What he really meant

Here's Dick Cheney fantasizing about a Laura Bush/Hillary Clinton a match up. When he says 'presidential race,' I think we all know he really means mud wrestling.

Evil Hound

Sorry no posts earlier today. I just didn't have much energy. Someone, who looks awfully sweet and innocent kept me up all night howling at the lightning and thunder that came through last night.



Also I'm working with some new technology at work. Stuff I've wanted to learn for some time now, and I think I might finally have a chance. Ya know, I've gotta work hard if I want to be able to afford that house husband.

And I just looked at the radar and there's another storm coming tonight!

I can't wait.

Honoring our fallen soldiers one lie at a time

I know Memorial Day is almost over, but I just read this post over at the Tattered Coat and got goose bumps. Not only that, but he mentions fetishes several times. Not sure if it was all that fetish talk or Matt's great writing that gave me goose bumps, but go read the whole thing. It's fabulous.

I saw Bush's speech this afternoon on CNN or MSNBC. All I could think about was the hypocrisy. Bush is talking about honoring our fallen soldiers when he couldn't even fulfill his duty to the Texas and Alabama National Guard. What a loser president we have.

If he understood that sacrifice, he would have done everything in his
power to make sure that the vehicles our soldiers ride in had more than
enough protective armor to shield them. If he understood that sacrifice,
he would have attended the funeral of a fallen soldier. If he understood
that sacrifice, he would have made sure that those who misrepresented Pat
Tillman'’s death lost their jobs. If he understood that sacrifice, he
would have apologized for taking the country to war on the basis of lies.

There has to be a middle ground between honoring the fallen and using
them for political advantage. Because in the end, the people who died on
9/11, and the soldiers who died while serving this country, deserve better
than to be turned into political props and recruitment posters.

Now I haven't looked at a transcript of Bush's speech today, and I'm not going to because it's late and I'm sleepy, but when he said something like "America has always been the reluctant warrior," I laughed out loud. Pre-emptive, lying, doing-no-good warrior maybe. But reluctant? Come on.

Marketing 101 by Clear Channel

I like to play pretend sometimes, so when I saw what my favorite Corporate Radio Company, Clear Channel Communications is doing I just couldn't help but giggle.

It's official: even Clear Channel is sick of Clear Channel. The company
has set up a fake pirate radio station [taken down, 5/26/05] in Akron, Ohio,
which it's using to hurl insults at other Clear Channel stations. For about
a week, Radio Free Ohio has feigned overthrowing Ohio's media monopoly
by bleeding its broadcasts into WNIR and other Clear Channel stations.

One of the few things I remember from Business School is these Marketing strategies.
1. Get people to use more (wash, rinse, repeat)
2. Find new uses for your product (baking soda not just for baking anymore)
3. Find new market segments for your product (Clear Channel)

As far as corporate strategy goes, Clear Channel is following the #3 strategy of finding new market segments. There's a growing segment of the market that can't stand corporate radio, and there's no reason that Clear Channel shouldn't have a piece of that pie, by golly.

Here we go again

Those crazy liberal conspiracy theorists are at it again. Those sillies think we're gonna invade Iran next month.

Don't they understand that George Bush is a god-fearing good Christian man that cares about humanity? He would never do such a thing.

The money that you and I and future generations pay for these wars is growing every day. The number of people that die for King George goes up every day. What little good-will we have with other nations grows weaker and weaker every day. Our economy gets worse, the price of oil is skyrocketing, and I'm pissed!

Where the hell does he think he's gonna get soldiers from to fight this new and exciting war? Recruiting is way down. People aren't drinking the kool-aid. Bush's approval numbers are on a steady decline.

But I guess there's always those frozen embryos that we could use for troops. I'm sure women who support the cause would be willing to give nine months of their lives to produce a healthy soldier to fight in one of Bush's wars. Forget stem cell research, we've got countries to invade!

Not sure how we could do such a thing given our lack of resources. But then that's never stopped us before, at least in this Administration. Nothing I hear from these clowns surprises me anymore.

The only interesting thing to look forward to is finding out the creative ways the 'liberal' media will spin it so that the American people will think it's a good idea.

Yippee! More killing!

The howling-laughter-inspiring quote of the week

"Someday you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here. And if any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me."
-- President Bush's commencement address of this past week at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Bugman Squirms

From the Department of Dishing It Out But Not Taking It, we have a predictably whiney Tom Delay.

Remember when he threatened federal judges right after the Terri Schiavo debacle a few months back?

The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for
their behavior.

Well, the time has come for the TV show 'Law and Order' to poke fun at Tom DeLay in an episode where they discuss finding the killer of two judges, for making that statement.

Maybe we should put out an APB (all-points-bulletin) for somebody in
a Tom DeLay T-shirt.

And now, Mr. Delay is whining about it in this letter to NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker.

This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive
issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the
suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse.

And the creator of Law and Order, Dick Wolf had this to say about it all:

I ... congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from
his own problems to an episode of a TV show.

Like a cockroarch drowning in Raid, he's squirming for his agonizing last gasp of political influence.

Twelve inch penises still stopping traffic

Now, I just drove this stretch of I-75 on Sunday afternoon, but I swear, I had nothing to do with this.

I believe Ellen doesn't live far from there. Hmmm.....

via All Spin Zone

The taint of corporate cash

A judge ruled today that Bill Ceverha, the treasurer for Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee formed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, will have to pay nearly $200,000. He was found guilty of not reporting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

The Democrats who sued TRMPAC claimed Ceverha violated the state election law, designed to keep elections free from "the taint of corporate cash."

Ah yes! The taint of corporate cash. The area in Texas between administrative expenses and political research, polling, mailing, fund-raising and conferences. The area designed to keep a man such as Tom DeLay from pooing all over his future political aspirations.

Mr. DeLay hasn't been indicted yet, but seein' as how a judge has finally ruled that something illegal did in fact take place, it's not lookin' good for him.

The confused little senator from Kansas

It appears that Sam Brownback (R-KS) isn't thinking very clearly. He thinks Democrats shouldn't be able to use the filibuster to block judicial nominees, but the wingnut section of the Senate should be able to use the filibuster to block the easing of restrictions on stem cell research.

The confused little senator on judicial filibusters:
Brownback pointed out that "we've been hung up now four years" on several of the nominees.

"There's no sign of it ending," Brownback said. "We're kind of at the end of the string. I don't know what else we can do" other than change the rules.

The confused little senator on stem cell research:
"We're going to do everything we can to stop it," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. He vowed to mount a filibuster, which allows a minority of senators to block a vote on the measure.

Isn't that precious? Kind of reminds me of a pre-schooler who won't let the other kids play with the fire truck, even though he's been playing with the race car for over an hour and hasn't touched the fire truck since yesterday. Mine!

Naughty Scottie

Looks like I'm not the only cookie in the cookie jar.

Cookie Jill from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo has a really nice site. She's been around awhile, but she's new to me, and today, she has an excerpt of a nice little tete-a-tete with Scottie McClellan and that "mean old helen woman in the white house press corps."

Q The other day -- in fact, this week, you said that we, the United
States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to
correct that incredible distortion of American history --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are -- that's where we currently --

Q -- in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you're
taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected
governments in Iraq and --

Q We're we invited into Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They
are sovereign governments, and we are there today --

Q You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I'm talking about today. We are there at
their invitation. They are sovereign governments --

Q I'm talking about today, too.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are doing all we can to train and equip their
security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they
move forward on a free and democratic future.

Q Did we invade those countries?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.

Check out her site. And don't forget to listen to the theme song. It'll really get yer toes a-tappin'.

We We We All the Way Home

Evidently Fox News anchor David Asman, (we'll call him Assman for the purpose of this post) considers himself part of the team.

ASSMAN: You're the chairman of the rules committee. Did Senator [Bill]
Frist [R-TN] have the votes to end the filibuster?

