Sunday, October 23, 2005

Oh Really. Ya Think?

Take a look at this--it's from the Times.


"Leak Case Renews Questions on War's Rationale

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 - The legal and political stakes are of the highest order, but the investigation into the disclosure of a covert C.I.A. officer's identity is also just one skirmish in the continuing battle over the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq.

That fight has preoccupied the White House for more than three years, repeatedly threatening President Bush's credibility and political standing, and has now once again put the spotlight on Vice President Dick Cheney, who assumed a critical role in assembling and analyzing the evidence about Iraq's weapons programs.

The dispute over the rationale for the war has led to upheaval in the intelligence agencies, left Democrats divided about how aggressively to break with the White House over Iraq and exposed deep rifts within the administration and among Republicans.

The combatants' intensity was underscored this week in a speech by Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Colin L. Powell while he was secretary of state, who complained of a "cabal" between Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when it came to Iraq and other national security issues and of a "real dysfunctionality" in the administration's foreign policy."

Oy.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

"Considering the Gravity of the Suspected Crime"

I've been reading the Fitzgerald website this morning with great interest, and I'm noticing things I must have read about before, but not quite noticed.

Testimony [by Miller] "appears essential in remedying a serious breach of public trust . . ;" "the crimes being investigated have national security implications . . ;" courts should not "protect sources whose leaks harm national security . . ;" "possible violations of laws protecting national security interests . . .."

I was struck also by this phrase from Judge Tatel: "considering the gravity of the suspected crime . . ." That phrase, in and of itself, should have shut up the black-heart neo-con spin machinists, with their "it's just a teeny weeny wittle crime, why should anyone's panties be oh so twisted" warble.

Hmm. No panties quite as twisted as the intelligence on Iraq by the top-level Bushist fascists.

More to come.




Friday, October 21, 2005

First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work. (Redux)

We've been here before at No Blood for Hubris, and now we're here again. (via A Night Light)

Here we have another story of the black-heart neo-cons screwing the post-born, in this case, the post-born who are veterans. Post-born veterans of wars they fought for on our behalf and who became disabled by PTSD because of the wars they fought. On our behalf.

The figures are even worse than what was previously reported. The Bush government is trying to screw SEVENTY-TWO THOUSAND VETS WITH PTSD by reviewing their files and coming to the conclusion that they don't have PTSD. All in order to save money on treatment (like saving money by having no armor) so they can piss it all away again.

"VA UNDER FIRE FOR PLAN TO REVIEW ALL POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER CLAIMS

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Veterans groups and House Democrats blasted VA plans to review all post-traumatic stress disorder claims because of irregularities in their compensation system, calling it insulting to heroes who have served their country.

'To the VA, this is simply a process seeking out voids in paperwork,' said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M, at a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill. 'But to veterans, it’s a jolting realization that their day-to-day struggles are being questioned again.'

In August, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans to review 72,000 cases where veterans had received a 100 percent disability rating for post-traumatic stress disorder . . critics called it a way for the department to save money by shirking its duty to care for disabled veterans.

Quentin Kinderman, deputy director of legislative service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, called the IG report flawed and the proposed review a waste of money.

"There is very little potential to reduce the number of cases here," he said. "And we’ve very concerned about the impact of the review and publicity on veterans, especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who need the kind of counseling that the VA can provide."

Democrats echoed those concerns, and called for a halt to plans to review the cases.

Udall said in one case, a veteran in his district committed suicide after hearing about plans for the review."

Sorry, but do we have another Arabian horse fancier running the VA now? Is someone there unaware of the levels of suicidality and/or homicidality that can occur with cases of PTSD? Does the VA not understand that PTSD is a serious diagnosis? Guess not.


"Officials from New Mexico found the man, a Vietnam veteran, with information regarding the review beside his Purple Heart when he took his life."


Well, that death will save the Bushists a cool ten grand, will it not?

Profits over people. Profiteering over people.

Cutting corners by short-changing veterans who were wounded in battle? These are the people who smugly call themselves "pro-life"? You kidding me?

When will the American people have had enough? When will we care for the post-born?




No Blood for Hubris' Official Mental Health Interlude--No. 3 (Patrick Fitzgerald Website)

Do we all love primary sources, or what?

Here is Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's new website, hat tip to RawStory.

This qualifies as No Blood for Hubris' latest official mental health interlude since it is inspiring and uplifting to learn of honest persons pursuing virtuous ends by virtuous means.

For a change.

We Can't Care for the Kids We Already Have, Part Three

Tell me, does this sound familiar? As in echoing the case of the mother in Texas, Andrea Yates, who drowned her own five children?

"Woman Charged in Deaths of Her 3 Children

By CAROLYN MARSHALL

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20 - A woman whose family said she heard voices that told her to dump her three young children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay was charged Thursday with three counts of murder.

The mother, Lashaun T. Harris, 23, of Oakland, has been in custody since Wednesday in the killings of the children, identified by the police as Treyshun Harris, 6; Taronta Greeley, 2; and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months.

Rescuers recovered Taronta's body at 10 p.m. on Wednesday near the St. Francis Yacht Club, near the Golden Gate Bridge but about two miles from Pier 7 and the Ferry Building, where the police believe that Ms. Harris dumped the children.

The police said the search began at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday after an unidentified man called 911 to report he had seen the woman throw at least one child into the water.

The San Francisco police chief, Heather Fong, said on Thursday that a multiagency air, land and water search was under way, with 80 rescuers from the San Francisco Police and Fire Departments, the California Highway Patrol and the Coast Guard scouring the waterfront area. . . "

But with the San Francisco Bay's notoriously strong tides and 55-degree waters, finding the children alive and rescuing them was unlikely, she said, adding, "We have turned this into a recovery effort. . . "

"The waters are very murky and we literally have zero visibility," said one diver after a 30-minute dive. "We weren't lucky."

Ms. Harris apparently came from a large family, and about 40 of her relatives and friends gathered at Pier 7 on Thursday hoping to get information about the children. Friends and relatives said they had been worried recently about Ms. Harris's mental stability.

"She had been crying out for help," said Avery Garrett, 41, an Oakland resident who identified himself as Ms. Harris's uncle.

Ms. Harris had been living at a Salvation Army shelter in Oakland, Mr. Garrett said. He said he believed that she had been taking medication for emotional problems.

But Ms. Harris desperately wanted to get help, Mr. Garrett said, and recently tried to be admitted to a mental health facility. She was not admitted, he said, perhaps because she did not have health insurance."

Sorry, what was that again? She couldn't get treatment for clearly psychotic symptoms because she did not have health insurance?

Now, as I recall, this Preznit once was so moved by the plight of feti who cannot survive on their own that he pledged to provide health insurance for each and every fetus.

Will he be providing health insurance for the post-born anytime soon?

Don't hold your breath.

Will he and his cronies be cutting back even farther on mental and physical health care for those on Medicaid and Medicare anytime soon? You bet he will. He'll do with the most vulnerable sector of our population just what he did with veterans--pay for his useless, vicious war at the expense of the actual needs of actual people.

"Mr. Garrett said the family had grown increasingly concerned recently after Ms. Harris told a relative about the voices."

