So Have a Happy Already... !

End of the week, put near the end of the year. Vince Guaraldi playing on the CD, his seasonal soundtrack as I cannot let go just yet. Christmas was good for me this year, and it's been a while since I've felt that. Driving to Pennsylvania and to Massachusetts and to Vermont and to Maine and back again took me out of myself. Time was suspended. The family was and is good. They are all that matter to me.

Prospects for '06 look upbeat, and it's been, like, college when I could say that with any real sense of hope. No, that's not true. The early days with the Ex-. She was very good for me. Would that I could have those over again... and since, I'd gone into a spell. A spiral.

Now? Hey! Anything can happen. The new job is working. Everything's in play.

Hell! You might even find me in the gym one of these days. And then the next. Who knows?

Look for me. Keep a light on!

Freakin' Clintons

Jesus! They're like credit-card companies; they don't quit.

First from Hillary:

"Dear Friend,
"At this holiday season, we take joy in our family and friends, reflect on our blessings, and think of those in need." etc., etc...

I guess my responses to Ann Lewis don't much get read.

Now Bill's givin' me some e.love:

"Dear Friend,
"As Hillary's 2006 campaign prepares for a critical December 31st fundraising deadline, I'm writing to urge you to send a special year-end donation." etc...

I'd reply, "Blow me, Bill," but I'm afraid I'd get the lit-end of the cigar.

Adding Another Friend to the Links

Naahm Deplume just entered the blogosphere with his Land Shark Chronicles. Hail, fellow well met!

As for the rest of you, if you ever find yerself disappeared by the Pinochet Bubble Symps (and how's that for a punk-bank handle?) on PA Ave, Naahm's the lawyah 4 u! Why, he'd file a Habeus Upeuranus before you could spatter "Camp X-ray!"

His pedigree includes his being a fellow UMie, a member of Patriot Nation, and, as a sidelight, he's the Human Bullhorn (w/all props to Gerry Trudeau referencing Sam Donaldson). Simply put, Naahm's the only guy on the planet louder'n me... and, uhm, Cousin Jimmy.

Who loves ya', baby!

Good Christmas... ?

Mainelining For The Holiday

My dear but elderly mother doesn't want me playing on her computer as she knows so little about the internet and naturally assumes I do too, so I've stopped asking if I can check my email and now wait for her to nap.

The DVD-player, whose cost I split w/Brotherman the Elder, was a big hit. At first she was daunted by the sterile schematic on the sealed box: "Oh!" was the response I believe.

After brotherman hooked it up, then showed her some preliminary stunts w/buttons on the remote, she warmed up considerably. Now she wants to go to Wal-Mart to buy her first DVD. I'm trying to educate her on the heinous ways of the Walton family while furiously browsing Google for the nearest Costco or at least anyplace not named Wal-Mart that carries a video disc, the MVC adult-store down the road notwithstanding.

Oh, she just woke up and Brotherman's back from his stroll, or he must be 'cause the dog's, like, totally freaking. Better go.

Happy Holidays, Happy Chanukah, Merry Xmas, Season's Greetings... !

or (e) all of the above.

Green Mountain Boy For a Day... And a Night...

Made the scene last night, "open mike" at the Mole's Eye Cafe. Afterwhich, we, Brotherman the Elder and I, lit up a coupla Cohibas and remarked as we strolled on how empty the winter streets of Brattleboro were at 12:30 in the a.m., a contrast with the teeming, to whom we would bump up at breakfastime.

I, like, totally dig this town.

Am now taking a moment from gathering up my belongings while Brotherman wraps his presents, this as we prepare to repair Downeast... and to the land of the lobstah!

Is glad tidings from New England to ye & yerz...

Ho ho ho... !

Greetings From The Land of Franklin

The Pennsylvania kinfolk, who prefer to go nameless, are in full warble downstairs. Thought I'd take a peak at the incoming and the outgoing.

In Massachusetts & Vermont tomorrow, Maine Friday thru Sunday; and back again Monday.

Agreeably broken from the daily routine.

Happy Holidays to any & all!

What Would Centerfield Jesus Do?

Damon to the Yankees!

Damon fills a double void for the Yankees, giving them a speedy center fielder who can cover ground and a leadoff hitter to top a lineup that includes Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield, AL MVP Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui and Jason Giambi.

"and forgive us our trespasses... as we forgive those who trespass against us... "

Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!

Sweet!

Venezuela Gives Exxon Ultimatum

Sweet!

Bolivia's New President-elect calls Bush a Terrorist

Sweet!

John Dean remarked that Bush is the first President to ever willingly admit to an impeachable offense.

Extra Sweet!

Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design in Science Class

I usually take my coffee black, but today I'll make an exception.

Headline Of The Day

Iraq is a Red State.

We're All Terrorists Now

Looks like the Gestapo has moved beyond the little brown ones:

[T]he documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized domestic anti-terrorism spying without warrants, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One FBI document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third document indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Meanwhile, WaPo has Dubya's approval numbers back up to 47%.

Have a nice day!

Warning: Read While Not Eating!

I just spent twenty minutes coughing up remnants of inhaled mastication, courtesy of the Onion:

Baby Panda Names

• Overgrown Bamboo-Eating Raccoon-Looking Motherfucker...
• Favrey, the Green Bay Zoo's first panda...
• Remorseless Slaughtering Machine Jr...
• Rodney Endangeredfield...
• Zoo Fundraising Tool The Third...
• Joe Mantegna The Panda...

Paul Hackett for U.S. Senate

This is the race in '06 I really wanna see. Paul Hackett is the guy who carried 48% of the 2nd District in Ohio this summer in a special election, the most conservative district in Ohio and said to be one of the most conservative in the nation. The winner? Uhm, you remember the hideous crone who called John Murtha a coward on the House floor a few weeks back? Yup! That hideous crone.

Well Hackett's making another run, this time for Mike DeWine's Senate seat, and one that had been considered safe until the so-called Culture of Corruption festered to a level above subliminal in the American voter's consciousness.

Hackett's beauty, meanwhile, is he's the next generation, a new breed of Democrat... one who's unafraid to, well, act like a man:

A TV crew is setting up nearby, but Hackett doesn’t seem to care. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?” the candidate snaps. “You got something to say to me? Bring it on!” Hackett, all 6 feet 2 inches of him, is nose to nose with the heckler. “Problem?” he taunts. The man turns around and storms away.

“These guys in the Republican Party adopted this tough-guy language,” Hackett tells me, still steamed, an hour later. “They’re bullies. They’re offended when somebody takes a swing back at them.”

