Michael Jackson: What Will Happen

With the passing of Michael Jackson yesterday, there has been an effort by his celebrity friends to beatify him, which is fitting, since like some men of the cloth, he couldn't keep his hands off children. With all the glowing tributes around the world, plus his own addiction to plastic surgery, it's hard for some people to forget that he was merely a gifted an talented human being. And, for what it's worth, one hundred years from now, all that will be left of his legacy is the most important part: his music.
What struck me following the news of his death was not the immediate response, nor are the rumors of his prescription drug use as a probable cause, since he was his generation's equivalent of Elvis. What I read yesterday was the story of his people following him into the hospital pleading for the doctors to save him.
Not to be crass, but a megacelebrity ( or do I mean ubercelebrity?)like Jackson employed an army of helpers, I'm sure. From the personal trainer, a nanny or two for the photo op prop tots, nutritionists, housekeepers, personal security, drivers, you're talking about a lot of people who relied on Jackson for their daily bread. So what is likely to happen once all the glowing tributes have faded, and the twenty-four hour news cycle pounds the story into the ground, is one or two of those former employees, non-disclosure forms be damned, will be a spate of tell-all books, leaked to supermarket tabloids, lurid details of just how fucked up a drug addled celebrity with more money than guidance can get when surrounded by sycophants who won't tell him no. And, barring a suit by the Jackson estate, people will pour through them, cluck their tongues and feel, better them selves because they know that if they had that much money and talent, they wouldn't have squandered it like Jackson. And then, it twenty years or so, all that will be left is his music. Which is as it should be.

Bull's Eye On Bull Shit

John McCain cites the death of Neda as a criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the situation in Iran. This is, of course, from the guy famous for singing "Bomb Iran" to an old Regents song, which, if we had done that, would have likely killed a lot more Neda's than the one allegedly shot by government forces during protests this past weekend.
What you won't hear a thing about from Flak Jacket Johnny is how US forces killed two protesters in Iraq.(They were demanding back wages that likely ended up in Dick Cheney's bank account.) In fact, the US has been killing protesters in Iraq and John McCain has stood silent, even supporting the war.
No, McCain doesn't mind US soldiers killing protesters in Iraq because it's all in the name of spreading democracy, or, the US equivalent. Killing protesters in Iran is one less person who gets to die at the barrel of an M-16 (or under the fallout of a depleted uranium bunker buster bomb) therefore they are not collateral damage to the cause of a neocon wetdream: worldwide capitalist corpocracy masquerading as democracy.

The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave

Some people insist insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different result. Another popular train of thought is those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I'm not sure which category this falls under, but some sources are now saying that the US may want to install the Shah's son as monarch in Iran. Which makes all the quibbling about "democracy" all the more cynical, especially since none of these people American citizens to control the streets of Washington DC following the Bush election fraud debacle of 2000. And crown prince has been generating a lot of publicity lately.
With the housing market worsening and welfare rolls increasing, the Obama administration is probably glad to have this distraction from the failures of it's economic stealfromus. It won't tkae too many more gruesome videos to sway the television watchers into supporting another war which only benefits a small portion of Americans, in another oil rich Middle eastern country that has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with continuing an insane foreign policy that we were promised was going to change.

Lessons Learned From My Dad

(Image poached from here)
Around here, every weekend is Father's Day. I don't get ties, or coffee mugs, license plates, tee shirts or other bric-a-brac emblazoned with "WORLD'S GREATEST DAD" on them, no do I desire or require them. My kids tell me I'm the best dad with out prompting, and I'd just as soon that be kept as our little secret. No, I don't get a lot of material things from my guys, and that's okay, because I get a lot more from them-happiness. Spending time with my kids gets better and better as they get older because we spent so much time together when they were younger.
I learned a lot about life from my own Dad. My demand for absolute truth & honesty stems from his insistence on it, not only from me, but from his politicians, and media representatives. A lot of my more tin foil hatted predilections stem from his indulgences in all things conspiratorial. He feared everything, from feminism to the Beatles, were all part of a commie plot to undermine the youth of America. But besides the positive lessons, even some of the more negative things influenced me as well, in a good way.
As an instance, my Dad was prone to spanking, not just slight taps on my fanny but more along the lines of oh-my-god-he's-taking-off-his-belt-get-the-fuck-out-of-here type of spanking. These stopped shortly before my mother died, and were infrequent enough, but from it I learned not to spank my children. Reason works well, and if introduced at an early enough age, sticks a whole lot better than beatings.
Growing up, when choosing a career path, it seemed no matter choice I made, instead of encouragement, I was always told "Yeah, but that's a hard field to break into". He often encouraged me to "join the service", although, years later, he expressed relief that I never did, as I would have never turned out the way I have if I had taken that advice. So from that, I have learned to encourage my children to be the best at what they choose. And I think I have been rewarded with two wonderfully talented children.
My Father was also staunchly reactionary. If we were to discuss politics, you had better have something to back up any argument you may feel compelled to present. So from that, I learned it is better to be right than it is to follow a political leaning.
My dad grew up as an only child raised by alcoholic parents, and could never understand why all his children couldn't get along. He wasn't aware of sibling abuse, so many times I felt near torture at the hands of an older brother who almost seemed to delight in kicking my ass because he decided I needed it. From that I learned to be fair with my own children, to protect the weaker one from the whims of the stronger one.
My dad is no longer with us, and I miss him a lot, especially thinking how he would be prouder of my kids than I am of them myself. But a lot of the good that was in him now lives on in me, and will be carried on by my children as well. And for that Dad, thank you.

Not That Anybody's Trying To Pull A Fast One

Way to go, BBC. At least when you get caught manipulating popular opinion you do offer up a mea culpa.


