Self Image

I rarely invite anyone into my house. Those that come in almost never return.

I almost never buy anything, including food, that doesn't come off a clearance rack.

Some of my clothes are still left over from the '70s. With the exception of underwear, I don't have any clothes newer than the late '80s. I am not the original owner of any of them.

I cut my own hair and beard with some dog clippers I bought at Pick n Save, for $8.99.

I ride around town on a shredded, 20 year old, 2stroke Honda scooter. I weigh three times as much as the scooter. It was never designed to carry anyone my size.

I'm at least 40 pounds overweight and was not considered to be even remotely handsome, at any time in my younger, thinner past.

When I am near, people tend to give me plenty of room. Small children stay close to their mothers. Policeman look at me, then turn away. I do not look prosperous enough to be involved in criminal activity.

Self actualization is a relative achievement.

Liberty time is cancelled, Mister Roberts!

For years, on the Internet, there has been a safe harbour for bloggers to put in and rest and recreate. A place to let your hair down. A place to have some fun and exchange ideas, without having to worry that a misstep will cause weapons to be drawn. That place has been Ed Morrissey's Captain's Quarters.

You can't not like Ed. He's not a great pundit but he writes voluminously about all of the issues of the day. People come to comment and all are welcome. For the most part things stay under control. The interplay of ideas among the commenters there, is unlike anything anywhere else on the web. It provides an unparalleled opportunity for insight. It is the greatest political omnibus website that there has ever been. Nobody else has come close. It is an achievement of which he can be proud.

Ed has announced he will be merging his blog into the Hot Air site, run by the evil sow, Michelle Malkin. Michelle strictly controls commenting access to her sites and immediately banns anyone who strays from the truth as revealed to her by the great Gods of the Right and by her to the masses below.

Michelle would like to tap into the traffic Ed gets, which is huge. She is not prepared to cater to the appetites that made Ed's blog such a huge success. This is exactly the same situation as if The Horse and Cow got remodeled and turned into another branch of Hooters.

They aren't going to let me in. I'm not going to want to go. Bummer.

Time to haul ass, Shipmate. See ya somewhere on across the Main.

The Troll Under The Bridge

I'm watching the debate on MSNBC right now. It's pretty clear what is happening. Barack doesn't really need or want this debate. Hillary is desperate for face time with the American people. NBC was able to extract concessions from Hillary concerning the type of questions they could ask, where as Barack was able to extract concessions from NBC. They are murdering Hillary.

This is not a debate. There is not really much interplay between the two candidates. This is an inquisition and it is aimed at Hillary Clinton. She is broken and bleeding, with no way to fight back. Tim Russert is like the troll under the bridge. The riddles he asks are unanswerable and the penalties exacted are taken in blood and bone.

Whether the people recognize her strength and courage or whether they will just be mesmerized by the blood and the suffering, only time will tell.

How is Barack coming off? Very Presidential.

Pssst! You want to meet my seeester, Meeester!

Hello Sailor! Welcome to the banana republic of Bushmerica.

Your money goes a long way here. 'Cuz our money ain't worth shit.

The inflation numbers are out and dollar's lost 1% of its value in January. February is almost gone, so you've probably lost at least another percent already. You can thank George Bush and his little econocatamite Benny Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Bank. They have been lowering interest rates and printing money like crazy to try and placate the Big money fat cats that have been looting America for decades. Their money is overseas now, safely denominated in Swiss francs. They figure if they pump enough worthless paper into the economy now, they might be able to suck the last bit of marrow out of your bones before they leave them to bleach in the Sun. Hey, at least it's worth a try.

For every hundred thousand dollars you have, you lost a thousand. If you are one of the lucky few who are millionaires, you lost ten thousand dollars for each million you have, just in the month of January. If your money is invested, there is a good chance you lost quite a bit of money in January. Just add another ten thousand on top of that. Since the government's calculation of inflation is notoriously understated, you probably lost an additional ten thousand of purchasing power as well.