If you haven't heard by now, Hackett's a marine, fresh off a tour of duty in Iraq. His references to Bush and Republican decision-makers as "chickenhawks" with the follow-up of "Yeah, I said it! I meant it! I stand by it!" ought to be used for one of those feel-good pharmaceutical commercials. This jarhead's a tonic to what's clearly been a decades-long malaise of Democratic inbreeding. Hell! I'd be running to my doctor for a prescription if the FDA wasn't in Republican hands right now.

Nevertheless, Chuck Schumer and the Democratic "leadership" want the inbred's favorite, a change of heart for them now that Sherrod Brown changed his mind about not running. Brown's not a bad choice of Democrat, given his stature as a progressive and his recent good fight against CAFTA in the House.

But I don't want Senator Schumer or John Kerry or Hillary deciding who gets to represent the party and who doesn't. That's precisely where their inbreeding is manifested. So I say let the Democratic voters in Ohio -- and everywhere else -- decide on who their nominees oughta be. There's enough anger out there and it'd be good to tap into it. And God bless 'im, Hackett just isn't taking the hint:

“The Democratic Party is like an addict,” he says. “They’re addicted to failure. I want to help the party. The question is, how do you help someone that doesn’t want help?”

Like I said, he looks like what Democrats should look like.

'08 - Aaand Comin' Up On The Outside...

Mark Warner, governor of Virginia, is certain to announce a candidacy for the 2008 presidential campaign. That he's a southern Democrat in a red state -- that inicidentally just elected Tim Kaine, another Democrat (and thank you for that, Georgie!) -- obliges him to associate with assorted political riffraff, a matter of survival in these parts. It also gives him a little latitude with me, unlike for certain Senators, say, from Connecticut or New York, they who cannot seem to help but snivel well to the right of center, beyond that which should be deemed necessary. Meanwhile, here is this moderately conservative Democrat doing the, uhm, right thing:

Today Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) made it illegal to discriminate against someone for being gay in state employment.

Warner included the protections in his 2006-2008 budget, which carries the force of law, and modified Executive Order One to reflect the change.

Refreshing to see a Democrat act like one, apparently an act of courage these days (remember, both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson reside in this state). Meanwhile, Hillary strikes one sour note after another while playing to the worst element in the party, the DLC, and most recently by sponsoring legislation to outlaw desecration of the flag. Sure she has to spit-shine her portfolio for the paleos in order to at least appear viable, not that they'll ever buy it for a second. But to play to that level is repellant. Moreover the tactic is just so utterly and familiarly Clintonian, it smells of Dick Morris after a cruise.

Considering what appears to be her bad timing vis a vis "campaigning by the numbers" (or more specifically, win the nomination then run to the center), it could well be a delicious moment when she steps off The Hill to find her more natural constituency not only unimpressed but a little annoyed.

What Democracy?

Very strange occurences rounding out these days: Congress gives Dubya a one-two cuffing, on his lust for torture and on the Patriot Act, and now this revelation that he authorizes wiretapping of American citizens, without court order or Congressional approval (give or take 14 Republicans and one Democrat from Connecticut), and would do it again, and will until he's frog-marched outta there. My questions are how is it anybody could be surprised by this, or how can it be the the New York Times has utterly abased itself yet again?

Contrarily this story in the Monitor celebrates genuine democracy as flourishing in South America, and much to the very hypocritical chagrin of the fascist Bush administration:

[I]f spreading democracy is truly the goal of US foreign policy, the United States should welcome such new approaches rather than demanding that other nations elect officials subservient to the views that currently prevail in the White House.

Historians and assorted news junkies will recall Republican administrations have long had a problem with this very kind of "flowering." The democratic election of Salvador Allende in Chile, for example, was squelched by Dick Nixon and his hatchet man Henry Kissinger in 1973, supplanting him then with an army general cum murderous dictator in Augusto Pinochet; same thing in Iran back in the 50s, when Eisenhower had Mohammed Mossadegh, the elected Prime Minister of Iran, overthrown, and for the cardinal sin of nationalizing his country's oil fields. In his place we foisted upon its people the oil favorite Shah -- and we all know how well that turned out, now don't we?

Today we cut to the chase. We send our soldiers on fools' errands, tell them lies, and get the pigs gone, or this one anyway. And just because he was sitting on the second largest oil depository in the world, well that's... just... a... coincidence. So if anybody tells you its not about the oil, Richard Cohen...

Well, they're all just blowin' smoke up your poop chute.

Goes to "pattern of criminal behavior," your honor.

Listen up! Democracy in America doesn't exist and never has. The Electoral College sees to that. And right now, we're not even a Republic. Electronic touch-screen voting, particularly that manufactured by Diebold, has been determined, by no less of an authority than the General Accounting Office, as corrupted and hence unreliable, and as such did subvert the will of the American people in at least the last three election cycles.

Consequently we have a sitting president, along with a conniving and complicit Congress, put in place by a faceless oligarchy not answerable to We The People; a president who has now admitted to criminal and most assuredly impeachable conduct.

He, and they, must be removed.

The prosecution rests.

Minutemen (Women & Children), Unite!

For they are coming for you:

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Heavynews chortled at my expressed discomfiture three or four years ago, after a flurry of email among friends, where I wished Dubya a long life but to burn in Hell: "Heyyy, they send you to Gitmo yet?"

Only a matter of time now, Heavy. I may be from the People's Republic of Massachusetts -- and proud of it -- but I also note ol' Trent just stepped out from behind his tort-reform persona and filed suit against his insurance company. Won't be long before Mississippi's put on the watch list too.

I've been tellin' ya', is how these bastards operate.

Impeach The Bastard!

The American Civil Liberties Union is the go-to in times like these:

"Eavesdropping on conversations of U.S citizens and others in the United States without a court order and without complying with the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is both illegal and unconstitutional. The administration is claiming extraordinary presidential powers at the expense of civil liberties and is putting the president above the law. Congress must investigate this report thoroughly. We also call upon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate whether crimes have been committed.

I'll say it again: Impeach the Bastard!

So Whaddya Do If He Won't Talk, Ehhhh??

Torture 'im??

President Bush refused to say whether the National Security Agency eavesdropped without warrants on people inside the United States but leaders of Congress condemned the practice on Friday and promised to look into what the administration has done.

Of course impeachment, while Dick Cheney (before he dicks you) is still in the line of succession, is outta the question.

Or is it?

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said there would be hearings early next year and that they would have "a very, very high priority."

So it begs the question then, at what point can one safely call the President of the United States "an enemy of the people"?

Uhm, Mr. Secret Service dude, please note the interrogative before you come bustin' down my house...

Serious Regression

Linking to The Times Record & The Coastal Journal, two central Maine newspapers I delivered as a boy to residents in the city of Bath, circa 1970-71.

Complete & utter regression, I admit, and purely for my own amusement. But y'know? I'm looking forward to Christmas; it's been a while.

