Pullin' that White Soul Train

Hot time in the old town tonight.

We are making progress in Iraq. It doesn't matter that Afghanistan and Pakistan are disintegrating. It doesn't matter that it's costing us a trillion dollars a year. It doesn't matter that Iraq will never be able to form a democratic government. It doesn't matter that there was no reason to go there in the first place and no reason to stay now. George Bush triumphant.

We are winning the world wide war on HIV/AIDS, proving once and for all that abstinence education was what was lacking in the godless, secular humanist, World Health Organization's pitiful attempts to stem the tide of the dredded epidemic. George Bush triumphant.

By not factoring in rampaging domestic inflation and the precipitous fall of the dollar against world currencies, the US economy can be statistically shown to be expanding. So many of our workers have been laboring in the underground economy, for so long, that unemployment figures remain low. The economy is booming. George Bush triumphant.

Despite the fact that the participants of the Annapolis conference would have accomplished more toward Middle East peace if they had spent the time banging Thai bargirls, mission accomplished Baby! Peace Train a'Commin'. George Bush triumphant.

Hilary Clinton has no experience in government. Not as an executive. Not in domestic affairs. Not in foreign policy. She's fat. She's ugly. She's a terrible public speaker, with no affinity for the masses. Her polling numbers show a very high level of name recognition but it's all negative. She's still kicking Republican ass. Doesn't matter though, she's muff divin' that Saudi girl at her campaign headquarters. Prince Bandar says he can get pictures. He's going to bring them along the next time he has a sleepover with the President. Poor little Huma has a date with the big golden sword, if she ever tries to go home again. George Bush triumphant.

Jenna is still too ashamed to get married at the White House, looks bad. They're working on her though. Tricia's been calling. She'll crack. If George will sober up and he and Laura start sharing a bedroom together, Jena will go for the June wedding. She's a loyal daughter. George Bush triumphant.

Besides all that. Kelsey Grammer's still onboard. Everybody loves Frazier!

So, Tell Me Again Why Churches Don't Pay Tax

Churches don't pay any taxes. Makes no sense to me why. They have a lot of money, they certainly could afford to pay taxes. They may say they are charitable institutions but about the only people they are charitable to are themselves. Most of the money they collect, seems to come, mostly, from exactly the kind of people that need to keep their money. Most of the people that end up spending the churches money already seem to have plenty.

One of the reasons that churches are granted tax immunity is that the money they collect is used to do good works. The biggest expense, by far, in the last 20 years, of the Roman Catholic Church, has been paying off the children that the clergy has sodomized. While I certainly think that the sodomized children deserve remuneration, I don't necessarily believe that sodomy should be a tax exempt activity.

Maybe we could establish some specific activities, the support of which, would qualify as charitable and therefore tax exempt. Maybe, any of us, if we spend our money supporting these activities, could write it off our taxes. On the other hand, if any of us decides to spend our money on recognizeably non charitable activities, like say, sodomizing young boys, you would be required to pay taxes on it.

I pay a lot of taxes. Sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, none of which churches have to pay. I try to be a good neighbor. I don't get down on others as long as they don't bother me. If I need money, I work for it. I don't go around whining and begging from the old and the poor. I help out my family and friends, if they need it. Also, I really make a point of not sodomizing young children. I may be old fashioned but that's just the way I am.

I realize churches have a right to exist, even in my neighborhood, although we have to make sure to keep track of the kids, all the time. It just seems to me that we all ought to shoulder the burdens of society equally. Maybe it's time to look at this tax free status for churches.

The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed

The Constitution of the United States doesn't say anything about abortion or assisted suicide. It doesn't really say anything about prayer in schools or whether or not this is a "Christian" nation. There is one thing it's pretty clear about, though. The right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The Constitution doesn't say you can only have semi-automatic "sporting arms" of a certain caliber. It doesn't say those guns can only have five shot magazines. It doesn't even say guns. It says arms. Arms is, by definition, pretty much everything you can use to kill other people with. AK-47s are not legal in this country. The main reason is that they are very efficient at killing people, in large volumes and they sell for about thirty dollars on the World market, making them just about the perfect self defense weapon for everybody. RPGs are not legal for individuals to own, neither are SAMs. They are arms, none the less, and if I was interested in protecting me and mine from enemies both foreign and domestic, I would want them. I am and I do. The next time some gaping soccer twat, in her Lincoln Navigator, balancing her cell phone in one hand and her Starbuck's sippy cup in the other, hauling six screaming brats and a golden lab across town, tries to run me down, while I'm riding my little red, plastic moped innocently along in the gutter, I'd feel a lot better if I had an RPG strapped to my back.

