Remember all of those bumper stickers demanding that we never forget that 2,998 3,017 people died? I'm thinking about making some that say "3-19-03 NEVER FORGET". Wonder how many people would even know what it meant?

Let's take a look back: (viked from DailyKos)

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
-George W. Bush, 10/7/02

"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
-Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

"There's a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."
-Bill Kristol, 4/1/03

"It's amazing that more than two weeks into the liberation of Iraq---as residents in Basra are cheering British forces and Americans occupy Baghdad's airport and Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace---the antiwar crowd is still spinning a doomsday scenario. But it's getting harder and harder to take seriously the claim that freeing Iraq will make it harder to win the war on terrorism. Indeed, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. [...] Who said war never solved anything?"
-Brendan Miniter, The Wall Street Journal, 4/8/03

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals."
-Charles Krauthammer, 4/19/03

Ted Koppel: [Y]ou’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is going to be done for $1.7 billion?
Andrew Natsios [Agency for International Development]: Well, in terms of the American taxpayer's contribution, I do. This is it for the U.S.
-4/23/03

[Liberals] can't deny that President Bush has won his two wars, and won them resoundingly.
-Paul Mirengoff, Powerline, 4/26/03

"The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
-Tony Snow, Fox News, 4/27/03

-pb

A man is captured, declared an enemy of the state, refused habeus corpus, and held for an indefinite period of time. Eventually, he is brought before a military court and put on trial, where secret evidence and statements obtained through torture are admissible. If he is found guilty (and given the above, only a prosecutor with the intellect of a chipmunk would fail to gain a conviction), he will be sentenced to death.

Ok, what country am I talking about?

a) Russia, 1922-1953
b) Germany, 1933-1945
c) Cambodia, 1975-1979
d) United States, 2001-present
e) all of the above

-pb

More details of our mercenary army fucking up in Iraq

Blackwater, ahh, the very name raises my bile. From shooting civilians for fun and profit to quietly firing murderers and shipping them home so they'll face no charges, Blackwater is a stain the already tattered honor of this nation... and pretty much all of humanity.

But now, there's word that they dropped CS gas on a crowded intersection to clear traffic. And, they caught U.S. troops in the fallout, directly endangering their lives and curtailing any effectiveness they may have had in patrolling the intersection.

Of course, it was an honest mistake:

“Blackwater teams in the air and on the ground were preparing a secure route near a checkpoint to provide passage for a motorcade,” Ms. Tyrrell said in an e-mail message. “It seems a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint.”

CS gas is forbidden for use in a war zone by international law. What the fuck was it doing on a helicopter where it could be mistakenly dropped on a crowd of civilians? What else do they have in there? Mustard gas? Sarin? Didn't we invade Iraq on the flimsiest of suspicions that they were developing this shit?

Of course, even if it was a mistake, and they were just going to drop smoke canisters, what the fuck us up with that?! There's U.S. troops in the area, it's a checkpoint, it's 2005 and everything from cars to women to goats are detonating themselves in a concentrated orgy of violence that may as well be set to some sort of opera music for dramatic effect. So, let's drop smoke canisters so those troops won't be able to see the suicide bomber until he's stealing their lunch for a quick bite before he explodes. Wonderful. We're basically paying a mercenary army to kill our own soldiers.

-pb

From Mary Shaw at Philadelphia Freedom Watch: Bono speaks out against torture -- and gets censored

On September 27th, here in Philadelphia, the Liberty Medal for 2007 was awarded to Bono and his organization DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), for their work in fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. Each year, the National Constitution Center awards the Liberty Medal to a person or persons for outstanding work in advancing the cause of liberty around the world.

While Bono's entire acceptance speech was quite good, I was particularly moved when he spoke out against the use of torture. He said, "You do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster."

Indeed. Very well put.

And I wrote those words down right after I heard them, because I was so impressed and wanted to share the wisdom.

However, two days after the event, I downloaded the official video of Bono's speech at www.libertymedal.org. And I discovered that the official video had been edited so that it no longer contains the references to torture, or other portions of the speech that apparently were not acceptable to The Powers That Be. Furthermore, the edited version seems to over-emphasize the few gratuitous positive comments that Bono made regarding the current Bush administration. (By the way, George Bush Sr. presented the award.)

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I began to question whether I had heard it all correctly the first time.

Fortunately, I discovered that Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News heard the same speech that I heard, and he wrote about it in his blog at www.attytood.com. Bunch's blog entry about Bono's speech fills in some of the gaps that are missing from the official video, including the context surrounding Bono's "monster" comment.

So, thanks to Will Bunch, here is what Bono had to say about torture:

Today I read in the Economist an article reporting that over 38 percent of Americans support some type of torture in exceptional circumstances. My country? No. Your country? Tell me no. Today, when I receive this great honor, I ask you, I implore you as an Irishman who has seen some of these things close up, I ask you to remember, you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America’s better than that.

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

But, in the official video, all is missing except the last two sentences.

Yes, this is America, land of the free. Or so it once appeared to be.

Indefensible! Disgusting! Is this nation so gutless, so spineless that criticism from those it awards for human service is to be supressed, lest it offend?