You want my advice? Spend your money. All of it. As soon as you can. Buy liquor, cigarettes and candy bars. Fill up your house and garage with the stuff. It'll keep and it'll be better than cash in a year. Have your sister shave her pussy and rouge it up a little. It won't be worth as much as the chocolate or booze but it's a steady income and more importantly, a renewable resource. Those German and Japanese sex tourists are tired of South East Asia, you can bet they're on their way here. Better stock up on condoms too!

Hmmm! I wonder how much George wants for an all night with Jenna and Barb? I think maybe they love me long time.

UNPATRIOTIC

Charges are flying that Barack and Michelle are ungrateful citizens and do not love this country. The implication is that they are not "Like Us". Rascism in another guise.

The man screaming this the loudest, is NYT columnist William Kristol. Billy is the premier Neocon and booster of the Iraq War, in this country. He long ago sold out the country of his birth, to chase the shimmering wet dream of Zionism.

How very ironic.

Three Trillion Dollars

The Iraq War is nearly five years old. The cost is now projected to exceed three trillion dollars. This will make it the most expensive war, in inflation adjusted dollars, in US history, with the exception of the Second World War.

This was a unilateral war against countries that did us no harm and posed us no threat. It was perpetrated at the behest of Big Oil and the Israel Lobby. It gains us nothing and has caused irreparable damage.

The Democrats are determined not to impeach and not to hold War Crimes trials for the instigators of this war. This is a mistake.

Crock of Shit

Bob Lutz, the Golden Boy, over at General Motors, calls the concept of Global Warming, a "Crock of Shit".

Anybody stupid enough to actually purchase a GM product, is likely to be stupid enough to believe him. Unlike GMs business model, this seems like a mutually rewarding situation.

A Gathering Storm

California is a big State. It is a rich State. It is an expensive State to live in. The various governmental and public service organizations here are large and cost a lot to operate. This makes taxes very high. We have a very high State income tax. Sales taxes, gas taxes and property taxes are also high, as are the myriad of user fees that the State levees on hundreds of other things.

As the economy tanks, many people are going to be making less money. They will have less money to pay taxes. Lower incomes mean less income taxes. The foreclosure of a home means less property taxes. No job means a lot less driving and less gas taxes. Fewer purchases mean less sales taxes paid. Unless the current economic trends are a fleeting blip, the State of California is heading for a big revenue shortfall.

People are going to expect governmental services to remain constant. They are going to expect the infrastructure to be maintained. If we go into a period of stagflation, costs will increase as revenues decrease. Public employees and retirees are going to expect to be paid. They will want the benefits and pay raises that their unions have already negotiated.

California ran a huge deficit last year and will again this year. They do this by issuing bonds. Unlike the Federal government, they are not able to print money, so they have to pay the interest on these bonds with actual revenue. They are already past the limit of interest on bonds that they can afford to pay. The economy doesn't even have to get worse for the situation to deteriorate. Given present inflationary trends and the large percentage of public employees reaching retirement age, unless revenues increase dramatically, the State of California is pretty much fucked.

A lot of States are in the same boat. Many are in even worse shape.

The outlook isn't totally bleak. North Dakota and Utah should come out of this in good shape.

Who will be his Sancho Panza?

Few of the iconic figures of my youth remain on the World stage. Hugh Hefner comes to mind, still living the Playboy life, even if it now includes afternoon naps and soft foods. Just last week, Fidel announced his retirement. I hope it is long and sweet. Jane Fonda has a movie coming out soon and used the word cunt on the Today show while promoting it. Good for Jane. Helen Thomas still calls them like she sees them, from front and center, in the White house press room.

Today, Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America, again. His eyes are dim. His speech is slurred. His jaw is slack. His back is bent. He walks with a shuffle. He looks like a poster boy for brain attack. I don't care. I love Ralph. I'd even vote for him, if I thought he had a chance to win. Ralph had as much to do with shaping the state of liberal politics in America today, as MLK, RFK and JFK combined.

A lot of Democrats will be unhappy that he's running, remembering how he split the vote in Florida in '82, costing Gore the Presidency. It doesn't bother me. Florida politics are crookeder than a dogs leg. No Democrat is going to win there, any time soon. If the Democratic nominee can't win this election by a landslide, the country deserves another Republican President.

