"And then I got to carve the pig"

It just gets better and better.

(AFP/File/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)


BTW, what the fuck is that outside the window, giant sheets of bacon?

"Um, do you folks really need to photograph this?"

"I want to liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"

(AFP/Mandel Ngan)



Maliki, really enjoying his trip so far.

The Jomentum of the Market Place

Will really be behind this earnestly needed product, endorsed by none other than Connecticut's least popular Senator.

They Give Good Seminar

As the lawyer on the blog that did not get asked to cross post on Patriotboy, Atrios, Firedoglake, (am I missing any brother Attaturk?) I want to take this moment to make yet another PSA.

Tristero linked to a report of the American Bar Association that takes strong issue with preznitial signing statements, among other things. Actually, it was all over the news yesterday. Proof that even the ABA gets something right on occasion. Note, I'm not saying lawyers because I still believe in the quaint notion that many of us are the thin blue line, people like Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Alberto Mora, Patrick Fitzgerald, Ralph Nader, Morris Dees, heck, I'll even give you two you wouldn't expect but who are doing their heritage proud: Bruce Fein (did he say Bruce Fein?), and John Dean, just to name a few who were or are willing to stand for something. Are any of these people enough to balance the likes of John Yoo and David Addington? There are times I fear not.

What's the point? The ABA also rated as well qualified Justices Roberts and Alito. I say qualified schmalified, if they take away rights, what's the difference? At least the ABA gives good seminar.

"Oh Look"

"It's Ted Stevens' internets"

(AFP/File/Tim Sloan)

Men of Planet Earth...(especially Americans)

As Roger Ailes says, the world does not really need anymore reasons to consider you a lazy, capitalist pig with a small, small penis.

Your corpulence, must be moderated by some sense of logical thought.

A 103-inch Plasma Screen is selling for $70,000.

We need some of that money for "smart" bombs and bunker busters.

Besides, your penis is only slightly smaller than average, and this 55-inch is available for $4,299.

Or better yet, become a lawyer, or other professional like me Atta (the "J" is for "just right") Turk and buy yourself a projector, which you use for "professional" stuff and then occasionally take it home and project on an 80-inch screen for just over a grand. It's a lot easier to write it off, I might add, then a big-ass TV.

You and your penis will congratulate each other. Unless you accidentally tune in to Rita Cosby. Then you may not speak for a few days.

"Paper, Pay-pur, P-A-P-E-R"

REUTERS/Jason Reed

Do yourself a favor

And get yourself a bottle of gin...

Then read this.

Truth off the mfing record

So, who is it?

The candidate, immersed in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, sat down to lunch yesterday with reporters at a Capitol Hill steakhouse and shared his views about this year's political currents.

On the Iraq war: "It didn't work. . . . We didn't prepare for the peace."

A GOP Senate candidate expressed dissent, loudly if anonymously, with the White House, pointing to President Bush's post-Sept. 11 pose with a firefighter and his post-Katrina flyovers as signs of a "disconnect." (By Doug Mills -- Associated Press)

On the response to Hurricane Katrina: "A monumental failure of government."

On the national mood: "There's a palpable frustration right now in the country."

It's all fairly standard Democratic boilerplate -- except the candidate is a Republican ...

..."In 2001, we were attacked and the president is on the ground, on a mound with his arm around the fireman, symbol of America," he said, between bites of hanger steak and risotto. "In Katrina, the president is at 30,000 feet in an airplane looking down at people dying, living on a bridge. And that disconnect, I think, sums up, for me at least, the frustration that Americans feel."

The response to Katrina was "a monumental failure," he continued. "We became so powerful in our ivory towers, in our gated communities. We forgot that there are poor people." The detachment remained after the storm, he said. "I could see that they weren't getting it, they weren't necessarily clued in. . . . For me, the seminal moment was the [Dubai] port decision."

If this shit keeps up, around Labor Day they'll all come out in public.

And I mean "come out" literally.

It's Been a week

(More or Less)

No You Tube battle, just "teh funny".

SCTV's "Leave it to Beaver, 25th Anniversary Special"

We're number 6,552!

Wahoo!!!

Where are our book deals?

Where are our deranged minions?

Where is our bizarre subordinate fixated with our sexy, sexy hands?

Where are our eclairs!?

All a titter

Why is it a "surprise" when a Bush official pops down for a meaningless cameo?

Here's my prediction, sometime before she returns to Washington Condi will drop from the sky and pronounce the Baghdad Green Zone "fabulous!", before making an additional trip to "fantastic" Kabul. The only surprise will be if she does not do either of those things.


Oh, Rice & Bolton together -- that's pretty much a "charisma" event horizon.

REUTERS/Frank Franklin/Pool

Ah, those Secular Humanists

The Bush Administration is causing the Iraqi divorce rate to explode (sorry, poor choice of words).

What is unreported is that the Iraqis are killing embryonic stem cells willy-nilly. Shiite microbiologists and Sunni microbiologist are unplugging freezers all throughout the country. While in the north, the Kurds are marketing "Frozen Turkish Baby" flavored slurpees.

Shorter Arlen Specter

The Bush Administration's electronic surveillance program has been a flagrant violation of the law and the only solution we have is to let him get away with it.

Things that must go away

- Hand fetishists as Chief of Staff
- Illegal Alien Blastocysts
- Sean Hannity Enablers
- Ann Coulter publishers
- YOU TUBE blog battles!
- Cable pokers shows
- Rush Limbaugh's erectile disfunction stories
- Hummer commercials dealing with an automobile
- Dick Cheney's colostomy bag
- Dick Cheney's wife (sorry to be redundant)
- Tucker Carlson


But mostly the You Tube blog battles.

It never really ends

If the Bush Administration cow-towed to wealthy people anymore Bush he'd have to start being there for the "happy endings".

The Bush administration plans to cut nearly in half the number of auditors who review tax returns of some of the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers.

Plans call for eliminating 157 of the Internal Revenue Service's 345 estate tax lawyers, The New York Times reported. The cuts will affect audits of taxpayers who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer assets to their children and others, the newspaper said.

IRS Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brown told the Times he ordered the staff cuts because the number of Americans who are subject to the estate tax has fallen under the Bush administration.

However, six IRS estate tax lawyers whose jobs are at risk told the newspaper the cuts are part of a behind-the-scenes move at the IRS to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.

IRS estate tax lawyer Sharyn Phillips said the cuts were a "back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax."

"Back-door way", how appropriate.

Another Legacy from our Chimperial Lowness

I hope you all like mangos, because we sure are paying a high price for them:

Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race...

"South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at minimum, vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material," the institute's David Albright and Paul Brannan concluded in the technical assessment, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post...

Pakistan, like India, has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One of its pioneering nuclear scientists, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed two years ago to operating a network that supplied nuclear materials and know-how to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The evidence of a possible escalation also comes as Congress prepares to debate a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement between the Bush administration and India. The agreement would grant India access to sensitive U.S. nuclear technology in return for placing its civilian nuclear reactors under tighter safeguards.

