The Men who SHOULD be leading the Country

Watching the Democratic debate versus the Republican
debate, one thing is glaringly obvious: ANY of the Democrats would be a major improvement over these sock puppet corporate clowns on the Republican side.

Edwards is my choice, but props to Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson for simply appearing sane compared to the monkeyfucking shit-for-brains like Guliani, Thompson, McCain,etc..

Kucinich - very well laid out plans

More Kucinich at C&L

Gravel missing, of course, because he's too honest

Oh, and LMFAO AGAIN- ANOTHER anti-gay Republican is busted, this one dressed up Like Guliani (women's lingerie) having sex with a man in a nudie booth...

Republican Richard Curtis hastens to say : "I'm not Gay". I just like having gay sex while wearing women's clothes in public places.

Oh, Well THAT makes it okay then. Carry on. How can we win the war in Terror if our Republican war mongers can't dress up like chicks and blow men in public restrooms?

ONE DOWN

War Profiteer Arrested

Alternet- Best of the Week

Best of the Week NewsletterOctober 27th, 2007

Is a Presidential Coup Under Way? By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
The Constitution is being trampled and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered -- a presidential coup is taking place. Where is Congress? Read more ?

White House Leak: Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike By Gregor Peter Schmitz, Cordula Meyer, Der Spiegel
High-ranking military experts say an attack would lead to world economic chaos, or even what Bush calls 'World War III.' Read more ?

11 Things We Can Learn from the Rest of the World Ode
Eleven lessons the West can learn that would improve our lives and create a better future for all humanity. Read more ?

Bush's Response to 9/11 Was Deadlier Than the Attacks Themselves By Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.com
A look at how and why the U.S. gravely failed in its response to 9/11. Read more ?

I'll Have My Cosmetics With a Side of Infertility, Please By Heather Gehlert, AlterNet
Author Stacy Malkan reveals the dangerous truth about everyday products we put in our hair and on our skin. Read more ?

What Women Aren't Told About Childbirth By Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Mariya Strauss, AlterNet
A new survey of mothers reveals some disturbing things about hospital maternity care that may make pregnant women want to take a closer look at their options. Read more ?


Where Does the Right-Wing End and the Media Begin? By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet
Economist Paul Krugman on how the right-wing media machine is destroying social progress. Read more ?

Curveball: The Iraqi Defector the Bush Team Used to Sell the War By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
An interview with the author of a new book on the Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball," whose made-up intelligence on Saddam's WMD programs was central to the Bush Administration's case for invasion. Read more ?

Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide By John Dean, FindLaw.com
The case against expanding surveillance powers for a White House that's already out of control. Read more ?

It's Aww Fuck It!-Friday, kids!

Drink. Stupor. Repeat.


A poem from the Rev. Korda at the Church of Euthanasia

Prayer for a Good Death
by Rev. Chris Korda

Great Spirit, I am unworthy;
My species has disgraced itself.
Of all the species that live, or have ever lived,
Mine is the lowliest.
Lower than the flowers who fill the air with sweet pollen,
Lower than the trees who encircle the Earth with their roots,
Lower than the insects,
rulers of Earth

Since the beginning of time,
Lower than the darting fish,
Lower than the soaring birds,
Lower than the four-legged creatures,
Who are the beating heart of the living Earth.
Great Spirit, my shame is as deep as the ocean,
And my sadness is unbearable.
I pray for enlightenment,
But fear that my prayer is too late.
Great Spirit, if this be so, then I pray for extinction.
Let my species become extinct, and vanish from the Earth.
Let my loins be barren,
Let my seed not sprout,
Let the race of men fall like leaves.
Let my fields grow wild,
Let my fences crumble,
Let my cities turn to dust, and become forests.
Let the grass drink my blood;
Let my body be food for worms.
Great Spirit, let me die, that the Earth may live.

The Presidential Rat Race

The Leading Candidates...



Guliani - This is the face of Conservatism?


This is the face of Liberalism?




True Centrism- He'll say anything to get your vote, then do whatever he wants to. Too bad no one knows what the hell that is.

Keep your religion out of government.

This guy is the biggest joke on the campaign trail. But, he's laughing all the way to the bank. And with Republicans throwing away their money on him, I AM TOO.




Lone "Wolf" McCain - a cur that not only sits around licking his own balls, but also licking those of the rest of his pack...