Bono, I fear you may be too late with those words.

So, why exactly do we have the military in Iraq? I mean, come on, we've got mercenaries blowing up people while defending our people over there, can't we just have mercenaries blow up the rest of the country?

It blew my mind when I found out that Blackwater USA has helicopter gunships. Why do we have a PRIVATE MILITARY operating in Iraq?

So, Blackwater mercs shoot up 20 civilians. Apparently, from reports by Iraqis, Blackwater convoys regularly shoot up anything in their way. One Iraqi traffic cop described "frantically" trying to clear traffic ahead of a convoy, knowing that getting people off the street was the only way to keep them from being gunned down or run down.

So, apparently, 20 civilians at once is the Iraqi government's threshold for tolerance. They decided to kick Blackwater USA out of the country. But, in consultation with the Iraqi governmnent, Blackwater is back in Baghdad.

And, what's more, Blackwater employees are suspected of smuggling weapons into Iraq and selling them to insurgents.

So, no wonder they shoot at anything that moves. They sold weapons to anything that moves, so they logically have to expect that anything that moves is out to kill them. Sounds like a perfect place for a bunch of guys who want to cap them some aye-rabs.

-pb

I know I've been inundating you, my faithful readers, with my wit-battles with the hopelessly unarmed, but I'm having fun with it. It's sure to get old soon.

Here are the two goodies for the day:

Richard A: All Americans MUST be well informed of the danger of "Al-qaida" to the US and the civilized world. We must also expose the damaging truth about the persons, groups etc. who are looking after their own personal interests rather than the security of our wonderful country.

Me: Funny, when people say the same thing, just substituting "global warming" for "Al-qaida", lots of other people loose their heads and start screaming about Al Gore.

Gilmore: That is because Al-qaida is real and global warming is not. Wake up buddy!

Me: Hey! You got yourself a fish biscuit! How'd you do that?

Next, there's this GLC64 guy who lost the argument big time, and has resorted to "HUR HUR YOU + LIBRLZ KISSNG" tactics. One last smackdown before I just watch him spin:

GLC64 : Did you enjoy the Kool-Aid you drank with George Soros and Michael Moore this morning?????

Me : Look slugger, I know you want to try to keep up here and make your presence known, but seriously tiger, adults are talking. Go out back and play in the sandbox until dinner's ready.

-pb

TheNewFormatSux is a fascist, genocidal frightfest from Allentown. He's the guy that used the phrase "The Muslim Problem" and didn't get it when I said "Huh, that sounds disturbingly like 'The Jewish Problem'".

Here's a little exchange I had with him:

TheNewFormatSux : Getting back on topic, the original letter is titled "Indict the Neo-Cons". The widely accepted definition of this new word "neo-con" is "new conservative". So I'm a little puzzled about who the letter writer wants to indict. Is it every American who has recently become a conservative?

Me : "Neo-", while meaning new, does not indicate what you're talking about. It refers to the ideology. A "neo-conservative" doesn't refer to someone who just became conservative, it refers to the school of thought being a new version of conservative thought. It also doesn't indicate an actual connection with the previous. Neo-conservatism doesn't have much in common with conservatism (less civil liberties vs. greater civil liberties, more government spending vs. less government spending, more rational foreign policy vs. cowboy diplomacy, etc.).

Just like neo-Nazis don't look too much like the highly organized political machine esposing national social ideals that the original Nazi party did, neo-conservatives don't look much like Abraham Lincoln's conservatives.

Of course, you knew that, you were just trying to set fire to your own strawman.

TheNewFormatSux : Phew - I'm glad you cleared that up for me and even more glad that I'm not a neo-con (indictable or otherwise). Since I believe in civil liberties (some of them currently illegal), less government spending (except when it goes towards eliminating the threat from Muslim extremism) and rational foreign policy (like hunting down and exterminating Muslim extremists wherever they breed). I'll sleep much better tonight knowing I'm not a "neo-con".

Me : So, I take it you'd like to see Bush out of office as soon as possible?

TheNewFormatSux : You take it wrong. I wish he could serve a third term because he has done more to fight Muslim extremism than any other president in our country's history. And Muslim extremism is clearly the biggest threat the civilized world has ever faced. Oh, and I love the tax cuts.

Me : Wow, your world sounds great! Because in the real world, the tax "cuts" amounted to an average of $300 and were just an advance on the next year's bill, and terrorism has steadily increased worldwide since we invaded Iraq.

Did Bush invade Iraq in your world? Probably not, because in the real world, that turned out to be a horrific blunder that gave terrorists a complete training course on "how to competely embarrass the U.S. Military", lead to huge recruitment numbers, increased Iran's power in the region, and sapped our already flagging credibility in the Middle East. Bummer. Guess that didn't happen in your world?

In the real world, climate change poses an even greater threat to economic stability than terrorism. Did they solve that in your world?

What other wonders do they have in your world? Flying cars? Dinosaurs that play chess? Talking dogs?

