Previews: The Hormuz Express

Sy Hersch alleged in an interview with one of the ThinkProgress guys that Cheney's brain trust tried to cook up a causus belli with Iran by getting US Navy Seals dressed up as Iranians to drive boats, built in the us, to simulate an attack on a USer Carrier group in or near the Straits of Hormuz, to which the Murkins would respons and initiate hostilities. The Gulf of Tonkin came immediately to mind, and I thought "It's not a fucking game, motherfuckers." But I'm old.

Then a TP poster, Bobwurst, picked up the ball:

I think the plan is for the pretend Iranians to “attack” a US warship and then have the warship “defend” itself by blowing up the navy seals. To what extent the seals or the warship would be in on the true intention of the “attack” questionable. I could see this administration telling the seals that they’re just going to be filmed “attacking” and that there will be live fire but they wouldn’t be targeted, and then the administration would not tell the warship, who would blow up the unsuspecting seals thinking they were really under attack. This would eliminate witnesses to bush/cheney’s treason, and would make the testimony of the captain and crew more believable: they wouldn’t have to act because they would have believed they were really under attack.

I though this was just freaking/farking/farouking brilliant and I posted back:
I give you "Hormuz Express," starring Harrison Ford as the Carrier commander and Bruce Willis leading the Seals…awesome, dood!
Bobwurst replied, getting right into the swing:

Except that Willis, alone, would have to survive, and swim home on the back of a shark to America bent on revenge. He’d shark-surf up the Potomac, climb the fence to the Whitehouse and sneak into President Biff Stoneman’s (D) bedroom (Fred Thompson);..who would spill the beans just before a bullet fired through the window by the Russian Mafia (sent by the Evil VP, played by Brian Denehy) hits him in the head and splatters his brains on the protrait of Bush43 over the bed. Willis again barely escapes, after a bloody and explosive chase through the streets of Washington.

After escaping by hailing his shark, and swimming through the sewers to Annapolis, he sneaks his way onto Harrison Ford’s ship and they decide to save America from the evil Democrat party. I don’t want to ruin the ending, but it involves Denehey being impaled on one of the spikes on the headdress of the statue of liberty.

I've already sent a Bobwurst a contract, and I'm starting the 'treatment' today!

Fuck the Constitution: Small Video Cams Are Your Best Protection Vs. Uniformed Thugs

Via RawStory:

A New York City police officer has been placed behind a desk after being caught on tape deliberately pushing a man off of his bike during a Friday Critical Mass event in Times Square.

22-year-old rookie Patrick Pogan, former football offensive lineman and son of a retired NYPD detective, claimed in court documents that 29-year-old Christopher Long of Bloomfield, New Jersey was "forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction to avoid hitting the defendant." Pogan also alleged that Long knocked him to the ground after deliberately aiming the bicycle towards him.

Video uploaded to YouTube appears to contradict that claim, showing Pogan moving in front of Long as he attempted to ride past the line of officers, and shoving Long to the ground. The footage, the New York Daily News noted, "clearly shows Long trying to dodge Pogan, who appears to have remained upright the entire time."

"The police officer looked to see who he was going to pick off," said witness 54-year-old Craig Radhuber. "All of a sudden the cop picked this kid out and bodychecked him...I couldn't believe what was going on."

Cops will ALWAYS support one another's versions of events, whether they have to lie to do it or not. They all bleed blue.

So the only recourse must be to have your own, irrebuttable account of events. Never trust cops to be on your side, no matter what. They are the official, mortal arm of the State. Watch it:

Busheviks Lower Bar for Workplace Safety; ChairWoMan Chao Fastracks Rule Change

WaPo sez:

Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.

The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May. Instead, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao's intention to push for the rule first surfaced on July 7, when the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posted on its Web site that it was reviewing the proposal, identified only by its nine-word title. (Emphasis supplied)

Via Grist:

It's Us Against Chem
Feds rush to weaken workplace safety rules on toxics before term ends

The Bush administration is trying to push through a new workplace safety rule to weaken workers' protections against toxic chemicals before it leaves office, according to The Washington Post.

