Saturday Watching the Snow Come Down, and Bush Is a Getting Away with Lying Again

Can someone out there who has been to journalism school explain to me why the top tier TV and print reporters can't do a simple Google or Lexis/Nexis search to show that George Bush is a liar? I realize that proving he's a shithead and a fascist is more difficult since the definitions for those things aren't empirically verifiable, but lying sometimes is, as when Barbara Boxer shoved Condi Rice's nose in the stinking pile of her own incompetence and dissembling. Bush is so comfortable in his bubble now that he seems to be almost challenging the press to call him on his lies, which, of course, they are afraid to do if they happen to enjoy any remunerative or social benefit from their positions.

Here, you chickenshit "journalists": from Bush on March 4,

"See, personal accounts is an add-on to that which the government is going to pay you," he said. "It doesn't replace the Social Security system."

Now try to hold that statement in your brains simultaneously with this from the Washington Post on 1 January 2005:

Republicans inside and outside the White House said Bush plans to ask Congress to allow younger Americans to put at least one-third of the 6.2 percent payroll tax into private accounts, which will offer a set number of investment options similar to the thrift savings plans provided to federal workers.

Is diverting a third of the payroll tax into Wall Street a fucking add-on? He lied. Was that so hard?

For America's sake, do your damned jobs.

Dildos as Political Weapons

Read Mark Morford's column on the Alabama ban on sex toys, because, as he points out, it isn't just about sex toys but rather an entire attitude toward human experience that is reflective of the madness of this administration's core values. They and their sex-terrified minions will plunge us into our own private Dark Age.

Why Canadians Are So Cool

This open letter to proven liar Condoleeza Rice from Lloyd Axworthy just warms the cockles of my dried-up little old heart. Here's a taste:

As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.

Interesting that no mainstream "journalist" in the United States can so clearly articulate these points so concisely or so well. I guess it just takes a little distance to get the proper perspective.

I bow humbly and deeply to Mr. Axworthy's wit and good sense. Canadians are the coolest.

Into the Dark Heart of Bush's America?

The Westboro Baptist Church's website, I thought, has to be a satire, especially when you look at their profile on Sweden's royal family ("drippings from the Devil's own penis") and the sexual mores of Swedes generally--God, is she hot or what? Since your humble blogger here is a descendent of Swedes, I was interested, fascinated, and ultimately gratified to know that the Rev. Fred Phelps (of "God Hates Fags" fame) considers us to be doomed. You won't believe it. In summary, Rev. Phelps says,

Sweden is a land of sodomy, bestiality, and incest.

and he is cheered by the tsunami's toll on Swedish tourists last year:

THANK GOD FOR ALL DEAD SWEDES!!!

Furthermore,

WE PRAY FOR ALL 20,000 SWEDES IN THE TSUNAMI'S WAKE TO BE DECLARED DEAD!

I must confess, their site is sickeningly seductive, like shifting into a truly alien reality. It's also interesting to consider that a similar site from the leftist or atheist perspective, entitled "God Hates Baptists" would have Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and the right-wing "drippings from the Devil's own penis" screeching from their electronic pulpits like sodomized banshees. And, of course, Joe Lieberman and a few other Democrats would rush to apologize on MSNBC.

Be sure not to miss Phelps' monument design to the Swedish tsunami victims.

Man, it's good to be a Swede today!

One Step Down the Ladder--Asian Dollar Holders Get Twitchy

From Bloomberg News:

The previously symbiotic relationship between the U.S. and Asia is looking more like unhealthy and unsustainable co- dependence. Asia feeds its addiction to export-led growth by feeding the U.S.'s addiction to importing capital to finance its economy, and vice versa. Now, Asian leaders are concerned they are getting the short end of the arrangement, and they should be.

The upshot of the article is that a number of countries in the East like Japan, Korea, Singapore, et. al. are holding a lot of dollars, and the dollar is falling against the euro, and therefore they would like to dump some dollars. Unfortunately, if any one of them does start selling, as Korea intimated it might do a couple of weeks ago, the dollar drops, depreciating their holdings.

So the question is not if, but when someone is going to blink, start dumping dollars, and cause a terrifying freefall for the U.S. currency?

Result? Higher import costs, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and one step closer to becoming a second-tier power.

Thanks, George.