No such restrictions were placed on India's military nuclear facilities. India currently has an estimated 30 to 35 nuclear warheads based on a sophisticated plutonium design. Pakistan, which uses a simpler, uranium-based warhead design, has sought for years to modernize its arsenal, and a new heavy-water reactor could allow it to do so, weapons experts say.

Once again, far seeing policy victories for Clusterfuck McBunnypants.

Suddenly it's "Urgent"

July 24:

The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has said there is an urgent need for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

However, Dr Rice, who is heading to the region for talks, said that any deal must address the root cause of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

July 22:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, embarking on a diplomatic mission to the troubled Middle East, said she would work for ``stability and lasting peace'' instead of the immediate cease-fire demanded by much of the rest of the world.

A cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon would be a ``false promise'' if the root causes of the conflict are not addressed, the top U.S. diplomat said.

What the Sam Hill done changed?

Another "cakewalk" down the tubes apparently.

The FUTURE

AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE, DAY 24, February 13, 2007

(AP) Tehran,

The Iranian government today announced that unless the United States immediately agreed to withdraw from Iraq as well as forward a 12-pak of Mountain Dew it would begin the capital trial of 1,213 blastocyst it holds hostage in an impounded "Good Humor" truck.

The Bush Administration stated it would not negotiate with a terrorist state threatening cold blooded defrosting.

Today on a very special "Meet the Press"

As guest Josh Bolton will see it.

Before he gets back home for a happy ending.

Oh, Keith you rascal!

(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Olbermann dons O'Reilly mask at TV meeting

"We thought we'd help you out, those of you who needed a good photograph of," Olbermann said, pausing to hold up O'Reilly's photo glued to a stick as reporters laughed.

Olbermann has named O'Reilly his "Worst Person in the World" at least 15 times. The nightly "award" is Olbermann's way of criticizing bad behavior.

"It's just so much fun," Olbermann said. "I've always liked playing in traffic. I was told in 1977 that I had no future in the business and wouldn't last if I didn't change my style, so I don't really worry about it."

The Hell that has disappeared

That place our national media broadcasters don't talk about any more.

Still progressing:

More than 50 people have died in two separate car bomb attacks in Iraq.

At least 34 of them were killed when a bomb exploded at a crowded market in Sadr City - a mainly Shia area in the Iraqi capital.

A few hours later at least 20 people died in a blast near a courthouse in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Naturally, the Sadr City explosion came just after U.S. & the Washington Generals (aka Iraqi Government forces) completed a security sweep of the area.

Now that's some serious Jomentum

Lieberman is now losing by double digits in the the primary election and polling has him deadlocked with Lamont in the general election.

Lieberman's numbers are NOT going up if he loses the primary substantially.

It's a good thing I live on the second floor

Because when I see this it would be very tempting to jump off of anything higher.

Incredibly powerful and very disturbing (and graphic).

Refuse to be exploited

As I said a few days ago, ESPN, occasional home to hot dog eating championships, spelling bees, and Sean Salisbury, is actually practicing what used to be called journalism.

The conclusion of their three-part investigation of Pat Tillman shows a family that refused to let the U.S. government turn their son into something that he wasn't. It takes great bravery to choose the truth over having your son be an icon. There is little more disgusting than the exploitation of Tillman's death...

...except of course the fact that he is one of the tens of thousands of needless deaths that have occurred because of the Bush Administration.

READ IT!

One gets the feeling,

That if the news media ever remembers Iraq again, they will not mention that it has fundementally changed to from a probable civil war to Baghdad becoming the worst place on earth. More people die in Baghdad each day, than die at what has been the worst of the current Israel/Hezbollah/Lebanon conflict.

Yet, despite the worsening (ever worsening) situation the media has abandoned the death-throws (the real final throes) of the American experiment, the horrendously failed American experiment, that is Iraq.

One wonders if they are even going to pay attention to the dog-and-pony show that will be the visit of Al-Maliki this week. For Al-Maliki's speech before Congress will be the emptiest celebration of non-achievement and non-success since Ford came there to announce the "WIN" button.

The deterioration continues to pick up speed:

Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.

More people are dying here - probably more than 150 a day - in the escalating sectarian civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslims and the continuing war with US troops than in the bombardment of Lebanon...

...I never expected the occupation of Iraq by the US and Britain to end happily. But I did not foresee the present catastrophe. Baghdad has survived the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, UN sanctions, more bombing and, finally, a savage guerrilla war. Now the city is finally splitting apart, and - most surprising of all - this disaster scarcely gets a mention on the news as the world watches the destruction of Beirut so many miles away.

Priorities

Iraq blowing apart, Israel about to invade Lebanon...but

Top 10 'American Idol' Finalists Invited to Meet the President

Clusterfuck

You need no reminder that Bush just denied allowing funding of research on embryonic stem cells...because it's murder.

Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

The soldiers first took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.

"The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name.

What fantastic leadership we have. Billmon linked to this, and I agree with the sentiments of Cenk Uygur:

In the old empires, there would be a lot of marriages between the royal families. And from time to time, these inter-family marriages would produce a mentally challenged son who would inherit the throne. This would set the empire back for hundreds of years. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Russia is big and so is China.

That thing I don't write much about

I haven't added much to the debate about Joe Lieberman (I support Lamont of course). But Dan Froomkin mentions something today:

Reuters reports: "President George W. Bush is considering a new effort to have John Bolton confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a year after appointing him to the job over Senate objections, aides said on Thursday. . . .

Fresh off of saying that a dead Lebanese child isn't as tragic as a dead Israeli child -- in the wake of so many other non-diplomatic non-triumphs -- one might ask:

"Senator Lieberman, would you support Bolton's nomination to the UN?

Yes,

or

No?

Shhhhh, the President might hear about this...

Ugh!

The situation has gotten even darker since my initial story—a United Nations report cited in Wednesday's New York Times found that an average of more than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed each day in June—and I've learned from two sources that some senior figures at the CIA, along with a number of Iraq analysts, have been pushing to produce a new NIE. They've been stonewalled, however, by John Negroponte, the administration's Director of National Intelligence, who knows that any honest take on the situation would produce an NIE even more pessimistic than the 2004 version. That could create problems on the Hill and, if it is leaked as the last one was, with the public as well.

“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.”

Nicolas II and Alexandria were "reality-based" compared to George & Laura. At least they only had ONE Rasputin.

For Future reference

Those of you who will have the meat puppet also known as the President of the United States invading your personal space over the next two and one half years (give or take impeachment) will need the following preventative measures on hand.


Pepper Spray and/or rape whistle


A face mask


A Hat, and/or toupee


A Rain Coat



For further information please contact, via mail along with an enclosed personal check for $25 (or if a minor, a photograph), the Department of Homeland Security.

The Shit Offensive

I feel hungover -- and I didn't even earn it -- so this story of Iraq fits in with my mood.