The rule, which has not technically been made public but was leaked, would mandate a reevaluation of the methods used to measure risks to workers from toxic exposure in the workplace. The rule would also require the U.S. Department of Labor to entertain additional challenges to its risk assessments before establishing new limits on exposure to chemicals.

So far, work on the proposal has reportedly been fast-tracked and has been conducted largely in secret, drawing sharp criticism from worker advocates.

"This is a guarantee to keep any more worker safety regulation from ever coming out of [the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration]," said workplace safety professor David Michaels. "This is being done in secrecy, to be sprung before President Bush leaves office, to cripple the next administration." Once it's published, the rule will be open to public comment for 30 days.

May someone please shove Elaine Chao up Mitch McConnell's ass, please, and let her suffocate there.

What The SCUM** Really Do

The job of the SCUM (**So Called Unbiased Media**) is to focus on the political "horse-race," to make enough noise so as to make it seem tightly contested enough that at the end it can plausibly be stolen, and the outcome be manipulated through fraud, theft, and extortion--the usual--if that is the wish of our CorpoRat owners and paymasters. This year, I'm not sure they've decided yet. The choices are BOTH alluring. 1) They can let Obama be installed in the WhiteHouse, and then laugh hysterically from the wings as he fails utterly in ANY "promised" reform efforts--all/any of which will be stymied automatically by what-ever number of GOPukes remain in Congress and their Bush/Blue-dog allies. By so doing, th Bosses will manage with a single stroke to destroy the Dims (irrelevance, impotence), and to also remove forever the possibility that ANY OTHER 'minority" will ever assume power. Because Obama will NOT be able to overcome the fascist inertia. WIN/Win...

Sounds pretty good, hunh?

But get a load of the other option: McStain. By putting him in, they don't have to do ANYTHING. They just let things go along as they have been. This has advantages: They don't have the inconvenience of the 4-year interregnum, the slowing of tax breaks, grants, and other federal munificences. They won't have to move their war. They won't have to pretend to care about--or spend any money on-- the climate or the planet.

Oh, yeah, the people suffer a little. But as long as you can keep 'em in front of the TeeVee (60", plasma), watching American Idol or Survivor, with a 30-pak of industrial beer-sludge ("Bud") in the fridge, and the Pizza-guy at the door, the people won't move anywhere, far less rise against their oppressors.

By the way, and despite the Obama-nation, I am pretty sure that, come Jan 20 next year, McStain's gonna be the one standing up there on the reviewing stand, hand on the Bible, lying in his fucking teeth about "protecting the Constitution."

I hope I'm wrong...if I'm not, it will mean either that the Murkin people have finally succumbed to the rightard, genetic mutation to which they have long been susceptible and which I always knew lay dormant, or that the final, silent Fascist propaganda triumph has passed unnoticed and unmarked into the history books.

Pete Domenici Is A Drooling, Senescent, Brain-dead Dick-head

The Pukes won't pass anything to aid the poor unless there's provisions to start off-shore, and ANWR oil drilling. The fuckers cannot be happy unless they're fucking up something precious for the profits of their mothercheneying oil-company paymasters. Domenici's already losing his mind, but I hope he stays 'compos mentos' long enough to know he can't even wipe his own ass...
Via RawStory

Senate Republicans block heating aid bill
Associated Press
Published: Sunday July 27, 2008

WASHINGTON - Republicans on Saturday blocked the Senate from considering a bill next week that would nearly double federal aid to help the poor pay heating and air-conditioning bills.

Although a dozen Senate Republicans support the measure, most voted with GOP leaders who would rather spend the time trumpeting their call to expand offshore oil drilling before Congress takes six weeks off for vacation and the presidential nominating conventions.

