Help Raise Funds for the Efficient Transport of "Spermatazoan-Americans"!

Oy, this is hysterical.

Does George W. Bush Know He's Going to Hell?

If George W. Bush is, as he claims, a born-again Christian, then for knowingly lying and repeatedly doing so, for signing death warrants, for waging war, for inflicting suffering on the poor, opening the environment even more widely to corporate rape, and on and on (the list is truly breathtaking), he must know that he's going to Hell. I mean, how many times does Christ have to continue to forgive someone, particularly one with such power to do good who instead knowingly chooses to do ill?

Of course, maybe George doesn't really believe in that stuff. It has been politically beneficial--brilliantly so--for him to claim he does, because Karl Rove understood the weight of a single unified block of anti-science, homophobic, speaking-in-tongues Americans was frighteningly large. But if Bush doesn't really believe he's going to Hell, then that means he's just punked the largest part of his constituency.

Either way, this life or the next, Bush ought to be damned.

Best Polite Indictment of the Corporate Press

I thought Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hits it on the head here:

But he believes the reason why newspapers are losing circulation is that too many traditional journalists are willing to quote politicians and business executives even if they're blatantly lying — merely for the sake of perceived objectivity. He'd prefer an "open source" model of journalism where legions of volunteers act as writers, assignment editors and fact checkers to challenge mainstream journalists.

"People are looking for attitude and guts in reporting — not full-on gonzo journalism, but hey, tell us what you think," said Newmark, who described himself as having Whig values — strong on defense, fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

Hardly some leftwing nutjob like me, right? Just when my hope was running dry as the corporate US media ignores the leaked British minutes, late on a Friday even, someone gives me reason to blog on, if only for its therapeutic value.

Is This How We Are to Be Judged?

Jesus Christ, if he comes back today, is not going to be pleased with us. The highlight:

Defence expenditure in the US will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months . . . The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total.

We're so fucked.

If the Leaked British Minutes Are Real, the Slide Has Begun

Rep. John Conyers (D, MI) and eighty-seven other members of Congress have written the White House about classified minutes of a secret meeting of the British prime minister and his advisors that occurred on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq, which have been leaked to the British press. So what's the big deal? The minutes, if real and not a plant, corroborate the claims by former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, former White House Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and other insiders that Bush and his advisers manufactured and altered intelligence to support their planned invasion of Iraq. See William Rivers Pitts' article for an excellent and concise summary and analysis.

Rep. Conyers' letter asks the following questions based on these minutes:

1. "Did the Administration lie to the American people about its intentions with respect to Iraq?"
2. "Did the Administration engineer a confrontation with Saddam Hussein to justify the war?"
3. "Did the Administration deliberately manipulate intelligence to deceive the American people about the strength of its case for war?"

If I was a gambling man, I'd wager on the following answers: 1-Yes. 2-Yes. 3-Yes.

Actually, to be allowed to bet on this outcome would be like past-posting, that is, cheating. No one should be surprised by this fact of lies and distortion, of course, at least anyone who read a foreign newspaper or watched a little C-SPAN in the last two years. The big question is whether something is to be done about it.

They gambled, and they lost. They lied, and they've been caught. With over 1700 coalition troops killed, thousands gravely injured, 100,000 Iraqi dead, several hundred billions of dollars spent, nothing but chaos on the horizon in Iraq, and the only reconstruction efforts seemingly focusing only on a prolonged colonial US presence, there is now a time of accountability.

If George W. Bush had one ounce of decency in him, then someone should replay his crotch-enhanced premature ejaculcation from the Viking jet on the deck of the carrier U.S.S Abraham Lincoln in May, 2003. Then he should be shown his minutes of inaction in the Florida classroom on September 11, 2001. A decent man would resign immediately. No, that's wrong. A decent man would not have got us in this mess.

The Thuggery of Bush, the Gutlessness of Kerry; Yes, America is a Land of Choices

Here's why John Kerry lost (if indeed he did) the election last November: he and the other Democratic National Committee dopes as well as the dense Democratic Leadership Council have tin ears. Remember when Kerry caved on the issue of gay marriage but said he was for civil unions? Well now he thinks that even in Massachusetts it's bad policy. From the Boston Globe:

"I'm opposed to it being in a platform. I think it's a mistake," Kerry said shortly after hosting a forum on his universal children's healthcare bill in Baton Rouge. ''I think it's the wrong thing, and I'm not sure it reflects the broad view of the Democratic Party in our state."

