I've Never Been Killed Before. But There's Always A First Time

Your Obedient Svt, as Austin Bourgeoisie, circa 1865

In Frontiersman Mufti, circa 1855

With My Killer....

It's Just Karma, That's All

Over the next couple of days, I am slated to become one of the 'innocent citizens' of Austin, TX, circa 1857, who pays with his life for the slaughter in which I participated some weeks ago as a murderous frontiersman (a role I shall be reprising, later in June).

My demise comes about in the big raid of the Comanche and the Kiowa against the Texican settlements along the Brazos and Trinity Rivers, in the aftermath of the Council House Massacre. The Hostiles, under the direction of the Comanche war chief, Buffalo Hump, attacked Austin at dawn, and caught the town asleep. Paniced townsfolk responded by dashing radomly into the streets, many in their night-clothes, and were pretty efficiently dispatched. The attackers killed a bunch of people, burned some of the buildings, and ran off a lot of stock.

The attack was the subject of filming today and yesterday; to be followed by burning down a couple of buildings. Except the wind kicked up, and the fire was postponed. But the attack went off, albeit a bit fitfully.

Background: There were members of just about every pueblo and tribe in the entire region in the attacking party; plus the film crew also brought 50 Blackfoot riders from Montana. The Indians were mounted bareback. The Indian warriors wore traditional paint, carried traditional neolithic weapons (bows/arrows, lances, tomahawks, and stone clubs). The Indians were mounted bareback. They looked fookin' impressive, I'll tell ya. (I couldn't take fotos today, cuz the production company's imposed a ban on cameras on set: apparently some star-struck nitwits were sticking their cameras in the faces of the principals, always a distinct no-no.) They were already mounted and in place around the set when we towns-folks arrived on set on the busses. It was eery.

Unfortunately, not all of the riders were quite up to the task; that and some of the stock was a little rank. I have always muttered in frustration when cavalry action is filmed and there's always one kinda overweight member of the riders who rides slowly and carefully and flaps their arms as they go. Such a rider wouldn't have been among a serious raiding party. But they're pretty much features of filmic cavalry actions. In any case, every charge of the attacking hostiles up Commerce Street today was attended by at least one of the attackers being unceremoniously unhorsed, in a couple of cases incurring minor injuries.

Still, they wrapped the panoramic shots of the Hostile raiding party charge today: over 100 riders going hard up a street no more than 25 yards wide. Right up to the steps of the Texas State Capitol Building, lovingly recreated in faux for the set. Most of 'em were damn fine horsemen. It's not an easy thing to ride a charging horse bareback, with no stirrups and only a rope halter/hackamore for control, and while brandishing paleolithic weaponry. Tomorrow, they'll start with the incidental stuff, and that is where is shall meet my untimely extirpation; dressed, by the way, in boots, long-handles, a shirt and a bowler.

The fire is set to go tomorrow, too, which should be darn impressive...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi....

Life is sweet, death is long

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
--Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,1 choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

The Gibbering Chimp: A GODDAMN Deserter

It's a fucking crime!!!

The blithering, simpering, scampering, smirking pseudo-simian was making the usual hooting noises this morning memorializing the sacrifices of USer troops today and in the past.

How can any even modestly responsible news report on Bush's blatherings about military service, courage, sacrifice, bravery, or other martial virtues, be released WITHOUT reference to the bastard's own despicable military record? He's an AWOL, at very best; at worst, a drug-soaked deserter who was too coked-up to pass a flight physical.

It is journalist malfeasance, pure and simple...

He's gutless shithead, a cowardly chickenshit, and a depraved monstrous asshole...get it RIGHT, you feckless fux...

Pre-Memorial Day Dog Blogging

The Memorial Day Holiday & Anti-War Protest

(This post began as a response to a commentor on another blog, who wrote : "Clever form of protest, too bad it doesn't bother to honor the soldiers' choice.
I'd wager that most of the soldiers he's protesting for, died fighting for something this protestor doesn't even want to admit - freedom. Therefore, the protestor is giving a false voice to many of those that have died. )"

People die in combat because they do not want to--cannot--desert their buddies when the shit falls. It's what they teach you in basic training and what you learn to believe--else you do not go far in that profession.