LOTT: I believe that he did. It would have been very close. We would have
probably gotten a 50-50 tie vote, with the vice president breaking the tie.
Perhaps we'd have had 51 before it was over. I do think it's a rule that
should be in place because what the Democrats have been doing is not,
you know, protecting a rule, they have been causing something different.
The filibusters on a serial basis, federal judicial nominees to the
appellate courts, was unprecedented for 214 years. So, to put that rule
in place saying that it only takes 51 votes to confirm these judges was
something I thought we should do. Remember now --

ASSMAN: So, Senator, if we should have done it and if we had the
votes to do it in the Senate -- if you guys in the Republican
Party did -- then why did you need a compromise?

LOTT: Well, you know, I would argue that we probably should have gone
forward with the vote, all things considered.

Gosh, and I thought Fox News was fair and balanced. Who knew?

Who says Bush isn't interested in alternative fuels?

As he thinks back fondly on those simple carefree days of milking male
horses and whiling away sunny afternoons with Jeff Gannon, President
Bush ponders what it would be like to stick a hydrogen pump nozzle up
his ass.

Nice Rack!

Barham Salih, Minister of Planning of Iraq (L) checks out Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's rack, which begs the question "what exactly do
they smoke during those 'joint' news conferences."

AutoBlogger

For those of you that just don't have the time to keep up with your blogs, now there's AutoBlogger.

"AutoBlogger generates authentic sounding entries for my blog when I don't have time to update, creating original content that keeps my regular readers happy and frees me to go on dates with hot college girls that dig my writing."

And then there's always the testimonial by Ana Marie Cox from Wonkette:

"Before AutoBlogger I was called a profanity-laced and sex-obsessed vain, young, foul-mouthed tramp. With AutoBlogger, I can finally live up to the hype."

via Rox Populi

The sagacity of Tom DeLay

"An embryo is a person, a distinct internally directed, self-integrating
human organism," Mr. DeLay said, adding, "We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was
Jesus of Nazareth."

Without getting into the gestational cycles of virgin births, let's ponder this sentence.

Can a fourteen cell organism really be internally directed? I've got way more cells than that and sometimes I don't even know where I'm going or what the heck I'm doing.

And self-integrating? An embryo is so not self-integrating. It cannot be made whole by bringing all parts together all by it's lonesome. It needs nourishment from a host organism. In most cases, this organism is known as the 'mother.'

But those are nice big words, Tommy. Keep up the good work and maybe you'll get a good grade on your next vocabulary test.

Oh, That crazy Fed

Yesterday we read about 'frothy' housing markets, and today we have discernable "upcreeps" in inflation measures.

Next thing we know, we'll be reading about wedgies in the Producer Price Index, queefs in the Trade Defict or the taint between Supply and Demand.

I know some people think Greenspan is a hack, but at least he keeps us on our toes.

Family Research Council wants to kill 200,000 women every year

Do you ever read something, and your jaw just drops and you are speechless and you can't believe that this stuff is actually happening, and there are crazies out there that condone that sort of thing?

Well, here's one for ya.

Now conservative Christian groups are preparing to battle a new
scourge: Vaccines that could prevent more than 200,000 women from dying
of cervical cancer each year (including 5,000 here in the United States).

The vaccines, which have been developed by Merck and GlaxoSmithKline,
immunize against infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), a common
STD that is responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancer cases.
But abstinence only advocates love HPV. That's because the virus can be
spread by skinto-skin contact other than intercourse, meaning that
condoms are less effective at preventing HPV infection than blocking the
spread of other STDs. Abstinence groups don't want a vaccine to eliminate
this fear factor. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be
potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in
premarital sex," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a
Christian lobby that plans to fight a Merck campaign to make HPV
vaccination mandatory for all girls by the time they enter junior high.
Of course, absolutely no evidence supports Maher's claim. But there's
plenty of evidence that an HPV vaccine will prevent thousands of
needless deaths.

Now what was that about a culture of life?

So, while we are at it, let's eliminate all heart surgery. I mean really. Those lazy good for nothing chubbo bon-bon eating no-exercise gettin' couch potato people don't deserve to live anyway, right? Same with all pulmonary procedures. Those stinky bad-breath smokers with addictive personalities and icky teeth shouldn't be allowed to live on the earth with sin-free perfect specimens such as me.

Forget-me-not panties, Bill O'Reilly, and sick men

Feministing has some doozies today! I tried and tried, but I just couldn't pick one, so here's three.

Making the world safe for stalkers one pair of panties at a time

Forget-me-not panties, being marketed to men, have a tracking device
planted in women's underwear that also monitors heart rate and body
temperature:

These "panties" can trace the exact location of your woman and send the
information, via satellite, to your cell phone, PDA, and PC simultaneously!
Use our patented mapping system, pantyMap®, to find the exact location of your loved one 24 hours a day.

O'Reilly says Harvard should woo women with shoes

The lovely Bill O'Reilly has a great suggestion of how Harvard can
use the $50 million they pledged to recruit more women: buy them shoes.

"Any woman who signs on to work at Harvard gets 100 pair of shoes...to
make it even more enticing, they're gonna give women shoes, because all
women want shoes."

Report says women's success makes men sick.

Research will this week say that the more committed and successful a
woman is at work, the worse her partner feels. The findings blame a
syndrome called "unfulfilled husband hypothesis" for making men feel
inadequate when women stray too far beyond their traditional roles. The
man of the house, it seems, is still not cut out for domesticity.

Is men's health so fragile that it's dependent on feeling superior to
women? If that is the case, it seems to me that the problem isn't that
women work, but that men are massively insecure. Not to mention, I don't
know that feeling inadequate counts as a serious health problem.

These girls are on fire today!

I'll show you nuclear!

During one of the lighter moments of the late-night filibuster
compromise bash, Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist asks Senate
Minority Leader, Harry Reid to pull his finger.

As you can see by the expression on Reid's face, he is not amused.

Promoting democracy one pint at a time in Tampa

Tomorrow night, Wednesday the 25th, is the inaugural gathering here in Tampa for Drinking Liberally. We are meeting at New World Brewery, on 1313 East 8th Street, at 8pm.

We don't have much of an agenda this time. It's just a meet and greet kinda thing. So just show up and drink a beer with us.

Sign up and get on the mailing list here.

Hope to see you all there!

UPDATE: Wayne tells me that the address is wrong. New World Brewery is on 8th street, not 18th street, as previously posted. Hopefully the info on the Drinking Liberally website will be updated soon too. Thanks Wayne!

Pat Tillman's Family Speaks Out

As the Daily Howler points out,

Maybe we’ve finally found someone who will be allowed to complain
about this Admin’s endemic dissembling. We refer to the parents of Pat
Tillman.

Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire, but the Bush Administratin neglected to mention that to his family, and instead used him as an insignificant pawn to foster those warm mushy feelings of patrio-jism that only the most devout of NFL fans can muster.

Well Tillman's parents are justifiably miffed.

Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his
death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism—just as
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was
particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial
message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the
presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was
being used, something he never would have wanted.

"Every day is sort of emotional," Mary Tillman said. "It just keeps
slapping me in the face. To find that he was killed in this debacle—
everything that could have gone wrong did—it's so much harder to take. We
should not have been subjected to all of this. This lie was to cover their
image. I think there's a lot more yet that we don't even know, or they
wouldn't still be covering their tails.”

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," Tillman’s father says at another
point in the piece.

I would certainly be peeved as well, if anyone I loved was used as a political chess piece for this Adminstration's propaganda machine. Where do the lies end?

Social Security Privatization Soirees

It appears that George Bush's Social Security privatization soirees are not the happenin' events that they used to be.

When the president traveled to Wisconsin last week to tout Social
Security privatization, reporters decided it wasn’t worth their time to
even make the trip. In March, when Bush visited New Mexico for the same
reason, Kiva Auditorium was sparsely attended, with hundreds of empty
seats. In February, Bush went to New Hampshire for a Social Security
event in an airport hangar, only about half of the 2,000 free tickets
were taken and the White House advance team had to scurry to collect
empty chairs before Bush spoke so as to minimize the humiliation.

But if nothing else, maybe these little shindigs could be a good place for our youngsters to find true love.

