The White House: More Of The Shame..

..Another day, another scandal at the Bush White House.

What the hell was that whole bit about restoring dignity to the Office he was driveling about 5 years hence? I dunno.

Anyhow, the WH has admitted that The Boy authorized spying on citizens. Bushy boy(Dick's toy) then has the gall to aver that the Senate's non-vote on the very PATRIOT Act that was at the heart of his 007ish conduct? I see, it's the Senate that is being irresponsible? WTF, Geo?

I have also been following O'Reilly's rabid rants about the imminent demise of all things Christian. Media Matters gives me all the O'Reilly I can digest. What a true assclown.

To the eight GOP cultists that litened to today's radio address, you'd have my condolences - IF you could think for yourselves! To borrow from Nike: "Just do it!"

I have been following along. Honest. It's just that with the holidays, my mother, trying to set-up some new electronic gear, and a myriad of other things, I haven't had much of a chance to rant.

Since it is the Anti-Christ(mas) season, hop on over to ReutersAlertNet, poke around, and give if you can.

(Just so no one thinks that I am anti-Christian, the above comment was made in the lowest spirit of humor..Simply a jab at O'Reilly ;)

I am doing physical stuff as well. I cut up some 25mm Medium Density Fibreboard(AKA MDF AKA Particle board) for some loudspeakers I helped design. Well, essentially, I did the work for the crossover network. The cabinet size, bracing, drivers, and a host of other things were selected by the wacky, but knowledgeable folks over at Parts Express, whose debt I shall never be able to repay. It's very cool to get free advice from audio engineer PhDs, as well as really bright enthusiasts.

Parting shot.

George says: "Wiretaps without oversight saves lives in the Warren Terrah." Maybe. We'll never know.

Todd says: "Bush's lack of respect for anything concerning the environment will likely be his legacy."

Not Iraq. Iraq is temporal, no matter how well, or poorly, things go there. I do hope that the Iraqis get what they need to live in peace.

'Planet Killer George' carries with it an undeniable element of fact. That his 8 years in office were marked by obvious climatic effect, and he chose to do nothing of substance about it; that my dear readers is what the petro-soaked boy from Connecticut will be remembered. If civilization survives in any recognizable form.

That's your daily dose of hyperbole from the angry environmentalist.

Just another scandalous day of pure bs™ served steaming hot - courtesy of the 'Hassen bin Sober' White House.

Of Bush's Mea Culpa and Jellyfish

It seems as though Bush's Iraq Speech Series© has been given a 'thumbs up' by the majority of the MSM, and yes, the invertebrates in Congress(even some Dems.) because of his acceptance of 'responsibility' for taking us into war based on flawed intelligence.

If you've been following along, Bush has had TWO YEARS to utter these words. This is what passes for as leadership in this issue? In the private sector, this sort of BS would have you at the unemployment line faster than(ya know, something really fast, a speeding bullet, a runaway train, a White House smearing of a political foe, maybe a sexual harassment allegation?)

Look, the guy said, "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, showing that pre-war intelligence that did not validate the use of force in Iraq - which has been a neo-con dream for over a decade - was merely pushed aside.

For more color on this issue see Seymour Hersh's excellent The Stovepipe.

In this WaPo piece no mention is given to the now voluminous amounts of material that questioned the White House's own intelligence gathering apparratus, the White House Iraq Group. The WHIG members read like a who's who on Prosecutor Fitzgerald's indictment trail.


I don't think it necessary to elucidate the statements made by former White House officials, Richard A. Clarke(picked by four presidents for anti-terrorism roles) and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who when famously interviewed on 60 Minutes said about the Bush Administration:

"From the very beginning[of Bush's first term], there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go."

Was the intelligence bad? Absolutely.

But, had all the intelligence been properly vetted - especially the nuclear weapons reconstitution program intelligence - then the case for an invasion would most likely have never been deferred to the President by Congress.

I'm not even going to include the statements of pet Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi, or the admissions wrought from Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi under what is now apparently tortuous conditions.

Yes, Mr. Bush. The intelligence was bad. What you need to do is level with the American people, and tell us why the intelligence was bad. Spill the beans.

I know that you and your handlers are justifiably fearful of letting some nasty facts enter the public consciousness, but after all that you've put us through the last five years, it is the least that you can do.

I don't expect much from the media, but how about both Repubs. and Dems. demanding the whole truth, not some rubber-stamped milquetoast non-admission by BushCo.

Get me some vertebrates. Stat!

I hope that from the tone of this entry that it is not viewed as political humor. Although it was great fun in the penning of this piece. It is still a serious matter that needs to be truly addressed.

By the way, I'll give you a buck if you promise to hold your breath waiting for a full White House disclosure ;)

Sorry 'bout That

My lack of updates, that is..I have been following along, but time constraints and my work schedule has not permitted me to properly maintain the blog over the last week.