"The American resources on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts contain 14 billion barrels at a minimum ... more than we have imported from the Persian Gulf in the last 15 years," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Democrats needed 60 votes to substitute the measure on heating and air-conditioning aid in place of the debate on an expansion of offshore drilling championed by President Bush and GOP presidential candidate John McCain. They got 50 votes Saturday, with 35 Republicans voting against changing the topic.

"Do we vote to keep the old, the sick and kids alive when the weather gets cold or very, very hot, or do we spend money on people who make huge campaign contributions? That is part of what this debate is about," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.

The government is devoting $2.6 billion in subsidies for helping people with low incomes pay heating and air-conditioning bills this year. Sanders' bill would nearly double that to $5.1 billion.

While Senate Democrats said they hoped to pass it next week, Democrats in the House were looking at the popular subsidies for anchoring a second economic aid bill they want to push in September, closer to the November election.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is vehemently against letting the House vote on offshore drilling. She and Democratic leaders in the Senate also have shut down normal summer work on spending bills to prevent offshore drilling from getting a legislative footing in the appropriations committees.

Five point one BILLION dollars??? To help those least able to help themselves get through the worst of the year's weather. Why, that's outrageous. For that money, the US Occupation of Iraq could be extended by over a WEEK.

As for Domenici, well, I guess you gotta understand he's only got a couple of months left in which to fatten the wallets and finance the yachts of his numerous benefactors in the energy and defense industries for which he's so studiously and assiduously carried buckets of runny legislative shit since Reagan, anyway.

Oh, and did I mention, I hope Pete Domenici forgets how to wipe his own ass?

Disciplining Children: To Spank or Not To Spank

My normally gentle friend, Laurell, the East Mountain vet, sent this:

Spanking children

Many Americans have come to think it's improper to spank children. The other day I was talking to one of my younger associates about methods used to discipline children. He provided me with some interesting ideas.

We talked about "time outs", grounding, holding back "rewards" until the child displayed desired behavior etc. One of the things we discussed was the act of spanking and my friend explained that no, he NEVER spanks any of his children.

What he does, he said, is to take the misbehaving child out for a ride in the car and talk. By removing the child, in this case his son, from the immediate situation and providing a change of scenery, the child is allowed to focus on something different. Once the child has the opportunity to change perspective, things get better quickly and the child has better understanding of his place within the family and begins to understand the family's concept of acceptable behavior.

He said that usually this works and that the child calms down fairly quickly and really doesn't take too much time.

He kindly shared a picture of the process which I share with you now (scroll down).

World To McCain: C'Mon, Fucknozzle, Just Withdraw

--"E-fucking-NUFF, Already"--

Michael Berube, via TPM:

EARTH, July 25, 2008 -- The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).

"Ordinarily we do not interfere in America's internal affairs," said a spokesman for the rest of the planet, "even when it has become clear, as in recent years, that American voters are about to elect ignorant, incoherent buffoons who will add immeasurably to our immiseration. But this time is different. We didn't think it was worth our while to step up for your Carter or Mondale or Dukakis or Gore or Kerry -- besides, we'd only be bombed or invaded for our trouble. But this time, I mean, come on -- you've got to be kidding me, right? Please tell me you're kidding."

More

"We'll Do It Live"!

Via Crooks & Liars: This is funny. Satirical, too. Go figger...


http://view.break.com/542113 - Watch more free videos
That green-screen glitch is gonna keep on being raw meat for the leftroots for a LONG time...

Don't You Wish Obama Had the Stones?

Sadly,No! offered this:

I don’t really like to play the “just-imagine-the- wingnut-outrage” game, but this is, I think, a perfect opportunity to do it. John McCain went on the attack and said this about Obama:

I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.

This loathsome little effort at reading Obama’s mind, of course, elicited a round of huzzahs from the usual suspects, including the pretend pirates pirate at Pirate’s Cove.

But suppose that Obama had said this:

I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than spill more American blood. It seems to me that Senator McCain would rather spill more American blood in order to win a political campaign.

