Saturday, September 30, 2006

Glitch in Ticker Fixed

It's hard to exaggerate the difference between today--almost exactly a week after the 'procedure' and my recollection of the last couple of years, if I were to think about it.

Docs said about 98% blockage of one artery--I forgot to ask which. because they entered through the femoral, I guess I figgered it was probably that one. I have an appointment w/cardiologist mon. I'll ask him, specifically.

He was a mite surprised when I located one locus of the discomfort I experienced 'above the wrist, suspended between the radius and the ulna'...asked if I had been to medical school.

It never was 'pain', like taking the tip of your thumb off when you mis-hit a 16 lb sinker with a 28 oz waffle-head framing hammer: THAT's pain...it was discomfort, a deep ache in the chest and arms...

I ignored/denied it for six maybe even seven months. I'm a quick study, but a slow learner. It finally impressed itself upon me how serious it was when I noticed myself having to take small, almost shuffling, steps...I wasn't breathing hard...but I had to slow my pace, shorten my gait.

Marked well: That short step and slow gait are the signs the hyenas seek and see when they are hunting prey. My abiding fear is that I might end up like my dad, so weakened that he needed my care to do even the slightest, smallest tasks. Okay for him, but i don't have a 'me.'

So anyway, i'm good again. My strength is coming back. I have always been proud of my strength, and i noticed it's slackening, and i now feel it returning and i feel terrific...

thanks for askin...

jpk

A Shaggy Dog Story

My friend Laurell, a vet, sent me this:

"I have a dog and I was buying a large bag of Purina Dog Food at WalMart and was in line to check out, where a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

"On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Purina Diet again. I said it was essentially a perfect diet. The way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

"Still, I told her, I approached the project with some trepidation because the last time I'd tried it, though I'd lost 50 pounds, I had awakened one day in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

"Horrified, she asked if I'd been poisoned.

"No, I told her. Actually, I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls when a car hit me."


Woof...

Friday, September 29, 2006

A Plea For A Furry Friend


My Eschaton-friend, Katie/sittin'pretty, has one of the biggest hearts you'd ever wanna meet, and devotes a lot of it to rescuing endangered or damaged canine and feline companions.

She has taken on a new crusade: Mia, an elderly miniaure poodle who has developed a cancer in her mammary glands which has resulted in a suppurating tumor. the vets say she can be brough back to health, but the price is steeper than either Katie alone, or Mia's people, can afford. So she's asked me--another sucker for any lost or hurt animal--to help and I agreed.

We need, collectively, to raise about $1000 for Mia's surgery (vets are NOT inexpensive). I have myself already pledged $25 (oh, hell, make it $50) to the project, and am soliciting any of my readers to assist as they may.

Mia's vet is the Clint Moore Animal Hospital. There's an Atriots for Mia Fund established at the clinic, and I have suggested to Katie that she help them set up a pay-pal account for the dog.

If you want to send a check, the address is Atriots For Mia Fund, c/o Clint Moore Animal Hospital, 9531 Clint Moore Rd., Boca Raton, FL 33496.

Addendum: I called the vet (561.487.0226) and gave 'em a credit card donation. They say they haven't got the time, the staff, or the patience to start a pay-pal.
Contact me, (konopelli at hotmail) if you're gonna contribute, and i'll provide ya with the account name...
Thanks again.,..

Thursday, September 28, 2006

They Don't Like Us (And Who Can Blame Them)


Huffpost had this item in the daily briefing today (click on the headline above for the details).

New poll results released yesterday revealed that six out of ten Iraqis approve of attacks on US-led forces, while four in five believe that US forces provoke more violence than they prevent. Although three-quarters of respondents believe that the US plans to keep permanent military bases in Iraq, more than half want their government to ask US troops to leave within a year. A overwhelming majority has a negative opinion of Osama bin Laden.

The poll was conducted for the University of Maryland's Program on International Relations.



Now can we just bring 'em the fuck home?

Get'em on a bus, Gus.
Load up the plane, Jane.
Fill up the ship, Chip.
Just bring 'em home...

Pile onto the truck, Chuck.
Bring up the lorry, Maury.
Go on the lam, Pam.
Just come on home.
There mus' be 50 ways to leave Iraq, Jack...

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Which Vice-President of the USofA Said The Following?


1. "...The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power..."

2. "...The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. ...They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection..."

3. "...American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery..."

4. "...If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead..."

