Analytical

Bill's Brain
"Damn the consequences, give me the pen!"
Lewis Morris, signing the Declaration of Independence

Creative

December 2006

Happy Holidays!
Gosh, it’s year end already. How did that happen?

For the last several months I’ve been trying to get a lot done around the “estate” before winter set in and that meant working seven days a week most weeks, often from before sun up until after sun down. (The lights on my tractor really light the place up.) Redwood fences were built, trees were cut down (only the ones leaning dangerously over the house! we like our trees), stumps were removed, dirt was moved, hillsides were reinforced, trenches were dug, conduit and water lines were installed, and myriad of other smaller projects were completed.

Altogether about 200 feet of fence was built to enclose a side yard (with nine foot wide gates at the front and back), a “road” for the tractor which goes around the side of the house back to the garden was graded and covered with 25 yards of wood chips, 75 yards of adobe clay soil was removed from the new garden/orchard area and used to build up the hillside by the creek (the clay will be replaced by mulch and topsoil), about 400 feet of water lines were buried around the garden (for city water plus two irrigation zones) with five faucets and eight irrigation risers, a couple hundred feet of conduit was buried so we could have electricity on two sides of the garden, and eleven large holes were dug for new fruit trees (approximately four feet deep and six feet in diameter) with about a foot and a half of lava rock gravel in the bottom and the rest of the hole filled with good quality topsoil.

In addition to all of that a variety of other things were moved and hauled around the property including more than a thousand bricks, several yards of gravel, an assortment of boulders, a few piles of lumber, a dozen bales of hay, and more. I feel like I’ve spent the last six months or so terraforming, starting to transform our property into what we want it to be. It’s been a lot of work but it’s also gratifying to see the results.

I shouldn’t forget that I also designed and built a four-wheeled wagon with three sides that fold down that I can pull behind the tractor so it would be easier to haul all of the material I need to move. I designed it to dump to the side using 12 volt electric scissor jacks but I don’t have the jacks, battery and wiring installed yet. I’ll probably do that in January. Once the wagon dumps with the flick of a switch I’ll use it to move about 30 yards of mulch and 20-30 yards of topsoil back to the garden/orchard so I can till it all together and get that project finished. Then we can plant more fruit trees and vegetables and actually have them grow and prosper (which doesn’t happen in adobe clay soil, take my work for it). Then I can trench about 200 feet from the house back to the creek so I can run electricity to the garden outlets and bury a couple drain lines (one for downspouts, one for a French drain which I also need to dig out), and then dig the foundation for the shed (“the barn”) that I’m going to build. Oh, I also need to dig out and replace all of the existing steel risers for the water faucets along the side of the property because they’re rusting through and starting to leak. Yes, I’ll be spending quite a few hours using the backhoe in January and February, if the weather cooperates.

And of course there’s the several-thousand gallon water tank that we want to install so we can store rain water for the garden and fruit trees (unfortunately the creek usually dries up in early August so we want to be able to store enough water to irrigate through the rest of the summer and fall). Irrigation lines, pumps and controllers will need to be hooked up to the tank, and a chicken coop will also need to be built (the spousal unit has her heart set on chickens), and … gosh … let’s just say I’ll be busy in the spring too!

Did I mention that I’m going back to school in January to learn about architecture, construction, solar power systems, landscape design and other related topics? I just may launch my own construction and landscaping business next year with emphasis on environmentally-friendly techniques, green building, solar power systems, xeriscaping and use of native plants. I’m not sure exactly what will happen, I’m just going to take it a day at a time and see where it all leads me.

Well, I’d better get back to the happy holidays greeting, which was the point of this whole exercise. I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful, fulfilling holiday filled with love and all the things that make life worth living. I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on the past year and also think about all the promise and possibility that 2007 holds. I feel like 2007 will be a year of renewal for me and I plan to launch major new initiatives (like starting my own business), record a lot of the music I’ve been writing (which I’ve neglected for the past several years), reestablish connections with old friends (and make some new ones), and generally make the year a celebration of life. I’m at a point where I’m looking ahead to the second half of my life and realizing that I have the opportunity to make it whatever I want it to be, and I plan to take that opportunity.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday.

Peace.

Mission Accomplished: Cheap Smack for Everyone!
Much like Iraq, Afghanistan has been a booming success ever since the Taliban government was removed from power. Also like Iraq most of that booming has come from explosions and small arms fire, but through the flying shrapnel and gunpowder haze one can occasionally catch a glimpse of hope, a glimpse of the small seed of free market prosperity beginning to take root.

Nowhere is that new market freedom and prosperity more apparent than on Afghanistan’s poppy farms. Since the Taliban government was removed from power in 2001 Afghanistan’s opium industry has enjoyed a level of growth and freedom from persecution that must make tobacco company executives wet their pants in envy. And this year was no exception.

Afghanistan’s 2006 opium production was up 26% over last year to a new record of 6,100 tons, while the amount of land devoted to growing poppies increased by over 60% from 2005.

Those numbers are certainly impressive but the one bit of information that put it all into perspective for me is the fact that 6,100 tons of opium is enough to make 610 tons of heroin, an amount which exceeds the total demand of all the world’s heroin users by over 30 percent.

Ponder that one for a while. Afghanistan’s 2006 opium crop was large enough to make over 130% of the total world demand for heroin.

Boy do I feel sorry for investors who went long in the heroin market.

In what may be the understatement of the century, White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news of Afghanistan’s record opium crop “disappointing.”

The Associated Press (AP) reported that rampant corruption and collusion between government officials and drug producers was making it very difficult to crack down on opium production. Narcotics have become a $2.6 billion industry in Afghanistan and drug traffickers are known to "work closely with sponsors in top government and political positions." The AP also noted that many government officials are “taking bribes to ensure the crops aren’t destroyed.”

So, we have representatives of a multi-billion dollar industry giving money to politicians so those politicians will protect their business. Sound familiar? It seems like the Afghan drug lords have taken a page from the Republican playbook, only instead of calling their program the K Street Project they’ve created what might be called the P Field Project. Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay went bye-bye for this sort of backroom collusion and influence peddling.

I suppose the record opium crop is good news, though, for heroin users everywhere. Such an excess supply will drive down street prices, making the drug more affordable for them. This illustrates just one of the many ways that the Bush administration has helped those who are less fortunate in our society. Heroin addicts have not benefited much from Bush’s tax breaks, they generally don’t pay much in dividends taxes, so it’s good to see that the administration is financially assisting them in other ways.

It’s also good news for those who have wanted to start using heroin but found it too expensive, like children or those on a fixed income. For example, thanks to the Afghan situation and the Bush administration’s new Medicare drug program, grandma will finally be able to afford all the drugs she wants. None of us want to see granny forced to choose between taking her blood pressure meds or shooting smack, and now she’ll be able to afford both and still have enough money left over to eek out a pitiful existence on a diet of dog food and dumpster diving. I think we can all agree that this is a win-win for everyone, because we’re all happier when granny is heavily medicated.