Edwards - the only person who should AND Can be elected. I like Ron Paul's foreign policy. I'd love to see him run as Edwards' running mate once the Republican party kicks him to the curb and goes with Guliani or Romney. But Paul's economic policies don't make much sense and he doesn't have the desire to help save middle America. Kucinich would be great as a running mate for Edwards as well. But as for electability, we are talking Mondale here.

Make your own mind up. I've made up mine watching Edwards beat all the Progressive candidates on the issues time and again. And while Obama and Clinton beat Edwards on the money trail following their consultants' advice, Edwards is following policies, not rhetoric. Support the candidate who will do the most to repair our country.

Olbermann and Carlin

Olbermann interviews Carlin, from C&L

The Real Liberal: Edwards may be third but ...

EXCERPTS

"But counting Edwards out would be a big mistake. Flying below the radar, the former vice-presidential candidate is pulling off a feat that Democratic consultants have long considered impossible: staking out the most progressive platform among the viable candidates while preserving an aura of electability. In head-to-head polling against the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Clinton and Obama have managed to post only modest leads. Edwards, by contrast, not only bests every Republican candidate in the race, he trounces them -- by an average of twelve points."

...

"Take global warming: While Clinton spouts happy talk about ethanol and "clean coal," and Obama focuses on a technocratic proposal to lower the "carbon intensity" of auto fuel, Edwards has a plan that would make the Union of Concerned Scientists proud. "We need an eighty percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050," the candidate told Rolling Stone in a wide-ranging interview. "You start by capping carbon emissions in America. Beneath the cap, you auction off the right to emit any greenhouse gases. And you use that money --$30 to $40 billion -- to transform the way we use energy."
.
Or poverty. Ending deprivation at home -- by making it easier for workers to unionize, raising the minimum wage to $9.50, cracking down on predatory lending, and providing matching funds to help low-income Americans save -- remains the hallmark of his candidacy. But informed by his travels in Africa, Edwards now proposes spending $5 billion a year to educate 100 million children worldwide, improve drinking water and sanitation in developing countries, and slow the ravages of HIV and AIDS.
.
When he's not echoing Bono and Al Gore, Edwards sounds a bit like Michael Moore. He was the first contender with a plan for universal medical coverage, and his proposal goes further than Obama's by mandating that every American be provided a health plan. And where Clinton would leave a significant troop presence in Iraq indefinitely, Edwards calls for a complete withdrawal. He has issued the most forceful repudiation of Bush's "war" on terror, and in July he proposed a tax hike for wealthy investors."

Friday Free for All

Leaving Iraq:
Mother Jones has a comprehensive report on the hows, whys, and possible whens of the U.S. pulling out of Iraq.

.

Representative Pete Stark, D-CA, channeling yours truly:

"You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

That's about as basic as it gets. Did you see the President grinning like a madman yesterday when he kept mentioning WWIII? Our President is a psychopathic nutjob and our soldiers are dying so his buddies can suck the middle east dry of oil.

And still, plenty of dumb shit Americans are sitting around going "Why is this man saying these terrible things?"

BECAUSE THEY ARE TRUE.
Wake the fuck up!

Troops are dying, our children are getting their health insurance stolen away and still we have 24% of the people who think Bush is the messiah! It's just... there are no words that describe the depth of lunacy and idiocy of these morons.

Right Wing Lies

Batocchio of Vagabond Scholar and Blue Herald has a in-depth breakdown of the smear job done on an American family by the right wing. Posts like this illustrate why progressive bloggers surpass all other forms of news media. You just cannot find a journalist in any form of traditional media or even on internet news sites who is willing to do the work that Batocchio does here. (and on top of that- linking ALL of it -so that you can see the facts for yourself).

Batocchio's fine journalism reveals just how the right wing smear machine works. While they are spewing their venom and lies at American children, soldiers, progressives, and politicians who are trying to get our troops out of an unnecessary war, progressive bloggers are responding with facts, figures, and sanity.

The whole mess about SCHIP is insane- They are taking away healthcare for working American families because-- why? again? Because a few adults (in some states, not Texas) may actually get a little coverage too. Well, we can't have that! Take away those kids healthcare! We can't waste any money on those damn kids! Not while we are spending $2 Billion a week in Iraq!