If the little fuck faced Catholic boy's club that controls SCOTUS is really serious about being strictly constructionist, which is a total laugh, let them give the people of this great nation their due. Let us arm ourselves.

The Race is not Always to the Swift, nor the Battle to the Strong

Whether your favorite scribe is stuttering Charlie Krauthammer, smiling Billy Kristal or Hugh "the Conqueror" Hewitt, the word that is spreading across the land is the same, al Qaeda in Iraq is beaten. Their fighters killed and reeling in disarray. Their influence among the Sunni tribes gone. We have won, they say. Nation building, a concept they loathed at the beginning of the Afghan/Iraq debacle, is the happy quest they now urge us to embark upon. All that is needed now, to set Iraq on the right track is a continued presence and a trillion or so dollars a year over the next couple of generations. Of course, that's just for Iraq. Can these neocon lights possibly strive to burn any dimmer?

Have the jihadis run out of eager young men to enlist in the fight against the West? Have they run out of money? Have we caused them to lose faith in their religion and ideology? Have we truly foiled the Wahhabi menace?

I think it is more likely that many have returned to the lands of their birth in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere around the Arab world, maybe to a neighborhood near you. They will be greeted as heroes. Camels will be roasted. The returning heroes will have their pick of the little domestic girls from the Philippines or Indonesia. Others, with a different preference, will be given the camel jockey boys, from the slave markets of the Sudan. The heroes will be cleansed with fragrant oils and dressed in the whitest robes and presented in the mosques, accepted into the councils of wealth and influence. In time they will venture out around the World, as missionaries, to spread the word. They will speak to the men in the mosques and to the boys in the madrases. The men will raise money, the boys will journey to the training camps. The seasons will change, the cycle will start again. Let the Americans grow fat and lazy in their fortified bases. Let them pay the Sunni Chieftains for awhile. When their purses grow light, the Sunnis will soon enough change masters again. The Shiia will never allow the Sunni a place in their government, nor would the Sunni accept it. The Kurds have their own concerns. Nation building is for fools that believe in nations. Allah is the one God but his people are many tribes.

For those that have not had enough fighting, there is plenty of fighting still. The brothers in the Taliban are taking back the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. The warlords there are busy guarding and selling their opium and will soon be sated by the treasure they receive for it. They feast and sing and dally with the young dancing boys. Bush's lapdog dictator in Pakistan has lost the trust of the people and they need leadership in the violent fight against him that is sure to come. It is better to fight where the enemy is weak than where he is strong.

The enemy that we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a nation. The armies of the enemy do not travel in mass. They appear and disappear in their own time, to their own advantage. They do not need to win any battles, they simply need to keep the pot stirred. They do not need to worry about funding, budgets or support at home. They have all the time in the World. Every effort we make can be turned against us.

You want to know how this is going to turn out? Read a little Mesopotamian or Afghan history. For that matter, a little history of the American Revolution would do as well. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.

Thanksgiving Day in the Gulag

George Bush has the right to monitor your every move and communication. He can take you into custody and detain you indefinitely. You don't have the right to legal representation. You don't have to be charged with any crime. Trial by a jury of your peers plays no part in this process. He can have you transported out of the United States, to a foreign prison. Once there, you can be held in conditions not unlike those experienced by prisoners several hundred years ago in some Balkan hellhole. You can be tortured. It could be by foreigners that he has contracted with to do it or it could be by Americans, his call. When he is through with you, he can assassinate you and never tell a soul.

George will tell you that he would never do this to you. He loves you and all your loyal, fellow Americans. These kinds of extreme measures are only used to protect the American people from foreign terrorists and their domestic enablers. You can certainly understand why he must be given every tool necessary to combat these agents of the Axis of Evil.

