see someone like Wilson stand up and fight for a time-honored moral value like slavery. I hope that more people will do the same. Certainly, the results of the last election suggest that a truly conservative Christianity is back in vogue. We have political capital. We should use it to put people in chains. Then, perhaps we can bring back genocide too. It’ll be just like old times.

oh my.

All I can say about this is Eww.

Now I have to wash my brain out with soap.

The DNC Bash in Orlando

Wonkette gives us an inside look at what is really happening at the DNC gig in Orlando:

One upside to not having a real role in running the country: Giving a speech using the word "motherfucker." A Wonkette operative engages in some secondhand gossip via IM about last night's DNC event in Orlando:

LocalDem (9:36:53 PM): hey
LocalDem (9:37:01 PM): just got a phone call from XXXXXXXX at the DNC meeting
LocalDem (9:37:16 PM): apparently its the biggest boozefest he's ever seen
LocalDem (9:37:29 PM): terry mac made a drunken speech
WonketteOperative (9:37:32 PM): hahhahahahaha
LocalDem (9:37:41 PM): and donna brazille gave a speech where she used the word motherfucker multiple times
LocalDem (9:37:46 PM): its completely closed press
LocalDem (9:37:47 PM): and open bar
LocalDem (9:38:45 PM): my faith in the democratic party has just been completely restored

Tales of Christ Weariness

Rudepundit brings us a nice little collection of stories from nice people about "harassment, victimization, and general annoyance at the hands of Christian fundamentalists."

My favorite parts:
From Rafael in Puerto Rico: Someone wrote this message in one of the walls of my Humanities department: "Jesus says: Evangelize!!"

Kids at my college were not short in imagination so somebody wrote this underneath it: "Jesus says: Vandalize??"

and

my 18-year-old brother, who took a job at a video store to help earn college money, was making banal small-talk with a frequent customer, who happened to be male. Later, the store manager gave him a hellfire-and-brimstone lecture about the sinfulness of homosexuality, and threatened that his "homo-curious" behavior would not be welcome in the store. My brother -- showing remarkable chutzpah for a kid his age, I think -- told this asshole to take his shitty video shack and shove it, and walked out the door. My brother tells me that the store, "Family Video," has just a spectacular selection of porn, and is, in fact, the only video store in town that offers such selections.

I guess Jesus wants us to deface public property and watch porn. Cool!

Huh?

Remember the nice man in the military, Spc. Thomas Wilson, who yesterday asked Mr. Rumsfeld about body armor and said that he and his friends had to dig up scrap metal to protect thier vehicles?

Well, now here is what Rumsfeld is saying about it:

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing. I think it's a very constructive exchange,"

Now I'm confused and my head hurts.

Digby on Fundamentalism and Stuff

I found this post on Digby, linking to The Fundamentalist Agenda, by Davidson Loehr, and it really made me think.

Now, I've never been a fan of people who take one word and beat it to death. I recall one conversation about "What is evil." When evil can mean lots of different things to different people. I was unable to drink enough cool-aid to pass out and graciously exit from the conversation and just went home with a bad headache. Similarly, a discussion about "what is love" would be just as fruitless.

I've also read way too much about what Democrats need to do to get back on top, blah, blah, blah and I thought I'd had enough of it.

This incorporates both of those topics, but it's really good and you should read it.

Now, the basic definition of fundamentalism is tyring to get back to "fundamentals" and what one may view as a simpler time, right? But wait, there's more....

The article by Loehr first indentifies five characteristics of the fundamental agenda that are virtually identical across all fundamentalist movements in the world "regardless of religion or culture."

1) Men rule the roost and make the rules. Women are support staff and for
reasons easy to imagine, homosexuality is intolerable.

2) all rules must apply to all people, no pluralism.

3) the rules must be precisely communicated to the next generation

4) "they spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of
a golden age that never really existed. (Several of the scholars
observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and
fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women
are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and
military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled
by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand
fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political
fundamentalism. The phrase 'overcoming the modern' is a fascist slogan
dating back to at least 1941.)"

5) Fundamentalists deny history in a "radical and idiosyncratic
way."

Pretty interesting stuff.

Then Loehr says this:
But for the liberal impulse to lead, liberals must remain in contact
with the center of our territorial instinct and our need for a structure
of responsibilities. Fundamentalist uprisings are a sign that the
liberals have failed to provide an adequate and balanced vision, that
they have not found a vision that attracts enough people to become stable.

