stuff and things

this is a test, blogger is being a bit funky

Bush is a Coward and like his Father, a wimp

Seems like bunnypants is afeared to debate Kerry. AWWWWWWWWwwwww does georgie have a boobooo. Watch the weasel squirm. What a freakin crybaby. Maybe his Mommy can help him or Karen, since most of the time he pulls the most amazing of pathetic little tastics, of wussies everywear, hiding behind Mommy, or the nearest skirt available. "Don't let that big man Kerry hurt me" You sir, are a disgrace to the Office, and to the Country

Sir, has your manhood shrinked beyond the ability to view it without a microscope. So we are looking at having debates about the debates, who is the new flack catcher, Moleman? That old guy on the Simpsons show, he's the pointman for your alliance of cowardice. Dude if you can't stand the heat get the fuck out of the kitchen.

In Defense of Stupidity

Since the the last post meandered into some jackass trying to defend the indefensible, we will continue the theme. Back in April I ran across a site that for a moment left me stunned. I have seen many websites whose sole purpose is to defend whatever the little wimp in chief does, regardless of outcome. Republique Libere, comes to mind. In this case a person felt that sites like Bagdad Burning, Salaam Pax, Raed in the Middle, and A Family in Baghdad were unfair because they did not allow comments on their blogs, you know, so some winger could argue with these iraqis, when he thought they were not fairly characterising the situation in Iraq. I know, after the initial shock wears off, laughter ensues.

You know this patriot might have gone after Juan Cole, who does not allow comments, but then Cole is mighty prolific and 70 orders of magnitude more intelligent. I mean if I wanted to battle Spassky, I would be real careful to avoid a chess set. Even more ridiculous is the title of the blog is a direct ripoff of Baghdad Burning's url adress which starts with riverbendblog. Wait.......just a little longer........how about
cry me a riverbend. Pretty snarky in that kind of creepy and childish republican way. Now just to bring it full circle the guy stopped active posting at the end of may. So here is the "mission statement":

Analysis of Iraqi Blogs Which Don't Allow Comments - Please keep this blog alive by joining in the discussion. I will not respond to abusive emails but you are welcome to post your views in the comments.

Damn that TBogg, Wonkette, and who knows how many others that have decided not to interact with the great unwashed, maybe I, why I aughtta, are you kidding? Lets find some "Anal-Isis" shall we. The following is from Baghdad Burning.

I think beheading was the chosen method of 'execution' because the group wanted to shock Americans and westerners in the worst possible way. The torturers at Abu Ghraib and other prisons chose sexual degradation because they knew that nothing would hurt and appall Iraqis and Muslims more than those horrible, sadistic acts. To Iraqis, death is infinitely better than being raped or sexually abused. There are things worse than death itself and those pictures portrayed them.

This from our "anal-ist".

Personally, I can't believe somebody would rather have their heads hacked off than be "sexually abused" such as what was portrayed in the prison pictures. I just don't get something about the Iraqi mindset if that is really true.

My original opinion remains unchanged. Both the abuses of the prisoners and this horrific murder should be condemned. Both are an outrage. Both should evoke a feeling of shame from those who support and encourage those who would engage in such behavior.

Riverbend's response is ultimately banal.

"I just don't get something about the Iraqi mindset........." Yeah, what you don't get could fill a very large place obviously. And I might go as far as to suggest that you are our of your league. From A Family in Baghdad:

Did you see Mujahideen?

I asked her

And who was shooting at the American forces?
She said she didn’t know the answer because she didn’t leave the house. And she didn’t know who was shooting. Perhaps men from Falluja themselves. Defending their houses and their women. Everybody who left their house was shot at by snipers and we heard of an old man who went outside his house so a soldier killed him while he was standing outside his house. So his son killed the soldier in anger because he killed his elderly father. Then the soldier’s comrades killed that man. The neighbors say they buried them side by side in the house’s garden. I keep thinkning that if we were all inside our house, and azzam went outside to get something and a soldier killed him standing in front of the door. Who will prevent my children from carrying arms and revenging their father
It’s an impossible task

Who gives orders?

Who is implementing?

And who is debating?

Is killing the language of communication between men?

When was killing the language of communication between humans?

Even animals don’t do that to each other.

So what’s happening to humans…the master of creature …the creator of civilizations.

And who has the answer?

From our friend and expert in Middle Eastern affairs:

Faiza bemoans a cycle of revenge and killing which has started between US troops and Iraqis in Falluja. Yet she herself is part of the problem. Instead of calling on Iraqi citizens to lay down their weapons and work with US forces so we can have order and leave the country she stokes the fire by repeating inflammatory rhetoric. She reports rumors as facts and has no regard for those who are dying trying to keep the law in Iraq. Regarding the sacrifices of the police forces she is silent. I've read one posting where she laughed at the 'antics' of a person resisting US efforts to enforce law and calm. Yet she sees herself as peaceful and decrying violence even as she indirectly encourages it.

If I ever know someone facing rape charges, that I havent beaten silly myself, I'll suggest the services of this Legal beagle as a defence attorny. Somehow this Iraqi woman is supposed to tell all the menfolk to put their weapons down and they are just gonna comply huh. She is stoking the fire with words..........hmmmmmm. And this guy from some basement in america knows for a fact that what she reports are rumors, I wanna see that tele screen you've put together. Talk about a rennaisance man, now this guy is channeling HG Wells. Study that last sentence for a moment.................yeah. Were finished here, but if you have the stomach for a boatload of bullshit, by all means. You will have to find the link above, masochists should earn their pain, makes it even better.

Can I get one of those "cant be held responsible" cards

You just have to wonder where they sell the things. You know Dubya's got one. It used to be funny when that traitor Reagan got away with everything (well no, wasn't funny at all) and earned the nickname "Teflon Ron". Jumpin jeehosifat if Dubya's crimes don't roll of his back like water off a duck. It seems, that Like Jimmy Hoffa, no one on earth can find a complete set of his records concerning his tour of "secretarial vollyball" I mean "duty".

Sometime I lay awake at night sobbing softly, thinking what might have been had I been born with those kind of connections and affluence. Well no, not really, but I do sometimes think about what others may have been able to accomplish with the type of advantages, I mean silver spoons, he was born with.

This is the reason that People like Bush are racing towards Aristocracy. Every rich family has a boatload of people in it that would never keep their head above water in a meritocracy. Which is one reason I love the talk from the legacy (or as I like to call whitefirmative action) class about the evils of affirmative action. Think about it this way, If george had been born in my family or yours, the closest he would have gotten to the whitehouse, is in an alley he calls home, on the streets of DC. Or the main attraction in a Donkey bar somewhere south of the border. I am reminded of what one of his Harvard Professors said of him:

Tsurumi, now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the City University of New York, told the Crimson Bush only scored in the bottom 10 percent of students in his class.

Bush's "always very shallow" behavior still stood out in his mind 30 years later, Tsurumi told the paper.
[......]
"I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor because they are lazy,"

Ah yes the seeds of Compassionate Conservatism sown at such an early age. I guess when you can get into school on a legacy, slide through with gentleman C's, you earn the right to be conteptuous of the poor. Now while looking for the above quote I came across this nugget of genius titled Defending Mr Bush. Warning, gynmastic contortions ahead.

Hm. I think that Mr. Tsurumi, who recently revived the Bush remarks in a couple of articles, badly misunderstood his pupil---if he even recalled the statements correctly. Like the kneejerk elitist rich liberal he almost certainly must be, Mr. Tsurumi assumed the very worst about Bush's comments, if he did not flagrantly twist them for his own cynical political purposes.
Let's consider the alleged declarations, one at a time.
"The Grapes of Wrath" is "corny."
Frankly, I was immediately struck by Mr. Bush's sophisticated aesthetic evaluation of cinema, if not literature, as evidenced by his keen and original analysis of the Academy Award-winning film, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by John Steinbeck.
[.....]
Behold the sheer vagueness of the statement: "people are poor because they are lazy." Why, it is open to all manner of interpretation! How on earth does Tsurumi know what Bush meant by the word "poor"? Or "lazy"?

I am reminded of this scene in an early Simpsons show.
Homer: "Do you have anything bigger than the land behemouth?"
RV Bob: "Why yes sir, yes we do. It's called the Ultimate Behemouth."
Homer: "Where is it?"
RV Bob: "Behold, you are standing in it's presence."