It not be what the internets were invented for, but it has become it's most practical and important use (next to the proliferation of pornography, of course):catching the powers that be in a blatant lie designed to sway public opinion towards the will of the corpocracy. That these people have been pushing for a war against Iran for a long time goes with out saying. And if they can't get people all concerned about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program, perhaps the antiquated notion of "defending democracy" can rouse the masses, or at least those who still think that we're a democracy.

We Stole The Election And Would Have Gotten Away With It-If It Weren't For Those Meddling Americans

So Iran is accusing the US of meddling in it's election crisis. I can't say for sure, but, yeah, that sounds about right. We've been meddling in Iran for years now, and we probably will in the future. Every time, it's always come back to bite us on the ass, but, hey, if we haven't learned by now, we never will. The US is like the annoying big brother who keeps picking on the weaker and smaller countries, denying it when it gets caught, in spite of incontrovertible evidence.
I think before we start meddling in other countries, we need to fix a lot of the problems we have here. Our health care system is not exactly the best in the world, our education system is crumbling, our political system is corrupt, our economy teetering on the brink of collapse, the only thing we're getting better at is becoming more of a police state, which means we're not as free as we think.
America is devolving into a genetic cesspool full of slack jawed, Nascar loving, beer swilling television watchers who can only spell USA from sheer repetition. We think we're better than everyone else because we're too stupid to pay attention. Television shows us bright shiny objects and we want to go to there.
So load the computer generated graphics, cue the stirringly patriotic theme music, it's time for payback-and this time, it's in dollars.

A Tale Of Two Riots

Following the results of alleged election fraud, riots broke out in Iran. Stupid Iranians. It's just an election, not like it's anything important. I mean, when vote fraud was discovered in the US presidential election, Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004, Americans didn't take to the street. Of course, many of them didn't even hear about the fraud until way after the election, but that's beside the point. Americans don't really take to the streets unless it's for something really important and life affecting.
Like a basketball championship. Elections are only every four years, but the NBA playoffs, they hold those every year. And winning those is really important because it determines bragging rights for a bunch of beer swilling television watchers until next year. So it's no surprise that Lakers fans rioted after their team won the NBA championship. Now those official Laker jerseys mean something, at least for another year, and really what's more important anyway?

By His Own Rules Means He Doesn't Follow The Law

In a new book on Donald Rumsfeld, the author claims that George Bush deceived him into thinking that his job as Secretary of Defense was safe, then dumped him after the 2006 midterm elections. Which only goes to show that these snakes can't even trust their own kind to be honest.
The book, entitled By His Own Rules:The Story of Donald Rumsfeld, an aptly named tome for a book about a man who flouted laws, ethics and decency to make himself richer and more powerful, is by a former Washington Post reporter who covered the Pentagon. It's intentions, I'm sure, are to garner sympathy for Poor Old Rumsfeld, whom the book portrays as ..."an honorable man, deeply patriotic, a good friend to many and unfailingly loyal to those he has served"... Honorable? Yeah right. This is a man who called in political markers to fast track FDA approval of the killer known as aspartame, a dangerous artificial sweetener whose numerous symptoms include death. Not to mention the fact that he pushed for the illegal invasion of Iraq, which has cost many Iraqis their lives and US taxpayers over half a trillion dollars. There's your honor, if you can find it.
It's not a shock that this book comes from a member of the corporate media elite. Their job is not to report on events, but rather, to mythologize and cover up for the cabal of corporate criminal elites and banksters that actually run the country. I've become convinced (and become more convinced everyday) that very few of the nations wealthiest people came about their wealth honestly, fairly or ethically, and they hire scribes like Bradley Graham to paint a more flattering picture of themselves so that the masses don't see what kind of monsters we really have running the show.

Don't Cut Into My Racket

"To include these other groups diminishes their memory.......These people are not in the same category as Jewish people..."-Assemblyman Dov Hikind
Is he referring to the Armenian Genocide? No, he's discussing the inclusion of Gays, Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses in a Brooklyn Holocaust Memorial. (Why Brooklyn needs a Holocaust Memorial isn't even being discussed). Sure, the Holocaust(TM) was horrible for millions of European Jews, but, like 9/11, the Holocaust has been very good for Israel.
It has allowed them to invade Syria and seize the Golan Heights. It has been the reason for numerous military incursions into Lebanon by the IDF. It has even been used as a justification for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as threats against Iran by the Israeli government.
And as for the fears that inclusion of other groups sought out for persecution by the Hitler regime might lead to people forgetting about the horrible suffering inflicted upon the Jews, that ain't gonna happen. Television shows, movies and books appear every couple of months to retell the story of the Holocaust, even if some of those stories turn out to be complete hoaxes.
All over the planet, at any given time, one group of people is trying to eradicate another. Iraq, Darfur, Cambodia, Gaza, Armenia, the list goes on, and now, Assemblyman Hilkind, you are being just as bad by trying to eradicate others who suffered alongside your people from the list of victims of the terrible Nazi death machine.

Even Though You're A Minority, You Should Still Be Able To Force Your Delusions On Everybody Else

Does America really need a lesson in spirituality from Newt Gingrinch? A guy who changes religions almost as much as he changes spouses? In his bid for the 2012 nomination of the GOP, Newt states that "Americans" are surrounded by Paganism. Uh, wouldn't that mean that Christians are outnumbered by Pagans? If they were, you can bet dollars to Gingrinch wives that he'd be pandering to them. I mean, if Newt were an Ancient Roman, you can be sure he'd be first in line to nail Jesus to the cross.
The truth is that Newt is a free market capitalist who worships the Almighty Dollar. His political pandering to the paranoid base plays right into their persecution complex. The cynical sermonizing he serves to psychotic sky worshippers is just there to sell the schedule for his selection as the supplicant office seeker. And they suck it up like a swarm of mosquitoes on a summer night. Why? Because, as George Carlin once said, if you can get people to believe in an invisible guy in the sky, you can get them to believe anything, whether it's a band of swarthy Middle Eastern Mohammedans moving microorganisms through Mexican tunnels to the majority of monotheists being maltreated by a minority of heathens.
All this overly alarmist admitted adulterer is accomplishing is winning the wing nut wack jobs still clinging to the side of the capsized Republican party. This is not inclusion, it is exclusion, which is a good thing, because as lame as the Democrats seem to be, there's nothing lamer than converting to Catholicism to capture votes.