It's Sad How Limited the Sexual Imagination of Alabama Legislators Is

Here's the language of the statute banning sex toys:

"It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs..."

What I like is that to be illegal it must be "useful primarily" to get you off, so a bong, let's say, in the shape of a phallus would be okay so long as you toke first and poke second. I'm sure that a lot of vegetable, candle, showerhead, telephone, flashlight, raw liver, religious statue, etc. purveyors are breathing easier to know that.

One has to be grateful that it also says "designed or marketed" and does not specify intent of use, which pretty much takes the burden off the poor user. I don't know whether Alabama's lawmakers didn't think of that, or didn't understand that if people want to get off, they sure as hell can do it without equipment specifically designed or marketed for that purpose.

Note that it specifies "human genital organs," so if you're buying or selling toys for yaks, chickens, or Siamese fighting fish stimulation, you're cool with the Heart of Dixie.

Potential business opportunity: market kits that can be built into either nasal hair trimmers or personal vibrators, depending on the builder's intent. Or, sex toys for animals, labeled boldly, "NOT FOR USE ON HUMAN GENITAL ORGANS. CONFORMS TO ALABAMA LAW."

Off to the workshop.

So, How Do You Like Your Government in Your Pants (or Up Your Skirt)?

Well, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the 1998 Alabama ruling that bans sex toys, so dildoes, vibrators, ticklers, probes, "sailor's friends," and so on go onto the black market. Oh, but Viagra and Cialis are still okay. Well, at least the ruling seems to support continued patriarchy.
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Which brings me to the fundamental argument for legal abortion, which does tie into this madness regarding sex toys--where does the government's jurisdiction end? Do we own our genitalia, or don't we? I find it most disturbing that right-wingers think that we should have any governmental intrusion into our private parts and how we share them with other consenting adults.

I don't know about you, but I don't want government in my pants, regardless of its ideology. Besides, it's very gassy in there, so how sick do these perverts have to be to want to have such access?

Supreme Court Rules and Bush Weeps

Damn it! We can't execute children any more in the United States. Well, at least Bush made hay while the sun shone and did his share of kid killing while he was governor of Texas. From the NY Times,

Although 19 states nominally permit the execution of juvenile murderers, only Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma have executed any in the past decade.

Don't feel bad, George. You had a pretty good run there executin' 'em an' all. It was this next bit that really upset El Presidente:

Until today, the United States and Somalia were the only nations that permitted putting teenage criminals to death.

You mean Somalia now stands alone? What a blow to our international status! Try and put a happy face on it, George; at least we still torture and imprison without charge or representation. That ought to give us some standing in the world, right?

Ah, Torture--It's a Growth Industry, So Don't Get Left Behind!

From the New York Times today,

The State Department on Monday detailed an array of human rights abuses last year by the Iraqi government, including torture, rape and illegal detentions by police officers and functionaries of the interim administration that took power in June.

Now, this would seem abhorrent if it wasn't for the revelation it gave me about the Bush plan for Iraq. You see, when he talks about "our values," and bringing Iraq along, it would appear to the casual viewer that he means to eliminate torture, rape, murder, unlawful detention, and so on from Iraq. The reality is, however, that he seeks to lower the United States to the standards of Saddam Hussein and company, by which means we will be aligned as promised.

It must make Tortureboy feel like a proud daddy! Look, he must be saying, they've done all this since June! Pretty soon they'll be as good as our pals in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

The State Department report also says the Iraqis "generally respected human rights," as if this is pretty good. "Generally respecting" human rights is like "generally respecting," oh, let's say, property rights. I only rob selected houses. Or "generally respecting" prohibitions on murder. I only killed those five people; look at all the ones I left alone.

None other than National Review Online editor Jonah "White Feather" Goldberg illustrates how this aligns with right-wing philosophy, in a piece in Salon.com.

"To be brutally honest, I'm torn about it. I don't mean to be callous about it: I think the U.S. government should do everything it can to see to it that innocent people don't get treated horribly. I don't know anybody on the right who would say, 'I'm in favor of innocent people being tortured.' But that said, I think a lot of people on the right are skeptical of hype: That the allegations are not nearly as horrendous or as widespread a matter of policy as the media portrays."

