Wednesday, August 31, 2005

While New Orleans Floods...




...Nero strums.


UPDATE (11:30 a.m. 9/1/05): Did you happen to notice which finger he has extended?!

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

It's a Miracle!

Apparently, in the wake of massive flooding, millions upon millions of dollars worth of destruction, and more than 60 deaths (and counting), DUIbya has apparently taken it upon himself to cut short his vacation. Shall miracles never cease?!

At any rate, I'm sure his political handlers are working on how they can best use this opportunity to their advantage, to help pump up his sagging approval ratings.

What? You think I'm hopelessly cynical? I'm sorry, have we met?!

At any rate, I did my part: Today, I made a donation to the American Red Cross. A rather generous donation considering my financial situation, I might add. I encourage the three people reading this to do the same. And tell your friends. You could also arrange to make a blood donation--I'm sure the R.C. is going to need that, too. And yes, I am a regular donor (57 pints and counting!)

You might also want to drop by the USO and give them a few bucks too. We need to make sure our troops don't get forgotten in the wake of Katrina. After all, there may be more than a few of them who have friends and/or family who are suffering in the aftermath of this disaster.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Just Letters

Remember those magnetized refrigerator letters? Did you used to love to play with them? Here's your chance to do it again!

It's hard to keep anything in one place for long, but I managed to keep "IMPEACH BUSH" intact vertically for 1 minute and 8 seconds (I timed it) before it got removed. Here's a screencap:



Also managed to give some props to h0rk:

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Priorities, Man, Priorities!

Here's a screencap from the rotating AOL menu this morning:




OK, let's analyze this: A guy is sitting on a mountain, he's surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable, and he's working on his laptop!!!

Like I said: Priorities!

Have a good day, everyone (all two of you!)

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Is Nothing Sacred?

Apparently, according to this article, many grave markers of fallen soldiers now contain the names of the "operations" where they were killed, such as "Operation Enduring Freedom", or "Operation Iraqi Freedom". Apparently, not even soldiers' tombstones can escape being used as pro-war propaganda.

Most of the gravestones of soldiers killed in previous wars are simple markers containing name, rank, and dates of birth and death. So why the change?

Call me cynical (I know, the hell you say!), but I have to believe it's yet another attempt to shore up support for a useless and costly war. I can't help but wonder how long it will take before we see campaign slogans and commercial advertising. Think about it: Before long, soldiers will lie buried not under a cross or star of David, but under a Nike Swoosh or a Halliburton logo.

And as for "Operation Iraqi Freedom", I think they called it that because "Operation We Totally Fucked Up By Invading A Sovereign Muslim Country Without Any Justification And Now The Rest Of The World (Particularly The Arab World) Totally Hates Our Guts" is just too long.

But you gotta admit, it's got a nice ring to it!

Monday, August 22, 2005

He Said it Better Than I Could

Credit where credit is due: The following was written in the New York Times by Frank Rich, and was taken directly from Cindy Sheehan's blog

CINDY SHEEHAN couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there's a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had "other priorities" during Vietnam.

The most prominent smear victims have been Bush political opponents with heroic Vietnam résumés: John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry. But the list of past targets stretches from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke to Specialist Thomas Wilson, the grunt who publicly challenged Donald Rumsfeld about inadequately armored vehicles last December. The assault on the whistle-blower Joseph Wilson - the diplomat described by the first President Bush as "courageous" and "a true American hero" for confronting Saddam to save American hostages in 1991 - was so toxic it may yet send its perpetrators to jail.

True to form, the attack on Cindy Sheehan surfaced early on Fox News, where she was immediately labeled a "crackpot" by Fred Barnes. The right-wing blogosphere quickly spread tales of her divorce, her angry Republican in-laws, her supposed political flip-flops, her incendiary sloganeering and her association with known ticket-stub-carrying attendees of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Rush Limbaugh went so far as to declare that Ms. Sheehan's "story is nothing more than forged documents - there's nothing about it that's real."

But this time the Swift Boating failed, utterly, and that failure is yet another revealing historical marker in this summer's collapse of political support for the Iraq war.