Hillary Won't Leave Me Alone

Ann Lewis, Barney Frank's sister, keeps poppin' up in my inbox:

Dear Friend,
With the deadline for holiday delivery just one day away, I want to remind you that this year, you can give a gift that represents both style and substance: Hillary T-shirts by New York designer Marc Jacobs... blah blah...

To which I replied:

tell u what, get hillary to stop playing patty-cake w/the DLC fuckers and i'm aboard...

sound like a plan... ?

otherwise, no nomination!!

u heard it here first, ann lewis, u tedious walking talking-point... !!

:)

Dollars to donuts they still won't leave me alone.

Reposted Alledgedly from a Poli-Sci Paper

P.S. Give the kid an A...
... emailed by a friend; my favorite being the Italian Corporation...

Lessons In Political Science

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICANISM
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE (Cronies excepted)
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

Government Ain't the Problem Here

As I'll be spending Christmas in Maine, this story caught my eye:

Dubbed H20 for ME, the group's 20-cent-per-gallon tax would apply to only those companies that extract more than 500,000 gallons a year for containerized resale. They looked to an Alaska fund for guidance, in which oil extraction fees are put into publicly owned trusts. Funds from such a trust in Maine would be invested in the state's future, Wilfong says.

After five years of Republican rape & pillage [cough! - Enron/Halliburton/tax cutters!], it's downright refreshing to see THERE IS A ROLE FOR GOVERNMENT!! And if it's pocket-picking you want, Mr. CEO & members of the board, I'd say you fuckers are long overdue for ponying up.

Of course this'll mean my bottle of Poland Spring will get a mark-up. But easy does it, fellahs, I can always buy Evian!

Now that's a free market!!

The Apple Falls Far... Sometimes

Mike Wallace on what he'd ask Dubya if Dubya had the intestinal fortitude to step outside his bubble:

"What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Chris Wallace on his father:

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday.

"He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Time to rewrite the will, 60 Minutes Man!

Oh, Canada!

I see the U.S. Ambassador's pissing & moaning about the campaign styling going on up in Mountieland, which otherwise could have gone unnoticed.

Newsflash... ! The sport of criticizing the U.S. has reached its border -- Oh, the humanity! -- and so naturally the translucense of Dubya's thin skin is sparkling as if for the holiday season:

In a hard-hitting speech in Ottawa, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins lamented what he called relentless and incessant criticism of his country, which he speculated might begin to sow doubt about the strength of the binational relationship.

(Yaawwwn!) Like, whatever, corporate ambassador dude!

But here's what gave me my pre-coffee giggle:

"I would respectfully submit to you that when it comes to a 'global conscience' the United States is walking the walk," Wilkins said.

And now, ladies & gentlemen, Mr. John Cleese will demonstrate "the walk."

Diebold in the News Once Again

The CEO didn't Die*bold yet, but this is almost as good:

Diebold, Inc. today announced senior management changes instituted by its board of directors. Walden W. O'Dell, Diebold chairman and chief executive officer, has resigned from the company and its board of directors, effective immediately.

The bastard served his purpose, and credits to navy beans he's taking his leave due primarily to what's going on with the SEC and not so much the criminal defrauding of American voters.

Filtering My First Ad

Wasn't much in this endeavor for the money anyway. Away, revenge pen! Away!! What? It'll take hours?? >Gah!<

It's like when the ditz from Missouri asked, "Why do they hate us so?"

Well, for starters, because we ask stupid questions?

For The Record: M$M Does Not = "Liberal Media"

Marty Kaplin with a totally rad piece on the NYTimes...

Among the blogerati these days, the Times is a kind of pet dinosaur. It's Exhibit A of old media, of the aging establishment, and the declining influence of print. Where news needs to be nimble, the Times is ossified; where journalism needs to be unafraid, the Times is in bed with its sources; when news needs to be interactive, and to benefit from the distributed intelligence of it readership, the Times is the gold-standard of gatekeeperism.

But I suspect that the economic marketplace is plenty capable of keeping the Times on its competitive toes, and the net's abundance of contrary views is a powerful goad, forcing the Times to keep re-earning its journalistic reputation.

Doing my part, and to piss off the religious wrong, thank you very much.

Christmas Shopping

well that's what i always called it...

the so-called war on christmas has me in a state of blue agitation, that is beyond the annual angst that goes with accomodating the expectations of loved ones, especially those who say "don't get me anything"... but more so as i cannot now think the word "christmas" without the accompaniment of vaporous gargoyles dancing in my head and bearing the unpleasant likenesses of falwell, robertson and o'reilly - you know, that lot... ? and please don't mention "sugar plum fairies" to 'em; they'll have a snit...

and a happy happy 2 u 2... pass the pepto por favor... !!

hanyway... started out the beginning of the month with a mind toward gifting, my weekends being my own again and all... but this past coupla days had me buying for, uh, me... and that got me thinking that everybody ought to be made to spend - on themselves - for the holidays... that way little thought beyond impulse shopping shall prevail (and no returns accepted)... no stress, no dread, no dispepsia...

but more books for me, with every expectation of - heh! heh! - reading them:

• Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream - Barbara Ehrenreich;
  - how corporations have u jumping thru hoops w/no guarantees; the brass ring as myth...
  
• The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
  - already read it, a gift from my brother-in-law many years ago (don't tell the dubyites he's >gasp< lebanese!)...
  
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
  - always wanted one of those...
  
• In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
  
• Breakfast at Tiffany's - Capote
  
• and Too Brief a Treat, The Letters of (yah!) Truman Capote - edited by Gerald Clarke

what can i say, was a good movie... and, man, he could write!

a good sunday too then...

The Rocket Back in Beantown?

Damn, but I love my Sunday mornings:

Clemens, who was not offered salary arbitration by the Houston Astros, was informed of the contact, and sources close to Clemens said the pitcher reacted positively to the scenario of a return to Boston.

Le'see now: Beckett, Schilling, Clemens, Clement, Wakefield, Papelbon, Arroyo (probably back to middle relief)...

Hoooooeeee! I learnt long ago to never declare this team a Mortal Lock, but this bit of business, should it come to pass, would just about knock ol' Steinbrenner's sox off.

Lovin' It

Dig this bit via ThinkProgress via DailyKos :

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), yesterday on the Bill Press Show: "I've spoken to Joe Lieberman and he knows he's out there alone. I mean, literally alone. Joe is a fine man, he has strong feelings, but he's just alone. Even Republicans don't agree with Joe."

Seems only fair since JoeBlow left Al Gore twisting in the Florida wind.

Is How You Deal With Bullies

You push the bastards back:

At around 8:30 p.m., organizers called Clinton aides and said that they’d successfully called the bluff of Bush officials, adding that Bush’s aides had backed off and indicated that Clinton’s appearance wouldn’t in fact have adverse diplomatic consequences.

