100 monkeys typing.

This just in.....

Christian Exodus. Okay. There is IGNORANT and then there is THIS SHIT. WTF?! Live and let live. Certainly. I don’t give a shit if you speak in tongues and handle snakes at your little Bible meetings. It doesn’t bother me if you roll on the floor when overtaken by the Holy Spirit. Hell, you want to swim in a tub with your pastor and call it a baptism? KNOCK YOURSELF OUT CLETUS! It’s your right to do so. But check this out: There are OTHER RELIGIONS BESIDES CHRISTIANITY! Yea, how ‘bout that? Stop living your life in FEAR of anything different from you and you might learn something. Holy First Amendment, Batman! This level of fear is tragic. TRAGIC I say. Tragic and painfully stupid. AND they’re giving Christianity a bad name to boot. You know the kind where you practice kindness and love and that whole do unto others thing? The kind that JESUS practiced? This fear-mongering, hate-filled, smite thee if you disagree BULLSHIT, is NOT Christianity! It’s a motherf*cking CULT. It’s Jim Jones and David Koresh and Charles Manson on a grand scale. And most of all it’s just plain ole, garden variety INSANE. That’s right, bats in the belfry, chink in the armor, suffering from marble deficiency, a few clowns short of a circus, one putt short of a par, a few fries short of a Happy Meal - INSANE. And it doesn’t surprise me (oh how I wish it did) that it was founded in Texas. What are these people SO AFRAID OF? How is it that they have allowed FEAR to rule their lives so completely?

Upon visiting some of my fave blogs, I see that this subject is like an airborne virus. It's everywhere! Oh sure, we've been battling the religious right for a while now, so nothing new there. But check it out. This is currently THE hot subject amongst bloggers! Blondesense's coverage of "The Reverends on Meet the Press" is a must read. (Be sure to read both Parts I and II.) Then check out the Rude Pundit's latest entry, "Christ Weary."

R.I.P.

Pierre Berton. Let's see George Will providing this sort of relevant information when he's 84.

Trippin' the Blog Fantastic!

Blue Islands, Red Seas. More on what the editors over at Stranger.com identified as the Urban Archipelago. Whatever we want to call it, the truth is “the real great divide in American politics is not between red and blue states, but between urban and rural voters.” And then there’s this. Like I’ve been saying folks, Dems need only tend to and grow their base – urban areas. We capture the votes of the cities, we don’t need the ‘burbs or rural areas. Concentrating on the urban vote is all a democratic candidate needs to do in order to win in 2008.

“They hate our policies, not our freedom.” Not that the facts will suddenly, miraculously become relevant to BushCo but JESUS, MARY & JOSEPH! So okay, this Federal advisory committee (the Defense Science Board) provides independent advice to the Secretary of Defense. What did they find? (1) The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have united otherwise-divided Muslim extremists and given terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda a boost by "raising their stature." (2) The US has not only failed to separate "the vast majority of nonviolent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists," but American efforts may have "achieved the opposite of what they intended." (3) The board calls for "an overhaul of public diplomacy, public affairs and information dissemination efforts by the Pentagon and State Department." QUELLE SUPRISE! No WONDER the Pentagon “quietly” released this report in the late afternoon last Wednesday right before the start of an extended national holiday. Jesus H. Christ! The level of incompetence exhibited by BushCo is absolutely mind boggling. A couple of ten-year-olds playing RISK could do better!

More “My God’s Dick is bigger than Your God’s Dick.” Ah yes. More bilge spewing forth from the mouth-breathers. Have these morons NO education? How about HISTORY? Were they never even required to read AMERICAN history? I mean, it’s relatively short so one would assume that they would’ve at LEAST made it through the history of the GODDAMN country where they actually reside, no? Hell, I received a public school education in back-asswards MISSISSIPPI and even I studied the United States Constitution. The level of fear displayed by these Christian fundamentalists is so completely removed from reality it’s astonishing. It definitely exposes an inordinate amount of highly effective programming. It’s the very reason they are SUCH an easy mark for the Repugs.

Well THIS should really piss them off. The US Supreme Court rejected without comment a challenge by conservative groups to the legality of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, the only US state allowing such unions. That’s right you pompous bigoted hypocrits. “The Gays” can marry in Mass! Even “Sam from Nebraska” thinks it’s okay. Deal with it.

Paralyzed woman walks again after stem cell therapy. A South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. Yup, that thar science kin come in real handy-like, cain’t it? Whee doggie!

Showdown over medical marajuana. Okay conservative justices. ROCK >> YOU << HARD PLACE. Will conservative justices support federalism even when it means upholding a liberal marijuana-use law that they would probably never otherwise endorse? Stay tuned for more scintillating discourse on the subject!

The war in Iraq has made moral cowards of us all. Scott Ritter, senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998 asks, “More than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed - and where is our shame and rage”? Indeed. I’ve been asking myself that very same question daily since November 3rd.

Warren Burger with Cheese, please

QOTD

"We're selling attention," Carpenter said. "You kind of feel like Cinderella until the Glo runs out."

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I've said that...

More News with Less Reverence

* Dear underpaid Red State voter, they're your taxes, you should know how they're being manipulated. Wasn't it Bush who said, "It's your money". Remind him.

* The dominant paradigm is wrong. Forget everything you've heard. Unlearn the learnin'. The Defense Department has determined Muslim's hate our policies not our low price bacon, trash TV, penchant for styrofoam and the overwhelming need to express our "freedom through dicksizing.

* My Eyes! My Eyes! Oh the pain! The hor...ror. Will Volume One, Edition Two have "Eagles Soar" on it? On the upside, he did make us safer and has booked Rapmaster Ridge on the Clue Train ride outta DC.

* Suzanne Fields this week, takes time out of her vastly crowded schedule to provide a public service for all the red-staters. She reviews "Desperate Housewives" and determines what's really missing from her own life, besides desperation and a wife... the answer to the question 'what do women want'.

* Isn't this supposed to be 4-8 year progression when you're *in* office?

* The best defense is a strong offense. We should give these guys millions of dollars a month and an open credit line with our defense contractors.