With this bumper opium crop rolling in this may be the year to make your holidays a little more cheery and bright than usual. Or more bleary and hazy than usual, as the case may be. Smart holiday shoppers everywhere are expected to take advantage of the lower prices to put a little something extra under the tree for their special someone.

And all the while freedom continues to grow, expanding like the poppy fields of Afghanistan. It may be moving a bit more slowly, and staggering a little, after all that heroin, but never fear, freedom will march onward! Or at least it will just as soon as it can score another fix.

Mission Accomplished: Spreading … Freedom?
By all accounts it seems that president Bush’s mission to spread freedom in Iraq is going swimmingly. Iraqi citizens now enjoy the freedom to be shot in their mosques, shot in their homes, dragged from buses and shot, tortured and shot, and well … let’s just say they have the freedom to do pretty much anything as long as it involves getting shot. Or blown up.

And don’t believe all the rampant speculation about Iraq devolving into a civil war, there is no civil war, it’s really just a communication problem. Unfortunately the Iraqi phrase for “Hello friend, are you enjoying your new freedom?” is the same as the phrase for “I’m going to kill you!,” the syllables are just emphasized differently. Because of the different Shiite and Sunni accents it can be difficult for the two groups to understand exactly what the other is saying, so regrettably many encounters that begin with enthusiastic greetings end in massive bloodshed. Thankfully president Bush has dispatched a special “Hooked on Phonics” SWAT team to Baghdad to address the situation, and he’s confident that the problem will be solved by the end of the week.

The Iraqi government is also becoming a model of freedom for the rest of the Middle East, molding itself in the image of the Bush ideal. In their latest attempt to establish Bush-style “freedom” in their war-torn country, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has created a group which will monitor news coverage to ensure it reflects the “proper” government spin. Unfortunately Iraq doesn’t have their own FOX News network to spout the official government line 24 hours a day, so they have to resort to more direct measures.

In fact, according to the Associated Press, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has even “vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories that the ministry deemed to be incorrect.”

The Associated Press continued:

Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the ministry, said the purpose of the special monitoring unit was to find "fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different."

He said offenders would be notified and asked to "correct these false reports on their main news programs. But if they do not change those lying, false stories, then we will seek legal action against them."

The spokesman said the ministry had a large public relations staff and said they should be contacted by the media to "get real, true news."

Yowza. Total government control of the media. The ability to manipulate everything the public sees, hears, and reads in the press. It’s like George W. Bush’s wet dream.

In a related story, White House spokesman Tony Snow stated that the Associated Press story was “fabricated and false news that hurts and gives Americans a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different." He urged all members of the US press to only talk to his office so they could "get real, true news."

To appreciate just how far Iraqi has come since Bush’s “liberation” of the country, consider this from the same Associated Press article:

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, the government imposed censorship on local media and severely restricted foreign media coverage, monitoring transmissions and sending secret police to follow journalists. Those who violated the rules were expelled and in some cases jailed.

So, after three years, hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives we’re apparently right back to where we started. That would be a complete travesty, but unfortunately the reality is even worse. We’re not even back to where we started, the situation has degraded so badly that there’s a long way to go before we get anywhere near the pre-invasion “starting point” in Iraq, much less make any progress.

George Bush recently said that when the history of Iraq is written his war will look like a comma. I’m not an expert on punctuation but I’m inclined to believe it will look more like one helluva stupid, dumb-ass, bloody mistake than a pause in the middle of a sentence. I have to wonder what the families of the soldiers who have died in the war thought of Bush’s statement. How must it make them feel, to know that our so-called “commander in chief” believes their loved ones died for a comma?

It makes me feel like we need a lot more exclamation points, all directed at the people who are responsible for this pathetic, irresponsible, inhumane, and unforgivable mess.

Pinch Me
So, it really happened, didn’t it? Come January the Democrats really will control Congress, won’t they? Hard-core neocon Don Rumsfeld really will be gone, right? Is it really “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world,” as more than 200 members of the European Parliament have said in a joint statement?

It still doesn’t seem real to me. After all the things Bush has done, after all the times he’s violated and disregarded the laws of the USA and the US Constitution, I expect him to issue some sort of “signing statement” declaring the election results null and void, the other two branches of government obsolete (maybe Alberto Gonzales can write a memo for him calling them “quaint”), and proclaiming himself the imperial ruler of the US of A for the duration of “The War on Terror,” which, thanks to his efforts, will continue indefinitely.

Do the Republicans really not have any more tricks up their sleeves? Will they cede control of Congress to the Democrats peacefully? I find that very hard to believe, they don’t give up that easily. The biggest question of all, perhaps, is exactly what this election means for the future strategy and goals of the Republican party.

With Bush’s Supreme Court appointment to the presidency in 2000 the Republican party was commandeered by neoconservatives and the neocon agenda became the Republican agenda. The most prominent characteristic of that agenda seems to be an insatiable self-serving desire for power and supremacy at any cost. The neocons brought us the Iraq war, record deficits, rampant corruption, government by the highest bidder, and a reckless disregard for the law, the American system of government, and the opinions of anyone who disagreed with them.

Does this election really represent the end of the neocon agenda? Does it really represent the end of the Karl Rove slash-and-burn character assassination style of politics? Does it really represent the end of abominations like the K Street Project, where the laws of our land were sold to the highest special-interest bidder (which led to influence-peddling scandals like those involving Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay)? Does it really represent an end to government by, for, and of the richest, most powerful and greediest and a return to the American ideal of government by, for, and of the people?

Only time will tell. If there is one lesson that “we the people” should learn from the events of the last six years it’s that we must always remain vigilant and ready to defend America against all threats, both foreign and domestic, because sometimes the biggest threat that our country faces can be found within our own government. Never again should we allow our country to be misused and abused for six whole years before we do something about it. Never again should we abandon the values that made America great, values like truth, justice, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Never again.

For now, I’ll be pinching myself in an effort to ensure that the “six-year nightmare for the world” really has come to an end and I’m not just having a pleasant dream.

November 2006

Election 2006: Hope for America
In many ways the 2006 election can be seen as a referendum on the Iraq war. This is certainly appropriate because the Iraq war is the one issue that most fully illustrates the problems with the Bush administration. In no particular order these include the neoconservative visions of imperialism and world domination, lying and manipulating the public to forward their agenda, fiscal irresponsibility and creating the largest debt in the country’s history, callous disregard of human rights and the support of torture, failure to defeat America’s real enemies in Afghanistan (al Qaeda and the Taliban), contempt for the American system of government and the drive to create an “imperial presidency,” repeated violations of the US Constitution, disrespect of human life and the willingness to kill thousands (or even millions) in the name of misguided ideology, foreign policy that encourages nuclear proliferation and creates more enemies of America, further enriching the wealthy at the expense of the poor, the sale of government policy to the highest bidder, blatant pandering to special-interest groups in an effort to gain their votes, refusal to address impending world-wide catastrophes like global warming, rolling back environmental protections, selecting appointees based on political favors rather than experience or qualifications, trying to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution, serious disconnection from and denial of reality, and an overall, often staggering, level of ignorance and incompetence in the business of governing.