Again, the progressive base of liberal America has all along known how to deal with Dubya and his kind. Now if only the coward centrists - yes, you, Hillary Joe & Joe - could lend a hand, we might could even take a country back.

25 Years Ago Tonight

I was lying on a couch in the Field lounge, Field being one of the four dorms on Orchard Hill at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, watching Monday Night Football, the Patriots in Miami against the Dolphins. Absurdly, perhaps, I remember distinctly New England coach Ron Erhardt deciding, on a 4th & 1 -- less than 1 -- at the Dolphin 2 yard line, on their opening drive, to kick a goddamned field goal!! I mean, what a dope! Like, Grady-stupid!

And it wasn't long after when Howard Cosell made the announcement:

"An unspeakable tragedy that came to us from ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival."

The shock and the pain was immediate and overwhelming. I was devastated, and the tears came quickly and easily. Lennon was 40. I was 21.

Few students living on campus that evening would sleep. Candle-lit gatherings formed incongruously about the campus center and along the pond. It was very late and not many would speak but they would hug and they would bawl. The experience was surreal, as is its memory.

And only a moment ago it was.

What Is Known As A "Hanging Curveball"...

Ann "Crying Game" Coulter opened her yap again last night:

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Yah, maybe because it's so rarrrre when Ann the Man can actually find someone like that?

Too easy >wacca<...

Diebold To The World: Screw You!

It was them. They're the bastards who've given us Four More Years of darkness. Not the voters in Ohio or in Florida:

Previous revelations from the whistleblower have included evidence that Diebold’s upper management and top government officials knew of backdoor software in Diebold’s central tabulator before the 2004 election, but ignored urgent warnings—such as a Homeland Security alert posted on the Internet.

“This is a very dangerous precedent that needs to be stopped—that’s the corporate takeover of elections,” the source warned. “The majority of election directors don’t understand the gravity of what they’re dealing with. The bottom line is who is going to tamper with an election? A lot of people could, but they assume that no one will.”

And:

Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has come under harsh criticism for his statement to Republican fundraisers that Diebold was committed to delivering the electoral vote of the state of Ohio to George W. Bush prior to the 2004 Presidential Election. O'Dell was part of Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers," a group of individuals who had raised at least $100,000 each for Bush/Cheney's 2004 re-election campaign.

Rawstory & Brad Blog are working together to bring to light, or at least a brighter one, what I consider to be the story of this young century: a conspiracy to commit fraud on the entire nation... and the world! And yet, it's a story that doesn't much grab the M$M, which clearly has grown moribund, wouldn't you say, Bob Woodward?

Even more confounding, the Democrats don't say squat about it. I mean, WTF is their problem?? They're torpid when the sky is falling, like opium fiends lolling behind droopy eyelids as they toke on the hukah, fat and stupid-lazy on over-stuffed pillows, all the while clinging to one collective passion: to please, please not have to go back to work again.

Say it ain't so, eh Joe?! (Lieberman, Biden, whichever!)...

But I have faith, my friends!! Yes, by Jesus, I do! And who knew, right? And it is in this: As Dubya's foulness and mendacity had been so readily apparent to the reality-based peoples from the very beginning, even while it was repeatedly ignored by the usual suspects, until, that is, it simply could no longer be avoided, this too shall swell.

Meanwhile, watch for Republican resistance to any proposed legislation, state or federal, calling for the suspension of touch-screen voting.

After all, it's the only way they'll get to stay in power come next November.

Sentimental Folderol, Circa 1978

Just added links to all the radio stations I ever camped out in, starting at WFAU, "Your Country" in Augusta, Maine. Well actually, it's in reverse order ending/starting at Business Radio AM 570, which is now Air America's D.C. affiliate on AM 1260 (long story).

I was 18, fresh outta broadcasting school in Boston. I had just turned down a non-pay newswriting internship, or apparently it was, at WRNL in Richmond, VA, and journeyed up to Hallowell to visit Brotherman the Elder, who was bartending at Hazel Green's. The year was 1978, and my favorite song, as I recall: Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street. 2nd & 3rd were Bob Segar's Still The Same, and It's a Heartache by Bonnie Tyler. I also suffered from an auditory dissonance that was usually subliminal but very near the surface. I was told later it was called "Disco."

Right around that time, it was; and, hey, nothing wrong with the long-term.

We, the bro & I, spent the last 4 months of '78, running fall into winter, mutually struggling to eke out a subsistance while living together in a spartan two-bedroom upstairs flat on Prospect Street; him in a nowhere garage band called Clean Slate and me week-ending at "Your Country" while washing dishes at Oliveri's restaurant to make ends meet. He'd quit slinging drinks some months earlier and we were down to stems & seeds, figuratively speaking... and, uhm, literally. The diet was relegated to what the refrigerator would bear, say, beer, some mushrooms & mayonnaise; and maybe in the cupboard, a can of tomato soup to go on the low-rent pasta, no cheese. The days were spare, often ending with Tom Snyder and then Linda Ellerbe on a 12-inch black & white.

I got the call in January for a full-time gig at WLKN in Lincoln, a low-watt Top-40/AOR shed (plus antenna); the owner giving me all of 24 hours to decide. Hey, I was 19 and what did I know from responsibility. I left my brother (with his blessing, and now his bachelor digs), Oliveri's and "Your Country" in the rearview, and took to the hinterlands of rural Downeast, within range of a mountain called Katahdin and a distant piece north of Stephen King.

To be continued...

Meanwhile, this song keeps echoing in my mind:

Got kinda tired of packing and unpacking...
Town to town, up and down the dial...
Baby, you & me were never meant to be...
Just maybe think of me once in a while...

Yahoo! Chess

My record is 909 wins, 536 losses w/59 draws, that is as I'm playing on a 2 game losing streak.

So I CAN BE HAD!!!

Any takers... ?

Anybody But Hillary

It won't be long now before she morphs into Atilla the Hen (with all that that entails). Again via the Kos:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is supporting new legislation to criminalize desecration of the United States flag _ though she still opposes a constitutional ban on flag attacks.

Clinton, D-N.Y., has agreed to co-sponsor a measure by Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, which has been written in hopes of surviving any constitutional challenge following a 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the subject.

This, of course, is nothing more than her seemingly never-ending and very tedious pandoring for some nebulous "moderate" bonifides, as if an increasingly angry progressive base will wink wink nudge nudge at it and give her the nomination in any event.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking Bill should divorce her!

Okay, This One Cracked Me Up

Via the DailyKos:

"Earlier today, President Bush sent out 1.4 million Christmas cards to friends and supporters. In a related story, Vice President Dick Cheney sent out three. And they all say 'I'm gonna get you.'" - Conan O'Brien

The CEO Must Die*bold

Yeah! What she said:

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

All of which begs the question: Why go M$M when you can go alternative media?

unIntelligent Design Seen Hitting the Bricks

Not that those who check their academic intellect at the door will give up, but it would seem the handwriting's on the wall for the Creationists warmed-over:

Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.