Just as it's no coincidence that all fundamentalisms have similar agendas,
it's also no coincidence that the most successful liberal advances tend to
wrap their expanded definitions in what sound like conservative
categories.

John F. Kennedy's most famous line sounds like the terrifying dictate of
the world's most arrogant fascist: “Ask not what your country can do for
you; ask what you can do for your country.” Imagine that line coming from
Hitler, Khomeini, Mullah Omar, or Jerry Falwell. It is a conservative,
even a fascist, slogan. Yet Kennedy used it to effect significant liberal
transformations in our society. Under that umbrella he created the Peace
Corps and vista programs and through them enlisted many young people to
extend our hand to those we had not before seen as belonging to our
in-group.

Likewise, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the rhetoric of a
conservative vision to promote his liberal redefinition of the members of
our in-group. When he defined all Americans as the children of God, those
words could sound like the battle-cry of an American Taliban on the verge
of putting a Bible in every school, a catechism in every legislature.
Instead, King used that cry to include Americans of all colors in the
sacred and protected group of “all God's children”—which was just what
many white Southerners were arguing against forty years ago.

When liberal visions work, it's because they have kept one foot solidly
in our deep territorial impulses with the other foot free to push the
margin, to expand the definition of those who belong in “our”
territory.

What I learned from this is:
1. I guess it's not what you say, but how and when you say it.
2. We should embracing patriotic and/or religious symbols rather than spitting on them, because those things inspire people.
3. We should stay and work to make America a better place rather than complaining about the government and throwing in the towel and moving to Canada and letting *them* win. It's our country too, ya know.
4. We should fight against the religious right and not let them hijack christianity for their hate agenda.
5. And lastly, we should fight to not let mom, the flag and apple pie symbolize ill-fated foreign wars, social injustice, and poor economic policy.

Our Military Covering up Prisoner Abuse?? Surely Not.

Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford was in Iraq working at a military prison, and witnessed a lot of prisoner abuse. Then, when he compained and stuff, his superiors said he was delusional and ordered him to lie down on a gurney and flown out of Iraq for phychological evaluation. When the Army phychiatrist that evaluated him didn't find anything wrong with him, Ford's commanding officer, Victor Artiga had a big cow, and intimidated him into changing it.

How messed up is that???

In reading this article, I found out some things I didn't really know. I didn't quite know what the Geneva Conventions were except something about how to treat prisoners, but here it is, in a nutshell:

The Geneva Conventions signed by the United States and 114 other countries in 1949 give prisoners of war strict protections. They cannot be assaulted, photographed (except for counterintelligence purposes), threatened with physical harm, denied medical care and medication, or deprived of food, water, clothing or sleep. They are also entitled to have mail access and regular visits from the Red Cross or other humanitarian groups.

And in the ongoing prisoner abuse investigation, it's been all low-level soldiers that have been investigated.

Seven low-level soldiers have since been charged, with one conviction, but no one up the ladder has been held accountable. Meanwhile, it has become increasingly clear that the mistreatment at Abu Ghraib was symptomatic of a wider problem. The Department of Defense is currently investigating more than a hundred allegations of prisoner abuse. So far, not a single officer or high-ranking enlisted soldier has been charged in any of them

If this bad stuff is really happening, shouldn't some higher level soldiers or officers get investigated too? I know I'd be really mad if I got in trouble for something that my mommy or teacher told me to do, especially if lots of other people were doing it, and I was just doing it because I'm supposed to do what my mommy and teachers tell me to do.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Yesterday, Mr. Bush asked Mr. Snow to keep being the Secretary of the Treasury.

Just a few weeks ago senior administration officials said that Mr. Snow could stay as long as wants, as long as it's not very long. So, it sounds like Bush wanted to get rid of him at first.

He looked around, and couldn't find anyone else out there with that kind of training in economics and finance and stuff that would support his social security privatization plan and his lowering taxes on rich people plan. Gee, I wonder why?

...conservatives realized the remaining candidates were Wall Street
executives who might put their concern about rising budget deficits ahead
of a push for lower taxes, said Stephen Moore, president of the
conservative political action committee Club for Growth. Given their
options, they decided Snow would be the best Treasury chief to push the
partial privatization of Social Security and, especially, a restructuring
of the tax code.

Vince Farrell Jr., chairman of Victory Capital Management in New York,
said... Wall Street viewed Snow as a somewhat ponderous spokesman for
the White House's economic agenda rather than a policymaking force in
his own right

Yes! That's the kind of man we need for four more years as Treaury Secretary. It looks like loyalty over sound economic policy is much more important if you want to be the Secretary of the Tresury.