It Took A Judge To Decide This

Some people will swallow anything. Like the Rockman said, "You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear. You dig?"
Taking self delusion to an extreme, a consumer in California had somehow come to believe that a sugar coated breakfast cereal aimed at young children was actually nutritious because it offered something known as "crunchberries", and that said "crunchberries" were in fact a real fruit found in nature. Shocked to find out that, no, those said berries were never real fruit, just artificially fruit flavored pieces of gluten and corn meal, she decided to sue the makers of Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries. Next they'll tell us Jean LaFoote was not only not a real pirate, but was an animated character voiced by an actor who was known to wear shoes. Or that Smedley the elephant died from hardened arteries due to downing too much Peanut Butter Crunch.
Sorry, but Crunch Berries contain as much fruit (and sugar) as those plastic gallon jugs of orange drink on the bottom of shopping carts of single moms at Save-A-Lot on the first Tuesday of the month. That someone decided to sue the makers of Cap'n Crunch shows that this person,is either stupid, stoned, gullible, looking to make a quick buck from a nuisance lawsuit, or any combination thereof.
Sanity stepped in when a judge threw the lawsuit out, but now we know for sure: "crunchberries" are not real fruit. And, I assume, soon there will be a disclaimer on every box reminding us of it.

Occasionally, Our Leaders Will Let The Truth Slip Out

Giving credence to the aphorism that even a broken clock is right twice a day, the Obama administration has admitted that Iran has a right to nuclear power. And as signees to the Non Proliferation Treaty, Iran has allowed inspections of their enrichment facilities, which has yet to yield any evidence that Iran is doing anything but building a nuclear generator. As fellow signors to the same treaty, the US has no right to stop them from building the plant, which Iran is doing with help from Russia. And therein is the problem.
With the US manufacturing sector contracting for the 16th straight month while bankruptcies are up 37%, one of the things we could have done during the Bush years was offer our services to Iran in assisting their nuclear program. But instead, the administration fed us all a line of crap like this and this, which now they admit was just a load of crap. So instead of exporting our know-how to a people with money and oil, we decided to waste money, resources, and more importantly, human lives, to fulfill a neocon wetdream of a permanent American empire. They gambled away our future but we all lost while they all won.
At least now, on his impending trip to Egypt, Obama has the sense to say no stern lecture would be forthcoming on human rights abuses. Just one more moral high ground we gave up to appease a vision through blood splattered glasses.

Tearing Down The Curtain On The Corpocratic Selection Process

Anybody who is an avid reader of this here blog (both of you), or knows me knows how I feel about American Idol. To me, it takes the Nascar/football/sports ethos and applies it to the arts, music, where it doesn't belong. I like a variety of different singers, and am mature enough to know that you can't compare Louis Armstrong to Harry Nilsson, both great singers, but very disparate in musical stylings, anymore than you can compare Pablo Picasso to Andy Warhol.
All that aside, I was somewhat dismayed to find out that this years winner won because of vote fraud. It seems that an Idol sponsor,AT&T, admitted providing free mobile phones and texting services to fans of Allen, a singer, guitar player and pianist, at parties organized in his home town of Jacksonville, Arkansas. And why would a corporation favor one contestant over another?
Does AT7T disapprove of Adam Lambert's lifestyle choices? In these days, are there any people out there left who are still shocked to find out there are gay people in the entertainment industry? That would be akin to being dismayed to find out the Republican Party is full of rich white men. What do they say to the two people I know who watch the show and wanted Lambert to win (one admittedly staying on the phone for two hours to cast her vote) only to find out that this election was as rigged as Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004?
In the end, it's just a television show, and although their commercials tell us that casting a ballot for your favorite contestant is the "single most important vote you can cast", in the end, if it's the choices they want you to make, it's really not much of a choice at all.

Dick Cheney Vs. History

The term "history" is tossed around too much these days for my liking. Jay Leno's last show as touted on NBC as "going down in history". Last night's local news story on an American Idol contestant mentioned Season 8 as having "gone down in the history books". But does any one really think that at anytime in the future, they'll really be looking back at the viewing habits of one nation that may or may not be around one hundred years from now, let alone be reading books?
But is history the real reason Dick Cheney is afraid of prosecution for his war crimes? A lengthy trial, legal motions and appeals processes assure that Dick Cheney will more than likely be dead before he ever sees the inside of a prison. And after the evidence that torture memos don't show what Cheney claimed will be all the torture photos showing the horrific abuse of detainees authorized by Cheney himself.
Long after the fall of the Nazi regime and successes like the Volkswagen, the Autobahn in Germany what remains for history are all the atrocities, the death camps, gas chambers, soap made from humans, and lamp shades made from human skin. All of which make Adolph Hitler the most despised person in history. Right now, Dick Cheney stands as the most despicable person alive. Any trial that may expose his truly heinous crimes may in fact over time, lead to Dick Cheney knocking Hitler down to the second position.