On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Happy Holidays!

A Return To an Age of Reason

Linking to the Center for American Progress, headed by John Podesta, because, with their help, Howard Dean and the DNC look as though they want to play some offense:

The Democratic meeting came at a time of growing confidence within the party that 2006 could bring significant gains in Congress and the statehouses because of Bush's low approval ratings and public anxiety about Iraq. But Dean said those conditions alone are not sufficient to produce Democratic victories. "We're doing the things that need to be done, but we have a long way to go," he said. "The collapse of confidence in the Republican leadership is not enough to elect Democratic leadership. We have to stand up for what we believe."

It is convenient being registered as an Independant, if for no other reason than it makes for easier criticisism of all sides: anemic left or misanthropic right. Some friends & friendly acquaintances, who lean to the right of center, assume my contempt for all things Bush means I must be a Democrat; such is the view of the reptile mind when limited to black & white. Having said that, it does a body good to see the Democratic party, their representatives in the Senate leadership notwithstanding, push back after years of getting pushed around.

And yet, I might have good things to say about Republicans too, having been one once (for a coupla years in my youth at the beginning of time) but only if they can kick the repugnant religious fanatics, and those with a greasy love for white-collar malfeasance, to the curb, as they must in order to avoid long-term marginalization.

Scales From Eyes, Falling

Is George Bush the worst president - ever?

There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan.

Add one to the 50, amateur status notwithstanding.

Lookin' Out For a Fellow Traveler

Linking to the lovely Let... and her site: PL13.

All this back-scratchin' gets a guy kinda jolly... seasonally speaking, of course.

My First 5 Questions To Bob Woodward

1) Over the last five years, were you ever subsidized by the Bush Administration for your work?

2) Are you lying about that?

3) Are you lying about that?

4) How about that? Are you lying?

5) Heyy! Where you goin'... ??

Dems Grow Testicles

Even if it is the womenfolk...

Nancy Pelosi after Dubya's Same Shit Different Day Speech:

"I'm endorsing what Mr. Murtha is saying, which is that the status quo is not working and that we need to have a plan that makes us safer and our military stronger and makes Iraq more stable," she said. "I believe that what he has said has great wisdom."

Contrary to what the Repos would have you believe, Murtha's call is for a draw-down/redeployment of troops and not a unilateral withdrawl. And with the House Minority Leader now on-board, Democrats appear to be realizing that playing the middle against both ends isn't such a winning strategy. Please, someone, tell it to Hillary, who evidently fancies herself a Chess Mistress, zealously guarding the middle of the board:

"Based on the information that we have today, Congress never would have been asked to give the president authority to use force against Iraq," she said. Clinton stopped short of saying her vote was a mistake, the political path chosen by two other potential Democratic candidates former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

Well'a hold on theah, Choppah!! Biden has not admitted making a "mistake" in his vote:

"The only regret I had voting for the war is that I never anticipated how incompetent the administration would be in using the authority we gave them to avoid war.

And this is where I get off. Democrats DID know that Dubya is, and always has been, dumber than a sack of hair. They knew Rumsfeld was an arrogant prick who undercut his military's assessment in that any occupation of Iraq would require at least double, and probably triple, the number of troops he deemed adequate. They knew Saadam had been contained since Desert Storm, how he despised Osama and his kind, and wanted no part of what the U.S. did to Afghanistan after 9/11. And they knew Dubya had every intent of invading Iraq regardless of UN inspections, which, incidentally, were proving to be more comprehensive as they'd ever been, precisely because American troops were once again at his doorstep, once again proving they didn't have to go in.

They didn't care!! - the enabling Dems. They did, however, lack the spine to say, "Hey! We're on board for getting after Osama. But Iraq? Are you, like, stupid?? No fucking way!"

But it's mighty convenient now to hang their hats on Dubya's mendacity, even if they have to lie about having been duped. Well fine! Any ol' port in a storm. And certainly Dubya deserves more than getting taken off at the knees.

And yet... Annoying as this dead armadillo strategy is, I think Hillary may at last be taking some iron supplements:

I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the President and his Administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war.

Refreshing, that: "I take responsibility." D'be good if the Democratic Party might build a campaign on precisely those words.

And, uhm, maybe sometime in the near future?

Aww Jeez, Lieberman Again?

So is Paul Newman gonna run against this prick next year or what?

Courtesy of Atrios:
Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware on Morning Sedition this morning:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.

I'm already on the record regarding the weasal from Connecticut.

Is Bush Psychotic?

Seymour Hersh telling it to Wolf Blitzer (excerpted via DailyKos):

He's a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn't have all the facts and all the information he needs and isn't able to change.

I'll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they're not sure how you get to this guy.

We have generals that do not like -- anymore -- they're worried about speaking truth to power. You know that. I mean that's -- Murtha in fact, John Murtha, the congressman from Pennsylvania, which most people don't know, has tremendous contacts with the senior generals of the armies. He's a ranking old war horse in Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The generals know him and like him. His message to the White House was much more worrisome than maybe to the average person in the public. They know that generals are privately telling him things that they're not saying to them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this how the Germans lost the war on D-Day, because Hitler overrode General Rommel when the latter suggested Omaha Beach as the likelier landing point for the allied invasion? And right up to zero-hour, Rommel's telling the command staff in Berlin (or at the Bunker), "It's Omaha Beach, I'm telling you! Redeploy the forces!" or something like that. And the senior staff couldn't -- or wouldn't -- because none of them was brave enough to be the messenger?

And we have, what, another 3 years of this?

For The Record...

The Sterling Vintner's Collection Cabernet '03 is excellent... !

Herbie Mann's Memphis Underground goes well with it...

as does Billy Joel's New York State of Mind...

Tyson's Corner Mall, particularly during the Christmas (ya' happy, Jerry Falwell, you supercilious fuck!?) shopping season, is rife with gorgeous young women...

And that's all there is...

What Hath Home-Schooling Wrought?

Lynx and Lamb, those well-home-schooled chicklets, are still in the news, via Salon:

White pride denied
Remember Lynx and Lamb Gaede, the 13-year-old white-supremacist crooners who made the news a few weeks back?

"Teen People" has reportedly killed a feature on the twins, after it became known that someone at the magazine had promised that the words "hate," "supremacist," and "Nazi" would not be used in the piece.

According to the New York Daily News, an Internet teaser for the February story referred to the sisters -- whose songs include "Aryan Man Awake" and "Weiss! Weiss! Weiss!" -- as "aspiring musicians" and compared them to the Olsen twins.