"She said she heard some voices in her head," Mr. Garrett said, "and they told her to take the kids and feed them to the sharks."

Failing to treat floridly psychotic symptoms like command hallucinations, such that lack of treatment results in the deaths of three post-born children, that should be a wake-up call for even the black-heart neo-cons.

Don't count on it.

To them, the lives and well-being of the post-born count for exactly nothing.




Thursday, October 20, 2005

Neuroscientists With Nothing Better to Do?

What a crock this is, on so many levels.

"Scientists Bridle at Lecture Plan for Dalai Lama

By BENEDICT CAREY

The Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet who is revered as a spiritual teacher, is at the center of a scientific controversy.

He has been an enthusiastic collaborator in research on whether the intense meditation practiced by Buddhist monks can train the brain to generate compassion and positive thoughts. Next month in Washington, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to speak about the research at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

But 544 brain researchers have signed a petition urging the society to cancel the lecture, because, according to the petition, "it will highlight a subject with largely unsubstantiated claims and compromised scientific rigor and objectivity."

Sorry, did I get that right? We're not supposed to study a subject because it hasn't yet been studied?

"Defenders of the Dalai Lama's appearance say that the motivation of many protesters is political, because many are Chinese or of Chinese descent. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese crushed a Tibetan bid for independence.

But many scientists who signed the petition say they did so because they believe that the field of neuroscience risks losing credibility if it ventures too recklessly into spiritual matters."

Oh, no, not that!

"As the public face of neuroscience, we have a responsibility to at least see that research is replicated before it is promoted and highlighted," said Dr. Nancy Hayes, a neurobiologist at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey who objects to the Dalai Lama's speaking. "If we don't do that, we may as well be the Flat Earth Society."

Like that's your job, Nancy? Publicity gatekeeper for neuroscientists? Defender of the materialist faith? Just asking.

"In the past decade, scientists and journalists have increasingly taken interest in meditation and "mindfulness," a related state of focused inner awareness, topics once left to weekend mystics and religious retreats. The Dalai Lama has been working with a small number of researchers to study how the practice of Buddhist contemplation affects moods and promotes a sense of peace and compassion.

In one widely reported 2003 study, Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a team of researchers that found that 25 employees of a biotechnology company showed increased levels of neural activity in the left anterior temporal region of their brains after taking a course in meditation. The region is active during sensations of happiness and positive emotion, the researchers reported.

In a 2004 experiment supported by the Mind and Life Institute, a nonprofit organization that the Dalai Lama helped establish, and also involving Dr. Davidson, investigators tracked brain waves in eight Tibetan monks as they meditated in a state of "unconditional loving-kindness and compassion."

For the record, this exercise involves mentally creating a sense of unconditional compassion. Example: one visualizes Bubble Boy, Big Dick, Rummy, Condi, Turdblossom and the rest of them, and imagines showering them with compassion, and a wish that they achieve a speedy enlightenment. This example, I think, demonstrates what a very challenging method of meditation this is.

(Quite a change from Pat Robertson and his people praying for Supreme Court justices to drop dead).

"Using an electronic scanner, the researchers found that the monks were producing a very strong pattern of gamma waves, a synchronized oscillation of brain cells that is associated with concentration and emotional control. A group of 10 college students who were learning to meditate produced a much weaker gamma signal.

Taken together, the studies suggest that "human qualities like compassion and altruism may in some sense be regarded as skills which can be improved through mental training," said Dr. Davidson, who is director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin.

Yet the neuroscientists who have signed the petition say that there are several problems with this research. First, they say, Dr. Davidson and some of his colleagues meditate themselves, and they have collaborated with the Dalai Lama for years. Dr. Davidson said he had helped persuade the spiritual leader to accept the society's invitation to speak, and was with him when he received the request.

The critics also point out that there are flaws in the 2004 experiment that the researchers have acknowledged: The monks being studied were 12 to 45 years older than the students, and age could have accounted for some of the differences. The students, as beginners, may have been anxious or simply not skilled enough to find a meditative state in the time allotted, which would alter their brain wave patterns. And there was no way to know if the monks were adept at generating high gamma wave activity before they ever started meditating.

"This paper has not tested the idea whether meditation promotes compassion or any kind of positive emotion," Dr. Yi Rao, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who helped draft the petition and was one of the sharpest critics, said in an e-mail message. . . "

Dr. Rao misses the point, which is this: for the first time, there is evidence of distinct physical changes in the brain being brought about by means of intentionally selected, intentionally-directed mental events.

We know about basic mind-body interactions: visualizing oneself biting into a lemon can make one's mouth water. Now we have evidence that the mere act of imagining compassion can change the very waves of one's brain.

For the better, one hopes.

Monday, October 17, 2005

HARRIET: "YES" ON SECRET PACT TO KILL ROE V. WADE

Gee, and we thought all that fuss about Supreme Court Justices was some quaint philosophical strict constructionism stuff, didn't we?

No, we didn't. We knew it was all about power and control--and it is.

It's all about taking back power and control over reproductive freedom from individual women (and their doctors) and handing over power and control to federal and state governments. So much for drowning government in the bathtub.

So much spin over the years, so many lies about "no litmus tests," so much spin about originalism, so much complete crap.

It all began to fall apart because of Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court--all those people who couldn't give a damn about Democrats not having enough information on Roberts, suddenly, their panties are in a twist because they don't have enough info on Harriet.

What info? Oh, info like "has Harriet signed on in her own blood to overturning Roe v. Wade"?

That's what the crackpot right and their Taliban Christ-ists are into. That's why they've been foaming at the mouth.

But foam no more, my ladies, my gents--Harriet's in, she's signed on the dotted line, she's pledged to overturn, all available in black and white from the precious Wall Street Journal.

Here.


Here we have an account of a special phone call including James "Dogbeater" Dobson, who also advocates the whipping of toddlers:

"Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, "Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think."

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, "Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

"Absolutely," said Judge Kinkeade.

"I agree with that," said Justice Hecht. "I concur."


Nauseating.

Government should dare to dictate how many children someone must bear? That's dead wrong.

Government should dare dictate to me the precise moment at which life begins? Absolutely not: that's a matter of personal religious belief.

The state, reasonably enough, has already protected sentient human beings who are able to survive outside the womb. What the Taliban Christ-ists want now is to impose their religious beliefs upon the rest of us.

Speaking as a Buddhist with a strong religious interest in not taking life, one who believes that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, I think it is about time Republican women woke up, and that Democratic and Independent women woke up, and realize that their lives are on the line here.

These Talibangelicals have zero actual interest in protecting life. They have an interest in establishing their power over your lives, and establishing their power over the safety and well-being of you and your families.

This conspiracy of medievalist power and control to overturn Roe v. Wade and send women's rights, human rights back into the dark ages must not stand.




Sunday, October 16, 2005

No Veteran Not Left Behind

Compassion, compassion, compassion.

That's what the Dalai Lama said.

Conservative, conservative, conservative.

That's what the black-heart neo-cons said.