I wonder who, out of all the new Secretaries has the highest brownish-shade-of-nose to expertise-in-their-field ratio?

Pondering the Republican Stand

Here's one for ya.

Let's say they find out what gene(s) make people gay. And the technology exists to mess with the DNA and keep peoples' kids from being gay. Will the Republicans then be all over messing with "God's plan" if it means they get the bonus of fewer gay people and ridding the world of these individuals that they find so offensive?

How NOT to Inspire the Troops

Ladies and Gentlemen, our very own Mr. Rumsfield eloquently giving the troops a "pep talk:"

Question: Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"

Answer: You go to war with the Army you have.

Surely he's not suggesting that the military is understaffed or underfunded? That we didn't have a good enough plan to go in and win the peace or avoid a civil war? That we really don't even know what the heck we're doing over there?

More Prisoner Abuse Stuff

There's some pretty bad things coming out about prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Two Defense Department Intelligence officials witnessed some mean nasty things at Abu Ghairb, and when they objected they were threatened and told to keep quiet by some of the mean military interrogators.

The memorandum said the two D.I.A. officials, who were not identified,
had found the keys to their vehicles confiscated, and been instructed "not
to leave the compound without specific permission, even to get a haircut";
they were also threatened, and told their e-mail messages were being
screened.

And some of the mean nasty things they saw:

an interrogator from the Special Operations unit known as Task Force
6-26 "punch a prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed
medical attention."

prisoners being brought in to a detention center with burn marks on
their backs and complaining about sore kidneys

And in a related incident in Guantanamo, we have this:

The Associated Press reported Monday that one F.B.I. official had
written in a memorandum of witnessing a series of coercive procedures
at Guantánamo, among them a female interrogator squeezing the genitals
of a detainee and bending back his thumbs painfully.

Our interrogators aren't being very nice and playing by the rules. I'm really scared about what might happen to our soldiers if they get captured. Paybacks can be even meaner.

Dr. Frist, Please Report to Emergency

I got in trouble yesterday for playing doctor. And I think Mr. Frist should get in trouble too, because it sounds like he's 'playing' doctor too. No self-respecting doctor would say the wrong-bad-mis-information-spreading-lying-like-a-rug things that he said.

Now, I didn't know that Mr. Frist was a doctor until I read this. But now I know why he decided to leave medicine and go into politics. He must not be a very good doctor if he thinks you can get HIV from tears and sweat.

OK, here's a test for you medical people out there:

Q. How can you get HIV(choose all that apply)

1. Blood
2. Sweat
3. Tears
4. Toenail clippings
5. Toejam
6. Snot
7. Eye buggers

You think this will keep Conservatives off the wrestling and basketball teams? Or keep Conservatives from consoling their friends who might be crying?

Conservatives Don't Let Conservatives Console Their Crying Cohorts!

FL Programmer Admits to Developing Vote-Rigging Prototype

Wow.

I tried to go to The Brad Blog to read more about this, but I couldn't get in because there is too much traffic. I guess everyone wants to read about this. I just can't believe this could happen in the nice, bright sunny state of Flordia. I thought it was all about palm trees, puppy dogs, green grass and high tides here. Not horribly corrupt politicians.

While working for Yang Enterprises in Florida, the 46-year-old programmer says he was instructed by then-Republican state representative Tom Feeney to "develop a prototype of a voting program that could alter the vote tabulation in the election and be undetectable."

Feeney, a former failed running mate of Gov. Jeb Bush, is now represents Florida's 24th district in the House of Representatives. At the time, he was serving both as general counsel and lobbyist for Yang Enterprises and the Florida state congressman.

Fair and Balanced Simpsons

The Simpsons (when some one says "the simpsons," I always hum the theme song in my head ... dooo dooo do dooo do dooo do do.) had an episode on Sunday with a Fox News truck sporting a Bush-Cheney sticker. I thought that was pretty funny. Because we all know well and good that Fox News is a bunch of "Bush whores" as Tom Shales so eloquently put it. But they always pretend that they aren't, so it's funny that the Simpsons, which is on Fox is portraying them as such.

I think Fox News needs go see Principal Skinner and write "I will not air partisan hack news shows" 100 times on the chalk board.

PTC - Poopy Television Censorship

This one group called PTC (I think it means Poopy Television Censorship) is responsible for 99.8% of complaints to the FCC in 2003 and 99.9% as of October this year. So because of this one little group and their fancy-very-easy-computer-nifty-new-fangled-internet way of registering complaints, they have made the FCC spend a whole lot of money looking into these things and that costs taxpayers a lot of money.