If the Olsen twins had been taught to hate minorities, played a video game called "Ethnic Cleansing" and written songs glorifying Hitler henchman Rudolf Hess, maybe. But the Teen People blurb didn't get into that angle, referring to the Gaede twins' message as a matter of simple "white pride."

People furious about the upcoming, and apparently compromised, coverage of the sister act rallied in protest outside of Time Warner, which owns Teen People.

In response, Teen People nixed the piece, and a Time Warner spokeswoman blamed the whole mess on "a junior employee" who "made unauthorized assurances to the mother of the Gaede twins regarding the prohibition of certain words in the story."

The Daily News ran their story under the headline "Mag tells 'Nazi' singers: Heil, no!"

I can't top that.

Cute names, though, don'tcha think?

And You Thought Texas Republicans Were Nasty?

Jesus Christ! Check out Kentucky!

The charge of violating the state's Whistleblower Act, pending in Franklin District Court, could bring one year in jail. The grand jury indicted [newly appointed Sec'y of Transportation Bill Nighbert] Sept. 20, weeks after [Gov. Ernie] Fletcher pardoned Nighbert and eight other aides who were charged for their roles in an alleged hiring scheme intended to pack the state payroll with politically connected Republicans.

The American Republican Party in the 21st Century: Openly corrupt and incestuous.

And if you'll pardon the baseball analogy here, where Kentucky and Texas are triple-A, Washington is the majors, and you can bet Governor Fletcher's rubbing his constituents' noses repeatedly in his sleaze, and whether he gets away with it, is being closely monitored just outside the oval office.

Jose Padilla

This is arguably the worst aspect of the Bush legacy, an administration swamped in corruption and war criminality yet arrogating themselves the privilege of deciding who is and who is not guilty of being a terrorist:

"Much thought goes into how and why various tools are used in these often complicated cases," Tasia Scolinos, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said on Friday. "The important thing is for someone not to come away thinking this whole process is arbitrary, which it is not."

Not arbitrary? Well let's see: they've suspended habeus corpus, the right to counsel, the right to face one's accuser, the right to speedy trial, etc., etc. OK! I get it! The entire Bill of Rights is toast, but it's not arbitrary.

As my Ex- likes to say: "Yah! My ass is on fire!"

That DoJ felt the need to move Jose Padilla from military to federal custody is telling in that they know they haven't the goods to charge him with anything remotely criminal, let alone terroristic, and that it's only a matter of time, which this maneuver bought them, before the courts catch up to these slight-of-hand prosecutorial crumb-bums... that is unless Scalito is confirmed by an expectedly obsequious Senate before the clock runs out. This will be when the Bill of Rights won't be worth the faux-parchment it's copied on, and America's status as a police state will be a fait accompli.

And then maybe even white people will get busted for no reason a'tall.

Shot Bear Bites Back

"Man kills for sport but the animal dies in earnest." Unknown...

Beauchamp, of nearby Newville, had just shot the bear with a .444-caliber rifle and was within 15 feet of it. He turned to run, but the bear put a claw around his hip and bit him twice, once in each thigh, before dying.

The story both saddens & gladdens. I root for any bear, not caught rummaging on somebody's back porch, to give as good as he gets, but alas this bastard gets to tell his side of it.

Kansas Morons

It ain't me, babe!

(Or, it ain't only me, babe!)

Past My Bedtime

Am now linking to Craigslist because:

Saying U.S. newspapers "are afraid to talk truth to power," Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hinted that he's about to launch a major online journalism project within the next few months that will copy the successful "wisdom of the masses" approach to classified advertising and apply it to journalism.

Actually, I'd been planning on checking out Craigslist for a while and have done so only now. Oft times behind the curve I.

And please note Newmark's point is the reason this blog does not link to The New York Times or The Washington Post.

Hear! Hear!

Jeremy Scahill for The Nation:

The Bush Administration clearly blamed Al Jazeera for undermining the first siege on Falluja and fueling Iraqi public opinion and resistance against the US occupation. Given Washington's record of attacking Al Jazeera both militarily and verbally, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the Bush Administration could have simply decided that it was time to take the network out. What is needed now is for a British newspaper or magazine to publish the memo for all the world to see--and if they face legal action, they should be backed up by every major media organization in the world. If true, Bush's threat is a bold confirmation of what many journalists already believe: that the Bush Administration views us all as enemy combatants.

Yo, Heavynews, Mr. Newspaper Editor! You payin' attention?

Back From The Holiday

Thankful that my father has made a remarkable rebound from ill health, through modern medication and the attention and care of a fabulous woman - his wife. Enjoyed the trip down to Richmond and back with my brother (appreciating the state troopers hard at work and in force this post-holiday, and picking on other motorists than ourselves), and, after having only now gotten used to his mug, am very sorry to see him off to Massachusetts tomorrow and for good.

And I'm thankful for having had the agreeable break from the daily routine, including hours in front of the computer (instead of, say, reclining on the chaise reading an honest-to-gahd newspaper); just long enough to google Akeem Olajuwon as having been drafted #1 in '84, just before Sam Bowie and then Michael Jordan at Nos. 2 & 3 respectively. I had mistakenly contended Bowie went first and Jordan 2nd, while the man now called Hakeem was taken in another draft altogether. I dunno, maybe I was thinking Ryan Leaf and Peyton Manning.

Like, glad I didn't wager.

Anyway, came back this morning in time to go on duty at noon. Just finished my shift and am now browsing the links. (P.S. My work reminds me of something I am most unrepentantly not thankful for: idiots who lard their voice-mail reception with ever longer cuts of ear-splitting music, as though we reeeeeeeally want to hear a minute-&-1/2 of Dr. Dre thru an ear phone not designed for music and by way of a sporadic satellite signal. Look, I don't even wanna hear Ella that way, okay? And too many people do it. Whatever happened to "Please leave a message... [beeep]"?

Anyway, back to the back to the...

Here's Sidney Blumenthal hitting another home run:

The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined.

Richard Nixon is the model, but with modifications. In the Nixon administration, the president was the prime mover, present at the creation of his own options, attentive to detail, and conscious of their consequences. In the Cheney administration, the president is volatile but passive, firm but malleable, presiding but absent. Once his complicity has been arranged, a closely held "cabal" -- as Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls it -- wields control.

Let's not overstate it: Dick Cheney is a fiend, a most vile and foul example of its species. Or if you prefer the reality-based terminology: a fucking war criminal! In a poetically just world, his arrest, trial in a world court, conviction and punishment would be meted out summarily and with extreme prejudice.

During the process of which, the world court would give Dubya, for turning state's evidence (the lousy snitch!), the lesser of the two sentences: Life with no chance of parole, and with an unhygenic cellmate nicknamed "The Pecker," a former Ultimate Fighter who'd find himself disqualified from the '07 finals and banned from the circuit for repeatedly applying unnatural and imperically distasteful holds on his opponents.