First, the Bush version:

Energy Secretary Sammy "What, You haven't heard of me?" Bodman:

“The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago,” he said in an interview in the fortified Green Zone. “The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least among the people I talked to.”

Apparently, Bodman managed to go to Iraq and not talk to anyone until he returned the the United States and talked to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Cheney.

And now, reality!

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving U.S. and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since Friday -- up sharply from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.

"The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets," Caldwell said. He said insurgents were streaming into the capital for "an all-out assault against the Baghdad area."

Well, if they are going to do this, I hope, for the Bush Administration's sake they do it while the media is covering Lebanon. That way we'll never know.

Here is the essence of Bush surreal politik, poke the bear with a stick until you get a rise out of him (sorry if that brings up Scooter Libby's novel) or the oft-analogized, knocking down the hornets' nest to see what happens. Shake up the status quo -- he's doing this in Lebanon-Israel now -- thinking that eventually it will be better.

The fact that this has pretty much never worked in the entire lamentable history of humanity, leaves him undeterred because "this time it will" -- even while it clearly is not.

TBogg, I believe sums it up perfectly:

It is truly stunning to survey how much damage this shallow stupid man has done to the world in six short years, and to realize that we will be picking up after his mess for generations to come while he and Laura go back to Crawford and drink their dullwitted selves into oblivion.

The Merkelization of Stumblebum McBunnypants

Know your Chimperial behaviors:


REUTERS/Jason Reed

Nah, too easy...

I have to be sporting about my cheap shots...


(AFP/Adrian Dennis)

...so make up your own goddamn K-Lo and/or John Podhoretz jokes.

My favorite part of Bush's appearance at the NAACP

Was at the very end, if some of you noticed (the Daily Show certainly did), just as the non-enthusiastic applause - and yes some boos - started the organist started playing as loudly as possible. In fact, it seems like they hired the person who plays the organ at major league baseball games.

Priorities

$30 Billion a year to keep up this shit at an ever increasing rate.

While New Orleans chokes & weezes. Much like the millions of uninsured, including children.

If you are going to watch one video by an Ice Cream mogul this year, watch this one!

I don't want to start a big film fight or anything

I don't claim to be qualified to be a film critic (I have no outrageous mustache or bad punning ability)...and I haven't seen more than the commercials from 'Lady in the Water' but...

M. Night Shyamalan -- ever thought of, oh, I don't know, not making the same movie over and over?

Maybe 'The Village' and the ending of 'Signs' have left me too bitter and biased to have any other opinion.

New from Disney!

(AP Photo/Pennywell Farm and Wildlife Centre, Catherine Tozer)
They've combined two well-loved childrens classics into one incredibly profitable pre-packed product!

Disney's 101 Babechops!



Alert Cruella DeVille

Shorter Peggy Noonan

Science isn't science unless it agrees with me and my beliefs. Which do not come from any knowledge of science.

During the past week's heat wave--it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday--I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world's greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a believable conclusion on these questions: Is global warming real or not? If it is real, is it necessarily dangerous? What exactly are the dangers? Is global warming as dangerous as, say, global cooling would be? Are we better off with an Earth that is getting hotter or, what with the modern realities of heating homes and offices, and the world energy crisis, and the need to conserve, does global heating have, in fact, some potential side benefits, and can those benefits be broadened and deepened? Also, if global warning is real, what must--must--the inhabitants of the Earth do to meet its challenges? And then what should they do to meet them?

You would think the world's greatest scientists could do this, in good faith and with complete honesty and a rigorous desire to discover the truth. And yet they can't. Because science too, like other great institutions, is poisoned by politics. Scientists have ideologies. They are politicized.

Perhaps the stupidest column ever written, and I'm including transcriptions from Michael Savage.

For The Love Of God

Brother Attaturk references the stunning power grab by wingnuts in the House here, and as he is apt to do, made a good bit of farce out of the vote. What is stunning is not just that these creeps want to deprive the courts of even the right to determine the constitutionality of the laws that are passed (Marbury v. Madison anyone?), but the reasons these people use are, well, off the charts:

"We should not and cannot rewrite history to ignore our spiritual heritage," said Rep. Zach Wamp (news, bio, voting record), R-Tenn. "It surrounds us. It cries out for our country to honor God."

***

Rep. Todd Akin (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo., who sponsored the measure, said that denying a child the right to recite the pledge was a form of censorship. "We believe that there is a God who gives basic rights to all people and it is the job of the government to protect those rights," he said.

I hold this truth to be self-evident: these people are fucking nuts.

A special White House gift given to the Snow Flake Babies

Of course, this is a special, shorter version...

The Important Issue o' the Day

So far this month we've seen:

1. No Cutting & Running (until we say so)
2. No Flag Burning
3. No Gay Marriage
4. No Zygote Humping

and now...

5. No pledge editing (any more, they added "under God" in 1954 to teach the commies a lesson, a lesson learned so well, it kept 'em out of Hungary...or not)

What's next on the horizon:

6. No prayer refusing
7. No thinking
8. No flirting
9. No masturbating
10. No pepper
11. No evolving

July 20th

Some pleasant memories, one of my first (though it's kind of hazy) as I couldn't fully digest it.



Or as Bush would have had it...



And twenty-five years earlier, swing and a miss.

Fuck nuts of Insanity

The sports writers are really showing up their supposedly serious news journalist. A few months ago, it was Peter King. Now, regarding the death of Pat Tillman, ESPN has the first of a three-part series on the death of Pat Tillman.

And listen to the glittering example of "Christian Soldier" react to the request of the Tillman family to learn the truth about their son's death:

"But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. So this is — I don't know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."

In a transcript of his interview with Brig. Gen. Gary Jones during a November 2004 investigation, Kauzlarich said he'd learned Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother and fellow Army Ranger who was a part of the battle the night Pat Tillman died, objected to the presence of a chaplain and the saying of prayers during a repatriation ceremony in Germany before his brother's body was returned to the United States.

Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans' religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, "I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know."

Asked what might finally placate the family, Kauzlarich said, "You know what? I don't think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don't know. Maybe they want to see somebody's head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can't bring their son back."

Kauzlarich, now 40, was the Ranger regiment executive officer in Afghanistan, making him ultimately responsible for the conduct of the fateful operation in which Pat Tillman died. Kauzlarich later played a role in writing the recommendation for the posthumous Silver Star. And finally, with his fingerprints already all over many of the hot-button issues, including the question of who ordered the platoon to be split as it dragged a disabled Humvee through the mountains, Kauzlarich conducted the first official Army investigation into Tillman's death.

That investigation is among the inquiries that didn't satisfy the Tillman family.

"Well, this guy makes disparaging remarks about the fact that we're not Christians, and the reason that we can't put Pat to rest is because we're not Christians," Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, said in an interview with ESPN.com. Mary Tillman casts the family as spiritual, though she said it does not believe in many of the fundamental aspects of organized religion.

"Oh, it has nothing to do with the fact that this whole thing is shady," she said sarcastically, "But it is because we are not Christians."

