Break The Law, Win A Prize

Torture works. That is, if your goal is to attract more foreign fighters to attack US troops in Iraq (last paragraph). It's a good way to ensure that a war continues in perpetuity.

Bill Kristol, chief neocon, editor of The Weekly Standard and probable defense contractor stock holder thinks that those who torture should be given the Medal of Honor. Because there's nothing more honorable than ensuring that foreign fighters and Iraqi insurgents continue to kill American forces in Iraq than torturing people.
Torture is a war crime, which would make those who authorized war criminals. So into the moral quagmire we ask can you pardon some one for committing a crime you authorized?

WAR! WAR! WAR!

First, the war on Christmas....

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

The 34-year-old employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

Only in America. One day you're spending your Thanksgiving holiday with your family, the next day, hundreds of people overcome with the spirit of goodwill to men are leaving their bootprints on your body as they fight their way to get at the limited quantity big screen TVs.
Next, the war on drugs.....

The United States' war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired by a former president of Mexico.

What are you going to do? The government imports the drugs, then privatizes the prison industry so they can make a profit from the incarceration of all the people using the drugs you smuggled in and abuse them while their at it.
People have been cultivating pot for smoking since before Jesus, perhaps the US needs to re-examine it's drug laws and policies rather than lock people away for recreational drug use.
Finally, the war on terror.....
George W Bush says he wants his legacy to be that of a liberator of millions. Sure, he liberated millions of Iraqis from this mortal coil and still terrorists keep attacking people. This is your legacy.

Things That Need To Go The Way Of 2008 When 2009 Arrives

As 2008 merrily winds it's way down into history, there are a few trends that I think it should take with it when it departs. Some are boring, some are trite, and some should have never existed in the first place
For instance, Pin's "Sober" video (no, I'm not going to post it) has trend number one-young women making out with each other (in the video's case, Pink actually makes out with herself!). For a number of years now, hot young starlets have been able to get publicity by sticking their tongues down another female throat I'm sorry, but that whole girl-on-girl thing is played, so unless you're going to take it to the next level and go all Maria Ford, don't even bother. That kind of stuff may be shocking to drunk mothers who have sex with strangers in sport stadium men's rooms, but I've seen it and it doesn't do anything for me.
Of course, the hole drunken mom thing started me thinking that I might actually get laid more if I went out drinking more often. Unfortunately, all the bars within walking distance from here are sports bars, which is another trend that needs to die. These places are like Chuck E Cheese's for grown ups, or people who should have chronologically grown up but still cling to their hopes that something sports related may happen to them. Sports jerseys and backward baseball caps were something I was kind of hoping we could leave back in the old millennium. Alcohol is mind numbing enough, eight large screen high def television sets blasting out every available sport simultaneously while some sports nerd rattles off stats that only he's proud he knows is probably the number one cause of brain death in America.
Speaking of sports, another thing that is pointless are the post game interviews of losing coaches. They all spew the same inane cliches, why do we need to hear them say them? No coach is going to say his team sucked, they screwed up, the other team cheated, and there'll be Hell to pay in the locker room, don't waste my time.
Finally, the last thing that I think that should go the way of variety shows (and never be revived is the lazy writer's answer to everything: lists. Magazines, television, and even here on the intertubes, if you want fill up space with little effort, just make yourself a list. From the 20 stupidest GI Joe Vehicles Ever to the Classic Ten: All-time Greatest Anti-heroes to this list, they are all as pointless and played out as George W Bush. At least with him, we know that he will go away.

The Month Before Christmas

No apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

'Twas the month before Christmas,and all through the town
Gifts were purchased with no money down
People were hung from the rafters with rope
The holiday stress they just couldn't cope
The children were on Ritalin for their ADD
Caused by too much sugar and Play Station 3
Ma with her Prozac and me with my Xanax
And a couple of bong hits to help us relax
When from out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
But I was already awake from my overactive bladder
I picked up my cell and to the window I plied
To attempt to record what was happening outside
The moon in the sky like a streetlight did shine
On all of the neighbor's 'home for sale' signs
When, what to my wondering eyes should I see
But a silver tongued demon in a black SUV
Followed by a flurry of angels to damn him
I knew that it was the False God of Mammon
With blinding headlights that went three city blocks
Sticking flyers and catalogs in every mailbox
"Bring VISA! Bring Discover! Bring your Master Card!
To Target! To Penney's! To Sears and Wal-Mart!
To the new shopping center! To the suburban mall!
Now spend away! Spend away! Spend away all!"
As furry lemmings hurl themselves over the bluff
Some people never seem to acquire enough stuff
So in the early morning well before dawn
In houses bedroom lights all were turned on