“Since we can’t ask questions, why schlep over there?” he (a member
of the press corp) reasons. “The White House this morning actually called reporters beforehand, saying: ‘Are you going to be here?’ Later, after they eyeballed the room and found it to be empty, they brought in White House
interns.

“So you had all these fresh young faces — pretty blonde girls, and guys
who haven’t shaved — nodding their approval as the president speaks.”

Perhaps they should institute Ladies Night or nightly drink specials. That will really pack 'em in.

The Frothy Housing Market

Greenspan-speak is sometimes so poetic and soulful, that it just gets me right in the gut, then I giggle and snort maniacally. Here's what he had to say about the housing market.

"Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear
that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern," Mr. Greenspan told the
Economic Club of New York at the Hilton New York hotel in Midtown.

Mr. Greenspan emphasized that he sees no sign of a nationwide housing
bubble, but he acknowledged concerns over "froth" in the market and
pointed to a big increase in speculation in homes - particularly in
second homes. As a result, he said, there are "a lot of local bubbles"
around the country.

Now, given that I'm a home-owner on a peninsula, the nutsac, if you will of the greater Tampa Bay area, I'm not too worried about the housing bubble. I can see home price increases slowing down a bit in my area, but certainly not popping in true Pink Bubblicious fashion.

But this whole 'frothy' analogy... It's priceless. Alan Greenspan just gets more precious every time he speaks in public. Frothy brings up images of beer, a bubble bath, and of course santorum. Kind of like a first date. So adorable, sweet and pure.

Bipartisan compromise, my ass

Now, when I read about this last night, I thought "golly, that's great. We get to keep the filibuster." But now that I read it again, I don't think we really won anything, and I'm not sure making this agreement was the right way to go.

I mean, the three evil judges, Pryor, Owens and Brown will most likely be confirmed. And Democrats didn't want that. The other evil judges weren't even part of the agreement, so who knows what could happen there, but seeing as they are not quite as evil and the Democrats agreed to only use the filibuster in "extraordinary" circumstances, they will probably be confirmed as well. So the Democrats lose on all counts.

Now according to most of the stuff I read, the Democrats had the necessary votes to avert the nuclear option. But then instead of letting Frist go forward with his sinister plan and failing miserable, the Democrats caved and gave the Republicans everything they wanted? What kind of a compromise is that?

And now, if there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could have the exact same discussion again in a few months. Bush nominates Ashcroft, then Frist executes the nuclear option and bam! We have a circus freak for a Supreme Court Justice. But then, if the Democrats had the votes to avert the nuclear option now, one can only hope they would also have the votes then. But who knows? I just hope the Senate Democrats didn't miss their chance to shut down Frist's silly un-American power-grabby plan and put him in his place.

And Senator Joseph I. Lieberman declared, "In a Senate that's become increasingly partisan and polarized, the bipartisan center held."

The bipartisan center held? Huh? What? Am I missing something?

UPDATE: Well it looks like there are a whole lot of opinions out there on this. There's a GOP schmuck who is Oh, So disappointed. Pissed off Paticia from Blondesense thinks they are just procrastinating, not compromising. And a commenter at Washington Monthly heard Lindsey Graham say on MSNBC last night that at least one of the trifecta of Brown, Pyror and Owen won't get confirmed (the suspense is killing me. Which one is it?).

Butterflies in my tummy

My tummy's been tied in knots for the past few days. I'm not sure if it's due to me thinkin' about those fun things I did in Key West, the fact that somebody said he misses me when I'm gone, or the whole filibuster thingy.

But this post about the Republican Senators that are on the fence as to how they are gonna vote on the filibuster, what they're thinkin' and the likely outcomes is pretty interesting.

The Carpetbagger predicts that the Democrats will win 51-49. I hope he's right.

We should know tomorrow what happens with the filibuster, but what to do about my tummy and those other issues???

Wrestling for Jesus

When I read this, via The American Street, about a new-fangled way to recruit brand spanky new Christians through wrestling, I was quite impressed.

Of course Jesus' General has been doing it for quite some time now (in a completely heterosexual way, of course), so it's not all together a new idea.

But then I got to thinkin', what else could be done to convert the masses? If, as Ted "Million Dollar Man" DiBiase says, "Jesus told us to be fishers of men, and there are a lot of fish requiring different bait," then I've got some idears.

Smoking Crack for the Creator - just what they need
in theinner cities with lots of gang violence and drug problems.

Cock Fighting For Christ - Jesus doesn't mind a little
gambling and animal cruelty, when afterwards the participants
want to be saved.

Prostitutes and Johns United in Jesus - after they get
a little nookie, they can submit prayer requests and ask to be
forgiven.

Porn for the Lord - Porn sites that allow you to surf porn for
twenty minutes, then take you to a site where you can read about
others who have fought their porn additions with the help of the
Lord and their generous donations.

My First Mule - a day-long conference for young farm boys,
teaching the ways of mule fornication, followed by a luncheon and
bible study given by the ladies auxiliary.

Let me know if I left any out. I'm sure there are many more activities that could bring 'em in for the Lord.

Wormholes

I generally love a good article on wormholes. Wormholes make learning physics bearable and, well, 'wormhole' just sounds naughty.

But this article was a little disturbing. I guess some renegade physicists think that wormholes aren't real practical for time travel. And that really bums me out.

A separate study by Chris Fewster, of the University of York, UK, and
Thomas Roman, of Central Connecticut State University, US, takes a
different approach to tackling the question of wormholes.

Amongst other things, their analysis deals with the proposal that wormhole
throats could be kept open using arbitrarily small amounts of exotic matter.

Fewster and Roman calculated that, even if it were possible to build such a wormhole, its throat would probably be too small for time travel.

It might - in theory - be possible to carefully fine-tune the geometry of
the wormhole so that the wormhole throat became big enough for a person
to fit through, says Fewster.

But building a wormhole with a throat radius big enough to just fit a proton
would require fine-tuning to within one part in 10 to the power of 30. A
human-sized wormhole would require fine-tuning to within one part in 10 to
the power of 60.

"Frankly no engineer is going to be able to do that," said the York
researcher.

But if we can't have wormholes anymore, at least we still have black holes, bosons, all of Newton's Laws of Motion, strong interactions, units, moments of inertia, and for those of you that are into fantasy, there's always fictitous forces and virtual objects.

Physics is so sexy.

Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A prirate's life for me

I'm sailing from Naples to Key West tonight. When I get there, I will be drinking myself silly and carousing with drunken sailors.

Meanwhile, Bart is in charge.


And when I get back Sunday night, there better not be any long-standing senate traditions that have changed.

WTF?

A girl in Alabama was not allowed to participate in her high school graduation because she was pregnant. She completed all of her course work at home and was eligible to graduate and receive her diploma. Her name was not even printed in the graduation program.

So Alysha Cosby took matters into her own hands. She went to her graduation ceremony, called her own name, then walked across the stage. After that, she and her mom and aunt were escorted out of the room my police.

Not only that, the father of the baby was in her graduating class and did participate in the ceremony.

I just shake my head in disbelief when I see things like this happening in my country.

What else can we blame Newsweek for?

Cheers and Jeers has the answer for us.

Droughts, floods and hailstorms. Fleas. The Cs, Ds and Fs I got in
school. Computer freeze-up. Peeling paint. Graffiti. Potholes. My
handwriting. Trolls. Clogged pipes and leaky basements. Zits, blackheads
and Eczema. Base closures. Gas prices. Global warming and gout. Dust
mites. Powerline, Instapundit, Little Green Footballs and anal leakage
(sorry for the redundancy). The decline of western civilization. Tone
deafness. Infomercials. Exploding donkey carts. Yappy dogs. Root rot.
Dead batteries. Anakin turning to the dark side of The Force. Bloating.
Idi Amin, Clay Aiken and Ann Coulter. Dirty dishes. The nuclear option.
Moonies. Pages that are stuck together. The time my brother shot me with
a BB gun. Supermarket checkout lines. Accordions and bagpipes.
Shampoos that force you to rinse AND repeat. Watergate. Buttock lint.
HMOs. Dirty diapers. Tardiness. Whatever it is they're hiding at Area 51.
And Time magazine.