Sustenance for Consideration

* Absolutely fascinating that after centuries of intellectual growth, there are still those who hold firmly to the belief system that the world was created by an unseen god within a non-standard work week. Passed on as truth to us, by people who believed in slaughtering lambs to ensure a good crop and talking burning bushes. Maybe, just maybe, this creator wanted us to discover carbon dating for a reason. Maybe we were meant to figure out the keys to evolution and to learn from the lesson of survival of the fittest to become, in fact, the fittest. Maybe? Why does Moses' interpretation carry more weight for some than a modern day paleontologist? This is the guy who led an entire nation of people in circles in the desert for forty years and made them eat crushed gold dust when he got pissed off. It's fine to want to base a dogma off a guy like this, it's another thing to use it as the cornerstone of science.

Although I can't wait to see two Meadowlark Lemons

There's a fine line between "So bad that's it's unwatchable" and "So bad that you can't take your eyes off it".

I've got a bad feeling that The Real Gilligan's Island might be from column A. It's a reality show consisting of two teams based on the familar cast -- two Gilligans, two Skippers too, two millionaires and his wifes, two movie stars, two Professors and two Mary Annes, there on Gilligan's Isle. And they do stunts based on plots from the original TV show.

It's not clear whether they earn points for having the Professor successfully create a tachyon emitter from a conch shell and a coconut, or if they earn points from having Gilligan screw everything up at the end.

I don't think my liver could handle the amount of alcohol necessary to make watching this seem worthwhile.

All my heroes are cowboys

Rolling Stone asked seven retired military leaders what has gone wrong in Iraq.

Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak
Air Force chief of staff, 1990-94
The people in control in the Pentagon and the White House live in a fantasy world.

Adm. Stansfield Turner
NATO Allied commander for Southern Europe, 1975-77; CIA director, 1977-81
Iraq is a failure of monumental proportions.

Lt. Gen. William Odom
Director of the National Security Agency, 1985-88
It's a huge strategic disaster, and it will only get worse.

Gen. Anthony Zinni
Commander in chief of the United States Central Command, 1997-2000
But the military was unprepared for the aftermath. Rumsfeld and others thought we would be greeted with roses and flowers.

Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy
Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, 1997-2000
Iraq is a blood bath, and we need to be dealing with this in a much more sophisticated way than the cowboy named Bush.

Gen. Wesley Clark
NATO supreme Allied commander for Europe, 1997-2000
But let's ask this question: Have you seen an American strategic blunder this large? The answer is: not in fifty years.

Adm. William Crowe
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-89
We screwed up.

Read the whole thing.

(via)

Sir? I could take my traveller's checks to a competing resort

Tragedy reveals itself as farce in Zimbabwe:

Zimbabwe has come up with a bizarre proposal to solve the food crisis threatening half its population with starvation. It wants to bring in obese tourists from overseas so that they can shed pounds doing manual labour on land seized from white farmers. The so-called Obesity Tourism Strategy was reported last week in The Herald, a government organ whose contents are approved by President Robert Mugabe’s powerful information minister, Jonathan Moyo. Pointing out that more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are officially deemed to be overweight, the article exhorted Zimbabweans to “tap this potential”. “Tourists can provide labour for farms in the hope of shedding weight while enjoying the tourism experience,” it said, adding that Americans spent $6 billion a year on “useless” dieting aids. “Tour organisers may promote this programme internationally and bring in tourists, while agriculturalists can employ the tourists as free farm labour. The tourists can then top it all by flaunting their slim bodies on a sun-downer cruise on the Zambezi or surveying the majestic Great Zimbabwe ruins.”

Sounds pretty great, eh? Fly to Zimbabwe, try to find a farm that hasn't been turned into a moonscape by President Mugabe's hideous "land reforms", work there for free, and then show off your buff new bod on a luxurious cruise up the beautiful Zambezi river.

The article uses this anecdote as a hook on which to hang an observation about Robert Mugabe's continuing detachment from reality, and from there it's the same old miserable story about how a nominal policy of restitution for Rhodesian excess turned into a welfare program for the politically-connected and misery and destitution for everyone else.

Apparently, one-third of the population has fled the country.

As Tim Burke points out, there are legitimate questions about land reform in Africa that need to be confronted, but Mugabe's shenanigans make the answers to these questions even more remote.

Awful, awful, awful.

(via)

Myopic Muse

* Liberalism rampant on college campuses. News flash from George Will. OMG, can you believe it? You mean liberals are the only ones willing to suck it up and live on an academic salary, rejecting a cushy job at some think tank or spending weekends posing as a baseball loving curmudgeon? The horror. With these ratios it's amazing anyone graduates with as much free thought intact as the virgin Ben.

* Please don't lump all liberals into the victim column. Some of us are proud, vocal and very active. The navel gazing will end when the unexpected bat of reality smacks the distracted.

* Gay sharks angered over the recent negative portrayal of them in the movie "Shark's Tale". Cinematic liberties have caused a once counted on faction of the liberals to consider a switch with the Log Cabin Republicans after feeling that Hollywood no longer accepts them as they are. Beats being the gay daughter of a fundie.

* When asked, the troops responded with a resounding "hell yes!" whether they thought there should be less troops in Iraq. When informed there would be a troop removal lottery task force created by the hawks who put them there in the first place, their excitement diminished somewhat. After analyzing the 10 to 1 ratio of troops to insurgents and the success of that approach, the neo-cons have decided that the best way to combat the uprising is from town to town using the same troops. Nothing beats first hand experience.

* For the right minded in your life who has everything. A couple of gift ideas for the holiday. For the cowboy, there's this and for the closeted, there's this.

* Ah, to be able to have family dialogue that could even reach this level of discourse.

Dirty Harry Goes To Church

Dougie Hits One Out of the Park

Can you imagine Dirty Harry Callahan attending a highly effeminized church?

Dirty Harry is a rough, butt-kicking character portrayed on the movie screen by Clint Eastwood, an accomplished man and a noted actor and director. Envision Callahan pulling into the parking lot in a black Range Rover amidst a sea of minivans and station wagons.

Oh, the horror, all these ghastly parishioners who can't afford a $45K+ gas guzzler. Pussies.

.... continued after the jump.

Hesitantly, Harry gets out of his ride, straightens his Ray Bans, adjusts his jacket and begins the testosterone death march to the front door of the “sanctuary.”

Or as Doug refers to it, the 2nd floor Royal Palm Ballroom.  