Then all down the lane the slamming doors
From eager shoppers heading to stores
So I threw on some clothes, and hopped in my coupe
And followed them all to get the real poop
They were all dressed in down, wearing caps and mitts
And behaving as if they had all lost their wits
They all got in line despite all the cold
The rich and the poor, the young and the old
Their eyes--seemed so empty, their souls seemed so lost
Waiting for bargains no matter the cost
And I saw in the lot, waiting just as a vulture
Their false God stood grinning for exploiting their culture
The stump of a crack pipe held tight in his teeth
And big bags of gold surrounded his feet
His eyes were red rimmed, yellowed and beady
As he punished the hopeful and rewarded the greedy
In the line the people were peaceful and loving
'Til the doors flung open and people were shoving
'Twas the start of the holiday shopping stampede
And six old ladies trampled under their feet
He spoke not a word, he just stood there and grinned
Not seeming to mind the cold Northern wind
And laying a finger aside of his nose
He had a good snort of some really good blow
He sprang to his SUV with big sacks of gold
Then shut the doors with the windows unrolled
As he drove away, I heard him speak:

"Everything will be marked down even more next week!

Award Winning Bloggery

Much thanks to libhom at Godless Liberal Homo for passing along the Superior Scribbler Award to unbrainwashed. For (in his words, not mine) "Tired of all the crap you are fed by the corporate media and the politicians? Enjoy snark and reasoning that undermines the garbage. Acknowledging brainwashing in this society itself is largely taboo, which makes the blog's title especially gratifying."
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Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
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Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
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Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
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Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
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Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.
Now, the hard part. Picking out five from my many favorites.

Born At The Crest Of The Empire-Mike always offers insightful analysis and opinion based on the facts, rather than than emotion (in other words, it's the complete opposite of this blog). Tireless and endlessly updated, it's worth visiting several times a day.

Who Hijacked Our Country-Tom I see as a kindred soul, one who is as disappointed and disgusted in the direction our country has taken as I am.

MCCS1977-Succinct and too the point and always lavishly illustrated. Superiorly snarky, Fred's just cool.

Stone Soup Musings-Fellow Michigander (Michiganian?) kathy shows the connection between the local and the national.

Brown Man Thinking Hard- I discovered Brown man recently, and have added it to my regular rounds. Witty, intelligent, embodying all the qualities I wish this blog had.


There were so many other blogs I would have liked to give this award to, picking out five meant that there were at least five others I wish I could have gifted. (Or, I could have copied libhom, who gave out six instead of five) But then, I would have been taking away someone else's opportunity to award a friend, since at times it seems that that's what we all really are.

No One Wants To Shake Your Hand When It's Covered With The Blood Of Millions

This weekend, the kids and I rented the first Die Hard because none of had ever seen it. What I found most amazing, other than the fact that Bruce Willis actually used to have hair was the fact that the villain of the picture was German. East German to be precise, but yet still, forty years after the end of World War II, Hollywood was still using Germans as stock villains in motion pictures.
I bring this up because in the James Bond picture, America is the villain. No longer the shining city on the hill, the US is on the fast track to be stock villain for the next millennium. In seven very long years, the Bush administration and the Republican party have taken an outpouring of sympathy and turned it into vile contempt for our nation as a whole. This is their real legacy.
Now George Bush can't even get one of the members of the G20 to shake his hand. It would be sad and pathetic, if it wasn't George Bush. All his friends have deserted him. His party has turned their back on him. All that's left of his legacy are those appointees "burrowed" deep into senior civil service posts.
This is a lame duck, walking.