When in God's name will these assholes (and I mean that affectionately) realize that marriage is a civil institution, and that if two people of the same gender, or any degree between genders, or any extreme beyond genders, for that matter, want to wed and they are consenting adults to the union, then the state should give them their fucking license and let them comingle assets, share childrearing responsibilities, etc. And if it was presented to the "broad view of the Democratic Party" in that way, I am certain that it would receive broad support. But so scared is the mainstream Democratic elite of what they perceive to be overarching backwardness of mainstream America that they cannot embrace true liberal values and seek to expand freedom and equality. That's right, equality. Having a separate civil institution for the joining of households is bigotry, period.

Not only that, and this is something fiscal conservatives should like, having to craft separate laws, separate regulations, separate forms and so on is inefficient. Marriage is already defined. Use it as it is, extended to all. No bureaucratic folderol, no clerical confusion at city hall. Fifteen bucks, a couple of signatures, a blood test (do they still require those?) and off to the justice of the peace or the nearest ship to take advantage of the captain's vested powers.

But such an idea is too scary for Kerry, even after self-loathing gay whore Jeff Gannon/James Guckert wrote for Talon "News" that Kerry'd be the first gay president if elected. That's why the homophobe bigots get to keep stomping him. Even if he gets fragged in the cultural war, he's hiding instead of driving for the enemy with mayhem on his mind.

What happened to you since Vietnam, John?

Democrats, Republicans...wimps or crooks, take your pick.

Berlusconi, Blair, Bush: Yoked Together in Lies, and Soon in Disgrace

According to AFP news, Italian prime minister and Bush bud Silvio Berlusconi intervened to tone down Italy's military intelligence report on the shooting of freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of agent Nicola Calipari by American troops.

Rome daily Il Messaggero reported "The head of government asks for changes", while the opposition-supporting La Repubblica claimed "Berlusconi imposes prudence".

"The report must be technical, only technical," it quoted Mr Berlusconi as saying, without giving any source.

"It can even be tough, but it must not in any event prejudice to the slightest degree political understanding with the United States."

Silvio has learned his lesson well--do not fuck with the political thugs who rule the United States. Learn from them on how to shape investigation reports, how to cow the intelligence services for political ends, how to lie to your nation to preserve your own power. But that cat, as the old saw goes, is out of the bag.

In Britain, Tony Blair is finding that his lies and secret plans are now catching up to him.

Mr Blair was challenged on whether he had seen Foreign Office legal advice in a BBC interview with Jeremy Paxman on 20 April. He replied: "No, I had the Attorney General's advice to guide me." In fact, Mr Blair had seen the Foreign Office advice as early as 8 March 2002, in an annex to a secret Cabinet Office "options paper". That annex is published in The Independent on Sunday for the first time today.

Another cat slips from the burlap and yowls.

Will Berlusconi and Blair be evicted from office on these revelations? I wish I could predict that they would, that they would be dragged out of their chambers in shame and recorded in history as conmen and liars and traitors to their citizens, but I'm just a schmuck with a blog. However, wishes do come true sometimes. And as the light is shone into the corners of Italian and British government, revealing subversion of truth and the public will, and as it burns away the veneer that has covered up so much deceit about Iraq, perhaps as I type this, George W. Bush is cowering in his White House bedroom, praying to his twisted notion of God that the cleansing will stop on the far side of the Atlantic, that his allies in the media will not ask any of those mean questions, that his wife can tell some more ribald jokes to distract the public from the ugly truth of his misrule, that his daddy's pals will once again pull his ass out of the fire. He prays, he cries, he begins to shake as he realizes that his arrogance has dragged him over a sharp edge into infamy as the worst president in U.S. history, as a war criminal, as a betrayer of the American people, even beyond what they might have deserved for having been suckered in by the phony shitkicking demeanor and terrorized by the expanding control of his corrupt enforcement apparatus.

But the dam has cracked, Georgie-boy, you smirking little shit. Even the lickspittle Washington Post has opened a shutter on your darkness, giving light and space for an opinion that will only grow and strip from you the pretense and disdain and arrogance. In the spreading light will be revealed a pathetic little man who should have stuck with his dream of becoming baseball commissioner rather than the black stain he is now become upon the history of our nation.

