When I go to gatherings where people pray, I just look around and wait for the invocations to some invisible cloud being to cease. The reason? People like this:

"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we're going to start over again."

I don't expect to hear a peep of condemnation from Preznit DryDrunk, because that might actually be the right thing to do and the Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid, our Beloved Leader would ever do the right thing. Unless it was what a campaign contributor told him was the right thing.

Dan Froomkin in the Post makes a really, really good point:

Diane Sawyer's rare live interview with President Bush this morning on ABC's Good Morning America exposed one of the president's greatest weaknesses: He doesn't have the answers to some of the most important questions.

The White House press corps is sort of used to that by now, but the American public -- clamoring for answers in the wake of the horrific Gulf Coast disaster -- may be less sympathetic.

As Americans suffer and die along the Gulf Coast, some in the press are allowing "unnamed" spokesmen to threaten those who would dare "play politics" with the raging incompetance of Preznit Dickless Vacationer and his merry little band of 'unnamed, but highly placed' ragtag fools and jesters.

Remember the New York Time and its enthusiastic warflogging, it's overt participation in the lies that led up to the war in Iraq? Well, gee whiz, this is from an editorial in todays NYT about the disaster in New Orleans:

One lasting lesson that has to be drawn from the Gulf Coast's misery is that from now on, the National Guard must be treated as America's most essential homeland security force, not as some kind of military piggy bank for the Pentagon to raid for long-term overseas missions. America clearly needs a larger active-duty Army. It just as clearly needs a homeland-based National Guard that's fully prepared and ready for any domestic emergency.

D-R-A-F-T.

Well played, Gray Lady. See what playing the whore gets you? You're now a social disease...

So while the politically-connected among the FEMA employees try and figure out whether or not they'll still get their Direct Deposit and whether or not the old GAO per diem rates are still applicable for New Orleans before getting off their asses, some of the citizens down there are doing something:

Guy T. Williams is usually to be found behind his desk downtown, where he is the president of the Gulf Coast Bank and Trust Company. But nothing is usual in New Orleans, and on Wednesday Mr. Williams was paddling his canoe in a submerged residential area between downtown and the overflowing Lake Pontchartrain, exploring flooded homes not yet reached by rescue teams.

He found a seven-story apartment complex with 170 people, including someone blind, another with no legs, a third with a heart ailment, and a small child. He gave the list and directions to members of a Texas task force working with the relief effort.

A volunteer citizen navy with its own flotilla responded Wednesday to calls for help.
...
Another volunteer was Chester Huvall Jr., a truck driver from New Iberia, La., who said he rushed here with his 16-foot aluminum boat "to answer prayers." He said he was determined to rescue someone.
...
He gazed at passing police and sheriff's boats packed with survivors and said, almost enviously: "Look at all the people they rescued. Why can't I be doing that?

Well, once again, regular Americans '1' - 1600 Crew '0'. Just what's to be expected...

The Astrodome is full. The shelters around Houston are filling rapidly. I wonder how many refugees (strange word to us at home, isn't it?) could be accomodated on the what is it, 1600 acres, at Praire Chicken Ranch in Crawford...? That might bring the magnitude of the disaster home to the Napoleonic little fucker like nothing else.

Just wonderin'.

Surfing through TV shows and blogs (left and some right) one thing is sort of amazing. There is an unstructured deconstruction and full-on assault on the lies and truth-twisting that the 1600 Crew, its congressional apologists (Mary Landrieu) and others have been putting out over the last 24-36 hours.

I think that they just discovered that everything that they say and do has been recorded and analyzed by friends and not-friends. Finally.

President Bush headed to the devastated region to survey the damage. As he was leaving the White House, Bush told reporters that he believes the relief operations so far "are not acceptable."

But he said he wanted to "assure the people of the affected areas and the people of this country that we'll deploy the assets necessary and get the situation under control."

So, America, how is the steely-eyed missile man doing now? One thing he'll be remembered for in history besides getting the whole world to dislike and laugh at America: the largest civilian body counts from disasters in history on his watch, while he stood backstage and strummed. Way to go, asshole.

It was only a matter of time

TIM, [Rich Lowry]
Remember: FEMA featured in the Troopergate scandal. Buddy Young, the head of Clinton's security detail who pressured other troopers not to talk, got a $92,000-a-year FEMA job.
Posted at 06:32 PM

The other interesting sub-text over at The Corner is shooting looters immediately, if not sooner. Gosh, if only they had left sooner, the Corner Crew would not have to call for the "termination with extreme prejudice" of poor folks caught in New Orleans. It's all about lawn order, right?

The VRWC never stops blaming The Mighty Clenis™, does it?

From that other place on the globe where actual science is being done, by actual scientists who think "ID" is something they need to show the police:

Humans and chimpanzees share "perfect identity" in 96 per cent of their DNA sequence, an international team of scientists reports yesterday.

David Brooks recent column about the looming issues of race and disaster recovery made me think of one thing. 1967.

On that summer Sunday morning, the officers had expected to find only a handful of individuals in the bar, but instead there were 82 people celebrating the return of two local veterans from the war in Vietnam. Despite the large number, police decided to arrest everyone present. A crowd soon gathered around the establishment, protesting as patrons were led away. After the last police car left, a group of angry black males who had observed the incident began breaking the windows of the adjacent clothing store. Shortly thereafter, full-scale rioting began throughout the neighborhood, which continued into Monday, July 24, 1967, and for the next few days. Despite a conscious effort by the local news media to avoid reporting on it so as not to inspire copy-cat violence, the mayhem expanded to other parts of the city with theft and destruction beyond the 12th Street/Clairmount Avenue vicinity.