“It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.


I think the FCC should change their rules and only accept complaints from individuals. And they should get call block or one of the spam-filter-thingys to block out stuff from the Poopy Television Censorship people.

Mr. Falwell and His Big Decision

Mr. Falwell was on Crossfire last night. Mommy was out drinking, and I had a babysitter so I didn't get to watch it. But luckily, Wonkette gives us some of the finer points in the conversation:

MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: Oh, I don't remember that.
MATTHEWS: Well, you must, because you say it's a big decision.
FALWELL: Well, I started dating when I was about 13.
MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls. And you chose girls.
FALWELL: I never had to decide. I never thought about it.

So, isn't Mr. Falwell proving the point that one's sexual orientation is not a choice? We are either born to like boys or girls and we can't help the way we were born.

So, because of what Mr. Falwell said on TV last night, when I get to be 13, if my mommy doesn't let me date I can say "But mom, Jerry Falwell got to date when he was 13, so why can't I?" Thanks Jerry for giving me that naughty idea. And I'm going to tell my friends too.

Bernard Kerik

Last night my friend told me that Bush had recommended a new Secretary of Homeland Security and his name is Bernard Kerik. At first I giggled because Bernard is just kind of a funny name. Then I asked who this guy was and stuff. All my friend knew was that he was the police commissioner in New York after 9/11 and didn't do much for serious crime but got rid of a lot of petty crime.

Now that didn't make me feel very safe because the Secretary of Homeland Security needs to protect us against more than pick-pocketing and shoplifting. Terrorism is serious business.

So today, I did a little more research on this fellow, and here's what I found. He's not very competent and doesn't have much high-level government experience. Having someone like him in charge of Homeland Security is kind of scary. He did help in Mr. Bush's campaign, but I don't think that should qualify him to be a Secretary.

According to The American Prospect this could be "a lesson in how functionally irrelevant most cabinet secretaries are these days, or yet another indication of the degree to which the current administration values loyalty and symbolism over competence and substance."

Either one sounds really bad to me.

The Tyranny by the Majority

Where Bill Frist (R-TN) gets off calling the filibuster the "Tyranny by the Minority" is beyond me.

I didn't really know what 'tyranny' meant, so I went to dictionary.com and looked it up. Here's what it said:

A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.
The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly: “I have sworn... eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” (Thomas Jefferson).

There are three things wrong with that.
1. "Tyranny of the Minority" is an oxymoron, as tyrants have absolute power, where as a minority wouldn't ever have absolute power in a democracy.

2. The Republicans have more 'absolute power', as they control both the Legislative and Executive branches, and soon the Judicial, probably.

3. If you just do a little poking around, you can find a whole lot of tyrannical things that Mr. Bush and his friends have done already or want to do in the near future. So Billy Frist calling the Democrats tyrants is just plain hypocritcal.

    a. The DeLay rule - extremely unjust. DeLay should have to be accountable for his illegal activities as much as anyone else
    b. Bill Frist trying to block the vote on the Intelligence Reform Bill - also very unjust as this bill was recommended but the 9/11 commission, the president, the Senate, and a majority of the House
    c. Trying to limit abortion rights - downright cruel, as women get all butchered up when abortions aren't safe and available.
    d. Lowering taxes on the rich - very unjust as poorer people end up paying a higher proportion of taxes.
    e. Bush trying to force his twisted brand of religion on everyone - both unjust as far as the Constitution goes, and pretty darned cruel to those that have different religious beliefs.

Yet, he calls the last remaining little tiny-weenie-itsy-bitsy bit of power that Democrats have a tyrannical? What a scumbag. He makes me mad.

But the one really funny thing about this article is what Mr. McCain said.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he would be more disposed to the rules change "if I believed Republicans would be in the majority forever."

Just saying that kind of smells a little like he's a wanna-be tyrant but he's afraid any new and improved pro-current-administration legislation will be used against him if his party loses power.

The Daily Atrocity of the Morals Police

Digby has a nice post on how the silly people distributing The Merchant of Venice in the US are trying to censor it for us prudes here in the U.S. of A Apparently Venetian art showing cupids' willys are now on the list of unacceptable things to see on TV.

In reading the comments on Digby's site, someone was pondering why we have so much trouble separating sex and nudity. It got me to thinking about that too. Everyone has a body, and it shouldn't be considered 'dirty.' Now things you can do with your body may or may not be appropriate for younger viewers, but just showing a cupid's willy? Come on now, people.