If one scrolls below at No Blood for Hubris, one can see the charming stories such as, "First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You," parts one and two, in which the tale of the notorious non-combatant Daddy's-Friends-Got-Me-Into-The-National-Guards-man and current president Bubble Boy, whose government looks for, and then creates ways to deny mental health treatment to veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder (they do this by deciding, hey! dude! Your flashbacks aren't soooo bad, after all! Adios, amigo! See ya!)

Now, these cuddly neo-cons are doing it again--only it's arguably even more perverse.

Take a gander, but keep a tight fist on your vomit bag:


For Injured U.S. Troops, 'Financial Friendly Fire'

Flaws in Pay System Lead to Dunning, Credit Trouble

By Donna St. George
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A01

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.



At his home near Middletown, N.Y., Robert Loria plays a keyboard. He lost his left hand in a bombing in Iraq.
At his home near Middletown, N.Y., Robert Loria plays a keyboard. He lost his left hand in a bombing in Iraq. (Dominick Fiorille - Middletown Times Herald Record)
'His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life\'s possibilities.'

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

"I was shocked," recalled Loria, now 28 and medically retired from the Army. "After everything that went on, they still had the nerve to ask me for money."

Although Loria's problems may be striking on their own, the Army has recently identified 331 other soldiers who have been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The new analysis comes as the United States has more wounded troops than at any time since the Vietnam War, with thousands suffering serious injury in Iraq or Afghanistan."


I've asked it before, now I'm asking it again: what is frickin' wrong with these people?

Why have they no shame?

Why have they no care, no compassion, no sense of responsibility toward the post-born?

Why is it that only sentimentalist tales of lonely, sightless, womb-encased embryoes, quite unable to live on their own, are able to inspire any kind of fellow-feeling in them, if you can call it that?

Why have these people only charred, black hearts?

Just asking.



Saturday, October 15, 2005

Flame Wars

I can't get over this NY Times story on Traitorgate.

"The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal

By DON VAN NATTA Jr., ADAM LIPTAK and CLIFFORD J. LEVY October 16, 2005

In a notebook belonging to Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, amid notations about Iraq and nuclear weapons, appear two small words: 'Valerie Flame.'

Ms. Miller should have written 'Valerie Plame'. That name is at the core of a federal grand jury investigation that has reached deep into the White House. At issue is whether Bush administration officials leaked the identity of Ms. Plame, an undercover C.I.A. operative, to reporters as part of an effort to blunt criticism of the president's justification for the war in Iraq.

Reuters

THE DIPLOMAT Joseph C. Wilson IV on "Meet the Press" in 2004. He began criticizing the Iraq war in 2003.


Ms. Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify and reveal her confidential source, then relented. On Sept. 30, she told the grand jury that her source was I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. But she said he did not reveal Ms. Plame's name.

And when the prosecutor in the case asked her to explain how 'Valerie Flame' appeared in the same notebook she used in interviewing Mr. Libby, Ms. Miller said she 'didn't think' she heard it from him. 'I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall,' she wrote on Friday, recounting her testimony for an article that appears today. . . "


Judy's account completely defies credulity.

Judy Judy Judy Miller takes down these facts in notes from two of her conversations with Scooter Libby, writing down in one case:

"Valerie Flame."

and in another refers to Wilson's wife as:

"Victoria Wilson."


ARE YOU FRICKIN' KIDDING ME?

These are the notes of a professional journalist? These are the notes of someone who makes her living by writing stories based on accurate notes?

Judy Judy Judy is asking us to believe that she made an error in writing down Wilson's wife's name?

She makes a similar error with the same name--TWICE???????

Those two "errors" demonstrate the whole point. Miller is not an objective journalist here, she is also a player in this dark game.

She is not making two mistakes--she is deliberately trying to cover her tracks.

Unfortunately for Judy Judy Judy, her efforts are ham-handed and completely impossible to believe.

Sorry, Judy. By the way, can you spell "consciousness of guilt"?

Oh, and watch your back, girl. I know you know how things can go when there are "many dark actors playing games," do you not?




IT'S HERE: Government-Forced Maternity!! (Thanks to Pubic-Hair-on-Coke-Can Commentator Justice Thomas)

Supreme Court halts prison abortion order



Missouri officials had been ordered to transport inmate for procedure

"KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday temporarily blocked a federal judge's ruling that ordered Missouri prison officials to drive a pregnant inmate to a clinic on for an abortion.

Justice Clarence Thomas, acting alone, granted the temporary stay pending a further decision by himself or the full court.

Missouri state law forbids spending tax dollars to facilitate an abortion. However, U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple ruled Thursday that the prison system was blocking the woman from exercising her right to an abortion and ordered that the woman be taken to the clinic Saturday."

Here we go again. The womb of an individual post-born person becomes a government-owned and operated "oven," as noted pubic-hair-on-coke-can commentator and dyed in the wool Roe v. Wade Overturner Clarence Thomas exercises his own very special form of judicial activism on an incarcerated woman.

(Oh, goodie, Clarence. Let's start with the down-trodden, they're down-trodden, after all. Let's make sure the poor have no control over their bodies, that they're the very first ones forced to give birth against their will).

In any case, since the prisoner in question is sufficiently pregnant that if the forced maternity lobby can just stall a little longer, the woman will be unable to terminate her pregnancy due to state laws, time is on their side.

Will Justice "Long Dong Silver" Thomas and his ilk be adopting and raising this unwanted child? Will he and they be the one who dies in childbirth?

Certainly not. These anti-choice hysterics are people purely interested in promoting birth and their own "religious" agendas, not promoting health, much less the happiness of families.

It's vile.






UPDATE: October `8, 2005

"GOVERNOR REBUFFED ON ABORTION

Supreme Court lets stand the order forcing Missouri to take inmate to abortion clinic

WASHINGTON--Missouri officials must let a pregnant inmate have an abortion, the Supreme Court said yesterday, rejecting an appeal by anti-abortion Gov. Matt Blunt.. . . Blunt criticized the court, saying its decision is "highly offensive to traditional Missouri values . . ."


So watch out now, ladies and gentlemen. "Traditional Missouri values" (sic) are coming your way--which means having sectarian religious views forced on you by government, instead of exercising freedom to reproduce by consent of the individual.

Friday, October 14, 2005

No Blood for Hubris' Official Mental Health Interlude--No. 2

Short. Unbelievably sweet.

So deeply satisfying--it speaks for itself.

Please, fellow citizens. Use it freely.

Here it is.

Karmically korrect metaphorical karmic korrection for--Bubble Boy.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Bubble Boy's Bolton Does It Again.

Really I think No Blood for Hubris' favorite Bushist apparatchik is Jolly John Bolton, Mr. Mustache. The one who arguably ordered the workup on Joe Wilson, the one known as a "kiss-up, kick-down kinda guy" even by his fellow rightwingers, the one who had no problem with screaming at co-workers, threatening subordinates, and generally behaving in ways that would have gotten him thrown out of any civilized society save a special needs kindergarten. (No offense to special-needers nor kindergartners).

Now he's joined up with those shining lights of human rights governments, China, Algeria, and Russia, in order to put the kibosh on a briefing by Kofi Annan on atrocities in sudan and the status of human rights there. Well, we can't have THAT, can we? Give those little countries human rights, and sooner or later, they'll be wanting human rights in the US of A. Can't have that, either, can we? So long as we're happily pro-torture, is pro-government atrocity-ism be far behind? Are they not, indeed, much of a muchness?