How the jackass that wrote that, could find anything vague about that statement, is beyond me. I guess we could engage in an epistemological argument about the meaning of "grey", but that would just be so much intellectual masterbation. Lets continue and don't forget that box of kleenex:

This is just what a liberal---and particularly, the liberal press---does interminably: take a statement entirely out of context, distort its meaning, and use it to malign the speaker.
Mr. Bush, a compassionate conservative, was obviously referring to people being "poor" only in less desirable human traits: greed, cruelty, impatience, selfishness, jingoism, xenophobia, zealotry, etc. They were not "poor" economically, but "poor" in objectionable attributes! What other meaning could a man as giving and altruistic as our president intend? Such "poor" people would be nothing less than noble of impulse.
Hence: "people are poor (in undesirable qualities) because they are lazy." See how the meaning changes!
Now for lazy. Doesn't this definitively mean indolence, sloth? Doesn't the word derive from the Middle Low German, lasich, meaning feeble; akin to Middle High German erleswen, meaning to become weak?
Undeniably so.

Ummm Huh? Yeah, sort of. Maybe, uhh, sure, don't get too close to me, you did wash your hands right? So lets just say that alot of the same follows, leading to the conclusion.

So, Prof. Tsurumi, please, in the name of reason and fairness, retract your vicious contentions and ugly lies about President Bush, or at least about the idealistic young man who studied with you so many years ago.
No one---no one---expressing opinions as puny, nasty and downright puerile as you suggest Mr. Bush did could ever, in anyone's wildest dreams, grow up to hold an office as lofty, inspiring and important as president of the United States of America.

So Mr. whateverhisname is, seems to conveniently forget Nixon, Johnson, Boatloads of Dixiecrats, and in his world no one could possibly...., I'm sorry, I am laughing too hard to go on any further. Man that interweb thingy you just never know what you pull out of those waters. I'll tell ya, this is the last place I thought this post would end up. Please enjoy the whole thing.

Why I Love Gilliard.

Steve always shoots from the hip, and today discusses, the myriad of reasons related to the Sharon Bush time bombs™, described in Kitty Kelly's new book, that are trickling out in advanced press releases, one by one, to form a swarming pack of snarling dogs. And they smell blood, drip drip dripping from the House of Bush. This is just a taste. If you havent read the rest.

Bush has to move people from Kerry, and he's nowhere close to doing that. The Kelley book will make that nearly impossible. Like Goldman's bio of Elvis, and Kelley's book on Nancy Reagan, people will believe the dirt.

If F 9/11 put some doubts into public's minds, and My Pet Goat is a meme which has stuck, Kelley's book is like the second wind of attack. People expect that this may be the knockout blow, but that's a bit much. What gossip does is create a meme which defines you. Richard Gere never had a gerbil shoved up his ass. Rod Stewart never had a gallon of semen pumped from his stomach. But people still believe both. What I expect the Kelley book to do is to strip away the veneer of Bush as nice guy. If there are rumors of him banging guys and snorting coke, well, that's salacious and will punish Bush for playing cute with his coke use.

Depending on the dirt in the book, Bush could be fatally crippled. But without it, Bush's prospects are dim. It would take none of the scandals around this administration from coming to light, the economy turning around and Iraq calming down.

While the administration has been talking smack about how "well" things are going, they aren't and the campaign staff knows it. Which is why all the dirt has been flying and the convention went so poorly. McCain's gaffe took them off message and Miller's speech. well, it couldn't have been worse. Then he capped it off by wigging out on MSNBC.

A tied race is usually the preclusion to the collapse of the incumbent. Even without Kitty Kelley, Bush would face a significant defeat. But the allegations in her book will spread like wildfire and define Bush as a coke snorting faggot, even if people wonder if every bit of the allegations are true. And of course, that will sink him with his base, not that they can deny the stories or say it's the liberal media. It's dirt, and that has no political allegiance.

This is just getting better by the the day, I would have never thought about the combination of these words "coke snorting faggot" in reference to bush, before I saw them on that page. Lordy lordy, I might just have to spend some time "browsing" the book at some local Bookstores. How is Rove gonna deal with questions of Juniors, drinking, snorting and smoking cock, not to mention refer. The puerile highlarity that is sure to ensue in the coming weeks. Sweet Jesus. Now that I think of it better check out TBogg.

Colbert, "I'm, uh, um with Nambla"

Colbert on the last night of the convention. Squeezing his way through the croud on the floor, says

"Its a little tight down here, I feel like a turd of liberty being sqeezed out through the colon of independance."

Since I missed the Pataki speech, they did have this interesting clip. Pataki:

"But let me ask you, what is this election about if it isn't about our love of freedom?"
------later he said ------
"John Kerry has to google his name to figure out where he stands"
------and-----
"When they say hope is on the way, what they should say is hype is on the way"

Thats a fine example of Republican humor. Ha HA Ha funny. Pataki, you killin me.

Be sure to catch the repeat this evening at 6 pm (my time not sure about yours)

A brit take on Zell

Thanks to the crankpot at WTF is it now, is a British take on the Zell Miller speach:

"Yes, I'm a Democrat. But I'm proud to say that I now support the re-election of George W. Bush."

- Senator Zell Miller (D).

If there is a hell, and most likely Zell Miller believes in such a thing, then Democratic Senator Zell Miller is going to burn in it. Spin hotly on a giant griddle. For something close to eternity.

Oh yes, siree. He is going to burn in hell.
[.....]

"And I don't care what my fellow Democrats say about social issues. For me, national security and the war on terror trump everything else."

- Senator Zell Miller

He doesn't care about social issues. There is one issue for Miller, as there is for much of America: how is terrorism going to be fought. How is national security going to be safe-guarded? And how is this decision-dodging war-fraud John Kerry hoping to deal with it? Here's what Senator Miller says about Kerry:

"I see him talking about the complexities of the situation, talking about shades of grey, rather than black or white."

Yeah. Because the world is painted in black and white. Because there's no room for complexity, for thought, for consideration, for intelligence, for confusion, for difficulty, for uncertainty, for politics.

Idiot.

It's just plain idiotic to criticise John Kerry for suggesting that Iraq and terrorism is a complex situation that demands flexibility of thought. What the hell is wrong with seeing "shades of grey"? If you look at the world and the War on Terror and see nothing but black and white then you're as good as blind.

"Wobbly" is what Miller calls Kerry, while praising Bush for his single-mindedness: he's a "straight shooter" with "a spine of tempered steel" - "he’s the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning." Sameness. Like that's some kind of political virtue.

"In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up."

It's surprising he managed to stand up at all, what with his metal spine.

Brilliant, check out the rest.

James Jamerson, My favorite Bass Player

The story of James Jamerson is a sad one, a studio musician whose contributions laid the foundation of many of motowns greatest hits, a man who is singularly responsible for more booty shaking than quite possibly any one who ever lived. I'll go as far to suggest that every single visitor to this place, has at one time or another been moved, to get off of their ass and dance, to the rhythm of this man's bass guitar.

I was just listening to the finest bassline in the history of rock and roll, or rhythm and groove. Jamerson's work on Stevie Wonder's "I was made to love her" ranks in this Bass player's mind as a masterpiece. It is the swing, syncopation, and a manipulation of time in music; that I can only describe, as a brilliantly executed hesitation dribble, that earn him a place in the pantheon of musical genius. It was this mastery of time, nothing short of monumental, that got many of you laid. You ever feel the irresistable urge to rise to the occasion during Martha and the Vandella's "Heat Wave", that was Jamerson shakin' those hips of yours. "I heard it through the grape vine," "love child," For once in my life," "the Tracks of my tears" and "You keep me hangin on" are among the 30 number one records he performed on.

In 2000 Jamerson was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Some excerpts from the Detroit Free Press

This much we know about the late bassist James Jamerson: He had hands like bear claws. He adored his kids. And he dramatically, forever, altered the sound of contemporary music.
[.....]
Mysterious as his persona might have been, there was nothing vague about Jamerson's playing. As bassist for the fabled Funk Brothers, he was the bedrock of the Motown sound. When you dance to "Heat Wave," your hips aren't moving because of Martha or her Vandellas. They're being seduced into motion by Jamerson and his fat, vibrant grooves underneath.
[.....]
"You have to remember the state of the electric bass at that time -- it had only been around since the early '50s," says Slutsky. "People didn't know what to do with it. Nobody blew you away. Then Jamerson comes along. He was the first virtuoso of the electric bass, the first to give the instrument a voice."