The bottom line is, he can do it. If government can do something, you know that they will. Justification, especially when none is required, can be the slipperiest of slopes. He might not be disappearing your loved ones today but rest assured, he is disappearing someones.

Springtime Comes Too Soon

I know this kid. Well, maybe he's not a kid. He's probably 24 or 25. We're not really friends. We say hello, talk a little. I met him because he waits tables at a restaurant in my neighborhood. It's not really a high class place, an Olive Garden. It's clean, foods OK, you don't have to wait too long. They move people in and out quick, without being rude about it. You can get a meal and a glass of wine without it taking all night or cleaning out your wallet. The kid stands out there because he's quick, friendly and attentive, without being too slick. I think he makes pretty good money, I always leave him more than I normally do and like I say, they move a lot of people through the place. He's there 3-4 nights a week.

Mornings, I see this kid sometimes down on the beach. Usually at the Bolsa Chica, where the crowd is a generation or more older than him but he hits all the spots. He never saw a surfboard before a few years ago, so he doesn't have all the moves. He's too tall and skinny to ever really be any good. He's strong though and has good balance. When he gets up, he follows the break and sometimes he stays up pretty good. He's learning fast. He's been down to Baja a few times. It's a lot less crowded down there, a different atmosphere. He says he'd like to go to Oahu and try riding a gun down the twenty footers on the North shore. I don't know if he'll ever be ready for that but who am I to say.

Later in the day, he's on Main, downtown, sitting in the sidewalk bistros, scheming on the little tramp stamped, tongue studded beauties that come out to play from their parents new McMansions in the old oilfields. He doesn't seem to have much trouble with them, there are always a few in attendance. I think he probably does a least as good with the young beauties as he does with the waves. He's kind of an impressive kid, calm and laid back. A lot of the beach bums today seem a lot like the guys on Jackass, all hip-hop, ADD and tattooed. I used to wonder what he was doing, just hanging around the beach, at his age. Not that it's a bad thing, just a little unusual, for a kid like that. Then I found out why.

He's a U.S. Army Ranger. Into Afghanistan at the very beginning, backing up Delta Force missions. Tora Bora and a lot more. Then into Iraq in the first wave, same thing. Three years in the field, well, maybe a little more, out of the last five. During his leave time, between deployments, he discovered our little corner of the world, with it's surf, pellucid sunlight, and the bold young beauties, with painted toes, bronze skin and golden studs, in so many amazing and improbable places.

He has completed his active duty, so he has more time to spend here. He's not tired of it yet, not by a long shot. Besides, there really is no point to getting on with his life. In the Spring, his reserve unit will be activated. He will be going back to Iraq or Afghanistan, for at least a year, maybe more. After that, he can come home again but he still has time for one more reserve deployment, after that, before his enlistment is up. This is not a kid who is shy about relating his combat experiences but he moves on, to more pleasant topics, after a while. He is not political, at all. As far as I can tell he has no real personal convictions about the War one way or another. I would be surprised if he's registered to vote. He freely admits that he feels he's done his share and would rather not go back, ever. He's signed up to go though, so he's going.

I gotta tell you, this is a really nice kid. Doesn't seem to be too messed up by what he's been through. He's no rocket scientist but his brain must be bolted together pretty good. He's a good lookin' boy, not a scratch on him. I know a lot of guys have come back from a lot less action in a lot worse shape and will be paying the price for the rest of their lives. No surf or studded beauties for them, ever. Still, I can't help but think he's right. He's done enough. He's paid the Devil his due. They need to find someone else to handmaiden Delta Force in the Spring.

Wake Up and Smell the Shit Running Down Hill

The stock market is stagnant and drifting lower. There is no reason to believe it will break to the upside and every reason to believe we are poised on the brink of free fall. Over the last six months, the market has charted a classic double top. There ain't no triple tops, folks. The price of bonds is high, relative to the paltry interest rates available but long term outlook for bonds relative to inflation is poor. The government continues to force interest rates even lower, in the hopes of pushing money into the moribund equity markets. Real estate prices decrease as foreclosures skyrocket. There is not a single segment of the US economy showing any signs of growth. The value of the dollar, relative to other major world currencies is eroding as the government continues to borrow money like there is no tomorrow and the trade deficit skyrockets. Other major economies, around the world, show signs they are decoupling from that of the US. Energy and food prices are up, way up. Americans are deeper in debt than ever before, way deeper.