Please Lock Me Away

Every day, billions of people talk to an invisible guy in the sky, asking him to special favors for them, and this is considered to be normal behavior. Even though no one has ever seen this guy, people take it on faith that he exists because they want to believe it and no amount of logical persuasion can sway them otherwise. And this is considered normal. Acceptable. Sane.
While this aberrant behavior is considered to be regular, there are psychologists who think that people who question the official government conspiracy theory about 9/11 are mentally ill. It's not as if the Bush administration ever lied about anything. And everybody knows that politicians are revered the world over for their honesty. Surely one would have to be crazy to think that the government would send thousands of people to their deaths for no reason.
The official 9/11 commission report is like a scab on a large wound. You can pick at it for a while, but eventually, you open that wound up again, at a time when some people would like to move on and forget the sinister dealings of the Cheney regime. You know, the regime that thought it perfectly alright to sodomize children, torture people to create a fictional link between Saddam and 9/11, and treason is justifiable when it covers your ass. That there were those at the end of the Cheney/Bush regime who still supported that evil cabal should direct people to the truly mentally ill.
I believe we are being lied to about 9/11. Thgere are too many questions left unanswered for me. If you wish to read more, try here for starters. And if it makes me mentally ill for still having the ability to question why a steel framed building that was not struck by a plane still managed to collapse like a controlled demolition, then lock me away, or at least adjudicate me mentally defective and give me a big government monthly stipend for the remainder of my days.

Change Means Changing Your Position After You've Been Elected On An Agenda Different From The Corpocratic One

AS you spend this Memorial Day celebrating your freedom by searing the flesh of a dead animal that was manufactured by a corporation to eventually end up on an assemblage of amassed dung, you, like that animal you consume have no choice. Hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans have died, not for your freedom, but for the freedom of our leaders to decide whether you shall remain free, or end up in indefinite detention. Yes. like The Deciderer before him, President Obama has, perhaps more eloquently, claimed special rights for him not afforded him by the constitution.
How much different is President Obama from his predecessor when he sets up a timetable with Iran for talks before sanctions are applied when Iran has yet to be found to be developing nuclear weapons?
How fee are we really when the FBI can indentify a disparate group of men that share the majority of the country’s opinion that the war on terror was wrong, radicalize them, offer them cash incentives for following the lead of the FBI informant and then finally, after a year, get them to accept fake weapons?
No, until you realize that the only freedom you really have is the choice between blindly following these assclowns, or pretending they are as irrelevant as they would be in any given free society, you will be a slave to their political whims.

I Don't Remember

As many Americans prepare to spend their Memorial Day weekend doing things to honor those fallen soldiers fighting to protecting corporate America's business interests (coincidentally, are exactly the same as America's interests, which is why there are so many box store Memorial Day sales)such as shopping, watching sporting events on television, eating and getting sloppy drunk at family barbecues, I struggle to remember, what was the final reason we're in the quagmire in the first place.
Was it because of the 4000 Sony PlayStation 2 units Iraq purchased in 2000? You know, those toys contain a CPU that can used for military applications, which is a good thing they're made in China, because we'll never have any military confrontation with them any time in the foreseeable future.
I do remember that most of the justifications given by the previous administration were in fact lies cooked up by US intelligence sources to sway a nation of television watchers into supporting a war sold to them by corporate media propaganda. And I think we all remember those lies having heard them so many times we can recount them in our sleep.
And I do remember the reasons those who opposed the war gave for our invasion of Iraq: oil, oil, oil, oil, Israel, and oil. The reasons given, by both pro and anti-war types were nearly innumerable, even using a dollar vs. euro scenario as a pretext.
And since there is no one concrete real justifiable reason that we should have invaded, can any person give me one good reason why we are staying there?

Evil Never Goes Away, It Just Assumes A New Shape

Back in March when Sy Hersh broke the news aboutDick Cheney's executive assassination ring, I suggested in the comments section at another blog that perhaps one of the victims of said squad might have been Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. Always the one to tell you "I told you so", I told you so! It seems Ms. Bhutto spilled the beans about Osama Bin Laden being dead before the appropriate political mileage could be garnered from it by Mr. Cheney. Not that the compliant corporate media would spoil the party their defense contractor owners/sponsors were having with all the billions they were making from the war in Afghanistan.
Speaking of making billions from scare mongering and ghost fighting, the PNAC is back, albeit, with a new name and some new faces to replace the ones that already have cashed in from the last "New Pearl Harbor". I wonder if their cause to "protect democracies from terrorism" extends to the Palestinians?

Held Up Without A Gun

You see them all over. On television, radio, billboards, even right here at this blog, ads offering you cash for your gold. And many people are willing to do this, selling many pieces of scrap or old jewelry for dollars, but I wonder, is this because they need the money? Do they not realize that their gold will retain it's value while those dollar values are falling?
The American people are being robbed, but are so unaware of it, they don't realize it. Many of them refinanced their homes when the housing bubble was still going, but housing prices have fallen 17%, which means that if you did a refinance, you just had 17% of your homes value stolen right out of it while you were sitting on your ass watching TV. Remember Bush's "ownership society"? The plan was to tie every American down to a mortgage while those same mortgages were bundled up with bad mortgages, used for leverage by banksters to steal more money from the system in bonuses and other payout schemes.
So now, with the approaching inevitable inflation, instead of holding on to something of value, Americans are willing to accept scrap gold prices instead of market prices for the gold they possess. But why? So they can fill up their gas tanks? Take a vacation? Pay off bills? Are they just victims of economic conditions created by the corpocracy who are going to squeeze every last dime out of the citizenry before they pack up the show and take it on the road to China?

The Continuing trend of No Change

The change that was to be the Obama administration gets further and further away when facing the realities of the political climate of the corpocracy. And so now, with word coming out that Obama is reversing his position on releasing detainee photos, they've become almost as inconsistent as the previous administration. Well, I mean, the previous administration did suck in a consistent fashion but other than that....
What we never will see are the videotapes out Abu Ghraib showing children being sodomized in front of their mothers, some perv at the Pentagon has that tape and probably needs it to discharge purity of essence. What did we get from all the abuse we heaped on Muslims? According to one ex-FBI agent, not a fucking thing.
The abuses that occurred under America's auspices need to be dealt with in a punitive matter. Laws were broken, treaties (among other things) were violated, and until we locate and punish those who authorized it, this will never go away. Sweeping it under a rug will just allow this to fester, and if the Democrats are just as responsible for letting this go on, then we need to dispose of them as well.
The United States is a nation of laws. We can not throw a man in prison for twenty five years for possessing marijuana because he is poor and black then turn our eyes to real and heinous crimes such as have been perpetrated by our own government in our name because the guys who did it are rich white and powerful. Equal justice under the law is a constitutional right under the law, and if we don't punish those who ordered the law breaking, then we might as well open up our prisons and let every other criminal out as well.