In a VERY small effort to atone for these transgressions, I offer the following observation.

This week(two days ago, in fact) President Bush acknowledged that 30,000 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Admittedly, I haven't read a great deal of commentary this week, and even less radio and TV, but I have yet to hear anyone discuss the 1,000,000 that died as a result of the decade plus of UN(essentially US sanctions against Iraq) and any estimates of how many more Iraqis are likely to die as a result of our 'interventions.'

That the situation remains grim in much of the country is beyond debate.

Bush also made the oblique 9/11-Saddam reference this week. If this was indeed retribution for 9/11, wouldn't a ten Iraqis to one American ratio seem a bit extreme?

I'm well aware that most people view their own as more valuable than 'the other,' but the mis-leader of the (erstwhile) free world should grasp the political realities of treating 'the other' inequitably.

A real issue that isn't getting the airtime that it should, save for some of the foreign press is the humanitarian crisis in post-earthquake Pakistan/Kashmir. Commendably, ReutersAlertNet has been covering the tragedy with the necessary balance of cool-headedness, while sounding the alarm. The Himalayan earthquake is shaping up to be the number 2 humanitarian cris of 2005. Katrina, while tragic, is minor by comparison.

Feel like reading?.

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Okay, in other stuff, I am still working on a total site overhaul, and will be sticking with Blogger for now. If I ever get a larger readership, I'll move to a different platform, but for now, free is good. Launch date: 01-01-2006

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The major environmental post I promised, is still in the works. I'd like to publish one major article per week. That's part of the site overhaul.

I'm also considering doing a three panel comic strip. Since I have no ability ot draw beyond the VERY rudimentary level, I have a cartoonist that's really talented to help out.

I'm looking to add three weekly features in 2006. I think that's as much as I can promise and deliver on.

We're Making Progress

In Iraq, that is.

Paul Starobin, writing for the National Journal notes in this great treatise on civil wars:

[...]

"All states are like rocks, with fissures in those rocks," says Mark Stoyle, a historian at the University of Southampton in England, who is the author of the recently published Soldiers & Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. "If the state is hit by a hammer blow, it will break along certain lines." That is what happened in 17th-century Britain under the disputed reign of King Charles I, Stoyle observed, and in his view, what is happening now in Iraq.

[...]

(98% more at link)

Gee, I wonder what the "hammer blow" in Iraq was? Could it be the US invasion? Nah..the US would never foment civil war(what an oxymoron). But it appears that indeed we have...yet again.

The tribal, nationalistic, and religious, differences between the three major 'ethnic groups' in Iraq has been elucidated by anyone and everyone with or without a truly informed opinion.

What Starobin does in this fine piece, is add some obvious some obvious human tendencies(greed - for oil in this case) as well as clearly defining just what constitutes a civil war.

The US let the genie out of the bottle in Iraq. And this is one angry, vengeful genie.

Want to be a better person? Read the article.

Getting Caught Up

I'm still working on my moonlighting gig, but it is progressing well.

A couple of things that I noticed today that were a little disturbing, but not altogether unexpected, was that one of the Internet's three greatest resources, wikipedia has again come under fire for a non-thinking individual's act.

Defaming, even if meant as a joke(?) has no place in what has become an indispensable source of information for 'Netizens everywhere.

I just don't think that persons are responsible enough to always make accurate entries. Or knowledgeable enough. Or.....

The problem is vexing. How do you go about continuing to allow anyone with web access to make entries whilst preserving the integrity of the material?

I really do not see how these two entities(anonymity and integrity) can be preserved given wikipedia's relatively small staff of volunteers.

By the way, the other two greatest non-specific sources are, in my humble opinion, The Wayback Machine and the XML protocols which include such wonderful things as RSS/ATOM feeds, and a host of other dynamic web services.

Sorry, Google, but for my web use these other offerings get far more use.

The other thing that I found troubling is the tempest in a thimble 'war on X-mas' memes continuing life and spread. This is a dumb bomb.

I'm certainly no expert on X-tianity, but I have read enough about comparative religion to have feel reasonably assured of two things:

1) Dec. 25 was chosen by many earlier religions/cults predating Christianity as the day of their savior's birth. Easy cited examples would be Horus, Mithra, Dionysus and Krishna who were also reputed to be born on Dec. 25.

The date of Christ's birth was summarily cast in stone to assimilate Pagans into Christianity in 350CE by Pope Julius 1.

2) This should be of prime importance to Christians(that have actually read their holy book), is that Jesus' apostles wished his resurrection to be the sacred day. As for that whole Easter bunny(leveret = Pagan worship) bit coinciding with Christ's resurrection, that'll wait for another day ;)