And as their life's blood drains (or, frequently, spurts) into the sand, the dying are not exulting: 'I died for freedom!' Mainly, according to Chaplains who've been there too often, they just want their mothers. (I imagine Casey Sheehan's last thoughts were of his mother, if he had time at all to regard his death. For which reason, foremost among many, I support Cindy Sheehan in whatsoever anti-war activity she pursues.)

The 'freedom' part is the propaganda frame that gets attached when the inconvenient questions start, about why they were somewhere getting killed together to begin with. The 'Freedom' flag is what they wave to distract, and to try to explain away the inconvenient, if self-evident, fact that their war is not at ALL like the exciting, vivid (expensive) computer 'game' with which the militarists are now using as a recruiting tool wo entrap their their cannon fodder.

Personally, I admire the scholar/artist/activist Joseph DeLapp. He logs onto (logs-on to?) the USer Army's virtual battlefield game--I think it's generically called a 'first-person shooter'--chooses the 'won't fight' option and signs in in the name of one of the USer dead from the war. He says he does it in part as a protest against the expenditure of his taxes for the blatant, militarist propaganda. He objects, and uses the nodes the system hands him to tweak back.

I object that there is no lower age limit on the game template, too. Little kids play 'fps' gmes all the time. There is no reason that, with all the help they're getting from the "private' sector gamers and their relentless pursuit of the perfect vicarious, violent death, the Army should be spending my taxes to entice pre-teens 'eat the Emperor's salt' before they've even earned their first full meal.

I, too, object--to put it mildly--that military recruiters are given special access to students' records beginning in upper grade schools: as early as 6th and 7th grades. I object to the disingenuous tone of the ads which are everywhere, posing as public service announcements, wherein voices of 'the troops' extol their contribution to peace and freedom. Peace and freedom are the LAST things the military has any desire to see accomplished. Peace and freedom come, and the military are outta work.

The USofA's dirty secret is that militarism has completely invaded and overtaken USer life. There is hardly a community of any size or substance in the whole country which does not have some "defense" industry component nearby 'contributing to the economy'. Every contribution is vote in the House for the next "defense" bill. "Defense" is the most abused word in the entire USer political lexicon.

Read Chalmers Johnson for example.

Ever since the Revolution, militarism has always been recognized by small-d democrats to constitute one of the biggest threats to small-r republican democracy in the USofA--if it is not already too late, and the threat is now made real and even now slouching like some rude beast out of the desert: Iraqi or Sonoran, it matters little.

This is how Empires look and feel.

Alia jacta est.

I Oppose Capital Punishment...mostly

ENRON Chief Exec Jeff Skilling has been convicted on at least some of the charges levied against him. As I write this, the jury was still out on Ken Lay.

(*Note: Both have been convicted)

Sentencing will come next.

Likely one or both of them will do major time.

But I am wondering if such a penalty doesn't cheat the injured, somehow.

Many people in the US still support the nearly indiscriminate application of capital punishment for particularly heinous crimes. They argue that, no matter the rightness of any given sentence, the mere threat of capital punishment acts as a deterrent.

If it is true that capital punishment deters certain kinds of crime, it seems to me that subjecting the most egregious CorpoRat crooks--the likes of Skilling, and Lay, for example--to the death penalty would have a salubrious effect on the legions of potential corpoRat malefactors who still hold some vestige of the public trust between their greedy, grubby fingers.

Monsieur Skilling, Monsieur Lay, meet Mme Guillotine...

If You Haven't Done Anything Wrong...

While clouds of suspicion circulate around the alleged bribery of Louisiana (Democratic) Congresscritter William Jefferson, a rare spirit of unanimity now marks the House's leadership on the propriety of the FBI's recent tossing of Jefferson's Congressional suite this week and their appropriation of Jefferson's Congressional documents: Dey's agin it...

What is interesting is that Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the House, is calling for Jefferson to step aside from his important committee positions, and Hastert has become one of the embattled Jefferson's more stalwart defenders.

Not, of course, that Hastert is defending Jefferson's alleged improprieties with $100,000 in cold cash in the freezer. But he is, apparently, really worried that the search of Jefferson's suite--the first of its kind, according to Beltway lore--sets an uncomfortable precedent.

Privacy? Whassup widdat?

Interesting.

Because Hastert, too, is apparently the target of investigation for corruption, in his case in connection with the Abramoff congressional bribery scandals.

And Rep. Jim ("Kotex") Sensenbrenner, another Congresscritter tarred with the Abramoff brush, is promising to hold hearings on the matter.