Where's Osama?

Republicans are funny people. During the Bush administration, they didn't have a problem spending money to fight the eternal boogeyman, Osama bin Laden. They didn't flinch as billions of dollars were laundered through the war in Iraq into the pockets of Halliburton, Blackwater, and other defense contractors. They never took to the streets in protest even after it was proven that the war in Iraq was based on lies. Why?
Al Qaeda never existed. It was a complete fabrication of the CIA, used to justify a war that the politicians those Republicans at tea parties voted into office wanted for the sole purpose of looting the country. And al Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden? He's been dead for some time now (Although it hasn't prevented him from releasing audiotapes when he's conveniently needed to scare the Americans)
Now we have the president of Pakistan admitting Bin Laden is dead, and what does the US government say? You know, the change people? Nobody knows Osama'a status. Do they intend on keeping him his memory around, just in case they need to invade Pakistan?
So please, Mr. President, don't start using old Bush administration tactics. Osama is dead, and most people these days are too concerned about making it through the economic crisis to worry about some dead guy anymore. Osama is as dead as Pontiac these days, so don't try to tell us otherwise.

One Person's Hate Crime Is Another's Belief System

Christopher Columbus discovered America. We all know that. We know it because we were taught that in school. Our parents were taught it, and their parents, and most likely, our children are being taught that as well, so it must be right, right?
Wrong.
Long before Columbus, before Leif Erickson and the Vikings, there were people living here, indigenous people who had built great civilizations, such as the Mayans, and yet, in our Euro-centric education system, those people are not credited with their discovery.
Suppose you began to question this idea. You set up a Facebook page dedicated to questioning the truth, but some people urge the owners of Facebook to remove your group from it's site. What's the big deal? It's not like you put up a page dedicated to killing all native Americans or anything. And yet, although you are not harming anyone with your belief system, you are guilty of a "thought crime" because your ideas, as ludicrous as they may be to some, and repellent to others, they are mere thoughts, that, right or wrong, sane or bull goose fucking looney, are your thoughts.
Once they can make one idea, an intangible thought a crime, then they can start adding more. Lots of people believe things that are wrong in my opinion, Christianity, Elvis is alive, the moon landings were faked, or that American Idol is the best show in the history of television. Yet, No one Demands these thoughts become hate crimes. I certainly don't. In this crazy mixed up world, people certainly have the right to believe what they will, because, they're really not hurting anyone but their own credibility.
Columbus never set out to discover America, he was merely seeking a new trade route to India by proving the world is round. He was half successful. But even with revisionist history, people will believe what they want to, in the face of undeniable facts. There are still people who believe the world is flat after all.

Sure, Queer Is In The Dictionary, But So Is Dickhead

,,as well as shitheel, dipshit, and hypocrite. You see, Sam Wurzelbacher, known by the name "Joe The Plumber", even though he hasn't plumbed an inch of (galvanized) pipe since he became the darling a spokesperson for the Religiously Retarded wing of the Republican party, feels it's perfectly okay to call gays 'queer' because the word is in the dictionary.

Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur.

Strange is Sam calling himself Joe, praising Sarah Palin and casting aspersions on other Republicans for not being as Christian as Sam/Joe Wurzelplumber is, or passing judgment on gays. Like all good bigots, he uses the old 'some-of-my-best-friends-are' excuse, then flatly states that "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children". Because, you know, gay is a disease that is transmitted from the older gays to younger children all the time. That's why they shouldn't be teachers, either.
Well, Joe, I wouldn't want you anywhere near my children. You profess to follow a God of love, and yet you hate just about everybody who isn't white, Christian, Republican and heterosexual. Wait a minute; Joe's quitting the GOP.
Joe says he might consider running for office someday (obviously not as a Republican) but says "God hasn't said, 'Joe, I want you to run.'" Haven't you been listening Joe? Your book has tanked, you're a laughingstock to most of the country, and I'm sure your old boss has replaced your position within his company. God hasn't told you to run, he's told you to just go away.

Test Driving Digital Broadcast Television

Back in February of this year, i was under going an anxiety attack. You see, the 17th was rapidly approaching, and I had not yet purchased a digital television converter box. You see, I don't have cable, and while I watch very little television, there are those shows I like to watch, and with out a TV signal, well, I'd be forced to watching old videotapes and the same twelve DVDs I've had for years.
Just as time was running out, my ex-wife provided me with a coupon that allowed me to purchase a new converter box for a mere fraction of the cost. I hooked up my antenna, tested the system and.... they pushed the switch date back to June 12th. So it sat next to my TV, like the pile of broken DVD players I've been accumulating, collecting dust like them, waiting for the day when it becomes something resembling useful.
Then, a couple of weekends ago, while using the analog antenna reception, we came across RetroJams, a weird broadcast channel showing old videos non-stop. One of the boys suggested we try and see if we could pull it in better with digital converter box, so we turned it on , scanned for available channels, and found that a number of local channels were already broadcasting in HD digital. We watched the box office debacle Sphere, an unintentional comedy starring Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson.
And it was great. The digital picture was as clear as cable television, just like we had been promised. Since then, we have been watching in HD on the local channels that have begun broadcasting the signal. Only the local NBC affiliate and the local CBS affiliate have to yet commence HD broadcast, making it hard for me to watch one of my favorite shows, 30Rock, except by turning off the converter box. And there has been other problems with it as well.
1. Every time I turn off the television for an extended period of time, the converter box shuts off, and to begin watching again, I have to scan for all the channels again.
2. On occasion, the box will shut itself as I watch it, with no advance warning.
3. Weather conditions can still alter the signal, creating interesting pixel trails and image mash-ups that are like an acid trip. In fact, if I still did drugs, it would be cool to watch just for those moments when one image melts out of another like a free associated mind trip.
4. The additional channels promised have turned out to be Christian broadcasting featuring bad Christian rock bands, televangelists, and movie and television shows from the "good old days", when injecting reality into entertainment was as far away as injecting reality into religion is today.
Sill, I am looking to upgrade my antenna, hoping to fix some problems, and am still hoping that I can start watching My Name Is Earl and 30 Rock in HD soon.

