Still Winning

'The more they kill us, the more we'll send' philosophy is working just fine... so far. Just 4 more months until this administration is willing to report on this latest fiasco. Progress, meanwhile, will be measured utilizing a whole new set of parameters, that is - none.

Speaking of disastrous wars and their consequences... Mr. Olmert - resign, already!

William Kristol, as prognosticators go, is quite possibly the frontrunner for the prestigious, and completely ficticious Krakatoa Award for 'Most Outstandingly Ill-Informed Moments in Punditry' for his assertion that Shia - Sunni tensions were mere "Pop Psychology", the fact that it is now systemic and institutionalized in Iraq is irrelevant to a great mind like Mr. Kristols.

Now this is funny stuff... Mr. Wolfowitz - shut up and resign, already!

Rainy Saturday Afternoon

Seems like such a nice boy....

Lower... lower... yeah! Right There.

Our "AIDS Czar" has a penchant for dusky maidens and hot oil... Oh! The humanity.

Science Saturday

More War

It's all just to save Shrub's ass. This has been the Conventional Wisdom on the blogs for months, now the New York Times finally hops aboard the 'Iraq Tour To Nowhere.'

Fall-Up Guy

George Tenet refutes the White House line on his (in)famous "Slam-Dunk" prophecy claiming it has been used out of context by various, most notably Darth Cheney, administration hacks. Tenet may be trying to absolve himself from blame in the Iraq scandal but, at the end of the day, his clumsy fingerprints are all over the scene of the crime. That one cliched phrase could bring down this close 'Bush Family' ally is not worthy of scrutiny, Tenet got out from under whilst the going was turning from good to sloppy but his key role in the lead up to war is irrefuteable. The '02 NIE was most probably doctored or, at the very least, the necessary caveats for the far-reaching speculatives removed. The fact that most of the explosive intelligence contained within the NIE was single sourced and from mostly dubious, self-interested parties can only lead to one conclusion - the whole thing was an horrendous con-job. That it partially cited several other intelligence sevices from around the world gave only scant credence to a document that, at its time of publication and digestion, was being roundly refuted and ridiculed by non-partisan experts from both here and abroad. I remember reading at the time a lot of the articles and papers cited in the recent, brilliant Bill Moyers documentary and was always wary of this administrations claims. It wasn't difficult to find those counter claims to the 'Aluminum Tubes', 'Mobile Chemical Labs', 'Yellowcake', 'Meetings in Prague', 'Al Qaida in Iraq' etc. I merely logged on to a European web-site or went to the BBC on-line with which Blair was having a terrible time. There for all to see was proof positive that American intelligence was at best faulty and at worst completely fabricated. When Powell went to the UN I watched amazed that the same stuff I had seen debunked only days and weeks before was being regurgitated by a once well respected statesman and who sat behind him through the whole tawdry ordeal, Mr. Tenet and lordy, Negreponte. Right then the rest of the world knew that a pile was about to be unloaded. That Powell's reception was cool and the aftermath mixed - at least they weren't rolling around the aisles in paroxisms of laughter - Tenet should have known that the jig was up. Right then he should have gone public and blown the whole flimsy operation wide open, then he may have garnered our respect. To write a book that continues to defend this buffoon of a president whilst attacking his personal tormentors within the cabinet and with nary a tilt to his own shortcomings and failings, after 27,000 casualties on our side alone smacks of the cruelest and most cynical arrogance. When it really mattered - you kept your mouth shut - now... who gives a damn about another internal republican scandal, it's difficult just keeping up with the ones we already have.

Heckuva Job ______________ (Name)