Some 8,000 National Guardsmen were called in after 48 hours to quell the disorder, but their presence only fueled more violence. Willie Horton - Detroit resident, and popular Detroit Tigers baseball player - arrived after a ball game, and stood on a car in the middle of the crowd wearing his baseball uniform but could not calm them, despite his impassioned pleas. U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) likewise attempted to ease tensions but was equally unsuccessful. Michigan Governor George Romney and President Lyndon Johnson disagreed about the legality of sending in federal troops. Johnson said he could not send federal troops in without Romney declaring "a state of insurrection"; Romney was reluctant to declare it for fear it would relieve insurance companies of their obligations to reimburse policyholders for the damage being done. Eventually, Johnson sent in federal troops from the 82nd Airborne of nearby Selfridge Air Force Base in suburban Macomb County, without a state of insurrection being declared.

The disparate pictures of the black man "looting" and the white couple "finding" groceries isn't going to make people much happier when they have been without food, water, sanitary facilities and medical care for almost a week by the time that Preznit Long Vacations shows up tomorrow and says "Zero Tolerance for Looters". Coming from a man who has never survived more than six inches from the silver spoon attached to mommy's apron, that's Big Talk, eh?.

Of course, he'll probably meet with the politically reliable republican congress-criminals from the area, and with a few token homeless folks. He'll probably bow his head in 'solemn prayer' with some poor soul who wants nothing more than a shower and a hot meal, and to perhaps know where their relatives are.

Then he'll declare that the answer to restoring New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast is to pass more tax-cuts to allow small businesses on the Gulf to pull themselves "up by their bootstraps' in the aftermath of katrina. Following that momentous announcement, he'll climb back aboard Air Force one, sign an Executive Order to shoot all looters and then settle down for a nap.

Nah, I'm not politicizing this at all. This is a culmination of republican domestic policy failures, and I for one, intend to point it out frequently until 2006. Why are our Democratic Leaders not doing the same? I'm sure that someone on the Mayberry Machiavelli team is even now leading a working group scouring the Federal Register for any comments made by a Democrat about cutting the Corps of Engineers, or pork-laden water control projects on the Mississippi and Delta. Just gathering it to launch against them in 2006, in or out of context. Waiting is a mistake. Play offense. They are.

I love this woman. Here

According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we've confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo's Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice's timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You are a true American.

thanks, Atrios...

So some folks are saying that Preznit Eternal Vacation should be able to use the after-effects of Katrina to boost his approval ratings:

"He's moving from complicated questions that are in many ways beyond his reach to matters that really are within his reach,'' Hess said. "This is an area, at least in the short term, in which a president can gain approval and maybe that gives him a little more wiggle room with the rest of his agenda.''

The 1600 Crew is desperately looking for a 'bye' on this...they have been caught with their dicks waving in the breeze as Beloved Leader vacationed and sought to pillage the economy further by destroying Social Security.

So they want to make nice? "We shouldn't be playing politics with this disaster?". Yeah, didn't we all hear that on 9/12 and beyond? The only way to remind people of the failures of this adminstration is to keep bringing them up, time after time after time...how much different might it have been if 25% of what just got given to the oil companies in that abortion of an 'energy bill' had gone to the Corps of Engineers a couple of years ago to continue their on-going work on the levees in New Orleans? We'll never know, because instead of being proactive on behalf of our country, we were wasting the money over in Iraq and now we get to react to yet more bad policy decisions by the folks who brought you nothing but fear itself.

Not just NO, but Fuck NO. No free pass.

A winning combination for the Worst Administration in American History. Last years election was based on the politics of Fear. Karl Rove used Al-Qaeda, Iraq and the unknown to scare undecided voters in to believing that the 1600 Crew was better equipped to assuage their fears in the event of Something Bad Happening.

The federal government so far has bungled the job of quickly helping the multitudes of hungry, thirsty and desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina, former top federal, state and local disaster chiefs said Wednesday.
...
The slow response to Katrina and poor federal leadership is a replay of 1992's mishandling of Hurricane Andrew, said former FEMA chief of staff Jane Bullock, a 22-year veteran of the agency.

Bullock blamed inexperienced federal leadership. She noted that Chertoff and FEMA Director Michael Brown had no disaster experience before they were appointed to their jobs.

Then came Bush v. Gore, and guess what? Well, just look south and see. So, I wonder how those "undecided" voters especially those in LA and MS are feeling about the 1600 Crew right about now?

Maybe when, or if, they ever rebuild some of those levees in New Orleans they can name one for Grover Norquist, to remind people of what happens when they forget that sometimes community comes before self here in America. And that sometimes "drowining the government in the bathtub means drowning the city in the lake"...wow, that's good gubmint at your service!

So Preznit C. Noe Evil has "flown over the devastation" in his big-ass 747 and viewed it from 1500 feet up, at 400-plus knots. Well, that was 180 seconds well spent, I must say. Then he proceded to the Rose Garden, where he again fought more of the Battle of Platitudes.

The folks on the Gulf Coast are going to need the help of this country for a long time. This is going to be a difficult road. The challenges that we face on the ground are unprecedented. But there's no doubt in my mind we're going to succeed. Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected -- I understand that. But I'm confident that, with time, you can get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it.

The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you. May God bless you.

Or maybe you don't need any more bad news tonight...