Brilliant!! But buttock lint?? I think that's more Dan Rather's fault.

Safety First?

This is The President of the United States, 100 feet
from a grenade that failed to explode because of a
malfunction

"Bush spoke from behind bulletproof glass and U.S.
officials said last week that he had not been in danger."

Rods From God

As Agitprop so eloquently commented on Blondesense:

When I first saw "Rods from God" I thought it was another story about
some Christian guy who rapes his wife with his holy penis.

Sadly no, not this time. It's about the Air Force's new godly space weapons program.

Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to
hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space
to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles
an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.

Because afterall, God wants us to kill even more people in His name.
Repeatedly raping your wife's slumbering ass and *only* killing 100,000 Iraqis is not sufficient for God. "Must Kill More!" You can hear God's voice booming down from heaven.

Christians speak out against Bush agenda

I really like to see this stuff.

One-third of the professors at an evangelical Christian college in Grand Rapids, Mich., are taking out a large ad in a local newspaper Saturday to protest President Bush's commencement speech.

Not that I'm real religious or anything, but I do find it really disturbing when the Dominionists try to force their views on the rest of us. They want to make everyone buy into their own wacko brand of Christianity. I was raised Lutheran, and what I remember is that Jesus taught people to help other people, be nice to everyone, even the lepers, love your neighbor and all that good stuff.

"As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort," the ad will say. "We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."

[...]

"No single political position should be identified with God's will," says the ad, which also chastises the president for "actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor."

Christians are to be characterized by love and gentleness, it adds, but "we believe that your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees."

Moreover, says the letter, set to run in the Grand Rapids Press, the Bush administration's environmental policies "have harmed creation," and it asks the president "to re-examine your policies in light of our God-given duty to pursue justice with mercy."

That George Bush thinks everything he does is divinely inspired and Jesus wants him to invade other countries, lower taxes for the rich and cut social programs for the poor just makes me want to puke. So I'm thrilled that some of these more mainstream Christians are standing up to his pack 'o lies. That needs to happen more and more often, lest mainstream Christians start wondering if they will still make it past St. Peter's Gates if they don't hate gay people and support Bush's wars.

via All Spin Zone

Your Liberal Media Running Amok

Kevin Drum compares the media coverage received by the Newsweek retraction story(great post on Bottle of Blog, if you haven't read it already, you should. It's better than sex.) to the coverage received by the Downing Street Memo story.

The Newsweek retraction story is on Page 1 of the New York Times, Page 1 of the LA Times, and Page 3 of the Washington Post. That's pretty strong coverage for a story about a newsmagazine retracting a small error in a short piece from two weeks ago.

And how did these same news organs respond three weeks ago to a leaked British memo making it clear that President Bush had already committed himself to war with Iraq by the summer of 2002 and was actively "fixing" intelligence and facts to support that decision? It eventually ran on Page 3 in the LA Times, Page 18 in the Post, and nowhere at all in the New York Times aside from a buried Page 9 piece that treated it as strictly a British election issue.

Yes, we so need to do something about that liberal media running amok.

Who says they don't grow on trees?

And here I find one, right in my back yard. Go figure.

Life After Peak Oil

You all know how much I like a good article on Peak Oil. It sounds naughty and makes me think of naughty things. Makes me want to tool (on a bicycle, of course) on down to Chester's House of Lube and pick up somethin' for the nightstand drawer.

But seriously folks, this is a pretty good article. This fellow Kunstler, who has a new book out called The Long Emergency, paints a decidedly bleak picture of life as the oil dries up.

We have evolved a cheese-doodle agriculture system run by large
corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, which grow immense
amounts of corn by using fossil fuels to produce immense amounts of
corn-based junk food. The prospects are poor that we will continue living
this way. The implications are enormous. We will have to grow much more
of our food closer to home.

Also, our national retail chain system -- otherwise known as Wal-Mart and
Co., Wal-Mart and wannabes, Wal-Mart and imitators -- is unlikely to
survive both the rising costs of oil and far more volatile price
fluctuations. Their economic equation requires them to predict the cost of
transport because their margins are so razor thin. And they won't be able to anymore.

Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are
products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely
an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily
cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale
enterprises --corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government,
professional sports -- are going to be in trouble.

uh-oh.

The Treaty Room

Alberto Romulo, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of the Philippines is all atwitter with
anticipation as Condi gestures for him to "enter the
Treaty Room" at the State Department.



After their little "chat", Romulo feels kind of sleepy
and spent, but Condi is all aglow and smiling like there's
no tommorrow.

My New Hero - George Galloway

Crooks and Liars has the audio and the video of his little chit-chat with the U.S. Senators.

Or you can read about it here, but you should listen to it, his accent is soooooo sexy. But if you watch the video, it's not as sexy, as he's kind of old and stuff. But still he does one heck of a job ripping them a new one.

The Star Wars Personality Test

Alright you nerds, which one are you?

At first, I was Jar Jar Binks, but that can't be right. Everyone likes me.



So, I took it again, and now I'm Queen Amidala.



Much better.

via Rox Populi, who was probably also Jar Jar Binks to start out with, but was too snooty-patooty to admit it.

Pay no attention to violence behind the curtain

Condi sports her flak jacket in Iraq during
her visit to Iraq, which was kept secret
for security reasons. But it's safe over there.
And I swear, we are beating the insurgency.

For those of you that need a good laugh

So far, this is the funniest thing I've read all day.

Newsweek apologizes for getting the Koran in the toilet story wrong,
sort of.

Something tells me that if the White House made a mistake which resulted
in riots, deaths, etc there'd be a just a smidgen more outrage than we'll
hear about this.

Yes, Jonah Goldberg actually wrote those words. I can't stop laughing! Snorting. Milk. Out my nose.

Evidently, he's forgetting about the whole Iraq War debacle where over 100,000 have died, including for 1600 Americans because of the bold-faced lies 'mistakes' in intelligence that Bush and his buddies made.

via The Poor Man

Happy Monday!

I'm reading the news today, and I see all this awful stuff. More proof that George Bush and his cronies are messing up my country and helping to make the world a really scary place.

There's Krugman's op-ed in the NY Times

But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong II fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport?

A report issued regarding overseas military bases, which was critical of Donald Rumsfeld was withdrawn, supposedly because it containted 'classified information.' However, the commission claims that everything in the report is from public sources and the Pentagon is just miffed because they don't want anything negative to come out on the Great, Kind and Ever So Sweet and Caring Mr. Rumsfeld. Now who you gonna believe?

Then there's Catholics in North Carolina that are being denied holy communion because they support gay rights.

But at least now I can stay home, buy wine over the internet, get piss drunk and pretend all this isn't happening.

Airport strip searches

Exhibitionists everywhere are celebrating the newest atrocity to be committed by the Department of Homeland Security in the name of protecting us from Tear'ists.

The agency in charge of the nation's air security expects later this
year to begin using a controversial X-ray machine that will show
airport screeners a clear picture of what's under passengers'
clothes — whether weapons or just bare skin.

[...]

Security workers using the machines can see through clothes and peer
at whatever may be hidden in undergarments, shirts or pants. The images
also paint a revealing picture of a person's nude body.

Let Freedom Ring!

Weekend Reading

Here's something you guys oughta read if you have the time:

The Religious Right - An Anti-American Terrorist Movement

Sean Hannity, not a good do bee

At the 2005 DisHonors Awards, Sean Hannity pulls out his Romper Room-esque magic mirror and sees his friends.

...all of you, Brent Bozell, and I see my friend Neal Boortz, and I see my friend Cal Thomas, and all my friends that are here...

Romper, bomper, stomper, boo.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do.
Magic mirror, tell me today.
Did all my friends have fun at play?

Are all my friends here closeted and gay?

And about that Do Bee song....
I think that with some of the things he says, Sean Hannity has definitely seen a doobie and smoked them as well.