You Can Keep Your Conservative Corporate Media

For many years now, the American people have been fed a myth. The myth of the liberal media. This myth was perpetuated by those on the right whenever they were portrayed in an accurate but unfavorable light.
But for the years between 1997-2005 conservative guests dominated on Sunday Morning news shows, effectively setting up the talking points for the week that were then passed along to conservative talk radio hosts nationwide in an attempt to hammer home the message to the American people.
Many on the left suggest a boycott of sponsors, since all they really worship is money..

or reviving the Fairness Doctrine which brought balance and diversity to the nation's airwaves. However, if you examine the results from the past two election cycles, being in charge of the echo chamber hasn't really helped them out at all. Disseminating right wing talking points has only shown how ridiculous those talking points are when contrasted against the news of the failures of the Republican controlled congress and the Bush administration.
So I say, let them keep their corporate media. The success they've had with has proved that in four years, there won't be much of a Republican Party left, right?

Economic Extortion:Bush Blackmails Barack

After losing much in this past election, the GOP has decided it needs a new identity. What it needs is a whole new platform.
Yesterday, when Barack Obama met with George Bush, he raised the posibility of a bailout for the auto industry. Bush said he might if the Democraps back a Columbian free trade agreement that Bush has been trying to pass and Democraps opposed. So what it comes down to is Bush is saying that either we give up these jobs here, or sign on to give up more jobs in the future. Either way, more Americans will be out on the street.
I hardly blame the worker or the CEOs for the auto makers problems. They were only making cars Americans wanted to buy, and four years ago, those were big gas guzzling SUVs. It wasn't until recently, when oil prices went up, did some Americans choose to give up their gas hogs, and by then it was too late.
But the problem isn't only that consumers aren't buying these cars, it's that the market has changed. America has switched from a manufacturing economy, which paid well, to a service economy, which doesn't. People in the service economy can't make house and car payments, as well as credit card payments, insurance payments, or any of he plethora of other payments, and still keep the gas tank filled (or shop at Circuit City) any more. The real criminal is out sourcing (which the auto industry has done to a certain extent) which has not only created a trade deficit, but a wealth deficit as well. And now President Bush wants to continue that policy, which has proven to be so detrimental to the US economy, and he wants to do it over the backs of the US auto worker.
So if the GOP really wants a new identity, perhaps it should give up the greed glorifying free market friendly one per center pandering image it has and instead do something that benefits the rest of the country. But don't count on it.

Someone Trying To Lie Us Into Another War?

One of the linchpins on which the Bush administration tried to hang a casus
belli to invade Iraq on were forged Niger documents that claimed Saddam Hussein (no relation to Barack Hussein Obama) was trying to buy yellowcake uranium for his (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction program. Later, Joseph Wilson, sent on a fact-finding tour discovered them to be fakes and said so in a New York Times op-ed piece that eventually led to the outing of his wife as a CIA agent by members of the Bush administration.
In 2005, the US toured the world with a stolen laptop computer they touted as evidence Iran was developing nuclear weapons with it's uranium enrichment program, not nuclear power. This was contrary to the National Intelligence Estimate that stated Iran had given up it's nuclear ambitions two years earlier. Now, as it turns out, the documents may have been fabricated. Gee, ya think? Someone in the Bush madministration faking evidence to start a war in another Middle East country rich with oil?

A Small Step Backwards

The Republican party, after receiving a major set back in this past Tuesday's elections, have decided the way to go forward is to take a step backwards.
Citing the success of the passage of measures opposing gay marriage in three states, they have decided that the "sanctity" of marriage is the way forward.

"There were three state referendums on marriage ... all three carried. The vitality of the conservative movement around the country is very real,"

Three referendums passing does not equal the vitality of the conservative movement. For instance, here in Michigan not only did a measure supporting stem-cell research pass, but a referendum on medicinal marijuana did as well.
What is going on now is the conservative right movement, after spending so much time effort and money these past few months trying to convince voters that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim Socialist Terrorist, is now saying that because people elected him even though his far left agenda was exposed does not mean that the country has shifted to the left politically, and is still in fact, center right.
Now it would appear that the GOP is giving up on national security, economic progress (unless you think that clinging to the failed notion of free markets is going to suddenly prove successful), in order to appeal a fringe part of the base that still clings to a notion that somehow prohibiting gays from becoming married is "freedom". How quaint.