Ascending the steps toward the entrance of the church, fourteen women and one man greet Harry. The male greeter he’s forced to interface with is the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to have as your young son’s babysitter. I’m talking a Mango meets Dom De Luise amalgam.

The kind of guy one would see at a church who's mascot is the ass-end of a fleeing lion.

(...)

Moving past the “greeter,” Callahan is then hit with more contrived hugs than he would face at a Stuart Smalley-run support group. Attempting to avoid this barrage of groping, flabby, clutching arms belonging to people he doesn't know, but now is expected immediately to embrace, he tries to fade from view and take refuge against the wall. Unfortunately for him, he cannot hide because the floral arrangements in the narthex are so profuse that they make an FTD warehouse look like the Mojave Desert. With no other recourse, Harry frantically begins to move two big sprays and one gaudy wreath in a worried attempt to carve out a refuge from this molestation.

The only thing that makes Dirty Harry cringe and become the angry, yet powerless wallflower of yesteryear is a obese sweating cow, hugging in the name of Christ.

Finally, out of reach and trying hard to avoid eye contact with anyone, Harry starts whistling and locks his gaze on the artwork. On his right are six matching prints of fat baby angels in various Little Rascal poses; they look like they have a good buzz going from their mommy’s milk, laced as it is with Diet Coke and Xanax. Book-ending the baby angel prints are two Precious Moments posters: one shows Christ holding a bunny rabbit, and the other one shows Christ skipping while carrying a lamb. On Dirty Harry’s left are three pieces of art which depict Jesus, Peter and John the Baptist, all in aggravated states of angst, looking more like soft-focused and melancholic Victorian women than the men they were: masculine revolutionaries, heralds of truth, and rough pioneers of the greatest story ever told.

Forgetting completely that Dirty Harry is a character, played by an "artiste", Doug dives into the character's repulsion to the church's choice of artistic representation of stories intepreted by man and drawn by 'art fags'. Mr. Harry, in a fit of reality pulls out his Sharpie(tm) and colors in the skin tone to be more reflective of the region.

Finally it is go time. The service is begins.

Harry strides into the mauve and cream sanctuary, taking his seat amidst a crowd that is made up of 80% women, 1% masculine men and 19% quasi-males.

Dirty feels both underdressed and horny. Having not been surrounded by this much poontang since that hooker bust in '82, his testosterone was running unmodulated in high gear.

The music starts.

It is aphoristic, predictable and cliché-riddled. It is subjective, reflective, emotional and a bit erotic, with Jesus being sung to as “my lover.” After two hours of three chords and four songs, the worship leader commands the congregation to turn around and ... yep … here it goes again ... hug three people and tell them “you love them with the love of the Lord.”

Harry, being more of a Old Testament type who prefers the Lord's commandment to slay those who offend you, reaches for his trusty sidearm.

Harry can’t take it anymore.

He makes a quick strategic exit before he hurls on the pews because of the over-the-top, saccharine-laced liturgy.

After decompressing for several minutes and firing up a Montecristo #2 in the parking lot, Harry begins to process this little experience. He does the math and comes to this conclusion: if I convert to this sort of Christianity, then I must sacrifice not only my sins but my God-given innate masculine traits with which Jehovah naturally and rightly equipped me.

Mr. Dirty, having realized he was just run out of a building by metrosexuals and missies, places the barrel of his one-and-only love in his mouth, wraps his aged and lined, but no less pouty lips around the cold steel and immediately stains the interior of his Range Rover forever.

(blah blah blah......)

My ClashPoint is this: for all you Dirty Harry’s out there who have been rightly turned off by the girlie man culture of the pre-9/11 Church, you might want to re-visit the house of God. There have been some changes. Sure, there are still churches which are run by and appeal to soft, pudgy indoor boys who want to sit out on life, but many … many … houses of worship are realizing that difficult times demand change, and one area where the Church needs a change more than a 1-year-old baby who accidentally got into the ExLax is in relation to its feckless effeminate culture. Sure, there still are moronic malleable ministers who will forever be products of public opinion and perpetuate spineless spirituality. However, many pastors have realized that the Church and the nation need strong men in times of crisis.

Yay, Jesus! Manly men, putting the umph back in the pew.

(...)

With men returning to the Church and being welcomed for who they are and what they bring to the table, the lunatic left should expect to see their values and vices curbed and their policies opposed. With the Dirty Harry-like prophet, patriarch, warrior and wild man returning to the house of God, we can expect to see, once again, righteousness exalted in this nation and weirdness effectively mitigated.

Righteousness, spurred on through the increase in XY chromosomes marching as to war, with the cross of iconography... Remember folks, God's looking for a few good men. He's not happy with the ones he has.

It was a dark and stormy night

Family Values reveals its heaving bosom:

Esther gave a quick nod, and while Sophie sat down, the girl went to the mantelpiece and began rearranging things on it. Soon she moved to the floor, where she began making a pattern with objects from the mantelpiece. She was sitting with her legs bent in inverted V's, and when she leaned back on her arms to consider her arrangement, Sophie saw that the front of her dress strained slightly. Her breasts were growing, and Sophie wondered if she had begun to menstruate yet.

Lynne Cheney's "Sisters", lovingly typed and posted on the internets for the one-handed reading pleasure of conservatarians everywhere.

cirrhosis of the congress

Catching Up

* Breed, people! Get out there and make some babies you selfish twits. If you don't start reproducing we're going to have to start legislating birth control.

* Ironic how the US government is convinced there was voter fraud in the Ukraine but conviced everything here was on the up and up.

* Bush, working out a plan to rally the Democrats around his pre-emptive cause, hints at blowing up the Clinton library with a sub.

* Another frustrated Democrat willing to duke it out. via, a reader.

* Fallujah, first hand accounts vs. analysis. Seems no matter how you slice it, people are dead, houses turned to rubble and we're still at war.

* The filibuster, it's not a risk... it's just doin' bidness.

* In the "I know you are but what am I?" category this week, John Leo pretends only Democrats say "over the top" comments... anyone wanna pull up some Dobson or Falwell archives?

* All your news.

Holiday Cheer

* Late, but not too late, the best Thanksgiving Prayer, ever.

Brand Democrat

A narcisist is somebody who doesn't talk about me

Shorter Leah McLaren: I know you are but what am I?

Same Nightmare. Different Day.