See how utterly ridiculous the Republican party is? See how blatantly obvious their lies are?

More about SCHIP from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Coddled Capitalism

(click on image to make larger)

.

The index that measures the value of our Dollar against six major currencies sank to an all-time low today. Here is a daily chart of the Dollar Index .

Not only did the Dollar make a new all-time low, but Gold was up $2.30, closing at $766.20 and Crude Oil Closed At $89.47.

With the Dollar crashing, Gold and Crude Oil advancing, some of us in the financial services industry are wondering when “the next shoe will drop”.

An article, Bail-Out Nation by Eric J. Fry does a fair job of explaining why the stock market hasn’t crashed……….yet.


EXCERPTS

Welcome to “Bail-Out Nation.”

The Land of the Free is quickly becoming the “Land of the Freebie,”especially for members of the millionaire corporate elite who make multi-billion dollar mistakes…with someone else’s money. This unfortunate state of affairs is jeopardizing the dollar’s value, as well as its hard-won reserve-currency status.

...

As for discipline; forget it. The coddled capitalists of America’s high finance never receive a slap on the wrist for any misdeed whatsoever. That would be child-abuse. Nor do they ever even receive a time-out for bad behavior. Worst case, punishment arrives in the form of multi-million dollar severance packages.

Who are these “nursery school” capitalists? They are the folks who receive millions of dollars each year to preside over public corporations and/or to speculate with the shareholders’ capital.
American corporations are crawling with these leeches. Using other people’s money, they engage in moronic speculations, knowing that success will multiply their net worth dramatically and that failure will produce negligible negative consequences. And sometimes even failure produces success, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s well-established penchant for bailing out speculators.

Because Wall Street’s privileged speculators receive continuous coddling,they never really learn to behave themselves. Thus, when the multi-millionaire, Nobel-prize winning operators of Long Term Capital Management fell down and got an “owy” in 1998, Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve rushed to their sides with Band-aids aplenty and emergency doses of financial Bactine. He slashed interest rates, while also cajoling Wall Street’s leading banks to provide a multi-billion dollar bailout.

Everyone called it a rescue plan for the capital markets. But the capital markets of 1998 required no rescuing. They had worked flawlessy; they had separated fools from their money.
But because the fools in question hailed from leading Wall Street institutions, and because the Wall Street institutions, themselves, stood to lose billions of dollars, LTCM would not be allowed to fail. Thus, the bailout of 1998 was nothing more than government-sponsored collusion to rescue speculators from the consequences of their ill-conceived speculations.

But the bailout succeeded in sparking a robust year-end rally, which made lots of people very happy…and Alan Greenspan very popular. Few folks cared that the bailout would lead directly to the largest stock market bubble of the preceding 60 years – a bubble that would produce an epic bust and erase hundreds of billions of dollars from the savings accounts of unsuspecting individual investors.

During the early years of the 21st century, the Fed continued coddling Wall Street’s privileged few, by slashing short-term interest rates to unnecessarily low levels. Who benefited? Lots of banks and lots of speculators…and lots of speculating bankers.

The speculators devised numerous ways to capitalize upon ultra-cheap short-term financing. The speculators become overnight investment geniuses by borrowing short-term and speculating long-term. But the sort of genius that relies on short-term financing often perishes at maturity. Only a complete moron would borrow short-term and invest long-term, without preparing an emergency back-up plan or exit strategy – only a complete moron…or a coddled capitalist.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2007 – the financial “Summer of Love” – and we find the same playpen of privileged kiddies making the same poopies in their diapers. All the biggest banks and brokers on Wall Street found themselves onthe losing side of some kind of ill-conceived loan. They found themselves on the hook for billions of dollars worth of loans that no individual of moderate intelligence would have ever issued with his own money.

Not only did Wall Street’s genius bankers issue billions of dollars worth ofidiotic loans, they also packaged the loans into billions of dollars worth of idiotic mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The bankers then sliced, diced and reformulated various types of mortgages into various categories (tranches) of collaterized debt obligations CDOs and other asset-backed exotica.

Why did the whiz kids go to such great lengths to repackage mortgage loans? Because it was a great way to move these things off their own companies’ balance sheets, and onto someone else’s. By moving the loans elsewhere, the bankers could originate new idiotic loans, create new idiotic mortgage-backed securities for public consumption…and collect hefty fees along every step ofthe process.