Meanwhile, let's get back to the important work of making SURE Harriet Miers has signed off in blood to the all-important task of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Putting rights of beings who can't exist outside the womb before the health, happiness, and welfare of the post-born--which would include the welfare of said pre-beings once they become post-born.

Got that?

In the womb--big deal.

Outside it--you're on your own, buster.

Nice.

Thanks, Mr. Mustache. Thanks all you wacked out black-heart neo-cons. You're on a roll.

Friday, October 07, 2005

What's Wrong With Daryn Kagan? I Mean, Eee-EEW

OK, so clearly we're not trying to talk Lysistrata, here, No Blood for Hubris does not expect either foresight or perspicacity from any rabid Reichwingers, and they probably have to sleep with somebody who's one of their own, since none of the rest of us is going to, God knows. There may be some reichwingers who just don't sleep with anybody until they get permission (like Judge "Peppermint Patty" Roberts and his late-in-life wife, Mrs. Patty. Presumably, they, as good Catholics, didn't sleep with anybody until they got married, and who knows what happened then, they still adopted. And made their poor little adopted son wear short pants so his little knobby knees show. So sorry, kid.).

But why would anybody in his or her right mind sleep with Rush Limbaugh? Eee-eew. Or even hold hands with him. Or even anything. I mean, maybe Phyllis Schlafly would. Maybe Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Maybe Lucianne Goldberg.

Maybe.

Conversely, anybody who would sleep with him, is clearly not in his or her right mind.

I mean, he's fat.

Thus, he's one of the "Bell Curve" inert.

He's not even cute fat, much less sexy cute fat, like James Gandolfini.

Rush is stupid. He's an hysteric. Therefore, he's very undesirable.

To all but idiots.

He's been married three times, and with no kids to show for it. Birth control? Abortion? Infertility? Impotence?

He's been called, memorably, a "drug-addled, gay-bashing, woman-hating, bigoted bag of pus."

He cowarded out of the military because of some big fat horribly-Abu-Ghraib-ly insufferably painful anal cyst.

What was Daryn Kagan thinking?

OK, so she's looking a little butch these days, what with the funny nose job and the puffy lips, but still, she's not hopeless. Is she?

What is Daryn Kagan thinking of?

Maybe she is hopeless. Maybe that's why they're "together." Maybe that's why she writes him "love notes," sucking up to him on national TV while she's supposed to be objectively reporting the uh, news.

Unprofessional.

Not to mention: tasteless, tasteless, tasteless. I mean, which is worse: him in hip-high leather boots with her in chains, or her in stilletto heels giving Tubby Druggie a good, long painful James Dobsonian cat-o'-nine-tails whippin'?

Feh.

Why is she not completely embarassed that he refers to her as "my mistress" on national radio? "My mistress from Georgia." Has he no decency? At long last, has she no decency?

Does she not get that it comes out like "my slut"?

Is that what the black-heart neo-cons' hideous screaming fight to overturn the right to privacy was all about?

Ee-EEW.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Black-heart Let-Them-Eat-Cake-ists Bring America, Not Monica, To Her Knees

"If the poor have no bread, why, let them eat cake!!"


In the post-Katrina world, everything changed. The black-heart neo-con let-them-eat-cake-ists rose up from cemeteries everywhere like a zombie army, and they're proudly outing themselves with Black-Heart Pride as they continue to drag America deeper and deeper into moral and fiscal bankruptcy.

Proud to be racist: Barbara Bush, chuckling about the "disadvantaged" doing so very well for themselves by becoming refugees in Texas: noting her own "scary" feeling that all these so very black people might swarm in and outnumber her white-bread Stepford Wife society.

Proud to be racist and explicitly anti-public education: William Bennett, gambling addict-cum-black-heart-ethics pundit, rapping on radio about aborting black babies, thus bringing down the crime rate, and then lying about not having said exactly what he said about if one were to abort all black babies, the result would be bringing down the crime rate. Equating blackness with criminality. Oh, and let's not forget Reed Hundt's report of Bennett nixing support for putting internet access in classrooms: "[Bennett] told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers, charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education."

Proud to be racist and sexist, too: noted supremacist theoretician Charles "The Bell Curve" Murray penning a post-Katrina Wall Street Journal column bemoaning "inert women doing nothing to help themselves or their children."

His "The Hallmark of the Underclass" says: " . . [I]mages show us the face of the hard problem: those of the looters and thugs [Murray fails to note reports of looting were exaggerated], and those of inert women doing nothing to help themselves or their children."

Inert? Inert? I was puzzled about the "inert" thing.

Say, would that be--helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon?

Nah. Plus--what's "ert"?

Then I figured it out: when Murray says, "inert" he means: fat.

Chuckie's upset about fat Southern women--uh, that would be fat black women, and perhaps fat white women--doing nothing to help themselves or their children.

Now, this is pretty weird in and of itself. What evidence does he have that these fat women do nothing for themselves or their children? His evidence apparently is--their fatness. They lumber when they walk, therefore they're useless social parasites? Let's not talk about the relationship of obesity to economic class, let's not talk about who has enough money to buy protein and fruits and vegetables, and who gets stuck with McDonald's and processed fatty foods.

Charles Murray's basic mindset is emblematic of the black-heart let-them-eat-cake-ists:

Basic principle is: it's their own damn fault.

This applies across the board to whatever problem we're facing.

It's their own damn fault.

In black-heart thinking, fatness is taken as a sign of moral weakness. Actually, more to the point, everything is seen as a sign of moral weakness, and therefore every social ill is regarded as being well-deserved.

Criminality is regarded as completely unrelated to an ego-driven, materialistic society, and completely unrelated to miserable McJobs in McGhettos, such that full-time employment is insufficient to pay one's rent, buy food, buy clothing.

The advertisingly-hypnotically-induced lust for ego-centric uber-pimpoid luxury which bombards Americans 24/7 is seen as having nothing to do with helping fuel forays into crime, an industry open to persons of all races and ethnic origins, without need for education or training or "Daddy's friends," and an industry which can produce a very very tidy capitalistic profit. Huzzah.

As if that's not enough, Chuck suggests that "the lack of home ownership is not caused by the inability to save money from meager earnings, but because the concept of thrift is alien."

Oho? Well, slap them poor people's hands, now!

In fact, our Chuckie states that "unemployment in the underclass is not caused by lack of jobs or job skills, but by the inability to get up every morning and go to work."

Come on, Chuckster. You're racist. Get used to it. Stop beating around the bush.

Speaking of which, tell me when our little Bubble Boy had the ability to get up every morning and go to work?

He's never done it in his life. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

So why is our lazy, stupid, shiftless, thriftless, reckless, feckless Bubble Boy not part of the American underclass?

You think it might have a little something to do with Mummy and Daddy's M-O-N-E-Y?

Feh, Mr. Murray.

Feh.


Monday, September 26, 2005

Plus Ca Change: A Country Without a Soul

During Vietnam, some soldiers created necklaces of hacked-off human ears. During World War II, some soldiers brought home skulls, and ears, and bones as trophies.