The government continues to tell us that we have virtually full employment. The government continues to tell us that there will be no recession. Yeah, tell me that soft landing bed time story again, Daddy.

How many of those jobs out there, that we are working at, are real jobs, long term jobs, that pay a living wage, with benefits, enough to keep your family safe and healthy? If the government is fudging on the inflation rate by several percent and the economy grows a lot less than that, is the economy really expanding? If it costs you a hundred and fifty dollars more in gas a month to get to work, is that a pay cut? Do you belong to a country club? Did you take a nice vacation this year? Did you get your wife a big diamond ring for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary? Are you saving money, faster than the home equity and credit card debt are piling up? Are you paying off all your utility, mortgage, tax bills and car payments without having to borrow more? If everyone in your family lost their jobs tomorrow, how long til you're living on the street?

It's All About Economic Growth, Baby!

The military establishment of the United States is enmeshed in the tarbaby that is Iraq and Afghanistan. Our grab for control of a major oil producing region in the Middle East, in an attempt to stay in the game of international oil pricing, is a failure. As long as we are there, Iraq will produce little. We will spend much, to simply stay in for the next hand.

In the meantime oil prices soar and the US must pay the going price, just like everybody else. Look at the major oil producers around the World. Russia, the Gulf States, Nigeria, Venezuela, none of them are our friends and even if they were they wouldn't cut us a break. Why should they? England and Norway share the rapidly depleting North Sea fields but that production is easily absorbed into the EU. We buy our oil just like we buy everything else, in Dollars. The countries that sell us the oil take our Dollars and put them away. Dollars are a better deterrent against US aggression than nukes. Calling in our debt is the ultimate doomsday weapon.

The third world floods our country with cheap goods. Goods we cannot afford to produce for anywhere near the price for which they sell them. Our clothes, household goods, processed foods, office supplies, electronics, cars all come from lands far away, via ships that burn oil, that we pay for. We buy all this stuff in Dollars. They take all these Dollars and put them away.We laugh and say, "Stupid Foreigners", then print up more Dollars to buy the next batch of cheap goods or petroleum. All the while though, the Dollars leaving the country suck the value out of our homes, the vitality out of our economy, the Dollar becomes worth less and less. Our nation becomes worth less and less.

Eventually, we find that what little we have left in this country, that is worth anything, is owned by individuals and entities from other countries. Inflation has made even the ridiculously cheap goods from third world sweatshops, beyond our reach. What jobs are available can easily be done by immigrants from Latin America. The government attempts to print more Dollars to stimulate the economy but Dollars are now worthless. The government can no longer afford to maintain the infrastructure. They can fund social programs but the recipients can't buy anything with their checks. The military is long since disbanded, the weapons sold to those that can afford war.

We look to our leaders for guidance. They all have Swiss passports and are living quietly abroad.

We are the World, We are the Children

In the United States, we strive to grow and to accept the new reality, whatever it is, good or bad. We also try to preserve the old. We try to maintain our family and cultural identity. Whatever changes are necessary to adapt to the future, we try to integrate the new with the old, so that there is continuity in our culture, our family, our lives. In most parts of the country, ethnocentric origin used to determine to what extent a person could participate in society. It is difficult to face up to the fact that we are all racists. There is some comfort to be taken in the realization that it afflicts us all and we can face the problem together. As a society, we have determined that racism is an unwise cultural path to continue. Changes like this don't happen in a day, or a generation, or even in a century but we don't give up. Little by little, things change. Things gets better. We are not discouraged by how far is left to go, we resolve to keep trying.

Not everyone is traveling the path with us toward equal opportunity. Some people like the way it was before and want to go back, not forward. They see the changes as threatening to their position in society. They feel it may cause their families to suffer. They may be right. For whatever reason, these people remain vested in a system which denies participation based on ethnocentric differences. It is not a large group but it is significant. For these people, the political party of choice, is the Republican party.