And that’s not all. The Iraq war is one more thing that the Bush/neocon cabal has screwed up royally and will walk away from, leaving their mess for someone else to clean up. (Thanks guys. Allow me to kick you firmly in the ass on your way out.)

Finally, the majority of the American public seems to be rejecting this cancer of deceit and corruption that has been steadily growing within our country for the past six years. And finally, I feel as if there may be hope for America after all.

As of this writing Democrats have clearly taken control of the House, 227 to 195, but control of the Senate is still undecided. Democrats and Evil Scum-Sucking Demons … sorry … Democrats and Republicans are tied at 49 seats each with the races in Montana and Virginia still too close to call. It’s possible that the Senate will end up in a 50-50 tie, in which case VP Dick Cheney would be called upon to cast deciding votes, effectively allowing Republicans to maintain control. But even with Cheney’s tie-breaking vote such an even division in the Senate means that neither party will be able to dominate Senate business.

The Congressional results are certainly encouraging because it means that at the very least Democrats should be able to limit the amount of damage the Republicans will do in the coming years. It also means there is a chance that the Bush administration’s crimes will be investigated and they will be held accountable for their actions in the remaining two years of their administration. In my view this should be a top priority of Democrats because once Bush and his crew leave office it will be, for all practical purposes, impossible to bring them to justice. If they’re not held accountable for their crimes in the next two years they’ll be able to walk away from them and live comfortably off of our tax dollars for the rest of their lives. A depressing thought, I know.

There’s always a chance that Bush administration officials could be called in front of an international war crimes tribunal for their unprovoked invasion of Iraq and repeated torture of prisoners, but remember that within the first few months of his presidency Bush declared that the International Criminal Court had no jurisdiction over US government officials, including himself and his entire administration. Although the mainstream US press largely ignored it at the time this certainly caught my attention and made me wonder why the newly-elected (or rather, Supreme Court-appointed) Bush crew were so worried about the possibility of being prosecuted for war crimes. Exactly what were they planning on doing that caused them so much concern? That’s one of the things that started me on my quest to learn more about them and their agenda and quickly led me to the discovery of the neocons’ plans for invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, plans which they began developing in 1992, shortly after the end of the first Gulf war. With an illegal invasion and government coup on their agenda the Bush neocons had good reason to take steps to ensure that they’d be immune from war crimes prosecution.

How the Congressional shift in power will affect the Bush/neocon agenda remains to be seen, but in my opinion I don’t think it will bring about any changes at all in Bush’s actions. In his six years as president Bush has already used signing statements to challenge Congress (that is, to say he’s free to ignore them) over 800 times. I don’t think he cares whether he thumbs his nose at Congress 800 times, 1,000 times, or 8,000 times, Bush is going to do whatever he damn well pleases unless someone steps in and forces him to play by the rules and obey the law. Whether or not the new Congress will have the ability, or the political will, to do this remains to be seen.

Now the spotlight will be on the Democrats. They’ve won the support of millions of Americans but in order to keep it they’ll have to produce results. The reality, however, is that with an arrogant Republican president and a divided Senate Democrats won’t be able to accomplish much in the way of putting America back on the right path. We’ll probably see a lot of stalemate over the next two years and will have to wait until 2008 before there’s a chance of significant improvement. So far the Democrats haven’t inspired me with their 2006 election slogan, “A New Direction for America.” I’d hoped they would be a little more specific. After all, George W. Bush gave America a new direction too, one that involved Hell and a very large hand basket. I’d hope that we could look forward to a direction that was better, and not just new. Methinks the Democrats could use a good communications consultant. (Email me, I’m available and I’d love to help.)

In order to maintain their gains and have any chance of making further progress the Democrats will also have to shut down or otherwise counter the Republicans’ spin machine, a vicious lie-spewing contraption that will personally attack and slander any and all opponents, mislead the public, and say whatever is necessary to further its own self-serving agenda. Long-term I believe this is the greatest challenge that Democrats face. It’s the political version of the age-old old “good vs. evil” dilemma. Evil, not being bound by moral considerations, has no limit on the despicable things that it will do in order to get what it wants. Good, on the other hand, is limited in the actions that it can take because doing things that are immoral or illegal is not an option. This creates an imbalance of power and tilts the scales in favor of evil. In a political environment where the majority of voters are swayed by negative attacks in the form of talking points and sound bites it is very difficult for good to prevail without stooping to the level of evil and embracing the same dirty tactics that evil employs. This will make it inherently difficult for Democrats to make further gains as long as the Karl Rove attack-and-slander style of politics remains the dominant force in Washington.

For now I’ll be keeping my eyes on the Senate race to see how that shakes out and hoping that at the very least a 50-50 tie can be preserved. Regardless of what happens, the next two years will be interesting so sit up straight and pay attention, because this will be on the final exam.

The High Price of Education
It’s like deja vu all over again, John Kerry and George Bush trading verbal barbs. It reminds me of the good old days, just a couple years ago, when there was real hope of saving America from four more years of Bush-led misuse and abuse. But I digress …

So is our president learning? And is he smart enough to understand when someone points out his lack of intelligence? Based on recent events the answers to those questions are “No” and “No.”

While speaking at a Pasadena City College campaign rally for California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, senator John Kerry made several comments critical of president Bush and then went on to say to the students ''You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.''

Personally, I found Kerry’s comment to be refreshingly straightforward and truthful in the midst of a political atmosphere filled with obfuscation, half-truths and misleading self-serving propaganda. To me it was immediately clear that Kerry was talking about president Bush and the extreme ignorance that he and his neoconservative cohorts displayed when they decided to cut and run from the war against terrorists in Afghanistan (Al Qaeda and the Taliban) and instead invade Iraq.

Watching the Bush administration’s actions in Iraq has made it clear that Bush and his supporters did not study hard or do their homework, they did not learn the lessons of Britain’s 12-year occupation of Iraq or the failed US war in Vietnam. They have repeated the same mistakes and led (or more accurately, misled) America into yet another long and bloody war that in the end will do far more harm than good to the United States.

And who will pay for Bush’s half-trillion dollar on-the-job training on the consequences of imperialist foreign policy? Certainly not George Bush or the members of his administration. That price will be paid by the American people and hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqi citizens. That’s a very expensive education, and one that could have easily been avoided if only more people had paid attention.

President Bush wasted no time in confirming Kerry’s statement about his lack of intelligence by promptly misunderstanding what Kerry had said. In response to Kerry’s comments Bush replied "The members of the United States military are plenty smart, and they are plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology."

Jesus, sometimes I wonder if this guy can manage to dress himself, or does he need help getting his pants on the right way? I’m all for “mainstreaming” the mentally impaired but for crying out loud people, let’s stop electing them president.

Pardon me for a moment, I need to have a word with our so-called “president:”

George, let me explain this to you. John Kerry was not talking about the members of the United States military, he was talking about YOU! If you were smart and perceptive and living in reality with the rest of us you’d realize that. You’re the dimwit that got us stuck in Iraq, and your inability to understand Kerry’s statement only confirms your lack of mental capacity.