At the gas pump this evening:

So, how's that Hummer working out for you?

From a college paper editorial, for Ripon College, a young Beloved Leader lover rants against Cindy Sheehan, cause his daddy went to Iraq. The writer, seems to think that America would be better if everyone [Cindy, he's looking at you] just STFU and let our bold Preznit be ... bold. And Compassionate. And Preznitial. Here you go:

Then again, the saddest instance of this nightmare causing pain might be that of Cindy Sheehan herself. There is no doubt that the loss of her son Casey must have been devastating, and even I, a supporter of both the President and War in Iraq, can understand her wanting answers. Now she's not stupid, she knew this was a good PR move-she hoped to bring down pressure on the President to meet with her and knew the media would back that demand through massive coverage if nothing else. But I have to believe she's now in over her head-this is no longer about Cindy Sheehan and it certainly isn't about her son Casey. No, Crawford has become the showcase event for MoveOn.org in its own war against the President; it has become a stage for aging and largely forgotten Vietnam-era protestors to stage some semblance of a comeback. (What, they couldn't find ANY reality show to sign them?) One has to believe that at least a part of Cindy Sheehan wishes she could grieve again in peace or that she could focus on her own, very-ill mother, rather than a grass field and a dirt road two time-zones away.

Oh, young college philosoper you wax so nobly rhapsodic, invoking the unsavory habits of Michael Moore's candor!

Beloved Leader is going on the air this afternoon to talk about the hurricane, supposedly. I'm betting that after a mad-morning of collating last nights focus-group results it's going to be another new front in the Battle of the Platitude from the 1600 Crew.

My guess about phraseology: "workin' hard", "(we must) lessen our dependance on furrin oil: open ANWR", "FEMA is takin' charge", "I have coordinated with federal authorities to take charge of this disaster" (all the "federal authorities" hope they don't get mentioned by name, since that's a sure-fire road to getting your budget axed by the 1600 Crew).

"Now, watch this drive, I'll be closely watching the sitch from Camp David between naps and bike rides"...

Just drove out to run an errand. Last night the price of gas at the little station down the road was $2.62 a gallon. Just now it was $2.99 a gallon. Damn, they got that $70/barrel crude into that pump some kind of fast. I for one would never mention that phrase "windfall profits" on my on-line magazine. Never.

To my esteemed colleagues from the loyal opposition, and you know who you are, how do you feel about the huge giveaways that Yer Preznit just handed the Oil Companies in that Sham of an Energy Bill that just got passed? Inquiring minds, and all that crap...

Once upon a time...ah, shit. This is not, unfortunately a fairy tale.

The Bush administration has drafted regulations that would ease pollution controls on older, dirtier power plants and could allow those that modernize to emit more pollution, rather than less.

The language could undercut dozens of pending state and federal lawsuits aimed at forcing coal-fired plants to cut back emissions of harmful pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, said lawyers who worked on the cases.
...
Under the new standard, a modernized plant's total emissions could rise if the upgrade allowed it to operate longer hours. In court filings, the EPA estimated in 2002 that an hourly standard would allow eight plants in five states -- including Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia -- to generate legally as much as 100,000 tons a year of pollutants that would be illegal under the existing New Source Review rule. That equals about a third of their total emissions.
...
But John Walke, NRDC's clean-air director, said: "This radical proposal is a 180-degree flip-flop from what the administration has been arguing in court. Instead of protecting public health, now EPA wants to protect the polluters. The proposal would completely sabotage clean-air law enforcement, and it would be open season for power plants to pollute even more than they do now."
...
Eric Schaeffer, who headed the EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement before resigning in protest in February 2002, said the new rule undermines the original aim of the law, which was to slowly bring older plants into compliance with stricter air laws.

"Under this proposal, it would never happen," Schaeffer said.

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I've come here to celebrate Earth Day, so please
Come join me and help spread the message I bring.
Be a friend to the trees and to each living thing.

New poll from the Post/ABC. Lots of blah-blah yadda-yadda numbers about Beloved Leaders numbers dipping to an all-time low. Yawn. The most interesting thing is this:

The survey also provided bad news for Democratic leaders, who are judged as offering Bush only tepid opposition. Slightly more than half of those surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with congressional Democrats for not opposing Bush more aggressively.

Self-identified Democrats were particularly impatient. More than three in four said congressional Democrats have not gone far enough to oppose Bush on Iraq or on administration policies in general.

"Somebody needs to speak up," said Michelle Burgess, 41, a home health aide in St. Louis. "Enough is enough. I don't understand why we're over there in Iraq or what he's doing on other issues. There are too many lives being lost."

Independents were similarly dissatisfied with Democratic leaders for not challenging the president over the war and other issues, with six in 10 saying Democrats have been too meek.

If they want to start, then next week is the time to begin. Filibuster Roberts. Fuck that agreement, he's an extremist. The "Senatorial Collegiality" bullshit is a cover for extreme cowardice in the service of Surrender. There is no good that can be accomplished from here until 2006 and then 2008 by rolling over any more.

I think more than 49% of Americans are beginning to demand our representatives act like Actual Leaders or go home. I know that I am.

Hear the wind. Hear the Wind Blow. See the Preznit. See the Preznit Blow. Regularly.

Now that the pre-initial-earliest assesments of the damage from Katrina are starting to come in, it's looking like one fact is undeniable. Mississippi and Louisiana sure would like to have some of their own National Guard folks at home to help with recovery. Instead, their troops are over in Baghdad helping to establish the First Irani Gulf Client State on behalf of Tehran.