14:59

The elections over. John McCain doesn't return your phone calls. Fox News isn't inviting you on their network to spew your ignorant views. While there still is that recording contract you know that if you really had musical talent, you would have been a star long ago. How does a media sensation know when their time is up? Hangers-on and sycophants won't tell you, they'll just desert you when you can't get them beyond the velvet rope anymore.
Luckily for you, we have devised this handy-dandy Oblivionometer. It will tell you when it's time to stop stalking Sarah Palin and get back to snaking turds from stuffed-up toilets. So enjoy autographing copies of your ghost written autobiography in the back of the Bargain Book Barn in some suburban strip mall while you can, there'll soon come a day when even the regs at the bar you drink will have heard your story enough that they'll make fun of you behind your back.

Has Your God Failed You Or Have You Failed Your God?

In the days preceding the election, we were treated to many of the Christiansane, praying to their Lord to protect America from the ravenous traitor-Marxist-Socialist-Secretly Islamic-terrorist buddy. Even the VP for the GOP got in to the act by "putting this into God's hands that the right thing will be done on the end of the day on November 4."
She then proceeded to display her God of Love (or love of God) by bearing false witness against her opponent, coveting power, and turning the American flag into a graven image.
How'd that work out for you?
Liddy Dole, wife of Bob, ultimate Washington power couple and the first people who spring to mind when someone mentions good church goin' folk, smeared her Sunday school teacher opponent as "Godless".
That was a good idea.
For years we have listened to the least Christian of people spew their venomous hate towards fellow Americans for not loving their country enough, loving people of the same gender too much, and declared anyone who didn't contort to fit their narrow definition of "freedom and liberty" as an "enemy".
And now, after putting this election in God's hands, they have rejected the answer that God has given them, "You are all wrong", and embraced even more fear mongering and hate. How very Christian of them.
That they keep trying the same vitriolic methods and expect a different result is the very definition of insane.

YES, I VOTED

.....but I didn't vote for Barack Obama.
I've been voting since 1980. In that election, I cast my vote for John Anderson. he was an independent, much like Ron Paul, who ran in the primaries as a Republican, generating a large following, then losing the nomination to Ronald Reagan. So, in my first election, I voted for the loser.
I then began to see no real clear difference between the two major parties. They existed as other duopolies exist in our country; to shut out the other guys. Coke or Pepsi? Why not Dr. Pepper? McDonald's or Burger King? Why not Subway? National League or American league, tastes great or less filling, America the land of abundant choice had now been reduced down to the lesser of two evils. Which, if you do the math, is still evil.
So I voted third party. In 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996, I opted out of the Democrap/Republicant part and instead chose to cast my ballot with the Libertarian Party. Of course, it helped that at the time, I was a major stoner and liked their stance on the decriminalization of marijuana. And I accepted that my candidate wouldn't win, because I knew that I only got one vote, and if I didn't use it, it would be gone. You can't accumulate them and cash them all in on one election. And I figured not voting was as bad as voting for the major parties, it would be like saying, I accept what either party has to offer.
But in 2000, something changed. As bad as other candidates had been in the past (and remember, I had the opportunity to vote Democrat against Ronald Reagan, easily one of the most vile presidents we had ever had, twice), that year, the Republicans offered a candidate that actually made Reagan seem appealing:George W Bush.
So, in the primaries, I voted Republican against George Bush ( for, you guessed it, John McCain) not only because I found him to be morally reprehensible then, but because Michigan's then Governor, Republican John Engler, had promised to deliver Michigan to Bush in the primaries. (He didn't. McCain actually won it) And in November of that year, I voted, for the first time, for a major party candidate.
Well, we all know what happened. The vote was stolen, which only served to infuriate me more because the first time I ever vote for the winning candidate, and the opposition steals the election. So, in 2004, I voted against Bush again.
I'm not playing that game any more. While I certainly prefer Barack Obama over John McCain, I'm fairly confident that Obama will win Michigan, with or with out my vote. McCain conceded Michigan long ago, when he pulled his advertising. If the popular vote counted, I might have been persuaded to vote for Obama, but since it all depends on who wins the electoral votes, I returned to voting my conscience.
I voted for Cynthia McKinney. I liked her when she demanded an investigation into 9/11, and I liked her even more when she slapped that cop. And I know she'll never win, if white America feels nervous about electing a black man president, a black female probably scares them more.