They’d still be scraping pieces of John Hinderaker’s skull from the ceiling in his office

I'd loan 'em my wallboard knives. Hell, if Obama--or any-fuuking-body-- had the guts to say anything LIKE that, I'd go door to door for 'em.

A Story About A LOTTA Bull

My pal, Laurell, the Vet in the East Mountains c&p'd this to me the other day, and I just now found it. I've performed one obvious edit, the rest should be self-evident from that. I think this might be the literal joke equivalent of "filking' a song.

So this Department of Water Resources Homeland Security representative stops at a Texas ranch and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, "I need to inspect your ranch for the border fence."

The old rancher says, "Okay, but don't go in that field over there."

The DHS guy gets real huffy and says, "Mister, I have the authority of President Bush with me. See this card? This card means I am allowed to go WHEREVER I WISH on any border land. No questions asked or answered. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?"

The old rancher nods politely and goes about his chores.

A couple of minutes pass, and pretty soon the old rancher hears loud screams and spies the DHS guy running for his life and close behind is the rancher's bull. The bull is gaining with every step. The DHS fella is terrified, yelling at the top of his lungs to the rancher for help. Right away, the old rancher throws down his tools, hobbles to the fence, and yells at the top of his lungs.....

"Your card, man! Your CARD! Show him your FUCKING card!"

I highlighted the first edit, and rely on your acumen to recognize the rest.

There will not be a test.

Hit & Run!@ Close the Book

Isn't Novakula in Jail YET?

Beloved right-wing lying sleaze-bag and scum-sucking water-carrier for the GOP for too many years to count, Bob Novak had an unfortunate encounter with a pedestrian on a Washington D.C. street earlier today, after which encounter the pedestrian was injured and the vehicle, a distinctive black Corvette, sped away. Followed by a shouting bicyclist, Novak stopped a block or so away...
Might one be forgiven for being curious who's hands were on which shifter in the cab of that hot black 'Vette as it wheeled recklessly through thick DC pedestrian traffic? Who did Novakula not want to be known as an associate of that he'd risk a felony conviction (umm, that's what you or I would face for Hit & Run, leaving the scene, whatever) for running away?
Karma, beyotch!

War Crimes--Killing for peace

Today, the US Military starts a kangaroo war-crimes trial at Gitmo, trying to hasten the execution of the Ha'mdi, their first "terr'ist," to illustrate the GOP grand narrative--more fear, more war, more war-fare--in time for the impending electoral kabuki, the outcome of which is already moot. Missing entirely, of course, is any sense that ALL the wrong people are on trial for the crimes that were indisputably committed.

(Slate's) Dahlia Lithwick, reporting on NPR, wasn't exactly scornfully astonished by the way the fix had been put in--the Military Commissions fix, post SCROTUS, is still nothing but a "fix"----but she never raised any explicit objections to it. Dahlia tries to sound outraged, a little, I guess, but to me just sounds flabbergasted. (the audio usually comes up at 3 pm EDT.). Which is, I suppose, an improvement over the normal tones of ennui or childish, wide-eyed wonder, with which NPR greets and reports upon matters pertaining to the crimes of their pay-masters...

Remember, folks, you cannot spell "RePublicaN" without NPR.

Shocking

Shoddy installation, faulty materials, and careless work are contributing to the electrocutions, and other electrical injuries, of US troops in Iraq.

No. Really. It's true. Dozens of soldiers and even some civilians have been electrocuted taking showers in military installations in Iraq. Really. Via RawStory:

Among the seemingly innumerable scandal-worthy stories which have so marked the war in Iraq is one growing tragedy which has been largely ignored: shoddy electrical work by U.S. contractors at military bases leading to numerous electrical fires, troops receiving painful shocks, and even death by electrocution.

Search electrocution iraq: 212 THOUSAND hits on teh Google.

And you know the corporate culprit?