-pb

Number of illegal wiretaps required to bring down the cell plotting to assault Fort Dix: 0
Number of prisoners tortured for info to bring down the cell plotting to assault Fort Dix: 0
Actual cause for the downfall of the cell: a concerned citizen and some good old-fashioned police work.

Note to Bush: Apparently shredding the Constitution wasn't necessary, was it? By the way, what was your rationale for fighting them "over there" again? Some New Yorkers might disagree, but New Jersey is not "over there".

Fighting them over there makes us less able to fight them over here. It also makes us much less able to fight threats like hurricanes and tornados. And no, it's not because the governor of Kansas didn't fill out the paperwork correctly, you asshole. It's a simple matter of "all my fucking equipment got blown up or just left in Iraq".

Note to New Jersey jihadis: Fort Dix? Come on, are you fucking kidding me? FORT DIX? Wow, just... man, you should apply for jobs in the Bush administration. You've got about the right intelligence level for it.

-pb

Khalid Sheik Mohammad has confessed to a laundry list of foul deeds. Taking him at his word, he's a mass murderer, at best, an inhuman killing machine at worst. But, why would he bother to confess?

Because he knows he's going to die. And if he's going to die, better that he puffs himself up into the biggest, baddest martyr that he can possibly be. This is one of the failings of a system that advocates the death penalty against people who are apparently unafraid to die. Nice deterrent, huh?

KSM was held in secret prisons and tortured, so there's no way that they can bring him to a civilian trial. The only thing they can do now is to drag him through a kangaroo military tribunal where the only thing made public will be "Guilty - Penalty, death", after which point he will be disposed of. He knows this. He knows that regardless of what he says (No, you got the wrong guy! My name is Khalim Sheik Mohammad!), they're going to kill him. So, why not make a legend out of himself?

Why not take credit for WTC '93, 9/11, Daniel Pearl, Pearl Harbor, Harboring Joseph Goebbles, etc., etc, ad infinitum. He's guaranteeing that a) jihadis will remember him as a powerful martyr and b) U.S. intel will never know if he was lying or if the real perpetrators are still out there.

Smart move by a dead man. Dumb move by Bush for sentencing him before the trial.

-pb

I think I'm getting scandal fatigue.

Fuck that, I have scandal fatigue.

Let's recap 1992-2000, shall we? Feel free to point out things I miss.

Whitewater
Waco
Ruby Ridge
Monica Lewinsky

That's the four major cock-ups of the Clinton years. What was the end result? An impeachment proceeding.

Now, 2000-2007:

Katherine Harris
9/11
Afghanistan
Iraq
More time spent cutting brush than presidenting
Ken Blackwell
Warrantless Wiretapping
Katrina
Secret prisons
Abu Ghraib
Military tribunals
Harriet Miers
Jeff Gannon
Cheney's Got a Gun
Scooter Libby
FBI Patriot Act abuses
Prosecutor dismissals

And that's just the shit I can name off the top of my head. Two stolen elections, two wars, countless violations of the Constitution.

End result? One convicted staffer and a president who thinks that a 30% approval rating is a mandate to ignore the other two branches of government.

I keep thinking "maybe this is the scandal that brings it all down", but I know that it's not. The man was caught lying about a justification for a war that has cost over 3,000 American lives and just south of a million Iraqi lives and over two million refugees. The greatest security breach in American history happened on his watch because he didn't feel like reading a memo, and then any lessons that could have been learned from that were promptly forgotten, leading to the destruction of an entire city.

So no, the scandal du jour is not going to be the one that brings it all down. The only thing that we (hopefully) have to look forward to is January 20, 2009. That is, assuming, that 50.1% of the ballots counted aren't in favor of someone equally as repugnant.

-pb

"Them's fightin' words whar I comes from!"

"Then why don't you fight?"

"'Cuz I aren't WHAR I comes from!"

That's pretty much was Australian Prime Minister John Howard was saying when he called a Barack Obama victory “catastrophic for the West” and stated that Al-Qaeda is rooting for Obama.

Obama wasted no time in firing back: “So if he is ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq”. Just for comparison, Australia has 1400 troops in Iraq. Howard thought it would be bad to pull troops out, stating “Let me make it perfectly clear, if I hear a policy being advocated that is contrary to Australia’s security interests, I will criticize it.”

Uh, yeah. Let me guess, you think that one Australian is worth 10 Americans? Lunatic. Put up or shut up.

-pb

I'd just like to say that I don't care what kind of evidence Bush claims to have about Iran. I seriously don't care. Even if he shows us a tape of Ahmedinejad dancing with glee over IED attacks and taking full credit, I still won't believe it. I'll simply assume that he's fabricated the evidence. And if I'm wrong and he was telling the truth? Well, you can't trust a liar, so it's not my fault he hasn't given me reason to believe him yet.

-pb

So, Boston was locked up tighter yesterday than a random Pakistani wedding attendant at Gitmo. And why? Because some Aqua Teen Hunger Force paraphernalia scared the bejeebus out of the city and brought it to its knees.

Let me reiterate: A bunch of electronic ATHF signs shut down a major metropolis.