In musical terms, what Jamerson introduced was syncopation. In layman's terms, just call it funk.

[.....]

Tales of Jamerson in the studio are legendary. He'd concoct his parts in mere seconds, they say, then fool around as the band rehearsed, stomping his foot in odd meters or humming an alternate melody to throw off the players.

"You'd come in with a skeleton for the rhythm section, but you didn't try to contain him," says Paul Riser, a longtime Motown arranger. "He'd always come up with something better than any arranger could dream of."

He was, by any definition, a genius.

"Jamerson terrified bassists all over the world," says Slutsky. "Still does."

I am one of them. While I have not spent as much time as possible, I still can't pull off what he does with the scariest song of them all, "I was made to love her" His son James Jamerson Jr, has a wonderful tribute site here. I would continue to write about this phenominal talent, but I want to listen to him funk it up, and my browser crashed and wiped out this post the last time I was blogging and listening to the .mp3. Take a look at the picture above one time before you leave, and remember the face of the man that got little credit for his achievements while alive, but has had a profound impact on the music you enjoy.

[.....update......]
Just for the purpose of accuracy, my Heat Wave reference was written before I saw the one in the excerpt. my opinion, his is better. but the compare and contrast is interesting.

I am having one of those, Why didn't I think of that, moments

You may have heard of a new book about the Bush clan is about to be released, and some of the stuff that is leaking out is proving to be, shall we say, less than flattering.
So I was just staring at the buzzflash headline feed on the right side of this page and at the top is the headline alledging cocaine use by the president at camp david in the '80's. Also noted is the source: Sharon Bush, George's former sister in law.

There it was, staring me in the face, the memories of the brutal divorce from Neal, being hung out to dry by the family, and little but herpes to show for it, you could search the internet, comb through the anarchists cookbook, and still would not be able to construct a time-bomb of this destructive potential. It is a testimony to the magnitude of hubris displayed by these sons and daughters of Icarus, that they would so quickly and and coldly dump someone who would very likely know the location of closets, and the skeletons therein. Why did it not occur to me that Sharon was a walking time bomb.

I seem to remember her trying to get some help from the family to keep the house payed up and was told to "sell it", well she sold it alright and things may be soon looking mighty comfy in Crawford.

Could all the shit they have to hide fit in the hold of an oil tanker?

That wacky administration of ours, secretive beyond Nixons wildest wet-dreamscape, hands in every cookie jar in washington, astride the narrow world like a colossus, corporate connections sliding their tentacles into every honeypot around the globe.

You want chutzpah, they got it in spades. From Cheney's secret energy task force, where by all accounts energy company lobbyists authored the policy, to the recinding of every Clinton executive order they could find, looking the other way while Kenny boy Lay looted the bank accounts of Californians, and the treasury of Califonia. Making every possible attempt to conflate Saddam and "A Terror kingpin who will no longer be named" in order to prosecute a massive oil grab, under the guise of bringing peace, stability and democracy to the Middle East, thats some mighty Chutzpah.

I am sure that some of you may have a vague memory of a report on 9/11, the result of a congressional investigation of the run up to that fateful day. You may remember how the White House demanded the redaction of some 27 pages of that document, and that those pages were rumored to primarily concern Saudi complicity. The extent of their involvement remains a mistery to this day, and despite the the protestations of the Saudi ambassador to the contrary, not many were convinced.

It seems that a new book written by Senator Bob Graham is set to unleash the fury of the Bush disinformation machine in a way that may lend newfound authority to the old saw "Methinks thou dost protest too much" and blow the doors off the closet of Bush Administration secrets.

By FRANK DAVIES

fdavies@herald.com

WASHINGTON - Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.

And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Graham also revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, just four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources -- including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders -- were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.

Graham recalled this conversation at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa with Franks, then head of Central Command, who was ``looking troubled'':

``Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan.''

''Excuse me?'' I asked.

''Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq,'' he continued.

Graham concluded: 'Gen. Franks' mission -- which, as a good soldier, he was loyally carrying out -- was being downgraded from a war to a manhunt.''

None of this should come as a suprise to anyone who has been paying attention, and would go along way to explaining Bush's curious insistance during a march 13th 2002 interview about bin Laden "I truly am not that concerned about him". Natch, by this time had, how did Cheney put it? Oh yeah, "other priorities".

Just under 14 months before he was going to make it possible for this blog's title, he was busy working on a plan to finish what daddy didn't. One might step back at this jucture and wonder what kind of planning was going on in the 13 months prior to the start of invasion of Iraq. Now I am no expert, but it would seem that they had plenty of time to plan to win the peace, and avoid the massive clusterfucking trainwreck, that we may as well call Quagmiristan. If I had the desire I might research the amount of time involved in the planning of D-Day.

Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, voted against the war resolution in October 2002 because he saw Iraq as a diversion that would hinder the fight against al Qaeda terrorism.

He oversaw the Sept. 11 investigation on Capitol Hill with Rep. Porter Goss, nominated last month to be the next CIA director. According to Graham, the FBI and the White House blocked efforts to investigate the extent of official Saudi connections to two hijackers.

Graham wrote that the staff of the congressional inquiry concluded that two Saudis in the San Diego area, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassan, who gave significant financial support to two hijackers, were working for the Saudi government.

Al-Bayoumi received a monthly allowance from a contractor for Saudi Civil Aviation that jumped from $465 to $3,700 in March 2000, after he helped Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhdar -- two of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- find apartments and make contacts in San Diego, just before they began pilot training.

When the staff tried to conduct interviews in that investigation, and with an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who also helped the eventual hijackers, they were blocked by the FBI and the administration, Graham wrote.

This confirms that this administration was far to interested in trying to figure out how to benefit friends and cronies, porn and bong salesmen, than actually involved in dealing with terrorism. I half to admit that this last bit has pretty much knocked the Snark right outta me, and certainly jives with a number of things I have read over that last couple of years.

This is the type of thing that elevates the outrage to a level that one starts to wonder if they are in fact crazy. That these criminals are still running loose in Washington, and not buying cartons of "please not my ass, and I don't toss salads" brand cigarettes is an affront to humanity. Let us just hope that the mighty fourth estate awakes from her long slumber, and finds the courage to do their job again. Another shoe, in the form of a Kitty Kelly tell-all, is about to drop soon. I would wager that odds favor the delivery of cartons of adult undergarments to back doors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

NYC Police state activities continued

Steve Gilliard has a post up with stories of others caught up in the dragnet of overreaching security concerns during last weeks Nuremburg on the Hudson. I only want to deal with a couple of examples, from the many cited in the two articles he adresses.
I have previously written about the treatment faced by foreign journalists from countries with reciprocal visa programs, that have been detained and deported because they did not have a special journalist visa, little advertised but recently enforced, a wonderful example of the loss of transparency, sought by this secretive administration. Lets look at the actions RNC security forces took against a credencialled German journalist for Die Zeit a German Newspaper.

Author Irene Dische was covering the Bush speech for the German paper Die Zeit. Dische said she was sitting in the press stands with the artist and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman when police removed them both from the press stands and questioned them about their T-shirts. Spiegelman's T-shirt said "Pray for a secular society"; Dische's featured the word "Bush" and Chinese characters. She convinced police it said, "I love Bush" (it meant shit on Bush and flush him away) and was allowed to return to her seat. On her way back, an usher handed her an American flag and told her to wave it.

Ok, you have got to be shitting me, right. I mean it is ridiculous enough that this practice of banning anyone who is not a lockstep supporter from campaign rallies, speeches, and other events along the campaign trail, but to take these tactics to the National Convention, and apply them to a credentialed journalist is beyond pale. Then to shove an American flag in the German reporters hand and expect a foreign born journalist who is here to do a job, to wave it like a good little patriot? WTF, is Krystallnacht scheduled for next week, are you Fucking kidding me. Lets see if National Socialist related Brownshirt pogram activities are waiting round the bend.