When the Wall Street bankers couldn’t find any real buyers for their idiotic mortgages and MBS, they would create non-real buyers called structured investment vehicles (SIVs). These SIVs would borrow money, just like a corporation, then use the money to buy mortgage-backed securities from theWall Street bankers who created the SIVs. The process would be something like setting up a shell company to buy your house from you.

As long as the shell company could obtain financing, it could easily buy your house, and might not even quibble about the price (but that’s a topic for another day). Unfortunately, if the shell company suddenly lost access to financing, it would have no choice but to sell the house it bought from you at whatever price it could obtain.

That’s exactly where we are today.

...

Enter the beefy “Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit,” or M-LEC to save theday. This $80 billion fund-to-be, according to Bloomberg News, “will help SIVs, which own $320 billion of assets, avoid selling their holdings at fire-sale prices.”

Here’s how the whole thing is supposed to work: Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan and a few lending institutions to be named later will kick $80 billion into a fund. The fund will buy AA- or AAA-rated SIVs. Once these SIVs become the M-LEC’s property, they cease to require financing from the commercial paper market or, more importantly, from the lending institutions who are providing the $80 billion bailout.

In effect, the banks are bailingout themselves.

To the skeptical observer, therefore, the M-LEC merely puts a happy face on a grim inevitability. These banks would be on the hook for billions of dollars worth of financing anyway. So while pretending to “provide liquidity to the SIV market,” the M-LEC is merely a ruse…and not even a very good one.

For one thing, Goldman Sachs is conspicuously absent from the consortium of participating banks, even though former Goldman CEO, and current Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, brokered the deal. Presumably, Goldman demurred because it has no interest whatsoever in stepping into the SIV tar pit that has ensnared its competitors…and will continue to ensnare its competitors.

...

Net-net, the M-LEC is a joke – a very bad joke.

It is the kind of joke that attempts to rescue well-heeled speculators fromt he consequences of their recklessness…without providing any benefit whatsoever to the capital markets overall. The SIV world doesn’t need a bailout; it needs a mark-to-market. If SIVs were reflecting their real-world pricing, instead of Wall Street’s government-sponsored fantasy pricing, REAL capitalists would be lining up to purchase them or to provide financing.

The American capital markets do not need M-LECs, they do not need bailouts; they do not need rescuing…except from the “nursery school” capitalists who consider their wealth an entitlement, and who believe that their failures and their successes both deserve multi-million dollar paydays.

The “Bail-Out Nation” is costing us all dearly. Every bailout undermines the dollar’s value and international prestige. That’s a very heavy price tag. If the “Bail-Out Nation” does not allow its coddled capitalists to fail, theU.S. dollar itself might fail.

If you are wondering how well educated, rational people could come up with the “schemes” sited above, I suggest you read an excellent book by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island , A Second Look at the Federal Reserve.

And then there's the bad news...

Turns out Mukasey was just full of shit after all. Another Alberto Gonzales enabler in the office of the Attorney General? God, I hope not.

And, Vice Admiral Scott Redd, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who told NBC News that the U.S. was not safer as a result of the Iraq War, last week, suddenly resigns.

Tell the truth in this administration and you can't hold a job. This is your Government on lies. All day, every day, because it believes that YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH. Or rather, this administration knows that if you knew just how bad it has fucked up everything, from not defending the country from terror ON 9-11, to Iraq, to Katrina, through its illegal wiretapping and its firing of people who won't lie through their teeth for Bush- that you really would impeach this incompetent President in a heartbeat.

This is a government of liars and fools. If men like the DIRECTOR OF COUNTERTERRORISM (maybe an important job, you think?) aren't allowed to tell the truth, just how safe are we?

The truth is, not safe at all. Everytime the President and his men force another important official in a position of PROTECTING THE COUNTRY to LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, he is committing a dangerous act that hurts us all.

Is that Treason? Is it dangerous incompetence? Is it simply a powermad glutton trying to greedily consolidate every important organization in America under a horde of sniveling yes-men?

Make up your own mind, but it sure looks like a glaring example of all three to me. Is there a Republican out there, anywhere in existence, that cares MORE about our country than he does his own political party?