One of the principles that this country was built upon was freedom of religion. In most parts of the world, one particular brand of religion predominates. Even in the best circumstances, it is difficult for people with beliefs different from those in the majority, to live comfortably. There is always social ostracization, sometimes persecution. There are usually legal proscriptions against religious practices that deviate from the norm. People of different religions are often forced to live according to the religious laws of the majority religion. It is not uncommon for people with different religious practices to be dispossessed from their homes, their wealth confiscated, they and there families driven from the country or even killed. We have tried to build a society here, that is not like that. People here can worship as they like, or not. They respect the rights of their neighbors to do the same.

Some Americans are vested in a system of religious persecution. They feel so strongly about their own religious beliefs that they are unable to tolerate others whose beliefs vary from theirs, past a certain point, or those who deny the need for religion. These people seek to mold a society more like other parts of the world, where people of the predominate religion require the rest to conform to their standards. There are not a huge number of people who feel this way but their numbers are significant. For these people, the Republican party is the party of choice.

For the thousands of years of human civilization, mankind has struggled to survive and to elevate himself above a mere animal existence. The main tool we use to do this is our ability to communicate with each other and agree on new cooperative behaviors rather than to endlessly repeat the behaviors that went on before. Up until the modern era, male and female roles in society have been strictly defined. Men dealt with things of the world. A woman's place was relegated to child bearing, child rearing and domestic duties. With the population of the world at around 6 billion, we would seem to have solved the problem of mere numbers, in regard to survival as a species. A woman's value to society can no longer be gauged simply by how many new individuals she can bear and rear to adulthood. In just the last two centuries, since the founding of our nation, women's roles in society have been undergoing constant change. There has been little of a voluntary nature in these changes. The changes in the roles of gender were dictated by the times and were often radical and abrupt, upsetting the status quo going back to the dawn of time. Most of us foresee more changes coming in gender roles, although there is a lot of different opinion as to what direction those changes will take.

There are some, in our society, who are very uncomfortable with the rapidly changing roles of gender. They would like to move back toward a model where women would more closely follow a traditional pattern of child rearing and domestic behavior and would defer to men responsibility for all other matters. They feel fear and disgust at the rapid breakdown in traditional gender roles. The numbers of these people are not great. They are, in fact, surprisingly small, given the huge changes that have taken and are taking place and in so short a time frame. For these people, the political party of choice, is the Republican party.

Homosexuality has been proscribed throughout human history and yet it has always been with us and in about the same numbers. It is pretty clear that homosexual urges in some individuals are naturally occurring and cannot be suppressed or eliminated. No culture has ever stopped homosexual activity. It is usually enough that the homosexual fulfill his or her heterosexual societal role and then practice homosexuality nefariously. Don't ask, don't tell, has a long historical precedent. Much like the subjugation of women to domestic and reproductive roles, the suppression of homosexuality would seem to be a function of optimizing reproductive capacity. It was important that the only societally sanctioned sexual pairing be a reproductive family group. The place of homosexuals who choose to live openly in society, without also seeking membership in a heterosexual family unit, is rapidly evolving and I have no idea where the present trends may lead. All indications point to increased autonomy by openly homosexual individuals, although it is by no means clear that all homosexuals want to engage in an open lifestyle.

Some segments of American society are opposed to the idea that homosexuals should be able to live openly, according to their own desires, within society. One of the most interesting groups to oppose the openly homosexual are closeted homosexuals, who often have very successful lives and enjoy positions of high status. The political party of preference for those that oppose the destigmatization of homosexuality, for whatever reason, is the Republican party.

America has a proud military tradition. It is the tradition of the citizen soldier, who comes to the colors during times of threat to the nation and returns to civilian life when that threat has been met and eliminated. Military service was also widely seen as a rite of passage for young adult males in society. When all of the families of America, from the most exalted to the most humble, joined in sending their sons off to fight in times of challenge, it acted to weld all Americans together. War was declared when we faced genuine aggression that challenged our national sovereignty and a consensus of the population had come to understand and agree on the threat.