5. "... Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their...counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases..."

Henry Wallace, Vice-President of the US, 1941-1945.
We should remember his counsel...

When The Target's Armed: Clinton Inflicts A Sucking Chest Wound On That Simpering Turd, Chris Wallace

John Nichols' column in The Nation On-Line, nicely summarizes Bill Clinton's evisceration of that drooling, lack-luster fascist lickspittle Chris Wallace's transparent ambush attempt on Fox last Sunday:
Love Bill Clinton or hate him, but understand that his appearance on Fox News
Sunday was one of those rare moments in recent American history when a target of our drive-by media shot back.

Here's the money quote:

Wallace finally asked: "Do you think you did enough, sir?"

Clinton replied: "No, because I didn't get him."


Wallace chirped, "Right."

Clinton countered, "But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn't. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country: Dick Clarke. So you did FOX's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me.
But what I want to know…


Stung, Wallace was again interrupting. But Clinton held firm. "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you've asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked ‘Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' I want to know how many you asked ‘Why did you fire Dick Clarke?' I want to know…"

"We ask plenty of questions of…" sputtered Wallace.


"Tell the truth…" Clinton shot back, before revealing that he had Wallace's number.

"You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because (Fox owner) Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on Climate Change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you'd spend half the time talking about (climate change.) You said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don't care."

Truer words have rarely been spoken on a nationally-televised "news" program.

When a beaten Wallace tried to cover for himself – "… all I can say is, I'm asking you in good faith because it's on people's minds, sir. And I wasn't…" – Clinton nailed him: "There's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make. There's a reason it's on people's minds because they've done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression."

Chris Wallace wouldn't know 'good faith' if it kicked him where his shrivelled gonads ought to be.

That aside, I have never been one of Clenis' admirers. I voted for him against Poppie. I voted for Nader in '96. His brand of triangulation sold-out the whole socially progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and it hasn't yet been redeemed by his successors. But I cheered when he gut-shot that snivelling little shitstick Wallace. "Hit'em widda fuukin CHAIR!"

Olbermann: Bush Displacing IX/XI Blame Onto Clinton = Extreme Cowardice

Money quote #1:

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.



Money quote #2:
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.


Money quote #3:
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq
which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, Mr. Bush:
Are yours the actions of a true American?
I tell ya, this guy Olbermann is fucking SHRILL!

How Do You Compromise On Torture?

On Eschaton today, "Sister of Ye," a much admired commenter posted the following letter which she sent to her senators:

It is hard to find words to express my horror and dismay that the U.S. Senate is on the verge of passing a bill authoring the use of torture by U.S. security forces.

I grew up on the stories of how our country took the lead in prosecuting WWII war criminals for their crimes in POW and concentration camps. Now our "wiser" elective body is set to discard 200 years of growth toward living out our ideals by turning our backs on domestic law and international treaty to stand among history's tyrants.

This is touted as a "compromise" with the administration. But a compromise with evil is still evil. Let me illustrate: Suppose I visit your office and grab your wallet, and when you demand it back, offer to compromise by splitting the contents? What if I bring a baseball bat and threaten to bash in your skull and break your legs, but compromise and only break your legs? Either "compromise" still leaves a grievous wrong against your property or person. So is it with this "compromise" on torture.

When I went to the Senate website to send this letter, I saw that it was promoting Constitution Day. How pathetic that our Senate can grandstand with an online nod to our defining national document while gutting the ideals it embodies.I urge you to use every means available, INCLUDING THE FILLIBUSTER, to prevent this shame to America. I request that you urge your fellow Senators to do the same.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Re: IXXI--Still Shrillin' Like A Villein

Even if the Gibbering Chimp had not done so, I am morally certain that Cheney read the Aug. 6 pdb and chose NOT to act upon it or any other information regarding terror threats inside the US.

There were many reasons not to act, but mainly it was that by aug. 6, the Bushevik regime was in tatters:
1) There was a Rummy 'death watch' on Slate.
2) There were nightly jibes on both Leno and Letterman, as well as the hundreds of lesser lights of the political comedy scene.
3) There was the fiasco of the rotating cabinet.

Indeed, there was disaaray and disorder throughout the House of Bush.

They needed a reichstag-style event, just exactly what the the Aug. 6 pdb promised.

Dick Cheney's the evil genius in all this. If he didn't actively permit it to proceed, he chose to ignored the threat...