Is America terrorized? You bet your ass we are. But it’s not all of America. It’s just the East Coast (and pretty much all the Red States).

Remember that scene in ID4 where they juxtapose the LA reaction to the alien ships with the New York reaction? In LA, people gazed happily into the sky, gathering like it was a party. In New York, people lost their shit. Car accidents, looting, mayhem and mass evacuations. People went batshit insane.

Pretty much the same thing happened yesterday, only instead of gigantic malevolent genocidal alien vessels causing these reactions, it was AN ADVERTISING GIMMICK. You see, in Seattle, people saw them, understood them, and then ignored them.

Let’s look at this for a second, shall we? The items in question here were circuit boards with blue LEDs in the shape of Err, a character from the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, giving the finger. Attached to these boards were a simple battery pack. With some duct tape on the back, a number of these things were slapped onto various buildings in 18 cities, most on the coasts. They were placed between two and three weeks ago.

In Seattle (and pretty much every where else, I suppose), people saw them and either laughed because they knew what they were, or just ignored them. No one cared. In Boston, after nearly two weeks (and the batteries going low), someone saw one on a bridge and thought “zOMG WTF IT’S A GODDAMNED AL-QAEDA BOMB GIVING ME THE FINGER!!!!11eleventyone!” and called the authorities. Now, here’s where shit gets interesting.

The authorities apparently find a few more and decide that it is, in fact, an insidious Al-Qaeda plot to make us laugh and then blow us up. They then bring the city to a grinding halt while they try to disarm these WMDs. The media’s collective head explodes.

CNN merrily reports on this impending doom in Boston for HOURS, apparently oblivious to the fact that a) it’s a cartoon character and b) it’s a cartoon character made by a company that’s owned by the SAME COMPANY THAT OWNS CNN. So, CNN looks like raving idiots.

12 hours after this incident starts, someone from Turner calls Boston and says “Jesus, people, it’s just an ad campaign!” Boston doubles over, throws up, and goes back to being a regular city, albeit a bit pissed off.

A couple of questions here:

1) How come it took three weeks to notice this shit?
2) If people in Seattle knew it was harmless, why didn’t anyone there call Boston?
3) Why didn’t the FBI have someone do a Google search to find one of the hundreds of blogs that had already discussed this?
4) How come no one in the FBI already knew about this?
5) Why did it take Turner 12 FUCKING HOURS to realize this was going on, when CNN was reporting it? You mean to tell me that not a single person involved with this was watching the news? What, were they all in the toilet?

This was a clusterfuck from the ground up. They wasted time and effort on something they could have cleared up by Googling.

They arrested two guys who had put these things up and charged them with planting hoax bombs. Well, that’s great. First off, they weren’t hoax bombs, so the charge is stupid. Second, way to go arresting guys who were putting up a marketing campaign. Good job. I’m sure those two guys are really sorry for conceiving and executing this. Oh, wait, they didn’t. They just put the damn things up. Remember when you were a kid and some asshole you were hanging out with started chucking rocks at a hornet’s nest and you got stung even though you were just standing there? That’s these guys. They didn’t cause this scare. Their intent was not to freak people out. They were sent out by a company that said “do this”, and I can imagine that it didn’t look explicitly illegal. Heck, it was even blogged about. They FILMED IT. Big bad terrorists!

Way to go, Bush administration. We’re even afraid of our own fucking shadow now. Meanwhile, in some posh Pakistani dialysis ward, Osama bin Laden is flipping us off and saying “I hope America can see this because I’m doing it as hard as I can”.

-pb

It's like one of those highly exaggerated clips where you see someone diving for a falling explosive in super-slow motion, screaming "NOOOOOOOO" in that time-distorted ultra-bass.

In this case, it's the United States moving in slow-mo, and the rest of the world is moving at normal speed.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- International warships under the command of the U.S. Navy moved Thursday into waters off Yemen, attempting to block possible escape routes for 23 prisoners who escaped last week, a senior U.S. military official said.

Now, I certainly don't know our exact force deployment, or average travel times and whatnot, but I can, with some certainty, expect that we have some sort of naval presence in the Persian Gulf. I can also be reasonably assured that our "allies in the Great War on Terror", mainly Yemen, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have some naval presence off their own shores. I can also expect that some of the "Coalition of the Bribed Willing" have some sort of naval presence there as well.

So why did it take them a WEEK to move ships into the region to head off an escape? It's highly likely that the escapees were gone like fog at noon within two days of the escape, but it took us a week to get our shit together. Hmm. Sounds similar to cornering Osama, and then outsourcing his capture to Northern Alliance forces. Sounds similar to Porter Goss saying we know where Osama is, but we can't get to him for fear of invading sovereign territory, because we never ever ever do that, ever. Never ever. Sounds like when we had the chance to kill Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi before he could begin the insurgency, but decided that securing the oil fields was a more pressing concern.

Yeah. meekay is going to suggest that I not attribute to malice what can be explained through incompetence, but that doesn't make me feel any better. I can either believe that our government is, at very least, purposefully not putting out an effort to capture terrorists, or, I can believe that they are too fucking incompetent to tie their own goddamn shoes. Either way, it's having the same effect. Osama is still on the loose, there's a flourishing insurgency in Iraq and the country is at the brink of civil war, and now there are 23 more known terrorists on the loose.