And what gall you have calling on Kerry to apologize to our troops! Sweet Santa on a broomstick, that’s nothing short of outrageous. You’re the moron that sent those troops to Iraq to fight and die for no good reason, and you say Kerry should apologize to them? Boy, you really are messed up, aren’t you? I ask you, who owes the troops an apology, the idiot who sent them to fight a hellish unnecessary war, or the person who pointed out the fact that the idiot who sent them there is not very smart?

White House press secretary Tony Snow continued the absurdity by saying ''Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who've given their lives in this.''

OK people, especially you Republicans and others with deficient reasoning capabilities, listen up! I’ll try to make this simple because I don’t want to have to explain it to you again. The person who owes our troops, their families, everyone else in the country, and the whole damn civilized world an apology is the person who started a tactically stupid, costly, and completely unnecessary war in Iraq, and that person is George W. Bush.

So George, cut the bullshit, stop avoiding the truth, face reality, accept responsibility for your ignorance, and apologize to all of us for the bloody mess you’ve created in Iraq. A mess which you’re going to walk away from and leave for the rest of us to clean up, just like the messes you made at two oil companies, a baseball team, and the state of Texas.

I’m waiting for your apology, George.

October 2006

Bin Laden Killed by Spinach?
Could it be true? The leader of the most-feared terrorist organization in the world felled by a humble vegetable? The scoop is that a French foreign intelligence document alleging that bin Laden recently passed away was published in the French press. The cause of death, if in fact he really is dead, is uncertain, but Bill’s Brain veteran reporter Brad Nailer is investigating a rumor that bin Laden may have been killed by the recent E. coli outbreak in bagged spinach.

There is ample evidence that bin Laden was a devout spinach connoisseur, as indicated by the fact that when he declared holy war against the United States many years ago the declaration contained a little-noticed footnote stating that the spinach-growing regions of America were exempted. In fact, some Muslim scholars have noted that the Arabic words for “spinach” and “virgin” are so similar that it’s possible some people may believe the Quran actually promises devout martyrs “70 bags of spinach” upon their demise instead of “70 virgins.” It is rumored that bin Laden may in fact hold this belief, but that rumor has yet to be substantiated. It remains just one of many mysteries which surround this elusive and enigmatic figure.

Speaking of the E. coli spinach outbreak, is it just me or has anyone else noticed the irony in the fact that the company which produced the infected spinach was called Natural Selection? I guess if you’re strong enough to survive an E. coli infection you’ll live to pass your genes on to another generation. If not, well then your genes will just be filtered from the gene pool. Natural Selection indeed.

In a related note, Bill’s Brain was recently able to acquire several truckloads of slightly wilted spinach at bargain basement prices and we’re happy to pass the savings on to you. For a limited time only we’re offering this spinach to you, our loyal readers, for only 10 cents per pound (minimum order 1000 lbs., plus $24.95 for shipping and handling). Just make your checks payable to Edward Coli and send them to Bill’s Brain Spinach Blowout, 247 Nausea Lane, Wretching, VT 02491.

In the meantime our veteran leafy substance and food-borne illness investigative reporter Brad Nailer will stay on the bin Laden story and we’ll let you know if anything new develops. Someone has to look into matters which have such national security importance and we don’t think the Bush administration will do it. After all, don’t forget the statement George Bush made at a press conference on May 13, 2002, just eight months after the unprecedented al Qaeda attacks of 9/11. When Bush was asked if he knew where bin Laden was he responded "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

It makes me wonder if perhaps we need a little more natural selection, for the good of all mankind.

Stand-Up Comedy at the White House
I never thought that debating rules for the interrogation of terrorism suspects could lead to such hilarity. You see, Congress has proposed an updated set of rules that would govern interrogations, while not surprisingly, George Bush has proposed his own rules. I haven’t researched the exact rules in any detail yet but based on the administration’s long-standing support for the right to torture whomever they please, wherever they please, however they please, it’s safe to say that the Congressional rules can probably be summarized as “you have to treat people like human beings,” while Bush’s proposed rules can probably be summed up as “I can do whatever the hell I want and you can’t stop me.”

The rules in question concern the interpretation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which bars “outrages upon personal dignity.” Despite Bush’s best efforts to create humanity-free domains of lawlessness in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the US Supreme Court has ruled that Article 3 does in fact apply to terrorism suspects. (Sorry George but regardless of what you might think, you’re not God. You can’t make up all the rules.)

The proposed Congressional rules were recently adopted by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is apparently what caused Bush to launch into his stand-up comedy routine. To wit, as reported by the New York Times:

"Speaking at a late-morning news conference in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush said he would have no choice but to end a C.I.A. program for the interrogation of high-level terrorism suspects if Congress passed an alternate set of rules supported by a group of Senate Republicans."

If you’re like me (and you have my sympathy if you are) you’re probably rolling on the ground in hysterical laughter right now. I mean really, Bush saying he would have no choice but to end the CIA interrogation program if Congress approved their version of the rules? PUH-LEESE! Tell us another one, George.

At the risk of stating the obvious, which I’m quite good at doing, what makes Bush’s statement so rip-roaring hilarious is the fact that in his tenure as president he has issued 130 “signing statements” which contained a total of 750 “challenges to the law,” far more than any other president. A signing statement is a written proclamation that the president issues when he signs a bill into law which spells out how he intends the government to interpret and enforce the new law.

In other words, after the elected representatives of the American people in the House and Senate have debated a bill, come to an agreement on its exact content, and sent it to the president to be signed into law, Bush will sign the bill and then issue a signing statement which basically says “that’s all very nice, but here’s the way I’m really going to do it.” By issuing those “challenges to the law” Bush is effectively rewriting the law to make it whatever he wants it to be, and he’s done it a whopping 750 times. It’s the executive branch version of telling the legislature “go screw yourself, I’m going to make up my own laws,” but slightly more diplomatic because it uses big words and it’s on official letterhead.

If we consider the five and a half years of work days (Mon - Fri) that Bush has been in office, minus about 25% for holidays and vacation time (and yes I’m being generous to him with that percentage), those 750 presidential rewrites of the law work out to about one every day and a half that Bush has been in the office and working. (Or at least in the office, I’m not sure he’s capable of ever really working.) So about every day and a half, on average, for the past five and a half years Bush has issued a statement saying that he’s free to ignore or reinterpret some law or part of a law that was passed by Congress. Clearly the man is not at all shy about embracing the unitary executive theory, thumbing his nose at the US Constitution and the roles it defines for the three branches of government, and issuing signing statements claiming that he can freely ignore any law that he doesn’t like.

Until this interrogation bill came along, that is.

For some reason this bill, this one particular bill, is so different from all those others, so unlike those other 750 times, that if Congress were to pass it Bush just couldn’t possibly bring himself to issue his 751st challenge to the laws of the United States of America. Even though he’s unilaterally rewritten the law to make it whatever he wants it to be 750 times, in THIS CASE and this ONE AND ONLY CASE poor little George W. Bush would have ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE but to OBEY THE LAW as written by Congress and STOP THE INTERROGATION PROGRAM!!!