Aren't these the same folks who, when dismissing fears of NSA spying on domestic US electronic and voice communications, sorta cavalierly suggested that if you're not guilty of crimes, you have nothing to fear?

Developing...

Un. Able. To. Govern!

Via Eschaton, Ohio Congresscritter Tim Ryan, quoting the Newtster, TOTALLY hands the GOPukes their lunch. See it here...

USA! USA! USA!: Us = USers

For a long time I have been dismayed by the arrogation by citizens of the United States of the term "American" as the shorthand term to describe them/ourselves.

It is not just that it gratuitously deprives the peoples of several dozen other countries of the use of appelation--which, after all names ALL residents of two large and populous continents--to which they would seem to have an equal or competing claim.

But it also tars those innocent denizens of the REST of America with the rather broad brush of obloquy, dishonor, and revilement which is the due of only those "Americans" who reside in the United States, and subjects them to undeserved scorn and contempt to which, since at least January, 2001, US citizens have come to be regarded by the world community in consequence of the egregious misrule by the fascist Busheviks.

Therefore, I am hereby proclaiming my plan for renaming the US contingent of Americans to reflect these global realities.

Citizens of the USofA should and shall henceforth be referred to as "USers."

This comports not only with the orthographical reality of the extant abbreviation of the country's official name; it also faithfully represents the economic and political realities of the lifestyles and attitudes of the citizens.

USers: what OTHER term so quintessentially captures the essence of the fact that, with barely 4 -5 percent of the population of the entire world, US citizens and corporations consume an entirely disproportionate amount (depending on the source) of the world's energy resources:

"For example, the United States, with 4 percent of the world's population,
accounts for 22 percent of world energy consumption. Its per capita consumption
is 14 times greater, and CO2 emissions rate 18 times greater, than the
low-income countries with 41 percent of the world's population. The richest 10
percent of Americans (25 million people) have an income greater than the poorest
43 percent of the world's people (2 billion).

Noam Chomsky, already in 1994, noted that : "The United States, with 5% of the world's population, consumes 40% of the world's (total) resources. " The average US citizen, for example, consumes thirty times more resources than his Indian counterpart. "USers" is no exaggeration of these tendencies.

In addition, it echoes the tenor of that obnoxious chant heard at athletic venues all over the world when US tems are in the competition: USA USA USA!

Taking these factors into consideration, along with the apparent national sense of entitlement evident from the phenomena, it seems to me obvious that "USers" is the best--or at least the most honestly descriptive--appellation to bestow upon US.

Just saying...

Sy Hersch's New Yorker Column

Hersch is ALL OVER General Hayden and the NSA under Hayden's 'leadership.'

"...After the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was clear that the intelligence community needed to get more aggressive and improve its performance. The Administration, deciding on a quick fix, returned to the tactic that got intelligence agencies in trouble thirty years ago: intercepting large numbers of electronic communications made by Americans. The N.S.A.’s carefully constructed rules were set aside."

He's all over the fucking telcos too:

"Last December, the Times reported that the N.S.A. was listening in on calls between people in the United States and people in other countries, and a few weeks ago USA Today reported that the agency was collecting information on millions of private domestic calls. A security consultant working with a major telecommunications carrier told me that his client set up a top-secret high-speed circuit between its main computer complex and Quantico, Virginia, the site of a government-intelligence computer center. This link provided direct access to the carrier’s network core—the critical area of its system, where all its data are stored. “What the companies are doing is worse than turning over records,” the consultant said. “They’re providing total access to all the data.”

Read the whole thing: it's short...

Why is (sic) the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?

I think anyone who knows me knows I am unalterably, and stridently convinced that the 2004 'electile dysfunction' was made possible by premeditated, probably criminal, arguably traitorous tampering with the electronic ballot casting and counting machinery. More than 25% of all the ballots cast in that process are irrecoverable bits: 30 million ballots were cast into the void, and it would have required turning only one in every 10 of those to have presented the Busheviks with their putative majority.

So Danny Schecter's piece on Common Dreams is apposite. Here's the money quote:

The public on the other hand not only believes that there are problems but
many insist that the elections were stolen.

Write Wasserman and Fitrakis: “A recent OpEdNews/Zogby People's poll of Pennsylvania residents, found that “39% said that the 2004 election was stolen. 54% said it was legitimate. But let’s look at the demographics on this question. Of the people who watch Fox news as their primary source of TV news, one half of one percent believe it was stolen and 99% believe it was legitimate. Among people who watched ANY other news source but FOX, more felt the election was stolen than legitimate. The numbers varied dramatically.”