What a couple of Jackasses. First, Not-My-Preznit - SHRUB - displaying his usual ignorant-ass behavior at an event honoring a truly great leader and President, Bill Clinton. When the presidents were announced, Bush tried to push his way past Clinton at the library door to be first in line, against the already accepted protocol for the event, as though the walk to the platform was a contest for alpha male. Second, this douche bag. Mr. “I change Constitutions, I put churches in schools….” demonstrating his irrepressible charm. Dopey and Grumpy, just a couple of dwarves overcompensating for their tiny penises.

Our Moral Values. More from George Lakoff, author of the best-selling Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. “If we communicate our values clearly, most people will recognize them as more deeply American than those put forth by conservatives.” Let’s hear it for 55 million highly moral, patriotic Americans! HELL YEA!

Living in Sin. The Plaid Adder from November 17th. I’m a little behind in my reading because, well, I have a LIFE, but this one is worth checking out.

The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup. This was posted in THE NATION online November 16th. I know, I know! See above item for explanation of dated-by-internet-standards material included in this post. BTW, The Peter Principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". There has never been a better example of the highest levels of bureaucracy being filled by the most incompetent, than the G.Dub Administration. Period.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF over at THE NEW YORK TIMES has a bet for Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, co-authors of the (No Bigoted-Homophobic-Right-Wing-Fundamentalist-Bible-Thumping-Fear-Mongering-Radical-Christian-Asswipe) LEFT BEHIND series. “This isn’t religion. This is brand management.” Hey Dudes, in case of Rapture, can I have your car?

Another Reason to Boycott Proctor & Gamble. Mark Morford, my fave columnist at the SF Gate, on The Rule of Gluttony and ScentStories. Saturation has been reached. Every new household product is now just a silly mutation, a gross plasticized landfill-clogging exaggeration of something simple and functional that came before, brooms to blenders to bread machines to the Swiffer WetJet to Scrubbing Bubbles™ Fresh Brush™ Toilet Cleaning System. You're choking on it.

The Bush Survival Bible. Sounds like it might be helpful and barring that, at least entertaining.

And I'll close with a few great quotes about War.

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read. -- Karl Kraus

To die for an idea is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true? -- H.L. Mencken

There are no warlike peoples -- just warlike leaders. -- Ralph Bunche

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. -- Jeannette Rankin

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx

In which we learn the true meaning of Thanksgiving

It's Friday, and that means that America's Worst Mother™ has another banal anecdote about herself and her delightful children: Xanth, Astrid, Phen-Fen, and Auxerre. Today, Meghan realizes that it's her responsibility to have that Special Talk with her kids, the talk that parents always dread because it signals the end of innocence. It's the lesson where the parent awkwardly gives a vague, highly technical explanation about how things work, hoping to God that the child won't ask any embarrassing questions, or indeed, any questions at all. I think you know what I'm getting at here. Meghan has to explain Where The Thanksgiving Turkey Comes From.

Now obviously, Meghan's first choice would be to pawn this job off on America's Worst Father™, but it seems that Papa Gurdon has had to work late a lot ever since he got that new secretary. So he's nowhere to be found. A godless liberal parent would just let her kids learn the facts of the matter on the schoolyard, as generations of children have done. But Meghan is a above that. She writes for National Review, so she must do the honorable thing: She takes her kids to the library.

"Now, children," says the D.C. public librarian, peering over her glasses and looking around at the crowd of cross-legged children arrayed at her feet. "What do we think of, when we think of Thanksgiving?" A large gold broach glints on her chest. The radiators are blasting, the children have stripped off their sweaters, and we chaperones and teachers are loosening our collars.

A little forest of arms shoots up. "Turkey!"

So far, so good. But what Meghan forgot to account for is that this is a DC library, and that means that the librarian is a Democrat, and that means that she's a hippy, and that means that she's a vegan, and that means that she will not be giving the conservatively-correct Thanksgiving lesson that Meghan had planned on.

"That's right," affirms the librarian. She adjusts her glasses and holds up a book. "Now we are going to read a story about Thanksgiving. It is called: 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.'"

Xanth climbs on my lap and covertly starts sucking her thumb. Phen-Fen keels over on a cushion in front of us and slips two fingers in her mouth. I think briefly of orthodontics and that joke about yachts, and leave them alone.

Google offers no relevant answers for "orthodontics and that joke about yachts" and if Meghan was thinking about the top hit for "yacht jokes" when she was looking at her daughter lying on a cushion, somebody had better call the cops.

"'Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and all through the trees…" the librarian begins, slowly unfurling out a story about a group of children who are taken to a farm to meet menacing farmer Mack Nuggett

Mack Nugget! Geddit? He's a poultry farmer and his name is MACK NUGGET!

and his flock of happy turkeys. The children frolic with the joyful birds until they encounter an axe — and the farmer explains its meaning. A few minutes later, with the farmer distracted, the children waddle, strangely stuffed, back into their bus and are driven away.

With a significant smile at the children, the librarian continues, "The very next evening, eight families were blessed… with eight fluffy Thanksgiving turkeys as guests. They feasted on veggies with jelly and toast…"

You can actually hear that old cartoon punchline Whaa whaa whaa whaaaaa sound being played here.

Meghan is suitably horrified and looks frantically around to see whether the rest of the parents are prepared to storm the barricades with her. The answer was no. There's a bit more whining from AWM, and the librarian, working under the delusion that she is there to entertain small children, leads the group in a little song-with-actions.

The librarian hits pause, and waves one finger, as if pointing to a high branch. Then, unbelievably, comes the Message, a neat little North Korean-motivational-calisthenics-cum-vegetarian touch: "When the cook came around/We couldn't be found/Five fat turkeys are we!"

That's right -- apparently singing a small song about turkeys outwitting a farmer on Thanksgiving is exactly the same thing as the North Korean government forcing people to do exercises in the town square. In a later column, perhaps Meghan will push the metaphor further by blowing the entire family food budget on Southern Comfort, forcing her children to go out into the countryside to forage for grass and twigs, just like a real North Korean child would have to do.

At this point I am goggling at the brazenness of her reeducation program, ...

Counterrevolution starts at home, so when the song is over I whisper into Xanth's ear, "I think turkeys are delicious. I am glad we have one to roast for our Thanksgiving dinner." She nods, thumb firmly in place. "Like the pilgrims had for theirs," I can't help adding, running-doggishly.

