Bullets & Unicorns: The Magical World Of Arlen Specter

Proving once again the long held idea that there is no real difference between the two arms of the corpocracy we call political parties, Arlen Specter has announced he will switch parties for the 2010 election. Is he the first rat to desert the ship since pundits have written off the Republican Party as just as relevant as a Pontiac since the blowout in the past election, or is he expecting a difficult primary run from a challenger more in tune with the lunatic fringe that is the GOP these days?
Specter first rose to prominence working for the Warren Commission, where he crafted the "Magic Bullet" theory to cover up the conspiracy to have JFK murdered. Later, Specter fought the extradition of the Unicorn Killer from France, where Ira Einhorn had gone to escape justice.
So now, Specter will close his eyes, click his heels together and transform himself from one political belief system to another, all for the sake of holding onto a job. I guess it beats real work.

You Cried Wolf Once Too Often

I've been ho-humming the recent swine flu outbreak (or, as some people would prefer it to be called, the "Mexican" Flu) because I've heard this before. Remember the Avian Flu that was to going to kill millions of people? How about SARS? How about that Global War on Terror? Global warming Climate change? Gay marriages?
What these all are connected by is someone made money from it. Dick Cheney, and a host of Republican donors (i.e., Erik Prince) benefited from the war in Iraq, I mean, the Global war on terrorism, er, make that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Donald Rumsfeld, as the owner of the intellectual property for Tamiflu, stands to make as much from the Swine (a/k/a/ "Mexican") Flu scare as he did from the Avain flu scare. And St Albert of the climate change cult is making as much from the swine flu scare as he will make from carbon emission trading.
Knowing that the causes for war in Iraq were pretty much made up. And the reason the previous administration was so eager to use torture was to provide a non-existent link between Saddam Hussein and alQaeda. was the current flu pseudo-pandemic created in a bio weapons lab? Is it all somehow related to the 81 microbiologists who have died mysterious deaths since 9/11?
Or is it all just a coincidence, perfectly timed to distract the masses from the ongoing torture debate? Personally, I'll go for the latter.

Nobody Wants To See That

Here's three signs you're doing too many drugs:
1. You dub yourself the Wizard
2. You attend events wearing wizard robes
3. You decide, while attending said event to doff your wizard robes (how would people then recognize you as a wizard? You wizard's staff?)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally opposed to public nudity, but there's a time and a place for it. Unfortunately, these proper conditions rarely occur, and so you're forced to see someone naked who would be best served leaving their clothes on. But isn't that always the case?
This is another example of the Idiocracy that we've become. Rather than go to see a performance by an artist, we're constantly forced to have to deal with selfish people who want to add their stamp to it, whether or not it spoils the performance for everybody else. When I go to a festival such as Coachella, I'm there to see the many acts on the line up, not have some asshole show me his asshole. Take your neediness and thirst for attention somewhere else. Or better yet, grow up!
being the father of two young boys, I know that when they are younger, they like to run around and flap in the breeze. Sure it's cute, but at some point in parenting, it behooves a parent to teach a child that, while there's nothing wrong with a little full frontal, people's right to not see your junk overrules your right to wave it in front of their face.
To make this a full piece of performance art, police at the event came along to taser the Wizard, thereby making it more entertaining for everyone involved. I know we're devolving into a police state where cops are ever more eager to taze people, but in some cases, I do believe it's justified. Just put your clothes on, dude. Nobody wants to see that.