Nah, g'wan, take a guess. Rhymes with "Sellout, Clown, and Shoot." Usta be part of Dich Cheney's corporate empire. Good friends with the whole Bushevik establishment. Home of 'CuteJuice'-R-US! Yay-ass, I am talking about KBR, a fully spun-off Haliburton subsidiary, connected only at the ummm boards of directors...

10 More Years

AlGore made a contentious statement the other day. He said the USofA had no more than 10 years to achieve a carbon-free--not carbon-neutral, but carbon-free--energy system. And that, without exaggeration or hyperbole, the very fate of humanity on the planet would depend on it.

"I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years," Gore told thousands of people who packed into a conference hall near the White House to hear the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner speak.

The shift to new energy sources was needed to ensure "the survival of the United States of America as we know it," Gore said.

"Even more, the future of human civilization is at risk," he told the crowd, who punctuated his speech with cheers and applause.

Notwithstanding the survival of the USofA "as we know it" is of utterly NO concern to the people who own and operate the machineries of our world, the call seems to me to raise some troubling possibilities.

Estimates of the cost/price-tag for the project are counted in the multi-digit TRILLIONS, in the ranges of 20-30% GNP (even in the corrupt, deceptive, dishonest way that misleading index is configured and disseminated). SO, realistically, ya gotta ask, "Where ya gonna get that kind of cash?"

It's a really good question. And the answer is, probably, devastating. Because, without a doubt, no matter who's the occupant of the Oval office, it's gonna come from social programs.

It's not gonna come from taxes on the wealthy.

It's not gonna come from reductions in military spending, or on the Nazional/Heimatssicherheitsamt. Obama long ago declared he would enlarge the Army and the Marines. The Border Patrol? More Fences! ICE? More agents. And he'll NEVER cut the defense budget, because it would hand a huge cudgel to the rightards who are already portraying him as 'weak' on defense.

It's not going to come from subsidies to big energy companies, whose cooperation and compliance will be crucial if the project is to have ANY hope of success--unless the GOvt is willing to try to nationalize the industry (which really is the only rational solution, but will never happen).

And all that, of course, assumes there is a good-faith undertaking, not just the usual propaganda/slash-and-burn job...

So, if the USofA does commit to the 10-year program to totally ween itself--ourselves--from fossil fuels, it probably means that Universal Health Care will not materialize, for example. And there will be reductions in other social services. And they'll use this as a pretext to finally loot Social Security. And even then it's likely to fail.

Even to save the planet, it seems, you have to compromise with the forces that don't care if it is destroyed, as long as they're rich when it happens. In the worst case scenario as well as in the best, they're secure: absent a disaster, their safety is secured by their wealth; in one, everybody's going anyway, and they go out on top...

Actually, thinking long-term, it seems altogether possible to me that the quest to "save humanity" becomes the casus belli in the next onslaught of authoritarianism.

But I'm a pessimist.


(Photo: AFP/Tim Sloan)

One Way To Keep Karl Rove From Walking Away From His Subpoena? Jelly His Knees

Rove to Congress:

Bloggers answer: Send Rove To Jail!

Rove's Perp March?

It's nagahapun, of course. But it'd be nice if it were even possible.

The US has the highest number of imprisoned people in the world, as well as the highest per capita rate of incarceration, supervision and parole. People are dying in prison for having possessed marijuana. And yet this murderous shitwhistle gets to thumb his nose at the Congress?

Somebody, please, haze that fat, dew-lapped, flap-jowled, jiggly, little fuckstick my way. I gotta baseball bat and a cattle prod. Bet I can get a confession out of his reeking, feculent, shit-dribbling mouth...

By the way, I posted this as my comment with the petition:

I got arrested for saying "What the fuck" to a security guard. Karl Rove is saying "Fuck YOU!!!" to the WHOLE CONGRESS of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. You wouldn't let ME ignore a subpoena. Karl Rove isn't fit to tongue-lave my crusty prostate. If you cannot find it in yourselves to go after this rogue GOP operative, then resign and let somebody be appointed who will.