Yea … right.

And if that happens, dear God, a plague unlike anything any mortal has ever witnessed is certain to be visited upon the land. Terrorists will invade our homes, eat our children, rape our pets, cancel “24” (seriously pissing off Jack Bauer, and you don’t want to make him mad, he’s even more psycho than Cheney), give our phone numbers to every telemarketer in the known universe and force us all to sit though 90 minute sales presentations for timeshares in Baghdad.

President Bush elaborated on this grim and frightening prospect:

“This enemy has struck us, and they want to strike us again, and we’ll give our folks the tools necessary to protect the country. It’s a debate that, that really is going to define whether or not we can protect ourselves.”

“Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.”

Sweet Mother of Jesus, if Congress changes the rules WE’LL ALL BE DEAD BY SUNDOWN!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Allow me to pause for a moment here to wipe away the vicious sarcasm that’s dripping from my jowls.

Can you believe this guy?

After asserting his “executive authority” to ignore or reinterpret the law 750 times Bush has the gall to claim that this time he’ll have no choice but to shut down the CIA interrogation program if Congress passes their version of the interrogation rules. To say something like that Bush must think that we, every US citizen and every member of Congress, are complete idiots. Either that or he just doesn’t care anymore.

Side note: I think the latter may be the case, but it’s probably more complicated than a simple matter of just not caring. Bush has screwed up so many things so badly that most Republican politicians (or at least the smart ones who haven’t totally chugged the Kool-Aid) realize that they have no hope of winning upcoming elections if they run as “a Republican,” so they have to run as “not George W. Bush.” Therefore, it could actually be in the Republican party’s best interest for Bush to look as bad as possible. By doing this strategically, and having other Republican politicians oppose Bush on key issues, those politicians can position themselves as “the alternative to George Bush.” Traditionally that alternative would be a Democrat but it appears that many Republican politicians are trying to preemptively seize that position and take it away from Democratic candidates. All-in-all it’s a brilliant strategy for those who are in a political situation like the Republicans, with an unpopular president who’s on his way out (with a pension that will be partially funded by my tax dollars – ugh!). You may think it sounds too convoluted to be believable but don’t kid yourself. A lot of very smart people get paid a lot of money to spend all day thinking about this stuff, and these things don’t just happen by accident.

But back to Bush’s comments about ending the CIA interrogation program.

When Bush says things like this you have to either laugh at the blatant and unabashed absurdity of it or hang your head and cry softly in shame over the fact that this bozo actually managed to become president of the United States. And not just once, but twice.

One thing is for certain, after making those statements Mr. Bush is in desperate need of an industrial strength breath mint ‘cause a heaping load of steaming bovine feces (that’s “bullshit” for you city folk) just came outta his mouth.

Another factor that makes Bush’s statements about “whether or not we can protect ourselves” from terrorist attacks so pathetic is that they are nothing more than a tired repetition of the same old terror mongering that we heard over and over again during his push to attack Iraq and the 2004 election. Whenever the administration is in trouble they “play the terrorism card” in an attempt to scare people into letting them get away with whatever it is that they’re trying to put over on us. Sorry, but I’ve heard it way too many times before. It was BS then and it’s BS now.

Of course Bush’s comedy routine didn’t stop there. Referring to interrogators as “professionals,” he continued delivering the one-liners by saying “if our professionals don’t have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward.”

Yep, George Bush has always been all about “clear standards in the law.” He loves them standards, yessir, and the clearer the better. Remember all those pictures of prisoners being humiliated at Abu Ghraib prison? The piles of naked men? The naked men covered in feces? You can rest assured that those interrogators had absolutely positively “clear standards in the law” and they followed them to the letter. If you’re going to cover people in shit and pile their naked bodies like cordwood George Bush wants to make sure you do it by the book! You should have clear standards, like how much shit you should use, whose it should be, the proper consistency, how it should be applied, and how you should stack the bodies (all the same way or in alternating directions? or in a pyramid?). And once the pile is completed is it OK for the interrogators to have a little fun by pulling detainees out one at a time, trying not to tip the pile over, in a shit-covered human version of Jenga?

Clear standards, people! These things demand clear standards!

I was glad to see former secretary of state Colin Powell weigh in on this issue. Powell sent a letter to Bush saying that the president’s plan to loosen interrogation rules (in other words, to allow more torture) would make the rest of the world “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” When Bush was asked about that assertion he dodged the question by saying “If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic.”

To which I must reply:

George, this isn’t about the American people, it’s about YOU! Don’t try to drag the American people into the fetid cesspool of inhumanity and corruption that you’ve created for yourself. We’re not the ones who want to go out and torture people and violate the Geneva Conventions, that’s YOU! It’s not the compassion and decency of the American people that’s questionable, it’s YOURS.

If, in the process of fighting terrorists you become a terrorist yourself, then who has really won the war?

Ponder that for a while, George, and let me know if I need to clarify it for you any further.

September 2006

9/11 + 5 = 0
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s really been five years since September 11, 2001. Like everyone else who was alive at the time I clearly remember that morning as if it were yesterday. By the time I arrived at work the first tower had already collapsed, and I and my coworkers watched in disbelief as the second tower fell, live on TV for the whole world to see. And although the destruction of those once-majestic twin towers garners the most media attention, we must never forget the attack on the Pentagon or those brave souls who perished on Flight 93. Their demise was just as tragic as that of those whose loves were lost at the World Trade Center.

It’s been five years since that dark day and in that time I have learned much about the history that preceded it. That history is one of the main reasons that I feel so much distain and disgust for the current administration, especially the self-proclaimed “neoconservatives,” or neocons, who took control of the White House and Pentagon when the Bush administration came to power.

I and many others have written extensively about this cabal so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that their desire to invade Iraq predated September 11, 2001 by many years and they were actively looking for a reason they could use to take military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Prior to the 2000 election members of the Bush administration even noted, in writing, that “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor” could provide the justification they sought to begin the “process of transformation” they envisioned for the Middle East. The goal of that process was to ensure US military domination of the region and to make “American strategic interests more secure now and in the future.” Based on a wealth of evidence it is apparent that their primary “strategic interest” was Middle Eastern oil.

There is ample evidence that when the Bush administration took office they did not take the threat of terrorism, and specifically the threat from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, seriously. Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, who provided national security advice to four presidents, tried in vain to convey the gravity of the situation by telling the administration that al Qaeda was the one issue they would spend more time on than any other, and repeatedly requested high-level meetings to discuss the urgent threat. The Bush administration’s reaction was to demote Clarke’s counter-terrorism position from cabinet level to a lower level and ignore his meeting requests.