Good luck finding one. If you just can't vote for a Democrat, then vote for Ron Paul. A vote for any of the other sad sack group of career criminals that are jockeying for the Republican ticket is a vote for a continuance of the same idiocy that's running our country into the ground.

jobsanger

Adding jobsanger to the blogroll. It's a Texas blog, and has frequent and well-thought out posts. Stop by and check it out.

The Good news of the day

UPDATE: See Silber's post Now!
Hat tip to Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque

New Attorney General-designate may not be a presidential flunky..
MSNBC

"Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey said Wednesday the president doesn't have the authority to use torture techniques against terrorism suspects"

Oral Roberts President (and son of Oral Roberts) is asking for a leave of absense. MSNBC

"Roberts also is accused of using school money for a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She, in turn, is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.” "

An Oral Roberts professor who is suing Roberts says:
“All over that campus, there are signs up that say, ‘And God said, build me a university, build it on my authority, and build it on the Holy Spirit,”’ Brooker said. “Unfortunately, ownership has shifted.”

Larry Craig Considers Anti-Bathroom Sting Legislation Alternet "The gift that keeps on giving."

Taking on the Israel Lobby gaining more and more traction Alternet

"Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. economic and military assistance, having received more than $154 billion in U.S. aid since its creation in 1948, and it currently receives roughly $3 billion in direct U.S. assistance every year, even though it is now a prosperous country. The United States also consistently gives Israel diplomatic support, and consistently comes to its aid in wartime, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Most important, U.S. support for Israel is largely unconditional: Israel receives generous American assistance even when it takes actions that the U.S. government believes are wrong, such as building settlements in the Occupied Territories. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once remarked, U.S. backing for Israel is "beyond compare in modern history." " . . .

"Israel is not the strategic asset to the United States that many claim. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War, but it has become a growing liability now that the Cold War is over. Unconditional support for Israel has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world, helped fuel America's terrorism problem, and strained relations with other key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The United States derives some tangible strategic benefits from its close security partnership with Israel, but it pays a high price for them. On balance, it is more of a liability than an asset."

Tell me what you think is the best news of the day-

Blog Conversations that make conservatives cringe

Well, I'm about to do it again- make a blogpost out of somethng that was just a comment on on someone else's blog.

I do it all the time. And I think that I do it because this blog, to me- is more of an ongoing conversation with my fellow Americans (among others) than it is a diary about all the things that piss me off in my country today.

I am seeking answers and solutions. This whole blog is about Americans rising above the obstacles that we are facing on a day to day basis. I'm not here to preach, although I often do. I'm not here to tell you what to think. I'm just prodding you to think, period, about these issues.

My blog is a little more emotional than most, and that's just my nature. I never have minced words, and I don't think I'm going to start now. I write exactly like I talk (sans the Texas drawl, although I throw a few ain'ts and ya'lls in there subconsciously at times).

So I'm not here to win blog awards or get blog-famous, I'm just here to speak openly about what is going on in our country and get some input from you as well.

But, I've been so pissed recently at current events that I haven't even wanted to talk about it.

A post by Frederick reminded me that things are getting better (in measurements of inches, if not miles, but still... ) After reading the post, about Rush versus "Phony" Soldiers- I made this comment to Fred, who has been quite an inspiration to me and the House of the Rising Sons:

Fred-your contributions as a soldier, and a blogger, and simply an American with a voice- have been invaluable over the past two years. I, unlike some out there, don’t trust Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to tell me what a real soldier, like yourself, thinks.

Thank you for having the strength, the will, and the perseverence to stand up and be heard, both intelligently and powerfully, via this medium.

I know that in my own blog, just as a regular American, I have had worries in the back of my mind about doing my duty as an American and speaking out, given the attacks on our freedoms from the phony patriots out there.
Your voice has been key to a lot of the non-bloggers out there. For every one of us who blog, there are a hundred who don’t, but frequent the blogs looking for answers to questions that Mainstream media aren’t even asking.

You have helped me, many times, when I thought about stopping, deleting my blog and walking away from an America that frequently appears to not want to give a damn about its own future. And whenever I hear from someone who I have turned around, or had a positive effect on, it keeps me going. This blog “pays it forward” every day, and I try to keep the chain linked and growing.