Now that it is slowly being revealed that practically every department in this administration is populated with either complete, blubbering imbeciles or gentleman-C-corporate-schills capable only of satisfying a political agenda scrawled by some unseen hand with crayon on their monthly planners, we must assume that there must be a higher authority guiding these infantile miscreants because, god bless 'em, they could never have possibly conceived of something as dastardly as the destruction of the United States of America as we know it by themselves, collectively these hacks could brain storm for three days and nary moisten a napkin. It can't be coming from the White House because we've seen the reasoning power available there and let's be honest, if Dick Cheney is your political heavy weight, your deep thinker and policy guru then grey matter is not your strong suit. As for turdblossom, I don't think having the ability to fool the American public, for some of the time, could ever be perceived as 'genius' because, for the most part, the great American public are ill-informed, incurious wretches ill-served by their public servants and misled by their public media. Your average wo/man-on-the-street cares more about Sheryl Crowe's sanitary habits than s/he does about how they have been lied to consistently over the life of this administration. Is it their fault though? Not really - when we are governed by fools who's constant screw ups have been eagerly covered up or under reported or ignored or, unforgiveably, excused by a media elite and fawning upper class obsessed only with their own access and advancement. So, if everyone in government is a blithering idiot and the fourth estate has acquiessed its responsibility to act as watchdog over these nincompoops and their hairbrained trivialities and the people who could actually voice their disquiet and force a change are more interested in a cure for erectile disfunction and a safer alternative to botox then, who's running the show? I used to think it was a Carlisle Group or some such revered body of sage old men, it's board equally split between robber barons and philanthropes, the perfect balance of greed and largesse - freedom of action and social responsibility - aggression and diplomacy - nah! It makes no sense for them to rock the boat this much, why risk everything by installing a pseudo-religious, neocon cabal who's primary goals appear to be bombing the rest of the world back to the stone age and de-evolving America and its proxy's into a 16C patriarchal theocracy. Where's the money to made there? Could it be the vatican or even the big 'G' man? It's no secret the Holy Roman Empire has been making money from ignorance for millenia, perhaps they would be best served if their congregation was an amorphous blob of humanity completely dependent on 7C twaddle just like the good old days, and, once Dubya and his band of merry mendacants have reduced the world to a pile of smouldering ruins in will ride the papist shock troops to restore Roman hegemony - Nah! It can't be God, if he ever existed at all, and I am more than dubious on that score, it's obvious he long ago abandoned this little rock in space for some greener pastures where the inhabitants were not so - fickle. My own theory... the hand guiding humanity's steady decline - it has to be someone incredibly rich, intellectually powerful, really pissed off and possibly, believed dead - what? You think I really know? See what I mean about the American public!

Rock On

Only the best for you, dear reader...

End of Days?

Is this the end run for this administration? Collectively, the weight of scandal and truth may become too much for even the broad shouldered arrogance of our ruling elite. Rove may have pushed the 'political' envelope too far even for his own administration. Although, why we should expect a thorough investigation from one of their own political appointees beats me. I don't know how the OSC operates and by the description given above I'm not sure how much investigative clout they really have.

Meanwhile back at the Jack Abramoff ranch, more dudes face a ropin', good grief - but that man had some reach.

The Pat Tillman story will unravel the ties between the Pentagon propaganda shop and perhaps the political shop that controls all propaganda emanating from this administration. Or, at the very least provide a snap-shot of the prosecution of this administrations wars (both just and unjust)and how they have attempted to twist, not just the Tillman story, but every one of their stupid glorifications of war and of themselves.

And, of course USAgate where the pressure mounts.

Two things worth reading... Juan Cole, it really is a daily must read and of course my other daily must read here.

The Arch-Angel

Gabriel in one of his rare lighter moods

Loadsa Money

Hey... remember Mark Foley? No one knows where he is but, he's spending an awful lot of money - republican money that is - on briefs and not the tighty-whitey variety. Makes you wonder about this great country of ours, I think the Florida citizenry should know if a sexual predator is in their midst. Lock Up Your Sons!

Pro - Who's - Life

Scott Limieux at Tapped has all the links you'll ever really need to delve into the cesspool that is Rightwing-Christianist-Pro-Life hypocracy, if you so choose... take a few towels because it gets real messy. Of course it is not just the abortion issue that has these people and their appallingly ill-conceived ideas so thoroughly exposed. Take Newt Gingrich for example, that beacon of common sense and intellectual foresight expounding on his favorite subject, apart from himself, 'How liberals have caused everything bad to happen.' But, we're told, no-one should be making cheap political hay from this terrible tragedy, which basically means, for the MSM, liberals shut up until the serious conservatives have had their fill at the trough. They even dragged out Ted Nugent fer chrissakes, the man is a heavily armed lunatic that in any other civilized country in the world would be spurned as one would spurn a mainged cat. Then we have the very public spectacle of Abu Gonzalez clinging desperately to the pant leg of the Preznit in a vain glorious attempt to prevent a self inflicted, incompetence inspired death spiral. It's getting almost too ugly to watch and begs the question - does this administration own a moral compass? Finally... we have Iraq, where Harry Reid has stated the obvious and Wingnuttia has had a collective spontaneous hernia. I still don't know what victory would look like but apparently it would look a lot like what has happened up to now only different and more scary and less clinical I would imagine. Not widely reported but significant is the administrations backpeddling on the 'as they stand up we stand down' rhetoric, it has been replaced by the 'surge' as the epithet du jour but, remember, 'as they stand up we stand down' carried this blithering idiot of a preznit through a hard fought, close election only to be abandoned upon review. How long before the surge becomes passe and we move on to the next stall tactic? About 3 to 4 months - apparently.