Ooooh, smash the fascist state, Meghan! The turkey-eaters of the world will rise up to overthrow the yoke of imperialist vegetarian oppression!

The librarian goes on to tell another story, and Meghan, with 600 words contracted for and only about 150 words of actual anecdote to tell, goes into further excruciating detail about the story's plot. It goes -- get this -- a woman has a turkey, and she doesn't eat it. Never saw that one coming.

The librarian beams around at the stupefied children. "That's my favorite kind of Thanksgiving story," she tells them. "The kind where the turkey doesn't get eaten."

"My favorite kind of Thanksgiving story," the well-informed boy says suddenly, "is the kind where the turkey does get eaten." I smile at him and feel a pang: He is so young

Yes, somebody had better call the cops.

"Ha-ha," says the vego-librarian. She can afford to laugh. In the course of one morning, she has skillfully indoctrinated 30 children in her cunning scheme to anthropomorphize the traditional Thanksgiving centerpiece fowl.

The poor kids, being exposed to different points of view. That's positively un-American.

"That was unbelievable," I remark to a fellow mother.

The column has a punchline. Can you possibly guess what it is? (no peeking) OK, did you guess? Here it comes:

"I know," she whispers, as if we are still under the eye of the jovial reeducator. "How many of these kids are going to want to eat their turkey after this?"

That Meghan sure keeps her cards close to her chest. Apparently, the point she was building up to is that sometimes small children have trouble dealing with the fact that the turkey they see at the farm and the turkey they have for dinner are the same thing. And the way to help children work through this is the same way an emotionally stunted suburban family deals with anything: DENIAL.

Please tune in next week for another romp through the dreary world of America's Worst Mother™. (For more AWM™ analysis, please check out TBogg or WO'C.)

Next up on the stool, we've a sight to make you drool

Seymour Butts presents: Too Hot For C-SPAN. (link is NSFW)

Sen. Joe "Mentum? I barely know him!" Lieberman was roused from his catatonic state for long enough to announce "I only watch C-SPAN for the articles!"

Update: Memo to me... Verify that this is not the FREAKING TOP FREAKING ITEM AT WONKETTE before posting here and acting like I'm Mr Clever Clogs. Gawd, what a poseur I am.

Idiom-itry

Quickies

* MEMRI, has gone on the attack against Juan Cole. Apparently receipt of critique isn't their strongest suit.

* Why top economists begin to speak in terms of "Economic Armageddon" every news outlet in the nation should be covering it. period.

* The overall tone of the nation will be interesting to watch in the upcoming years as this administration's decisions begin to manifest their results. Stay tuned kids, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

* Argument for federally funding college tuition. A solution for what to do in the mean time. *sidenote: 855 respondents is not "America".

Happy Thanksgiving

Nothing says lovin' like somethin' from the oven.

Voter Readiness

Colin Powell returned to the UN today to make the case for Iraq's voter preparedness. Bringing with him a stack of slides to bolster his credibility, he assured the council that, despite the recent violent uprisings and massive attacks, it is the opinion of the US goverment that elections proceed.

Yonks, I tells ya! Yonks!

You might ask, "Why should I listen to advice from the man who made the mullet popular?", but David Bowie doesn't care what you think. He's going to tell you what album to buy anyway:

THERE'S NOTHING ELSE TO SAY.

'THE ARCADE FIRE' HAVE THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR.

You must, simply must, buy it now, today, pronto. Quite the most beautiful, moving and passionate piece of brilliant song-writing and quirky performance I've heard in YONKS !!!

It's called 'FUNERAL' (Merge Records) and nothing else (and yes, I've heard the new U2) comes close.

Oh! A lima bean that looks just like the Leader!

Na na na na Na na na na Na na na na Na na na na LEADER

Years from now, political scientists will still be scratching their heads wondering how someone with zero charisma and zero personal accomplishments could be at the head of such a Maoist Cult of Personality.

(via)

Update

This is for Doug:

Chimpy McFlyDown

I found the photo and the above title (my new fave Shrub nickname!) at BlondeSense.

FUNNY WOMAN! Check out her post that goes along with this photo.

Inmates are in Charge

Logic is sooo 2000

* When the NRO invokes Godwin's law to justify the killing of captured and unarmed insurgents by US troops is it a sign?

* That durn liberal media. Always going out of their way to protect the left and attack the right. Just no half way, is there?

* What a close call!!! Texas needs to be more careful. Attempts on Bush 41's life are not taken lightly by this administration.

Funding Ignorance

The final version of the bill approved by both the House and Senate included just over $104 million for the community-based abstinence education grants

That's a 39% increase beyond the $70 million that was approved in the fiscal year 2004 version of the bill.

$104 million to tell teenagers not to have sex? I would have done it for half that and tossed in information on protecting one's self from STDs and pregnancy. We'd sure hate to raise a generation of frightened and ignorant youth who don't have the tools necessary to function in society, now would we?

-- An investigation is underway in Michigan in the death of an unborn child, which police say is the result of a 16-year-old girl allowing her boyfriend to beat her with a miniature baseball bat.

What culture might we have created that caused a teen to go to these extremes? Guess someone should have instituted a shotgun marriage and got these kids on the right track.

"If those initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated — if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness — then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."

The decline of Western Civilization, DINKS shacking up. Good thing corruption in government or a non-ending war isn't having a negative impact. If you wouldn't take advice from this adminstration as to how to run your personal finances why in the hell would you take morality tips from them?

Distinction without a difference

From the Washington Post:

[Senator Judd] Gregg and other allies of the president argue, in fact, that transition costs of $1.5 trillion or more over the next 10 years should not be considered an increase in the nation's debt. Instead, they say, such borrowing would be a prudent recognition of future obligations.

Get that straight: It's not debt, it's just a recognition of future obligations. You see, "debt" implies a future obligation to pay a certain amount of money, whereas this is merely a future obligation to pay a certain amount of money, which, as you can see, is totally different.

Makin' Friends

Enhancing international relations within the Western Hemisphere, Bush's Chilean pre-dinner entertainment included Greco-Roman wrestling, starring the Secret Service followed by a Dancing Bear and a Court Jester.

No one stuck around for the juggler.

Quirky & Administrative

Just In Case You Missed It

100monkeystyping are +1 again this week bring our total contributors to 3. Not so much to enhance or create balance (if Fox doesn't have to, neither do we) but to add flair, flavor and controversy.