When the Bush mob attacks critics like Ms. Sheehan, its highest priority is to change the subject. If we talk about Richard Clarke's character, then we stop talking about the administration's pre-9/11 inattentiveness to terrorism. If Thomas Wilson is trashed as an insubordinate plant of the "liberal media," we forget the Pentagon's abysmal failure to give our troops adequate armor (a failure that persists today, eight months after he spoke up). If we focus on Joseph Wilson's wife, we lose the big picture of how the administration twisted intelligence to gin up the threat of Saddam's nonexistent W.M.D.'s.

The hope this time was that we'd change the subject to Cindy Sheehan's "wacko" rhetoric and the opportunistic left-wing groups that have attached themselves to her like barnacles. That way we would forget about her dead son. But if much of the 24/7 media has taken the bait, much of the public has not.

The backdrops against which Ms. Sheehan stands - both that of Mr. Bush's what-me-worry vacation and that of Iraq itself - are perfectly synergistic with her message of unequal sacrifice and fruitless carnage. Her point would endure even if the messenger were shot by a gun-waving Crawford hothead or she never returned to Texas from her ailing mother's bedside or the president folded the media circus by actually meeting with her.

The public knows that what matters this time is Casey Sheehan's story, not the mother who symbolizes it. Cindy Sheehan's bashers, you'll notice, almost never tell her son's story. They are afraid to go there because this young man's life and death encapsulate not just the noble intentions of those who went to fight this war but also the hubris, incompetence and recklessness of those who gave the marching orders.

Specialist Sheehan was both literally and figuratively an Eagle Scout: a church group leader and honor student whose desire to serve his country drove him to enlist before 9/11, in 2000. He died with six other soldiers on a rescue mission in Sadr City on April 4, 2004, at the age of 24, the week after four American security workers had been mutilated in Falluja and two weeks after he arrived in Iraq. This was almost a year after the president had declared the end of "major combat operations" from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

According to the account of the battle by John F. Burns in The Times, the insurgents who slaughtered Specialist Sheehan and his cohort were militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric. The Americans probably didn't stand a chance. As Mr. Burns reported, members of "the new Iraqi-trained police and civil defense force" abandoned their posts at checkpoints and police stations "almost as soon as the militiamen appeared with their weapons, leaving the militiamen in unchallenged control."

Yet in the month before Casey Sheehan's death, Mr. Rumsfeld typically went out of his way to inflate the size and prowess of these Iraqi security forces, claiming in successive interviews that there were "over 200,000 Iraqis that have been trained and equipped" and that they were "out on the front line taking the brunt of the violence." We'll have to wait for historians to tell us whether this and all the other Rumsfeld propaganda came about because he was lied to by subordinates or lying to himself or lying to us or some combination thereof.

As The Times reported last month, even now, more than a year later, a declassified Pentagon assessment puts the total count of Iraqi troops and police officers at 171,500, with only "a small number" able to fight insurgents without American assistance. As for Moktada al-Sadr, he remains as much a player as ever in the new "democratic" Iraq. He controls one of the larger blocs in the National Assembly. His loyalists may have been responsible for last month's apparently vengeful murder of Steven Vincent, the American freelance journalist who wrote in The Times that Mr. Sadr's followers had infiltrated Basra's politics and police force.

Casey Sheehan's death in Iraq could not be more representative of the war's mismanagement and failure, but it is hardly singular. Another mother who has journeyed to Crawford, Celeste Zappala, wrote last Sunday in New York's Daily News of how her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was also killed in April 2004 - in Baghdad, where he was providing security for the Iraq Survey Group, which was charged with looking for W.M.D.'s "well beyond the admission by David Kay that they didn't exist."

As Ms. Zappala noted with rage, her son's death came only a few weeks after Mr. Bush regaled the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association banquet in Washington with a scripted comedy routine featuring photos of him pretending to look for W.M.D.'s in the Oval Office. "We'd like to know if he still finds humor in the fabrications that justified the war that killed my son," Ms. Zappala wrote. (Perhaps so: surely it was a joke that one of the emissaries Mr. Bush sent to Cindy Sheehan in Crawford was Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser who took responsibility for allowing the 16 errant words about doomsday uranium into the president's prewar State of the Union speech.)