During Gulf War II/Afghanistan, some American soldiers brutally beat prisoners entrusted to them--some broke bones, some beat the prisoners to death. Some appeared to delight in torturing and humiliating their prisoners. Many troops believed that their commanding officers supported the suspension of the Geneva Conventions during this conflict, and said they were under the impression their brutal treatment was just following orders.

There came a time when pictures from one jail, Abu Ghraib, were made public--pictures of the torture and mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of American guards. When these pictures were made public, it was the existence of the pictures--not the behaviors of the guards, grinning and pointing at the genitals of their prisoners--that excited concern from the Bush administration. "These pictures will make us look bad!" was their thinking--not "these behaviors are immoral."

There came a time when pictures from the battlefield became publicly known--pictures of mutilated Iraqi corpses with grinning, pointing American solidiers posed next to them, pictures of the genitals of wounded Iraqi women, pictures of charred corpses, pictures of hacked-off limbs, pictures American troops had brought to post on the internet at NowThatsFuckedUp.com, trading sadistic death porn in exchange for sex porn, in a scandal known as "Do-It-Yourself Abu Ghraib."

There came a time when treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was made public--tales of torture and mistreatment of prisoners by their American guards, and tales of sacrilegious treatment of the Koran, the prisoners' holy book. This concerned the Bush administration. Not the behavior--the discovery of the behavior. "These stories will make us look bad!" was their thinking--not "these behaviors are immoral."

There came a time when the existence of CDs showing the rape of children by American troops was made known, but their release to the public was prevented by the Bush administration. "These pictures will make us look bad!" was their thinking--not "these behaviors are immoral."

In the Bush administration, everything is weighed by its spin; will action A. provide us with more power, or less? Will we gain more profit, or less? Will we look better, or worse?

Nothing said about right vs. wrong.

Nothing about preferring good to evil.

With Bubble Boy and his black-heart neo-cons, the culture of chickenhawks, America is utterly empty of any moral leadership. What attracts their "moral" attention is evaluating the sexual practices of grown men and women, and protecting the so-called "human rights" of embryoes who cannot in any case survive on their own.

When it comes to the human rights records of their authoritarian oilist allies--sexual slavery, indentured servitude, women's rights count for absolutely nothing.

Something's missing.

Winston Churchill said, "A country without a conscience is a country without a soul, and a country without a soul is a country that cannot survive."

Is Winston speaking about us, boys and girls?

Compare and contrast with the following:


A Task.

by Czeslaw Milosz


In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life

Only if I brought myself to make a public confession

Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:

We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons

But pure and generous words were forbidden

Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one

Considered himself as a lost man.





.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

America, America, America: Torture For Fun? No problema!

Torture.

From the New York Times, "3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine: Told Rights Group Goals Were Intelligence and Fun."

You heard that right.

Torture, American-style: that would be torture "for fun."

Recall tubby druggie Rush yapping about torture at Abu Ghraib and at Gitmo as being nothing more than frat boy high-jinx?

Recall Rummy's comments that since he stands for eight hours a day, "stress positions" couldn't be all that bad?


Consider:

"Three U.S. army personnel-two sergeants and a captain-describe routine, severe beatings of prisoners and other cruel and inhumane treatment. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have broken a detainee's leg with a baseball bat. Detainees were also forced to hold five-gallon jugs of water with their arms outstretched and perform other acts until they passed out.

"Soldiers also applied chemical substances to detainees' skin and eyes, and subjected detainees to forced stress positions, sleep deprivation, and extremes of hot and cold. Detainees were also stacked into human pyramids and denied food and water. The soldiers also described abuses they witnessed or participated in at another base in Iraq and during earlier deployments in Afghanistan.

"According to the soldiers' accounts, U.S. personnel abused detainees as part of the military interrogation process or merely to 'relieve stress.'

"In numerous cases, they said that abuse was specifically ordered by Military Intelligence personnel before interrogations, and that superior officers within and outside of Military Intelligence knew about the widespread abuse.

"The accounts show that abuses resulted from civilian and military failures of leadership and confusion about interrogation standards and the application of the Geneva Conventions."


Gee, why would that be? Thanks again, future Supreme Court Justice, "No-Genevas" Gonzalez.


"They contradict claims by the Bush administration that detainee abuses by U.S. forces abroad have been infrequent, exceptional and unrelated to policy.

"'The administration demanded that soldiers extract information from detainees without telling them what was allowed and what was forbidden,' said Tom Malinowski, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch. 'Yet when abuses inevitably followed, the leadership blamed the soldiers in the field instead of taking responsibility.'"


Hmm. Sounds like Rummy, sounds like Bubble Boy.


"Soldiers referred to abusive techniques as "smoking" or "fucking" detainees, who are known as "PUCs," or Persons Under Control. "Smoking a PUC" referred to exhausting detainees with physical exercises (sometimes to the point of unconsciousness) or forcing detainees to hold painful positions.

"Fucking a PUC" detainees referred to beating or torturing them severely. The soldiers said that Military Intelligence personnel regularly instructed soldiers to "smoke" detainees before interrogations.

"One sergeant told Human Rights Watch: "Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport… One day [a sergeant] shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the guy's leg with a mini Louisville Slugger, a metal bat."

"The officer who spoke to Human Rights Watch made persistent efforts over 17 months to raise concerns about detainee abuse with his chain of command and to obtain clearer rules on the proper treatment of detainees, but was consistently told to ignore abuses and to "consider your career." He believes he was not taken seriously until he approached members of Congress to raise his concerns.

"When the officer made an appointment this month with Senate staff members of Senators John McCain and John Warner, he says his commanding officer denied him a pass to leave his base."


I love black-heart neo-con moral values. Don't limit the size of your family; go ahead and beat the crap out of jailed furriners.

When we will be able to see Rush and Rummy hamstrung into pretzel-positions and hung out over a boiling vat of Katrina's toxic waste?

When will we be able to see Condi and Cheney with in black KKK hoods, their arms outstretched, teetering above a pile of slippery boxes, attached to real electrodes?

When will we be able to see John Bolton, naked and humiliated, forced to urinate and defecate all over himself, whacking off at the pleasure of his captors?

And--what about George?

It would be just for fun!

Tell me once again about the 'moral values' of these wretched neo-cons, crying crocodile tears about all the lonely embryoes whilst encouraging our boys to break the legs of their boys with baseball bats.

For fun.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities

Time to kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome in the official Judge John Roberts era of forced maternity.

That's where we are now, brought there thanks to Bubble Boy, foreshadowed by repeated heh-heh-heh "Dred Scott decision" heh-heh-heh nudge-nudge wink-wink innuendo moments during his 2004 campaign.

Bubble Boy sure can smirk, but I'm not smirking about his plan to repeal women's reproductive freedom. That's a tragedy.

Not Judge Roberts' simplistic "tragedy of abortion"-type tragedy--alright, he's Roman Catholic, he can get away with it--at least they're consistent within their tradition, well, pretty much, except for that big fat "just war" loophole--but the actual American tragedy is that of post-born women, and their actual post-born kids and their actual post-born families.