Turds For DeLay

Now, I think we've all had conservative movements before. Solid, compact and right to the point, but sometimes leaving us aching for more and clearly not as satisfied as with those liberal movements brought on by fine mixtures of tequila shots, Jager Bombs and Guinness Stout. Maybe you didn't eat much the day before, or perhaps you were a wee bit constipated. It happens, and life goes on.

Unless of course, you are one of those old people obsessed with your bowel activity, or Tom DeLay.

Since he's having gobs of trouble getting folks to support him and had a light turnout at his $225/plate tribute dinner, he's having to think outside the box.



From what I understand, the turd in question actually did attend the dinner unlike James Dobson and Dennis Hastert who paid homage via videotape.

Get it before the bubble bursts!

Norbizness is dabbling in Iraqi real estate.

Periodic bombings allow for breezy, open-air living!

For sale: Largely in-tact house with two of the main walls and approximately 15% of the roof remaining. A handyman's delight.

* Located in a quiet neighborhood (when there are not bombs or gunfire), mainly because many of the residents are dead.

* Minutes walk from smoking crater where supermarket used to be, but easement to open area from the backyard allows for nearly unlimited foraging to provide minimum sustenance for your children, who will have to travel a mere 15 miles to receive education 1 day a month in a freshly-painted, heavily guarded freedom school

Fair and balanced, my ass

Bill O'Reilly and the staff at Fox News have been busy makin' shit up about the Houston Chronicle.

On The O'Reilly Factor cable television program Tuesday night, the
popular host included a segment that took the Houston Chronicle to task
for an editorial that had run the same day. The editorial was entitled
Cold comfort: Florida's sex offender law has emotional appeal, but it's
not the best way to stop sexual predators from preying on children.

At the start of the segment, O'Reilly stated that the Chronicle had "taken
a lot of shots at me, so it must be left of center." O'Reilly's name has
appeared only once in a Chronicle editorial, which concerned not O'Reilly,
but Fox News' suit against Al Franken for his use of the phrase "fair and
balanced." The suit was thrown out of court.

O'Reilly told his viewers that the Chronicle editorial said the Florida law
was too harsh. He was mistaken. The editorial excerpts that O'Reilly
projected on the screen said nothing about the harshness of the
punishment. The editorial, citing extensive research on this subject, said
hooking GPS monitors to sexual predators released from prison might
prove less effective than closer supervision by parole officers and other
low-tech strategies. The Chronicle did not call for lighter punishment; it
called for the adoption of the most effective measures to protect our
children.

And there's more in the article, so go read it if you are so inclined.

Since they want to make shit up, I figure that I should make shit up about Bill O'Reilly. In the spirit of Fair and Balanced reporting, or course.

1. Greta Van Susteren, wielding a ten-inch strap on and a flogger was caught in the news room 'punishing' Bill O'Reilly

2. Bill O'Reilly is one of those few men that can suck his own cock. He did a demonstration for his coworkers in the men's room last week.

3. Bill started a food fight in the Fox News cafeteria on Monday, and had to be escorted out by security guards. His recess privileges were taken away for a week, and he had to write 'Throwing my falafel around all willy nilly is very naughty' a hundred times on the blackboard.

4. The cleaning crew found an odd apparatus in Bill's waste basket last night. A white tube sock, full of semen and vaseline with duck tape wrapped around it. Next to it in the trash can, was a loofah and magazine called 'Thank Goodness for Little Girls'

If you can think of anything I left out, feel free to add it in the comments.

And in a related story, Fox News reports that during the plane flying in restricted airspace in D.C. debacle, the RNC (Republican National Committee Headquarters) had to be evacuated, but neglected to mention that the DNC was also evacuated.

And in another related post, August Keso laments the ratings decline of the O'Reilly Factor.

Hearts are breaking all 'round the nation. Right-Wing Radicals -- today's average Republican supporter -- and Jihadist's for Jesus are crying themselves to sleep, and young female television producers everywhere are sighing in relief. Bill "Phone Masturbator & Woman Harasser" O'Reilly's ratings have plummeted...he has lost a full third of his viewing audience. Awe, so sad! What will the country do without being lectured every year about there not being enough Christ in Christmas by a perverted, lying upper-middle-class ass who fronted being a poor boy from the "wrong side of the tracks"?

I too, was saddened to hear the news.

John Bolton and Mr. Milquetoast

And so it goes. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is sending the nomination of John Bolton to the Senate. However, they refused to endorse him, which I understand doesn't happen very often, and is considered a "slap at George Bush."

Earlier, George Voinovich had some reservations about Bolton's nomination and said "his conscience got to him."

Voinovich called Bolton "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be." He said Bolton would be fired if he was in the private sector.

But today, he decided to vote with the rest of his party and send the nomination to the Senate.

Other members of the committe poo-pooed Voinovich's and the Democrats' concerns.

"We are not electing Mr. Congeniality. We do not need Mr. Milquetoast," said Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., arguing that Bolton would be an effective agent for change at the United Nations."

So for those of you that might get Bolton and Mr. Milquetoast confused, here's a pictorial.


This is John Bolton doing
something other than forcing
his wife to have group sex.



And this is Mr. Milquetoast,
a clown from the Houston area.

Most mis-understood headline of the day

Americans seek bodily salvation through Jesus diet

And you thought the "body and blood of christ" they talk about at holy communion was just metaphorical didn't you?

Priscilla "Queen of the Filibuster" Owen

Raw Story has a nice little ditty on the absurdity of Frist's making judicial nominee Priscilla Owen the poster child for the anti-filibuster folks.

Owen is a perplexing selection as a poster-woman for the uber-right’s
destroy the judiciary campaign because, of the handful of judges whose
nominations have been affected by Senate filibusters, she may be the most unappealing on the basis of her record. She is such a judicial
extremist that even conservative Republicans often don’t support her—in
the most ironic case, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served with
Owen on the Texas Supreme Court, singled her opinions out in eleven of
his dissents, decrying her “unconscionable act of judicial activism,” in
one case.

Owen won her spot on the Texas Supreme Court in 1994 (an elected
position) by using that old White House friend Karl Rove as a campaign
consultant. From her first days on the bench, Owen went out of her way to
engage in the type of judicial legislating with which Republicans are
forever charging Democrats—in one of the most controversial cases, trying
to make it even harder for minors to have abortions in Texas than the
Texas Legislature wrote into the law at issue before her. It was in that
case that Gonzalez, a conservative Republican with right-wing credentials sufficientfor him to have filled John Ashcroft’s shoes, wrote a scathing
opinion detailing his horror at the unprincipled way in which she
approaches the law.

Owen is not held in high esteem by her peers—the most recent American Bar Association survey of Texas jurists showed that more (47%) deem her
performance on the bench “poor” as compared to any other judge in the
state, with particularly terrible marks with regards to whether she is,
“Impartial and open-minded with respect to determining the legal issues.”
She has won zero support among Democrats in the Senate, and is not a
favorite of many Senate Republicans as well. She is the first nominee to
ever be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and then re-nominated
by the president—so Frist’s characterization that a Democratic filibuster
is keeping her from office is plainly erroneous; Owen would not even be up
for nomination again if Bush wasn’t grimly and doggedly determined to force
her through the confirmation process, “advice and consent” be damned.

Yes, that's just who we need in the Federal Courts. Anyone. Yes, anyone, whether they are an evangelical christian, a mainstream christian, a pagan, a jew, a raped mule, or a sodomized doggie would find this choice reprehensible. And the fact that Frist and the gang are supporting her just shows how insane these people are.

Lawmakers with too much time on their hands

When the House Energy and Commerce Committee spends a few hours pondering the Whizzinator, a fake penis that can provide a flow of clean urine "again and again, anytime, anywhere you need it," I think they might have their priorities out of whack.

The money quote from this article comes from Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican.

"These companies seek through deception to make a buck by violating our trust and compromising our security."