God, I loved Corvairs!

Left in the Lurch

Supported by artillery and co-ordinated air strikes, 10,000 Turkish troops and attendant armor crossed the border into Northern Iraq. They have done this, to seek out and punish Kurdish freedom fighters, who have left Turkey, for the sanctuary that the newly semi-autonomous, Kurdish region of Iraq, provides. There are 40,000 more troops massed on the border to provide support and reinforcement if needed. The Northern Iraqi Kurdish authority, has a small self defense force and small arms.

The Turks say that the Kurds are using the semi-autonomous areas to launch terrorist attacks on them. The Kurds say there have been no attacks. I have no idea what is true.

I do know that the US has been providing military liaison and sensitive intelligence data to the Turks concerning the Kurds. We also have given the Turks countless billions of dollars in military aid, over the years. They have one of the strongest and best equipped armed forces in the World. We're not doing a damn thing while they slaughter the Kurds, with the overwhelming military superiority we have given them.

I thought that the main reason we were still in Iraq was because if we left, real bad things could happen to them.

This seems like a pretty bad thing. Would this be a good time to mention that I think Condolezza Rice is a craven, cowardly, dog? A real Secretary of State would have nipped this in the bud. It's true we need the Turks but they need us a whole lot more and we have a hundred and fifty thousand troops in Iraq who would like nothing better than to fight a real army in a real war. The bitch was so anxious to fight Iran but when Turkey sends an army to call, she just sits there with her fuckin' thumb in her butt. She can't blame this one on Bush, he's over in Tanzania, dancing, drinking corn beer, and gnawing on a goat hoof. I'm sure the coronary kid would let her go to war if she asked.

I hope the Kurds kick their ass.

The Bitch that Bore Him is in Heat Again

It's not even making the local news. A pitched gun battle broke out in North East Los Angeles, yesterday. Hundreds of shots were fired. Spent brass littered the streets. The police cordoned off a couple of square miles, from noon 'til well after dark but they had no control over what was going on. They don't even really know what was going on or who was doing it. The gang that controls this particular area of the city is called "The Avenues". It can be assumed that the gang was engaged in activities related to consolidating power within their Turf.

The Avenues gang isn't the oldest, biggest or most violent gang in the City, although they were probably the busiest, yesterday. It's true that the gangs in LA have been active in criminal activities for generations. Drugs, stolen goods, prostitution, smuggling, gambling, loan sharking, are all tied to the gangs. These guys have learned what all organized crime eventually learn. If you supplant the civil authority, then you become the civil authority. Taxation pays better and is less work, than crime.

The Angeleno police want big salaries and bigger benefits. The people don't want to pay high taxes, so they don't hire very many policemen. LA has the smallest police force, per ca pita, of any city in America. For decades, the police have been backing out of the poor areas of the city. They protect the affluent areas. When they had to deal with the gangs, they did so harshly but eventually a system of rules and boundaries were established. The problem is that the police are an institution. The feudal gang states are not. They ebb and flow and mutate along with the fortunes of the neighborhoods they dominate. Why should they be constrained by rules and boundaries, when the police no longer have the power to hurt them.

There will be no escalating war between the gangs of LA and the police, only continuing war between the gangs themselves, as the balance of power shifts around among them. The police are no longer players in this game.

Some mutant retard despoils a little blond girl and it's all over the cable channels for months. Spoiled Saudi boys with box cutters crash a few planes and we spend trillions crashing around through Mesopotamia. We lose control of our cities, Detroit, DC, Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, nobody says or does, a damned thing. Just pretend it didn't happen.

Are we doomed? Who knows. Perhaps in some subterranean culvert feeding into the San Gabriel River, a deranged coyote bitch suckles a pair of orphan boys. Drink up boys, empire awaits!

Then It's Done

The United States economy no longer produces new wealth. It has not for decades. A Capitalist system is predicated on the production of new wealth. If you look at what has been happening for the last twenty years in the US economy, you will see increasingly desperate attempts to tap the residual wealth and repackage it as new wealth. The Savings and Loan crisis, junk bonds, endless rounds of mergers and acquisitions and now the real estate bubble and sub prime loan fiasco, all have been tools to suck dry the wealth within the structure of our society and to use that wealth to fuel the engine of the economy.