After a pause, her voice full with emotion, she added, "Pat may not have been what you call a Christian. He was about the best person I ever knew. I mean, he was just a good guy. He didn't lie. He was very honest. He was very generous. He was very humble. I mean, he had an ego, but it was a healthy ego. It is like, everything those [people] are, he wasn't."

It is a very well researched and well-written article about the deification, against his will, of a celebrity soldier used to ends that he did not agree with. It is disgusting what his corpse was used for, through and through.

Who is who's client state?

I find this absolutely stunning, by this time I shouldn't, but nonetheless:

Why did it take the United States so long to evacuate it's citizens?

Individuals within the State Department, I am told, have been reluctant to create an impression that the Israeli assault on Lebanon is as bad as it is or that civilian U.S. citizens are being threatened by U.S. ally Israel.

American citizens are put at greater risk so the Israeli's wouldn't look so bad.

Cue Lee "Fuckin'" Greenwood.

The Definition of Censorship

Yesterday on Talk of the Nation could be heard Christin (sp?) King a young female journalism student from LSU on duty in Iraq---a communications specialist of some sort. Because she is studying journalism (one would guess of the broadcast variety) she plucked a plum job on armed forces radio as the host of the mid-day show Country Convoy. A caller asks: do you play the Dixie Chicks? No, mostly as a matter of personal preference, but people don't want to hear them anyway. though she didn't say it, the implication was clear the preference of the disc jockey and her listeners was based on the band's criticsm of our monarch.

Though not to worry, she says in the sweetest way, she is not censored in any way. Tee-hee. Tee-hee. Gee, I wonder if she would object if they told her what she had to say and play?

I guess censorship isn't necessary when you toe the party line. For dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, it's only censorship if you disagree with the man.

Who Needs Stem Cells?

Or as I like to put it: How does it feel to be held hostage by the nutjobs of the Christian right? President Bush thinks it's murder. I'd love to hear him explain that one. Asshole.

White House Memoranda

#1

From: Karl Rove

To: File

Re: Foreign Conferences

Date: 7/17/2006


In the future do not have President Bush prepped for foreign trips by Josh Bolton and Governor Schwarzenegger.

#2

From: Josh Bolton

To: File

Re: Schedule 7/19/2006

6:30 a.m. Deliver One page world summary to the President, and Jergens Hand Lotion.

7:00 a.m. Breakfast

7:30 a.m. Review news items from G-8 trip

7:45 a.m. Photoshop

8:00 a.m. Masturbate

#3

From: George Bush (as dictated)

To: File

Re: Morning tasks

Find out why the right-side of my nose hurts.

Bush tries diplomacy to avert the spread of war...

"Look, Condi, Ah barely know her, it was just a quick massage, it was nothing."

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Freeance's March is picking up the pace

Last December, Clusterfuck McBunnypants:

In a rare, unscripted moment, President Bush on Monday estimated 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war, the first time he has publicly acknowledged the high price Iraqis have paid in the push for democracy.

There are many, many, estimates that say that is far too low. But taking Bush's statement as generally accurate, it is getting much much worse:

More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year, an ominous figure reflecting the fact that "killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread" in the war-torn country, a United Nations report says.

Killings of civilians are on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700 injuries reported in May and June alone, it says.

The report, a bimonthly document produced by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, covers May and June, and includes chilling casualty figures and ugly anecdotes from the insurgent and sectarian warfare that continues to rage despite the establishment of a national unity government and a security crackdown in Baghdad.

On Sunday, I believe it was Newt Gingrich made the analogy of how 8 deaths in Haifa represented a greater impact because Israel is so proportionately smaller than the United States, he then claimed it was the equivalent of the United States losing several times that number. Newt, of course, did not make a similar analogy to Lebanon, which has about 3/5ths of Israel's population.

Well, Iraq has about an 11th of America's population and using Newt's magic method of extrapolation, that's the equivalent of losing more than 150,000 Americans to violence in just the first six months of this year.

I'm sure we'd call it "sectarian violence" as opposed to civil war.

Somebody from Reuters

Waited at Gay Games VII all day just praying to get a shot like this:


I salute John Gress for his perseverence, though not his tact.

I had a G-8

"Ah wrote a po-em about mah big 'venture, overseas, away from the Unitah States"

Mah Trip




Russia's Big and China's too,

Tony's snazzy, Pooty Poo

Harper's boring but Merkel's hot

Chirac bugs me talks French a lot

Koizumi's a jap, so fuck Jacque's yap

Hez'boo-terra shit has me fuckin' mad

Forgot 'bout the Wop, well too effin' bad

Who's this weird blog freak?

Did he come through some freaking tube?

For too long he has defined his image by distancing himself from other Democrats, cozying up to right-wing media figures and, at key moments, directing his criticisms at members of his own party instead of at the Republicans in power.

Late last year, after President Bush's job approval ratings hit record lows, Lieberman decided to lash out at the administration's critics, writing in the ultraconservative Wall Street Journal editorial pages that "we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril." In this he echoed the most toxic of Republican talking points — that criticizing the conduct of the war is actually damaging to national security.

Lieberman has a long history of providing cover for the worst of Republican actions while enthusiastically serving as his own party's scold. After the Senate acquitted President Clinton on all impeachment charges, Lieberman called for his censure. More recently, he rejected a call by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) to censure Bush over the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, calling the attempt "divisive."

That's all very well-written, cogent, and I agree with most all of it.

But I really was hoping for an editorial like this...



It is really hard to blogwhore newspaper editorials.

Things, that just don't seem right to say

Perhaps a first in modern history*

The Leader of Germany is being abused and their space invaded by another country's head of state.



This came from Mash via Watertiger -- the former has the whole disturbing series.

Next on the horizon, Bush stands outside Kim Il Jong's window and disturbs his sleep.

"He's playin' Toby Keith over and over and over"

*Napoleon not included

How American!

The media treats people who stay in Lebanon as if they are fools or tools of Hezbollah -- in reality, they may be just short of cash:

The Department of State reminds American citizens that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need [emphasis mine]. For the portion of your trip directly handled by the U.S. Government we will ask you to sign a promissory note and we will bill you at a later date. In a subsequent message, when we have specific details about the transporation arrangments, we will inform you about the costs you will incur. We will also work with commercial aircraft to ensure that they have adequate flights to help you depart Cyprus and connect to your final destination.

How much does this costs, relative to what Iraq costs EVERY FUCKING DAY!?

Progressively Progressing the Progress into being Progressively Worse

Why doesn't Syria get on the phone and stop this shit?

Oh, that's right, we bought it, we own it.

KUFA, Iraq, July 18 (Reuters) - A car bomb hit a group of labourers after they boarded a minibus in a market in a Shi'ite city in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 59 people and sparking clashes between protesters and police, witnesses and officials said.

The blast, some 50-100 metres from a Shi'ite shrine in the southern city of Kufa, tore through the minibus after it had pulled out of the crowded market.