Not that George Bush, his cronies and the Congressional Republicans would ever lead us into a war with lies and deception. Or heaven forbid compromise our national security by spending boatloads of money on a pointless war with a country that posed no threat, making it virtually impossible for us to go after the real bad guys due to record deficits. And I'm sure they would never turn many of our young people away from military service due to their lies and the resulting mistrust. And don't even get me started on Haliburton.

If Rep. Ed Whitfield is concerned about "violating our trust and compromising our security," he need not look to folks trying to pass their drug tests, he just needs to look around the room, and down the street to the White House.

No one is coming to Tom DeLay's party

I know that when I have a party and not too many people come, I feel really bad, like I don't have any friends. And I don't like to feel like I don't have any friends. It makes me really sad. But my mommy told me that I should be a better friend, and then more people would like me. So I tried to be a better friend, and by golly it worked. Now lots of people come to my parties.

But this is not the case with Tom DeLay. He's a bad man and everyone knows it. And he doesn't care. He just keeps on being bad, and now no one wants to be his friend.

Yes, Tom DeLay is having a party, and not too many people are coming.

It’s supposed to be the premier right-wing social event of the year — a
tribute (political eulogy?) to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, scheduled
for this evening. A lavish affair, the event is a special opportunity for Republicans to show their appreciation for the man who breaks the rules
and abuses his power for their benefit.

The amusing part, however, is how few of DeLay’s fellow Republicans will
be there.

When 900 conservatives gather at a downtown Hilton hotel on Thursday
night to pay tribute to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House
majority leader who is caught up in a swirl of accusations over his
fund-raising and ties to lobbyists, only about three dozen House
Republicans will be there.

Dennis Hastert and James Dobson will be showing their support by videotape. Maybe they are afraid they will get cooties in they get too close to the Bugman.

When I grow up, I want to be a methodology consultant

One thing that really tickles me about being in IT, is the acronyms and buzzwords. People throw them around when they want to sound impressive and patronizing and overlord-ish.

When consultants use a new buzzword, they are trying to get us programmers to question our worth and knowledge. Well if I don't know what PLC stands for, then I really need this guy to tell me what to do.

I went to a meeting this morning on our new methodology, given by two long-winded consultants, and here's what I learned:

ORT stands for Operational Readiness Testing, whatever the hell that is.

LOE stands for Level of Effort, or the answer to "How hard would it be...."

The second stage in a software project is called Ideation.

Evidently the term 'spare time' doesn't poll well. Can you finish this up in your spare time? So the consultant-approved term is now 'spare cycle,' which of course leads me to thoughts of the occasional unruly menstrual cycle.

LOBs are not a datatype, like Oracle tells you, but 'Lines of Business,' which I believe means a person that wants you to add something to their software.

a RICA matrix shows you who has Responsibility, who needs to be Informed, who needs to be Consulted, and who is Accountable for the various stages of a project.

And my personal favorite is that Quality Assurance people are the "hammer wielding entities in Whack-a-Mole". Which, as pointed out by another programmer afterwards, makes us the moles.

I feel so much smarter now, and I'm sure I will do my job so much more efficiently now that I know this stuff.

Worst. Gynecologist. Ever.

It appears that the FDA is sleeping with social conservatives. Now if social conservatives are all about abstinence, shouldn't they control their urges?

The FDA overruled it's own advisory panel, for the second time in fifty years, after W. David Hager, an OB/GYN on the panel, wrote a memo. The issue in question was regarding the over the counter sale of emergency contraception, Plan B. The advisory panel had voted overwhelmingly, 24 - 4 in favor of making Plan B available over the counter.

So, this Hagar fellow wrote this memo supposedly "from a scientific perspective," stating that they had too little information on how it would affect girls younger than 16.

But rather than voice his ethical opposition to the product, Hager
emphasized his concern about adolescents, which other committee
members have since called a "political fig leaf." According to Dr.
James Trussell, who voted in favor of Plan B, the FDA had at hand six
studies examining whether teens as young as 15 would increase their
"risky" behavior if they knew they had a backup emergency
contraceptive--and none of the studies showed any evidence for that
contention.

So, this one guy has an opinion and it overrides the opinions of 24 others on the advisory panel and six studies on the topic. Go figure.

Now The Nation has some even juicer tidbits about the "family values" of W. David Hagar.

According to Davis (Linda Carruth Davis, his ex-wife), Hager's
public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment
of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their
divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent.
Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it
was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually
forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was
so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she
explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual
nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

[...]

Sometime between the births of Neal and Jonathan (two of their sons), Hager embarked on an affair with a Bible-study classmate who was a friend of Davis's

[...]

Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I
can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say,
'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"

[...]

For the next seven years Hager sodomized Davis without her consent
while she slept roughly once a month until their divorce in 2002, she
claims. "My sense is that he saw [my narcolepsy] as an opportunity."

How men like Hagar can claim to be Christians with high values is beyond me. He raped his wife repeatedly And he's an OB/GYN to boot, who can't tell the difference between vaginal and anal sex. Geez.

Shotgun!

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi play a quick game of Rock-Paper-Scissors
to see who gets to ride shotgun in the Volga with George Bush.

You did what to Ann Coulter?

When one of my operatives sent me a link to this yesterday, I wasn't going to post about it, because, well it is pretty naughty. And it was posted a few weeks ago and I figured all you perverts probably already read it. But when I see that Matt, from the Tattered Coat linked to it, I figured what the heck. Afterall, mixing sex and politics? Well, that's what I do best.

So, I read it again, and I think it's kind of a turn on. I mean, talking politics while you're gettin' it on? Hearing someone's views on Chomsky while he.... well, you better read it yourself.

Remember when George Costanza mixed food and TV with sex, and was lovin' it? Munchin' down on a hogie and watching the game while he was gettin' busy. I'm just saying that politics and a healthy dose of philosophy mixed with sex might be a good recipe. And how can you go wrong when the end result is a "very liberal, even radically so, quantity of hot splooey."

Oooh baby, talk Lakoff to me!

The Pentagon needs a nap

You've seen little bratty kids right? The ones that throw a fit when they are asked to pick up their toys. The ones that think other people should have to clean up after then? The ones that think they can play with a bunch of toys all willy nilly and not take any responsibility for putting them away when they are done?

Well, the Pentagon is being a bratty kid. They are asking Congress for the third time, if they can skirt some environmental regulations. All in the name of allowing "military training exercises around the country to proceed unimpeded."

Here's how I figure the hearing will go:
Pentagon: But I don't want to clean up
Congress: Be a good boy, and pick up your toys
Pentagon: But then I can't create anti-US Islamic theocracies quite as quickly
Congress: Well, you really shouldn't be doing that either
Pentagon: Pleeeeese? They told me in Sunday School that Jesus wants us to shoot all the brown people.
Congress: What church is your father taking you to for gods, sakes?
Pentagon: I'm. Not. Gonna. *pout*
Congress: Just two years ago we agreed that these rules were fine. Do you want a time out?
Pentagon: Wahhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Congress: Good god, almighty. (thinking: But ya know, when they go to decide who gets elected to have custody, they are going to see that I supported cleaning up instead of killing the brown people) Fine. Now run along and kill some brown people, I'll just tax the poor folks here in the U.S. to clean up your mess, or maybe some of them will get sick and die, but whatever. I just don't want to be accused of not supporting the troops in 2006.

Yes, the Pentagon needs a nap, and Congress needs to decide on a single set of rules and discipline that's best for humanity and stop greedily thinking about themselves.

Shake it like a polaroid

Here it is. The video of President Bush bee-bopping in Georgia. Click on the "Video Story" link.

Actually, the whole video is more of a expose of George "twinkle toes" Bush and the history of his dance moves. I particularly like the part where he tries to spin Jenna around, and just about creates a Janet Jackson-esque wardrobe malfunction.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your president!

Grandma's poetry

My grandmother just won a senior citizen's poetry contest. And here's her poem.

I sit alone,the lights are low,
Children tucked into bed long ago;
I think of chores that I must do
Cookies to bake and clothes to sew.

What's the matter? This room isn't mine
I look around for leftover toys and books,
None are there and suddenly I know
It was all a dream of long-long ago!