You can only suck something dry until it's dry, then it's done.

Condo Report

For the last 6-8 months, the value of the condominiums where I live has been in flux. Nobody really knew for sure what the last ones sold for and since they had stopped selling, nobody knew what they currently were worth. It looks like the dust has settled a little, so let me enlighten you.

These are 3 and 4 bedroom, 2.5-3 bathroom, 1800 square foot, 2 car garage town homes about 3 1/2 miles from Huntington Beach State Park in Orange County, California. They are 30 years old and originally sold for $77,000-$78,000. The location is good. The grounds are spacious with generous green belts and open spaces. They were built poorly with cheap materials and have been maintained in a minimal fashion because of a desire by the homeowners association to keep fees down and poor, often corrupt management.

It turns out at least one person bought for $700,000 before the current economic episode began. Several bought at around $650,000 within the last 18 months and several more bought at around $600,000 in the year before that. It turns out three of these places have sold in the last 8 months. One for $600,000, probably early on. One sold for $485,000 and another for $450,000. This is at least a 30% drop, so far! I think these places still have a fair ways to go as far as bottoming out. Nothing is selling right now and the ones that do, have spent a long time on the market and had the asking price slashed. These places would have to go down to around $350,000 before you could rent them for a positive cash flow on the mortgage. To cover association fees, property taxes and an adequate cushion for maintenance and upkeep $250,000 is probably a better number. I don't see rents going down around here, so that's not a problem. The size of these places does put them at the very top of the rental market. Finding renters with high enough cash flow and the desire to spend it on such a large rental unit could be a problem in hard times without deeply discounting the rent. If they got down to $250,000, I'd certainly start thinking about buying another one, even if the rents weren't going to bring me in a lot of income. That's another big drop in price though, we'll see.

How much has your house decreased in value and how are houses selling in your neighborhood?

Open Wide

Emily Prigge, a 23 y/o, 1st year, 5th grade teacher, at the St Felix Catholic Elementary School, in Wabasha, Minnesota, became pregnant, out of wedlock. She decided not to have an abortion. She told her principle. The principle congratulated her for doing the right thing, then fired her. She was told, by the principle and the school priest, that she had violated a Catholic Christian witness statement, that she had signed prior to beginning her job, promising to be a good example to her students.

This same thing happens all the time, to parochial school teachers, around the country. It may seem like an unfortunate but still justifiable situation. It bothers me. They never fire the priests, when they sodomize the little children.

It seems unfair. As a child I would rather be confronted by the sinful nature of my school teacher, than have to give some old, Paddy priest a blow job. I know it may seem odd but it's just the way I am.

Nobody is Indispensible

As of today, before the results of the primary elections in Virginia, Delaware and Washington D.C. , Hillary Clinton has 1,145 pledged delegates. Barack Obama has 1,157 delegates and John Edwards has 26 pledged delegates. Over the next few weeks, Obama should win most, if not all, of the primary elections scheduled to be held. Clinton supporters are hoping for decisive victories in Texas and Ohio, early in March, to revitalize her campaign and renew momentum behind her. As Rudy's "Florida Strategy" teaches us, this is likely a forlorn hope. It is the only hope they have and nobody can blame them for clinging to it. It's too early to give up and too late to make Hillary over again.

The Demo demi-monde is all atwitter at the prospect, that even if Hillary comes up short in the delegate count, she might strong arm enough of the so called uncommitted super delegates, to win the nomination at the convention, leaving the winner of the popular vote, Obama, out in the cold.

Hogwash!

Any such action would cause an uprising at the convention and an enduring rift in the party. Hillary might be willing to risk such a stunt but the super delegates themselves never will. The super delegates are politicians and party functionaries one and all. They may be gutless, toadying, scum but their ultimate well being depends on Democratic party unity. If she isn't the clear victor in the primaries, they'll toss her out like a broken crack pipe and with as little remorse.