And their neighbors are waiting for other states whose Guard and Reserve units can spare supplies, personnel and equipment to send them south to help the residents of the hard-hit states cope with their losses.

With thousands of their citizen-soldiers away fighting in Iraq, states hit hard by Hurricane Katrina scrambled to muster forces for rescue and security missions yesterday -- calling up Army bands and water-purification teams, among other units, and requesting help from distant states and the active-duty military.

As the devastation threatened to overwhelm state resources, federal authorities called on the Pentagon to mobilize active-duty aircraft, ships and troops and set up an unprecedented task force to coordinate a wider military response, said officials from the Northern Command, which oversees homeland defense.
...
More than 6,000 Guard members were mobilized in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida when the storm struck on Monday, with the number rising to 8,000 yesterday and hundreds more expected to be called to active duty, National Guard officials said yesterday.

"Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people," said Lt. Andy Thaggard, a spokesman for the Mississippi National Guard, which has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq. Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.

Mississippi has about 40 percent of its Guard force deployed or preparing to deploy and has called up all remaining Guard units for hurricane relief, Thaggard said. Those include the Army band based in Jackson, Miss. "They are mustering transportation to move them south," he said. Soldiers who have lost their homes are exempt, he said.

Recruiting and retention problems are worsening the strain on Guard forces in hurricane-ravaged states. Alabama's Army National Guard has a strength of 11,000 troops -- or 78 percent of the authorized number. "We're just losing too many out the back door," Arnold said.

So, when do Jenna and Not-Jenna join the Guard to head on down to help direct traffic, and party with the victims of Katrina? Oh, never? Gee, I'm shocked.

The enormity of the disaster in New Orleans should bring home one thing with crystal clarity as the flood waters recede and the city one day becomes whole again...if it ever does.

When the Army Corps of Engineers speak, politicians should shut the fuck up and listen. These people know whereof they speak. Tax Cuts are wonderful things when all other bills have been paid; the Federal Government doesn't belong in my bedroom or cable box, they belong on Levee Projects and other things that affect public safety. Peoples lives are ultimately affected by greedy, power-obsessed politicians who preach the virtue of self before community, maybe Louisiana and Mississippi residents can identify a few of those folks at the local, state and federal level and reconsider their "employment contracts" in light of their present circumstances.

Katrina might have been a wake-up call for a lot of things. For now, it's time to rally around our fellow citizens and help out. The American Red Cross is a pretty good choice. [/end of rant].

Thanks.

Ooooh, here's Beloved Leader today celebrating the Constitution of Iraqan...

This course is going to be difficult largely because the terrorists have chosen to wage war against a future of freedom. They are waging war against peace in Iraq. As democracy in Iraq takes root, the enemies of freedom, the terrorists, will become more desperate, more despicable, and more vicious.

Gee, I'd have to say that desperate, despicable and vicious kind of sounds like the command authorities at GITMO who went off and disgraced our country for the next five decades at Abu Ghraib, with the blessing of...Beloved Leader, Abu Gonzales and Rumsfeld.

"Good afternoon, Desperate, Despicable and Vicious, how may we help you torture your prisoners? Waterboard? Please hold while I transfer you to our Christian baptism and confession department..."

Now, CLAP Dammit!

Oh, and I'm so glad that Preznit Record Vacations mentioned that folks should not stay in their homes in the path of Katrina. He Cares. But not enough to fund the Coast Guard, or the Corps of Engineers, or First Responders...face it, Lobbyists-r-Us construction probably couldn't make the kind of jack doing levee projects in Cajun Country that they're getting from Preznit Constant Corruption in Mess O'Potamia, so Darth Cheney Contracting Inc, wasn't gonna waste time keeping citizens safe when it could rip them off in Iraqan. After all, no-bid is better than no bid, right?

I hear that the First Leisure Boy will be heading back to DC after stopping off at Prairie Chicken Ranch to rest up after being out in San Diego, accomplishing his mission. Bets as to whether or not he'll head up to Camp David for the long Labor Day weekend to rest up from his long plane flight and two arduous days of playing Oval Office Grab-ass with Condi and Donnie?

With all the damage to New Orleans, much as been written about all the things that can (and will, thanks to the 1600 Crew) go wrong in the Big Easy and other places. I was wondering what the risks and/or incidence of infectious diseases will be with all the sewage and other stuff (bodies from graveyards in N.O.?) that got "floated" as Katrina passed.

I'm sure that precautions have been taken for "normal" sever weather events, but Katrina was sort of a worst-case scenario beyond the reckoning of even really pessimistic disaster planners, I think.

Anyone have any idea? How well prepared is the CDC and other health authorities to deal with that if it becomes a threat?

Just curious....

Remember this?

As a presidential candidate in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush promised that, if elected, he would use the full weight of the White House to pressure oil-producing countries to increase production if there was a gas-price crisis. He charged, "The president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price" and promised that as president he would "convince them to open up the spigot to increase the supply."

Pump prices for gasoline, already on a steady climb all year, look like they will pass the $3 barrier soon, thanks to Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to the devastation to lives and property, the hurricane aimed an ill-timed blast at a U.S. energy infrastructure already stretched thin, especially in the capacity to refine oil into gasoline, heating oil and other products. The shutdown of oil platforms, refineries and pipelines along the Gulf Coast drove energy prices sharply higher Tuesday,

The buying frenzy reflected uncertainty and fear about the full extent of the damage Hurricane Katrina inflicted on key energy infrastructure, according to the Associated Press.