Mr. Bush's stand-up shtick for the Beltway press corps wasn't some aberration; it was part of the White House's political plan for keeping the home front cool. America was to yuk it up, party on and spend its tax cuts heedlessly while the sacrifice of an inadequately manned all-volunteer army in Iraq was kept out of most Americans' sight and minds. This is why the Pentagon issued a directive at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom forbidding news coverage of "deceased military personnel returning to or departing from" air bases. It's why Mr. Bush, unlike Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, has not attended funeral services for the military dead. It's why January's presidential inauguration, though nominally dedicated to the troops, was a gilded $40 million jamboree at which the word Iraq was banished from the Inaugural Address.

THIS summer in Crawford, the White House went to this playbook once too often. When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war's critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.

The media are wrong. The people who have come out to Camp Casey to help coordinate the press and events with me are not putting words in my mouth, they are taking words out of my mouth. I have been known for sometime as a person who speaks the truth and speaks it strongly. I have always called a liar a liar and a hypocrite a hypocrite. Now I am urged to use softer language to appeal to a wider audience. Why do my friends at Camp Casey think they are there? Why did such a big movement occur from such a small action on August 6, 2005?

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Tales From My Documents, Chapter 5

Document title: Athletes is Dum
Document Source: E-mail
Document Author: Unknown
Text of Document:

Why Athletes Can't (Shouldn't) Have Real Jobs

1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: "I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."

2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season: "I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."

3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skins say: "I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl, "Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."

4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins: "He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings."

5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh: "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes." (now that is beautiful)

7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."

8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."

10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."

11. Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt." (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)

12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"

13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: "Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."

14. Amarillo High School and Oiler coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: "Because she is too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."

Poster's Comments: I have no idea if any of these are actual quotes or not. I googled some of them, and they did appear on the intarweb, but that's no proof!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Apparently Not ALL Rednecks are Assholes

In a story that leads me to believe there may yet be some hope for Texas, a rancher in Crawford has offered a parcel of his land near the Bush "ranch" to the peace protestors at Camp Casey.

Of course, in an ironic twist, the rancher is Fred Mattlage, a distant cousin of Larry Mattlage, the man who fired his shotgun into the air near the protestors a couple of days ago. I guess this proves that just because one person in a family is a moronic asshat, that doesn't mean that everyone else in that family is the same way.

To Fred Mattlage, I say this: Well done, sir! You have proven that in a hot situation, cool heads can still prevail, and that violence is not the solution to every problem--despite what our president seems to think!

And to Cindy Sheehan, I say this: Keep it up! The country needs more people like you, who stand up to our political leaders and tell them in no uncertain terms that they are wrong. People need to learn that dissent is not unpatriotic--it is, in fact, quite the opposite!

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Spam Comments?!

Imagine my surprise, upon glancing back through some previous posts, to discover that someone had left a "stock tip spam" message as a comment to a previous post.

Needless to say, said comment has been deleted.

And I issue a fair warning to anyone else who has an impulse to do the same thing: I will immediately delete your comments, and I will compose an article of prose that shall bring you low for all eternity! You will inspire me to such lofty heights of insulting rhetoric that your grandchildren will feel the shame from my wrathful words. "I will eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity."*

You have been warned!


*From the movie A Knight's Tale

Monday, August 15, 2005

Another Redneck Asshole

According to this story, Larry Mattlage, a 62-year-old neighbor of DUIbya's Texas "ranch" fired several rounds from his shotgun into the air, near the Cindy Sheehan protest site.

I have two words for Mr. Mattlage: You. Dumbass.

So far, Ms. Sheehan's protest has been a peaceful one. But all it would take to turn it violent is one fucktard like Mattlage doing something just like he did.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, and nothing violent came of it, but consider this: The crowd of protestors outside the Bush "ranch" is growing rapidly, and they are being joined by a number of counter-protestors. When we mix a highly emotional issue with people who strongly believe in their cause, then heat that mixture with a daily dose of strong Texas heat, you have a recipe for a tragedy waiting to happen.