Democracy, in this country may not be about fair or equal representation but it sure as Hell is about votes.

TV Dinners By The Pool, I'm So Glad I finished Skewl

The Republican coalition may be strange bedfellows. The truth is though, that they are the least objectionable bedfellows available for these poor unfortunates and we can expect that they will continue to cling to each other. We are seeing a last ditch effort by those ousted from their comfortable and favored positions in society to band together and fight for what they believe is their birthright. It would be surprising if they did not.

Today, things are changing in America and changing fast but they are not changed. Those on the losing end of those changes still see the possibility that they could hold the line but the time in which they can do this is slipping away.

Brothers and sisters grow up in the same families. They eat at the same table. They attend the same schools but experience and interact with their environment in entirely different ways. As long as they had different societal roles to play, society was in balance. That is no longer the case. Women now make up the majority of college graduates. They also win the majority of available slots in post graduate professional programs.

Right now, women make up a growing minority, within the lower and middle ranks, of the leadership positions in American society. Within thirty years they will be the majority. That's going to make a difference, a big difference in how things get done.

American culture, like all cultures is an evolving one. At it's roots, though, it is a culture transplanted from Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We did not absorb indigenous cultures already present. The only culture to significantly permeate into the mainstream until very recent times, was the West African one, of our former slave population.

Latin American culture is completely different. It is a culture of primarily indigenous peoples, radically changed by conquest and exploitation from Spain and in the case of Brazil, Portugal. Lots of Western Europeans settled all over Latin America but their impact was completely different than in the United States. Latin cultures have rigid caste systems. Wealth is concentrated entirely at the top. The oppression of the masses has been cruel, violent and unceasing. Oppression of this nature, carried out over centuries, breeds within the subject race, deep resentment and longing for something better.

Hispanics are flowing across our borders in unprecedented numbers. There are employment opportunities here that don't exist for them at home. Once they are here, they realize that there are opportunities for advancement, for themselves and their children, that would be impossible in their homelands. Our system is not a closed system. The more Hispanic Americans there are, the more opportunities for Hispanics are created. Life is good here. You can't keep something like this a secret. The stream of Hispanic diaspora has become a torrent and will no doubt increase to a flood. We can deny Hispanics citizenship, but not their children. Conditions in America are ripe for the influx of Hispanics. Nothing will stop it, not border guards, or fences, or punitive legislation. If you ship them home, they'll just come back. You can kill them but more will follow.

So, here's the bottom line on change in America. Women are on a fast track to leadership in this country. Hispanic population in this country will continue to rise exponentially. By the end of this century, the most numerous and influential single demographic group in this country will be educated second and third generation Hispanic women.

How's that for strange bedfellows, fundo-fascist reactionary scum?

Bush bets the farm-The Republican farm

When Bush won his second term in 2004, he abandoned all pretense that he was a uniter, not a divider. He ditched any cabinet members who even paid lip service to bipartisanship. He quit even pretending to listen to the opposition in Congress. The results have been self-evident.

His approval levels with the public have been lower, longer, than any other Chief Executive. Two years after winning re-election, the Democrats were given back control of both houses of Congress. More people than ever disapprove of the war even though his covert policy of re-baathification has quelled, to some extent, the insurgency in Iraq. A decrease in consumer confidence has brought the economy to a standstill. GDP is down. Unemployment is up. The dollar is inflating out of control, even as the administration lies about it. There is an explosion of home mortgage foreclosures as hundreds of billions in home equity continue to leak out of the pockets of American homeowners. Retail sales stagnate and the prospects for improvement don't look rosy as Americans contemplate their upcoming tax bills in April, despite promised stimulus checks.

Bush is betting that in November, nine months from now, when Americans go to the polls, everything will have straightened out. He's betting that the Federal Reserve Banks aggressive policy of rate cuts and unlimited infusions of freshly printed cash into the financial sector will have turned the economy around, inflation be damned. He's betting that the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan will have stabilized and that US casualty rates will have subsided to levels acceptable to the public. He's betting that nobody will look too closely at the trillion dollar plus cost of the war, financed entirely on the cuff, to be paid long after he has left office. This is a huge gamble. He's not only betting his legacy, which is worthless anyway, he's betting the political futures of every Republican politician in the nation.

