One costly fiasco is not enough!

"As former US military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran," -

-Lt Gen Robert Gard, a former military assistant to the US defense secretary

-Gen Joseph Hoar, a former commander-in-chief, US Central Command

-Vice Adm Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information

In 2002, our Dear Leader (and our liberal media) started dishing dirt on Iraq. We were told that Saddam was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks (even though our intelligence agencies could find no such connection). Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (even though the most diligent inspections uncovered little or nothing). Saddam Hussein was a murderer and a tyrant - which he was, but that didn't stop the United States from supporting him for many years because (1) he was at war with Iran, a country we were miffed at, and (2) after the Iran-Iraq war was over, he kept a lid on internal dissent and kept the oil flowing for American oil companies. When the deal went sour, the drumbeat began; “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!!! MUSHROOM CLOUDS OVER WASHINGTON!!!!”

I do believe the world is better off without Saddam Hussein (or “So-Damn-Insane” as one friend referred to him). Fact is, if all we'd wanted to do was depose him, we could have dispatched an elite tactical squad to pluck him out of the presidential palace and have him on a plane to Guantanamo before most Iraqis even got the news. In other words, the big mess that's been made of Iraq in our names and with our money didn't have to be.

It's been a while since Mr. Bush's much-televised “Mission Accomplished” celebration. Would that it were true, that American friends and loved ones (to say nothing of Iraqi civilians) were no longer getting killed or maimed, that our tax dollars were going to other things (like putting New Orleans back in order), that our administration were functioning more like an administration and less like a slapstick comedy troupe.

Now the drums are beating again for war with Iran. George Dubya has played the Weapons of Mass Destruction card again (“Nucular devices”), even though American intelligence has found that Iran abandoned their nuclear weapons program four years ago. Bush, Cheney and the usual gang of scoundrels are all hot to get us into another costly no-win war, probably just to thumb their nose at Hilary.

Between our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military is stretched pretty thin. If our half-witted power-tripper administration does decide to invade Iran, they're going to need fresh beef. Which of course means that high school and college kids all over the Land of the Free are going to be drafted.

If you do not care for the Bush-Cheney program, then you'd better speak up now. I understand that certain Senators have introduced bills forbidding invasion of Iran. A call to your senator would seem to be of vital importance right now. Find out how to contact your U.S. Senators by following this link:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Please do make a call, send a fax or send an e-mail now. Your life, the lives of your family members and the fate of your country may depend upon it.

Why There Is No Hope: Pride cometh before a fall

"They make us feel indebted
For saving us from Hell
And then they put us through it
It's time the bastards fell!"

- Stiff Little Fingers, "Suspect Device" (1978)









The Religious Right (which as you may know is neither) has been having some problems of late, so much so that people on the other side of the political spectrum are thinking that they've finally slain the dragon which Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, et. al. unleashed upon this nation beginning in the mid-1970's. Even the New York Times published a somewhat convincing eulogy.

I'm not sure that the hurricane of theocracy-or-worse has passed. I think we might only be in the eye of the storm. And so does free-speech fighter and sex columnist Susie Bright. She's written several articles on the tribulations which now plague the movement which ran roughshod over science, sex education, and ultimately turned America into a Soviet-style one-party state, if only briefly. Some excerpts from the latest one:

"...This is the movement that could be relied upon to do anything at the flick of an abortion-shaming or homo-hating switch. Get them on their high horse, with a sexy leather crop in their hands, and you had them sweating and frothing their way to the finish line...."

"... Successful missionary work encourages conceit, and aggression. It always does. When it was 'fun' to be a Bush Family supporter, when W. was a 'winner,' then being a fag-bashing bully and killing a few more abortion doctors was righteous. Bomb Iraq! Your credit card is limitless! Gas is cheap! National Guard duty is a cakewalk! Jesus did a lot of kicking ass and taking names. ..."

Read the whole thing here (and remember that articles which deal with politics vis a vis sexual issues may not be work-safe).

I've heard of auto-eroticism, but...

According to the The Telegraph, a man in Scotland was arrested, and placed on a sex-offender registry for having sex with – a bicycle. (I can never look at a bike shop the same way again!)