In either case, it was (charitably as possible) in the hopes that the damage would be smaller than it actually turned out (the Reichstag fire didn't kill anybody, btw). I think they imagined a smaller, less grandiose attack. They didn't need much. Almost anything that killed Murkins would suffice.

I claim the exemption that Harper's editor Ben Metcalf provided in his essay in the maqg last summer when I say that, if i could, i would cut Dick Cheney's head off and stick it in the mailbox at the Chimps ranch in Crawford...

Just sayin.

Monday, September 25, 2006

You Want Fucking Shrill? I'll GIVE You Fucking Shrill!

Hugo Chavez was FUCKING SHRILL.
That mofo could give lessons in shrill.
Hugo speak, you listen, goddamn it!
This is how you combat the fascists: ridicule! It's the only kind of resistance they cannot abide, or defeat...


From his address to the UN General Assembly:

The President of the United States yesterday said to us right here in this room, and I’m quoting, “Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror, and martyrdom.” Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother, he looks at your color, and he says, ‘Oh, there’s an extremist.’ Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him. The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over, and people are standing up. I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare, because the rest of us are standing up, all those of us who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations. Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

Keep Former Generals The Fuck OUT of Politics

Former General Batiste said today "The US needs to go onto a war footing; instead, we give out tax cuts!"

Actually, the USofA does NOT need to go on 'war footing.'

That's what's wrong with these military fux taking over civilian roles: the war's not wrong; just the way we're fighting the war's wrong.

Assholes.

What "we" and the rest of the world need to do is to launch an extensive, world-wide police hunt for the culprits, capture or kill 'em and proceed...

Terrorism is nothing but a mionor inconvenience, if regarded in the context of the world's general condition.

"We" need to take all the money that's being pissed away on military hardware, salaries, and operations, and devote it to stemming the crisis of global climate change...

Fuck the terrorists...they can only hurt a very limited number of people, while the environmental crisis threatens not only our species but every species on the planet with the possible exception of cockroaches...

Jeezis...

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Gore Vidal: Anymore, he's better in print than in person


He's got a nice little essay up at Robert Sheer's truthdig.com. To my mind, this is the money quote:

I think it was Vico who noted that busy republics tend to turn themselves into empires. Certainly, the French intellectual godfather to the American republic, Montesquieu, warned that republics which took the empire route would cease to be republics all together, while Vico, in his cyclic view of human societies, saw
imperial republics evolving into dictatorships, chaos, barbarism. In the last five years American behavior in the Middle East has been barbarous and will not soon be forgiven. Meanwhile, the gas-oil junta has hijacked the old American republic through the artful use of great quantities of corporate and church cash in order to falsify the electoral tallies of easily hacked electronic voting machinery; means now exist to nullify or alter any election returns as happened in Florida 2000; in Ohio 2004
.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

On Again-Off Again Angiogram On-Again

Friday...I'm the first case, at 6:30 am.

Here's what I know (I shoulda done this in the first place):

1. The procedure itself will last between 40 minutes (if there's no need to install a stent--which apparently seems to all the physicians unlikely), and 2 to 2 1/2 hours in case they go structural.

2. I will be aware, though sedated.

3. Afterwards, the greatest danger is re-opening the incision in the artery. I'll be on 'sick call' for the weekend: Overnight in the hospital; no driving for 3 days; no strenuous exertions for 7 days; no lifting for 10 days.

If I've overlooked anything, do NOT stint any hints on stents...

I'm going to put Buddy in a kennel for a couple of days. He's a love, but people get scared by him, and when that happens he wonders 'hey, what have they gotta hide, anyway???' that way, any of my friends can come in and take care of the rest of the pack, who are not as pugnacious in appearance and demeanor (if he doesn't know you)...

Anyway: I'd welcome advice on such matters as i may have overlooked...

Thank-ya very much...

"Non-Sequitur" today.


I resemble that remark...

Monday, September 18, 2006

Sein Und Zeit

In a hundred years there isn't anyone who will give a single damn about anything any of us said or did. Take some comfort in that, know that your smallness is a grace. Love freely, play with abandon, give of yourself till the tears run openly for nothing can threaten that which is already ephemeral.


Someone calling themself 'catalexis,' but who also admitted to 'nyclept', posted this on Atrios/Eschaton this evening. I think it's just about right...

Well said...

Not A False Alarm; Rather A Failure To "'Municate"

The shortest version:
I had to postpone the procedure when, after arriving at the hospital for the angiogram, they told me I might have to spend the night (if they installed a stint, which they were likely to do, so as to prevent the necessity of opening up the artery again at some later date).