By the summer of 2001 it was clear that the threat of a major terrorist attack on the United States was real. During that time CIA director George Tenet was described as running around Washington with his “hair on fire” trying to warn the administration about the imminent threat of an al Qaeda attack. FBI agent Harry Samit spent four weeks telling his superiors that he was “trying to stop someone from hijacking a plane and crashing it into the World Trade Center.” According to the 9/11 Commission testimony of high-level officials “the system was blinking red” in the summer of 2001, indicating the serious threat of an imminent terrorist attack.

What was the Bush administration’s reaction to this urgent and dire warning that a major terrorist attack on the US could come at any day? George W. Bush went off to his ranch in Texas for the month of August, where he would be safe from any attacks on Washington (and where he would receive the now infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing warning of Osama bin Laden’s determination to attack the US), Dick Cheney hid away in a “secure undisclosed location,” and they waited. They waited for that “catastrophic and catalyzing event,” that “new Pearl Harbor” that would give them the excuse they needed to move forward with their plan to take pre-emptive military action against Iraq.

The attack finally came on September 11 and the rest is sad and tragic history. Hundreds of lies and thousands of lives later America now finds itself mired in the middle of a bloody Iraqi civil war. Iraqi citizens are dragged from buses and shot in broad daylight simply because of their ethnic background. Daily car bombings tear apart any hope for peace just as violently as they tear apart the bodies of women and children nearby. And three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein the “reconstruction effort” is a dismal failure. Walk down any street in Baghdad today and you’re more likely to find blood running in the gutters than water running in the homes.

And what has this entire fiasco cost America? What price have we paid for allowing ourselves to be taken along by the administration on their misdirected misadventure, one which had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11 and everything to do with finishing the first Gulf War as they believe it should have been finished?

Much of the price has been paid in lives. Over 2600 America soldiers dead and tens of thousands more wounded. Iraqi deaths are estimated to number between 35,000 and 45,000 by the Iraqi Body Count project, and many experts say the real total is far higher. By any credible count the number of innocent civilians killed as a result of the Iraq war is at least ten times higher than the number of Americans killed in the attacks of 9/11.

In dollar terms the war in Iraq will cost the United States at least $500 billion by the time all branches of the US military are returned to the same condition they were in before the war began. And that estimate assumes the occupation of Iraq will end a relative few years into the future as opposed to decades, or more. The neocons’ blueprint for establishing military domination of the Gulf Region was not intended to be a temporary measure, as evidenced by the construction of a dozen permanent military bases on Iraqi soil. Exactly how long those bases are occupied by US soldiers, and funded by US taxpayers, will be determined by future administrations. Given the current conditions in Iraq and the overall trend of the past year it is entirely reasonable to estimate a final price tag of around $1 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion. And even that estimate does not take into account the negative impact that the invasion of Iraq has had on the US economy due to widespread anti-American sentiment and resulting declines in the purchase of American goods, reduced investment in the US, reduced tourism and dozens of other factors that ripple through the US economy, ultimately diminishing the prosperity of US citizens. The cost of lost opportunity alone could total many hundreds of billions of dollars and it will take many years, perhaps a generation, for the tarnish of the Bush administration’s actions to be polished from the American image.

Consider what could have been done with that $1 trillion. Today there are about 53 million school-age children in the US. That $1 trillion equates to $18,860 per child that could have been spent on improving their education, more than double the average of $8287 that was spent on each student in 2004. Which use of that $1 trillion would have benefited the US more, educating our children or starting an unnecessary war, a war that they will have to pay for? Cleary, our children were left far, far behind when the Bush administration established their priorities.

And what has that $1 trillion bought for us? Certainly not increased safety or security at the national level. Border security is appallingly bad, only a small fraction of incoming cargo containers are inspected, and instead of being allocated to areas where the threat is greatest, “homeland security” money is wasted by short-sighted politicians on pork-barrel projects for their own districts.

It is true that in some areas improvements in security have been made, due mainly to dedicated and enterprising state and local officials. However, those gains are more than offset by the increased threat created by the invasion of Iraq and the corresponding failure to deal adequately with al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban. In the final calculation I’m afraid I must conclude that as of September 11, 2006, it’s true that 9/11 + 5 = 0.

August 2006

Bush to Sick Americans: “Screw You”
Once again George Bush has added to the suffering of American citizens and brought long-term harm to the country. It’s a pattern that frankly I’m damn tired of seeing. Our enemies are already doing plenty to degrade the quality of life in America and I’m tired of Bush and his regime helping them. This time Bush’s target was stem cell science and he continued his obstruction of scientific progress by vetoing a bill that would have lifted funding restrictions on research.

It’s important to note that this is the first time in his five years as president that Bush has vetoed any legislation passed by Congress. Billions of dollars of tax cuts for oil companies (who happened to be making more profit than any other company ever has in American history) he approved. Cutting funding for New Orleans levees he approved. Cutting benefits for veterans and the poor he approved. Cutting education funding he approved. Spying on American citizens he approved. Torturing people he approved. Billions of dollars of Republican-supported special interest pork barrel projects he approved. But funding for research to help sick, suffering and dying Americans? That he rejected.

“Compassionate conservative” my ass.

In what was a thoroughly crass and brazen political photo-op Bush appeared at a press conference with children that originated from what he called “adopted” frozen embryos from fertility clinics. Some have called these “snow flake” children because they were once frozen, no two are alike, and based on Bush’s press conference, they’re all white.

Bush has shown time and time again that he’s willing to do anything to manipulate public opinion, and using innocent children to advance his agenda is no exception. He even went so far as to say “these boys and girls are not spare parts” in an attempt to justify his position. Well no shit, George, of course they’re not spare parts! You seem to utterly fail to grasp the issue at hand. No one is saying that children are spare parts and no one has said that we should experiment on children, except the Bush administration EPA of course, who proposed exposing poor children to dangerous pesticides for “research” purposes. Thankfully the program was cancelled after public objections, or at least that’s what we were told. Who really knows, maybe it was like the TIA (Total Information Awareness or Terrorist Information Awareness) spying program that was supposedly cancelled but as we now know the spying went ahead anyway, just without the acronym.

I should also note that out of the approximately 400,000 frozen embryos that sit in US fertility clinics a total of 128 have been adopted and implanted like the children that Bush rounded up for his photo-op. That’s a whopping 0.032% of the total. Sure, that’s a “solution” to the leftover embryo problem, just like all of Bush’s other “solutions.” Tax cuts that mainly benefit the richest 1%. “Mission Accomplished” when in reality the mission was only 1% or 2% accomplished. I’m certainly not surprised to see Bush pushing yet another so-called “solution” that leaves over 99.9% of the problem unaddressed.

Thanks to king George and his mastery of the obvious we now know that children are not spare parts. (Thanks for clearing that up for us, George.) I’ll make my own contribution to this expansion of our knowledge of what children are not by pointing out that children are also not plants, they are not popsicles, they are not microwave popcorn, and they most certainly are not marshmallows. So anyone out there who’s proposing that we take children and plant them in the ground, freeze them, microwave them, toast them over an open fire or put them in Jell-O brand gelatin, you can just forget about it right now. If Congress were to pass a bill loosening the restrictions on doing any of those things to children I am certain that Bush would veto it, just like he vetoed the bill that would have made it OK to use children for spare parts. Oh … sorry … there never was a bill that would have authorized the use of children for spare parts. That must have been a figment of someone’s overactive imagination.