Michelle's Organic Garden

(To the tune of the Beatles' Octopus' Garden)
I'd like to be
In DC to see
Michelle's organic garden cause a fuss....
Wait a minute! How can something as uncontroversial as an organic garden at the White House cause a stir? Easy. Big business. It seems that the Mid America CropLife Association thinks that an organic garden sends the wrong message to consumers about "conventionally" grown food based products. Surely there's nothing wrong with Frankenfoods, right?
And just who is the Mid America CropLife Association anyway? You think, well, Mid America, they're just a bunch of farmers, right, but then you look at the way they spliced two words together to make one where there wasn't before (CropLife) even using capitalization to point out just how clever they are and you know you're dealing with chemical giants like Monsanto, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow AgroSciences.
MACA feels that Michelle, as part of the ever trend setting Obama family, is sending the wrong message because "(t)he time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.” Of course they don't, that's why most of them don't grow their own food.
You don't suppose that maybe Monsanto is worried because second quarter profits have slipped, and that means smaller bonuses? Because that's what it comes down to: some of you still have money in your pocket and that's money that big business wants to take from you, even if they have to force you to take out another mortgage to get it. They don't care that organic farming works to minimize global warming, they can always fan themselves with stacks of hundred dollar bills.

Kutner Was Murdered

Okay, I'll admit it; I'm a fan of the Fox series House. I started watching it a couple seasons ago, mainly because it usually followed another favorite Fox series of mine, Prison Break.
At the start of the season prior to this one, House, a diagnostician, had lost all the members of his old team, and had held auditions for members of his new team. He started out with a large number of hopefuls, then whittled them away for various and sometimes spurious reasons. One of the most determined doctors was one Lawrence Kutner, played by the actor Kal Penn. I had recognized him from something, and it wasn't until a trip to the video store jogged my memory that I realized he was Kumar, the easy going stoner college student from the Harold and Kumar series of films. So because of that, or perhaps in spite of that, Dr. Kutner became one of my favorite characters on the show.
So it came as shock to me that on this past Monday's show, that Lawrence Kutner killed himself. I hadn't yet heard the story that the actor, Kal Penn, was leaving the show to go work in the Obama administration. I did know that the new team would be supplanted by the old team, as Chase and Cameron's screen time had been cut back when they were replaced. But still on the payroll 9and in the opening credits) they were do to come back according to a report I had read in Entertainment Weekly
I thought, as House did in that episode, that Kutner was murdered, and still feel that way, as the storyline concerning his death will continue until the end of the season. First clue: at the morning meeting, when House asked where Kutner was, Dr. Taub made a cover story about him having to take his dog to the vet. Was Taub covering for him, or did he know that Kutner wasn't coming in, so he made a lie up to cover up something?
Second clue:Kutner's funeral service was a Hindu service. All very fine, because Kutner was an adopted child of murdered Indian parents. Except Hinduism doesn't approve of suicide. I believe the suicide angle was put there to get a mental health message out to people due to the bad economy leading to a higher suicide rate.
In the episode previous this one, Dr. Kutner had diagnosed the patient's condition, in a very House-like way, and yet he let Dr. Taub take the credit. Taub had been having a crisis of faith due to his being unsure as to whether he wished to stay on House's team, and was about to be canned by House unless he proved to House that he was worthy of being on the team. House had discovered the ruse because he had bugged the patients bed and confronted Taub about it.
Following Kutner's suicide, Taub showed no sadness. He didn't attend Kutner's funeral, even though earlier in the season, they had started to develop a friendship. And when everybody else was mourning him, Taub was trying to distract them with their patient. He especially became impatient with House when House began investigating Kutner's death as a murder. In short, I believe that Dr. Taub killed Kutner and made it look like a suicide (Taub had attempted it earlier himself).
That is my theory, anyway, and only time will tell if I'm right , or just making shit up. But if I am (and I firmly believe I am) remember, you read it here first.

Vanishing America

A friend at Facebook sent along a link to this site, which I almost immediately dove into, especially the drive-in theaters. Once abundant and plentiful in the era of mobile America, the drive in theater has now gone the way of the drive-in restaurant (now they're all drive thrus). Now all that's left are the drive-in churches.(God knows where to find you because you're always in your car)

I have fond memories of the drive-in. Mom and dad packing up the kids in the burgundy 1966 Buick SportWagon packed full of snacks and fruit punch to go see Our Man Flint, my sister and I in the very back with blankets spread out, wandering to the snack bar to use the rest rooms (Where, we found out, they sold real food. Dad, can we get a pizza?)in our jammies, playing on the playground, and enjoying the cartoon, as well as the ads for the snack bar, and the clown clock in the corner of the screen that told us how many more minutes we had to go before the feature started. Or, conversely, how much time we had left to buy something at the snack bar.
But now, the drive-in is rapidly disappearing, like the Ash tree or Circuit City. Once representative of the mobile American society, the drive is as much an anachronism as the daily newspaper, both unnecessary in the age of the internet where NetFlix can deliver movies to you, pizza places exist on every corner, and news is available on demand, for free.