Hospital and security sources said 132 people were wounded in the blast, which dealt a fresh blow to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's efforts to promote national reconciliation.

Riyadh al-Shibni, a doctor in a Najaf health centre, said hospitals in Najaf and Kuf had received 59 bodies.

Police in the scene were pelted with rocks by angry crowds. Many appeared to be followers of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has many supporters in the town. Kufa is near the holy city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

The protesters chanted to the police: "You are traitors!" "You are not doing your job!" "American agents!".

Well, at least the slurs have stayed about the same.

Michael Ledeen, soon to be delivering Kittens*

Tragically for him and his insane little ilk, and happily for the rest of us, Israel is now putting forth a proposal for a ceasefire that is doable for all parties concerned (return of kidnapped troops, stop firing missiles at us, and Lebanese troops on the border).

This will avert World Wars III through V.

Meanwhile, John Bolton, is doing what he can to prompt Israel to do what it doesn't want to do (hence WWBBND? below).


(* Not fluffy and adorable ones)

America's New Foreign Policy

WWBBND?

At least until Bush swallows (feel free to fill in your own joke)

I hereby resign

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

From the KISS army.

Fuckin' poseurs.


(Just needed to push down my Bush food & mouth post, since every person in the universe is posting it up and I'm bitter)

In fact, looking through my posts, it's apparent that today is whiny & petulant day at Rishing Hegemon.

Please take this opportunity to air your greivances, no matter how petty.

And if I don't get many comments, that will give me another thing to complain about. Fine, you go visit TBogg, or Watertiger, or The fuckin' Editors, or Sadsackly Yes, see if I care. I'll just be here with my work and my ballbearings! And that's just fine with me. Strawberries, Strawberries, Strawberries!

Never talk with your mouth full

Is that not lesson one in human communication?


I might be wrong, perhaps it's when mom says to the nursing child, "ouch, I guess your teeth are coming in"? I dunno.

Anyhoo, another diplomatic lesson in sophistication.

Good thing he was talking to Blair instead of Prodi, or his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi or there would have been a shower.


(AP Photo/AP Television News/ pool)

A Leader Leads

You go to the G8 summit where you lead, see. That's what they do: lead. See you go to a fancy shmancy faraway place and lead with other leaders. Just like in the playground and sandbox days. Or at least that's what they told old President Dimbulb. Some great examples of shining boot-licking, I mean leadership:

With Putin.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I think you'll find all parties here want the violence to stop. In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place. And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel, and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. That's why we have violence.
***
So, Bill, to answer your question, this isn't the first time that we have strategized on how to solve this problem. And, yes, we talked about the U.N. Security Council resolution. And, no, I'm not going to tell you the particulars about the conversation. I will tell you, however, that there is common agreement that we need to get something done at the U.N. And I'm confident we will be able to do that. And there's agreement that we need to get something done on North Korea at the United Nations.

Here's the thing, though, just so that everybody understands: Diplomacy is not two countries just saying, this is the way it is. Diplomacy is two countries agreeing to work together with other countries, in this case, to come up with common language that we can live with that sends the same message, and that is, no nuclear weapons programs.

With Blair.

PRESIDENT BUSH: My message to Israel is that as a sovereign nation, you have every right to defend yourself against terrorist activities. And, again, I repeat, this started because Hezbollah decided to capture two Israeli soldiers and fire hundreds of rockets into Israel from Southern Lebanon. That's the cause of the crisis.

And so our message to Israel is, look, defend yourself, but as you do so, be mindful of the consequences. And so we've urged restraint.

With Chirac.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I want to thank Jacques Chirac for coming over. It's always a pleasure to visit with Jacques. He is a man who is able to crystalize his thoughts, who is able to discuss issues in a very clear way.

I have one word:

syc·o·phant (sk-fnt, sk-) n.

A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.

When Incontinence meets Alternating Current

REUTERS/Jason Reed


...or as Josh Bolton, there on the right, will remember it...


Josh could tell you that, as soon as he is done masturbating.

le singe embarassing

Je l'accuse de bourrer son pantalon

REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

An Atta J. Turk promise

I can speak only for myself.

But I promise not to post any video, be it YouTube, Google, whatever, for the entire week.

I'm going to go with obsolete mediums called "words" and occasional "pictures".

The video thing has gotten way out of hand.

"We're Winning" update - The "more" valuable dead

Eight people were killed in a missile attack on Haifa, Israel yesterday. If you turned on the cable news yesterday, you probably heard a lot about it -- and it was obviously very sad, very unfortunate, and very wrong.

Meanwhile.

Seventeen were killed in Lebanon today in Israeli airstrikes. This follows in the wake of 35 Lebanese civilians, including 15 children who were killed, apparently before, the eight people in Haifa. You did not hear much about them. Well over 100 Lebanese civilians have been killed so far.

And you'll probably hear even less about the 41 or more people that were killed by a bomb at a market south of Baghdad within the last hour.

Republican Campaign Theme 2006

"We have a shitty, disastrous plan, about as bad as a plan can be -- called more of the same.

For all we know though, the Dems don't have a such a plan. Therefore you must elect us and our shitty, disastrous plan."

In case you haven't heard...

Our paradise of "freeance" has been marching ever toward the the kind of society Bush would like Russia to become in the last hour or so:

25 dead.

Just another day in paradise.

Thank Goodness for the stability the Bush Doctrine has given us.

Every day I can wake up and know that dozens of people will be blown to bits or be found with holes in their skulls. And I don't even have to find out about it unless I look!

It's like "hell" is a digital cable channel.

Intellectual Pimp Slaps

In the immortal words of Popeye, merchant seaman I say, "I's had all I can stanz I can't standz no more!"

A hearty and heartfelt, "FUCK YOU" --

1. To anyone who encourages us to tell the Israelis to invade Syria or Iran.

2. To anyone who doesn't remind people that one of the reasons we were sold the Iraq War (all of which have been discredited, including the world is better without Saddam [if the world equals Shiite death squads you have a point])

3. And most of all to anyone who cries out "We are already in" either World War III or World War IV.

Why No. 3?

First, because it is idiotic -- read some fucking history.

Second, because it is thrown out there as an excuse to accomplish two things...

(a) if you oppose any action in the "World War" you are a defeatist, or worse a NY Times reader (like they didn't help by in 2003)

or

(b) It lets Bush supporters justify all manner of military action, including the killing of civilians...after all that's what that did in WWII.

"Bomber Harris" was a fucking bastard! If he had bombed more oil plants and depots instead of Dresden the war might have ended faster.

The 1% Solution

So, let's see we've gone from nearly 5 years ago...

"If there's a one percent chance something bad might happen we have to act."

To this:

"Everything is bad, let's implement policies where there's a 1% chance it might work."

I cannot help but notice this

Just watching CNN, MSNBC -- and I'm going to assume FoxNews -- the round the clock coverage of the Carnage-a-trois in Lebanon and northern Israel one notices that it certainly deserves news coverage.