Our Torture Is Better Than Your Torture

Just to set the matter straight, when other countries torture it's bad. However, when the US engages in torture it's okay, because "if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture", even if that torture was not to save American lives but to attempt to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
Americans have been conditioned, Jack Bauer'd into thinking that torture is a good thing, because there are so many people out there who wish to do us harm. And rather than discuss the reasons that people may want to do us harm, because we are not the sainted country the rose colored glasses wearing, beer swilling, flag waving, television watchers think we may be (after all, we torture people to justify acts of aggression against nation states sanctioned into near submission), it's better to pretend that we don't torture children, run assassination squads, or bomb civilians.
America needs to grow up. Our moral high ground has been washed away by an ocean of blood, spilled in our name.

Wha' Happened?

Ah, for last year, during the primaries, when the most important issue facing the United States was how to properly display your patriotism by wearing flag lapel pins. Love of America outweighed every issue, from dealing with the impending mortgage crisis, reining in gas prices, or formulating a safe and sane exit strategy from Iraq. And no one loved America, or so they claimed, than the Republican party.
Now, it's a different story. Almost half of Georgia Republicans would like to secede from the nation. Kind of hard to love that flag when you're no longer part of it, isn't it folks?
So, are they all sore losers? Do they think that John McCain has a better handle on things and he and Sarah Palin would have done a better job of dealing with the steaming shitpile that the previous administration dumped on Obama's doorstep? Have they become the America hating terrorists they feared not too long ago? Has not their God equipped them with the strength of character and courage to deal with tumultuous times?
Naw, they're all just a bunch of pussies who can't take the heat. Any one from the left who would have suggested secession during the Bush/Cheney regime would have been rounded up and hung as a traitor. I say we give all these wusses their own state (like Mississippi) and be done with them.

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.

You Are Only As Sane As Your Belief System Allows You To Be

We all have belief systems, ways to cope and interpret the world going on around us. Some embrace religion, some embrace politics, or a combination thereof, it's our way of trying to stay sane in an increasingly crazy world. That is the world of man.
But some people cling to belief systems even after they have obviously failed them. To continue to do the same action and expect a different result is by definition insanity, and yet, there they are, clutching at straws.
In Baltimore, a judge has agreed to drop charges against a mother who starved her child to death after he refused to say Amen after breakfast if the boy is resurrected. The boy, who was just one year old, was ordered to be withheld food by the leader of a Christian cult as a punishment for not saying amen. The mother, who still belongs to said cult, is still holding out that the child will be resurrected.
And speaking of crazy cults, the cult of conservatism claims Sam Wurzelbacher represents the working people. This is a guy who hasn't worked a lick since John McCain brought him up at a presidential debate last year, now spends his time speaking at conservative gatherings about how horny he is. Maybe that's why his book is tanking, working people are having a hard enough time paying the bills, let alone ponying up the money for a book by someone who feels that taking away their free choice represents their best interests, which is why real plumbers heckled him at his last speaking gig. And if you really believe "Jioe" is a plumber, you're as crazy as the people who starved a little boy to death in hopes that he would be resurrected.

See? Another Token Gesture By The Cultural Elite

In yesterday's post, I referred to "Earth Hour" as one of those token gestures by the cultural elite. While everybody else was turning off their lights in an effort to save the planet, the king of the global warming climate change cult kept his lights on. It's not bad enough that Al Gore's home uses twenty times more energy as the average household, but when it was time to put his money where his mouth is, he showed me that, well really his quest for reducing his carbon footprint is a s real as his quest for manbearpig. You have to make sacrifices so that the cultural elite can continue their consumptive ways.
Now, I do think that it's important that people make an effort to cut the crap out of their lives. But, as I said, to only do it one day a year because of some corporate sponsored event that they can use to improve their image, write it off on their taxes or use as a basis for some carbon trading scam is ridiculous.

Excuse Me, But I Have To Shovel More Global Warming Offen My Sidewalk

Environmentalists Hail Earth Hour as a Big Success. Of course, when the lights came back on, and the sun rose the following day, the Earth was still littered with garbage, humans still felt the need to convey themselves about in gas guzzling and air polluting vehicles, so how much of a success was it really? Was anything really done to alleviate global warming climate change?
Driving through my neighborhood last night on the way to the grocery store, the only houses with lights out were the ones unoccupied due to mortgage foreclosure. What we have is another one of those token gestures by the cultural elite, like lapel ribbons or mandatory "volunteerism" where we are asked to make sacrifices that they won't have to make because of political connections or carbon trading scams where they can continue to pollute as much as they want by buying carbon credits from suckers people like you and me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the continuation of the poisoning of our planet, I'm just saying that when corporate types get on board with something like this, there's probably more in it for them than just improving their image. So, please, shop when you feel bummed out, turn out your lights when they want you to, and salivate like a fucking dog every time they ring a bell. But to only do something about the planet only when they suggest (or can make a profit from it)makes them look as powerful as you look silly.