Cheers and kudos to Lulu and Dave...

Surreality

* Michelle Malkin dropped for being “too stridently anti-liberal"? Can you be that today? Guess it wasn't about her stage presence.

* 2010, the year we quit blaming Clinton for our own ills. Too hopeful?

* 41 years is still not long enough for this to even be considered tasteful. Folks, it was one bullet, capable of making mid-air U-turns, maintaining original velocity and hitting two people. I know, the government told me.

* Lesson plan for the more dogmatic amongst us who believe the path to their own self-righteousness is legislating their perception of morality.

* Misattributed to Homer Simpson, but an amusing approach to selective law usage from the Old Testament.

* It's one thing to be misdirected or misinformed but to be so completely deluded that you buy every line your party feeds you does you and everyone of your readers a disservice.

During the campaign they conjured up all these imaginary misdeeds that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had engaged in, from their fantasies that they lied about Iraqi WMD to the distribution of favors to Halliburton to augment VP Cheney's blind-trusted pocketbook. Each of their fraudulent claims was too preposterous to be taken seriously by any but the gullible class, many of whom were taken in by sheer repetition.

David, honey... you been sucking down the last of Rush's stash while he's in detox? Democrats have no illusion that this administration will take anyone's positions into consideration but their own. It would though, be refreshing as a Fresca in Death Valley if one piece of socially responsible legislation were allowed just enough sunlight to see if it'd grow into something that might help out the other 49% of the voting populace you so gleefully scorn. Putz.

Quote of the day

Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

One of the reasons I’ve never believed satanic ritual abuse narratives—the ones where the supposed victims are always being “groomed” (they always use that word) to become the high priest or priestess of the group—is that their stories are devoid of normal human complications. Nobody ever develops chest pains, and has to be gotten out of their ceremonial robes and rushed to an ER. Nothing funny ever happens. Nobody ever fluffs a complex ritual. The air conditioning never breaks down. There are no theological or procedural disputes, no arguments about bookkeeping, no rebellious music committees. Satanic covens are never incapacitated because the potato salad sat out too long before the pre-ceremony setup session potluck. But most tellingly of all, no satanic group is ever riven by dissension because a couple of its members have started selling Amway and they won’t shut up about it.

As John Kerry allegedly might say, "Who among us does not enjoy selling Amway at the local ritual sacrifice?" It's this lack of respect for traditional customs that prevents the Democrats from reaching voters in the Red states.

And the beat goes on

Fried Rice The Bushie who could spoil Condi's dream job. Yup. Every day I say to myself, “What fresh hell is this?!” Indeed. Bolton is bad news and the Shadow Government appear to be coming out into the light. Apparently, YEE-HAW! IS a foreign policy.

Republican Ethics. DeLay is one of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron. You want salf-of-the-earth? None saltier or earthier than Ms. Molly Ivins. One of the few real journalists out there today. Pity there are SO few.

UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count. Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida. Research Team Calls for Investigation. Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. Have you reached the point where your read about criminal behavior from this administration and their lapdogs (and let’s just BE REAL for a moment here, shall we? 0.1%!!!! PUH-LEEEEESE) and just shake your head in disbelief but then experience that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach because you KNOW it won’t matter? Facts have ceased to be relevant. Asking questions is unAmerican. Wanting answers is unAmerican. Being able to think for yourself is a handicap. Being ignorant is a matter of pride. Being good little sheep while being led to the slaughter is patriotic. And on, and on, and on, and on, and………

Clinton Rips Starr, Media on Prosecution. In an interview with ABC news anchor Peter Jennings Bill Clinton blasted Ken Starr and spoke disdainfully of a national media that he suggested was complicit in a scheme to ruin his presidency. Go Bill, Go Bill, It's yer birthday..... The fact that this man was able to accomplish anything while in office during all this crap is nothing short of miraculous. Leaders like former President Clinton are all too rare. One does come to mind though. Save us from the criminals Barack Obama!

Brand Democrat. You’ve probably all seen these by now, but just in case you haven’t! Great branding for the Dems. These need to air as commercials beginning NOW on primetime television and for the next four years over, and over, and over. Everyone should be reminded DAILY!

The following quote can be attributed to whom? “Let us pray in this hour that nothing divides us, and that God will help us against the Devil! Almighty Lord, bless our fight!” Survey Says! Oh, I'm sorry but that is incorrect. It was this guy. No, our Preznit said this.

Know which corporations bankrolled the GOP? Interesting reading. Some of it quite surprising if not downright disturbing. By the way, YUM brands = A&W Rootbeer, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Yo quiero My Country!

Some things are just worth fighting for. I have not the words.

Oxymoronic

Doing what they were hired to do

The vast lame-duck spending bill was halted this week, not by gross incompetence (which was justification enough), but by language inserted by Rep Istook from Oklahoma. Seems his GOP mantra's not less government as his provision would allow Congress access to the IRS returns of any citizen they choose. Why in the world would a congresscritter feel the need to build a snoop provison into a spending bill already so lopsided and porked out that it doesn't even come close to reflecting the public's needs.

Excerpted from Reuters

The Senate voted 65-30 for the legislation late on Saturday that sets aside funds for a range of priorities including a presidential yacht, foreign aid and energy. It is one of the final pieces of work for the 108th Congress and they may return to finish a spy agency overhaul before the end of the year.

Nothing's as important to the health, safety and welfare of the United States of America as a Presidential Yacht. Keeping with the administration's trend toward sucessful policies, they'll be naming the boat, the S.S. Minnow.

Some last minute increases were allowed for favored White House projects like NASA space programs.

"We banged our way to the moon, now we're going to bang our way to Mars".

Partisan fighting continued on Saturday as Democrats raged over a Republican-introduced measure in the spending bill making it easier for hospitals to refuse to provide abortions or abortion counseling.

On K Street, this is called whittling. Erosion of exisiting laws through buried treasure in omnibus spending bills. Since when did a hospital's judgement have anything to do with the congressional budget? Where's the "tort" reform for politicos who want to do nothing but futz with other people's lives?

The bill sets aside $23 billion for the Department of Energy while foreign aid programs will get $19.4 billion. Those were increases from 2004 but less than Bush requested. The bill funding the Departments of Transportation and Treasury will get $89.9 billion, less than last year and Bush's request.