"Fill up your cars now, because I think it's not going to be long before we see $3 per gallon gas," Jonathan Murray, senior vice president at Legg Mason, said on CNBC's "Morning Call."

In what has to be one of the most ironic offers ever made in the western hemisphere, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has made everyone but the 1600 Crew an offer that, well, is interesting.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send food and fuel to the United States after the powerful Hurricane Katrina pummeled the US south, ravaging US crude production.

The leftist leader, a frequent critic of the United States and a target himself of US disapproval, said Venezuela could send aid workers with drinking water, food and fuel to US communities hit by the hurricane.

"We place at the disposition of the people of the United States in the event of shortages -- we have drinking water, food, we can provide fuel," Chavez told reporters.

Can you imagine if Chavez made this offer the way that the 1600 Crew offers assistance: you can't have any water, food or fuel if you voted for Beloved Leader. Sort of like how the 1600 Crew (in real life) appropriates aid to countries ravaged by AIDS and stuff...abortion? No aid, the shelter's closed, the bank's empty, the lights in the clinic are off. Sorry (not really).

Opera for free. Don't know how long this will last, but you can go here and get a registration code for Opera just by clicking on the "Go Free Now" button, entering an email address. Then download and install...it's the "paid" version with none of the pop-ups or ads (just like the purchased version).

Hey...it's kewl. Or so the kids say... :)

Here's a thought for senators with a spine and a brain: tell Abu Gonzales to go fuck himself in the most tactful beltway-speak you know. Why? Well, he wants to ratchet up the police state Patriot Act more than the Senate wants to. And let's face it, Gonzales claim to fame besides endangering the lives of future (and present) soldiers with his reading of the Geneva Convention should automatically disqualify him from having input on legislation concerning any Civil Liberties. He's a hack lawyer, who's where he is because of his uncanny ability to lick Preznit Bonesman's Boner clean as a whistle on command.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday criticized a Senate bill that would place new restrictions on law enforcement in the USA Patriot Act, saying the legislation would hamper the government's ability to prevent terrorist attacks.

Gonzales, during a meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Post, said he favors a competing House version of the antiterrorism law that includes fewer restrictions on the government.

Sixteen provisions of the controversial Patriot Act, which Congress voted overwhelmingly to enact weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are due to expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts. Although most of the law would become permanent under either bill, the Senate legislation includes tighter restrictions on the FBI's power to seize business records and would place a four-year time limit on two of the law's most controversial provisions.

Gonzales said yesterday that the Senate bill's tighter provisions would make it too difficult for investigators to conduct secret searches or obtain "roving wiretaps" in terrorism investigations. He also said the threshold for obtaining business records, including those held by libraries, would be set too high by the Senate bill.

In years to come Gonzales will be judged for the hack he is. When kids of the future learn about the people who tried to ruin the republic whole chapters will be written on Abu Gonzales, the man who hates soldiers and Beloved Leader, the man who sends them off to die, to prove he has a bigger dick than his daddy.

Scalia, the Tool speaketh:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia blasted what he called "judge moralists" and the infusion of politics into judicial appointments Monday after joining law students in a re-enactment of a 100-year-old landmark case.
...
"I am questioning the propriety -- indeed, the sanity -- of having a value-laden decision such as this made for the entire society ... by unelected judges," he said.

Irony is indeed Dead. Mort. Muerto. Tot. Guasto. Inoperante.

So, convicted criminal Bob Taft denies that he ever heard of the 50 million wasted from Tom Noe?

On May 13, 2001, as they changed into business suits after showering in the locker room of Toledo's Inverness Club after a round of golf, Tom Noe told Gov. Bob Taft about the $25 million rare-coin fund he operated for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, according to an account released by Mr. Noe's attorney yesterday.

And Mr. Noe used the discussion to tell the governor "about his pending application for the second $25 million coin fund," the statement said.

The bureau approved the second $25 million installment two months later - in July, 2001.

Mr. Taft repeatedly has maintained he didn't know about the state's rare-coin investment with Mr. Noe until April 3, when The Blade first reported it.

It's almost axiomatic with criminals like Taft, lies are like icebergs, what you see is only 1/10th of what's there. It takes a collision to discover that more was lurking just below the surface and now Tafts ship is sinking. How long til all the rats are in the water?

Taft says he'll finish out the final 16 months of his term, to which I say: go for it, Bob! Between you and Delay, we have ready-made poster boys for the corruption of American Politics. So please, by all means, Stay (just a little bit longer)!

Well this'll get the christo-fascisti up in arms no doubt. The Air Force has decided that it's not really such a good idea to piss in the spiritual wheeties of the non-christian amongst them. Sort of.

The Air Force issued new religion guidelines to its commanders yesterday that caution against promoting any particular faith - or even "the idea of religion over nonreligion" - in official communications or functions like meetings, sports events and ceremonies.

The guidelines discourage public prayers at official Air Force events or meetings other than worship services, one of the most contentious issues for many commanders. But they allow for "a brief nonsectarian prayer" at special ceremonies like those honoring promotions, or in "extraordinary circumstances" like "mass casualties, preparation for imminent combat and natural disasters."
...
The guidelines apply not just to the academy, but also to the entire Air Force. They will be made final later this year after Air Force generals meet and consider recommendations from their commanders.
...
Rabbi Resnicoff said some Air Force members he had spoken with "mistakenly assumed" that because the military encouraged "spiritual strength as a pillar of leadership," they were given license to promote strong belief in Christianity within it.