Let's welcome, then, the coming upsurge of unwanted babies, thanks a lot.

Let's have more and more babies we can't care for, we can't afford, we can't deal with. Let's have a little more child abuse, because, really, stressed out moms and dads who can't make ends meet, well, they're not going to be the poster boys and girls for patient parenting, are they? Let's up the general quota of maternal/child suffering.

And crime. Let's not forget crime. "Unwantedness leads to high crime," according to economist Stephen Levitt and Steven Dubner. "When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reason. She may be unmarried or in a bad marriage. She may consider herslef too poor to raise a child. She may think her life is too unstable or too unhappy, or she may think that her drinking and drug use will damage the baby's health. . . for any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conducive to raising a healthy and productive child. . . . Two factors--childhood poverty and a single-parent household--are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future."

But that's ok with the people ordering mothers to bear children against their will.

It's all about being a selfish, black-heart neo-con with no capacity for empathy, much less compassion: as in Bubble Boy, and his anti-choice lynch mobs.

It's about punishing women for being women, punishing the poor for being poor, and punishing the pregnant for the act of conception itself.

The crackpots across the street from Camp Casey said it best: WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE.

They don't.

No surprises there.

We'll shriek hysterically about the horror of murdering embryoes, but are fine with sending the grown-up ones to die in Iraq. We'll weep sadly about fetuses, but put our own accumulation of wealth first, putting ourselves always at the head of every line. We'll yap endlessly about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we really couldn't give a shit about anyone but ourselves. We'll squawk about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we'll cause pain whenever we please, to whomever we please; we'll do anything to anyone whenever we want to--so long as it's not residing in a womb or in a petri dish.

The so-called "culture of life" is really a culture of death; a culture of ego, a culture of me-first, a culture of "gimme," a culture of torture in which your pain is perfectly permissible.

It's not really very Christian at all.



Friday, September 16, 2005

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities: The Tao of Bubble Boy

"Poor people are poor because they are lazy."

The Tao of Bubble Boy.

Dear Bubble Boy:

Despite what your insensitive, racist, college dropout mom taught you, poor people are poor because they don't earn enough money to be rich, or because they have not inherited sufficient funds to live on (interest from inherited) bread alone.

Poor people are poor--oh, and sick--because even when they work, they don't earn enough money to pay for rent, or clothes, or health care. Oh, and they get sick because they eat cheap junk food because--it's cheap.

Recently, the cost of health care rose to equal earnings from minimum wage jobs. The latimes reported that "average annual premiums for family coverage grew more than 9% since last year to $10,880. A minimum wage worker earns $10,712 before taxes. "

You, Bubble Boy, recently reduced the hourly wages for reconstruction workers in the aftermath of Katrina. Isn't that nice?

As for Katrina evacuees, here's the picture from the Washington Post:

Six in 10 evacuees had family incomes of less than $20,000 last year. Half have children younger than 18. One in eight was unemployed when the storm hit. Seven in 10 said they have no insurance to cover their losses. Fully half have no health insurance. Four in 10 suffer from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or are physically disabled.

That's pretty seriously poor--and ill. All their fault, of course.

And what about that unemployment thing? Wow. Must be so lazy.

On the other hand, neither one of your college graduate daughters works. That makes them both unemployed. Is that why neither one, much less you you, cares about the minimum wage? But why aren't they starving, if they're not working? "Daddy's friends"? "Daddy'?

You, Bubble Boy, a noted dunce, got into Yale and Harvard because of your "Daddy's friends." This, according to you.

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Yale? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Harvard? Do poor people have disproportionate incidence of diabetes and obesity because they have less access to vegetables, protein, and dinners at the Fairfield Country Club with Muffies and Binkies?

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to get them into the National Guard as a a way to avoid going to Vietnam, even though they, like you, might support the fighting of that war, but just not want themselves to be exploded? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to cover-up one's illegal drug use, and one's derelictions of duty, so that one suffers no consequences pretty much however deeply one screws up?

Do poor people have trust funds? Do poor people have financial advisers? Do poor people get tax breaks? Do poor people know how to scam like Halliburton, Bechtel, and CACI? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into the oil business, and into the Texas Rangers business?

Why don't they?

Are they too lazy?





Tuesday, September 13, 2005

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities: We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have

Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio Home

"Sheriff's deputies found 11 children locked in cages with alarms in a north Ohio home, and prosecutors are looking into possible charges of abuse and neglect.

The children, ages 1 to 14, were in nine cages in the walls of a house outside this city of about 1,000 about 50 miles west of Cleveland, according to the Huron County Sheriff's Office. They had no blankets or pillows, and the cages were rigged with alarms that sounded if the cages were opened, Lt. Randy Sommers said.

The children told authorities they slept in the 40-inches-high by 40 inches-deep cages at night. Doors to some of the cages were blocked with heavy furniture.

Sharen and Mike Gravelle are adoptive or foster parents for all 11 children, officials said. Prosecutors are reviewing the case, but no charges had been filed as of Monday night.

A children's services investigator saw one of the children in a cage Friday, Sommers said. The sheriff's office obtained a warrant and returned to the house around 5 that evening and removed the children."

Stories like this one are why I strongly object to putting embryo rights ahead of the rights of the post-born, you know, ahead of the rights of actual infants and children.

Oh, and here's another:

For torturing kids, couple get 15 years

The Dollars say their strong religious beliefs led them to pull out toenails of five of their foster children, starve them and give them electric shocks.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published September 15, 2005

INVERNESS - A Citrus County couple accused of torturing and starving five children agreed Wednesday to 15-year prison sentences, then said the crimes occurred because they took their religious beliefs too far.

"We are sorry that the children are hurt," John Dollar said. "We are firm believers in the God almighty ... because of those principles we were led to do certain things."

Those "things," prosecutors say, included pulling out the children's toenails with pliers, starving them and shocking them with a cattle prod.

John and Linda Dollar faced 150 years in prison if convicted at trial. . .

The story of the Dollars - an educated (sic), financially stable, devout (sic) couple - shocked the local community and the nation in January when the accusations surfaced.

Their 16-year-old boy weighed 59 pounds. Twin boys, age 14, weighed 36 and 38 pounds. The children were compared to prisoners of war because of the abuse they suffered and the traumatic effects that still haunt them.

Wednesday's hearing was likely the final chapter in the criminal case, which first caught the public's eye after the Dollars' 16-year-old son was taken to a hospital emergency room with a head wound and red marks on his neck.

He was severely underweight, which sparked an investigation by the Citrus County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Children and Families. Shortly after, the Dollar children were removed from their adoptive parents and placed in foster care. The couple fled to Utah, where they were apprehended.

Disturbing details of the Dollars' life soon surfaced.

The family had operated a private Christian (sic) school in Tennessee, but many of the students rarely saw the Dollar children.When the family moved to the Tampa Bay area, they changed homes frequently. Between 1990 and 2004, the Dollars bought and sold a half-dozen homes in Hillsborough County, from Plant City to Riverview to Valrico.

A closet door at one of their Hillsborough homes had a lock installed on its outside, as if it were meant to keep someone inside, not out.