I think of games I played as a child,
Dolls, hop-scotch and kicking the cat;
And the glorious days it was
When my brothers would let me bat.

This room isn't mine, it's much too small
And that curtain makes it look like a stall;
Then a nurse opens the door and smiles
Flips on the light and says, "How are we all?"

I'm awake now and remember it all,
Using a step ladder, like an old fool,
My foot slipped and down I did fall,
My leg it it's big bundelsome white cast told it all!

While I am a little concerned about her game of kicking the cat, she really is a nice lady. Congratulations Grandma!!

No, my little turnip, you look smashing!

After the *dinner* that ran an hour beyond schedule,
Putin was feeling a little self-concious about the size of
his bum. Here, he is pictured asking George and Laura
the paramount question of 'does my ass look big in
these trousers.'

Taking from the middle class and giving to the rich

According to Paul Krugman, from the New York Times, "Mr. Bush likes to play dress-up, but his Robin Hood costume just doesn't fit."

Now, everybody close your eyes and imagine our Leader in a tights, a green tunic and one of those pointy hats. And the tights, or course, are just a wee snug in all the wrong places.

But really what this editorial is about, is how crappy Bush's proposals to revamp Social Security really is. He's pretending to take from the rich and give to the poor, but he really wants to screw over the middle class. I like to dress up and play pretend too sometimes, but not when it costs middle class Americans thousands of dollars.

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year.
You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that
he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for
workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social
Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per
year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax
cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce
benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

Geez. What a big fat mean liar our president is.

The Church of the Spongy Fungi

Well folks, I'm out of here for the weekend. If you don't hear from me by Monday morning, you'll know that the bus came by and I got on. Yes, the bat phone went off, and I've been summoned to make a pilgrimage to the Church of the Spongy Fungi.



Yes, folks, it's been 15 years now since morel fever took hold
around here... and the symptoms get worse every year. But it hasn't
killed us yet, so once again this year we'll kick the poop off our
boots, strap on our funny hats, and celebrate our annual Spring Ritual
of Appeasement here at the Church of the Spongy Fungi.

Are you ready? Are you hungry? Are you... Experienced?

Well then, let's eat! It's time to wash the kids, tie up the animals,
lock up the gates and get at it. Put on your dancing shoes and your
loose-in-the-waist jeans and bring your shining selves to the

15th Annual Morel Fest Potluck - Cookout - Party... thingie!!!

Ok, it's also time to come up with a good name for the Blessed Event,
but you KNOW what I'm talking about.

This year, in honor of our 15th Anniversary (and to cut down on traffic
jams) your humble hosts are happy to announce that the Gathering is now
an honest-to-goodness POT LUCK SHINDIG!

Now, don't be worrying and thinking about that nasty jello with the
marshmallows you had at the last picnic at your regular church. If
you've been here to the C. of the S. F. before, then you know that in
our flock are a bunch of gourmets, gourmands, epicures, foodies,
connoiseurs, recovering restaurant cooks and various other exotic
creatures who should all have their own cooking shows. And the rest,
well, they damn well know their way around the deli section.

So dust off your covered dish recipes and whomp up something good to
bring along. If everyone tries to outdo everyone else's culinary
skills, well, we'll be eating pretty darn good that night. On the
other hand... remember that all are welcome here at the C. of the S.F.
If you have limited access or ability in the kitchen due to lack of
time, lack of interest, lack of funds, young children, or court
order... well, let's just say your correspondent is not the only one
among us with a secret love for those tiny little fried chicken
drumsticks. Those are the bomb.

And also don't worry if, like me, you know that morels are best
consumed accompanied by a grilled slab of meat... we'll have some
grills as usual if you want to bring something to burn. You just might
have to wait a little longer for suppertime. And as always, if you'd
like to bring a little extra of your favorite beverage to share with
the rest of The Faithful, by all means please do.

So, that about covers it... We hope you can join us and we look
forward to seeing you!

------------------------------------------------------
C. of the S.F. LATE BREAKING NEWS:
------------------------------------------------------

Mere hours ago, your faithful host returned breathless and jubilant
from the home of two of our brethren, veterans of many Morel Party
Thingies and friends of all -- who have just ascended to the station of

GRAND EXALTED MYSTICAL COMMANDER & BENEVOLENT PROTECTOR.

An Event of Historic Proportion and Significance has occurred.

Growing in our friends' gravel driveway, naturally and with no evidence
of dead elm, abandoned apple orchard, or extraterrestrial visitation,
was a patch of nearly A DOZEN PLUMP, JUICY, EXTREMELY HEALTHY MORELS.

That's right, in A GRAVEL DRIVEWAY!

Out of... um, "respect for his privacy," his name and address will not
be revealed at this time.

The Elders of the C. of the S.F. have been summoned to Lawrence to
convene a council to review the canon and determine if one or both of
our friends might be The One.

In the meantime, I will sell everything I own and pitch a tent in their
yard to await the instruction & bidding of my new Master.

And probably to wash his car.
In the driveway.

Let the rejoicing begin...

Let the rejoicing begin, indeed!

Yummy!

The senator in question here, I believe is George Voinovich, (R-Ohio). However, I can't quite fathom why eating a disorderly Republican Senator would cause any kind of problems.

from Raw Story

Those Silly Romanians

Condi looks on perplexingly as Romanian Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, asks her to pull his finger,
hinting that this is a good step towards 'bilateral relations'

Tom DeLay's new strategy

I think Tom DeLay is finally realizing what he really needs to do to keep his post in the House of Representatives.

"Just think of what we could accomplish if we checked our pride at the door, if collectively we all spent less time taking credit and more time deserving it, if we spent less time ducking responsibility and more time welcoming it. If we spent less time on our soapboxes and more time on our knees" (emphasis mine)

Yes Tom, you've got a lot of *sucking* up to do, if you want to continue on as the House Majority Leader. Maybe you should get with Jeff Gannon, if you need some tips.

You want How Much?

Now the only thing I find offensive about Bruce Springsteen's song 'Reno' is what the hooker is charging for her different services.

Now, I don't really know the going rate these days, but $250 'straight in' and $50 'up the ass' just doesn't seem right. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Wal Mart has the clip here, but you know they'll take it down soon.

The vagina rant of the day

I love to hear women rant about vaginas, and I assume many of my readers, both male and female feel the same way.

This is by far the best 'episiotomy' post I've read since the big news came out yesterday that episitomies do more harm than good to women.

The CBC story omits just *how* episiotomies were supposed to help
"improve their sex lives." The answer?--"the husband stitch."

The husband stitch refers to the practice where (predominantly male)
doctors, typically without consulting their female patient, stitch up
that incision and then helpfully keep stitching, to make the post-birth
vaginal opening even smaller than it was before delivery, in order to
keep things "nice and tight" for the husband. You know, the same way they
do with third-world female genital mutilation practices.

Would someone care to explain how slicing open my perineum and then
over-stitching me is going to improve *my* sex life? And why haven't
doctors ever decided that slicing men open would improve their sex
lives?

That shameless hussy! I can't believe that a member of the weaker sex would have the audacity to put down and question male doctors. She should just shut her little pie hole, fix her man his supper, fetch his slippers and not worry her pretty little head about what they want to do to her vagina.

Out with old, in with the new

After Laura's potty-mouth vulger display the other night
at the White House Correspondents Dinner, George begins
courting a more wholesome lady, one who doesn't yak
about horse masturbation and male strippers.

The Jackass Responds

Y'all probably know about the feller from the University of Texas that asked Ann Coulter the pertinent question "You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage, how do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f*ck his wife up the ass."

Well this fine outspoken feller wrote a nice little essay about the experience.

I have no regrets. Was I jackass? Yes. Oh Christ, yes. But here's the question people ought to ask themselves. Did I deserve to be arrested? Did the cops need to rough me up for saying bad words at what was at least masquerading as an open dialogue?

Go read it. It's good.