Now... That's Entertainment

Why all 'Pop' does not have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Communimication

Digby has a great post that expands upon some of the stuff I have been babbling incoherently about. That we have such a terrible communicator and incompetent in the White House it begs the questions; why does the MSM work so hard to make this man credible, what do they have at stake and what are they so afraid of?

Rock On

Bryan at his sartorial best

The Press

Glen Greenwald has the latest polling coming out of WaPo/ABC, it's not pretty if you are a Republican/President/Warmonger... it is also not pretty if you are a Republican/Journalist/Tool. The numbers, across the board, suggest that the American public willfully embraces the notion that this administration and it's proxy's in the wingnut-punditocracy clearly have no idea what they are doing or saying. The numbers just keep getting worse and worse but have been largely ignored up to now by the WH, editorial boards and wingnut-talking heads. These entities no longer have any right whatsoever to claim their arguments are based on what the average-moderate-'murican perceives. Not only have they been consistantly wrong prognosticating on Iraq, Plamegate, the NSC scandal, Rovegate I, II, III, IV (should I go on..? I could you know), the DOJ debacle, Libby etc., they have consistantly evoked the will of the American people as proof positive for their dangerous, baseless fantasies. The fact that Darth Cheney, a serial liar and Constitutional menace, is still allowed on our television sets, on a Sunday too, is testament to the disdain and contempt the mainstream media has for us, the American public. From the poll we can rightly assume that large majorities of Americans want a timetable for our withdrawl from Iraq, that Congress is right to impose strictures on a president run amok, believe that the firing of the USA's was politically motivated, that Abu Gonzales should resign, that Rove and Myers should testify publically and under oath, that Nancy Pelosi is not the third coming of the anti-christ and that Congress (The Democratic Congress that is!) should have a say in foreign policy decisions. There were many other relevant questions posed by the poll and we should perhaps all go there and have a look. But for me, Nancy polling at 53% approval is the most damning of statistics, after all the ballyhoo about her recent Syria trip, where she was all but accused of treason and political suicide, we find that a majority of the American public supports her with bells on. So who are these people talking to or trying to convince? Seems to me, the only people who believe their crap do not need any more convincing, they are the hard core, so why waste time and copy on them? When will our media catch up to their public and why is it taking so long? There has been a huge paradigm shift in American thinking recently but to watch, listen or read the traditional media you would never know it, they are not reporting it, not acknowledging it and worse not responding to it. Ask not for whom the bell tolls...!

One Of Those Saturday Afternoons

For me... one of the best videos evah! The Beautiful South

Suffering Through

I'm going to try and work through this as I write because the premise is probably a little wobbly and has been done before and better by other people. But, looking at the new round of scandals coming down the pipe and by that I mean the 8 USA's, the 5MM e-mails, the fact that Dick Cheney still runs foreign policy within this administration, Wolfowitz and his kept woman, etc, etc, how uninformed do they think we are? Now, GWB (also, oddly enough, an anacronym for Gypsum Wall Board) may not be the keenest utensil in the horizontal storage area - maybe his handlers test every crackpot theory they have on him first as some kind of policy for dummies litmus test - but he's the best front man they've got and they march him out in front of the cameras and select audiences with every necessity, only to utter the usual platitudes and bromides we have come to expect. His speaking style has been heavily critiqued and caricatured, the emphasis is all wrong, the smile is unappropriate and insincere, the smirk arrives at the oddest moments, ad infinitum. The sound bites that make the evening news and cable shows are hackneyed and bellicose but, my question is... who is he talking to? Who is watching what he does and says anymore? The base? That eroding, fundamentaly flawed percentage hanging on to his every word like the good little Bushies they are? Probably... the only other people watching, and this is the point, the news with any fervent degree of sophistication, as far as I can see, watch only to see the reaction from the peanut gallery, they remain disinterested and unconvinced by the arguments. Personally, I don't even listen to the speeches any more, just the breakdown afterward, I know what he is going to say I just want to find out who's still inbibing the coolade on the good ship neocon and who has finally given up all hope of ever seeing this administration actually make a reasoned adjustment mid-stream and are therefore inclined to abandon said ship. So the president is not talking to me or 61% of the rest of the country. What does this say? And, what does this mean about this present administration? That is what I'm pondering now... and I hope to post on it a few more times. Just what does it mean when an administration no longer cares about the majority of its citizens and has, apparently, given up even trying to communicate to them?