A bag of what appeared to be toenails was found in the family's motorhome . . . "




The fact is, we in America, supposedly the richest country in the world, do not properly care for the children (and families) we already have.

Why would one want to make a bad situation even worse, having the government force women to bear children they know they are unable to care for?



Saturday, September 10, 2005

Gag Barbara With a (Silver) Spoon.

Dear Non-College-Graduate and Unrepentant Me-First-ist Barbara Bush:

I'm wondering, why does your beautiful little mind feel "sort of scarey" about the prospect of people of color moving into your white-bread neighborhood? Are you afraid property values will go down?

Are you the one who taught your pig-headedly-ignorant, egomaniacal, animal-abusing, borderline-sociopathic son that "poor people are poor because they're lazy"*?

(*See below: "Bubble Boy Deja Vu: MIA All Over Again")

Are you the one who taught your Bubble Boy not to bother about counting body bags, perhaps because those persons they contain are dead already, so therefore one's beautiful mind might as well be pointed elsewhere as the dead can provide one with no particular advantages?

Are you the one who taught Bubble Boy that being an abortionist of the post-born was karmically correct but that, on the other hand, all the embryoes in test tubes with big round sad eyes are the ones who much more truly deserve Bubble Boy's help and compassion? Just asking.

Say, Babs, considering your remark that it was "scarey" that all these black folk might be movin' into your Texas neighborhood, what's your response to Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge's comments: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Do you agree? I'm betting you do.

You know who else agrees with Rep. Baker that God did this, and agrees with you, that this Katrina disaster is "working very well'?

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Yo. Politics does make strange bedfellows.

Miz Bush, here's another fun fact about New Orleans. It's going to be hard to identify corpses there from dental records--because so many people in Louisiana can't afford to go to the dentist. Bet that's a state of affairs you personally have never had to worry about, eh? Yes, and as the Grover Norquistian destruction of this country continues on unabated, I have been noticing that dental care, once even within the reach of the moderately poor, now counts as a luxury item that the middle classes have to scrimp and save toward--a thousand dollars a pop.

Oh, and tell me, Babs, I'm worried, why don't your grandchildren have jobs? They wouldn't be lazy, would they? They better watch out, or they'll end up in New Orleans without health care, dental care, livin' in a swamp. Gee. Wait. No, that probably won't happen to them, will it? Why would that be? If they're not working, they're lazy, if they're lazy, they're poor, and deserve to be poor. What am I missing here?

Say, Missy Babs, what about this one? Do you find this a scarey story? Suburban police officers from Gretna, LA, deliberately prevented a minimum of two hundred New Orleans citizens from fleeing Hurricane Katrina over the Crescent Connection Bridge into the city of Gretna. Gretna Police confiscated their food and water, threatened them with guns, and fired shots over their heads to prevent their flight into their city. Wasn't that nice and neighborly and Christ-ist and right-to-life-ist, protecting property over people?

Here's a simile, Babs. Do you know what "simile" means? Bet your dumb angry son neither knows nor cares.

Anyhow, Babs, that's kind of like the Brooklyn, NYC cops preventing citizens of Manhattan from fleeing the World Trade Center disaster by escaping over the Brooklyn Bridge, turning them back, and making them go back into Manhattan. Do you think this would have been the right thing to do? Do you think that happened because New York is not a slave state? Do you find this story "scarey" or not? If not, why not?

Hey, Babs. One more story for you.

Your son, the apparently terminally spoiled brat, Bubble Boy personally saved no one from Hurricane Katrina. He was on an important vacation followed by important photo opportunities, after all. I liked the implication in the Newsweek story that Bubble Boy's temper tantrums are so bad these days that it took his staff until Thursday to grow enough cojones to draw straws and be the one to tell him that his response to Hurricane Katrina was--uh--totally inadequate.

Here are examples of people who actually did something to save people: Harry Connick (drove in water truck), Sean Penn (went out in boats), three college students from Duke in a Hyundai (drove in supplies and drove out evacuees), Oprah Winfrey and friends (33 trucks filled with supplies) and the real winner, Al Gore. Remember him? The guy who beat your son in Florida before your minions on the Court selected Bubble Boy as Preznit? Mr. Gore, in addition to having correctly predicted the super-importance of the Internet well before the general public figured it out, was himself personally responsible for planning and executing the chartered plane evacuation of 270 people from New Orleans.

Gore started his disaster response planning before your Bubble Boy even got back from vacation! Gag me with a spoon, Barbara, but doesn't that blow your beautiful body-bag-averse little mind?

Thursday, September 08, 2005

If This Doesn't Make You Weep, You're a Black-Heart Neo-Con. It's Diagnostic

Well, I still haven't had time to do the drowning Grover Norquist in the toxic water bathtub of New Orleans thing yet, but I came across a Mark Fiore cartoon that looked like it might do as part of the No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude, Part Deux.

Oh, and then it ended.

Not funny. Painful. I remember that guy, Arron Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish.

Beautiful work, Mark Fiore.

Oh, and, really, this is diagnostic.

Responses to this piece instantly will reveal all those who still buy the Bubble Boy line hook, line, and sinker, those who are official Pod Persons, Stepford Republicans, as in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Krypto Zombies. Deserving of the deep, wrathful vengeance of New Orleans' Voodoo Queen, Marie Leveaux. Which might arise at any time, so get ready to duck, black-hearts. Karma's comin.'

On the other hand, what was it that Tendzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama said?

Ah, yes. He said, "Compassion, compassion, compassion."

You hear this clip to the end, you don't feel nothin, you're in big trouble and ready for the George Bush/Go Fuck Yourself Dick Cheney Heart of Darkness Award, major dudes and dudettes.

Compassion, compassion, compassion.

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Well, I meant to be posting about how to drown drown-the-government hysteric Grover Norquist in the fetid waters of New Orleans, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

In the meantime, courtesy of the Daily Show, I offer up the following as a mental health interlude, for all those interested in shoring up their senses of sanity, even on a temporary basis:

"Now, for you people who are saying, `Well, stop pointing fingers at the president... left-wing... the media's being too hard:

No. SHUT...UP! No! This is inarguably---inarguably---a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government.

Remember when Bill Clinton went out with Monica Lewinsky? That was inarguably a failure of judgment at the top. Democrats had to come out and risk losing credibility if they did not condemn Bill Clinton for his behavior. I believe Republicans are in the same position right now. And I will say this: Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky. The only difference is that tens of thousands of people weren't stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina."

--Jon Stewart


Ed Helms:
While everybody else is busy setting up commissions and finding fault, through the president's leadership he'll end up building a billion dollar dam in Arkansas.

Jon Stewart: Why would he build a dam in Arkansas?

Ed Helms: His plan will be to fight the water there so we don't have to fight it here.


Jon Stewart: So no one's going to be held accountable for this at all?

Ed Helms: No. In fact, if history is any indication, they'll be hard-pressed finding enough medals to pin on these guys. My sources tell me the head of FEMA will be dipped in bronze and turned into an award to be given to other officials.



"Dipped in bronze." Not just Horse-head Brown, but all of them.

Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy. Dipped in bronze. Dipped in anything, really. Fudge sauce. Kippers. Toxic sludge. Shards of pretzels. French Onion Dip. Mayonnaise.