Television Just Got A Little Suckier

Just when I think television couldn't get any worse, Fox has announced it's intention to air The Osbournes:Reloaded as a series of specials starting March 31. That was worth getting my digital TV converter for. Is this what they plan on replacing Prison Break with? I'm sure I stand alone in condemning such an obvious attempt at trash television, but listen to this! In one episode, a male audience member is tricked into making out with a grandmother for $100. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. How funny!
Can't we make these people go away? I mean, with the exception of Ozzy himself, does any other member of the first family of foul have a discernible talent? I've noticed Ozzy looking a little hunched over these days, is that from carrying the rest of his clan on his coattails?
I'm sure the show will be a big hit, because most Americans are more brain dead than Ozzy himself. This is good for the rest of the clan, who would otherwise be forced to work real jobs where they might be forced to display some humanity. But no, thanks to the idiocracy, they have entered the entertainment offspring entitlement aristocracy where being related to someone even remotely talented gets you in. (Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie work the door)
One segment of the show, sure to be funny annoying is when the Osbournes go to work at places like fast food drive thrus! Wacky! This will proves that they are totally inept at actually working along with being inept as human beings.
This is all your fault. Sure you loved to watch the Osbournes on their first "reality" show, and even bought it on DVD. But when Ozzy put out the CD of cover tunes, it didn't sell as well as expected, and now he's gotta cover that advance from the record company somehow, and this folks, is it.
I know, I know, I don't have to watch it. And I can turn the channel when commercials for it come on during every break for the next week. And I can switch the station when the all the morning radio shows are crawling over each other to play the most mundane clips themselves. And I can ignore the many nitwits who will extol the virtues of such trite and unoriginal programming. But I still have to live in a country where this trash is foisted on to a willfully waiting public who will swallow it clean like some spoodge sucking strumpet.
It's times like these that I wish that maybe Iran did have a nuclear weapon program, (unfortunately, they don't)and there was a major thermonuclear war that wiped out a large percentage of the world's population, because if this is what we've crawled from the primordial muck to attain, then somewhere we must have gotten lost and it's time to start all over again.
But that's just me.

I Really Miss That Guitar

(photo courtesy Matthew Richards)
I've been doing that Facebook thing for a while, not really, I think I signed up a month or two ago, and left it at that.(My home page is here if you wish to add me as a friend) Then today, I decided to try to change somethings on there (namely, my name, as it is listed as one of the many pseudonyms I've adopted over the years) only to see a blast from the past.
It was 1993, I think, and I was playing guitar and singing (screaming on key, really) for the coolest band I ever was in, Dysfunktional Son of God. These were the glory days for me, and there was nothing better than playing out. But what really struck a nerve for me was seeing an old friend.
Directly behind me, in front of the drum set was an old hollow body electric I used to a have, a Framus. I got it from a friend who ran an antique/vintage clothing store. I picked up an old saddle, with silver and turquoise trim, out of a free pile at a garage sale. I thought my friend, Chuck may be interested in it, so I took it down to his store. When I got there, he showed me his most recent acquisition, which was the guitar. Knowing that I know something about guitars, he asked me what I thought of it. It was excellent, fine German craftsmanship. I showed him the saddle, and that twinkle appeared in his eyes that always did when I brought him something unusual. He then offered a trade, the saddle for the guitar. It was only after the deal that I told him I got the saddle for free.
I don't why I got rid of that guitar, although I gather it was probably so I could buy some drugs. Like a lot of other things, I let a lot of good guitars slip through my hands because I couldn't smoke them. Now I'm down to only three, including the Fender that I'm playing in the picture. Somethings, like memories, are worth holding on to.

Macaca See........

I remember a time, not too long ago, when the Republicans were evil. I mean real verifiable evil, sulfur and brimstone evil, nasty as they wanted to be. But now what has happened?
Republicans used to set the pace, they turned liberal into a bad word and successfully painted everyone who opposed them and their nefarious ways as a traitor. They made tax cuts for the rich as American as running a war on a deficit and were proud of it. Now what are they up to?
Stalking Democrats with video cameras, hoping to force a macaca moment. This is sad and pathetic, and maybe a bit creepy. The plan is to ask questions of Democratic congresspeople they see as vulnerable in 2010 in hopes of forcing out an embarrassing response, which they'll then post to YouTube. Did I say a bit creepy? I meant to say full on bull goose looney creepy. But not evil. And that's what makes it sad and pathetic.
The GOP used to be about ideas. Not good ideas, but ideas nonetheless. But the voters resoundingly rejected those ideas in the last two election cycles, because, face it, they didn't work. Now all they have left in their bag of tricks is some second rate and second hand chicanery. They get it now-newspapers and talk radio are out, the new gizmo to spread their message is this internet doohickey. So they're trying to recreate what occurred naturally.
In 2006, Sen. George Allen, running against Jim Webb in Virginia, made an offhand remark about a Webb staffer following Allen's campaign as a macaca. Which turned out to be a racist slur, since S.R. Sidarth,the man Allen was addressing, was a 20-year-old of Indian descent. OOps!
Now the Republican Dirty Trick squad has decided this is the way to regain their footing. Not by actually having anything remotely resembling ideas themselves, because they all became intellectually bankrupt backing Bush/Cheney for all those years. Now all they can do is trot out Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal in hopes of scoring points in the whole "We don't see color either" department, and rally around Sarah Palin, because she kinda sorta represents the morality they claim to have when their teenage daughters aren't getting knocked up and having babies out of wedlock, destined to suckle at the public teat until some corporation, looking for an inroad into closely knit political circles, hires her as a "consultant" where she'll make $100K to introduce certain people to other certain people while Dad is out racing snowmobiles and Mom is winking at gray-haired old men at the regional party caucus.