Sounds to me like we're turning yet another corner!

-pb

From the official transcript of the Judiciary Committee's hearings on the WireGate (laughter NOT added by me).

Senator Joseph Biden (D-MBNA) : General, how has this revelation damaged the program?

I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.

I mean, I'm a little confused. How did it damage this?

Attorney General Alberto "Waterboard" Gonzales : Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer.

And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true -- you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

(Laughter)

That's right, folks. The wiretap story damaged national security because AL QAEDA FORGETS HOW TO ACT LIKE TERRORISTS, and it may have reminded them. Just like Newsweek printed that story about the Qur'an, and the magazine itself went fucking Mickey and Mallory in Jalalabad.

I've lost all faith in humanity. If the world's most organized and deadly terrorist organization FORGETS how to be terrorists from time to time, what's next? The worlds largest force for democracy forgetting how to act like a democracy? Oh, wait... (Laughter)

-pb

I haven't been motivated to rant lately, so I pretty much missed the boat on this. After some drama over at actual_liberals, I decided to weigh in on the story.

Personally, the more details I hear about it, the more it sounds like a colossal fuck-up. First, it was one Air Marshal who fired one shot, killing a man on the tarmac who was screaming about having a bomb. Now, it's two AMs unloading into a guy on the jetway while his wife screamed that he was bipolar and off his meds.

What bothers me is that many passengers reported that the man had been acting erraticly during the flight, yet BOTH AMs failed to notice or clarify this. These men have guns. In the interest of not compromising their undercover status, I'm sure that they have some way of communicating with the ground, or even the cockpit. Had they arranged for a steward to ask questions, the mans wife would probably have explained right then and there. Problem averted. However, he was of course in the wrong. He was Flying While Brown, and as we saw in London, taking any form of transporation While Brown is pretty dangerous.

All this technology, and they still can't keep us safe without filling someone with lead every now and then. We live in a society that accepts a loss of innocent life for our own safety. That's the worst part about this whole thing.

-pb

In the wake of the execution-style murder of Jean Charles de Menezes by London police as he boarded a train, wearing a sweater and armed only with his valid Underground pass, the London PD has announced no change to their "Shoot to kill brown people" policy. A CNN poll today asks "Is the "shoot-to-kill" policy by police in London justified?"

And now, to demonstrate just how willing people are to give up not only personal freedoms, but the life of the occassional innocent person just for the illusion of safety, is the response to the poll:

Yes		70%	13989 votes
No		30%	5969 votes
Total: 19958 votes

This sounds like the plot of many a horror/sci-fi story where people are all too glad to sacrifice a random citizen to sate their evil overlord, all the while acting like this is normal, and that the sacrificed victim never existed.

-pb

(title quote from Issue 1 of Walter Koenig's 'Raver')

(via Mary Shaw)

White guy tries to board plane with a bomb in his backpack

What was that, England? What was that, Ann Coulter? Sure this *may* have been an innocent misunderstanding, or he could be another Tim McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph, etc...

It's not just Muslims and darker-than-Anglo people out there trying to blow shit up. Just ask your average Iraqi.

-pb

Freed Italian journalist wounded, bodyguard killed in Baghdad

Hey, Ronald Dumbsfeld, answer me this: was it a mistake that they fired on her, or a mistake that they didn't kill her?

-pb

Bin Laden message to al-Zarqawi intercepted

Who the hell is this Osama bin Laden guy they keep talking about? Is he like the evil leader of Iran or something? I don't think I've ever heard his name before.

<smirk>

-pb

'The Salvador Option'

Bush is now in his legacy term, and he's looking to his idols for ideas. Now, he turns to Ronald Reagan, who, for some insane reason, is remembered for winning the Cold War, and apparently dying for all of our sins.

How will history judge George Bush? He's lost a lot of jobs, just like Reagan. He's done illegal shit, just like Reagan. Now, his top military advisors are considering using in Iraq the same Reagan tactics that worked so well in El Salvador. You know, death squads, dissapearing people, gunning down nuns.

Dateline, 2024: Former President George W. Bush has died peacefully at his home in Crawford Texas. President Bush is remembered as one of America's greatest presidents, winning election in 2000 and 2004 by margins wide enough to secure mandates. He won the war on homosexuality, and defeated the Middle East by decisively eradicating anyone who even looked funny at an American. Stay tuned for 24-hour coverage of the funeral proceedings here on Fox-1. Tune in to Fox-2 for a complete history of President Bush, or watch reactions from his family on Fox-3. Former President Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, will make a brief statement from Guantanamo Bay, where she is being held in exile after the execution of her parents as enemies of the state. This can be viewed on Fox-4. Reactions to the criminal hijacking on Fox-5 by Howard Dean and Barack Obama, leaders of the terrorist Freedom for America organization, can be viewed on Fox-6 later this afternoon. Be well, citizens! This is your Fair And Balanced news channel.