But one outspoken critic, Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate from Albuquerque, said the guidelines meant nothing because the Air Force had refused to discipline officers who overstepped the boundaries.

"All this does is increase the level of confusion," Mr. Weinstein said.

And we'll all be reading about this again. You'd think in light of all the scandals that have flowed forth from the AF Academy they'd break the code sooner or later on how to deal with miscreants. Absent another epic scandal soon, I guess not.

To all the folks dropping by from BartCopNation! Glad you dropped by...add us to your bookmarks and rant at/with the owner...it'll make you feel better!

If you like it here, here are a few of other places to drop by on your way through...

Alternate Brain
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Rob's Blog
Today in Iraq

Great Reading from other military men and vets...enjoy!

From the most-excellent San Diego blog, Words Have Power, a piece on how decades of republican governance can make the American Landscape look. Read this, and then pass the link on...it doesn't take much to see the linkage from the Grovel Nosetwist republicanism that's ruined San Diego to what's happening everywhere else.

"The council doesn't want to put taxes on the ballot, nor raise taxes," she said. "None of the mayoral candidates would talk about it either. The council hasn't had the political will to be honest with the public about what we can afford to do and what we can't."

San Diego isn't an isolated incident. It is an object lesson. What Republicans did in San Diego is what they are doing on the national level. Tax cuts without comensurate reductions in government services. Government funded by borrowing money collected for retirement benefits. It's the same pattern and it's cut from that same old cloth.

Whoo-hoo! Warm up the Tenors boys, there's gonna be some Opera sung down in Southern Florida. I have a feeling this is gonna get more attention than Butterfly Ballots in Autumn, and there won't be any republican operatives to stop the caterwaulin'.

Former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges of conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from his purchase five years ago of a Florida casino cruise line.

Pass the popcorn...it's gonna be a bumpy ride for someone, I have a feeling.

Our old pal Justice French Fry is getting to look more and more like the whitebread racist that makes the GOoPers orgasmically happy.

In a memo written in 1983, after Roberts moved from the Justice Department to the White House counsel's office, Roberts left open the possibility that he agreed with a statement that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which is responsible for enforcing laws against discrimination -- was "un-American."

Roberts is the pasty whitebread face of the Nixon Southern Strategy writ large. If this guy is on the Supreme Court, there's not a doubt in my ex-military mind that the causes of race relations, womens rights, personal privacy and much of the Bill of Rights will be tossed into the shitter, if only for the entertainment value for French Fry, Fat Tony and Clarence O'Pube to insult attorneys making oral arguments they don't like before striking down their next civil liberty.

How much more will it take to convince the dickheads on the Judiciary Committee that this guy deserves naught but a filibuster? A huge campaign contribution, I mean in the corruption that is Washington an outright bribe might be the only thing that can save the Republic, or am I wrong?

Yeah, so as long as I'm on the subject, over at ASZ, they have post up that led me to Roxanne over at Rox Populi who has a list of the top 100 songs from the year of your high school graduation. So I decided I'd go visit the list and see how embarassed I'd be to time travel back and listen to some of that crap again. The songs struck out are those that in many cases define absolute suckiness. Those in bold were pretty good, with a few being awesome (IMHO), denoted by being bold and italic. Anyhow, here's to being an unter-geek!

1. Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree, Tony Orlando and Dawn
2. Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Jim Croce
3. Killing Me Softly With His Song, Roberta Flack
4. Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye
5. My Love, Paul McCartney and Wings
6. Why Me, Kris Kristofferson
7. Crocodile Rock, Elton John
8. Will It Go Round In Circles, Billy Preston
9. You're So Vain, Carly Simon
10. Touch Me In The Morning, Diana Ross
11. The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia, Vicki Lawrence
12. Playground In My Mind, Clint Holmes
13. Brother Louie, Stories
14. Delta Dawn, Helen Reddy
15. Me And Mrs. Jones, Billy Paul
16. Frankenstein, Edgar Winter Group
17. Drift Away, Dobie Gray
18. Little Willy, Sweet
19. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life, Stevie Wonder
20. Half Breed, Cher
21. That Lady, Isley Bros.
22. Pillow Talk, Sylvia
23. We're An American Band, Grand Funk Railroad
24. Right Place, Wrong Time, Dr. John
25. Wildflower, Skylark
26. Superstition, Stevie Wonder
27. Loves Me Like A Rock, Paul Simon
28. The Morning After, Maureen McGovern
29. Rocky Mountain High, John Denver
30. Stuck In The Middle With You, Stealers Wheel
31. Shambala, Three Dog Night
32. Love Train, O'Jays
33. I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Barry White
34. Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose, Tony Orlando and Dawn
35. Keep On Truckin' (Pt. 1), Eddie Kendricks
36. Dancing In The Moonlight, King Harvest
37. Danny's Song, Anne Murray
38. Monster Mash, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and The Crypt Kickers
39. Natural High, Bloodstone
40. Diamond Girl, Seals and Crofts
41. Long Train Running, Doobie Brothers
42. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth), George Harrison
43. If You Want Me To Stay, Sly and The Family Stone
44. Daddy's Home, Jermaine Jackson
45. Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye), Gladys Knight and The Pips
46. I'm Doing Fine Now, New York City
47. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love, Spinners
48. Daniel, Elton John
49. Midnight Train To Georgia, Gladys Knight and The Pips
50. Smoke On The Water , Deep Purple
51. The Cover Of Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
52. Behind Closed Doors, Charlie Rich
53. Your Mama Don't Dance, Loggins and Messina
54. Feelin' Stronger Every Day, Chicago
55. The Cisco Kid, War
56. Live And Let Die, Wings
57. Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?, Hurricane Smith
58. I Believe In You, Johnnie Taylor
59. Sing, Carpenters
60. Ain't No Woman (Like The One I Got), Four Tops
61. Dueling Banjos, Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel
62. Higher Ground, Stevie Wonder
63. Here I Am (Come And Take Me), Al Green
64. My Maria, B.W. Stevenson
65. Superfly, Curtis Mayfield
66. Get Down, Gilbert O'Sullivan
67. Last Song, Edward Bear
68. Reelin' In The Years, Steely Dan
69. Hocus Pocus, Focus
70. Yesterday Once More, Carpenters
71. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Bette Midler
72. Clair, Gilbert O'Sullivan
73. Do It Again, Steely Dan
74. Kodachrome, Paul Simon
75. Why Can't We Live Together, Timmy Thomas
76. So Very Hard To Go, Tower Of Power YES! YES! YES! T.O.P Rox it!
77. Do You Want To Dance?, Bette Midler
78. Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu, Johnny Rivers
79. Ramblin' Man, Allman Brothers
80. Masterpiece, Temptations
81. Peaceful, Helen Reddy
82. One Of A Kind (Love Affair), Spinners
83. Funny Face, Donna Fargo
84. Funky Worm, Ohio Players
85. Angie, Rolling Stones
86. Jambalaya (On The Bayou), Blue Ridge Rangers
87. Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend, Lobo
88. Break Up To Make Up, Stylistics
89. Daisy A Day, Jud Strunk
90. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001), Deodato
91. Stir It Up, Johnny Nash
92. Money, Pink Floyd
93. Gypsy Man, War
94. The World Is A Ghetto, War
95. Yes We Can Can, Pointer Sisters
96. Free Ride, Edgar Winter Group
97. Space Oddity, David Bowie
98. It Never Rains In Southern California, Albert Hammond
99. The Twelfth Of Never, Donny Osmond
100. Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Temptations