Is Our Children Learning??

Mr. Waxman from California, did some research on abstinence-education and found some big problems. They are teaching things that aren't true, like the effectiveness of condoms and how many chromosomes people have and stuff.

I think it's pretty messed up to fill kids' heads with a bunch of lies to advance some kind of religious or political agenda. How can we in the U.S. compete with other countries in the fields of science and healthcare if we are teaching our school children a bunch of crap.

What's really scary is that Mr. Bush and his friends have agreed to give these programs a lot more money to spread these filthy lies.

I think they should teach kids that abstinence is the only 100% effective way to keep from getting STDs or pregnant, but that since lots of people are going to have sex, we should also teach the proper way to use condoms and other methods of birth control. What's so wrong about telling the children the truth and equipping them with the tools they need to be disease-free, happy, and productive adults?

There's a lot of interesting discussion about this topic here.

Closed hearts. Closed minds. Closed doors.

The Methodist minister, Irene Elizabeth Stroud, who admitted to her bishop and congregation that she is a lesbian and has a life-partner has been convicted under Methodist law.

One thing about this that made me very sad was this:
"Stroud's defense was dealt a blow when the presiding judge Joseph Yeakel, the retired bishop of Washington, D.C., excluded expert testimony from six defense witnesses who believe the church's gay clergy ban violates its own legal principles."

Do you think this is going to have a big affect on the Methodist church as a whole? Are we going to see them split into two factions. One gay-friendly and one not gay-friendly? Or are all those straight-but-gay-friendly members of the Methodist Church just going to be silent and let their church turn into a sanctuary of hate?

related post: Open Minds. Open Hearts. Open Minds

Only in Alabama (hopefully)

Rep. Gerald Allen, from the fine state of Alabama wants to introduce a bill to ban books, theatre productions or anything that "recognizes or promotes homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle" from public schools and libraries. He thinks this is going to "protect children from the homosexual agenda."

Now, what exactly is the homosexual agenda, and how can it affect children? All of the homosexuals that I know just want to be free to love whomever they want to love and continue to go about their lives as accepted citizens. They don't eat small children, I swear, they don't.

Even the nice men and women on the Supreme Court agreed not to hear the case trying to stop gay people from getting married in Massachusetts. The Supreme Court didn't say why they wouldn't hear it because they never say why. But A U.S. appeals court that rejected the appeal on this, said the Constitution applies only to "real threats." So, I'm thinking they don't see gay people being together as a "threat" to anyone, even children, Mr. Allen.

I don't understand why there is so much hatred towards gay people. They can't help it. They were born that way. And they're being gay is not going to go away if we ignore it. We need to accept it and try to understand it. Not be all mean and stuff.

Here a Bigot, There a Bigot, Everywhere a Bigot, Bigot

This little boy, who's has two mommies instead of a mommy and a daddy was trying to explain it to another little boy, when the teacher overheard it. She got mad at the little boy and he got in trouble.

If talking about this is so wrong is school, what is going to happen when the little boy is supposed to draw a picture of his family. Is he going to get in trouble for that too?

I think if a little boy has two parents that love him, it shouldn't matter if they are both boys or both girls or one of each. And he should be able to talk about them as much as any little boy talks about his family. A lot of kids just have one mommy or daddy, and I don't think that's enough.

And now this silly teacher is suing the mother for defamation. She must be a really mean teacher, even worse than smelly old Miss Hannrahan who got mad at my brother because he couldn't skip.

DWI- Dialing While Intoxicated

Sometimes when my mommy gets home late, she starts making phone calls and wakes me up because I can hear her talking. Sometimes she’s mad and sometimes, a boy comes over to the house after a few minutes. But then in the morning, when she’s cleaning the beer cans out of her car, or reaching for the Motrin, she says she shouldn’t have made those calls last night.

So these nice people in Australia came up with a way to stop her from making those calls. Now if they could just put a breathalyzer on her email...

CBS and UPN and NBC Are Going to Hell

I agree with my big brother on this . If the United Church of Christ wants to have a commercial stating that they accept people of all races, ages, economic circumstances, ability or sexual orientation, I think they should be able to put it on any TV station they want.

It's ridiculous that this could possibly be more contraversial that those stupid Coors commercials with the twins. And what about Will and Grace? That's a whole show about gay people and NBC shows it all the time. WTF??

If I was gay, I don't even think I'd go to church, because too may church-going people are mean. But if I knew about the UCC, I might go on Christmas and Easter.