Note to George: Regardless of what you’ve been told, the bill you vetoed did not authorize the use of children for spare parts. I know running a government can be confusing, but perhaps you could find the time to read the bill so you’ll know exactly what it says. It has some big words in it so maybe Laura can read it to you. Just a thought.

Now where were we? Oh yes, using kids in a political photo-op.

Sure those little kids were oh so cute, and Bush says he cares about them oh so much, but what if one of those children were to develop a life-threatening condition that could only be treated using therapies derived from stem cells? Then what would Bush say to that cute little child? I’m betting it would be something along the lines of “Too bad kid but you’re gonna die, see, because for my party to stay in power I’ve got to kiss up to those crazy right-wingers, we need their votes, and they think every stem cell is sacred. I think they saw Jesus in a Petri dish or something. Sorry about that. Do me a favor and say hello to Jesus for me when you get up there in heaven, will ya? And tell him I’m doing my best to bring on Armageddon down here so he can come back and take us all away in the mothership, just like he said he would. And ask him not to be too hard on Cheney and Rove, OK? They don’t like a lot of heat. Sorry about that whole dying thing, but I’m what I like to call a compassionate conservative, see, and that means I only care about you until you’re born. After that you’re on your own, kid. But hey, how would you like a tax cut?”

If Bush wanted to show the American people the real level of commitment that he has to children he wouldn’t hold a press conference to talk about kids that were born from adopted embryos, something he had nothing to do with. Instead he’d hold a press conference to talk about how he has withheld US funding for the UN Population Fund for five years and the effect it has had on poor children around the world.

Over the past five years Congress has approved a total of $127 million for the Fund but Bush has withheld it all. According to data supplied by the Fund that money would have saved the lives of 308,000 children and 18,800 mothers. Think about those numbers, they’re truly staggering. Think about 308,000 children, dead. Laid end to end their bodies would stretch for over 100 miles. Will we ever see Bush at a press conference with those children, talking about why he withheld the funding that could have saved their lives? Will he explain why he was willing to abandon all those children so he could play foolish political games with the UN? Let me take a guess - hell no. It seems that they’re not rich enough or white enough for George W. Bush to care about their lives.

The reality is that Bush staged a photo-op so he could appear with a few of the 128 children that were born from adopted embryos, yet when he had the opportunity to save the lives of 308,000 impoverished children with the stroke of his pen he didn’t do it. This is just one of many reasons why I have been forced to conclude, due to overwhelming and irrefutable evidence, that George W. Bush is nothing more than a cruel, heartless, manipulative, deceitful, hypocritical, ignorant, egotistical bastard. His presidency truly is one of the worst things to ever happen to the United States of America.

To put that $127 million into perspective compare it to the $17 billion, more than 130 times more, in tax and royalty breaks that Bush approved for oil companies over the past year. What kind of person would deny 308,000 poor children the money that would have saved their lives, money that was already appropriated by Congress in the budget, and then give 130 times that amount to millionaire businessmen? As I said, cruel and heartless is the only way it can be described. And unfortunately you’re not going to hear about it on the nightly news.

When Bush discussed his veto of the stem cell bill he said that tax payers should not have to support the research because it "would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others.” That statement seems really bizarre when you consider the fact that Bush believes taxpayers should support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding some vague and uncertain benefits for some undefined group of people at some unknown time through reckless endeavors like unnecessary wars. On second thought it’s not just bizarre, it’s downright schizophrenic and hypocritical.

For those taxpayers who are trying to figure out what president Bush wants them to support, here’s a handy guide. If thousands of Americans die and it benefits Bush’s rich supporters and big businesses like Halliburton or oil companies, Bush wants you to support it. But if undifferentiated cells in a test tube die and it benefits you and your loved ones, Bush wants you to oppose it. Bottom line, he and his friends win, you lose.

Whitehouse press secretary Tony Snow took the absurdity up a notch when he was asked about Bush’s opposition to stem cell research at a press conference. “The simple answer is he thinks murder is wrong,” Snow stated while keeping a straight face. That’s one hell of a statement to make about a man who ordered the bombings that killed thousands of civilians in Iraq. If what Snow says is true then I say we send Bush over to Iraq so he can go door to door and talk to all the family members of the over 50,000+ innocent Iraqi civilians who have died as a result of his war. He can apologize to them and explain how he thinks his actions were wrong.

The thing that makes this misguided opposition to stem cell research even more tragic is the fact that each year fertility clinics destroy thousands of unused embryos, embryos that could have supplied stem cells for research purposes. Those cells could have helped develop treatments to relieve the suffering and extend the lives of thousands and potentially millions of people but instead they are thrown away like worthless trash.

This is one of the saddest and most hypocritical farces perpetuated by the so-called “pro-life” crowd. When an unused embryo is to be disposed of there are currently two choices, it can be thrown away or it can be used for research. The truly pro-life choice would be for the cells from that embryo to go on living and help produce heart tissue, or kidney tissue, or liver tissue, or any other kind of tissue that could save the life of a person suffering from a chronic disease. By using the embryo for research its cells would go on living and the people receiving those cells (or the cells' descendants) could also go on living a longer, healthier life.

The other choice, the “pro-death” choice, would be to destroy the embryo, discarding it along with other tissue as biohazard waste. Doing this instead of using the cells for research could deprive terminally ill people of life-saving (or at least life enhancing and/or life extending) treatments that could have been derived from those cells, sentencing them to an early and unnecessary death.

So we have two options, one results in life and more life while the other results in death and more death. Of course George Bush and the majority of his so-called “pro-life” supporters oppose the option that results in life and more life, thereby promoting death and more death. Pro-life means more death, peace means war, truth means lies, prosperity means poverty, compassion means heartlessness, helping means hurting, defending the Constitution means trampling it, protecting liberties means taking them away, “clear skies” means polluted air, “healthy forests” means clear cuts, and on and on and on it goes, the seemingly endless insanity of opposite-think and opposite-speak in that bizarre reality-free world known as Bushland.

Dear God, will America ever be able to free itself of this plague? I can only hope so, and do what I can to make it happen.

If the “pro-lifers” really cared so much about those poor little embryos you’d think they’d be knitting tiny sweaters for them or something. After all they’re stored in liquid nitrogen so they’ve got to be damn cold. Better yet the pro-life crowd should be stepping up to the plate and implanting them in their wombs willy-nilly. Bring on the life! I say we give them all a dozen frozen eggs and a turkey baster and tell them to get busy. Once the majority of those 400,000 embryos on ice have come to term we won’t have such a problem with their ultimate disposition. (Hmm, “embryos on ice,” that sounds like a really bad Disney production. But I digress.)