I had not made arrangements for caring for the hounds. I had made arrangements for an out-patient procedure. In addition, even on the proviso of day surgery, it was already growing late in the day. I had arrived at 8:30 am, and I was still not heading toward the operating theater, after even the least worst-case, by the time they'd have released me it would have been already evening.

So I will be--though have not yet been--rescheduled.

When I am, I will know about the restrictions: i will be away from the house and the dogs for up to 36 hours; there is no driving for THREE days, no lifting (of more than 10 lbs) for up to 10 days--little things which I would have thought someone would have been smart enough to have told me BEFORE I blithely marched into the hospital this morning.

I learned today that another old friend has had two stents installed, and he assured me it was temporarily uncomfortable, but ultimately well worth the discomfort. So there's that...

Many thanks for all the good wishes, and thoughts. I shall keep and store them up against the next appointment.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

A Glitch In The Ticker: Check-In Time, 0830, MDT


I had a great time over the weekend with mena, katie, tena, ruth, agave, olaf, lil red, and a couple of volunteers from the vecinidad.

I'm glad it was this weekend we'd planned, and not next, cuz i'm scheduled for a 'procedure' on the morrow: likely a stent for an arterial impediment/obstacle on the left side of my heart. With which procedure I become, will Ior nil I, a member of that class of which Darth Cheney is a prominent member... I view this situation as very much an up-close, personal (re-)introduction to the calculi of mortality...

I'm scheduled to be processed at 0830 mdt, tomorrow, Sept. 18. They provided me with a helpful pamphlet, "Our Friend, the Stent," featuring sophisticated, lifelike (but nevertheless, cartoon) representations of glowingly healthy, smiling, dare is say 'perky' (?), but undeniably grizzled, 'seniors,' wearing day-packs and wielding walking sticks, bravely facing the trailhead before them, having full and enriching lives.

The part I was dreading was it turns out just what I had dreaded: exercise.
I guess i'll go back bicycling. The area around here is flat, being in a river valley...the grade up-river south to north being no more than a degree. There are pretty bicycle paths; I have a decent, albeit elderly, bike, and can afford a beter one if I want to.
Anymore, I don't 'hike'; i walk or stroll or amble...I don't 'cycle'; I'ride'...

If I lived at the beach, I'd go surfing everyday. paddling out into the line-up, even if it is smallish, can be strenuous on certain tides, etc. then there is the reward: catching a wave!
fuukin magical...

I haven't ever really enjoyed 'exercise' for it's own sake, or for the sake of shaping or 'improving' one's (my) body. Not one for the endless reps of the gym rat, exercise' for me has had to have had a tangible pay-off, up-front...

One of the visiting Atriots, Agave, underwent the procedure a yeaqr ago and provided me with a description of what is in-store for me tomorrow. I'm not lookin' foreward to it, much, in all honesty.

This is gonna be interesting.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Don't Worry! They Only Plan To Use It On Uppity Kneegrows, Libruls And Possibly Immigrants

Via Kos (who, it turns out is one of those hopeful naifs about the extent of the corruption, and the possiblity for redemption, of the SCUM), we learn that the US Military is developing a "micro-wave" crowd-control device which, according to the Sct'y of the Air Force, will be employed against domestic "troublemakers" and not overseas. (It will be restricted from use abroad) because "Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns," says AF Secretary Michael Wynne.

The Kos commentator who told the story claims it will further diminish the reputation of the US on the international stage, but that seems to me to be just another example of Kossak naivete.

Real PATRIOTS know the world mocks us for our tenderness towards troublemakers. The Chinese, certainly--who are said by some to market the body parts of their executed felons--and probably the Iraqis (who hanged 24 people today at Abu Graib) too, and even likely our putative allies, the Israelis (who hold upwards of 5,000 alleged Palestinian nationalists in prisons in the Negev) scoff at our insanely delicate sensibilities when it comes to preserving the regime.

This new development in crowd control technology, along with the increased presidential control over the National Guards of the States (we NEED an Army of the Interior: no totalitarian, imperialistic State in history ever proceded without one), will demonstrate to our adversaries that the USo'fuckinA is prepared to do worse to its own citizens than it does to its conquests; or at least just as badly.
USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Re: IX/XI Anniversary #5: The Day After

I refrained from posting on the anniversary yesterday, mostly because I am one of those who believes the Busheviki are lying, and withholding the truth about the events of that day; and I didn't want imputations of tinfoil haberdashery (mine's fringed with x-mas-tree tinsel) associated with my postings.