The military tradition in America has radically changed. The propaganda machines of ever more imperial Presidencies, after involving the nation in ever more political, partisan and unilateral conflicts, over several generations, are unable to rouse the citizen soldiers to the colors anymore. Large segments of society distrust the motives behind current military activities and council their young against enlistment and will not tolerate conscription. They don't perceive a legitimate threat. The armed forces have taken on a more insular nature, with some families becoming multiple, multi-generational providers of military members and most families sending no one at all to fight. The lower levels of the enlisted ranks of the infantry, who actually do the fighting and bear the brunt of the casualties, are increasingly difficult to recruit and standards for recruitment have been lowered to the point, where the functionality of the troops we are able to produce, is inconsistent, at best. This remains true even though pay and benefits are at an all time high and casualty levels are lower than in any previous combat theater. Because most families shy away from sending their members into the military and because the military itself has become insular from the mainstream of society, a communication gap has opened between the military and the general population. Military members and their families often believe other segments of society do not support them. They believe because the theaters of conflict in which they or their family members serve, are not viewed positively by most of the population, that they themselves are viewed negatively. They are encouraged in this view, by their leaders in the military and the government, who would rather deal with division in society than mutiny in the trenches, especially when such mutiny would be embraced by the ever waxing political opposition to the current administration.

The military is not a large segment of American society but it is one of the most important and powerful. Due to the increasing insularity of the military and the increasing distrust of the military toward the population in general, the Republican party has become the party of choice for the military.

Support the Troops

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We've Won!

George Bush, a man possessed of no personal insight and certainly the least introspective man to ever be President of the United States, has actually admitted that some of his pugnacious, bring it on comments about the war in the Middle East, while not actually mistakes, might have been ill-advised. Dick Cheney has never gone as far as that.

Pretty much everyone else with any believability at all, from Secretary of Defense Gates to General Petreaus to Micheal Yon don't mind saying that we went into Iraq with nowhere near enough troops and no real plan at all as to what we were trying to accomplish.

It might not have been a good idea to let the Iraqi Army disband and go home. It might not have been a good idea to fly several C5-As loaded wall to wall with pallets of hundred dollar bills into Iraq and pass them out to tribal leaders, in effect front loading the financing of the insurgency. It might not have been such a good idea to use a French, Dien Bien Phu style, fortress garrisoning of the occupying troops. Everybody in authority is still pretty silent on these issues and many others just as troubling and important. It seems to me that if the administration expects, after all this time, so many horrible failures and the nightmarish conditions we have wrought in Iraq, to be believed or supported by the American people, they ought to start being honest with us. Some might think it's too much to ask. Some might plead national security issues. I just don't think they have any honesty in them.

The whispering campaign on the zionist neocon blogrolls is that it's over, we've won and now we need to remain and supervise the Iraqis as they rebuild or even rebuild it for them, you know, to show them there's no hard feelings. The fundis are still going with that same old all things Muslim are evil line, the new talking points must not have got out to them yet. I don't know if it's over or not. It's quiet though, I believe that.

What's interesting is why it's quiet. Davey P has made some promises and probably given some money to the Sunnis at the tribal level. We don't know what the promises were or how much money was involved. We do know that George the Turd wants 50 billion more right away. That this action could have such a profound effect, so quickly, tells us that this is where the balance of power lies. We remain committed to a Shiite government that the Sunnis have vowed to never recognize, a government which does not recognize the legitimacy of tribal authority. How will these two actions be reconciled?

It will be interesting to see how things play out. A lot of different things could happen. I don't have a clue. I do know one thing though, nothing is over.

The State Department is setting up shop in Syria. They are going to start sorting out the Sunni refugees there, with an eye toward sending the ones who aren't suitable for repatriation to America, at least a few hundred thousand, maybe more. I talked about this a while back. Now it looks like it's going to happen. I can hardly wait until they start getting to SoCal, I don't think it should be more than another year or so. Between them and all the reservists who come here for the Sun and surf between deployments, we should get the story about what really happened over there straight. I love it when new people come here, they smoke, they drink, they still think sex is dirty, gives me someone to hang around with. What larks, Pip!

Don't blame me when Hilliary gets elected

It's official, with 14 months left to go in his second term, Bush is the least popular president in the nation's history. At least 65% of Americans strongly disapprove of him.

What is truly a measure of his effectiveness as a politician is that the core of the Republican Party still strongly supports him. Sure, they think a few mistakes were made and the PR wasn't handled very well but by and large, GW is still their boy.

They are OK with the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to invade Iran now, just as bad as GW does. They are good with torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial and warrantless wiretapping, with no judicial oversight for any of it. They don't mind that we have never made a serious effort to eradicate the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, capture its leader Osama bin Laden or identify the source of its funding. Tripling the national debt, to 3 trillion dollars, no problem. All those black families from New Orleans, stuck forever in Houston, serves them right. Gas prices through the roof, dollar not worth the paper it's printed on? YeeHaw! They are pretty sure that by the time the elections roll around, a year from now, the wars will all be won, the rest of the country will have come to their senses and will vote to continue on the brave path that George Bush has led us down.

Hey, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. That's why they have opinion polls.

Is he afraid they won't let him into the VIP lounge in Hell?

The color of Dick Cheney's skin is ashen gray. He is often seen panting while seemingly at rest. He is given large daily doses of diuretics and still his lower extremities and lungs fill with fluid. This is why his voice is faint and raspy. This is why he has to be helped in and out of vehicles, up and down stairs and why he never stands up out of a chair on camera. Even if he doesn't have more heart attacks, he is dying of end stage cardiomyopathy. Even though he is dying, he is still hard at work.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the intelligence services of the Armed Forces and the various civilian intelligence gathering organizations, all agreed that Iraq did not fund or support terrorist activity anywhere, was not likely to threaten the United States or any other country militarily, did not possess weapons of mass destruction and had no nuclear research program. Dick Cheney bullied these organizations into suppressing their findings, all of which later turned out to be true. He suborned the Central Intelligence Agency into providing false findings that all of these things might be true and continues to publicly say, even today, that they all are true. He has never admitted that there have ever been any problems with the invasion or occupation of Iraq and has maintained for the last five years that the whole thing is for all intents and purposes over and will be wrapped up soon.

Today, the Armed Forces and all the various civilian intelligence gathering agencies agree that Iran is not a major causative factor of the insurgency in Iraq. There is not even any evidence that they are doing nuclear weapons research. Iran is, in fact, the closest supporter and ally that Maliki's Iraqi government has. They are willing to make this evidence public and have been for at least a year. Dick Cheney is suppressing the release of this information. It is clear he will continue to do so until he draws the last tortured breath from his foetid, fluid rotted lungs.

Is he afraid they won't let him into the VIP lounge in Hell?

Bush and Cheney, Sons of Liberty

For several years now, we have been subjected to ever more heated rhetoric, delivered in ever more shrill, hysterical tones, by the minions of King George the Turd, about the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran. A nuclear armed Iran threatens the United States not at all. It does threaten Israel though and that makes Bush's Zionist neocon catamites squeal like Ned Beatty bent over a beached canoe.

Now, Pakistan, which actually has nuclear weapons and every intention of using them against its perennial enemy, India, has fallen deeper into the clutches of right wing military dictatorship. The military is doing what it always does in these situations. They are rounding up the educated, the intellectuals, the advocates of democracy, and disappearing them into the same prisons the American CIA have been disappearing "suspected terrorists" into for the last several years.

The really sick twist of this situation is that the military in Pakistan has been able to build up their power and their nuclear arsenal, which has allowed them to put a deathgrip on Pakistani democracy, using the billions of dollars in aid from the US that they were given to fight bin Ladens merry band but never did.

Wake up to the big lie. George Bush and Dick Cheney couldn't care less about terrorists, Islamic of otherwise. Their real enemies are the forces of democracy around the World. Their real aim is to turn the US into a totalitarian fascist state. Look at the scenes of crushing violent repression coming out of Pakistan for a preview of what Bush has planned for your neighborhood soon. Listen to who it is the Bush brownshirts blame for all of the troubles in our land. The educated, the intellectuals, the news media, those leaders of the democratic voices opposing his systematic dismantling of our once proud republic, in the name of homeland security. He would have already come for them if he could have and he will if he is able.