What is and Isn't News

There doesn't seem to much going on in the news today. I mean, the only thing I found at all interesting is this. But really, who cares if there's a smoking gun implicating the leader of the free world in making shit up in order to justify going to war. But really, is this grounds for impeachment, or should we just ignore it and go about blindly following our Leader while more and more innocent people die and have their lives destroyed? Buzzflash has a nice post about it too.

Besides, when there are important things like this going on, who really cares are about death, destruction, starvation and tyranny?

The Wrath of God

We should have known this was going to happen if we
let that 13 year-old girl have an abortion. Pat Robertson
should have warned us.

Baby got back

David Rockefeller ponders what Condi's Secret Service
code name is at the Chippendale's Show as he marvels at
her round, juicy rump.

Help! Save us from the stoners!

The government sure is spending a boatload of money trying to protect us from lazy forgetful people who have the munchies.

The study released yesterday by the Sentencing Project found that arrests for marijuana account for nearly all of the increase in drug arrests seen during the 1990s. The report also found that one in four people in state prisons for marijuana offenses can be classified as a "low-level offender," and it estimated that $4 billion a year is spent on arresting and prosecuting marijuana crimes.

How's about focusing on crimes that actually have victims. Now there's a good use of our tax dollars

Now if I could just remember where I put that bag of Doritos....

Social Security and Medicare will make you eat your grandkids

Run! Hide! Do anything, besides sit on stinky old grandpa's lap. You might think he's just being nice, and might give you some of his hard earned social security check, but children beware. He just might try to eat you.

... a comment Justice (Janis Rogers) Brown made in 2000 about senior citizens. She said: “Today senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much free stuff as the political system will permit them to exact.” When I asked her about this statement at her hearing, she made no effort to distance herself from it.

So now you know why the filibuster is so important. We can't have judges spreading rumors about grandparents eating their grandchildren, or the whole fabric of society will be torn in two.

I only have one grandparent left, but thank god she gets her social security check and eats pretty well, or I might have gotten chopped up and thrown in one of her casseroles. Come to think of it... whatever does she put in those casseroles?

It's Howdy Doody Time

What time is it kids???

It's time to screw over our retirees!!!

Florida won't appeal ruling on girl's abortion

Jeb! and his cronies have, as of a few hours ago, given up their ridiculous battle to stop a 13 year-old girl from having an abortion.

Yesterday, Judge Alvarez ruled that she could have the abortion, but then an appeal was made just hours after the decision.

A 13-year-old Palm Beach County foster child at the center of a legal
battle over her right to end an unwanted pregnancy got permission from a
judge Monday to get an abortion — but was thwarted shortly afterward when
state child-welfare officials appealed.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez, who only last week temporarily
blocked the girl’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, ruled late Monday
that the teenager may obtain an abortion, said Maxine Williams, the
girl’s attorney at Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County. The girl is
identified in court papers only as L.G.

‘’Judge Alvarez did issue an order saying she is competent,'’ said Howard
Simon, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida,
which also represents the girl. “She has made a decision. She has a right
to exercise that decision. And, acting on her decision is in her best
interests."

By appealing Alvarez’s order Monday, the DCF was granted an automatic
stay of his ruling. Under a procedural rule, state agencies are entitled
to a stay of any court ruling they appeal. But, acting on a request from
L.G.’s attorneys, Alvarez lifted that stay and ordered the DCF to
transport L.G. to a medical clinic.

DCF officials then ‘’refused'’ to drive the girl to a clinic to end her
pregnancy, said Williams, the girl’s attorney.

Alvarez then signed an order allowing L.G.’s attorneys at Legal Aid to
transport her to a medical clinic, Williams said. The lawyers were on
their way to pick up the girl when they got word: The DCF had appealed
Alvarez’s order allowing the lawyers to transport L.G. and, once again,
had received an automatic stay, this time from the Fourth District
Court of Appeal.

The stay was granted so late in the day that L.G.’s attorneys had no
time to act. The procedure was halted, Williams said.

Then today, Jeb! said that the state will not appeal.

And of course, the money quote from this article:

"Isn't it an indication of a strange state of affairs in Florida that
we should be grateful that the governor has agreed to obey the law?" said
Howard Simon, the ACLU's Florida executive director.

How can they possibly say they have the girl's best interests in mind when they are putting her through this crap?

ABC wants you to beat your children

This really chaps my hide. Not that I mind a little hide chapping from time to time, but you know, this really ticks me off.

During today's(Sunday) season finale of ABC's schlocky
reality show, "Supernanny," James Dobson's Focus on the Family will be
running ads promoting its "Focus on Your Child" program, which advises
parents on how to implement the parenting principles outlined in his
best-seller, "Dare to Discipline." These include spanking with
"sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." Children
have to be taught respect for authority at an early age, Dobson preaches,
or they'll never develop respect for governmental authority or God.

[...]

Focus's ad buy is its first in prime time TV. It has ostensibly
purchased the ads through its 501 c-3, the self-help component of its
organization, so it can claim legally that the ads are not political.
But they are, and it's absurd to say they're not. On his radio show,
Dobson shamelessly begs for money for his 501 c-4, Focus on the Family
Action, his organization's political arm. FOF Action is the entity which collaborated with the Family Research Council to bring us the memorable
event known as "Justice Sunday," where Dobson blamed the Supreme
Court for "the worst Holocaust in human history." Given that the
political and family components of Dobson's empire are so
indistinguishable, I think it would be appropriate and necessary to file a
complaint with the FCC over Focus's insidious ad buy.

Furthermore, ABC's accomodation of Focus smacks of hypocrisy. Last
winter, ABC's broadcast network refused to an ad by the United Church of
Christ promoting its inclusive policy to gays and other groups explicity
forbidden from belonging to churches under the ideological sway of Dobson
and his ilk. According to the United Methodist News Network on 12/06/04,"
ABC said it would air the advertisement on its ABC Family cable channel
but not on its broadcast network." ABC stifled the speech of a group
which promotes inclusiveness and diversity, while enabling an organization
led by a man who told the Daily Oklahoman on 10/23/04, "Homosexuals are
not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will
destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." What am I missing?

Evidently ABC condones beating children, but is against churches that promote inclusiveness and diversity.

Max has the FCC contact info on his site if you'd like to complain. Or you could go right to the source and contact your local ABC affiliate.

Rush Limbaugh Apologizes

No, he didn't apologize for this or this or this. He apologized for "dissin" on Clay Aiken fans.

Yes, Rush had the audacity to say this:

"I have never, ever seen American Idol, I don't need to see recycled
amateur shows, I deal with enough amateurs every day in my life anyway."

And boy were those Aiken fans ticked!

Those remarks launched an attack on Limbaugh by multitudes of Aiken
fans, who took it upon themselves to overload the radio host with hate
mail, informing him that the season two Idol runner-up was no amateur.
By Wednesday, Limbaugh--not usually known for backing down--was ready
to surrender and make nice by issuing an apology to Claymates
everywhere on his Website.

"I have been getting swamped," Limbaugh stated on his Website.
"Apparently there's a fan group out there for Clay Aiken, and I am
getting swamped because I have dissed Clay Aiken, that he is different,
that he is better. And I didn't mean to diss anybody. I was just
expressing in passionate terms why I don't watch American Idol. I'm not
putting it down. If you like it, that's fine. I know that I'm in the
minority on this, and as a minority I have rights. And I have the right
here to tell you I don't like it.

It's a sad state of affairs when the people of America are more offended by a remark about Clay Aiken than this, this, or this. And who uses the term "diss" anymore, anyway?

Thanks so much to Media Matters for listening to Rush so I don't have to.

Speedos are back!

I couldn't help but notice this. And of course, it made me think of Ricky. Fondly, of course, as he is the Speedo King.

Now he'll have one more place he can go and sport his speedo... And whatever else might have been left to the imagination.

CAPE MAY, N.J. - Come on in, Speedo wearers, the water's fine: Your skimpy little swimsuits are legal now. For more than 30 years, this quaint little Victorian-themed resort at the southern tip of New Jersey said no to "skintight, formfitting or bikini type" bathing attire on males over the age of 12.

via Stream of Consciousness