I did listen to Amy Goodman's debate between skeptics and the orthodoxicals, and it seemed to me that the skeptics came off better; especially when they claimed that the orthos wouldn't or couldn't address the issues, but had always to deflect examination of the controversial evidence into realms of ideology.

It is my firm and considered belief that, faced with the threat of 4 years of humiliation at the hands of late-night comedians, and the total failure of policy and imagination within the regime, and scorn and increasing irrelevance among the people, Cheney (whose brief in the regime after all, was INTELLIGENCE [fucking HELLO?]) opted to let the attacks proceed, hoping the results wouldn't be too disastrous (which they weren't, really: more Murkins died in a single day at the Battle of Antietam than were killed by Osama's boys).

So, I was happy to discover (from Bob Sheerer's site, www.truthdig.com) THIS site. I hope it discomfits the whole and utter fuck outta the complacent, the brain-dead, and/or the cowardswho cannot face the possibility that, yes, the Chimp and his minions, lickspittles, satraps and toadies COULD do something like this.

They could; and imho they did.

Keith Olbermann is the most courageous man in public life today.

I'd have said "the most courageous person."

But that would have left no room for Cindy Sheehan, who rivals Olbermann for courage, if not for a forum from which to speak.

Anyone who hasn't heard Olbermann's righteous bitch-slap of the drooling fux now in power (and, Keith's best efforts notwithstanding, likely to remain so) MUST attend to this powerful message.

For me, the most compelling moment comes early:
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

By the same token, I would argue that anyone who claims that I and other veterans like me who oppose Busheviks and Bushevism are "soft" or have "forgotten" the lessons of immoral and illegal war, and who has not experienced such lessons in the first person, is a drooling fuckwit--which category includes both the Sock-puppet in Chief and the sneering lout who pulls his strings.

I only wish Olbermann had been uncivil enough to say so.

Protect the Constitution, you drooling fuck!

We, the People, will take care of the rest...

Matt Lauer: And yet you admitted that there were these CIA secret facilities. OK?

Shitwhistle Bush: So what? Why is that not within the law?

Matt Lauer: The head of Amnesty International says secret sites are against international law.

Chattering Chimp: Well, we just disagree with him. Plus, my job is to protect you. And most American people, if I said [to them] that we had who we think is the mastermind of the 9/11, they would say, “Why don’t you see if you can’t get information without torturing him,” which is what we did.

Matt Lauer: I don’t want to let this “within the law issue” slip though. I mean, if, in fact, there was water boarding used with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and for the viewers, that’s basically when you strap someone to a board and you make them feel as if they’re going to drown by putting them underwater, if that was legal and within the law, why couldn’t you do it at Guantanamo? Why did you have to go to a secret location around the world?

Simpering, scampering pseudo-simian: I’m not going to talk about techniques. And, I’m not going explain to the enemy what we’re doing. All I’m telling you is that you’ve asked me whether or not we’re doing things to protect the American people, and I want the American people to know we are doing so.


It isn't the business of the motherfucker to 'protect the people,' especially not at the cost of the only document that really DOES protect us.

And wtf is up with Matt Lauer--who in the video strongly resembles PeeWee Herman-- confronting the Chimperor? What the fuck is he thinking?

It Is PAST TIME For Pitchforks and Torches, Goddamn It!

U.S. Government Blocks Citizens' Return Home

This is just too motherfucking MUCH:

Federal officials are preventing a Pakistani-American father and son from returning to their home in California. Officials want the two U.S. citizens to take a polygraph test before allowing their return home. The case raises constitutional questions.

"Raises" Constitutional questions? No fucking shit, Buckwheat! Hey, I know they're just sand-niggers, but they are fucking CITIZENS! The son was fucking BORN here! Jesus H Fucking Christ!

Listen to the NPR report at the link (in the headline above), while you start sharpening the tines on your pitchforks!

Friday, September 08, 2006

"The Path to 9-11": A Paradigm of Propaganda


What "damage" can the broadcast of the ABC/GOP "crock-u-mentary" (as someone on Eschaton aptly labeled it this morning) actually do, apart from the personal affronts to the named personages therein portrayed?