Increases in spending but *less* than the President wanted? Fiscal discipline should have been the resounding mantra in the 2004 election. Apparently same sex marriage trumped our reliance on the international financing of our debt.

The bill also dropped language that would have challenged new Bush rules on overtime and travel to Cuba and to extend milk subsidies for small dairy farmers.

To all the hourly workers, Cuban immigrants and small farmers who voted Red in 2004, happy now?

On another tricky issue, the compromise bill included $577 million in funding for a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but dropped language that would reclassify fees paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund.

Dear Nevada, please shore up your fault lines.

signed
The Rest of Us.

But it cut $1 billion from Bush's $2.5 billion request for the Millennium Challenge Account, a new program to encourage economic and political reforms in poor countries. Advocacy groups were disappointed with the level of funding for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS.

Extra funding to fight wars in other countries but less money to help reform countries in ways that could prevent uprisings and civil wars? Good idea. Those don't support the war machine. By not funding education programs to prevent AIDs, aren't then we culpable in the long term affects of this decision?

Doing unto others

* God loves Tom DeLay, there's no other logic justification how a man, this vile, this corrupt and this illegally funded could continue without some sort of mandate from a higher power.

* To fight this new type of Republican agenda, there's some re-tooling that needs to occur.

* Why are our military commanders asking for more troops? Didn't they get the Rummy mandate? Bush scored capital and the will of the people in the 2004 election not more troops. Capital.

* The spoils of war. Saddam, bad man. Very bad man. US invade for sub-sub reason of humanitarian cause. Bullshit.

Persnickety Pit Bull

Catty & Petty

* The First Family's Christmas list this year will include, animal behavior training and a girdle.

War, Blowback & Free Trade

* After toppling the Taliban government in Afghanistan, our first order of business was installingnuturing a new government. Instead we enhanced free trade and created an exploding economy after we allowed the warlords to continue unabated. So, will we re-enter with vast armies in a year or so, merging the War on Some Drugs with the War on Terror?

* As we sit at home in our squishy lazy-boys and watch the santized "news" reports coming in from Iraq, we need to remember it's real. Both sides are losing people in vast numbers. The rhetoric now that's reduced angry Iraqi citizens to the category of "terrorist" is the same rhetoric that's desensitizing us to their plight and the same logic that got us there in the first place. For giggles, go rent "Red Dawn", were the Wolverines terrorists? If you invade a country and after establishing reason one no longer is valid, accomplish objective two and still stick around without starting the promised rebuilding and the locals rise up, they're partisans, not terrorists. Historically, invading/occupying forces never win against local partisans.

Voting Parity

* Will the 2004 election results be overturned? No. Does our current voting system have systemic issues that need serious overhaul? Yep.

Culture War

* Cross dressing is like drugs, you start out small... and suddenly you're hooked on pumps like Imelda Marcos with an unlimited cap on a credit card.

* Rather than overhauling or rewriting the tax code, let's just expand the loopholes currently available to the more wealthy Americans.

* I'm convinced the only people arguing for Hillary to run in 2008 are Conservatives. Democrats know her chance is equal to that of an ice cube in DeLay's final resting place. Anyone believing differently is deluded.

* Oliver Willis captures the heart of the Democratic party.

* Democrats miss the Old Testament laws the conservatives want them to follow, missing the cloven hooved/fowl laws. Stay tuned for further posts on OT laws we should consider.

Mecca

* I will be going out of my way this holiday season to make my trek to the Holy Land.

Changes

With all the changes being made within the White House and the Cabinet it seems appropriate that the flag be adjusted to reflect the contents.

Speaking of the cabinet, incoming nominees get facial smoochies... what do the outgoing people get?

A Whole New World

The SorryEverybody Phenomenon. When I first stumbled upon this website on November 4th it was so incredibly comforting. (It still is.) I emailed these guys and told them they should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. They are doing more to spread goodwill for America than anyone on the planet. (And it will take a hell-of-a-lot to counteract the damage already done by Bushco.) Mark Morford at the SF Gate concurs. Sorryeverybody.com has broken the cardinal rule of Bush's bitter neocon agenda: no matter what the atrocity, no matter how grossly botched the war or how insidious the WMD lie or how debilitating the world-record deficit or how brutal the attack on the environment, if there's one thing the GOP simply does not do, it's apologize. Oh, and here’s another story about the website!

Frame Wars. Essential reading. Understanding “frames” and using them to your advantage is critical to winning an election. It’s all about language. The Karl Rove Marketing Machine knows this game better than anyone. It's time we take a page from their playbook.

In this struggle to control political reality through language, you don't dispute specific words or rebut the facts; you don't even attack your opponents' frames. What you do is assert your side's frame, making it so big, so omnipresent, so unavoidable that it's as natural as talking about the roundness of the Earth. Disputing such a fact seems counterintuitive. Even heretical.

As long as liberals and progressives insist that having the facts on their side is all that matters, they are doomed to impotence. The next move for the left in the frame war is to accept that it's okay to cherry-pick reality as long as it conforms to a frame that's morally acceptable. According to Lakoff, we already do it every day.

A Plague of Toadies. Maureen Dowd in the NY Times. Now, loyalty trumps competence. W., who was the loyalty enforcer for his father’s administration, is now the loyalty enforcer for his own. Those promoted to be in charge of our security, diplomacy and civil liberties were rewarded for being more loyal to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney than to the truth.

White House to ‘gut’ the CIA. Thank you Molly Ivins! That's what I was most afraid of in the next four years: the complete closing of the circle, the old Bush emphasis on loyalty as the first and most important asset, above brains, judgment or expertise. Bush has been making this mistake for years, and it is clear it will now get worse. The clash of ideas is not welcome in his office. He wants everything solved in a one-page memo. This effectively limits him from being exposed to anything but obsequious third-rate thinking. It's precisely how he got into Iraq.

Intolerance is not a ‘Value’. Here's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the machinations of Karl Rove and company. Fear isn't some emotion that can be easily bottled back up after it's been -- viciously -- unleashed. It isn't a once-every-four-years vehicle that can be wheeled out for a few months, then stowed back in the garage to be retooled for the next election cycle. It puts men and women in communities across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more despicable than creating a phony political issue and preying on people's prejudices.