Can We Go Now, Please ?

Gomer Bush, his little chihuahua Petreaus and all of the chattering rightophile blogging heads are crowing the the Iraqi turnaround. Fighting and casualties down. Al Qaeda in Iraq, whatever that means, defeated. Refugee Iraqis returning to their homes. Personally, I think that most of it has to do with the fact that Davey P is pouring hundreds of millions out in bribes to the tribal Chieftains, to take a break. I do not argue. For whatever reason, things are quieter than they have been. Good.

Let us use this opportunity to pack up, turn things over to the Iraqi government and get out. Now is as good a time as we're likely to get anytime in the foreseeable future. The British are pulling out of the South. The Turks are going to start killing Kurds in the North. The retard prince in the oval office and his fat, flatulent, cardiac sidekick, want to go to war with Iran in the East. The brutal military dictatorship in Pakistan, one of our "democratic allies" in the region, is getting ready to suppress their political opposition in a decidedly non-peaceful fashion. Israel is getting ready to kill even more Palestinians than usual. Syria looks like it wants to legitimize it's defacto annexation of Lebanon. The Taliban has regained control of large parts of Afghanistan. The Saudis, another staunch ally, have used the situation to jack up the price of oil to intolerable levels and will surely use a tithe of their new found wealth to further the cause of Wahhabi Jihad throughout the World.

The troops are tired and want to go home, just ask them. The Iraqi people are tired of the killing and want us to go, just ask them. The American people do not want the war to continue, just ask them. The other countries of the Middle East don't want an American military presence in the region, just ask them. Condi's diplomatic corps don't believe the situation in Iraq is salvageable and are refusing to serve, even in the trillion dollar armored monstrosity George the Turd has built to protect them, just ask them.

To all the Zionist neocons and Christian fundamentalists who have feared they will lose face through their failure to persevere in Iraq, now is your chance. You have won. Iraq has been pacified. They certainly aren't going to be threatening anyone anytime soon. Let's git while the getting is good. Bush can claim the legacy of a peacemaker. You guys can go back to supporting your true interests, sending foreign aid to Israel and criminalizing abortion.

Let's develop some new right/left antipathies to fight about. It shouldn't be that difficult, as cruelly loathsome as the neocons and as malignantly hateful as the fundofascists are. Let's try to find some that don't cost so much money or kill so many of our soldiers.

What to do, What to do

108 UN peace keepers from Sri Lanka are being sent home after being charged with sexual abuse of Haitians, including underage girls. The question being asked is what, if anything, will happen to these troops, once they return home?

The answer, is simple. They will develop HIV/AIDS and die.

TSA Airport Officials, They're not just a bunch of morbidly obese ex-welfare recipients and pedophiles

I have a friend who is a Red Cross volunteer. This usually takes the form of teaching community outreach classes. He does CPR, First Aid, Disaster Preparedness, stuff like that, several times a month. At large charity functions and athletic events, he runs First Aid stations. What he really likes to do is volunteer during disasters. Hurricanes in the Gulf? Floods? Tornados? He's always there. Driving Aid vehicles that carry food, blankets and fresh water to those in need. Setting up and managing shelters for those dispossessed. He does it for free, usually several weeks a year. It isn't that he thinks the Red Cross is the World's greatest organization but they are in charge of doing the stuff he thinks is important, so he's on board, 100%.

He's out here in California, now, from his home in the deep South. The Red Cross didn't know exactly what would be needed, so they sent people that could do a lot of different things. He's working in a big facility the Red Cross is using in San Bernadino to stockpile and distribute materials as they are needed. He's been there about a week.

Flying out here, he decided to take along on of those multi-tools you see a lot of these days. He is an accomplished mechanic and can do just about anything with one of those things. He was careful to put it in his checked luggage, that rides in the luggage compartment of the plane. With it, he included a note, in easy to read block printing, explaining he was a Red Cross volunteer, going to the fire in California, etc, etc, etc.

The Homeland Security goons stole it. They left one of their little notices in his luggage.

What a bunch of fuckin' scumbags.