Tar. Feathers.

If only.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Bubble Boy to New Orleans: DROP DEAD

Here's the real smoking gun for Bubble Boy.

Forget the Rovian spin-attempts to swift-boat the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans. Maybe Karl, too, was vacationing so hard he failed to note that TV viewers and blogtopians heard their pleas for help in real-time, and heard their frustration at not receiving any aid.

Number one: Bush.

There were nine million MREs all ready to be delivered by thousands of troops to New Orleans--delivery was held up by Bush himself. Bush failed to authorize NorthCom, the Northern Command located in Colorado, to act at once.

Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly, as interviewed on the BBC last night, stated that their emergency planning for the hurricane began well before Katrina hit. NorthCom rightly anticipated that there would be a major disaster, and had millions of meals-ready-to-eat available and thousands of troops ready to deliver help to survivors. He had ships such as the USS Bataan following the storm into the port, ready to act at once to provide medical care and with the capability of delivering 100,000 gallons of water per day.

When asked by the BBC interviewer why there had been such a long delay in receiving and distributing aid to survivors, Lt. Cmdr. Kelly said that NorthCom was unable to act on its own, without authorization from the President.


Said Kelly:
Northcom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready when it hit Florida, because, as you remember, it hit the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

"So, what we did, we activated what we call 'defense coordinating officers' to work with the states to say, 'OK, what do you think you will need?' And we set up staging bases that could be started.

"We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could be available almost immediately. So, we had things ready.

"The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion; we have to wait for the president to give us permission."
That lack of authorization is what held up emergency intervention.
Bush failed to authorize the military to go in in a timely fashion.



Number two: feckless FEMA.

Headed by noted Arabian horse-fancier Michael Brown, handpicked by Bush, Bush's charming FEMA, instead of helping aid to reach victims, actually prevented aid from coming in, and sent other aid back.

Wal-Mart sent aid--food and water-- and FEMA stopped it, saying it wasn't needed.

Oh, gee. Can you say "criminal negligence"?

Others sent diesel fuel, FEMA stopped it, and sent it back.

FEMA cut lines of emergency communication with Jefferson Parish. The Sheriff had to repair the lines FEMA cut, and had to send armed guards to keep FEMA from cutting them again.

Trucks bringing in water? FEMA made them wait for two days, while people died from dehydration.

And it happened again and again: check out the video at crooks and liars of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, in a heart-rending, shocking speech that deserves watching and re-watching and passing on: "Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us."

It's all on Bubble Boy.

How many deaths were there due to the long delay? Tens, hundreds? How many are still happening? The USS Bataan remains in the New Orleans harbor, still able to provide water, food, and medical care for victims. As of this writing, it still hasn't received orders to do so.


I'd call this a high crime. How about you?


Saturday, September 03, 2005

In Nightmares Begin Responsibility

Nightmares: Bush failures during Katrina.

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit.

We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready.

The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.


U.S. Xpress driver from Chattanooga, TN, fills water truck on Monday. FEMA does not permit driver to enter New Orleans until Friday.

About 100 people have died at the Chalmette Slip after being pulled off their rooftops, waiting to be ferried up the river to the West Bank and bused out of the flood ravaged area, U.S. Rep. Charles Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said Thursday.

About 1,500 people were at the slip on Thursday afternoon, where critical supplies like food and water are scarce, he said. Melancon expressed serious frustration with the slow pace of getting these items to the people waiting to finish their journey to
safety.


In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.

“I thank the president for his visit today, but it was more show than substance,” Melancon said. “Frankly, we needed action days ago.”




Friday, September 02, 2005

Bubble Boy's Boys to Poor: DROP DEAD

A bevy of beer-bellied, back-slapping white boys surround a still-smirking Bubble Boy, as they glad-hand, and slap-five and do nothing. FEMA director and political appointee, Arabian-horse-addict Michael Brown, whose responsibility it is to distribute aid and manage emergency situations is apparently just as incompetent as his boss. Ditto Ming The Merciless Uber-Doppleganger & Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff: he's supposed to be handling major incidents? Handling? As in what? This is just the same as the aftermath of a terror attack, and all he can offer is more blather?

Message from Bubble Boy's boys to the poor: DROP DEAD.

And, they are.

Even the constant drone of Rovian spin is beginning to wear thin on the networks: it's fine, we're doin' all we can, help is on the way, it's hard work, hard work, freedom's on the march . . .

Yeah, right. We can see the bodies floating in fetid water, we can see the corpses covered up in wheelchairs, we can see patients begging for insulin, we can hear doctors and nurses begging for protection. We can hear of roving bands of well-armed (thanks, Wal-Mart!) warlords roaming around the Bush-made New Somalia of New Orleans.

And the Army would be--where? And the National Guard would be--where?

Oh, right. I-rack.

You betcha.

Mayor Nagin, until recently a Republican, says:

"They don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed...

This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans...

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak...

Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here."

Forty thousand National Guard troops were needed there on Monday and Tuesday, and forty thousand National Guard troops are not in New Orleans yet. A massive helicopter food and water drop was needed there on Monday and Tuesday, and is not there yet.

It's like those Yellow Elephant fat guys in Crawford screaming at Cindy Sheehan: WE DON'T CARE! WE DON'T CARE! WE DON'T CARE!

And--they don't. What a surprise. From Condi spending her time stocking up on more three-thousand-dollar Ferragamos to Bubble Boy looking annoyed and bored as he's forced YET AGAIN to mouthe heh-heh-heh helpful platitudes and pat his useless buddies on the back.

"I don't think anyone anticipated a breach of the levees."

You didn't? You knew enough to cut funds for breach prevention. Moron. Swine.

Bush AND Chertoff was briefed about the likely breach--but now they've forgotten that briefing ever happened? Having a conveniently-timed Alzheimer's moment? Too bad for them the briefing was caught on tape. Oops.

Why couldn't Bubble Boy load up Airforce One with evacuees? Gore sent a plane. Guess he IS the real president, 'cause he's the only one of the two acting presidential.

Oh, wait. Maybe we should hold up whatever supplies we do have, and wait until Bubble Boy comes by for a photo-op. If a couple of poor sick people, or sick poor people, die in the meantime, that's just social Darwinism, which in any case we don't believe in, we believe in Intelligent Design, screw Darwin, so that'll be ok. Yeah. Let's set up another photo op. See, help is on the way. It's hard work. Sorry if you're dead already. It's your own damn fault. Poor people are poor because they're lazy.

Here's another question: on TV tonight, they interviewed a FEMA trucker bringing in water who works for U.S. Xpress, based in Chattanooga, TN. Now, besides the obvious question of why one is going ALL the way to Chattanooga for water, there is this gentleman's comment: he said he had loaded up with water on MONDAY, but "his bosses," uh, that would be FEMA, kept him OUT of New Orleans until FRIDAY.

Hel-lo? What's going ON here? Why are essential supplies being deliberately withheld from dying Americans?

Why is this pitiful excuse of a president good for nothing but clearing brush?

Which is worse, Bubble Boy bringing us into fiscal bankruptcy? Or moral bankruptcy?

Lake George counts in both columns.