If he is successful, he could win big. For all of our sakes, I hope he is right. I have no confidence that his wager will be rewarded. I think the situation has gone beyond a question of odds.

What is an eight ball and how much does it cost?

The average suburban couple, the kind that never miss a days work. The kind that actively participate in their children's upbringing. The kind who's own parents point to them with pride, can easily go through a gram of cocaine and a quarter of a once of marijuana a week. This would be considered to be very moderate usage.

How much money does that cost, I wonder, for good stuff. Four or five hundred dollars would be my guess. That would be twenty to twenty five thousand dollars a year. That's an interesting number, because that's how much a lot of people I know have been pulling out of their home equity each year, when they refinance. It makes sense. How many people, when they are figuring out their budget, add in eighteen hundred a month, for dope. It would be no great surprise then, if they come up short, real short, at the end of the year.

Nobody talks about drugs anymore. The war on drugs. Legalizing drugs. How much they cost. I have no idea which drugs are popular these days. I suspect they are all pretty popular and that different people have different preferences. I think drug use is pretty common, across the entire spectrum of our society, age, sex, political party, religion, socio-economic status, etc. They're pretty much every where. No one gets too concerned over it. Everybody knows George Bush uses a lot of drugs. A lot of people dislike his Presidency but not because of that. George has sent a lot of troops to Columbia. That seems more along the lines of supporting the right wing cartels against the left wing cartels, not really interdiction.

For whatever reason, drugs seem to be with us to stay. They are a significant factor in the economy. The government efforts to control their use, are no more than token. The prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders seems to have become entirely discriminatory in nature. It seems like we might want to start towards an acceptance of some of these facts and begin to deal with reality.

Many Days You Have Lingered, Outside My Cabin Door

We have listened to the old men. Our leaders. Men of experience. Men of wisdom.

They told us it would never happen. All we had to do was follow their lead, Keep a good thought and not succumb to the fear and doubt. Work hard. Live our lives. Raise our children. Nothing could hurt us.

A service economy is inherently more stable than one based on actual production. Production jobs are boring, uninteresting and don't pay good. The people that do them become malcontents and want collective bargaining, benefits and better pay. The market for goods and materials can fluctuate but people are always going to need their investments managed, their taxes done, their pools cleaned, their burgers flipped. The pay might not be good but if you're smart, you'll learn to do something that people will pay more for or become a manager of workers who do the same job you used to. In the meantime, get on with your life. Get married. Raise a family. Buy a house. Don't worry about the cost. You're credit is good.

Your credit wasn't good though, was it? Turns out, a service economy isn't inherently stable. Buying a house is not the same thing as owning one. A ponzi scheme is still a ponzi scheme, whether the guy that sucks you in is your next door neighbor or the President of the United States. Your money is still just as gone. Your life is still just as over.

What about those old men of experience, the leaders? The ones that told you there was nothing to fear. It turns out they own their houses, really own them and a lot more besides. What about their kids? They went to good schools. They're working. In Latin America, Europe, Asia. They are learning the language, making contacts. Things are happening over there. They need help over there. Help setting up service economies. Help developing a modern banking system and structured investment vehicles.

Hard Times Come Again No More.

Who's He Trying To Kid?

General Michal V. Hayden, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has a history of lying to Congress going back 20 years, to the Iran Contra hearings, swore to the Senate yesterday that waterboarding was only used three times. These would be the exact three times that we already know about and have documentation for. The same three times that he has admitted destroying the video tapes of. He swore that the CIA has never used this technique before or since.

He denies that waterboarding constitutes torture. He states that the CIA needs to be able to use waterboarding in interrogations when necessary. He promises he will get specific permission from the President before he does it, each and every time before it's use.

This guy could improve his image, a lot, if he had a bald cat in his lap and a little bald midget with an identical uniform by his side.

Heather Has Two Mommies

Late breaking news from the Bruderhofs of the Godless European Union.