What Should Be Front Page and Featured in Prime Time

Wouldn't it be nice if the pretty girls and boys on TV news or the uglier but no less irresponsible print pluggers could pry their wits off of the "Missing White Woman" story or the "Man Licks Custard off Missing Finger" story long enough to read the following paragraph published in Britain:

A damning minute leaked to a Sunday newspaper reveals that in July 2002, a few weeks after meeting George Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Mr Blair summoned his closest aides for what amounted to a council of war. The minute reveals the head of British intelligence reported that President Bush had firmly made up his mind to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, adding that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

The last sentence in particular is worthy of at least a $50 million-dollar Ken Starr-style special prosecutor. "Intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," to justify an illegal war by selling the twisted information to the public through a kneepad press corps lining up to give an appointed president a rim job in the few instances when he deigned to show his ass to them. Yeah, Clinton's Whitewater thing and the blowjob really trump these sorts of shenanigans.

I'm so disgusted. I just hope Judith Miller of the New York Times and the others who pimped for the murder of so many innocents on all sides of this mess do the honorable thing, but of course, they're beyond honor, dignity, or truth. The First Amendment guarantees a free press, all right, but the provision of a free press lies in the hands of journalists, their editors, and apparently primarily under the thumb of their corporate overlords at GE, Disney, Viacom, et. al. The business of America is always just business, folks, and you're nothing but equipment for the death factory.

Enjoy yourselves.

Forget Wendy's Finger Chili, Forget Michael Jackson, Here's the Next Big Story Headed for Corporate Media Mass Distribution

If you were a television news producer, you might think that a constant fear would be having to resort to actual news, like the corrupting and corrupt presence of Tom "Giant Flying Cockroach" Delay, or the continuing slaughter in Iraq, or the Republican assault on Social Security, among others. But truly, you never need fear having to devote airtime to anything of substance, because in a country this size, you can always find a guy who mistakenly licked chocolate custard off a severed finger. Here's a taste, so to speak:

Clarence Stowers said he thought the object he found in his custard was candy so he put it in his mouth to get the ice cream off. He told a Wilmington TV station that he rinsed off the object and "just started screaming."

Now this story just surfaced today, so let's see how far in gets in the mainstream corporate media. It has the sort of elements that our crack journalists love: amputation, fast food, chocolate flavoring, and it happened in the South.

Of course, I'm as guilty for writing about this and avoiding the really pressing issues of the day, but as I must remind my one or two random readers (if that many) I am not now, nor have I ever been, a journalist.

So for those drawing fat paychecks and getting their hair and makeup done prior to primetime pontification, what the fuck is your excuse?

The Value of Some News Blackout

I just spent a few days in a most bourgeois indulgence down in a remote part of Arizona. How remote, you ask? Well, the town of Winkelman, Arizona, is the nearest post office. At Aravaipa Farms the indulgences are substantial and ought to be, given the cost, which makes my hair stand on end, but all work and no play, yadda yadda. Even a leftie deserves a little break--that's why I rarely eat out or indulge in $5 vanilla lattes (as much as I have an embarassing weakness for them). Thrift begets these brief but intense luxuries.

But the point of this was that it was a total news and communications blackout for three days: no telephone, no Internet, no radio, no television. A small group of us hiked up and back in Aravaipa Canyon, then spent the other hours staring into the Sonoran Desert landscape, drinking good booze and eating lovingly prepared gourmet meals. The net effect: total mellowosity (yes, I'm making a new coinage) this morning now that I'm back in my mountain redoubt.

We've been visited heavily by Evening Grosbeaks in the clusters that are typical of the species, but whose appearance is erratic in this part of the country, and watching them in the yard while I was drinking coffee this A.M. helped draw out the calmness that not even thirty minutes of NPR could upset. I turned the radio off finally, because it was like sand in the lube during great sex. The sun as pouring through the budding aspens, my neighbors were coming out to pick up their newspapers or put out their trash or walk their kids to the bus stop, and life was flowing as it always does, but for once I was just letting it take me, instead of standing in the stream shaking my fist and screaming outrage.

Of course, mellow is not my fundamental nature. In America, as an American, outrage should be as normal as breathing, given the assault on church-state separation, attacks on social security, illegal wars for private profit, chickenhawk warmongers, institutionalized torture, antigay campaigns, and so on and on. So much to rage about, so little time on earth, alas.

But you know what? Taking a few days to completely ignore this shit really does do a body and soul good. Now as I page through Buzzflash, I am able to do it with a sense of calm consideration, without acid gnawing my breakfast out of my gut, with a perspective that the struggle is endless, yes, but that it is right and worthwhile so long as we can retain a connection to the mundane, the everyday, the tiny transcendent moments that make it so good to be alive, like watching a seasonal bird crack a sunflower seed under newly-leafed trees on a mountainside on a clear May morning. Even the Bushits can't take that away.