-pb

As the Constitution is a living document, I felt that it was time to update the Bill of Rights to reflect the current state of affairs. Here's how they really read, rearranged in order of importance.

Amendment I
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, limited, or in any way circumvented.

Amendment II
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion other than the doctrines of The Southern Baptist Church, or prohibiting the free exercise of the doctrines of The Southern Baptist Church; or of the press (unless such press is judged to be too liberal); or the right of the people peaceably to assemble (unless such gathering is in the interests of protest against the government), and to petition the government for a redress of grievances (unless such grievances are of a nature not conducive to government integrity). The right of the people to speak freely shall not be infringed unless said speech is offensive to the doctrines of The Southern Baptist Church.

Amendment III
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, unless denial of rights is adjudged to be in the best interest of the Southern Baptist Church.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, unless there exists suspicion that a crime has been committed, or may be committed at some future time.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation; unless that person be adjudged to be a combatant of an either identified or unidentified force that is adjudged to be hostile to the government, upon which adjudgement all rights guaranteed are null and void.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense; unless the accused be adjudged to be a combatant of an either identified or unidentified force that is adjudged to be hostile to the government, upon which adjudgement all rights guaranteed are null and void.

Amendment VII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted; unless the accused be adjudged to be a combatant of an either identified or unidentified force that is adjudged to be hostile to the government, upon which adjudgement all rights guaranteed are null and void.

Amendment VIII
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people, or The Supreme Court for matters of electoral decisions where the outcome is not immediately clear.

Amendment IX
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment X
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.


-pb

Day After Thanksgiving Anti-Capitalist Actions

I found this article on PhillyIMC.org while browsing for anything protest-related coming up in Philly. I don't even know why I bother, because nearly every time I go to the site, there's something there about how some Leftist was taken down by the faceless man, and is now being incarcerated just for existing. Typically, said 'Leftist' was involved in criminal activity, and the man had every right to take him down. But no, since they were lefties, they must have been purer that Jesus. Fuck that.

Anyway, back to the article. It's basically a call to get rowdy on November 26th, because there's nothing that a Leftist hates more than Capitalism (because, you know, we're all fucking Communists. Yay Stalin!). One of the lines that stood out was this: "This is a non-violent call, but property destruction is not violence against a person."

Tell that to the Argentinian security guard that was killed this week when someone blew up a Citibank branch in Buenos Aries. Property destruction doesn't hurt faceless corporations, it hurts people. Real flesh-and-blood people. Sure, you may blow up an empty building, but what about the people who work there? You may get a mall shut down on November 26th, but what about the hundreds of commissioned sales employees that are going to make 1/20th of their YEARLY SALARY on that day (And don't think it doesn't happen, I've been there).

I'm sick of these disorganized 'revolutionaries' who think that they can take down the establishment by distrupting consumer traffic on the SECOND biggest shopping day of the year (The fuckers don't even realize that the Saturday before Christmas is often bigger). I'm fed up with PETA members who think that spray painting a few fur coats is going to save animals everywhere. I'm tired of extremists within Greenpeace that take the same tack against SUVs. Yeah! Spray paint that Hummer! You're sure to fix that hole in the ozone layer that way!

There's a system in place, and while it may appear to be completely fucked, the best way to effect change is to work within the system instead of writing a whole damn new one based on violence.

Violence is not the answer. It never was, and it never will be. Violence against property, people or whatever isn't going to get you anywhere. It's just going to make your cause look even more radical, and less appreciated.

-pb

Who killed Margaret Hassan?

My belief that there is a massive shadow war being perpetrated by US operatives has once again been bolstered.

-pb

It employs the moral equivalent of flying airliners into buildings.

http://d-n-i.net/lind/lind_10_21_04.htm

-pb

My blanket response to Ann Coulter's tabloid journalism for this week:

Dan Rather was a moron, this much we know. He and his staff screwed the pooch. It's unfortunate, but it's not the first time a journalist has been duped by fakes, jumped the gun, or rushed to scoop a story and forgot to cross his i's and dot his t's. It won't be the last.

Whoop-tee-doo. I don't hear the 'liberal media' screaming about how Bush isn't really the president (real liberals haven't forgotten the 2000 coup). I don't hear the 'liberal media' howling about how the Bush junta manipulated documents, the press, unwitting Secretaries of State, their own parents, etc... to bomb the crap out of the nation that just so happens to be squatting overtop of the second largest oil reserve in the world. I don't hear the 'liberal media' blasting Dick Cheney for telling Senator Leahy to "GO FUCK YOURSELF" (Although I do remember a two-week circus over Theresa Heinz Kerry saying "Shove it"). I don't hear the 'liberal media' going for the jugular over the prison abuse scandal. I don't hear very much about the fact that our government has been holding an American citizen in Gitmo in solitary confinement for THREE YEARS, even though evidence shows that HE'S INNOCENT. I don't remember there being more than a few seconds devoted to continuing talk from high-ranking Republicans stating that if you vote for John Kerry, you're actually personally flying a plane into the Sears Tower at 10:00am (for maximum casualties, mind you). I didn't hear rabid outrage over the assult weapon ban expiring, except for maybe the two days AFTER IT EXPIRED. But it's all good now!