An "Inside" Joke

Discussions throughout the netroots have focussed on the New Yorker magazine cover. The discussions reminded me of something I decided upon many, many years ago on the nature of "jokes."

People experience "jokes" from one of two perspectives: 1) inside and 2) outside. An "inside" joke is almost a redundancy: from the outside, it is not--it cannot be--a 'joke.'

This realization once led me to the following conclusion: There IS no such thing as an "outside" joke. To be one, a joke and its interpreters MUST be "inside," in a kind of hermeneutic relationship of mutually interpretable discursive practices. The "humor" of the joke--its 'Joke-ness'-- depends on a person's location in relation to the discourse in which the joke itself is constructed. That's what makes 'humor' so unpredictable. Look at Adam Sandler, fer chrissakes? Does ANYONE think Adam Sandler is funny? Really?

With regard to the problematic cover in question, I'd say this: In order to think the cartoon was not funny, on some level you'd have to believe the 'truths' implied in the half-truths which comprise the substance of the images, wouncha?

Therefore, it's probably funny if you do not take seriously the 'veiled' accusations, don't think Obama's any of those things; it's probably NOT 'funny' if you do...

Seewaddamean?

BTW: I would have been very glad to have had Angela Davis in the White House in ANY capacity.

Bushevik Crime Syndicate Will NEVER, EVER, Be Held "Accountable" For ANYTHING -- Gay-Ron-TEED, Chers!

No President, of any party, persuasion, or predilection, will EVER set the precedent of prosecuting her/his predecessor, no matter what crimes, mal- and misfeasances in office scum-sucking fuckweeds did commit.

NAGAHAPPUN! NEVAH!!! EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote another former Bushevik preznint: "Just wouldn't be prudent."

This is the most frighteningly prescient scene in recent film-making

Robert Redford and Cliff Robertson, in Sidney Pollack's "3 Days of the Condor."

Remember the year?

1975

Military Recruiters Lower Bar For "Bad" Civilian Records: Criminals In Uniform

Suspect Soldiers: Did Crimes in US Foretell Violence in Iraq?

Via TruthOutDotOrg:
Russell Carollo reports for The Sacramento Bee:

"A yearlong examination of military and civilian records by The Sacramento Bee involving hundreds of troops who entered the services since the Iraq war began identified 120 cases of people whose backgrounds should have raised the suspicions of military recruiters, including felony convictions and serious drug, alcohol or mental health problems. Of those, 70 later were involved in controversial or criminal incidents in Iraq.
(...)
From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called "moral conduct" waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent to 11.2 percent. Others, The Bee found, were able to enlist because they had no official criminal record of arrests or convictions, their records were overlooked or prosecutors suspended charges in lieu of military service - akin to a now-defunct Vietnam-era practice in which judges gave defendants a choice between prison and the military.

John McCaint's Very, Terribly, Pretty, Miserably, Horrifically Awful Week

The blogosphere is jumpin' today with narratives about how Bombin' Johnnie's campaign was taking on water faster than the Forrestal when he tried to sink her.

The array of McCaint mis-steps, gaffes, blunders, mis-statements, reversals, and outright lies would have sunk a Democrat, without a trace. Add to that, the revelations in the LATimes that when McCaint divorced his first wife, Carol, the mother of his children, who kept the home fires burning the whole time of his imprisonment, his inappropriate behavior--he had been boffing Cindy quite publically for months, and already had a new marriage license when his divorce came through--Dem's Sum Ballews-- proved too much for even the scenescent Samurai of Palos Verdes, and his 'bride,' the former blow-job queen of MGM. Thus explaining the latter's perfunctory endorsement of Bombin' Johnnie, the jolly baby-killer.

But what all this does, more than anything else, is to re-inforce in me the dread, fearful notion that, indeed, this lying, vain, enraged, psychotic asswipe is going to be the next occupant of the ShiteHouse.