For all practical purposes, most of such damage as was going to be done is done already: the exculpating meme (Clinton guilty, Bush innocent) is "OUT THERE" once and for all. It has become part of the vernacular of the politics this year and into the future. In progaganda terms, the effect is complete. Such genies never return to their bottles.

Ellul 50 years ago explained how to identify the targets of propaganda: recognize those who have the most at stake in believing it. More interesting, imho, therefore, is asking "in whose interest does the meme operate: whom does it exculpate?"

In order to believe in the exculpation it provides, one must, I think, be already feeling a certain amount of guilt or remorse for some previous behavior for which the meme provides exculpatory relief.

By (apparently) "blaming Clinton," the film would be exculpatory for the Bushevik regime, of course. But the film isn't aimed at that audience. The WhiteHouse, even the Regime in toto, does not constitute either a reliable enough or a large enough population to justify this extraordinary feat of internal agitprop.

This suggests to me that, therefore, the intended audience for the film is a group of citizens who may be experiencing some uncomfortable remorse in the face of several (already enumerated) 'inconvenient truths' regarding the conduct of Busheviks whom those voters installed and (ostensibly) retained in and returned to the offices of power.

In this case, I'd suggest the behavior is the exculpee's willing, inadvertent, or blind culpability in the deeds done by the Busheviks in the aftermath of the IX/XI events, the cumulative affront of which is the very reason for the requisite propaganda coup in the first place. The film offers a way for the credulous and the morally crippled to rationalize what has since happened in their names, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon--and in New Orleans--the deeds they sanctioned and approved and that they have supported, but which might now seem to have been intemperate, or inhumane, even illegal. If responsibility for IX/XI debacle can be affixed to those whom the Busheviks (for whom the culpable voted) supplanted, then their choice to vote for the Regime looks better and better, more moral and therefore less susceptible to reform.

PT9/11 is not directed to, or even necessary for, the troglodytic 30%-ers who are Bushevik loyalists to the (illogiical) core. This confection of half-truths, fabrications, and outright lies is aimed right at the "Heartland," where support for the regime it seems might be wavering.

The remaining damage STILL to be done resides is in the possibility that--unwitting or conniving--teachers may require that students watch the show and then provide the Scholastic 'study guides.' If a teacher assigns the program for 'homework,' the student will be obliged to watch it at home, likely with some other members of the family...

(Or (if it could be) worse, if teachers WITHOUT A WIDE AND DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF THE FACTS AND THE ISUES (and most teachers i know have only so much room in their schedules for obsessions with middle-eastern politics and dynamics) arranges for an in-class screening and blindly follows Scholastic's pedagogical schema without knowing the framework for asking meaningful questions.)

On the whole, though, the meme is already abroad on the land, yet another rough beast slouching toward jerusalem, waiting to be born...

N.B.: I composed--and will now post--the majority of this as a comment on a discourse.net thread. Also: the image atop this post I shamelessly ripped-off from Atrios.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

TobacCorpoRats: Still Killin' After All These Years


Six years ago, I returned to New Mexico to help see my parents through their fatal, final health crises. They died within a year of one another, my mother in February, 2000 (age: 78), my father in February 2001 (age: 81). Both succumbed to COPD: Congestive/Obstructive Pulmonary Disease--complications brought on by decades of smoking tobacco. I watched, helplessly, as my father literally drowned in his own fluids, after a broken collar-bone suffered in an accidental fall prevented him from getting to his feet and helping to clear his lungs. I myself was a tobacco user/abuser for about 35 years, having begun to smoke regularly when I was 13 years old, and having finally been able to quit when I was 48. I have recently begun experiencing a "heart condition," some part of which , I am certain, is attributable to my three-and-a-half decades of multi-pack-per-day tobacco use. So this unsigned editorial in the Washington Post was of particular interest to me, both personally and as a matter of general health and interest.

Big Tobacco, Lawless as Ever
Profiting by manipulating addictions that kill

"Even after the Complaint in this action was filed in September 1999, Defendants continued to engage in conduct that is materially indistinguishable from their previous actions, activity that continues to this day. . . . [A]ll Defendants continue to market 'low tar' cigarettes to consumers seeking to reduce their health risks or quit; all Defendants continue to fraudulently deny that they manipulate the nicotine delivery of their cigarettes in order to create and sustain addiction."

SO WROTE U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in her lengthy and impressive opinion last month in the federal government's racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Last week, two events demonstrated the wisdom of this harsh judgment.

First, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released data showing that nicotine yields from cigarettes rose about 10 percent between 1998 and 2004 -- dramatically supporting Judge Kessler's contention that manipulations of the highly addictive chemical remain business as usual. The data show an increase across companies and largely across brands.

The companies have not commented on the data, and the reason for the increase is not entirely clear. Most smokers get the dose of nicotine their addictions require by regulating the depth of their inhalation, by covering vents in the cigarettes or simply by adjusting the number of cigarettes they smoke. So why the companies would need to boost the nicotine level is somewhat mysterious.

Perhaps, with modern restrictions making it harder to recruit new smokers, increasing the dose helps retain those already hooked. Perhaps, with indoor smoking restrictions becoming so prevalent and smokers able to light up less often, it is a way of letting smokers get their daily fix from fewer cigarettes.

But there's no reason to believe the pattern is accidental. It is serving some purpose, and it goes on with no regulatory agency overseeing or even monitoring it.

The second event was a motion filed by the companies Friday, asking Judge Kessler to clarify that the ban she had slapped on such deceptive cigarette marketing terms as "light" and "low tar" did not apply overseas. The companies filed this brief knowing that the judge had ruled that the use of such terms was part of a massive pattern of fraud and deceit.

Yet in a sign of the boundless rapaciousness of these companies in marketing death, they had the temerity to ask her not to apply her order "to sales wholly outside the United States." If we can't continue to defraud Americans into killing themselves, they effectively asked, can we at least keep suggesting to billions of people abroad that some cigarettes are safer than others?

When a distinguished federal judge describes ongoing fraud, prosecutors should prick up their ears. More broadly, the lawlessness of this industry will persist as long as federal policymakers refuse to pass meaningful regulation that defines clear rules under which this deadly product can be made and marketed. As Judge Kessler herself notes, litigation will not ultimately bring this industry to heel.

Only legislation can do that.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Wanna Join a Petition drive to re-instate Mike Malloy on AAR?

This was in my e-mail yestiddy, from Peter Werbe:

Hi, Radio Friends: Many of you know by now that my friend and colleague, Mike Malloy, who I often substitute for on Air America Radio, was fired by the network on Wednesday, Aug. 30, a night I was broadcasting for him while he was doing an earlier shift. Since then, there has been an outpouring of listener outrage like I have never seen in talk radio demanding his re-instatement. On one petition alone there are almost 10,000 signatures demanding, not asking, to put Mike back on the air.

If you haven't been part of the effort to bring Mike back, here is the information and want to join the drive, click the headline, above. For contacting Air America directly to voice your opinion: : 212-871-8290, or (cut and paste) email to: comments@airamericaradio.com.


Facts That The GOPUKES Cannot Dodge or Disown!

President Bush Waits Pensively While Sec. of State Rice Adjusts Her Kneepads For Another Game of "Under the Desk, Beyotch."

"Osama Bin Laden Determined to strike in the US."--Presidential Daily Briefing, August 6, 2001, one month and 5 days BEFORE Osama Bin Laden struck inside the USA.

"Ok, you've covered your ass"--GWBush to intel analysts that same day upon hearing the news.


ABC TV is planning to broadcast a 'docu-drama' on Sept. 10-11 which allegedly presents “an objective telling of the events of 9/11.” In fact, the film was written by an unabashed conservative whack-job who twists the facts to blame President Clinton.

It REALLY pisses the Pukes off that there happens to be a record of the inconvenient truth, which no amount of mendacity from the right can erase, albeit they strive mightily to obliterate it and otherwise render it invisible.

What I do NOT understand how it is that Dumbocraps do not flog this fuckin swaybacked, jug-headed cayuse to within an inch of it's fuckin' life: ANY AND EVERYTIME that the Pukes whine about IXXI, how "we were attacked, and the tragic consequences of that attack, the Dumbocraps should plaster the fucking airwaves with reminders, not of IXXI, but of VIIIVI, and the shameful arrogance and ignorance of the fascist fuckers whose vacation could not be troubled with a very real warning of impending disaster.

FYI: Here's the (edited) text of the warning that the Busheviks chose to ignore:

Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of 6 August 2001
Bin Laden determined to strike in US
"Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Centre bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America".
After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington ...
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative [said] at the same time that Bin Laden
[planned] to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.
Ressam says Bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al-Qa'ida members ... have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the 1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as [one] in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of 'Blind Sheikh' Umar Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives."