First Door on the Left

I’m not a conspiracy nut. I’m almost certain we landed on the moon in 1968. I don’t believe the government is monitoring my brain activity through the fillings in my teeth (although I suspect Admiral Poindexter is working on this, and John Ashcroft will crowbar an authorization of it into the fine print of Patriot Act III). And I’m almost completely certain George W. Bush doesn’t exist.

(snip)

No actual flesh and blood human being could ever be so bereft of original thought as George W. Bush. No actual human being could lie America into a war and send 151 American soldiers to their deaths with nothing more than a hearty “Hoo-yah!” like George W. Bush. No human being could work so hard to damage so many innocent people as George W. Bush. The reason has to be that THERE IS NO GEORGE W. BUSH. He’s literally an empty suit, a “logo” configured to deliver the message of the radical wingnuts who want to wreck everything America’s built in the last 71 years.

“George W. Bush” as conceived by Rove and Company is not a human being. He’s a relentless, inexorable ‘marketing position’ with fake flesh. He never goes “off message” because he doesn’t have a brain – just a loudspeaker in his head broadcasting the thoughts of his ‘handlers’. He can cut school lunch programs, Medicare benefits and military pensions because only a flesh and blood person can feel compassion. He has no shame about preening in a flight suit in front of real military personnel after dodging actual Military service because shame is a human emotion, and Bush is just a useful fiction.

You probably think I’m crazy. But have you ever seen any group so terrified of letting their candidate face a real reporter, and an actual, unscripted question? Don’t you think Rove and Company are petrified that Helen Thomas will stand up at a press conference and ask, “Mr. Bush, isn’t it true that you’re NOT REALLY George Bush, but Herman R. Bondurant, most recently seen in ‘Come Blow Your Horn’ at Texarkana’s ‘Way Off Broadway’ Dinner Theater? And that in fact George W. Bush does not, and never has existed?” He’d have some explaining to do!

Today we mourn the passing of a cherished friend.

His name was Freedom.

Freedom has been dying a slow death since Oct. 26, 2001, when Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act without debate or discussion, thereby administering a lethal dose of poison to Freedom.

Weakened and in pain, Freedom lost the will to live. His health further deteriorated as he came to understand that Americans were indifferent to the threat to his life.

(snip)

Freedom’s burial will be held at the convenience of the Bush Administration. Arrangements are being made under the direction of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In lieu of flowers, please send a letter to your congressman.

We repealed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Surely we can do the same to the so-called Patriot Act. Can’t we?

Are you as upset by this report as I am?

While ruminating on this story, a picture of Jay Leno with a microphone in his hand kept running through my mind. Jay has a regular feature he calls “Jaywalking,” in which he does brief man-on-the- street interviews with people, mostly young people. Jay asks simple questions, often on college campuses, and gets amazingly wrong answers. The unbelievable ignorance of recent college graduates is the humor in “Jaywalking.”

And also its sadness.

Upsetting on so many different levels.

Can somebody please explain to me why, while Bush & Co. are demanding that other nations cease production of nuclear weapons, they persist in building more for themselves? Human nature leans toward self preservation, especially from a rogue nation such as the United States is fast becoming. We already have the strongest, best funded military machine on the planet. Where is the need for more nuclear weapons?

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION succeeded last week in advancing one of its most radical, dangerous and underdebated policy ideas. Shrugging off objections from a handful of Democrats, both the House and the Senate approved legislative language removing a decade-old ban on research into a new class of “low-yield” nuclear weapons and authorizing $15 million for the study of another category of “robust” warheads designed for underground targets. The administration insists it wants only to pursue research on the new nukes. But even this research will, at a minimum, multiply the incentives for rogue states and rival powers to build nuclear arsenals of their own — a trend that President Bush has rightly defined as the most serious danger of the new century. At worst, the administration will succeed in making nuclear war easier and more tempting, both for the United States and for other powers — an outcome at odds with any reasonable understanding of national security or morality.

The protestations that only research is at stake appear questionable when placed against the nuclear weapons doctrine drawn up by the administration, largely at the behest of a circle of civilian advisers in the Pentagon and White House who for years have been advocating the development of new nuclear weapons. An administration plan disclosed last year called for a three-year process of developing the new arms; another measure approved by Congress last week, to lower the time needed to prepare for new nuclear testing from three years to 18 months, hints at the larger agenda. The new generation of nuclear strategists envisions using “low-yield” weapons — with an explosive force up to one-third that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — to attack stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons held by rogue states. The “robust nuclear earth penetrator,” with destructive power at least 70 times that of the Hiroshima bomb, would be intended to reach bunkers buried far underground — like those where North Korea is thought to be producing and storing weapons materials.

Many scientists believe that earth-penetrating nuclear weapons will never be feasible. Current technology limits earth penetration to about 50 feet; a low-yield weapon exploded at that depth would do no harm to a deep bunker while wreaking enormous damage by spewing tons of radioactive rock and soil. A “robust” weapon powerful enough to destroy a bunker 1,000 feet underground, in turn, would kill at least as many people and cause as much damage as a conventional nuke. The administration’s doctrine nonetheless allows for the possibility of using such weapons not only in response to a nuclear attack on the United States but also preemptively against a state thought to be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Any such preemptive attack ought to be unthinkable — the harm it would cause this country, and the world, would be catastrophic.

At the moment, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is designed for use only in a situation where the survival of the nation or its closest allies is at stake. That scenario died with the end of the Cold War — but it ought to remain the threshold. The rapid progress of conventional weapons technology offers sufficient means for tackling the problem of deep bunkers and rogue arsenals. By pursuing other options, realistically or not, the Bush administration is feeding the budgets of nuclear weapons labs and the dreams of misguided strategists at the expense of the far more urgent nonproliferation agenda it adopted after 9/11. Congress should return to the issue as the appropriations process proceeds; this is a project that ought to be stopped before it causes real harm.