So Dan Rather and CBS screwed up. When the rest of the media starts clinging to a non-biased, ethical standard, you can come to me and say "Look! This man is obviously biased!" Perhaps then I'll be more critical of him.

Until then, when a journalist lies for the Left, I'll consider that fair and balanced, Because the media's been lying for the Right for way too long. If journalism is all about lying, it's time we got a piece of the pie.

-pb

There's been a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth among the Democrats since Vice President Cheney said if the country makes the wrong choice on Election Day, "then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." (I mean there is weeping among Democrats who aren't actually rooting for us to get hit again because "we deserve it!")

She couldn’t resist the sweet sweet words of Smoove B. Ann has come back. And she starts off with a hint that Democrats everywhere are simply wetting themselves in anticipation of another attack, because “we deserve it”. Right. That’s what I’m looking forward to, I’ll tell you what.

I believe this is one of those "issues" Democrats claim to be champing at the bit to discuss – in lieu of discussing the charges of the Swift Boat veterans. In fact, there is no more important issue in this election: Which candidate will best protect America from terrorist attack? Hint: It's not the guy whose running mate (sounding so much like Sean Hayes from "Will and Grace" it was eerie) said their message to the terrorists was: "We will destroy youuuuuuu!"

Ok, John Edwards says to the terrorists “We will destroy you.” Let me get this straight. When John Edwards says it, it’s not true, right? Because way back on November 8, 2001, George W. Bush said “Where terrorist group exist of global reach, the United States and our friends and allies will seek it out and we will destroy it.”

And wow, hasn’t he done a great job? At least seven people in the Australian Embassy in Jakarta are so overjoyed with his destruction of terrorism, that they’re dead. Of course, it could be because of the bomb that went off there this morning. Who knows? Certainly, when John Edwards didn’t immediately follow up his statement by killing five terrorists with his bare hands, he was basically saying “I lied, I didn’t mean it, I want extremists to fly planes into buildings.”

Of course, it gets complicated trying to do a side-by-side comparison of the candidates' positions on terrorism since we don't know which John Kerry is running for president. The one who opposes war with Iraq or the one who supports it? The one who opposes the Patriot Act or the one who voted for it? The one who wants to work with the allies, or the one who ridicules them when they support America?

Well I don’t know. Do I vote for the George Bush who was against the formation of the 9/11 commission, or the one who was behind it? The guy who wasn’t going to accept their findings, or the one who’s working to put them in place? So I cast my ballot for the Bush that was going to be single-minded in his determination to find, capture and/or kill Osama bin Laden, or to I give the not to the guy who can’t remember bin Laden’s name? The list goes on. Apparently, we’ve got four candidates. Oh, and there’s Cobb, Nader and Badnarik, too. Wonder how much flip-flopping they’ve done.

The only way Kerry's constantly changing positions on little matters like war would seem rational is if we found out he was using a Ouija board to determine his positions – much as he's using a crystal ball to predict when we should start removing U.S. troops from Iraq. Six months – whoops, no, four years. Stupid crystal balls – they never work!

Republicans have been having raucous fun trying to predict what Kerry's next policy shift will be. Education? AIDS? Pollution? Dang! He picked women's rights! OK, here's another dollar. Give me three more balls, please.

An elephant with three balls… Ok, I’m not even going to go there. Plain and simple, Kerry has a plan to get troops out. Even if that plan takes four years, it’s still better than no plan. Kerry supports women’s rights. Bush signs bills that quash them while he’s surrounded by aging, impotent men who golf-clap. Bush thinks that AIDS are the people who run around making his presidency work. Education, well heck. We don’t have none of those fancy words in Texas.
Incidentally, of the massive funding for No Child Left Behind, a great deal of it is going to textbook manufacturers in Texas. Interesting, that.

While waiting for the Ouija board to give us Kerry's final answer on the Iraq war, perhaps we could get an answer on something simpler – like whether or not Kerry owns an SUV.
During the Democratic primaries, Kerry went to Michigan and bragged to the Detroit News: "We have some SUVs. We have a Jeep. We have a couple of Chrysler minivans. We have a PT Cruiser up in Boston. I have an old Dodge 600 that I keep in the Senate. ... We also have a Chevy, a big Suburban." He was starting to sound like a used-car dealer in a giant cowboy hat peddling his wares in a cheesy, low-budget late-night TV commercial: "We got Jeeps, we got PT Cruisers, we got minivans, and they're priced to move, folks ..."

But a few months after Kerry won the Michigan primary in February, the feckless opportunist told a bunch of environmentalists: "I don't own an SUV." When pressed on the apparent contradiction, Kerry explained: "The family has it. I don't have it." We're still waiting for reaction from some group calling themselves "SUV Owners for the Truth."