“Here, from that poll, are the stations listed as first choice by respondents and the percentage of respondents who thought the election was stolen: CNN 70%; MSNBC 65%; CBS 64%; ABC 56%; Other 56%; NBC 49%; FOX 0.5%.

“With 99% of Fox viewers believing that the election was “legitimate,” only the constant propaganda of Rupert Murdoch’s disinformation campaign stands in the way of a majority of Americans coming to grips with the reality of two consecutive stolen elections.”

Bi-partisan Commissions have studied this problem. One led by ex-president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker noted, “Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines. There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."
A recent Wall Street Journal story revealed, "Some former backers of the technology seek return to paper ballots, citing glitches, fraud fears."

Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, did an analysis of the security flaws in the source code for Diebold touch-screen machine. After studying the latest problems, The Times reported Rubin said: "I almost had a
heart attack. The implications of this are pretty astounding."

That strikes me as an understatement...

The 1% Solution: My Modest Proposal

Many aging progressives and liberals are now confronting the most dangerous decades of their lives. This is because the longer one lives, the better become the chances that one will incur some dread, mortal disease or debilitating injury.

Think ALS, or AIDS, or Alzheimer's, or any one of the increasing number of fast-acting, deadly cancers which our current life-style have made so much more likely and commonpalce. Remember what happened to Chris Reeve?

The way things are now, the fight/struggle of the victim of such a disease or injury against its inevitable mortality could well destroy the financial stability of their nearest and dearest, undercut their family's prospects, and, for the foreseeable future, reduce the family penury.

This is indeed the dilemma we ALL face, of course--some just sooner than others. What should one do in such an exigency?

Well, I have a plan. Instead of simply complaining and whining away the few years or months remaining to you; and instead of spending all your and your family's resources in a futile effort to postpone the inevitable a little while longer, with a little planning and some intitiative, you too might be able to turn a personal tragedy into a national celebration.

Try TAFFWY! If you're going down anyway: "Take A Fascist/Fundie With You!"

The really great thing about TAFFWY is that you don't have to reach very far up the fundie/fascist food chain to have a desireable, noticeable effect. You do NOT have to take a Scalia or a Clarence Thomas out when you go--much less a Bush, Rice, Rummie, or other highly placed luminary of the Fascisti.

It could be someone as minor (and as easy to get to) as Ralph Reed, or Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Dennis Hastert? Jim Bunning? Your local fire-breathing homophobic cleric? Any loss to them is a gain for us...

These guys would be pieces of cake, really, to a truly determined person who knows he or she is ALREADY dead, but just waiting for the death certificate. Hell, a couple of folks together could probably get James Dobson, or Beverly LaHaye, and forever enshrine their names in the pantheon of true American martyrs.

So, if in the next couple of years, you are unfortunate enough to receive word of your impending, untimely demise, make the most of it: TAFFWY! If just one percent of those so afflicted would act, it would make the task of reclaiming the country a lot easier for the rest of us.

Remember: when it's late in the midnight, and ol' man Death comes a'stealin' in the room, try TAFFWY--it's the true BLUE patriot's way to leave a mark...

Walkin'-the-Dogs Bloggin'

Nuestra acequia, sin agua...scene of our daily walks.

Honeysuckle & Tea-roses: Mischief, Dixiebelle, and some bearded dude....

The Gurrrlz: bathed in shade and scent...

Here's what the immigration debate's REALLY about

Farm workers who pick tomatoes for McDonald's hamburgers and Chipotle's burritos earn about 45 cents for every 32-pound container of tomatoes they pick, working from dawn to dusk without the right to overtime pay. That means they have to pick more than 3,500 pounds of tomatoes to earn $50. The 45-cent piece rate has not changed in nearly 30 years. Annual income for farm workers is extremely low--averaging $7,500 to $10,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The vast majority of these farm workers receive no benefits: no health insurance, no sick leave and no vacation pay. Some families live in 10-foot by 10-foot rooms and pay $160 a week in rent, while McDonald's earns huge profits--$2.28 billion last year.

Please take action today to help end these deplorable conditions. Tell McDonald's and Chipotle to support fair wages for farm workers and sign an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Last year, Taco Bell signed an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an additional one cent per pound for tomatoes it purchases. But McDonald's and Chipotle (initially a subsidiary of McDonald's and now a publicly traded company in which McDonald's is the controlling shareholder) have refused to sign a similar agreement to raise wages in the fields.
Although Chipotle's manifesto, titled "Food With Integrity," takes a strongly activist stance for humane conditions in its supply chain for farm animals, the manifesto says nothing about the conditions under which people are laboring to harvest its produce.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is calling on Chipotle to expand its "Food With Integrity" mission to include "Work With Dignity" for farm workers who harvest its tomatoes by improving wages and allowing workers to participate in the protection and advancement of their own rights. Further, the coalition is calling on Chipotle to ask McDonald's to join Taco Bell in improving wages and human rights in the fields.

Send a letter to McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner and Chipotle CEO Steve Ells demanding that they sign the agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve wages and conditions for farm workers.

Thank you for all you do.
In solidarity,
The Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO

Dog-Blog Friday

Buddy, in the house for a change (cuz Dix was out) ...

Mischief (who was experiencing some digestive irregularities lately and is at the vet's today)

There are NO 'Small Blessings': Count yours

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of 100 people, with everything else remaining the same, it would look like this: There would be:
* 57 Asians
* 21 Europeans
* 14 from the Western Hemisphere,
* 8 Africans,
* 52 would be female
* 48 would be male
* 70 would be non-white
* 70 would be non-Christian
* 95 would be heterosexual
* 6 people would own 59% of the world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States
* 80 would live in substandard housing
* 70 would be unable to read
* 50 would suffer from malnutrition
* 1 would be near death
* 1 would be near birth
* 1 would have a college education
* 1 would own a computer
* 0 would play oboe

On War Crimes and War Criminals

There's considerable foofraw in the press and the blogosphere today: Rep. John Murtha, a formidable Democratic War-hawk has told various sources that "US Marines killed civilians "in cold blood" in Haditha earlier this year.

Let's get this straight: USer troops commit war crimes every single fucking day, and do so with almost total impunity (and the complicity of their officers): One raghead here, one haji there, a sandnigger in the corner, and pretty soon there's a hundred thousand or so dead Iraqis scattered around the place.

They do so because they are in an untenable position: being invaders and occupiers who must maintain control by force and threat and intimidation because they are not welcome there. They commit war crimes to save their own lives...and to exact revenge upon their already suffering victims for the casualties they incur in their criminal enterprises.

Every single soldier who has served in Iraq should be committed to intense theraputic debriefing for no less than 6 mos upon returning, and be provided with a life-time supply/prescription for anti-psychotic drugs.

For many, many years to come (if the example of VietNam is reliable, and I have no reason not to think it is) there are gonna be (already are, obviously) some really crazy, scarred veterans stalking the streets, looking for their souls...

Which they won't find...

Rampant Fucking Incivility

10 seconds for a local soldier killed in Iraq, on local news. Shot down in a helicopter, by insurgents.
At least they showed his picture.
smalfish, terrorist 05.17.06 - 11:57 pm

so wrote my atriot buddy...
and i just thought:

If every fucking television station in the
fucking country
carried a fucking body
count in the
top right fucking
corner of the fucking screen, the way
they fucking carried
that fucking "America Held Hostage"
day
count of the fucking Iranian fucking
hostages, every fucking night, every
fucking broadcast,
every fucking chance
they fucking got, i fucking
guaran-fucking-tee you the fucking war
would fucking be fucking history inside
six fucking weeks...
goddam motherfucking
motherfuckers!!!!

Lest We Forget: The Face of Fascist Fatuity

Litz, from Eschaton, wrote:
"I think every lefty blogger in America should run that photo once a week until election day, just as a reminder to the media who peruse these sites ..."

This picture never fails to raise my gorge. I want this fat, self-satisfied bitch to lose a limb--or a son--to an EID, or to take a Dime-Sized Hole in the forehead.
She should at least have had to have earned her medal for something other than facial/wattle exfoliation...
Fucking fascist cunt....

Political Theater: Quarantine Wal-Mart!!!

QUARANTINE WAL-MART: NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION JUNE 2ND

Jobs with Justice, in concert with the Ruckus Society and other allies, is excited to announce a nationwide day of coordinated and creative action against Wal-Mart. On Friday, June 2, while CEO Lee Scott is convening Wal-Mart's annual shareholders meeting, thousands of concerned citizens dressed in hazmat suits and armed with yellow caution tape will be putting Wal-Mart sites across the country under "quarantine."