It’s been a long, hard road watching the psychotic fascists who controlled the media slowly lose their power to an awakening population. And frustrated though I may be, I realize it is getting harder, for one reason, I don’t have to work so hard any longer- People aren’t attacking as vehemently as they used to when common sense is injected into their Fox news IV drip.

The radical loons like Rush and Ann, who owe their fortunes to being consummate liars for big government will NEVER apologize. And that’s fine with me. The future will lose the aura of fear and hate that pervades this moment in the psyche of American consciousness, and these people will be judged as the fools that they ultimately are.

Now, undoubtedly the twelve former Army Captains who are speaking out about leaving Iraq will be vilified by the radical right wing nuts who have never served our country in a military capacity. They will be thrown under the right wing bus (that is getting shorter and shorter) by the dittoheads and self-serving scumbags who don't give a damn how many American soldiers lose their lives in Iraq.

But these men have fulfilled their duty- they have honestly spoken out about Iraq as plainly as they can. This war is hurting our country. Some of our soldiers have known it long before October 2007. And some of them have bravely been speaking out about this danger to our country as well.

Frederick is one of those soldiers. Fred's been dragged over the coals before, on his blog and others, by those who are not soldiers. Back in 2006, the troll cadre of right wing pro-war 9-11/Saddam bushbots even held a mock trial of Fred for treason for daring to attempt to protect his country from those who would trample on the constitution.

He stood firm then, in his convictions, as he stands so now. This is an American soldier we can all be proud of. Thank you for your service to your country, Fred.

If we can all serve our country by talking to each other openly and honestly, the country gets stronger, not weaker. So keep the conversation going.

UPDATE: When will we listen to the troops?

Won't Back Down

Won't Back Down

EXCERPTS:

"The good news is that Americans are already awake: I thought there would be resistance to or disbelief at this message of gathering darkness — but I am finding crowds of people who don’t need me to tell them to worry; they are already scared, already alert to the danger and entirely prepared to hear what the big picture might look like. To my great relief, Americans are smart and brave and they are unflinching in their readiness to hear the worst and take action. And they love their country."

...

"This is an open invitation to honorable patriots on the Right and in the center to join this movement to restore the rule of law and confront this horror: this is not conservatism, it is a series of crimes against the nation and against the very essence of America. Join us, we need you. This movement must transcend partisan lines. The power of individual conscience is profound when people start to wake up. TK Comey said No; history will look at this torture and disgrace the torturers. A judge today ruled that the US can’t just ship prisoners out of Guantanamo to be tortured at will — she said No. The Center for Constitutional Rights is about to file a civil lawsuit — against Blackwater: they are saying No.

In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No — history would have had an entirely different outcome. If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives.

They will be American tears.

The time for weeping has to stop; the time for confronting must begin."

Read the whole piece

Busker is Back!

I'm using a hacksaw, he's got a scalpel.

Busker's Back= The Total Perspective Vortex

Link it, Lead it, Love it.


This post in particular was very insightful : Mission Accomplished

EXCERPT:

Poor Paul Rogers. He seems to have bought both the "war on terror" and the "Bush is incompetent" memes hook, line, and sinker, which is why he's having trouble understanding the strategy at work here. What'll he tell us next, that the Bush administration didn't mean to help marginalize Iran's moderate movement? Hey, Paul, here's a free clue: we aren't fighting a "war on terror," and contrary to your negative-nellie claims, everything's going very well; in fact, as close to perfectly as could be resonably expected. Consider the following points:

Did P.N.A.C. (Project for the New American Century) send a letter to President Clinton in 1998, signed by Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert (brother to Frederick) Kagan and others, stating that "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power... now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy"? Why, yes they did. Has P.N.A.C./the Bush administration removed Saddam Hussein from power? Yes they have. Is the U.S. still in Iraq, despite a clear majority of both Americans and Iraqis being opposed to our ongoing presence there? Erm, yeah.Well, that's not incompetence, that's success: a group of people who publically supported the invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein for 3 years before the "war on terror" even began invaded Iraq, ousted Saddam Hussein, and set up shop in his country, all in the name of the "war on terror"... and hardly anybody noticed they were the same people. That's not just a success, that's a staggering act of perception management.


Enjoy the wit and wisdom of the Busker. Go forth and quantify.

Ebb and flow

Mirth's Incomparable Peace and Revolt

This is a great post. And there's a lot of good stuff in the comments. Especially revealing are the comments by busboy, a conservative who tries endlessly to convince us that everything's alright. He wants to tell all of the Americans who are unhappy with our dead children, our endless money for wars, our shortage of funds for children's healthcare, and our newfound lack of freedom that it's all OKAY.

Because that's the way it works, goshdarnit! Of course, it didn't work that way BEFORE this madman took office, not to THIS appalling extent, but hey that's not the point anyway.

The point of the men who stand on the street corners and yell "Everything's alright! Nothing to see here!" is that they are desperately attempting to distract us, Americans who care, from doing something about the shithole they are forcing the middle class and inevitably themselves into. They actually believe that turning a majority of people in this country into paupers, unhealthy paupers, that they are setting themselves up to be our plantation owners.

The rich will get richer for awhile.

But destroying the country for 90% of Americans so that the other 10% can bleed it dry isn't historically, a very good policy for an empire's future.

And the men at the top, inevitably, end up at the feet of the "rabble" they so despise.

Patriotism is wanting your country to prosper. Not just the wealthy. It is looking further than your own bank account and making personal sacrifices that benefit the majority of your countrymen.

Ask not what your country can do for you- Blackwater, Halliburton, Bechtel, ExxonMobil.

Ask what you can do for your country and its future. And I assure you, it is NOT trusting in tax cuts, propping up the ever-weakening U.S.dollar and funnelling our country's money into Saudi Arabia, Iraq and China - all the while pretending its all for the good of "Free trade". Bullshit.

"But that's the way it works."

It's the way it works under a bunch of traitors to the American way, that IS a fact. But that's not the way it is supposed to work, it is NOT the way it has worked in the past, and if we want our country to stay on top, and not fall the way of Britain, (most notably and recently) then we will change the way it is "working".

Prologue

He rose slowly out of the burning bath water, savoring the heat that reddened his skin and sent wisps of steam rising around him. He was intoxicated by the feel of his hot flesh and the sense of finality that surrounded this moment. He was acutely aware of the purpose
that sat upon his brow like a halo of hope; the purpose that had been missing these past four or five years. He didn't bother to drain the water from the tub as he stepped out, loving the cool tiles beneath his feet and tasting each drop of water that dripped from his elbows and hair.

The air was shimmering and for a brief moment he thought might pass out from the pleasure of simple awareness. He toweled off lightly and combed through his hair before returning downstairs to where she lay. Concealing the smile that threatened to betray his knowledge of her duplicity, he crawled beneath the covers and shut his eyes.

She trembled next to him, half fear-half ecstasy, and she was too preoccupied to realize that she wasn't angry at him anymore. Her right hand clutched the kitchen knife under the pillow and last minute pleas of future regrets fought a wild battle in her mind. The smile rose unbidden to his face, uncontrolled. He could sense her apprehension, could smell her sweat. Seeing his grin, that fucking shit eating grin of his cross his face- the anger welled up again and her vision went bloody as the knife jerked up and into his chest. She laughed hysterically as she stabbed again and again. His eyes winked open and gazed into hers. She dropped the knife, falling backwards, terrified.

"Escape!"

The word bubbled out of his mouth on the crest of a wave of blood, and
his smile grew even bigger, as he died. She alternately laughed and cried, huddled in the corner of the room, underneath their wedding portrait. No one in the family had thought it would last. They were right, but no one could have predicted this outcome. Her feral eyes glazed slowly over, covered by a transparent veil of insanity. Soon they mirrored his, staring but unseeing, dead but still alive inside, somewhere.

He knew he had won, but not yet what his victory held for him. His
sense of purpose faded from its orgasmic/euphoric glory into numbness as he was hurtled from this world to the next. Multicolored flames sprang into existence and chilled his blood as they fanned over him. He noticed with some shock that he no longer held a form of flesh and bone. Transparent, translucent, ameobic was what he had become. A different awareness washed over him, alien yet wise. Images that he had once known as past, present, or future strobed before his -`vision?' (he no longer had eyes) - and he knew time and existence as it was- completely simultaneous, no paths to go back or forward upon, just the point that was/is/will be -constantly occurring.

(from untitled work, 92)

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Rant Independent

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Your life is only every thing that you make it, make of it..