When she refused to take it, she "immediately felt a hand on my shoulders," she said, and police quickly ushered her off the convention floor and into a station set up inside the Garden. They called immigration officials to check on her American status and questioned her for over an hour. She also convinced them to Google her on the Internet to prove that she was a legitimate writer. When she called her daughter, Emily, and spoke to her in German, one detective barked, "You don't speak in a language we can't understand here." Finally she was escorted to the street, with the police, Dische said, "trying to make nice the whole way."

You know friends, I don't have any problem with security as long as it is acctually affective and is used with restraint. I certainly do not think that it is a good idea to empty the short bus, and put mentally defective, myopic, unintelligent xenophobes, in charge of security. This is just asking for all manner of abuse, likely while a real threat tiptoes by with a suit case nuke. Beyond pale, the embarassment of the world. Another example from the same article this time a guy simply on his way home from work.

Indeed, some people were arrested on the mere suspicion that they might be protesters. Ever since thousands of protesters on bicycles snarled traffic last Friday, bike riders have reported being singled out by the cops. On Wednesday, Kenneth Scott Kohanowski, a lawyer, was riding home on Fifth Avenue from his office to his neighborhood in Chelsea when he was arrested for reasons still unclear to him.

"I stopped and asked the officer why we couldn't go down Fifth Avenue," he wrote in an e-mail. "He told me to keep on moving and I insisted on knowing why I couldn't proceed toward my apartment. At that point, he shoved me ... then threw me against a magazine kiosk. A dozen other officers then jumped on top of me. They then arrested me and booked me for disorderly conduct ... I have never been arrested before. The police in this city are out of control with the RNC in town."

This dovetails nicely with a recent email I recieved from a friend who lives in Brookly and works in Manhatten, and uses a bike as his main form of transportation, I wrote about that earlier. Now to think about it I haven't yet recieved a reply, Hope you are OK JH. In any event, go over there and read the rest. In his attempt to cow tow to a party that has little use for him on a national level, Bloomberg will likely find himself out of a job come election time. Good riddence Jack-ass.

Opportunists? I'll Opine you decide

You may have found the argument that 9/11 changed everything compelling, and that as a result all the rules have changed. I do not. What happened that day was certainly on a scale larger with regards to the cost of outcome, but ultimately, was just another in a long line of terrorist acts perpetrated worldwide over the years. I know it sounds harsh, because we value the life of our own more than any other, but on a fundimental level nothing changed except that we got hit in a spectacular fashion.

This certainly did not deter our administration from taking the ball and running as fast and far as they could with it. A populous shocked and cowed by fear, was willing to lose some of its civil liberties in exchange for the perception of security. The Patriot act was rammed through congress, and provided law enforcement all kinds of new toys to play with. Dissent was quickly discouraged, Bill Maher lost his job for having the temerity to suggest, that it took more courage to fly an airplane into a building than fire cruise missles from hundreds of mile away. Ari Fliescher was quick to warn us to watch what we said. Not so slowly, our liberties were eroded in the name of security.

One year previously, a group called the Project for a New American Century published a document titled Rebuilding America's Defenses, and near the end of that document were the acknowledgement that barring a "catastrophic and Catylizing event like a new
Pearl Harbor" that the desired changes would most likely take a long time to come to fruition. Well one year later this event came to pass, and I can't help but wonder who was licking their chops at the opportunities presented.

Despite the ravings of Mylroi, Wolfowitz, Perle among others, terrorism is an assymetric problem. While in some cases States sponser the activities, (most notably Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia), terrorism is a tactic, used by terrorists to effect some goal. This type of terrorism can not be dealt with by the use of traditional military force, no matter how often they try to move that shinola out of the warehouse. Like it or not, dealing with acts of terror efectively, requires an investigative approach more in keeping with a police force, than a military approach.

Would it were so that you could take care of the problem by invading a country, replacing rulers that have been supporters, if not directly given shelter to them, as in the case of the Taliban. But to fight terrorism with that playbook, is not unlike trying to blow up a thunderstorm. Terrorists in general, and Al Queada in particular, are an amorphous group, consisting of cells spread far and wide, with a variety of communication channels, and sources of funding. They are not unlike the the Mob. The 101st airborn is as likely to break up organized crime in New Your as the first mechanized is likely to have any real impact of terrorism as a whole in Baghdad, Tikrit, or Fallujah.

You want to wipe out (nearly impossible) or severly hamstring terrorism in the world, then that is going to require police work. You are going to have to choke off the financial resources which will immediately weaken the enemy. Then you are going to have to put boots on the ground and gather intelligence through infiltration, monitoring of communications, in other words HUMINT. This angle of approach is not very sexy and it certainly does not lend itself to massive increases in military spending. As the often mocked Europeans (who have been dealing with this problem a lot longer than we) have discovered it is really the only way to proceed.

What has now been proven to be an optional and pre-emptive attack on an anemic enemy, has seriously undermined our ability to render the threat of al Quaeda impotent. We let a proxy army do the majority of the fighting in Afghanistan, and did not finish the job before moving on to our great Messopotamian adventure. This is like pulling the leaves and vegetation of a dandelion and believing that we have killed the plant, only to be shocked a week later when the plant seemingly appears out of no where. You did not kill the root, therefor you did not kill the plant. Until we decide to have an honest discussion of the root causes, and the need to change our approach, this will truly become a war without end resulting in the continued and tragic loss of blood and treasure, that will likely continue beyond our lifetimes.

We need to start a dialog soon, or accept that we have become like Don Quixote, forever to be tilting at windmills, and that our children will never have the opportunity to grow up free from fear as we did. Our present course on this front is simply unsustainable, and unlikely to result in the extermination of terrorism.

Took the easy way out

After a minimum amount of frustration, I took the cowards way out and let the haloscan auto update feature take care of the problem. Now for some testing. Of course that is why I originally set up the other blog, to test mods before going live here, but you know, kid in candy store.

Now with Haloscan

You may or may not have seen it but some time ago I wrote of my inability to leave shit unmodified.
I am by nature a hack's hacker. If it can be opened up, I'm like "where's the screwdriver?" If it can be opened up fixed, modified or just plain poked around in, I'm there. While unlike Sheryl Crow and other artists who claim that stealing their music via download, would result in a lack of motivation to continue making music (yeah right, you made music before your ass got filthy rich, and you would likely have continued if you never had, so I'm not buying that shit) I am likely to keep humming along on this blog feedback or no feedback. But in the off chance that visitors have been reluctant to leave comments in blogger, I now have haloscan for your commenting pleasure.

My sinking suspicion is that this blog's content fails the sniff test, and as a result most of you run screaming in another direction so quickly, as to leave barely discernable skidmarks on your way out the door. I can live with that. There are a great number of fantastic blogs covering basically the same territory, many of which have served as inspiration for this one.

As it may take some time for me to sort out the issues I am having, if any haloscan guru happens to get temporarily stuck in this Tar pit, and has any ideas how to put the new fangle haloscan comments at the bottom of the post, replacing the blogger comments, I would greatly appreciate any input. We might even be able to arrange a quid pro quo, as I have some rather esoteric skills that may be useful to you.

In any event, enjoy your Labor day and best regards to you and yours.

George, This Blood is on your hands.

Was gonna try to keep things light around here today, but found out that there are now seven families for whom labor day will never again be cause for celebration.

Via Atrios. Story here.

The management of the war and occupation has been a study in incompetance. From shutting out any dissenting voices with legitimate reasons for examing worst case scenarios, to selling the fraud as an easy, quick and clean, greeted with flowers, pay for itself occupation. We were swindled, and now that the Iraqi Pooch has been screwed in every way imaginable, Our Precious, young men and women, are paying the last full measure of devotion, and there is no end in sight.

The lack of shame exhibited by the administration and its sycophantic following, continues to add insult to injury. What do you bet that we hear nothing from the fine representatives of the fourth estate, who now chooses to pretend that the occupation
is over. We sustained 1100 casualties in August, the highest single monthe since we showed up a couple in March 2003. We have lost 11 soldiers this month alone.

George, you should hang your head in shame. This was an optional war, that you were apparently hellbent on waging during that december of impatience to see if yet another cushy job had been provided to you by family connections. You sir, are a miserable failure, and the lack of any accountability from you or any of the achitects of this failure, demonstrate that you are unfit to lead. If there was an scintilla of shame in your being, you would resign. Effective immediately. Happy Labor Day President.