Notice the rhetorical construct here: he essentially says that the reports of torture by the U.S. or its proxies are "allegations." Then he says that the allegations, even if true, are overdrawn. "Naw, we didn't cut all the dude's fingers off--just eight of 'em." Therefore, because they may not be true, and even if they are true, they're not accurate, then we can just ignore the whole business as the necessity of war.

"There are lots of things that are ugly and terrible about war," Goldberg adds. "I think that people on the right are more comfortable allowing for that."

No shit. Too comfortable, if you ask me, and that should be the outrage.
There is no compromise on respecting human rights, if we claim to be a civilized people. That's all there is to it, war or no war.
And remember, this is a bullshit war.

Tortureboy and the Pornographers

John Aravosis over on Americablog notes that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is directing his attention to obscenity, picking up where John Ashcroft left the issue when he realized that 9/11 illustrated a higher priority for government action than prosecuting smut peddlers.

But given Gonzalez' record, I must paraphrase Berthold Brecht and ask:

Is it a greater crime to be a pornographer, or to torture one?

Or is this just a way for Mr. Gonzalez to prevent anyone publishing any more of the Abu Ghraib sort of torture pictures? I mean, seeing a naked man threatened by a German Shephard may get him off, but that doesn't mean it appeals to most people's prurient interest. Still, if Gonzalez can twist U.S. law to permit torture, I'm sure he can twist it to make any picture embarassing to the administration into pornography. And if torture pics do turn him on, then I guess he's right, eh?

Oh, and by the way, Tortureboy and the Pornographers is the name of my new band.

More Proof That Lying Is the Culture of the Bush Administration

It gets more bald-faced every day. Here, the Washington Post documents the absolute misrepresentation of scientific studies about needle-exchange programs and their effect at reducing HIV rates. Of course, the Post is too genteel to call it what it is: systematic, conscious lying. Two sources that this administration claims did research that supports their anti-needle-exchange position had the following to say:

One of them is Steffanie A. Strathdee of the University of California at San Diego; when we contacted her, she responded that her research "supports the expansion of needle exchange programs, not the opposite." Another researcher cited by the administration is Martin T. Schechter of the University of British Columbia; he wrote us that "Our research here in Vancouver has been repeatedly used to cast doubt on needle exchange programs. I believe this is a clear misinterpretation of the facts."

This really stinks. Their lies aren't about private sexual matters (and I was no fan of Clinton) but instead actually lead to more sickness and death. Their lies exacerbate the public health problems we face. Their lies are a threat to Republican and Democrat alike, to Christian and atheist, to everyone. It disgusts me.

The SimpleTruth about Social Security and Why Bush Is a Danger to All Working People

Here’s something that our kneepad press doesn’t seem to want to tell the working public, most of whom don’t make enough to encounter the phenomenon themselves. If you are fortunate enough to make more than $90,000 per year, you don’t pay any Social Security (FICA) tax on anything over that ninety grand. You pay 7.65 percent on the $90K, and zero after that.
In other words, if you make $90,000, and some CEO has a base salary of $10 million, you and that CEO pay the same amount of Social Security taxes. If you make less, then you are actually being even more royally screwed, because that 7.65 percent in FICA taxes are taken out of every single dollar you make, while $9,910,000 of that CEO’s income are exempt.

Why is there a cap like this on FICA taxes? Well, do you see any poor people in Congress or the Senate? Any folks working at Wal-mart got lobbyists trying to remove that cap on taxable income?

I find it simply outrageous that the Bushits call such a cap removal a “tax increase.” If you are so fortunate as to make a half million or many millions of dollars in this country, the idea that some poor schmuck at minimum wage pays a vastly larger portion of that income to Social Security than you should be shameful.

And, of course, raising the cap would go a long, long way to fixing the solvency problem that Bush falsely characterizes as a “crisis.” Of course, he’s a fucking liar and a con man of simply unimaginable ruthlessness, and his legendary fixation on winning at all costs will provide a formidable challenge even to those Republicans who are realizing that Bush’s plan is DOA and want to get past it quickly. It will be fascinating to watch the creative ways Karl Rove attempts to punish the turncoats to El Presidente’s demented vision.

I can already hear the right-wingers screaming, "That's the politics of class warfare."

Fuckin' A. That's exactly what it is. Time for working people to be fighting back. We cannot let BushCo destroy the last protection left to working folks.