It is only as fulfilling as you want it to be. It is only as happy as you
choose to be. Circumstance is only perhaps 10% of your entire experience
the remainder is the result of how you live your life and how your actions reflect back upon you.

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NO EXCUSES.

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Do As Thou Wilt, but don't expect any one to care for the explanations you give them for YOUR faults. Don't expect them to care. You don't care to hear of their problems, do you? Except as a polite pause in your moanings to them.

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NO FUCKING EXCUSES DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

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The Government isn't out to get you, Just your money; Your Family doesn't hate you, they just don't like you; Your life doesn't suck, You Suck. So the next time you feel like crying on my shoulder, I'll be there, just don't expect much sympathy for your own failures.

And as for that 10% beyond your control, Get over it. Survive. Rebound. Regroup. Take control of your own life, let those who are ignorant remain where they are. Take care of yourself and everything else falls into place.

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CKB 5/7/95

Resist... Or don't.

Its a great big fucking cartoon. And no amount of Peaceful protest will ever make the fascists in charge change a fucking thing.

They will line us up like Burmese monks and dash our brains against the walls as we Hold our morality high.

FIGHTING back involves FIGHTING. And NOTHING will Ever change until they feel the sting of a blow to themselves.

And, I know that makes me "one of them" but after four fucking years, thats the way its got to be.

When will YOU be fed up enough to FIGHT? \

Don't wait too long to pull your head out of your ass. Its time to stop taking their shit.

And now for something completely different...

Survivalism



I can only hope...

A friend in need...

My friend Megabrad over at Iamsoretarded.com wanted me to get the word out about the truth about his recent arrest.

As all my blogger friends know, I'm here to help-

(Crossposted at http://megabradloser.blogspot.com/)




Look- By now, you've seen the headlines- you have seen the vicious smear campaign about my recent bathroom "arrest" and I want to clear this matter up, once and for all.

The Megabrad is NOT GAY. I am like Major MegaHetero, yo. Straight Pimpin and shit, got it? Okay, now that we got that established, allow me to explain how the Seattle police misunderstood what was going on late Thursday night in the Space needle's restroom...

I know, it has been "Reported" by the "Media" that I denied everything at first. That was what a smart guy does, right? Deny everything. That's what every lawyer I've ever had told me. So when I said I wasn't at the Space Needle at all, that was just intelligent denial. So here's the deal, me and the boys had a few drinks and headed over to the Needle, you know, lookie for hippies asses to kick and maybe go to the top of the Needle and genuflect about 9-11, and, you know, shit.

I just happened to need to take a whiz cuz of a bladder issue I've had since birth. So the camera recording me going in and out of the bathroom twelve times makes total sense, when you know that! I had drank a sixer of Sam Adams and had to go, nothing weird about that, right?

The above pic IS Me, I know I denied it at first, but hey- LEGAL issues prevented me from admitting it at the time. And I did, look thru the uh gloryhole thing, but that was only an accident because I was trying to read the fine print on some really funny stall graffiti - "Here I sit, all right wing retarded..." when out of the blue- the man in the next stall started doing something strange...

I thought he might be having a heart attack or something, and megaguy that I am, I asked him if I could help.

The transcript sounds bad, in retrospect, but it was totally innocent and appropriate at the time.

The media's report of "Hey, love a strokin, hairy?" is of course, liberal fabrications meant to take down the Megabradster. What I actually said was: "Hey, have a stroke in there?"

And of course when the police showed up, of course they didnt pay attention to the man who might be dying in the other stall- they grabbed me up like some kind of criminal and tackled me to the floor. Which was kind of cool- because you know how I support law enforcement.

So, it's all a big misunderstanding, you see? Of course, you guys understand how the liberal media gets all psycho on us Americans patriots, right? I appreciate the support. In fact, tonight I'm getting everyone together at the local watering hole to drum up some money for my legal defense fund at the Blue Oyster bar downtown. You guys are all welcome to come hang out.

So again- the Media's report was all lies, as you know. I am not Gay. And the two other men that came forward are obviously plants from the conspiracy. And I ALWAYS carry my portable drill with me, doesn't everyone? I'm just a tool kinda guy, you know.

So, Please- Meet Brad in the bathroom of the Blue Oyster bar and show him your tool... Be nice and throw him a five spot and a kleenex afterwards... It's all in the interest of being nice to your fellow bloggers.