Anything That Worries Newt Gingrich Is A Good Thing

This morning, I caught a glimpse of Newt Gingrich on Fox News, attempting to usurp Rush Limbaugh as the de facto GOP leader, talking about how disappointed he was that we weren't calling it 'the War On terror' anymore. I saw only about thirty seconds before I made the kids plug in their X Box. When the US is the one killing women and children we can hardly be labeling it as a war on terror when we are as bad as the terrorists themselves. The core democratic value of 'innocent until proven guilty' isn't being met when we kill only 'suspects' with out a fair trial, such as we are constitutionally guaranteed ourselves.
Why we are fighting in Afghanistan is a matter open for debate as well, since it was thermite and not jet fuel that caused the twin towers to collapse. Oh come on, I hear you say, the US wouldn't cover up it's role in the worst terrorist attack on it's own people any more than it would cover up bankster fraud or it's role in the drug trade. Is it only a coincidence that in places like Somaliaand Afghanistan, places involved with oil and oil distribution do American al Qaeda members like Adam Pearlman Gadahn surface?
The American Idiocracy is more self-involved, unaware of what their government is up to because they're too busy getting drunk and watching college sport play-offs while being subjected to mind numbing advertisements for alcohol products and foods laced with mood altering and mind numbing flavor enhancers. Someday, they may wake up and realize all the evil being done in their name.
Which has Ol' Newtered worried. Someday, there may be a third party to challenge the corpocracy's two party stranglehold on the US political system. This threatens Newt's cushy position as a paid pontificator and think tank traveler and may force him to do more than write bad alternate history screeds.

Controversy Is Blooming In Holland, Michigan

Spring is here and in West Michigan, that means it's time for the annual Tulip Time Festival in Holland, MI. It's the time of year when city residents (the white ones, anyway) celebrate their heritage by donning wooden shoes planting tulips, and riding floats dedicated to far right agendas. Lots and lots of tulips. And if you like tulips, this is the place for you.
The people of Holland have been having this festival for eighty years now, and one of the highlights has been the Tulip Time Parade. Nothing controversial here, right?
Well, it seems that this year because of a change in it's 501c3 tax designation, anti-choice group Right To Life of Michigan won't be allowed to sponsor a float in the Muziekparade, the largest of three parades. The new status requires the festival to refrain from endorsing organizations whose objective is to influence legislative outcomes.
Now, some are calling for a boycott of the parade, because they can't enjoy it if they aren't ramming their far right agenda down everyone's throat. Even though other groups were also rejected, reading the comments here would lead you to believe that Christians have been singled out for persecution and it's all Obama's fault. And this from the people who didn't have a problem with Bush's "free speech" zones.

There's No End To That Dick

Dick Cheney, what a guy. Loves to torture, runs his own death squads, and now, according to Seymour Hersh, he has planted moles in the Obama administration. I guess elections don't apply to Dick Cheney.
Not that the moles can affect policy too much, but these Cheney/Rumsfeld loyalists report to him and keep him informed of what's going on. I imagine Cheney in his undisclosed location, large conference table filled with lackeys with files detailing how close the new administration is coming to uncovering some of the many crimes committed by Cheney while he had his hands on the reins of power (Come on! You don't think that Bush was running anything, do you?)
So even though the American people overwhelmingly told the Bush administration to go fuck themselves, Cheney decided he wasn't going to listen to them. Either that, or he's just looking for a way to get more no-bid contracts for Halliburton.