When a sperm fertilizes an egg, everything the new person will become is encoded in the DNA inside the the nucleus of the newly created single cell organism. Well, not quite. Outside the nucleus are bodies called mitochondria. These little intracellular bodies perform the metabolic tasks that keep the cells healthy and happy. Inside of each mitochondria is a little snippet of DNA, which allows it to reproduce itself. Mitochondria exist intact within the egg at the time of conception and so mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child, unchanged by the sexual swap of genetic material that occurs in fertilization.

Like all genetic material, mitochondrial DNA is subject to breakage. When this happens the mitochondria produced are faulty and can malfunction. This interferes with intracellular metabolism, causing a host of catastrophic degenerative diseases.

In Europe, scientists have found these diseases can be avoided by transferring the nucleus of a fertilized egg that contains damaged mitochondrial DNA into a donor egg with healthy mitochondria from which the nucleus has been removed. This new "composite" gamete can be implanted into a uterus and the resulting child will have a healthy active intracellular metabolism.

The technology to do all this is off the shelf stuff, that research labs and fertility clinics have been doing routinely for a generation. Whole categories of diseases which affect millions worldwide could now be eliminated.

In this country, where the practice of reproductive medicine is controlled by Creationist, "Culture of Life", Dickwads, who believe the Universe was created whole cloth six thousand years ago, during a week long bender, by a Deity high on Sumerian beer, this procedure will never be performed. What is our World coming to?

Remember the almost words of George Orwell.

"Six toes good, five toes bad."

Record Turnout ?

I voted late this morning, me and five poll workers were the only ones there. I asked if it had been a busy morning.

They answered, "Not so much".

I live in a conservative stronghold. I guess they're not too interested today.

Let's see if they perk up by November.

Finger in the Dyke, No Reward

Why won't Hillary be the Democratic nominee for President?

At the beginning of the Bush 43 Presidency, it fell to the Clintons to be the keepers of the flame. This they have done, at great cost to themselves, at every level of their lives. They have been on record and in front of the cameras daily, for the last 8 years, responding to the ill fated actions of the Republican dominated government. They have been jeered at, belittled, compromised and demonized by the Republican establishment. That they have been largely right, makes no difference at this point. They are damaged goods.

People are now willing to admit that they want a change in government. They are not willing to say they have been wrong. Electing Hillary President is just that, an admission of guilt, in participation in the folly, that was and is, the Bush administration. The people won't do it.

Barak Obama is young, fresh and has no history in national politics. Electing him is not a self indictment for the electorate. It's an easy, feel good, way out. If you think the American people won't take the easy way out, you're wrong.

Thank you, Hillary and Bill. You stood up against a corrupt, tyrannical government through some of the worst days in the memory of our nation. There will be no honors or awards ceremonies. No thanks of a grateful nation. You know the service you have performed. It will have to be enough.

You get no absolution without confession and contrition. Ask any reformed drunk.

The American people are ready to dry out but they are not willing to throw away that bottle of rye, stashed, under the kitchen sink.

The Swiftboating of John McCain

There is an amazing and richly imaginative saga making it's way around the RightRoots sites this morning. It has John McCain spending his years in North Vietnamese captivity, as a happy traitor, holed up in a Hanoi hotel suite, with clean sheets, cold beer and a stable of courtesans at his beck and call. It features Bill Clinton as a steely eyed, cold war, CIA plant, in the international student peace movement, during his Oxford years. Hillary is exposed as the anchorwoman of a daisy chain of Saudi lesbian spies.

It's like Ian Fleming meets the Three Stooges. Who writes this stuff for them? Anyway, check it out. It's well worth the search.

A Little Parable For All You Global Warmers Out There

Nothing is more refreshing than a big glass of iced tea on a hot summer day, lying out by the pool. As long as the ice lasts, the tea stays frosty cold.

Think of the earth as a big glass of iced tea. As the ice caps melt, they keep the oceans cold. The oceans, in turn, Cool the atmosphere. The weather will remain balmy and beautiful, as long as the ice lasts. We should have 20 or 30 years of great weather.

I'm 56 years old, no children. What, me worry?