Meet the new Republican senators. Five of them hope to make your worst nightmares come true. The hell you know IS often preferable to the hell you’ve yet to experience. See what FRESH hell awaits in the new year!

Top Billings. How a Montana Democrat bagged the hunting and fishing vote, and won the governor's mansion. A little good news and reason to have hope.

Popularity Contest

QOTD

Prophetic words from H.L. Mencken...

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

In Other News

* Heterosexuals are now taking marriage and commitment to another level while working tirelessly to deny it for others... and they say irony is dead.

* American's love affair with SUVs boiled down to a sense of safety, passive over aggressive. Read this with our approach to Homeland Security and the administration's rhetoric in mind.

* Someone with a heart made a web page. They don't speak for Dobson, Falwell, Robertson and all the others getting massive airtime. Which, does nothing but bolster justification for their long list of morality causes.

* How 'bout that Department of Homeland Security, anyway?

* When your intelligence agency can't tell the difference between England and the US, can you call it the best intelligence?

Why We Are Sorry

So there are those in this country who wonder why so many American citizens feel the need to apologize to the rest of the world. “’Tis a puzzlement!” they seem to be saying. WHY are we sorry? WHY do we (the reality-based community) feel the need to apologize to the world?

(Fasten your seatbelts boys! This is going to be a bumpy ride.)

I’m so glad you asked, you selfish, self-absorbed, oblivious dolts.

THIS is why. THIS is why.

And don’t give me any of this shit about “Kerry would not have done anything differently in Iraq.” Okay? Because – you festering hemorrhoidal assholes – KERRY IS NOT THE DOUCHEBAG WHO GOT US THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! Get it? Can I possibly make this any clearer for you dimwitted pinheaded imbeciles who are so clearly out of touch with reality? I don’t give a bloody shit what Kerry “might or might not have done” to get us out of the rotting quagmire that is Iraq today. John Kerry isn’t the one responsible for unilaterally and without provocation bombing the shit out of some country out of pure bloodthirsty GREED. And LYING to the nation about it to boot. John Kerry was LIED TO just the same as the rest of us. And all of your campaign rhetoric and lies and propaganda mean nothing. Zip. Nada. Goose Egg. Can’t you understand that this isn’t about winning a freakin’ election? This isn’t about Democrat or Republican. This is about the FACT that while BushCo try to prove to the world that they have the biggest schlong, people are being murdered, maimed, ripped to bloody pieces – and not just American soldiers.

This is the work of “Compassionate Conservatives.” This is the result when oil = power at any cost. This is the work of your precious G.Dub and his highly esteemed staff.

I guess killing folks who aren’t inside you is okay, huh? Or maybe it’s okay if they're in a foreign country? Maybe it’s okay if we only maim and kill the BROWN people? So I guess the Neocon version of “right-to-life” starts at conception and ends at birth? What would Jesus do, my lily white ass! The next time I see one of you jackals picketing outside an abortion clinic with some horrific picture of a bloody fetus, I’m going to whip out one of these pictures. NOT IN MY NAME you detestable, know-nothing jackasses!

There isn’t one single, solitary thing that Kerry “would have done” that would even COMPARE to the damage BushCo has already done to the good name of America and its citizens. The abhorrent actions and resulting injury to our PLANET executed by G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove et al will take years to repair. I can’t even venture an estimate. For that reason and that reason alone Shrubya does not deserve to be our president for another four years and THAT – you thickheaded shortsighted simpletons – is why I’m sorry. These men are not leaders. They are criminals. I am quite frankly dumbfounded that you cannot see it.

You’re Goddamn right I’m sorry. I’m ashamed he’s our president. I’m heartbroken. I’m angry. I’m mortified. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY AND IT IS WITH THE UTMOST PATRIOTISM THAT I WILL NEVER CEASE QUESTIONING THE OBDURATE ACTIONS OF THIS ADMINISTRATION. WHY? Because you mindless, heartless jerks, PEOPLE ARE DEAD. PEOPLE ARE DYING. NOW. AND NOW. AND NOW. AND NOW. AND, oh yea, NOW. And every freaking minute of the live-long day for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON and Bushco is to blame. Don’t talk to me about “moral values.” Where is your OUTRAGE at the inhumanity?!

Offended by my language? Interesting. You know what I find offensive? (Besides your monumental ignorance.) This. Offended by my anger? Well too bad. I will not apologize for being angry. This is a very human (and yes, passionate) response to the destruction visited on mankind by The President of the United States and his Administration because they are thoroughly, completely and astoundingly INCOMPETENT as well as loathsome and self-serving.

And although the War in Iraq is but ONE of the colossal blunders carried out by the Busheviks, THAT, you dangerously misinformed and myopic trolls, is more than enough reason to be REALLY, REALLY, INCREDIBLY SORRY.

I hope this clears things up for you. I, however, harbor no illusion that you will grasp any of it. I do thank God that I live in a country where I am able to state my opinion without fear of retribution from my government – for the time being anyway. And I am grateful to the geeks who made the internet a reality for the forum in which I could share my point of view. Whether or not others comprehend the depth of my sorrow for this country and the origin of that sorrow, I needed to express it.

Mission Accomplished

* In a normal world that wasn't overwhelmed by the upside down view through the looking glass, this would cause outrage. Justification maybe for some of the call up resistance?

* To those who contend that the Constitutional amendment on same sex marriage doesn't breed hate, I would argue it plants the seeds needed to germinate those emotions.

* Paranoid yet? I thought we needed to protect ourselves from "them" not "us".

* Backscratching 101.

* The outgoing Secretary of State developed a bit of a credibility gap as a result of his tenure... the incoming one, brings one with.

Boot!

Powell: "Mr. Bush, please accept my resignation." Bush: "Condi, get this turncoat outta my sight."

* Good news, we've got control of 100% of Fallujah. Bad news, we're no longer taking prisoners and are closing in on Saddam's legacy.

* Boycott Proctor & Gamble, they put gay-suggestive ads in gay magazines. We hate target marketing and have spies out buying fringe periodicals just to stay angry.

* Not only is Bush the *best* the GOP can offer the US, but now they're looking to change the Constitution in order to build a winning ticket in 2008.

* Bush is making the best of Clinton's *gutted* military right? We're not supposed to be nation builders and yet here we are on two fronts fighting and rebuilding. Clinton was just making it leaner and meaner, like the R