Ok. Now, don't tell anyone else that I listened to some of this crap. Please? The kid would laugh at me...LOL!

Tomorrow is the day that Fifty becomes the New Thirty. Yes, it's my birthday and using my Slim Pickens voice from Blazing Saddles "I am Depressed", although not for the same reasons...well, you're only as old as you feel, I guess.

Enough about me. I got an awesome birthday present a day early. SK Bubba, formerly known as R. Neal is guest-blogging over here. Hey, Bubba, for my birthday would you consider making it permanent?

Anyhow, we'll be having wild celebrations around the Fish Pond, there will be much drinking of San Miguel, vomiting on my shoes and annoying the girls in the local bar. Oh, wait, that's what I did for my 30th in Olongapo City, PI. Well, if it's the new 30, then perhaps I can get away with it one more time. Or not.

What I really want is for the 1600 Crew to come clean, for the Democrats to deserve to win in 2006 on the merits of their politics, not because of GOP fatigue, and for the winning powerball lottery ticket so I can buy a old Huey and spend every weekend flying off to go fly fishing in the mountains out west.

Since the chances of 2/3rds of that happening are about the same as James Dobson becoming a practicing athiest by midnight tomorrow, I'll just count my good fortune which includes my family and all the friends I have made out here in blogtopia (y!sctp!). Thanks guys, here's to victory next year!

This just got dropped in my email box. You have to watch it (QT Video). If this guy wins the Manhattan Borough President job, he's really done something I think. I know nothing about NYC electoral politics, so I don't know what Mr. Ellner's chances are, but damn, this is one ballsy ad.

My sister lives in Manhattan, I'll have to get some more info when she gets back from taking her daughter to college. Or does someone out there have more info for me?

Operation Yellow Elephant makes a good point about those who won't go and serve, put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. But interestingly, the Army is having issues keeping what it considers "company grade" officers, O-3's, Captains in its ranks as the deployments in the middle east continue ad infinitum.

Jonathan Powers, a 27-year-old Army captain from Buffalo, N.Y., spent more than a year in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division and saw "a lot of good things being done" to help rebuild the country.

But when his four-year commitment came up, Powers decided last September to leave the Army because he was wary of additional tours in a war-torn land: "You're going to be in Iraq. That's the Army."

As the American military begins its third year in Iraq and President Bush vows to stay the course, an increasing number of captains and other junior officers are leaving the service, leading some current and former officers to fear an exodus of talent not seen since the Vietnam War.
...
One retention proposal is to offer more Army-paid graduate school slots to captains. Another would let officers switch career paths earlier in their careers, which would allow more and earlier opportunities for advanced education.

The Army is also considering enticing students in college ROTC programs and West Point to commit to eight years of active duty -- as opposed to the current four or five years -- with the promise of graduate school and a choice of Army jobs and installations.

Army officials say that once officers commit to eight years and devote two to graduate study, they would be required to "pay back" the graduate school time. By then, they would have well over a decade in the Army and be likely to serve to a 20-year retirement, officials said.

"These incentives I think will turn it around," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Theodore G. Stroup Jr., who was chief of Army personnel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "The Army's really not bleeding. The captains are really not leaving in droves."

This is who the spineless Democrats need to formulate a strategy for opening a lasting dialog with, people who see the naked emporer and want no part of applauding his nut sac flopping around in the breeze for all to see.