After all At least Thirty-Five people were killed between the two countries and certainly that is a tragedy.

However, 35 people killed in Iraq because of violence is what is now known as just another day. And yet, there has been barely a mention of what I guess they consider a "tired old" story of that country we've managed to fuck up even more at a price tag of only $2,000 for the average tax payer.

Genius E. Bush

Fortunate are others, that we are led by such a man, at these times.

Summing it up

Like Frank Rich? Pssst, go here to read the whole thing:

Operation Together Forward is just the latest model of the Axis of Evil gimmick. In his Rose Garden press conference last month, Mr. Bush promised that this juggernaut of crack Iraqi troops and American minders would “increase the number of checkpoints, enforce a curfew and implement a strict weapons ban across the Iraqi capital.” It’s been predictably downhill ever since. After two weeks of bloodshed, Col. Jeffrey Snow of the Army explained that the operation was a success even if the patient, Iraq, was dying, because “we expected that there would be an increase in the number of attacks.” Last week, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, allowed that there would be “adjustments” to the plan and that the next six months (why is it always six months?) would be critical. Gen. George Casey spoke of tossing more American troops into the Baghdad shooting gallery to stave off disaster.

Stupified

Stupid, or Stupid and living in a fantasy world that makes Michael Jackson look like a stone cold realist?

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected a suggestion from U.S. President George W. Bush that his country should emulate democracy in Iraq.

Wow.

My God!

My fucking God!

I think it is safe to say that NOBODY in the fucking world wants a democracy like Iraq at this moment.

Most especially Iraqis.

Our Stumblebum McBunnypants has said a LOT of stupid shit in his tenure -- I'd say this tops it except there is so much I cannot remember everything.

War as Viagra

It never fails to get to me, just how close we are -- so very close -- to being governed completely by those who simply want to escalate, escalate, escalate. You have your rapture contingent complementing those whose policy is always looking for the boogeyman.

I'm not sucking up to Bush & Cheney by saying this, but they are not quite in either camp.

They are, however, damn close to both -- and with an election in November, and a chance to play the "War President" card to the hilt there is an awful lot of call from those bases -- bases who ALWAYS turn out in elections to unleash the rest of the dogs of war. If I remember right July and August of this year were identified by Sy Hersh as the time to go get Iran. Keeping this escalating until Syria and Iran get involved sure would give an underlying pretext.

And we think being in Iraq sucks for our soldiers now?

Michael Ledeen who has never met an inconvenience (like his pants getting too tight) that is not caused by Iranian Mullahs lets off another loud cry that St. Dominic (Dominic de Guzman) could identify with:

The Timeline [Michael Ledeen]

It was depressing to read Thursday night's press conference with Steve Hadley and Condi Rice, because it was almost all about process, and not about war. Aside from their quite proper insistance that we do want a viable, free Lebanon, it was all about "I've called this one, he's called that one, we're talking, talking, talking all the time, not to worry."

There are harsh parameters on this moment, which is an opportunity waiting to be seized. In another week or so the "international community" (the appeasers and "stability" mavens) will force Israel to stop. At that moment, we should want Hizbollah destroyed in both Lebanon and Syria, Assad under attack from his own people for playing this awful game, and Khamenei humiliated as the artefice of a failed operation. We should be openly calling for regime change in Damascus and Tehran, on the grounds that the civilized world cannot any longer tolerate tyrannical murderers calling the shots in the Middle East and elsewhere.

But we have not heard anything about "seizing the moment." We hear lawyer talk and diplotalk, surrender talk and appeasement talk, and there is no action whatsoever. Is this not the time to go after the terrorist training camps in Syria and Iran? What in the world are we waiting for?

And finally, if we dither through this one, the next one will be worse. Maybe much worse. It's not going away. Stability is a mirage. Chamberlain had a choice between dishonor and war. He chose war and got dishonor. You too, Mr. President. It's the way it works.
Posted at 9:51 AM

Shorter Ledeen:

"KILL THEM ALL, GOD WILL SORT 'EM OUT!"

Naturally, of course, Mr. Ledeen will not fight in the wars he wants to unleash, and or escalate to the point of colorful mushroom clouds. Besides, it's a lot more fun masturbating to those bomb exploding videos than doing it live on the battlefield - safer too.

Oh, and another thing if one more person uses poor old Neville Chamberlain one more time in justifying a war, let him or her have to enter the front ranks as a pennance. The Right, most of whose intellectual ancestors were in "America First" at the time Chamberlain was earning the appeasement moniker, have more than used up their right to the approbation. Being for more war doesn't make you tough, it doesn't make you a man -- it distracts you from the activity you never matured out of, taking a magnifying glass to ants.

I know that the easy way to go through life is to live in a big, fat, rich, country looking at your last 20 years of life and thinking "No real repurcussions for me" -- since then you can enjoy "shit done gettin' blow'd up real good" as if it is some carnival attraction. But some of us, really want to have a world where the latest bunkerbuster isn't the key to the kind of world we want to leave to future generations. I don't want to be governed by Larry the Cable Guy.

Give 'em some Love

Visit Media Needle, you'll be glad you did.

Postcard Diplomacy

Original from
REUTERS/Grigory Dukor

The Department of Homeland Security may just be our greatest Terrorist Threat

Wasn't Joe Lieberman all for this agency?

About three miles from the nearest town, Brian Lehman's popcorn factory near Berne has somehow ended up on the federal government's list of potential terrorist targets.

"I don't have a clue why we're on the list. We're on a gravel road, not even blacktop. We're nowhere," said Lehman, owner of Amish Country Popcorn, which employs five people.

Nevertheless, Amish Country Popcorn is one of 8,591 places or events in Indiana that the Department of Homeland Security regards as serious potential terrorist targets, according to an inspector general's report that raised questions about the accuracy and relevance of what's known as the National Asset Database.

Indiana has about 30 percent more listed potential targets than New York (5,687) and nearly twice as many as California (3,212), putting Indiana atop the nation's list of potential terrorism targets.

What's more, the number of potential Indiana targets rose from 322 in 2004 to 8,303 in 2005.

I have to admit, I'm a little nervous living in Iowa, because frankly, the geographically challenged (and I'm going to assume that includes a lot of "suiciders" looking to score 72 virgins...you know sounds like a DHS employee and a islamic jihadist have something in common doesn't it?) cannot tell the difference between Indiana and Iowa. Idaho should be careful too.

Let's set some ground rules

Now that the data are showing that 2006 is, so far, the warmest year ever recorded in the United States -- fitting well within a trend that has seen the last few years be the warmest recorded years globally it is time to set some ground rules.

When the droughts come here to the midwest and food stocks dwindle (it will take a while, but if we keep this up...) let those who write Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages about false hockey sticks; those who get paid by the Oil Lobby to act like the Tobacco Lobby used to; and those editors and producers in media who treat every scientific issue in which there isn't a debate...as if there is a debate by having non-qualified morons be treated as valid purveyors of merited opinion -- be the last ones in the bread line.