This administration seems bent on the destruction of life on this planet as we now know it. It is vitally important that they be removed from power at the earliest opportunity.

What, exactly, are Bush & Co. trying to hide from us? Are they trying to keep us from finding out just how badly George W. Bush and Karl Rove have bungled their presidency? If that is the case, it’s much too late. We already know.

CIVILIAN members of the expert group investigating the Columbia space shuttle disaster have been put on the Nasa payroll to ensure much of the inquiry will be carried out in secret.

The highly controversial move – which has prompted angry accusations that the inquiry can no longer be considered impartial – will see the five civilian representatives on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) each receive executive-level salaries of up to $134,000 (£82,000) a year.

If the civilians – who were supposedly recruited to ensure the investigation was independent from Nasa – had not been hired by the agency, the board would have had to meet publicly, justify any closed-door sessions and keep transcripts and minutes that would ultimately become public records.

However, the CAIB has exploited a legal loophole which allows boards composed entirely of ‘federal employees’ to conduct their business in private.

Seven members of the 13-strong board are serving military officers, two are federal transportation officials and one is a Nasa employee. Retired navy admiral Harold Gehman, who is leading the board, is being paid $142,500 from another federal agency. Now that the remaining five have been put on the Nasa payroll temporarily, all the board’s members are federal employees.

“On Memorial Day, a grateful nation is meant to give thanks to all the servicemen and -women who have risked and lost their lives fighting on behalf of the United States. This last Monday in May will be no different.

“We will and should say thank you a million times over to our veterans, as well as to those now serving overseas.

“But in light of recent disasters like the one currently devolving in Iraq — a country that, all the experts agree, is teetering on the brink either of all-out anarchy or civil war — instead of just expressing the usual perfunctory gratitude, maybe we should also be saying we’re sorry. It seems the least we can do. So here goes.”

I could not agree more…

After considering the terrible and dangerous state of the USA under the Bush Regime, I am more convinced than ever of the need for the Democrats to regain the White House in 2004. This can only happen if both the party leaders and the voters get together behind the best possible slate of candidates as early as possible. Therefore, I am appealing to Democrats everywhere to encourage most of the candidates and their supporters to get out of the race as soon as possible and throw their support behind a united ticket.

Let’s forget the current polls that only reflect misconceptions of an uninformed public and concentrate on what would constitute the strongest Democratic ticket. Gephardt, Lieberman, and Kerry have too much association with the current Washington political scene to gain the proper respect and attention of the voters. They are considered by most voters to be too much a part of the problem. Braun, Graham, Sharpton and Kucinich are not really serious contenders, and although each of them contributes important ideas to the discussion, they are mostly a distraction to average voters. It is my opinion that Lieberman, Graham, Gephardt, Sharpton, Kucinich, Braun, and Kerry should gracefully bow out of the race and all get strongly behind a Dean/Edwards ticket. The focus needs to be on everything that is wrong with what George Junior and his friends have been doing. The longer that there is competition and fighting between Democrats, the longer Rove and the spin-masters will continue to keep the truth about what they are doing from the public. The longer the Democrats remain divided, the better the chances that friends of George Junior will gain absolute control of the United States.

Turns out the whole Zander story may have been a hoax.

If it was, goes to prove that even I can be fooled at times. It still doesn’t explain, however, how George W. Bush has been able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many of my fellow Americans. (You knew I would get that in here, didn’t you?)

I’ll leave the link to Zander’s site in my blogroll for a day or two, even though it is not working right know. He could just be having technical difficulties, no?

George W. Bush expects that money will buy him the 2004 election, and it is quite clear that he could care less what the average American thinks. Unless you can afford to attend one of his $2000 per plate dinners, he wants nothing to do with you.

This from MSNBC:

BUSH’S GOAL is to collect about twice as much as he did for his last race. Campaign sources said his fundraising strategy is built for speed so he can finish most of the events and return to full-time governing just as the Democratic nominating contest is peaking.

Bush will headline $2,000-a-ticket receptions next month in New York, Washington, Miami and Tampa, and White House officials said they expect that pace to increase through the summer and into the fall. Vice President Cheney also will begin a heavy schedule of fundraisers at about the same time, Republican sources said.

If you can get together at least $50,000, you can have lunch with the real President of the United States, Karl Rove.

Donors who raise at least $50,000 for Bush’s kickoff dinner in Manhattan on June 23 will be treated to a “leadership luncheon” with Karl Rove, Bush’s senior adviser, who plans to remain on the government payroll throughout the campaign. Rove, besides serving as Bush’s political guru, is deeply involved in deciding administration policies.

And… if you raise $20,000, you can have your picture taken with George W.! (I wonder if you could get him to wear the flight suit?)

Donors who raise at least $20,000 for the Manhattan luncheon will be taken backstage for a photograph with Bush.

So get out there, all you die-hard Republicans. It’s time to anty up! You’ve got an election to buy for your glorious leader.

Be sure to read Saving Private Lynch: Take 2.

The really funny part is:

This fabrication has already been celebrated by an A&E special and will soon be an NBC movie. The Lynch rescue story – a made-for-TV bit of official propaganda – will probably survive as the war’s most heroic moment, despite proving as fictitious as the stated rationales for the invasion itself.

The not so funny part is that a lot of people are going to believe it.

(Take 1, in case you missed it somehow.)