Activists will be targeting local Wal-Mart stores and potential sites, public officials who are on the record as supporting new Wal-Mart stores in their communities, and Wal-Mart's board members. The purpose of the day of action is to mobilize activists and to send a message to shareholders that there continues to be great concern over WM's corporate practices. We will be reaching out to allies to join in this mobilization.

JOIN THE QUARANTINE!

Two Crucial Questions: Who Will Ask Them?

"There are two simple points that need to be made aggressively and stubbornly every time any Democrat speaks on (domestic spying).

(This, by Zack Exley, was on Huffpost last Thursday)

1) "Bush ALREADY HAD the freedom to spy on anyone he wanted - he just had to tell a secret intelligence judge AFTERWARDS, a judge who was sworn to secrecy. So what was he trying to hide from that judge?"
Say that over and over. Whenever the interviewer or Republican who you're up against goes back to "our intelligence gatherers have to be able to act fast," don't let that stand. Stop them. Stop them and make them take it back. Ask them, "Is there something you don't understand about this? Bush already had the freedom to spy on anyone at anytime - with no delays, no delays at all. All he had to do was AFTERWARDS tell a special, secret, terrorist-fighting judge who he spied on."
I know from the last time, you feel like you did say that. But you didn't really. You'd throw it out there with some confusing words about a FISA Court, and 72 hours. And when they ignored you on that point, you let it stand and moved on to the next point of argument: usually something about "civil liberties" and how we need to defend them even if means everyone getting blown up by terrorists.
This time around, keep it simple, and make them acknowledge the simple fact that Bush could always spy on anyone with no delays at all.

2) "WHO WERE THEY SPYING ON? We need to see a list."
Democrats in Congress must demand to see a list (and keep it secret of course), of every person and organization who the Republican administration eavesdropped on, and every person and organization whose phone records they checked.
Was Karl Rove making up lists of political opponents to listen in on? Did this have something to do with the 2004 elections? Were they listening in on the people who were investigating the White House? Were they spying on Churches? On corporate competitors of Halliburton and other favorites? The reason the president has to tell a secret intelligence judge who he spied on is to prevent those kinds of abuses.

Read the whole thing. It's worth the time...

Happy Mothers' Day Dog Blog

From Hanna-Stella...

...Buddy...

Dixie-belle (sporting her summer trim)...

And Mischief...

All our best to your Moms, too...

Stream-whoring: WWOZ should not be missed

http://www.wwoz.org/listen.php

Mother Nature: Ironic in Tooth and Claw

Newly Discovered Monkey Rates Own Genus

WASHINGTON May 11, 2006 (AP)— A recently discovered type of African monkey is different enough from others that it needs to be listed in a separate genus, scientists have decided.
The monkey, which lives in Tanzania, was first described last year. At that time it was listed in the genus Lophocebus, which includes the mangabey.
After further study, researchers now say the monkey known as kipunji is more closely related to some types of baboon than to mangabeys, though it is anatomically different from baboons, and thus should have its own genus.
A research team led by Tim R. B. Davenport of the Wildlife Conservation Society suggests in the Science Express that kipunji should be placed in the newly created genus Rungwecebus.
It is the first new genus for an African primate in 83 years. The name refers to Mt. Rungwe, where this type of monkey was first seen.
Several kipunji have been observed and one was studied at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago after it was killed in a farmer's trap. The animal was about 15 inches long and weighed about nine pounds.
It has light to medium gray-brown fur, with white toward the end of the tail and off-white fur on the belly.
The researchers said kipunji is threatened by habitat fragmentation and hunting.
Genus and species are scientific descriptive terms used to classify plants and animals. For example, people are Homo sapiens genus Homo, species sapiens.
The most general classification is kingdom, followed by phylum, class, order, family, genus, species and subspecies.


N.B.: The only reason we have learned about this critter is because we have endangered it.

Today, by the way, is the official "Endangered Species Day," the first of its kind.

For the Parent of War's Newest Hero:

While pulling that lever for Bush,
Remember how brightly you smiled?
Well, now that you have gotten your wish,
It is my fondest hope that your child,
Whom your love has so fully provided
With good health, a good home, a good heart,
Won't come back from Iraq divided
In several boxes in separate parts...