Bush’s opposition to stem cell research doesn’t just hurt sick Americans, it also hurts the country in general because it retards the progress of medical science in the US. The leaders of other countries aren’t all as dimwitted as Bush is and many of them are supporting this research. This means that those countries will become leaders in stem cell therapy and America will fall further and further behind. Practically speaking it means that in the future America will have to import the latest life-saving cures from abroad. If things continue as they are, some treatments might not even be available in the US and Americans would have to travel overseas to obtain them, something that the poor would not be able to afford. So once again Bush has obstructed progress in America, put the country at a competitive disadvantage in the world, and taken action that will increase the disparity in quality of life between the rich and the poor.

People of America you need to decide, do you want to continue the Bush approach and have America lead with bullets and bombs and death and ignorance, or do you want America to lead with knowledge and hope? Make your choice and make sure it’s reflected on your ballot in the next election. And hopefully we can prevent Diebold from manipulating the outcome of our elections (again) so that your vote will actually count.

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa summed this whole mess up nicely when he described Bush’s veto of the stem cell bill as “a shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy and ignorance." Well said, Mr. Harkin, well said.

July 2006

George Bush Was Right, There's Peace in the Middle East!
I still remember listening to George W. Bush talk about how forcing “regime change” in Iraq was going to spread peace throughout the Middle East. At the time I thought he had totally lost it, the idea seemed completely detached from reality and delusional. I though that invading Iraq would enrage radical Muslims, thereby creating more terrorists, and result in a long and bloody urban war.

I thought that a pre-emptive attack would set a dangerous precedence and cause our opponents to arm themselves, motivating them to pursue nuclear weapons more vigorously and to take more confrontational positions against the US.

I also felt that Bush’s invasion would help the more radical, warmongering, anti-American leaders gain power in the area, as people reacted to the perceived threat of an American attack and gave greater support to militant leaders who vowed to counteract it.

And yes, I have to admit that I also believed the increased fighting and the presence of US troops would be a destabilizing force in the region, causing more fighting to break out nearby.

But now I see how truly wrong I was. It’s all so clear to me now, now that I’ve realized George W. Bush actually means the exact opposite of what he says. If “peace” means “war” then his Iraq initiative has been wildly successful. All I have to do is translate his statements from English into Bushspeak (that is, the opposite) and he’s 100% correct! Just as he predicted, peace is now breaking out all over the Middle East (see Crisis in the Middle East for more details).

Finally, after decades of conflict, things are all quiet in the Gaza strip as Israel and Palestine have decided that peace is the best policy (see Israel strikes Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry in Gaza). And there’s widespread peace along the border between Israel and Lebanon now that Hezbollah has laid down their arms and embraced their Israeli neighbors as friends (see Israel vows to fight on until soldiers' release). This new development has turned Lebanon into a popular tourist attraction and thousands of Americans are flocking there for a first-hand look at the newly-peaceful country (Warship to escort U.S. evacuees from Lebanon).

And my concerns about countries like Iran electing radical militant anti-American leaders that would pose more of a threat to the US than Saddam Hussein turned out to be completely unfounded. The Iranian people have chosen president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a strong ally of both America and Israel, to lead their country. Some of his peace-making efforts are described in "Iranian president inflames tensions with Israel." Although no one wants to spoil the surprise it’s rumored that Ahmadinejad is planning to show his love for America by having the Iranian citizens knit sweaters for each and every American and send them as Christmas gifts. It'll be cute, won't it?

And thankfully I was also wrong in my concern that Bush’s unprovoked aggression toward Iraq would cause other countries like fellow “axis of evil” members Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear weapons as a way to fend off a potential US attack (Ahmadinejad: Iran won't give up nuclear program and Study: N. Korea lifts nuke arsenal.) I can now sleep soundly at night knowing that Iran and North Korea have completely shut down their nuclear programs.

Peace, peace, peace, everywhere you look in the Middle East there’s nothing but peace! Even the head of the Arab League has noticed (Arab League head: Mideast peace process 'dead').

George W. Bush, I’m sorry that I doubted you, it’ll never happen again. From now on I’ll always believe everything you say! (And don’t forget to translate that statement from Bushspeak to real English.)

Ohmygod Star Jones Has Left the View!!!
It’s all over the news and the media is in a frenzy, so it must be critically important. Is it a cure for cancer? An end to massive federal deficits? Peace in the Middle East? NO! Someone named Star Jones Reynolds has left something called “The View.” My mind is reeling ... oh the confusion … disorientation … I search desperately for meaning. How will I cope with this unexpected turn of events? What meaningless distraction will I now use to fill the seemingly endless emptiness of my days? Will I have to get a real life and deal with the real world instead of allowing myself to be force fed mindless garbage by the mass media, vicariously living a pitiful pseudo-life through inane television shows and childish obsessions with celebrities? And just how did this Star Jones Reynolds person get three names when other celebrities like Prince and Madonna only got one? Someone should look into that, it doesn’t seem fair. And most importantly, who the hell is Star Jones Reynolds, what is “The View,” and WHY DO I CARE??? Oh, that’s right, I don’t. Jumpin’ Jesus people, get a grip! There’s a war on out there. Dismissed.

June 2006

The Brain Takes a Break
As some readers have noted I haven’t posted much recently, but never fear, I’ve just been taking a bit of a break and working on other projects. There’s certainly been plenty to write about the past few weeks! The proliferation of ignorance continues unabated, the most egregious examples have been duly noted, and you can bet I’ll be sharing my scathing and (hopefully) entertaining commentary in the near future. Stay tuned!

May 2006

George Bush’s Best Moment
So much for the suspense. This is one of those things that you just can’t make up, it’s too unbelievable to be taken seriously.

I’ll let Reuters news service tell the story. From their May 7, 2006 release:

BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake.

"You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best," Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Go ahead, read it again and weep. Or laugh. Or do both. Grieve for the pathetically sad and embarrassing state of America in whatever way you feel is most appropriate.

Five years in office as president of the United States of America and George W. Bush says his best moment was catching a fish.

I need to pause to collect my thoughts and search for a reason to have any hope whatsoever for the future of our country …

… best moment in office was the torture of a small defenseless animal … I wonder if Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo about that? …

And people actually voted for this guy! What’s worse, according to recent polls 30-some percent of Americans still approve of him. How can that possibly be?

Let’s see, according to the 2000 Census 74% of Americans were old enough to vote. The population clock says there are currently about 298,754 Americans, so that means 221,077 voters. The American Sportfishing Association says there are 44 million anglers, so best case about 20% of voters could be fishing enthusiasts, obviously strong Bush supporters. If you include the mentally disabled, the easily confused, people who respond to Nigerian email scams, America haters, religious fanatics who want to bring about the end of the world, and obscenely rich oil company executives I can see how you could get up to a 30-some percent Bush approval rating.

Gee, I wonder, if Bush thinks catching a fish is his best moment as president, do you think that maybe he ought to do just a little something to help the country and the American people? Something slightly more beneficial than fishing?

I guess there is a potential bright side to this. Maybe if we all get together and tell Bush that he needs to have more “best moments” during the remainder of his presidency we can convince him to spend the next three years fishing instead of F-ing things up like he has for the past five.