Which Of These People Was Once Reported

to give the 'best blow-job' in Hollywood???

According to Kitty Kelley's biography, Nancy Reagan "was renowned in Hollywood for performing oral sex." Just-say-yes Nancy--in the days when she was Nancy Davis--was known to give the best blowjob in town, "not only in the evening but in offices. [T]hat was one of the reasons that she was very popular on the MGM lot." It must have made her very popular with Ronnie as well.

Reckon she'd still give a decent hummer, take her teeth out...

Bombin' John, on the other hand, looks like he never swallowed...

Enthusiastic McCaint Partisans Rally To Support Their Hero/Candidate

The excitement is almost palpable. You can FEEL the thrill. The room just throbbed with energy!

Fafblog Weighs In On The VEEP-Stakes

And hilarity ensueth, as Faf examins the pros and cons of Joe Biden, Jim Webb, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Hillary Clinton and Galacticus, Destroyer of Worlds. Galacticus comes off surprising well, ceteris paribus. I mean, yeah, he wants to devour your world. But he's not hiding his agenda. You know where he stands.

One sample: JOHN EDWARDS:

Pros: who could be more qualified to potentially succeed the president than the man whose sole qualification for the presidency was losing the previous race for the vice-presidency?
Cons: phony aura of fighting populism may conflict with campaign's preferred phony aura of sunny togetherness.

Merciless. Faf's often in a league by himself. But, as the comments illustrate, on this matter, at least, it is an open field.

The Pond Ranks In Top 10 Google Hits For "Stump Broke"

# 8 among 1,500,000 pages.

Another feather in our "Eli's-Google-Obsession" cap.

I am particularly proud that the cite includes reference to Mike Huckabee.

Walled-In Pond: Was Huckleberry's First Piece of Ass A Stump-broke ...
Jan 16, 2008 ... Was Huckleberry's First Piece of Ass A Stump-broke Hinny? Iirc, conservatard pundit Neil Horsley claimed that, down below the M/D ...
walled-in-pond.blogspot.com/2008/01/was-huckleberrys-first-piece-of-ass.html - 84k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Dept. of Nobody Ever Could Have Anticipated This Shit, For Sure...

Social Security Reform is back in play in the campaign.

McCaint sez he's fer it. Sez it's unfair to younger workers. It might be, too, if you thought the whole system was going to hell in a handbasket and/or your money was somewhere else.

Nothing better to guarantee the failure of a mutual assurance community than to tell the young they'll never have the benefits they pay for for the old.

There is another alternative. Take the old out on the glacier, strip 'em, and leave 'em. Freezing's not a bad way to go, I hear..

The only reason you wouldn't want to see to the well-being of your elders is that you don't think you'll ever live to old age, I reckon. If that's true, we're in deep shit.

In the short-to-mid-term, here's what's at stake. Social Security represents the biggest single pool of un-stolen, un-traded, un-exploited (for private profit) capital in the whole United States of America. Social Security is to cash for these vicious parasites what the trans-Caucasus is to the vicious parasites who speculate in energy. It's THAT big.

The bidness/banker/broker underwriters of both Parties wanna get their hands on that huge pool of cash.

They need a malleable President and a supine, whipped Congress to do the deed. Sometime after the 2010 election...

When you're playing no-limit, you only win when you have all the money. These guys are tinhorns, but they've got the biggest stack by far.

What Shall We Call The GOPuke Candidate?

I Vote for "McCaint"!

I liked McStain, and McShame, and McBush, and my own innovation, "Bombin' John," but nothing captures the utter futility the act of actually 'electing' the murderous maggot than "McCaint." It completely encapsulates the whole critique of the Right. They won't fix anything, cuz they McCaint see anything wrong.

Eli's Google Obsession: "But Humping"

It is with fitting and due humility that I may here tonight announce that, of approximately 1,950,000 pages Teh Google surveyed for the text-string "but humping," Walled-In Pond was #1. This is huge.