So to you, Mr. Mattlage, I say this: Keep your gun unloaded and on its rack, you ignorant redneck asshole. The protestors will only be inconveniencing you for a few weeks. Ms. Sheehan has to deal with the pain of losing her son for the rest of her life!

And by the way, you may want to check out the nearest high-school physics book (assuming you can read--not necessarily a safe assumption!) and learn about gravity, kinetic energy, and what can happen when several lead pellets fired into the air inevitably come down.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Tales from My Documents, Chapter 4

Document Title: Bush Inaugural Song
Created in My Documents: 7/6/01
Original Author: Unknown
Text of Document:

G.W. Bush's Inaugural Address Song
(to the tune of "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke)
Don't know much about history,
Don't know much foreign policy,
Don't remember how I got through school,
I'm sure I didn't break the rules,
But what's it matter 'cause my granny says!
"Boy, if you want to you can be the prez.
And what a wonderful world this will be."

Don't know much about the women's vote,
Don't know much about the bill I wrote,
Don't know much about the foreign vets,
I've never voted for 'em yet,
But I do know if your dad tries hard,
He can get you in the National Guard,
And what a wonderful place that can be!
Now I never claimed to be an A student,
But what's wrong with C's?
And maybe by knowing the names of my cabinet,
I can win their love for me!
Don't know much about air pollution,
Don't know much about the constitution,
Don't know much about th'economy,
It never much affected me!
But there's one thing that I know for sure,
If the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor,
What a wonderful world this will be!
Don't know much about the national debt,
I've never had to pay one yet,
If we need to we can sell the States,
To the Japanese at discount rates!
But I do know if things get bad,
Dick and I can always call my dad,
And what a wonderful world this will be!

Poster's comments: I got this by e-mail not long after the contested election of 2000. I think it seems especially relevant today...

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

You Go, Girl!

By now, you've probably heard about Cindy Sheehan, the "Peace Mom", who has started a peaceful protest outside DUIbya's Texas "ranch".

Cindy's 24-year-old son was killed in Iraq last year, one of the over 1800 troops killed there as of this writing. She plans to continue her protest until she is given a chance to meet with the President face to face. Frankly, I think the chances of that happening are about as likely as the chances of the Cubs playing the Tigers in the World series this year.

The whole situation has made Cindy a mini-celebrity, and support is pouring in from all around. Many people are joining her in her protest. And, of course, the best part about this whole affair is the fact that rumors are cirulating that she and the others will be arrested soon for "jeopardizing national security".

PUH-LEEZE!

Let me pause here for a moment and give you the unedited text of the First Amendment of the constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (bold text mine)

So think about this for a minute. Here we have a women who is excercising her constitutional right to protest, and she and the others are being threatened with arrest for doing so!!!

More than 60 years ago, millions of people died in a war to stop a government that engaged in just this sort of tactic.

Truly we have met the enemy, and he is us!

Meanwhile, to Cindy Sheehan, I say this: I'm with you in spirit, if not in body. And while not every American admires what you're doing, they should have no doubt that you have the absolute right to do it.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Oh, PUH-LEEZE!

By now, unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard that the NCAA has banned almost all "Indian-style" nicknames, mascots, etc.(Username: MUKRI@BUGMENOT.COM Password: ANURA1 courtesy of bugmenot.com, from any post-season tournament play. Apparently, any school that has a nickname or logo considered racially or ethnically "hostile" or "abusive" by the NCAA would be prohibited from using them in postseason events.

Three words: Get. Over. It.

I can't begin to describe how silly this whole issue is. First, they force the Indians to get rid of Chief Wahoo, and now this.

What's next? Are people going to demand that the New York Yankees change their name? After all, the term "Yankee" was used as a derogatory way to refer to us Americans during the Revolution. Therefore, calling someone a "yankee" is an insult to each and every citizen of these great United States.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? And yet no less silly than all the controversy over the so-called "insulting" Indian names. For Christ's sake, let it go!

I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that in AOL's informal on-line poll, in which the voters were asked, "Do you agree with the NCAA's decision to ban Indian mascots?", of the 62,252 votes received as of this writing, 89% of the respondents answered "No".