The Enemy of My Enemy - Part Deux...

Is it me or does George Bush behave like a man who imagines creatures crawling up his backside? A visual treat to be sure, especially when one of these creatures is named Hugo Chavez. In the less metaphorical universe, of course, Hugo Chavez is the very shrewd El Presidente of Venezuela, who, over the last several weeks, has been getting the better of our George, be it in Argentina or right here at home:

The Venezuelan-owned and U.S.-based fuel refiner and distributor Citgo will begin distributing discounted heating oil to poor U.S. communities next week. Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s Minister of Energy and Petroleum, made the announcement yesterday, saying that the measure is meant to show Venezuela’s commitment to disadvantaged sectors in the United States.

Here we have George Bush's best friends in the whole world, those lying lovers of cock, commonly known as "Oil Execs," at a considerable disadvantage in the matter of public relations, and now most particularly in the eyes of my New England brethren.

I, of course, delight in all this as it plays to my pride and to my funnybone. First, it's Beantown - home of my prime and its fonder memories - participating in the exquisite undercutting of Exxon and Mobil and British Petroleum, sidekicks to the uber war-profiteer Haliburton, and for my money the real Axis of Evil; and second, Chavez is providing genuine assistance to Americans in need, and while doing so, illustrating wonderfully by deed our president's incapacity for same - no small revenge for Dubya's coup attempt on Chavez three years ago.

Questions on Next Week's Civics Exam:
1) Which president was actually elected and then reelected by the people?
2) Which president is better serving the needs of the American people?
3) Which country is not a democracy?

Go Citgo!

Now if only Venezuela can import generic prescription medication...

----------
P.S. By the way, did you notice the Citgo sign over the left-field wall... in Houston?? And isn't Houston, uhm, Bush country?

Everybody loves Beantown.

Quack! Quack!

Now if only we can get him to talk in punchy 9-second soundbites, we'll get to see him on Hardball every other night too:

[Rabbi Eric] Yoffie said liberals and conservatives share some concerns, such as the potential damage to children from violent or highly sexual TV shows and other popular media. But he said, overall, conservatives too narrowly define family values, making a "frozen embryo in a fertility clinic" more important than a child, and ignoring poverty and other social ills.

Yoffie makes the now very unPC comparison to Hitler when desribing the zealotry of the Paleo-Christians, or, as he puts it more generically, "the Religious Right." Of course the Dobsons, Robertsons and Falwells will still hyperventilate at being pushed back, no matter how inconsequential the messenger or his barb, but the analogy is well-taken over here.

Hey! Facism is facism. And if it's unrecognizeable to Peter, Paul or Mary because it isn't wearing a swastika armband, then I say it still waddles like a duck with a little black mustache. What's more, it isn't reciprocal. It doesn't work when one of the Pope's alter boys -- say, Jerkyboy Santorum -- uses it while referencing the left, and unapologetically at that. And ya' know why? Because we're Commie symps, ya' dope, ya'!! Compare us to Trotsky ferchri-yeye, then we can say, "Oh! Well!"

Right, tovaritch?

Do svidanja!

Hot Stove On a Cold Winter Morning

Okay it's still Autumn, but who's counting? It's stories like this why I start my day with the Boston sports pages:

Nearly two years after acquiring Curt Schilling from the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Red Sox are on the verge of getting another overpowering right-hander to bolster their starting rotation.

And this one is just 25 years old.

Morning again in Beantown.

Why I Carry an ACLU Card

Because they don't let shit like this go:

ACLU attorney Chris Hansen said the suit is being filed because "the government should not be in the business of silencing Americans who are perceived to be critical of certain policy decisions."

I have no idea what they can get from those joyless Young Repo bastards, but I'd settle for a coupla pounds of flesh.

A Neat Trick That

Bush Tones Down Attack on Iraq War Critics...

Yes but can he walk and chew gum with his tail tucked between his cloven hooves?

Capote

Got a call last night from Bolivian babe Ingrid for a late dinner in Arlington, afterwhich we adjourned to Shirlington to catch Capote on the semi-big screen.

I'm not one to dispense superlatives willy nilly (or I'd be a movie critic as a rule), but all the buzz you might be hearing about Philip Seymour Hoffman is true; his performance is transcendant -- uhm, not to sound too gay about it.

The favorite scene is the one of the post-"reading" party. The ribaldry seemed genuinely spontaneous even as it was hysterical, or it was improvised and fueled by real alcohol in those glasses (& not the pair on his face). Second favorite is the last interaction between Capote and Perry Smith, played by Clifton Collins, Jr., who shows remarkable range himself.

By all means, do go and see.

M$M Today

Here's a tidy summary, complete with bullet points, of how the Bush administration has been waging a secret war on the side, and one far better planned at that; only it's on the media:

In his famous opinion in the 1945 Associated Press v. US case, Justice Hugo Black said that "the First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society." In other words, a free press is the sine qua non of the entire American Constitution and republican experiment.

Good for a quick reference. Print out a copy, and the next time some wanker bawls about "the liberal media," you can roll it up and smack 'im upside his stupid head.

He said with a smile.

Rats, Sinking Ship, etc...

Charles Krauthammer, a.k.a. "Chucky," is only the latest:

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud.

I'd have'ta' look it up, but wasn't Chucky previously on board for shovelling this drivel, a la Jerkyboy Santorum? Lord knows he pushes all the other neo-con caca.

Am now taking the over/under on when the Kansas Board of Diseducation capitulates on their redefining the word "Science."

Strange Bedfellows

Oh, man! When the Catholic church backs your play, you gotta a) rethink your play, or b) take the money and run:

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

Old pal Chontos and I, both good Catholic boys who've since given it up for Lent, are in agreement with respect to American religious dogma and how it is dispensed, i.e., shoved down the throats of the young and the simple-minded. Moreover, we reinforce the other's belief that modern Catholic schooling, or at least that to which we were exposed, was never anti-intellectual. (Messrs. Copernicus and Galilleo, please call your offices!) Evangelicals, however, have clearly miscalculated in applying a higher value on a subjective worldview rather than on known imperical data, essentially the physical universe as based in objective reality.

This bit of news from the Vatican, then, is most welcome. The Paleo-Christians are now in retreat on the subject of Intelligent Design, especially considering the vote in Pennsylvania, and are just a little bit more isolated today on the issue of what is and what is not "Science."

Meanwhile, the betting here is Kansas will eventually see the error of its ways, and perhaps as soon as next summer -- just as its high school juniors start receiving rejection letters from the major universities.