Best cartoon character ever.

Lets start off labor day with a look at one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time.
He was a special guest, made only a few appearences, but found a place in my heart. Click the photo for a link to the Foghorn Leghorn fan page, and download your own batch of weasels. There will be an animated gif avalable soon. Happy Labor Day.

Did Bush use cocaine

Nice to see that this story may be gaining traction. With Kitty Kelly's new gossip book about the famiglia Bush, coming out soon, the tepid repartage of this issue during the 2000 campaign may take root again. From Atrios and Bush watch. An excerpt of the Buzzwatch page:

* "If Texas Gov. George W. Bush were applying to work at the White House instead of seeking to run it, or if he were a Cabinet nominee instead of hoping to name the next Cabinet, he could not avoid answering detailed questions about possible past drug use as he is doing now. If Bush were applying to be an FBI agent, he would have to provide detailed information about any past drug use. If he walked into a Marine Corps recruiting office, he would be asked if he had ever used illegal drugs and rejected if he refused to answer."
* ""(Bush) evidently believes that drug use as a young adult is not a disqualification for the highest office in the nation," said Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a liberal group. "If that's true, then a lot of people should be free to seek federal jobs who now feel constrained to do so." Chicago Tribune

* "It's Clintonesque," one frustrated Bush supporter said of the governor's evolving approach to discussing his past indiscretions. "He wants to be the anti-Clinton, but he's looking more like Clinton."
* "Seven years. Fifteen years. Twenty-five years," one opposition strategist scoffed in reference to Bush's shifting statements. "I guess this stuff really does screw up your memory."
* "Republicans are sick of Clinton," said another rival strategist. "The more they see of Bush, the more they're going to see Clinton." L.A. Times

* "Bush's answer yesterday fell short of the standard required of senior government officials both in the Bush administration and in the Clinton administration, who must reveal drug use back to age 18.... Republicans, even those friendly toward the governor's candidacy, doubted that yesterday's limited response would quell the controversy. 'I think it's going to lead to more and more questions,' one strategist said. Now the question is what happened between ages 18 and 28. I don't think those questions will stop until there is an answer.' " Washington Post

It will be intersting if this story takes hold, wont hold my breath, but will keep my eyes open.

Gnashing of Teeth

I have come across a good deal weeping and wailing among fellow dems in blagistan, and I had a fantastic post about it that was eaten by blogger, hate it when that happens. Shorter kent;

Check out this Steve Gilliard post and this one from Maryscott O' Connor and this other one from Steve, with my commentary here, and after I eat and let the steam coming out of my ears subside, I will possible attempt to recreate the original. Damn, all that postly goodness down the freakin toilet.

Bottom line, we are in good shape.

xoxoxo

Nutty Ideas department

I have been in contact with a friend who shared with me an interesting tale about meeting a couple of soldiers in a bar. Both are headed off to Iraq soon. During our correspondence, it occured to me that we should contemplate a Support network for the troops. The idea is simple, we try to collect a growing list of soldiers, over there and stateside, and take a few under our wings as e-mail palls, offer our support, in anyway we can. Mostly to try to boost morale, secondarily to innoculate against the oft heard accusation that we don't care about them as much as the Republicans. From my new friend Shaun, who had an interesting experience with a couple of soldiers at a bar recently.

I think that Dem. Support Network is a great idea. I
would love to help in any way that I can. I have been looking for ways to
get involved, but living in the heart of Republican country there is not a
very large support group here

If any of the 6 or 7 that drop by the site have any ideas to add, suggestions to make, feel free to drop a note in the comments. This is a work in progress and I imagine that we will eventually need a website, and I can deal with that. Thanks, and please feel free to jump in or email me at integritude AT gmail.com

Thanks.

Is Bush still Drinking.

I'll have to wait for the transcripts from whatever show Matalin was flapping her jaws on today, but it seems that she let drop, in a possible attempt to inocculate dear leader, that she was hearing rumors of this attack. Feel free to help me out. More unsubstaniated updates as they come in.

[.....update.....]

Mark Kleiman has this to say about a Susan Estrich article, and on the main page more about potential attack strategies. Time to take the gloves off and start giving the wimps (I am looking at you George) a little tast of their own medicine. Head on over to his place and check it out. Heads up from politus.

Well, you can't say Bush and Rove didn't ask for it.

Bush's return to drinking is apparently common knowledge in DC, though it seems unlikely anyone will talk on the record.

The abortion story is old news, but seemed to be solid, at least by Swift Boat standards: the woman in question denies it, but the two then-friends who drove her to the (illegal) abortion mill have supposedly signed affidavits.

It's Stevenson's challenge to Nixon: if you don't stop telling lies about us, we're going to have to start telling the truth about you. Bush has been asked politely, and he hasn't. Now it's our turn.

From Susan Estrich

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up?

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment.

What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

Or could it be George Bush's Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelley raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?

Update on Frances

Excelllllleeeeennnt

Now I'm Pissed

This is certainly interesting.

Rick Perlstein wrote a great summary of the convention, but what is really interesting, is what was edited out. first lets take a look at the Village voice version:
via Atrios

Tuesday was compassionate conservatism night. Arnold Schwarzenegger was scheduled to rhapsodize about the immigrant dream, Laura Bush to wax gauzy about the man she calls "Bushie." At the Laugh Factory eight blocks away, on the other hand, it was "GOP Comedy Night," and the comedians must not have gotten the memo (Deviation begins) outlining that night's talking points. When the First Lady announced, "We are determined to provide a quality education for every child in America," she was perhaps disguising a sentiment expressed by the Laugh Factory's MC: "[We] have to face the fact that there are some dumb kids. It's time to give just a few of them coloring books, some crayons—press on to what we can save."

---

The only time you witnessed anger on the convention podium it came from a Democrat. That's all part of the hustle. If the bloodiest chunks are tossed out by someone who's not Republican, it can't be vicious partisanship, right? Even if the speech was the sheerest extrusion of rage since the days when Senator Joe McCarthy ranted and raved about Democrats as the party of twenty years of treason.

let's check out the part that originally occupied the space between these two graphs:

Jokes, argued Sigmund Freud, are best understood as a response to anger and frustration. If you want to learn what the Republican rank and file gets angry and frustrated about when they're not reading from Karl Rove's script, the Laugh Factory turned out to be a useful place to be.

*"To my fellow immigrants listening tonight, I want you to know how welcome you are in this party,"* Arnold said later that night at the Garden.

"I want to take that torch off and put in a finger, right like that!" gestured the MC about the Statue of Liberty.

*"It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties..."*

"Islamic prayer in Spanish," said comic Julia Gorin. "That's the next step."

The First Lady: *"We are determined to provide a quality education for every child in America."*

The MC: We "have to face the fact that there are some dumb kids!...It's time to give just a few of them coloring books, some crayons--press on to what we can save."

Steven McDonald, the hero cop shot in Central Park in 1986, on AIDS: *"Here at home, President Bush has committed record levels of support to fighting the disease. Internationally, President Bush has marshalled an army of compassion..."*

For wacky Julia, who wears a cameo of "my Georgie" around her neck, AIDS is nothing but a pet cause of Hollywood activists. Want to know why they're so eager to find a cure? "They can't keep their legs shut."

The MC kills with a Cosbyesque riff--"What' the hell is a 'time out'? The only time out I had was when I was unconscious for three and a half minutes!" Then loses the crowd when the next line rushes out too loud and fast, like a 12-step confession instead of a joke. ("'Time out' was for my old man to switch hands"). Then he composes himself. He produces an image of what his mother would do if he, who only had a stick to play with instead of an X-box, complained that he was bored. Punchline: "She would have stuck the stick up my ass!"And now the audience is his again. The only joke that yields a bigger laugh is Gorin's Valley Girl squeal about why John Kerry should be glad Empress Hillary didn't install herself as running mate:

"He would have gone the way of Ron Brown, Vince Foster, and Buddy the dog."
Those Democrats!

I am not going to jump to any conclusions here, the are many reasons to edit an article; space, content, and coherence are a few. But one version is a bit more favorable to the "Party". I appreciate the opportunity to see the rest.

Monster makes landfall

Though the wind speeds may have slowed, the storm
itself is creeping, and loaded with rain..