Don't Look At Me Obama

Today NPR gives the good Senator from Illinois a gigantic platform to talk about how we need to "heal divisions" by ackowledging or confronting that which binds us at a deeper level, or something like that.

Alright, here we go. I am a semi-practicing Catholic. I do not want to hear about a candidate's faith. I do not want to hear a politician quote scripture as a basis for legislative decisions. To be certain, a huge part of the electorate (although an apparently naive and adolescent part) bases their votes specifically on a person's professed faith--or worse, that they are "born again" and believe that at the end times a not so happy Jesus, but a Jesus no doubt with flowing robes and a beautiful mein and beard will pilot a chariot to somewhere on earth where he will send people like me right to hell. Whatever. I have little doubt that people that believe this shit are earnest, but I'm not buying their snake oil.

My message to Senator Obama: we should NOT be looking for common ground with the nutjobs that politicians like Bush, Delay, Frist, Rove, Brownback, and others seek to placate. I'm not saying they should be excluded from the process, I'm just saying they have had their day and have so roundly fucked-up their chance it is time to just speak the truth. A person's religious beliefs should remain just that: one person's beliefs. So keep it to yourself, will ya.

The Litany of how Bush has "Made the World Safer!"

"Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." - Ah'm on vacation with Barney

"North Korea begins enriching uranium" - "Ah'm not talking to that little dwarf, he's only where he is because of his daddy!"

"I have ordered military action against Eye-Rack" - "Feels Good"

"No WMDs" - "They must be here somewhere"

"Insurgency begins" - "We got it under control"

"Insurgency continues" - "We're making progress"

"Insurgency strengthens" - "We're makin' progress"

"North Korea begins making a Nuclear Weapon" - "Still not talking."

"Insurgency become serious threat" - "Don't worry we're making progress"

"Insurgency takes over Fallujah" - "It's a sign o' our progress"

"New Orleans Threatened by Hurricane" - "Do you people understand the meaning of vacation?"

"Hurricane hits New Orleans" - "Happy birtday Senator McCain"

"New Orleans Floods" - "Ah sure love this gee-tar"

"Golden Mosque Blown Up" - "See how much progress we're makin'?"

"Insurgency takes over Ramadi" - "Progress, Progress, Progress"

"North Korea developing long-range missile" - "Type-o-Dong, heh heh heh, he may be a little freak, but he's funny."

"Insurgency takes over Baghdad" - "Man, all this progress, Ah could use a vacation."

"Israel invades Lebanon, bombs Beirut -- Hamas launches missiles into Israel" - "Ah sure look forward to eatin' that pig" (fuck that Spider)

I'm Atta King

My wife, at least I think she is, Fannie Mae and I attended Lou Diamond Phillips' performance in the one man show I, Butts about former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butts at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday. One word "WOW"...if you looked up "Classy" in the dictionary, there is no doubt you'd find a picture of Fred Grandy there.

I was honored to be in attendance at the Washington Capitals' game last evening where the Canadian National Anthem was performed by the lovely and talented Fannie Mae King. That kid has talent. She'll be appearing with The Tony Roi Elvis Experience and Fried Chicken Buffet in Branson, Missouri, July 24 through 30 -- don't miss it!

My favorite part of the new 'Superman' movie was how they digitally reduced his ball pouch. This dot dotter is delighted that they did not have that technology in the 1950s because many a time I longingly gazed upon the manly sack of the late George Reeves. Still the best geriatric Superman if yours truly can express an opinion...

In baseball, I favor the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League and the St. Louis Browns in the American...I don't think the American Football League is going to make it.

...You cannot beat a barium enema, trust me...Life lessons learned, when you get a massage, always pay for release, even if it is extra. Fannie Mae has demonstrated this many a time. Have I mentioned she has a lovely singing voice?

I have noticed I am not getting as many cookies from viewers as I used to. I need more cookies. Look into it.

The editors of USA Today have informed this humble scribe that I have not had a column for about a decade. Who knew?

Coming up on the Atta King show next week, funny man David Brenner; the rarely interviewed John McCain; George H.W. and Barbara Bush; Regis Philbin - for the full hour; and Jackie Collins.

Happy Bastille Day

And a tribute via of the most powerful scenes in cinematic history -- and let's face it, the best national anthem (even if it is a tad bloody):

Headlines of the Future

From Neal Cavutodamus

Oil hits $130 a barrel, good news for Bush?

Iraq insurgency occupies Green Zone, a win for Republicans?

Eastern seaboard destroyed -- Need we really wonder?

Looks like there's been a spat

And George is getting the part that taste like ass.

REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Our Government in Iraq

I remember when Bobo Brooks the first time he accused the left of being full of Anti-Semites back in February of 2004. All because we opposed the idea of invading and occupying Iraq.

I'm sure Bobo will find a way not to hear about this one, for what little brain he has might explode...well it's Brooks it will just kind of let out a popcorn fart.

Iraq's parliament speaker Thursday accused "Jews" of financing acts of violence in Iraq in order to discredit Islamists who control the parliament and government so they can install their "agents" in power.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani hinted that the Americans and Israelis did not want to see officials of Sunni and Shiite parties running the country because "this is not their agenda".

As a Follow up

A local journalist told me bitterly this week that Iraqis find it ironic that Saddam Hussein is on trial for killing 148 people 24 years ago, while militias loyal to political parties now in government kill that many people every few days. But it is not an irony that anyone here has time to laugh about. They are too busy packing their bags and wondering how they can get out alive.
-- London Times

To Riverbend's depressingly vivid portrayal of Baghdad...this from the London Times:

Ali phoned me on Tuesday night, about 10.30pm. There were cars full of gunmen prowling his mixed neighbourhood, he said. He and his neighbours were frantically exchanging information, trying to identify the gunmen.

Were they the Mahdi Army, the Shia militia blamed for drilling holes in their victims’ eyes and limbs before executing them by the dozen? Or were they Sunni insurgents hunting down Shias to avenge last Sunday’s massacre, when Shia gunmen rampaged through an area called Jihad, pulling people from their cars and homes and shooting them in the streets?

Ali has a surname that could easily pass for Shia. His brother-in-law has an unmistakably Sunni name. They agreed that if they could determine that the gunmen were Shia, Ali would answer the door. If they were Sunnis, his brother-in-law would go.

Whoever didn’t answer the door would hide in the dog kennel on the roof.

Their Plan B was simpler: to dash 50 yards to their neighbours’ house — home to a dozen brothers. All Iraqi homes are awash with guns for self-defence in these merciless times. Together they would shoot it out with the gunmen — one of a dozen unsung Alamos now being fought nightly on Iraq’s blacked-out streets.

“We just have to wait and see what our fate is,” Ali told me. It was the first time in three years of bombs, battles and kidnappings that I had heard this stocky, very physical young man sounding scared, but there was nothing I could do to help.

The previous night I had had a similar conversation with my driver, a Shia who lives in another part of west Baghdad. He phoned at 11pm to say that there was a battle raging outside his house and that his family were sheltering in the windowless bathroom.