Bob Wayward

Very nice piece on Bob Woodward by Tim Dickenson at Rolling Stone:

Woodward's lack of candor -- failing to tell his boss of the leak for 2 years -- raises many troubling questions: Does his loyalty lie to his paper? Or to the administration that granted him an all-access pass? It's also troubling that Walter Pincus -- arguably the best investigative reporter in Washington -- made a tacit agreement with Woodward not to pursue the latter's involvement in the case. Whatever happened to "without fear or favor"?

This is a major disillusioning for me. After being told:

1. the Tooth Fairy was really Mom...
2. the Easter Bunny was the one served up in Fatal Attraction...
3. Santa Claus was... Dad... ??
4. That Jesus really isn't...

Well, I had'ta' punt on that last one my own self...

So all I had left for idol worship was Bob Woodward. I grew up a news junkie, with grand plans on becoming a journalist - and he was a bonifide hero. I read All The President's Men twice, and The Final Days, Wired, The Brethren (betting now Scott Armstrong did the heavy lifting in that one) -- all of 'em, great reads!!

I also possess but didn't read a couple of his recent tomes; one involving [yawn!] the 5 remaining living presidents (or when Reagan was still shivering and Dubya was just another dickhead in Texas) and the one on the Clinton/Dole race. I cannot now be bothered to Google the titles. And I will never go near that purported cum-swallow he wrote about the post-911 Bush administration, such [choke] Heros they are and all.

I mean, I always knew he was a Republican, but WTF? So was I! I got over it!

But his approach to his more recent writings and marked by his TV appeareances, one could only get the sense he'd become co-opted: with his calling Fitzgerald's investigation "a disgrace" or his prediction that Cheney would run in '08 (like, are you fucking kidding me?) . He had really begun to disturb, y'know?

And now this? Jesus! What a slide!

And to look at him, over & over in the 24-hr news loop, he looks like some large-mouthed bass with glasses.

Some kinda come-down from Robert Redford, eh?

Questions That Get You Kicked Out of the Pressroom - #6

At long last, sir, have you no sense of irony?

Questions That Get You Kicked Out of the Pressroom - #5

Yeah, Scott, thanks for taking my question.

Regarding your response to Congressman Murtha's call for withdrawal from Iraq, you are quoted as saying, and I quote:

"The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists."

This comes right on the heels of the Vice President's dig at those who're calling for the administration to account, where he says -- and, again, I quote:

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone — but we’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."

My question, Scott, is where do chickenhawks get the balls to question anybody's patriotism?

Thomas Paine

Am browsing the newly linked AlterNet and have enjoyed this piece on Thomas Paine, a man, I'm ashamed to admit, I know too little about, and here a kindred spirit:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

And this:

"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."

With this extension of appreciation to AlterNet, I think I should now like to read Paine's The Age of Reason.

Very Cool Illusion (he repeated w/out regard to consequence)...

The HAMster sent this over. Check it out. But don't stay too long, I think it's a mind-control thingy.

... and now I can shrink my inbox a little bit more.

"Christians," Says You?

"Rat bastards," says I:

But these days, Rolla and the 185 other students who are part of the station are learning a tough lesson about the ways of the Federal Communications Commission. That's because a move by WAVM to increase its power signal backfired. The FCC ruled that, when the power increase was proposed, other broadcasters would be allowed to bid on the frequency. This month, the agency tentatively awarded the frequency to Living Proof Inc., a religious broadcaster based in Bishop, Calif., that plans to broadcast out of Lunenburg.

This is a dated story somewhat, but I had the link sitting in my email inbox for too long and I had to comment on it before I could finally delete the thing.

So: Being a Massachusetts boy with an extensive background in radio, including a stint at WAVA.FM, the Paleo-Christian station in Washington (I know, but I was desperate for the gig. If it's any consolation, Mark, the gay board-op, and I attempted an insurgency dubbed "Anti-social Darwinists"; good for a few yucks, but short-lived alas!), which allows me, or so I like to think anyway, a well-earned antipathy for "Christian" broadcasting, this story cuts a little too close to the bone.

I cannot overstate my contempt for the FCC and the way it operates, serving no other purpose today than to take direction from uber criminal Karl Rove in foregoing regulation but instead greasing the skids for corporate media's voracious anti-trust consolidation -- in essence, ripping off the public from what was supposed to be their airwaves.

The darkest aspect of it all? To keep us all from knowing what is really going on. And the internet is next on their list of acquisitions, folks!

I mean, this kinda crap just steams my giblets.

But -- God bless 'em! -- Maynard High ain't givin' up without a battle.

So lend a letter, hey?

Kerry Betrays Kerry

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Lt. John Kerry Testifying Before The Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- April 22, 1971

Where is that man today?

A scant few hours after that, Kerry left tens of thousands of volunteers and millions of voters hanging. With Bush apparently leading by some 130,000 votes in Ohio, but with a quarter-million votes still uncounted here, Kerry abruptly conceded. He was then heard from primarily through attorneys from Republican law firms attacking grassroots election protection activists who dared question the Ohio outcome.

and...

But those committed to democracy and horrified by the on-going carnage of the Bush catastrophe still have no credible explanation as to why Kerry abandoned ship so abruptly. He had raised many millions specifically dedicated to "counting every vote," which clearly never happened in Ohio. More than a year after the election, more than 100,000 votes are STILL uncounted in the Buckeye state.

Kerry thinks he's keeping his powder dry for another run in '08. He can forget it. The progressive base of the Democratic party cannot abide mealy-mouthedness or fence-straddling, two of John Kerry's specialities, and, for that matter, of Hillary's and Joe Biden's. Having said this, you can expect them all to admit having made The Mistake, a la John Edwards, in voting for the war in Iraq. But it says here they're the type to do this only because the poll numbers sway heavily in that direction.

Regardless, most people look back on their misspent youth. John Kerry's youth, in some string-theoried alternative universe, would only cringe were he able to see himself and of what he's become.

Drip Drip Drip

James Fallows says it better than I could:

On available evidence, the President himself has not grasped the essential criticism of moving against Iraq when he did: that a war in Iraq undercut the broader and longer term war against Islamic terrorism. Not in one speech, not in one interview or off-hand remark, not in one insider account of White House deliberation has there been the slightest indication that President Bush recognizes this concept sufficiently to offer a rebuttal to it.

How Sweet Is This?

Jerkyboy Santorum shows he knows a good wave when he surfs one:

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said Saturday that he doesn't believe that intelligent design belongs in the science classroom.

Santorum's comments to The Times are a shift from his position of several years ago, when he wrote in a Washington Times editorial that intelligent design is a "legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom."

But on Saturday, the Republican said that, "Science leads you where it leads you."

And if the good folks in the rest of Pennsylvania can take a page from the book written by their neighbors in Dover, they'll lead Jerkyboy right out of the Senate.