So when my mother called me the other day and told me she was considering registering as a Democrat, I was, well, stunned. Somewhere in a cemetery plot near Fillmore a body is spinning.

For the last year or more my mother has been gradually expressing ever greater exasperation with President Bush, the war, and the religious right. “Have you heard about this James Dobson guy?” she asked me on the phone, referring to the head of Focus on the Family. “If they overturn Roe vs. Wade, that’ll be it for me,” she said.

Then she mentioned Cindy Sheehan.

For all the efforts to discredit Ms. Sheehan, what she accomplished in drawing attention to the human cost of the war, if my mother’s opinion is any indication, crossed party lines. There’s a Mom Faction in American politics, and while it isn’t a monolithic Third Rail, it’s at least and second-and-a-half rail. When their children are dying on a battlefield of choice, you touch it at your peril.

My mother has her fingers on the pulse, and scalps, of many such women. She’s a hairdresser with a clientele that has been coming to her regularly for decades. Now grandmothers, these women were moms during Vietnam, in which over 50,000 American sons and daughters died. They worried then about their kids’ safety, now they’re worried about grandkids - theirs or someone else’s. Most are pretty mainstream, most Republican, and most, my mother tells me, pretty much fed up with George Bush.

One possible solution not open to America right now is drawing on other nations to provide support of any kind, even if it were only to offer their services as impartial, trusted brokers to all sides in the so-called "constitutional discussions" to perhaps get all sides to declare a moratorium on the killing while some earnest discussions begin.

Unfortunately, the unilateral cowboy-ism of Preznit All Hat No Cattle has driven many allies and potential allies from our side for the duration of the conflict and probably longer, it's going to be a generational task to rebuild our international street creds as having the moral authority to speak on much of anything in global realpolitik.

Is it time to begin a grassroots (netroots?) effort to earnestly take back the Democratic Party from the Joe Bidens, Joementums and Dianne Feinsteins? They have become Triangulating Losers who are intent on leading us off the cliff again to maintain their own status quo in the Senate (and House). Perhaps if we are going to preach a "slash and burn" approach to politics for retaking our Democracy from these bastards who are ruining our country, the place to start is at home.

After all, there are republican grandmothers out there who are waiting for a leader, and they'll join the fight too...

Ho-lee Cow. It's over the wall. Frank Rich broke his bat on this one.

We have long since lost count of all the historic turning points and fast-evaporating victories hyped by this president. The toppling of Saddam's statue, "Mission Accomplished," the transfer of sovereignty and the purple fingers all blur into a hallucinatory loop of delusion. One such red-letter day, some may dimly recall, was the adoption of the previous, interim constitution in March 2004, also proclaimed a "historic milestone" by Mr. Bush. Within a month after that fabulous victory, the insurgency boiled over into the war we have today, taking, among many others, the life of Casey Sheehan.
...
And what exactly is our task? Mr. Bush's current definition - "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" - could not be a better formula for quagmire. Twenty-eight months after the fall of Saddam, only "a small number" of Iraqi troops are capable of fighting without American assistance, according to the Pentagon - a figure that Joseph Biden puts at "fewer than 3,000." At this rate, our 138,000 troops will be replaced by self-sufficient locals in roughly 100 years.
...
The Democrats are hoping that if they do nothing, they might inherit the earth as the Bush administration goes down the tubes. Whatever the dubious merits of this Kerryesque course as a political strategy, as a moral strategy it's unpatriotic. The earth may not be worth inheriting if Iraq continues to sabotage America's ability to take on Iran and North Korea, let alone Al Qaeda.
...
The marketing campaign will crescendo in two weeks, on the anniversary of 9/11, when a Defense Department "Freedom Walk" will trek from the site of the Pentagon attack through Arlington National Cemetery to a country music concert on the Mall. There the false linkage of Iraq to 9/11 will be hammered in once more, this time with a beat: Clint Black will sing "I Raq and Roll," a ditty whose lyrics focus on Saddam, not the Islamic radicals who actually attacked America. Lest any propaganda opportunity be missed, Arlington's gravestones are being branded with the Pentagon's slogans for military campaigns, like Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Associated Press reported last week - a historic first. If only the administration had thought of doing the same on the fallen's coffins, it might have allowed photographs.

No Democrat who is currently in any National Office except perhaps Feingold is even talking the talk. Too terrified of Rove and the republican slime machine, and perhaps too ashamed of their lack of spine in days past they feel they do good (for themselves) by saying nothing at all. So who do we listen to? Who do we look to for leadership now that all our alleged "leaders" have averted their gaze and assumed submissive positions to the 1600 Crew?

Unless things change, I'm going with Wes Clark. He may be a political one-trick pony bred just for Mess O'Potamia, but damn it, no one else has either the brains or balls together to even start challenging piss-poor position the 1600 Crew have put us in. Clark is a leader, not afraid to raise the bullshit flag, and that's what it's going to take to extricate this country from the 1600 Crew disaster.

2006 - we have to take back at least one chamber of Congress, and begin to stop not only the disasterous policies of absolute failure of the 1600 Crew, but keep them from hiding the evidence of their criminal wrongdoing, something they are more afraid of seeing the light of day, than all the falling poll numbers in the world. They know that the first unrefutable documentary evidence of their misconduct will not only poison the public against them, but the GOoPers for generations to come.

1. Why I'm not a Christian
   
2. Whore Media
   
3. The 2-Faced Times
   
4. The Best
   
5. Acres
   
6. Tissue
   
7. Jeebus
   
8. This Just In...
   
9. Flashback...
   
10. My kind of American