And... predictably

Family Valuables

Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, architect of the I-raq catastrophe, noted neocon and exposed nepotist begged for our understanding yesterday in an excruciatingly embarrassing and putrid press conference. His piece of stuff, Ms. Riza, had risen to an exulted pay scale at Foggybottom thanks largely to Mr. Wolfowitz' patronage and arm twisting. But for Mr. Wolfowitz it had all been a terrible personal tradgedy, you see... getting caught really sucks and stuff. The corruption in this government knows no bounds and yes you could argue that Wolfie is no longer part of this administration but who got him his cushy job at the World Bank? What you think he applied for it at a local DC job fair? Wolfowitz is the architect of many failed ventures, this one having involved his co-habitor receiving $197,000.00 or so - tax free - from both State and the World Bank, none of which have hampered his career or earning power or status as a Titan of Wingnuttia. Whenever these grown-ups get caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar they fall on their swords and beg for forgiveness in a second, only to be rehabilitated in equally short order by a complacent press and compliant justice system to continue with their plundering ways. Why? Because they have painted themselves as the 'values' folks, compassionate and mature, above the fray of DC politics, paragons and protectors of the American way of life, virtuous, judeo/christian and wise. And the 30 percenters and the Washington press corp ate it up, hook, line and sinker and continue to eat at the same trough and no amount of hypocrisy, criminality or sheer spite will ever change that. And, when it just gets too slimey and grubby they plead the fifth, plead to their enabling base or blame a Clinton, any Clinton... Chelsea made me do it, honest!

Bloody Vikings

Madrugada

Power World

Local Boy Done Good... Terry Sullivan.

Dissembling

So the preznit insists that his vetoing of the supplemental will cause longer tours of duty for our servicemen in I-raq and increase the hardship on military families as a result, he's all for our troops isn't he! Next thing you know, without the supplemental even being presented for the idiot's veto his Secretary of Defense announces that tours of duty for servicemen in I-raq will be extended, effective immediately! Now, we are assured that GI's will be given a full twelve months rest and recuperation upon return from the carnage so the next fifteen months won't seem so bad huh? And... wait for it, wait for it, our soldiers must share the burden and sacrifice , wha? This war has been going on for four years already, we have lost 3,295 men and women, we have countless soldiers maimed and injured both physically and mentally, we have an unspecified amount of I-raqi's dead, injured, terrorized, fleeing and protesting, there are many people out there making incredible sacrifices every day for this war of illusion, not one of them works in the White House, or on Wall Street or in the Board Rooms of Corporate America. This administration has asked our servicemen to sacrifice for the last four years and does not want restrictions, or timetables or realistic benchmarks imposed upon it so it can extend their (our soldier's) sacrifice indefinitely. All this with the supplemental not even vetoed yet. It staggers the mind, I mean really!