While this man's sexual proclivities are somewhat unorthodox to say the least, did they warrant ruining his life by plastering his name and image onto the web and lumping him in with sex offenders (real or imagined)? Is getting off in a highly-unusual but essentially harmless manner really as bad as forcible rape? How does the English judicial system justify this kind of penalty for this kind of activity?

Why there is no hope, September 12th 2007 Edition

There's a man whose name you need to know: James Howard Kunstler.

Mr. Kunstler writes, and writes very clearly and articulately, about economics, architecture, suburban sprawl and some kind of liberal nonsense called "peak oil" in a blog called "Clusterfuck Nation". (That's clusterfuck as in "very bad turn of events", not as in "group sex".) From the biography on his site:

" James Howard Kunstler says he wrote The Geography of Nowhere, "Because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work.""

One of Mr. Kunstler's frequently-made points is that we are as a nation headed for what the elder George Bush once referred to as "deep doo-doo". His exquisitely no-nonsense essays on our culture, our politics and especially our economy, delivered at the rate of one every Monday, are all worthwhile reading for anyone who suspects that things are a bit different than what we see on the news and that maybe we just might not be living in the Best of All Possible Worlds®. One in particular, written just two years ago, had a significant impact upon me me, kind of like a two-by-four upside the head. It is this one. Check out this excerpt:

"Americans were once a brave and forward-looking people, willing to face the facts, willing to work hard, to acknowledge the common good and contribute to it, willing to make difficult choices. We've become a nation of overfed clowns and crybabies, afraid of the truth, indifferent to the common good, hardly even a common culture, selfish, belligerent, narcissistic whiners seeking every means possible to live outside a reality-based community.

These are the consequences of a value system that puts comfort, convenience, and leisure above all other considerations. These are not enough to hold a civilization together. We've signed off on all other values since the end of World War Two. Our great victory over manifest evil half a century ago was such a triumph that we have effectively - and incrementally - excused ourselves from all other duties, obligations and responsibilities.

Which is exactly why we have come to refer to ourselves as consumers. That's what we call ourselves on TV, in the newspapers, in the legislatures. Consumers. What a degrading label for people who used to be citizens."

Is this guy on the mark, or full of beans? Why not read the rest of it, and his other essays, and see what you think?

Operation Coffeecup

A conservative web site has posted this rather interesting artifact from very early on in the universal health-care debate. This recording was distributed by the American Medical Association to members of its Women's Auxiliary in the early 1960's.

Click this link, have a look at the record's liner notes, and give it a listen.

NOTE: For those who might be tempted to say certain things in certain web sites' comment sections, just remember, rational arguments accomplish a lot more than flame wars.

Who is the next Murrow, the next Cronkite?

In a news media dominated by rah-rah cheerleaders for the administration and its policies, there is at least one newsman of the old school, someone for whom facts carry some weight. Someone who definitely calls a spade a shovel.

I just don't get how this guy has held up against Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. ad nauseum for so long. In the face of Faux News and Coulterama, this guy carries on much as Murrow would have if he were alive today. Not bad for someone who's nominally a sports commentator.

Carry on, Mr. Olbermann! You do us all proud!

Don't laugh too hard ...

A moralistic radical-right-wing blowhard gets nabbed in an airport john doing exactly the sort of thing he publicly rails against. Bastard had it coming, right? Well unfortunately, it's not that simple.

According to this story, Senator Larry ("I'm not gay") Craig got busted not for openly soliciting sex for money as another member of Congress did, but for taking certain cryptic actions known primarily to gay men experienced at crusing. Apparently he neither did nor said anything openly sexual. Seems the undercover cops who busted him didn't know he was a prominent family-values Republican senator. They took him down because he was - a gay man cruising a public bathroom.

Like a lot of you, I enjoyed seeing this man, and others like him, getting exposed for the hypocrites that they are and receiving a generous dose of their own bad medicine. What I didn't like so much is the idea of authorities randomly victimizing gay people because - well, just because.

Knowingly arresting and criminalizing people who haven't actually violated the law is a frontal assault upon the rule of law itself. Why don't we put a halt to this kind of official misconduct before the Supreme Court upholds it?