Walled-In Pond: Fuck Sen. Ben Nelson, Butt-Humping, Shitwhistling ...
Jul 15, 2007 ... Ben Nelson, Butt-Humping, Shitwhistling, Turncoat Fucknozzle, Par Excellence! Via Truthout.Org. (So-Called) Democrat Nelson Restores Funding ...
walled-in-pond.blogspot.com/2007/07/fuck-sen-ben-nelson-butt-humping.html - 86k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

The President of the United States of America Struggles With One of His Many Pressing Dilemmas

In this case, it's how he managed to Velcro his shoes together.
It takes a village...

Is "Waterboarding" Torture?

Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens "volunteered" to test whether 'waterboarding' is torture. His conclusion? You betcher FUUKING life it is.Waterboarding--but all torture really--is and always has been nothing more than a way for threatened autocrats and hierarchs, fearful to protect their power, to extract 'required' confessions from officially identified 'suspects,' and justify their suppression or extinction. It was EVER thus.
Duh...

THE BIGGEST, WORSTEST, TERRIBLEST, HORRIBLEST, SCARIEST THREAT IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD???

(Dept. Of Hyar Come De New Bahss)
According to Barry O's top foreign policy advisor, and former Clintoon globalist and free-trader flunky extraordinaire, Anthony Lake

...(T)he biggest threat facing the world...
BIGGER than global climate change.
BIGGER than poverty and disease.
BIGGER than sky-rocketing energy and food prices and coming foods/energy shortages.
BIGGER than Russia re-arming.
BIGGER than growing conflicts over shrinking resources.
BIGGER than terrorism (which was the last greatest biggest threat facing the world).
BIGGER than organized crime.
BIGGER than accidental nuclear proliferation.
BIGGER than the Terror War operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia, which continue to spawn so much death, ruin, extremism and economic turmoil.
BIGGER THAN ALL OF THESE-- and all other threats facing the world -- is...What IS IT???
It's too awful to contemplate. It's incomprehensible!It's...
Yes, that's right!!!
IT's the prospect that Iran might, in Lake's words, "get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon."

Hope all y'all like this war-economy, cuz NEITHER of the likely next incumbents in the US Shite-House is gonna do a shitting thing to alter one thread of it...

Barry O's response?

Barack Obama has hammered home the point even more forcefully: "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon -- everything."

You may have noticed in these last 7-and-some years that virtually EVERYTHING is "in the power" of the President to do. I do not take this as an encouraging sign of "change" or "new leadership."

Sorry.

I just don't.

Now HERE'S What I'd Call A "Co-Incidence!"

Bombin' John McCain was down in Colombia today, just passing through, campaigning in a South American country, when out of the juncle came a column of Colombian troops with a bunch of hostages, including an American, just freed from the FARC.

What LUCK! I thought to myself. WOW. Just WOW. How could anyone have EVER anticipated something like that?

And then, guess what, guess what??? It turns out the release had been choreographed with both the McCain campaign and the Busheviks in DC.

I mean, you could have knocked me over with a feather, I was THAT astonished.

Soooo-Prise, Sooooo-Prise: Obama Will Boost Bush FBI

(Dept. of I Fuukin Toldja So, Dumbfux)
That's "Faith-Based Initiatives" (via AP):

Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs
By JENNIFER LOVEN – 22 minutes ago
CHICAGO (AP) — Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.

Change??? Hell, yess!
Leadership??? Fuck Yes!!!
Courage??? Shit yeah...

Go on, admit it.
You REALLY thought Obama Was gonna restore the Constitution, dincha?
Yeah, you did...
Here's Arthur Silber: "Maybe a new slogan, to replace the already exhausted hopey, changey thing: "Barack will fuck you over -- and he'll make you LOVE it!"
Or as I remarked the other day: "They're both gonna fuck us. But Obama may apply foreplay, while Bombin' John'll just climb aboard and start humpin."