Like Father Like Son

Steve Gilliard has another nice column, this time reflecting on the convention and its aftermath.

While the right is saying "Kerry is toast" and the faint of heart wish Howard Dean hadn't self-immolated, the fact is that Kerry stands a much better chance of winning than Clinton did in 1992. He's got money, millions of active dems working to elect him, and Karl Rove. Not to mention Bush's bad luck.

On a day which should have been covering Bush's post-convention swing, we've seen more of Jeb Bush and Hurricane Frances, then the disasterous raid on the Chechen school. Once again, events have conspired to work against Bush.

Besides, Bush's campaign has been off their game. Focusing on Vietnam, which is building into a nasty backlash for Bush. It's a quiet thing, but I think a key mistake was mocking Kerry's Purple Hearts. I think a lot of people were offended, but that could only happen when people are looking inward. The GOP is now an inward looking party.

Now, this is a disaster in the making. Bush's personality isn't enough here. With it's vulgar appeals to theocracy and it's harsh, macho rhetoric, as the media dissects it over the next week, the scale of the disaster will be seen. The GOP doesn't see it any more than the Dems saw Reagan in 1980. They ridiculed him until it was election day and then he won.

And while a lot of Dems want Kerry to lash out, he has to be careful and time his attacks right. One thing which the Dems haven't done, and have to, from the blogs to campaign talking points, is create the sense of inevitability of Bush's defeat.

People have a tendency to forget, or mistakenly lose from the equation, that the press is not yet on our side, and has not given our viewpoints equal time. There are several agendas at work. It is realy easy to be a stenographer, and who among you would not take the opportunity to slack off if given the chance to do so without retribution.

The media also feels that the trivial sells more advertising than hard news, and as corporate ownership is primarily concerned with the bottom line and secondarily concerned with the manipulation of the populous, the media will keep riding that pony. Maintaing a corporate friendly government also increases dividends. So Kerry has to be careful, and strike in ways that can not be turned around on him., I have faith in his tactical acumen.

Between the investigations and the failures in Iraq, something will break to the point that the perennially unlucky Bush will be seen as the clear loser.

The GOP no longer bothers to talk to those who don't abide by every tenent of their ideology. They even shut aside apostates like gays and pro-cnoice Republicans. Rove may think he's going to get 4m evangelical votes, but with their anti-gay agenda, besides those with other issues like Ed Koch, they're going to lose those 1m gays who voted for Bush and maybe another couple of million moderate Republican women.

As Bill Schnider said, no presidential election has ever been won by turning out your base. If Rove pulls it off, he's a genius, but personally, I think he's so far over his head he's drowning. He's never managed an incumbent's campaign before, and his inability to create a coherent defense for Bush's record is showing.

Karl will find out the hard way that it is a lot easier to swindle an electorate with a relatively unknown candidate, than one whose only virtues have been constructed with a measure of smoke, mirrors, papier mache, and bubblegum, i.e nothing of substance.
The convention seemed to degenerate into a base maintaning fusillade of red meat for the faithful, instead of the fire up the center, keep the goons in the closet affair that it was advertised to be.

Karl seems to think an energized base and a bit electoral manipulation will do the job for him. I am not confident that the party is smart enough to pull off the massive vote fraud needed without getting caught. Also I would dare anyone to come forward with a converted gore or nader voter planning on casting a ballot for bush. I have heard of far too many bush voters leaving throwing their support to kerry, or planning on not showing up.

A lot of new people who have never voted befiore, have registered with the Democratic party, and I am confident that our turnout is gonna be huge. I'll step out on a limb and suggest that 105-110 million will turn out to vote this year, and if I am correct, His Chimperial Majesty is gonna be heading back to Crawford in January. Of course, not before pulling all of the J, F, and K keys, off of the keyboards. I would not put it past president projection to fling shit at the walls of the oval office before a secret service detail drags his cry ass out of the place. Head on over there and read the rest.

[....update....]

Head on over to this fine Kos Diary and comment thread by Maryscott O' Connor which adds a few reasons to alleviate your fears. A taste follows:

Do you really believe that the virtual tie between Bush and Kerry has somehow magically evaporated due to the Republican National Convention? Somehow that 10% of registered voters, immovable from Kerry's camp for months, watched the RNC and were persuaded to vote for Bush??? Are you frigging kidding me?

I don't pretend to understand polls, outliers or otherwise. I do know that however this Time poll was conducted, it must be really messed up in some fundamental way.

The real panic seems to be about the media, as usual, and how they will bleat the news long and loud, claiming this huge bounce for Bush and calling the election two months in advance.

Go Go for the good of the city, and read the rest.

Pussillanimous Prince

Yep, were talkin about the dimwitted, dissolute, Dauphin, the Codpiece Crusader, the selectified, occupation Overlord, and his mad elocution, and oratorical talents. The only thing keeping us from the brink of disaster, in the ongoing war between good and evil, is our malapropistic majesty, King George.

Since I have a pony in this race, I am happy that a man in charge that comes from the "Leviticus trumps Jesus" brand of christian. His actions aren't hamstrung by inconvenient "love thy neighbor", "Ye without sin..." "....to the least of us" trifle. With clear conscience he can go it alone, guns ablazing, and strike at the heart of the enemy. But thats not really the subject of this humble screed, no, I want to talk about the "Ownership Society" and Opportunity Zones". I may diverge from the selected path if really juicy new policy initiatives or gross mendacitificatin' is spotted. Whoopsie daisy, here we go, a little of both:

I am running for President with a clear and positive plan to build a
safer world, and a more hopeful America. I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives. I believe this Nation wants steady, consistent, principled leadership-and that is why, with your help, we
will win this election.

Would someone please tell this man that he has been presidentin for the last 3.6 years.
And while you came to washington as a kind of tabula rasa, during your term you have been proven, neither compassionate, nor conservative. Lets see if I can get closer to the
vaunted opportunity zone. Damn, waylayed again.

This changed world can be a time of great opportunity for all
Americans to earn a better living, support your family, and have a
rewarding career. And government must take your side. Many of our most
fundamental systems-the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker
training-were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow. We will
transform these systems so that all citizens are equipped, prepared-and
thus truly free-to make your own choices and pursue your own dreams.

Ok, is it just me or does anyone else wonder if the definition of American, and citizen in bush's mind deviate from the normal definitions of these words? I am beginning to suspect that when bush uses those words, what he means is that america is kind of like a club and a Country. Wait, .... a country club. If you are not a member you aren't a real murican or citizen. That is the only way that what he said makes any sense. Lets try this again. . . . . . . . . . . . Bingo.

In this time of change, opportunity in some communities is more
distant than in others. To stand with workers in poor communities-and
those that have lost manufacturing, textile, and other jobs-we will
create American opportunity zones. In these areas, we'll provide freedom tax relief and other incentives to attract new business, and improve housing
and job training to bring hope and work throughout all of America.

When I heard this the first thing that sprang to mind was something about lebensraum and finality of solution, kind of like a No Wealthy Child Left Behind program for adults, or the obverse of a gated community. Now if this was like the American opportunity zones of post occupation Germany, I might be made sympathetic to the cause, but they way it came out of his mouth, made it sound like a new kind of Super Max Prison complex. Lets move along shall we, to the Ownership society.

In an ownership society, more people will own their health plans, and
have the confidence of owning a piece of their retirement. We will always
keep the promise of Social Security for our older workers. With the huge
Baby Boom generation approaching retirement, many of our children and
grandchildren understandably worry whether Social Security will be there
when they need it. We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger
workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account-a nest egg you
can call your own, and government can never take away.

Wow that sounds good, I have been looking forward to owning the half of the street that is in front of my house, and own my garbage collection, water treatment, electrical utility cooperative. I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the "opportunity zones" It sounds like I could have my own. I am also excited about the possibility of bidding on some ownership "helpers", to help me with the cotton I am looking forward to cultivating in my back yard. I really like the idea that I can have things that can never be taken away from me.

Now during my steadfast viewing of this convention in a changing world, I did suffer a couple of broken bones. On Teusday night the "twins" fractured my funny bone. On Wednesday, the Zellernaut, and his Imperiousness, fractured my shame bone, but Thursday all was made well again as bush went to work on my selfish bone, and when he was done I found myself renewed.