Marauding Mahdi gunmen, seeking to drive all Sunnis from the area, were fighting Sunni Mujahidin for control of a nearby strategic position. I could hear the gunfire blazing over the phone.

We phoned the US military trainer attached to Iraqi security forces in the area. He said there was nothing to be done: “There’s always shooting at night here. It’s like chasing ghosts.”...

...Hundreds — Sunni and Shia — are abandoning their homes. My driver said all his neighbours had now fled, their abandoned houses bullet-pocked and locked up. On a nearby mosque, competing Sunni and Shiite graffiti had been scrawled on the walls.

A senior nurse at Yarmouk hospital on the fringes of west Baghdad’s war zone said that he was close to being overwhelmed. “On Tuesday we received 35 bodies in one day, 16 from Al-Furat district alone. All of them were killed execution-style,” he said. “I thought it was the end of the city. I packed my bags at once and got ready to leave because they could storm the hospital at any moment.”

Go read the whole, depressing, thing.

Elmer goes to Shop Class

Oh lord, why must I live in the same state as the biggest tool in Congress?

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) went on the House floor on Tuesday to discuss a fence that he “designed” for the southern boarder. (King constructed a model of the fence as he was speaking.) King’s design features a wire electrified “with the kind of current that would not kill somebody.” King noted that “we do this with livestock all the time.”

And look, he even made something without losing a finger.

Shorter Peggy Noonan

Life is now too complex to demand anything more than easy answers.

Too risque for politic society

The newest Republican Themed Toiletries and Bath Apparel from Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

Emphasis on "beyond".

I just saw this

On the Anderson Cooper repeat this morning.

A touching recreation of the "Battle of the Leyte Gulf".

My Gawd,

My Gawd,

MY GAWD!

I'm sure Kim Il Jong is shitting his olive drab pants in fear.

You know, there was the story yesterday about the renaming of Auschwitz because the Polish Government for "some" reason doesn't really like the publicity it gets (golly, go figure).

I shudder to think what a Japanese ad firm would do.

"Since I'm in Germany, it would be cool to do this with my arm..."

"Nah, better not. I hate it when Condi goes to bed angry."

(AP Photo/Heribert Proepper)

The obvious success of the "Noboby fucks with da (fill in the blank)" policy

Let's see, two kidnapped soldiers leads to the invasion of one country by another.

And America's paralysis of all things involving Israel ensues.

It's easy to criticize Hamas and Hizbollah, they deserve a hell of a lot of criticism -- taking advantage of misery and oppression by encouraging tragedy.

But if this was another sovereign nation invading yet another one, I think it is safe to say we'd be apoplectic.

But it is Israel, which means any criticism of "This seems a little over the top" will automatically mean this sort of response:

"You fucking Anti-Semitic, Daily Kos reading, Ned Lamont supporting liberal, America-Hating, porn-watching, abortion performing, non-troop loving Scumbag!"

I've counted less than half of those things are true.

So it sort of creates a bit of a difficulty having a dialogue about criticizing Isreal's foreign policy and military action -- and whether it is effective.

I certainly see the logic of the "we don't take any bullshit" form of diplomacy, but at some point -- oh maybe say 24 years ago -- it should have been pretty clear that all the tit-for-tat shit accomplishes is more fucking killing. Of course, this same logic applies to Hamas and Hizbollah as well (and the United States).

A Double D Shot o' Crazy

For what seems like the third time...

Katherine Harris's Campaign Staff To Resign

Maybe she can hire those Democrats she says come up to tell her they want to sneak a peak her to win.



And on a personal note, get well soon you crazy, hilariously entertaining, enabler of the Bush Presidency.

Non-Partisan Truth-telling, Lie Exposing Evil Doers

One has the feeling if the GOP keeps hold of Congress, there will no longer be a non-partisan advisory body.

But for now, we'll just have to make do with this being grossly under-reported:

The investigative arm of the US Congress has openly questioned if victory in Iraq can be achieved without a significant overhaul of President George W. Bush's strategy, arguing the outcome of the war was presently "unclear".

The findings by the Government Accountability Office mark the first time a non-partisan US government agency publicly doubted whether the geo-strategic undertaking that Bush made the defining element of his presidency, could be successful.

"It is unclear how the United States will achieve its desired end-state in Iraq given the significant changes in the assumptions underlying the US strategy," the GAO wrote in its report unveiled Tuesday at a hearing in the House of Representatives.

The review focuses on the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," a glitzy document released by the White House with great fanfare last November.

The strategy charted what was described at the time as a sound course for overcoming the Iraqi insurgency and turning the country in the first true democracy in the Arab world.

Nine months later, congressional investigators found these high hopes were resting on shaky premises that are quickly melting away.

You know

I would guess given my tax burden over the last three, soon to be four, years I've personally paid at least $3,000 toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Boy has that been money well spent.

I would also like to know, with that kind of donation...

WHERE'S MY FUCKING T-SHIRT!?

When I would make sure I didn't see a doctor again

This is a tell, to run, run like the wind...

"He praised Hitler while slicing me with a scalpel, but I thought he was just an interesting character."

I'm not sure of too much in my life, but there are a few things I am certain of:

1. Never buy clothes from the same place Al Davis shops.

2. If you are in a geography bee, make sure you are matched up against George W. Bush.

3. There can be no taint worse than Ann Coulter's taint.

4. It's better to drink Absorbine Jr. than be treated by Mengele Jr.

Oh, I'm pretty confident of one thing too.

This guy had to have posted on occasion to FreeRepublic.com

Progress

Zombie-Philes we must only read Assrocket, Strategy Page, and listen to Toby Keith...it is getting better...it is getting better...it is getting better.

We can tell from a different hemisphere, it is soooooooooo very much better than the NY Times says...

Uh-huh, from Riverbend who has the misfortune of living under our occupation:

There was also an attack yesterday on Ghazaliya though we haven't heard what the casualties are. People are saying it's Sadr's militia, the Mahdi army, behind the killings. The news the world hears about Iraq and the situation in the country itself are wholly different. People are being driven out of their homes and areas by force and killed in the streets, and the Americans, Iranians and the Puppets talk of national conferences and progress.

It's like Baghdad is no longer one city, it's a dozen different smaller cities each infected with its own form of violence. It's gotten so that I dread sleeping because the morning always brings so much bad news. The television shows the images and the radio stations broadcast it. The newspapers show images of corpses and angry words jump out at you from their pages, "civil war… death… killing… bombing… rape…"...

...Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

Buses, planes and taxis leaving the country for Syria and Jordan are booked solid until the end of the summer. People are picking up and leaving en masse and most of them are planning to remain outside of the country. Life here has become unbearable because it's no longer a 'life' like people live abroad. It's simply a matter of survival, making it from one day to the next in one piece and coping with the loss of loved ones and friends...

Go read the whole thing.

Our nation's internet brownshirts line up

To check Ann Coulter for a hernia.

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)