The Altered State Of Richard B. Cheney

AIG is planning to use $450 million of the second round of economic stealfromus to pay bonuses to "attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses", you know, the ones that led the company to the verge of bankruptcy. I guess they're not the ones to blame for the current economic fiasco.
And neither is the Bush administration, according to it's chief criminal, Richard B. "Dick" Cheney. According to Dick:"I don't think you can blame the Bush administration for the creation of those circumstances."
Aren't the Republicans all about personal responsibility? Yet, no one in the party has the cojones to stand up and say, "I fucked up". Hell, they even blamed 9/11 on Clinton. And, yes, they even blamed our current economic woes on, you guessed it, Bill Clinton. But wait, what does Cheney say when asked about Obama saying he inherited our current economic woes from Bush?

"The notion that you can just sort of throw it off on the prior administration -- that's interesting rhetoric, but I don't think anybody really cares about that."

Cheney's Death Squads Need To Be Investigated

George Bush was fond of talking about his legacy in his final days, and how history will vindicate him for his actions. But as more and more revelations leak out from his administration, things may have been worse than we imagined.
Seymour Hersh has a story about how Dick Cheney ran an assassination ring out of the office of the vice president. Extrajudicial executions are always looked back fondly by historians. Perhaps Deborah Jean Palfrey didn't hang herself.
Cheney was always up to no good in the Bush administration, from creating a special conduit of fabricated intelligence on Iraq to authorizing torture of people he wanted to confess to crimes that he himself committed. That is why we need a Truth Commission now, while the evidence is still fresh.
The Obama unchange administration has admitted they intend on defending the criminals from the previous administration against allegations they used torture. Well, they're not really allegations, since they all have admitted to it. Nor do they intend on prosecuting the Bush administration for starting an illegal war. We the people as citizens need to demand our government take action and investigate the many crimes perpetrated in our name by unjust men who used our military as their own private army to profit from war and drive the country to the point of bankruptcy, both financially and morally.

Chuck Norris, All-American

Remember those Chuck Norris Facts that were so funny (to people who considered Walker, Texas Ranger to be good entertainment) a few years back? Nobody took them seriously, because, they were so outrageous, everyone knew they were a joke.
There was someone who did take them seriously, it would appear. None other than Chuck Norris himself, who on Glenn Beck's radio show suggested he would run for president of Texas because Texas was never formally a part of the United States in the first place and that if rebellion is to come through secession Texas would lead the way. Hey, I'd be happy to cut Texas loose, especially eight years ago. Norris also claims there are thousands of right wing sleeper cells (I'd love to hear him lisp that phrase) that are armed and ready for a second American revolution. Sounds like a bunch of terrorists to me.
Norris also claims that "we've bastardized the First Amendment, reinterpreted America's religious history and secularized our society until we ooze skepticism and circumvent religion on every level of public and private life." So, to counter that, you would circumvent democracy so that you and a bunch of Jesus tards can impose your imbecilic views on people with a brain? This is all we need a now, a bunch of armed juiced up mongoloids helping the world's worst movie star grasp on to what little bit of the spotlight left shining on him to forward his own warped reactionary agenda.
Norris even goes one step further and suggests that our military refuse the commander-in-chief's orders. Sounds a bit treasonous, but do you suspect that when and if Obama orders our troops home from Iraq, they're going to ignore him? Better just to ignore Chuck Norris and his really, really, bad toupee. And if Chuck Norris was as tough as the jokes made him out to be, four or eight years of a Democratic presidency should be no problem at all.

Ketchup America

It seems so long ago.
back when I started this blog, when many of us started blogging much of mainstream America and it's media were cowering in fear, sure that there were terrorists lurking everywhere, and if we didn't invade Iraq, they would surely kill us all.
In the blogosphere, however, things were different. It almost felt like borderline treason, passing along nuggets of information amongst ourselves that for whatever reason, wasn't made public to the people.
Remember the Downing Street Memo? The official British document that stated US intelligence was being 'fixed' around an invasion of Iraq? I can still remember having to email a link to the local paper's editor about it because they hadn't heard of it.
I also remember a pervasive feeling that Bush and Cheney, who were setting themselves up with near-dictatorial powers, would never step down from the presidency.
So when the Obama Justice department released nine of the Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel terror memos no one was surprised that nearly every legal expert has denounced them strongly as being tyrannical . They can do that now because Bush and Cheney have gone away.
But this is not news. Many people have known that the Bush regime was over the line on many things. Some have suggested a >Truth Commission, and I for one agree. We cannot really move forward waiting for the rest of the American people to catch up on what's been going on these past eight years.

Never Give A Book Deal To Someone Whose Fan Base Doesn't Like To Read

True story here. Yesterday, Wilbur asked me who Joe the Plumber was. I tried to explain to him that Joe, whose name isn't really Joe, and isn't really a plumber, somehow became famous when candidate Barack Obama was in his neighborhood and Joe asked him a question about how much Barack planned on raising his taxes. This made him a darling of the over $250,000 a year media pundits who benefited dearly from the Bush tax cuts. The irony is, with the new economic stimulus plan, Joe would be getting a tax cut, but now, by exploiting his instant celebrity, he probably is now one of those whose taxes will be raised. For this year, anyways.
Joe is also a good example of why the economy is so screwed. Someone, in their infinite (or infinitesimal) wisdom deemed it necessary to grant Joe a book deal.That was a good idea. I guess book editors, like Joe himself, thought his fame would go on infinitely, leapfrogged him over thousands of real hopeful authors (like the record company that leapfrogged him over talented musicians and singers to give him a record deal) to give him a book deal, probably ghost written, that now looks about as intelligent a decision as choosing Sarah Palin as your running mate, or granting a mortgage to someone like me.
Well, Joe, your time's almost up. Soon, you'll have all these wonderful memories of when you used to be someone while you're snaking some fat lady's toilet. Hope you kept a scrapbook!