"Screw shame, screw funny, I want my goddamn money" was a chant that suddenly found its way into my head, replacing any previous skepticism and melting my fears away.

Now friends, there you have it, America, long the land of opportunity, will have more, and ownership of your own little piece of the government, now, who can argue with the selfish bone?

Clinton spooks the freepers , Wolcott weighs in, Digby on Drum

I was gonna put this up last night, but figured y'all would like to read it there first. As with Town Hall, CNN is something that could damage my beautiful mind. And unless you just crawled out from underneath your rock, you are probably aware that Bill Clinton is soon to go under the knife for arterial bypass surgery. The usual suspects, saw conspiracy. A new and welcome addition to the 'sphere, found parody. Our good friend Digby was watching a little CNN (so I didn't have to, the BM ya know).

*Sigh*

CNN is implying that Clinton must have covered up his health problems while he was in office.

Now, passing out eating pretzels and falling flat on your face several times while in office certainly doesn't merit such scrutiny. I'm awfully glad they aren't doing that.


On other hand, Tweety just said the race is over, so I'm going down to the beach.

Good to see that CNN is still up in the grill of power, unafraid to demonstrate that the Whoreth estate is still good for a walk around the block. I think this retroactive speculatude is a fine thing, and I am sure that the Whoreth estate will get on about the pretztel thingy in, I don't know, 5 or 6 years. Next we'll enjoy a bit of snark from the welcome new addition, James Wolcott's Blog.

With the transparent, calculating cynicism that marked his two terms in office, Bill Clinton chose to burglarize the majesty of President Bush's Churchillian convention address by conveniently entering the hospital for heart surgery. Unable to yield the spotlight, Clinton clutched his chest like Fred Sanford and called 911 in a desperate bid to deny Bush the "big mo" he was beginning to enjoy after addressing the nation last night from a mound of skulls at Madison Square Garden, each skull beautifully handcrafted by Thai sweatshop workers

Now that's just crafty, snarky, bloggy doupleplus goodness.

Now I used to spend a fair amount of time at Keven Drums old place, but grew tired of the troll infestation and his occasionally awkward lurches to the center. Digby examines a fine example of this annoying (to me at least) tendancy. From Digby, Drum starts off the party:

It's fine to hammer away on domestic issues with specific target groups. It's fine for John Edwards to focus on the two Americas. But anyone who thinks the primary message of Kerry's campaign should be anything other than national security is just deluding themselves. To paraphrase James Carville, "It's 9/11, stupid."

In fact, it's a no-brainer: somehow Kerry has to convince people that he can be trusted with national security and Bush can't and if he doesn't, he's going to lose. But I guess he still doesn't get that.

I'm finally beginning to think Mickey Kaus might be right: Kerry has spent too much time inside the liberal cocoon. It's going to cost him the election if he keeps it up.

I think that's a bit premature since nobody's seen the ads yet. It may be 9/11, stupid, but in my view, there is no reason that a harshly negative fear campaign cannot be waged using economic issues as one of the symbols of Bush's frightening recklessness.(If the ads are bunch of namby-pamby,kumbaya nonsense with Kerry and adorable children, then I'm discouraged too.)

The fact is that war (not 9/11 particularly, although Bush would like that) is the subtext of the entire campaign no matter what we actually say. All criticism, all negative ads all harsh rhetoric plays to insecurity about Bush's leadership --- and leadership is defined at this moment in history as wartime leadership.

[....]

As Kevin said, if we are going to wage a campaign of fear, it's got to be believable and Bush as some kind of scheming warmonger who wants to blow up the world is not believable. What is believable is Bush driving the ship of state into an iceberg because he's reckless and out of control.

To make that case, I think it's perfectly reasonable to use economic issues as well as national security issues to illustrate that point. At the end of the day, if the message is that Bush is a dangerous man for the health of this nation, it doesn't really matter what the subject is. People will make the association with national security all by themselves.

Where I get my Town Hall

For those of you who are unaware, Town Hall is an online dispensary of right wing political expression. And like Bar, the mother in chief, I just cant have my beautiful mind sullied by the goings ons and writings of among others, the virgin Ben, my favorite pony Michelle Malkin, the comedy stylings of Marvin Olasky (I'm a twice born, but before I was more godly than Kerry, I was a sinning, {let me tell you what...}, fanatical, authoritarian left wing looneytoons hack), the imperial meanderings of Brent Bozzell, the agitprop of Dennis Prager.

Hell we might as well go through the whole list. I am sure that you are familier with a certain, batshit crazy, madams apple possessitatin', is that a gun in your pants or are you just happy to see me Ann Coulter, the master of sin detection (sin is bad but it makes me feel funny in the pantal area) Mike Adams, spawn of the slanderous loins of Lucianne, Jonah Goldberg, Walter, i never met a billionaire I did not like, Williams, and finally, the inimatable,I recently met a profiling scheme and recognised that white people were not excluded therefor I don't like it, Gary Aldrich.

You see, like the mother in chief, my mind is a beautiful thing, hell I thought I'd finally hit the big time when I heard they were making a movie called "A Beautiful Mind", and was devistated to find out that it was based not on me, but some crazy Nobel winnin' guy. So you can see why I can't be bothered with the exposure to the right wing vitriolic volcano, that is the town hall and why I let my good pal (insert name of site author here) over at World O' Crap, whose mind is made of sterner stuff than mine, do the heavy lifting. Lets just enjoy a sample of the fine work from our friend at WOC.

Ben Shapiro

If your friends and family members are sinners, you should stone them to death, so as "to preserve traditional values."

Last Sunday, I picked up a copy of Boston Magazine while sitting in the green room at the Fox News studios in Watertown, Mass. Leafing through the publication, I came across an article titled "Confessions of an Ivy League Callgirl," written by Jeannette Angell, a university lecturer with a master's degree from Yale. The fact that she was a Yalie caught my eye -- as a Harvard Law student, I've already adopted our communal animosities -- and so I read the piece.

Yeah, it was the fact that the sex worker was from the rival school that caused Ben to read this article. Otherwise, he would have no interest in her confessions -- or in any other steamy, erotic stories of illicit passion that might drop into his lap (so to speak). See, Ben is a Harvard Law student who often sits in the Fox News green room, and so his continuing interest in internet porn, naughty movies, collegiate hookers, etc., is only because Yalies might be involved in such things.

You see its the kind of dedication, to sift through the sewage, and find the snarkables, that would destroy this beautiful mind, And I thank our friend for that, I really do.

McCain comes clean on Iraq

Not that this should be a suprise, as I am sure it was part of the plan all along, but McCain, has stated that we will probably be in Iraq for the next decade or two. From Bob Herbert's latest via my pal Rorschach. It would have been nice if this had been on the table when they started selling this fiasco.

When asked this week on CNN how long the U.S. military is likely to remain in Iraq, Senator John McCain replied "probably" 10 or 20 years. "That's not so bad," he said, adding, "We've been in Korea for 50 years. We've been in West Germany for 50 years."

Reporters have come to expect candor from Senator McCain, and in this case he didn't disappoint. But there weren't any speakers mounting the podium at the Republican National Convention to hammer home the message that G.I.'s would be in Iraq for a decade or two.

That's not the understanding most Americans had when this wretched war was sold to them, and it's not the view most Americans hold now.

If Senator McCain is correct (and the belief in official Washington is that he is), then boys and girls who are 5 or 10 years old now will get their chance in 2015 or 2020 to strap on the Kevlar and engage the Iraqi "insurgents" who, like the indigenous forces we fought in Vietnam, will never accept the occupation of their country by America.

Marcina Hale, a protester who came to New York this week from suburban Westport, Conn., said she has two teenage boys and that Iraq "is not a war that I'm willing to send my sons to." As the years pass and the casualties mount, that sentiment will only grow.

The truth is always the first casualty of politics. But there was a bigger disconnect than usual between the bizarre, hermetically sealed perspective that was on display in Madison Square Garden this week and the daunting events unfolding without respite in the real world.

The world is on fire and Bush is using the only available firehose to fill up his 40 acre fishin' hole.

Military Disenfranchisement Ballot box Activities

Apparently if you are a soldier and want to cast a vote you have 2 not so secure options, Fax and E-mail. After watching Nueremberg on the Hudson this week, I guess Rove has chosen to phone in the election this year. Another stake in the heart of the democratic process, from the NYT.

Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately.

The Defense Department is encouraging soldiers to use absentee ballots or fax votes directly to local officials, when possible. But it also provides an alternative: Omega Technologies, a private contractor, will accept soldiers' faxed and e-mailed ballots on a toll-free line, and then send them to the appropriate local elections office. Handling ballots is always sensitive, but especially so when, as in this program, they are not secret. An obvious concern is that votes for a particular candidate could be reported lost in transit, or altered.

Omega Technologies is not an acceptable choice to run the program. Its chief executive, Patricia Williams, has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and serves on the committee's Business Advisory Council. And while everything about the conduct of elections should be open to public scrutiny, Omega is far too secretive. In an interview, Ms. Williams refused to say who would handle military votes, and whether they could engage in partisan politics. "I will not allow the public to invade the privacy of the employees of Omega," she said.

Wow, this is just another in a long train of ballot tampering activities, and frankly the only reason I am nervous about the election. If we had a fair voting process, President Gore would be leading, whatever lipsticked pig the publicans would have nominated, by a large margin. If we had a fair election this year, Kerry wins running away. This is truly disgusting, and I would presume that Kerry will be addressing this. Whether the press will bother to report on this and other disenfranchisement activities, we can only hope.

The Defense Department has taken a "trust us" attitude. Soldiers have to trust that military higher-ups will not try to learn their political choices and hold it against them, and that local elections officials at home will not reveal those choices. The voters have to trust that no one at the contractor or the Pentagon will make errors, or intentionally alter ballots. In a democracy, matters like these should not have to be taken on faith.

Welcome to the Henhouse, Fox, if you need anything just let us know. Wow I did not know that we had evolved into a Faith Based Representative Republic. Yeehhaa.

Democracy on steroids.

There are many accounts of NYPD roundups of peaceful protestors. Indy Media has been all over it from the start. Daily Kos commenter SteveW was released after spending at least 28 hours in the famous pier 57 holding pens. From indy media a picture of the cattle pen.



We should hang our heads in shame.

[.....update.....]

From another page at indymedia comes this description of the arrests and conditions.

A State Supreme Court judge today ordered the city to release hundreds of people who had spent as many as 48 hours or more in jail and found the city in contempt of court after it failed to comply. Most of the people had been swept up in mass arrests on Tuesday, August 31, the day of nonviolent direct action to confront the Republican National Convention. Many claimed they were bystanders not connected to any protest. The drama of the detentions unfolded in and around 100 Centre St., and heightened when the National Lawyers Guild filed a writ of habeus corpus late Wednesday evening demanding that the detainees be brought before a judge and formally charged. The more than 1100 people arrested on Tuesday had already been held at that point for more than 24 hours without being arraigned, informed of their rights, given access to an attorney, provided medical attention, or given access to adequate food, water, or sleeping facilities.

All the detainees had passed through the ad hoc detention center at pier 57 [ photos: inside | outside ] where they had to sleep on a floor slick with motor oil and other toxic residue. Numerous detainees complained of infections, rashes, and chemical burns. By Wednesday night, the detainees had become fed up with their treatment and began to refuse food.

When you indescriminately round up people whats the big deal if a few innocent bystanders get swept up in the driftnets of the police state. I mean you got to break a coupla eggs if you want an omelet.

Cole hits one deep

Cole posits a look at Bush as the CEO of AmeriCorp, and comes to the conclusion that the shareholders should throw him out on his keester.

What if the CEO convinced himself that the Mesopotamia Corp. was planning a hostile takeover? What if he had appointed a lot of senior vice-presidents who were either incompetent boobs or had some kind of backroom deal going with crooked brokers, and fed him false information that Mesopotamia Corp. was making a move and had amassed a big war chest for the purpose? And what if, to avoid this imaginary threat, he launched a preemptive hostile takeover of his own, spending at least $200 billion to accomplish it (on top of the more than $400 billion he is already losing every year)? Remember, it was a useless expenditure.

It turns out that Mesopotamia Corp. was a creaky old dinosaur with no cash reserves, and couldn't have launched a hostile takeover of the neighborhood mom and pop store. And, moreover, its arena of operations is extremely dangerous, and nearly a thousand America, Inc. workers get killed taking it over. And it turns out that the managers that the CEO put into Mesopotamia Corp. were bunglers. They adopted policies that made the taken-over employees bitter and sullen and uncooperative. Instead of standing on its own, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mesopotamia, Inc., requires continued infusion of capital from America, Inc. It looks increasingly as though Mesopotamia, Inc., will have to be let loose, and that its new managers will opt for interest-free Islamic banking as soon as they can.

Meanwhile, the real threat of a hostile takeover comes from al-Qaeda, Inc. Because 138,000 employees had to be assigned to Mesopotamia, Inc., there are few left to meet that challenge.

So given this kind of record, do you vote this CEO back in? It is often said that a lot of Americans want to stick with Bush to "see Iraq through." But if you think about him as a CEO, and look at how well he has run things, you can see the idiocy of this argument. The real question is, do you throw good money after bad?

I am convinced that his slavering supporters would still back their horse fearing pony, if he was caught red handed fucking a goat in the oval office with another man's cock in his mouth. The press would probably report it as "Goat related malfunction activities" Thank god there are not enough of these idiots around to re-elect the bastard fruit of Bar.

Holy Shit

Suprise suprise

Young republi-can support the war. Young republi-cant be involved in fighting it. Oh to be young and selfish again. Here is the future of republican patriotude. Thanks to SteveM for the heads up.

Young Republicans support Iraq war, but not all are willing to join the fight

By Adam Smeltz

Knight Ridder Newspapers

NEW YORK - Young Republicans gathered here for their party's national convention are united in applauding the war in Iraq, supporting the U.S. troops there and calling the U.S. mission a noble cause.

But there's no such unanimity when they're asked a more personal question: Would you be willing to put on the uniform and go to fight in Iraq?

In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans in their teens and 20s offered a range of answers. Some have friends in the military in Iraq and are considering enlisting; others said they can better support the war by working politically in the United States; and still others said they think the military doesn't need them because the U.S. presence in Iraq is sufficient.

"Frankly, I want to be a politician. I'd like to survive to see that," said Vivian Lee, 17, a war supporter visiting the convention from Los Angeles,

Lee said she supports the war but would volunteer only if the United States faced a dire troop shortage or "if there's another Sept. 11."

Watch out what you wish for Viv. But it is nice that you realize that a combat zone is not so safe, and even better that because of the proud example set by dear leader and the mighty band of chickenhawks, that military service has become irrelevant to the furtherance of a political career. Now Viv, I am sure that you are well connected and will convenienlty be issued a high draft number when the draft is reinstated by executive order the minute your man takes office. Allright, do we have any budding Tom Delays in the group?

"As long as there's a steady stream of volunteers, I don't see why I necessarily should volunteer," said Lee, who has a cousin deployed in the Middle East.

Yes our friend Viv is happy that all those patriotic poor and minorities keep streaming into the military, so really there's no point. Ding ding Delay...

"If there was a need presented, I would go," said Chris Cusmano, a 21-year-old member of the College Republicans organization from Rocky Point, N.Y. But he said he hasn't really considered volunteering.

Credit Chris with "at least on paper" showing up if called. No fancy flights to Canada for this patriot. Lets look at some of the other reasons presented by the junior chickenhawk brigade.

"I physically probably couldn't do a whole lot" in Iraq, said Tiffanee Hokel, 18, of Webster City, Iowa, who called the war a moral imperative. She knows people posted in Iraq, but she didn't flinch when asked why she wouldn't go.

"I think I could do more here," Hokel said, adding that she's focusing on political action that supports the war and the troops.

"We don't have to be there physically to fight it," she said.

Similarly, 20-year-old Jeff Shafer, a University of Pennsylvania student, said vital work needs to be done in the United States. There are Republican policies to maintain and protect and an economy to sustain, Shafer said.

Party first, Country second. Support the war first, the troops second. could someone get a call out to the priority police. This is patriotism at its finest hour. The pride that these young Cowards Patriots have for their Country Party is nothing short of inspirational. There are republican policies to maintain and protect afterall, why should young and talented kids get dirty fighting terrorists in Freedoms great Flypaper
zone, when they can work to support the party. One people, One party, One Leader.