Cocteau Hour

Buffletucky Redux

A day or so ago, the Buffalo News published yet another anti-casino "My View". Authored, and I use that term loosely, by Tom O'Malley a teacher in Buffalo who firmly believes that '...gambling is a drain on the economy, not a boon.' To back up his assertion Mr. O'Malley offered no economic data and no statistics, not even a wee bit of historical evidence that may prop up his contention. He did, however paint an horrific but exagerated image of endless lines in his local convenience store as zombie-like folks frittered away their hard earned cash on the lottery, only to lurk in darkened corners for their ship to come in. Mr. O'Malley then went on to opine, poetically, about the 'essence of Buffalo' seen through his nostalgia ridden rose tinted glasses. Buffalo as strategic trade center during the heyday of the Erie Canal, Buffalo as a world renowned arts and culture center, Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright as architectural luminaries bedecking our 'City of Light'. A city of beautiful neighborhoods where hobbit like residents cheerfully pull together through blizzards and 'missed field goals... good grief... he does go on mind you. In his infantile, prosaic manner he manages to make Buffalo sound almost mythic, even conjuring up images of ancient Athens, lordy! Why does this kind of fuzzy brained, intellectual dishonesty persist in this town? It is because the Mr. O'Malley's and countless other high minded, blithering idiots who wrongly perceive themselves as the governing conscience of this poor city, live in the surviving nice neighborhoods, go to work in this years model and remain oblivious of the rot surrounding them. Look, Buffalo has a few nice things and a somewhat historic past, but we cannot continue to allow this blighted burg to become some fanciful chimera cordoned off from the future by these tireless toe-heads. Mr. O'Malley cites the flight of our youth from this town and somehow conflates that with the evils of gambling. The reason our young leave this town is because the kind of bucolic, misty-eyed thinking Mr. O'Malley expounds cannot put food on their tables. What does Mr. O'Malley want us to do, build more bloody museums, where we can't sell the old crap to buy new, build more theaters and small intimate shops along Elmwood Avenue, build another bloody canal? He does not say nor does he say who will pay for it, certainly not him... I'll hazard. To attain the progress we so desperately need, this city needs investment, it needs commerce and it needs buzz. Listening to poetry and playing a lute in Delaware Park dressed only in a toga and a laurel wreath may be Mr. O'Malley's vision for the future of Buffalo but I think in reality we need something a little more tangible a little more real. The casino, for all its ills, will not become a loadstone around our collective necks, it will become a mere component in an economic recovery for downtown and that is downtown as a destination... imagine. The Mr. O'Malleys of this town will not and do not contribute to the momentum necessary to create growth, they complain about change, they agitate for the status quo, they block progress and long for a past they never knew and is irrelevant to this city's future.

Overtly Exposed

Cheney exposed as a liar here. Goodling resigns from the DOJ and rightly so, as queried by Josh Marshall, how can someone who has pleaded the 5th, before they were even 'interviewed' remain in a position at the the DOJ for crying out loud? More DOJ fun in Minneapolis as Ms. Paulose' management style is revealed for what it really is... not much management and certainly no style. This is what happens when you put a 34 year old toe-licker (male or female, it matters not) with no managerial experience in a position where ideological and policy adherence has absolutely no relevance. This administration is turning the DOJ into a laughing stock and the CW remains that Turd Blossom is a genius, hey, it's his plan remember, looks more and more like Mr. Rove is merely an over-achieving political thug with his only saving grace being that he wasn't caught sooner. Blame that on a complacent and bedazzled media. His single minded demolition of the DOJ by political fiat will be exposed in the next few weeks along with all our other government institutions bespoiled by his fetid touch. The GSA appears to have the reek of Turd eminating and when you politicize paper clip and file folder procurement well...
Orin Hatch was totally exposed as an administration stoogebot, proclaiming that Ms. Lam, the USA for San Diego, was not only incompetent but a Clinton political operative, his performance on MTP however, was not only predictable and quite possibly libelous, but embarrassing. To unstintingly support the current AG, the unfortunately nicknamed Abu Gonzales, and then reveal your own interest in his job is, quite frankly, a ludicrous position to find oneself in and Orin handled it with all the aplomb and finesse of a car crash. Of course the blithering idiot Timmeh saw no irony even though Sen. Leahy appeared to be smirking with glee at the absurdity of the moment.
His Royal Shrillness, meantime, continues to insist that Congress must bow to his demands on the supplemental and produce a clean Bill with no timetables and no pork within the constraints of his made-up timetable, wha!. The fact that the Speaker of the House is in the Middle East, doing something his small brain(trust) cannot comprehend, shows the level of gravitas the good lady attaches to his hollow posturing and trenchant adherence to his own failed policies, speak to the hand Mr. President... Relative to this, is the robotic squealing from the minority about the amount of pork attached to the Bill, are we to assume that the Republican minority has had an epiphany of sorts with regard to swine meat, is this a kosher moment for the most profligate/criminal congress in history, the old 109th aka "The Fightin' The Boar But The Boar Won 109th". They really have no shame!
What did I miss?