Ok, so Kerry owns a few world-killing vehicles. So do a lot of Americans. Now, if it were Dennis Kucinich offering that speech, it’d be hypocritical. But it’s not. It’s John Kerry being a bit of a moron and trying to play both sides of a very small coin. Compare and contrast George Bush and his cocaine use. Did he? Didn’t he? Apparently, it was vitally important to know just how much marijuana passed into Bill Clinton’s esophagus, but don’t even begin to question how much nose candy George has sucked up his snout.

As I recall, when it came to funding his campaign last January with a $6 million mortgage on the "family" home in Boston – owned by Kerry's billionaire wife – he was not so picky about what he owns and what she owns. Back then, Kerry had somewhat more liberal views on the notion of "community property" – or maybe that was just the pre-nup talking.

Hrm. If it were Theresa Heinz Kerry’s house, then how, exactly, could he have mortgaged it to fund his campaign? He couldn’t accept more than $2000 in pre-marital assets from her. I’m sure that the FEC would have been on that like flies on dung.

While Kerry works out his positions, apparently the voters have decided that their legitimate act of self-defense is to vote for Bush.

Here we go again with the divisiveness. When Ann refers to the voters, she’s doing a Florida Modified Count, because the last time I checked, it was a dead heat between Bush and Kerry. So, Ann’s just ditching the half she doesn’t agree with, and claiming that the voters are going to vote Bush. Perhaps she works with Diebold? Welcome back, Ann.

Of course, I am a bit miffed that she didn’t even broach the Clinton subject. I mean, come on. The guy’s laying there on the table, sedated. I guess maybe it was too close to the way she has to get dates for her to go after him.

-pb

It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.

Dick Cheney, 07 September 2004

The Spin Machine goes into overdrive. A few months back, the comic strip The Boondocks ran a mock campaign ad:

John Kerry doesn't like George Bush. And neither do the terrorists!! That's because President Bush fights terrorists. So if John Kerry doesn't like President Bush, who does he like? John Kerry SUPPORTS TERRORISM. ...and that's a FACT!

It's one of those comics that, when you see it, you laugh. You think 'yeah, I know things are bad. This is over the top, but I get the point'. And then suddenly, life imitates art. Dick Cheney gets up to the podium and tells you that a vote for Kerry is literally begging Osama bin Laden to shoot your dog and blow up your house. He says, in no uncertain terms, that if a certain candidate is elected, then the country will not suffer another attack. This isn't even a slam on Kerry's perceived ineffectiveness in the face of another 9/11-style attack. It's a statement that even having him as our president is going to provoke such an attack. It’s an allegation that John Kerry, minutes after being sworn in, is going to allow terrorists to fly planes into buildings.

John Edwards responded by saying that Cheney's statements had "crossed the line". You know what? The line is gone, John. It was wiped away a long time ago. When your opponent won't play by the rules, or simply makes them up as he goes, it's time to fight back. It’s time to get dirty.

I know that the Democrats have been trying (maybe not always succeeding) to run a clean campaign. I understand that we’ve heard very little from the Kerry camp due to the fact that they wanted to spend as little as possible until Bush accepted the nomination, so that they could be on as equal financial ground as possible. I know that Kerry ‘misunderestimated’ the damage the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to his credibility. It’s September now, though, and the gloves need to come off. It’s time to tell the American people exactly what they get if they vote Bush:

They get a guy that took seven minutes to snap out of a children’s book-induced stupor after being informed that our country was under direct assault and civilians were dying by the hundreds.

They get a guy that gave tax cuts to the top 1% of the population and tried to convince the other 99% that they were benefiting.

They get a guy who manufactured evidence to invade a sovereign nation.

They get a guy who swore on the ground that 3000 American died on that he would catch their killer, and identified that man as Osama bin Laden. No one at the RNC even mentioned bin Laden’s name, and he’s still at large, three years later. No one has even a clue where he is.

They get a guy who dodged a draft, yet sees fit to put young men and women in harm's way.

They get a dry drunk, an untreated alcoholic. They get a man who has used illegal drugs.

They get a man who’s alienated our allies and single-handedly given the US a worse public image around the world. He has made the world a less-safe place for Americans (and that’s saying a lot, consider we weren’t well-liked before).

If they vote for Kerry, they get a guy that might not have it all together. They might get a guy who sits at a desk for four years and just keeps the ship from tipping over. They might get a guy who’s about as bland as plain yogurt. But they’re not getting a megalomaniac who likes to blow up countries. And they certainly won’t be getting Dick Cheney as Vice President again. This country needs a VP who’s going to help with policy. We need a guy who’s going to put a positive face on America. We need a guy who’s going to represent us. What we’ve got now is a man with financial interest in a company that miraculously gets all the juicy government contracts, and then rips off the government. A man who takes Supreme Court judges duck hunting shortly before they rule on his cases. A man who once told the Senate to vote against the B-1 bomber, but now attacks Senators who voted against the B-1 bomber.

John Kerry needs to make it painfully clear: He may be plain yogurt, but Bush/Cheney is rotten, worm-ridden bread. It’s not a hard choice.

-pb

...And Arnie's not up to the job, apparently.

I watched some of the more notable speakers at the DNC, and heard recaps of the rest. I haven't watched a minute of actual RNC coverage, for fear of having an aneurysm, but I have