The Fat, Vile, Fatuous, Vicious Face of Fascism

From Eschaton:

"I think every lefty blogger in America should run that photo once a week until election day, just as a reminder to the media who peruse these sites ....Litz - 5:08 pm ..."

This picture never fails to raise my gorge. I want this fat, self-satisfied bitch to lose a limb--or a son--to an EID, or take a Dime-Sized Hole in the forehead.

She should at least have earned her medal for something other than facial/wattle exfoliation...fucking cunt....

As fine a crew of killers as you'd ever wanna meet...

In the spring of 1840, a party of Comanche was invited to parley in San Antonio to arrange a captives' exchange. Once the were disarmed, they were escorted into a tent, which was then quickly surrounded by an unofficial militia, consisting of hunters and other frontiersmen who detested the Indians. The militia then opened fire through the sides of the tent, killing a number of the Comanche leaders. It came to be known as the Council House Fight (if you're a Texan; "massacre" if you're a Comanche), in which at least 30 Natives were killed, including women and chilldren. Seven Texans died. The event marked the absolute end of any possibility for peaceful negotiations with the Comanche, and set the tone for the Indians' regard for the trustworthiness of Whites. It was the primary motivation for the Buffalo Hump Raid, in which 600 Comanche and Kiowa warriors descended through the Trinity and Brazos valleys, killing settlers and stealing livestock. The Indians even attacked Austin, killing many, burning buildings and running of stock. Texans are accustomed to considering this an "invasion."

We , the motley band of background artistes pictured above, portrayed the members of that murderous militia (yours truly is standing third from the left). For the record, my costume consisted entirely of ('authentic') leather garments, and weighed about 30 lbs...

Blogging with the Budster

I was gonna name him Brad...but there already WAS a Brad Pit...

On Walled-In Pond This Morning

Whimsical, that's me. I whimsically called this "Etude Breve."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13812691@N00/sets/72057594128265146/

It's a Flickr file. Five fotos. Can i put five fotos in a single Blogger posting? I suppose I could try, and see what happened.
hmmmm.
Well, my finny and friends and I all wish you well...

Friday Dog-Blog

One More Time!

Please, folks. Can we get past the 'incompetence' meme?

The busheviks are NOT incompetent.

Just as the folks who complain about the inefficiency and incompetence of USer school system misunderstand the purpose of USer schools (i.e., sorting, according to SUNY Prof. Joel Spring), the folks who claim the busheviks are incompetent do not understand what their true purpose is...

The busheviks were installed in 2000 and maintained in 2004 by the corporate oligarchy for a very narrow range of purposes. First: to undermine as much as possible every single recourse to which the citizens might appeal to resist the impinging power of the CorpoRat State; to annihilate the public or common institutions and instruments by which the people might seek such recourse; and to ruin the trust of the citizenry in those instutions and instruments by conspicuously flauting their authorities....

In this they have been nearly faultless, and flawless.

It requires intelligence approaching genius, far more than wholly improbable runs of phenomenal luck, to identify, locate, and exploit exactly the weakest points in the Constitutional guarantees, and to demolish the protective institutions that have grown up in the shadow of the presumptions of freedom.

This is not the work of some inscrutable, interstellar fate, nor is it the result of the bumblings of buffons and incompetents. There are intimations here of sheer genius--albeit of the most malevolent and malign sort. It is not unlike the artistry with which Slimebot works the dittoheads (NB: Ed Schultz is developing a coterie of "Ed heads," fer shit's sake). They KNOW what they are doing, they know why they are doing it, and they are thinking about what what they are doing does. (Foucault is, i fear, vindicated).
.

Hanna-Stella, Queen of the Night

The girl can't help it that she's beautiful AND photogenic.

My Next Role: Comanche Moon

Comanche Moon is the prequel to Lonesome Dove, the legendary tv series. Call and McCrae as young Rangers, ride in pursuit of raiding savages to rescue their esteemed captain, Scull, who has been taken by a particularly murderous renegade. Had i gotten the Ben Lily role, for which i (and 14 other guys) read, my get-up might have looked not unlike this.

I also am scheduled to appear in merchant/shop-keeper garb in the town scenes set in Austtin, TX, circa 1865.

For obvious reasons, i like this costume better. But i only get to wear this'n one, or at most two days. I'm in shop-keeper rig for as long as a week...bumer...

Hanna, laughing

Hanna on duty: why the pond's walled-in