There may yet be hope for this country.

Friday, August 05, 2005

Tales From My Documents: Chapter 3

Document Title: Canine Mind Games
Last modified: 2/1/02
Original Author: Unknown

Text of Document:

Mind Games You Can Play With Your Humans

1. After your humans give you a bath, DON'T LET THEM TOWEL DRY YOU! Instead, run to their bed, jump up and dry yourself off on the sheets. This is especially good if it's right before your humans’ bedtime.

2. Act like a convicted criminal. When the humans come home, put your ears back, tail between your legs, chin down and act as if you have done something really bad. Then, watch as the humans frantically search the house for the damage they think you have caused. (Note: This only works when you have done absolutely nothing wrong.)

3. Let the humans teach you a brand new trick. Learn it perfectly. Then, as the humans try to demonstrate it to someone else, stare blankly back at the humans. Pretend you have no idea what they're talking about.

4. Make your humans be patient. When you go outside to go 'pee', sniff around the entire yard as your humans wait. Act as if the spot you choose to go pee will ultimately decide the fate of the earth.

5. Draw attention to the human. When out for a walk always pick the busiest, most visible spot to go 'poo'. Take your time and make sure everyone watches. This works particularly well if your humans have forgotten to bring a plastic bag.

6. When out for a walk, alternate between choking and coughing every time a strange human walks by.

7. Make your own rules. Don't always bring back the stick when playing fetch with the humans. Make them go and chase it once in a while.

8. Hide from your humans. When your humans come home, don't greet them at the door. Instead, hide from them, and make them think something terrible has happened to you. (Don't reappear until one of your humans is panic-stricken and close to tears).

9. When your human calls you to come back in, always take your time. Walk as slowly as possible back to the door.

10. Wake up twenty minutes before the alarm clock is set to go off and make the humans take you out for your morning pee. As soon as you get back inside, fall asleep. (Humans can rarely fall back asleep after going outside. This will drive them nuts!)


Poster's comments: As someone who has had many dogs over the course of his life, I can tell you that whoever wrote this was pretty much spot-on!

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Another Sad Milestone Reached

Well folks, with the deaths of 14 marines today and the deaths of 7 marines yesterday, another milestone has been reached in the pointless war in Iraq: Over 1800 American servicemen and women have now been killed.

So, what does this number mean, exactly?

It means that 1800+ fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, etc., will never again be reunited with their families, at least not in this world.

It means that 1800+ families' lives will never be the same.

It means 1800+ funerals, at which someone will receive a carefully folded American flag, a flag that they will never be able to look at without remembering that it was once draped over the coffin containing the body of their fallen loved one.

And, perhaps most importantly, it means that 1800+ people, most of them cut down in the prime of their lives, will never be able to fulfill their potential, and will never again contribute anything to our society.

The thing that irritates me the most, though, is that these 1800+ people died FOR NOTHING! They weren't fighting some great evil that threatened to take over the world. They were fighting a useless war started at the whim of a President who has been able to show absolutely no justification for it.

Clinton lied about getting a blowjob from a subordinate. Number of soldiers killed: 0.

Clinton was impeached.

Bush lied about why we needed to go to war in Iraq. Number of soldiers killed: 1800+. So far.

Bush was re-elected.

There is something seriously wrong with this country.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Putting NBC on Notice

Memo to NBC and the Producers of The West Wing:

I have been a loyal watcher of your wonderful series from day one. I have not missed a single episode over the entire six seasons so far. I have never looked forward to an episode of a weekly show as much as I have your show. I watch the episodes currently in syndication every chance I get.

But I am putting you on notice: You CANNOT allow a Republican to inhabit your fictional White House. Regardless of how likeable he may be, As long as real Republicans control all the branches of the real government, it is important that Democrats retain their control of the fictional one.

So, this coming September, if I find out that Republican Arnold Vinick has won the election, I will stop watching your show completely. I will no longer watch syndicated reruns. I will cancel any plans I made to purchase the DVD's.

In other words, you will lose a loyal fan. And, I suspect, I will not be alone in my decision.

Consider yourselves warned!