Summer solistice 2019

In the southern hemisphere this is the shortest day of the year, the longest night, the pause, the time of in-going and renewal, the beginning of winter. Here in the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the dance, the lingering and going about. Wherever you are, whatever species you encounter as you go along your way today, be kind.

Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice is also the beginning of the 10 day Yulin dog meat "festival" during which thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, blow-torched, skinned, and boiled alive for a 10 day drunken "feast".

Please help shut down the Yulin!

Sign the HSI petition and pass the link around. Thank you.

Karl Rove - mission aborted?

Excuse me while I go over the facts. Karl Rove leaked the secret CIA identity of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame. He did this to send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth. What truth was that? That President Bush lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. That President lied to get support for his invasion of Iraq. Bush was then, and is now, a liar. No surprise to me. I think the guy's psychotic anyway. Now Karl is taking the rap. What a stand up guy. I don't think so. Karl Rove is a rat bastard. He's merely being shoved in front of the oncoming train by the other, bigger rat bastards. Bush is the commander-in-chief. He's responsible for this mess. If ol' Commander Codpiece hadn't been so busy trying to cover his ass with lies none of this would have happened. Impeach the bastard! In fact, send em all to Guantanamo. After all, they are all traitors.

If the Dems let this one slip through their hands, send them too.

So much for property rights. What's next?

As always, the rich are getting richer, richer and richer, all at the expense of anyone and everyone else. And why shouldn't they? Corporate Amerika and the US government are one and the same. Pfizer Inc., the largest drug company in the world, was just handed a huge plum by the Supreme Court in its latest ruling. Government may now seize and destroy private homes and small business properties when it benefits a corporation. Naturally this privilege extends to all the big companies. It's them against us and most of us (including those hard working guys with flags on their trucks) don't even know it. Enough is never enough for these rapacious, Nazi bastards. I bet that verdict was followed by a hardy round of cigar lighting and back slapping.

Downing Street Memo, Impeach Bush

DOWNING STREET MEMO
"SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY"

This memo is the smoking gun revealing how the Bush Administration connived and lied to congress to get support for his invasion of Iraq. It has the potential of doing to Bush what the Watergate tapes did to Nixon, bring him down. The White House, naturally, denies it's importance. Don't let them get away with it. Impeach the bastard.

"WE ARE AN EMPIRE NOW"
The radicals impeached Clinton for lying about a blow job. What a pathetic waste of time and money. Bush lies and American soldiers needlessly lose their lives. Bush lies and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens are maimed, and traumatized, tortured, killed. This bastard better be impeached!

IMPEACH THEM ALL!!

Bush forced to consider reality

Review May Shift Terror Policies

The shift is meant to recognize the transformation of al Qaeda over the past three years into a far more amorphous, diffuse and difficult-to-target organization than the group that struck the United States in 2001. But critics say the policy review comes only after months of delay and lost opportunities while the administration left key counter-terrorism jobs unfilled and argued internally over how best to confront the rapid spread of the pro al Qaeda global Islamic Jihad.

I'm still not expecting any kind of sane leadership from the White House because I don't believe any of them are capable of living in reality. They are high on hubris. They really fucked up after 911 by squandering the world's good will towards us. Did they learn? No. They continue to fuck up. The result? Now to many, terrorists are folk heroes. We all know it, even if we can't/won't admit it. I don't know about you, but that really pisses me off.

We can also thank this swelling anti-Americanism on the Christian fundamentalist, right-wing extremists and their Armageddon wet-dream. Like all fundamentalists, they believe they are "above the law"; forgiveness without accountability. They believe they can steal, lie, even murder for god with no consequences because they are forgiven. It's a lie. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. That's a law. It doesn't merely apply to physical nature. It's true politically. It's true spiritually. Bush and Co. don't believe it so they are icons for these one-note, flag-waving, xenophobes with their hysteria, sense of entitlement, and addiction to one-dimensional solutions. Their uncritical, unwavering support of the Republicans is essential to the spread American imperialism.

As a result, our foreign policy is in shambles but karma (cause and effect), unlike "justice", truly is blind. Why wouldn't foreigners fear and/or hate us for swaggering around, waving the world's largest cache of weapons of mass destruction? We thrill at the evil empire in the movies. They see us rolling through their villages. It's so ironic. Bush, himself a military deserter during the Vietnam war, is the world's biggest bully. We can't bomb countries into the stone age and expect people to bless us for it.

To go over the short list again, Bush continues committing us and our children to more and more debt. He whipped up support for his invasion of Iraq by lying to us and continues to lie to us. He is responsible for the ongoing, needless deaths and maiming of thousands of innocent, young American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent people in other countries. Ever wonder why we don't hear much about US military deaths in the news? After all, we are at war. The Bush mandated black-out on causality reports. shsssss......he prefers us to sleeeeeeeeep.....His administration is cloaked in secrecy and is doing everything possible to spy on US citizens...with no check or balance on its power. The guys in the backrooms, who stay in power as presidents come and go, like it like that. Currently, they are doing everything they can to pad the Supreme court with extremist toadies who will support their nefarious agenda's. They will continue running this game until we collectively, emphatically say NO!

Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005

Daniel Estulin: Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005



Novus Ordo Seclorum: "New Order of The Ages" or New World Order.
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Why is an Illuminati symbol an official US symbol? While we sleep, the annual Bilderberg Conference works. Could they be aliens bred into human bodies for the purpose of exploiting the resources of our planet and enslaving our population or are they the human manifestation of oil scum, living waste risen from the slit veins of the Earth so that we may all drink and drive? Perhaps they are covert because they are deeply humble and don't want all the love and gratitude we, citizens of the world, would heap on them for all the service they render humankind and all the cuddly animals, if we could. Decide for yourself.

Bush hides from cloud

Poetic Justice by Joey T.

The following was reported by Julian Borger of The Guardian today:

"President George Bush was bundled into an underground bunker, Dick Cheney was evacuated to an "undisclosed location" and heavily armed secret servicemen took up defensive positions when a fast-moving cloud scudded towards the White House, it was reported yesterday. Such false alarms are common, triggered by clouds, flocks of birds or private aircraft wandering off course, but the White House confirmed yesterday that this was not the first time since September 11, 2001 that the president has taken refuge in the hi-tech bunker beneath the building, the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre. It was not clear yesterday what it was about Wednesday morning's cloud that created such havoc. It was moving at about the speed of a helicopter, disappearing and then appearing again on the radar screen, but the same could be said of many clouds."

Ya gotta love it. President Bush, the arm chair psychopath who fancies himself God's Personal Warlord, and Vice-President Cheney, the brains of the smarmy operation, scuttled to their bunkers today to protect themselves from what proved to be a cloud. There is poetic justice in that.

Oppose one party rule

Dickhead Republicans

 

Radical Republicans plan to hijack the nomination process of Supreme Court Judges in their ongoing grab for absolute power. To accomplish this, Dick Cheney says he'll deploy what he proudly calls his "nuclear option". His "bomb" is a parliamentary maneuver to overturn the 200-year-old right to filibuster judicial nominations. Its purpose is to silence all dissenting opinion. Right-wing extremists are passionately committed to crushing all opposition and without a minority voice, democracy is replaced by tyranny. To do so, they must disable the system of checks and balances upon which our democracy is founded and by which it is protected. If they succeed, this will be the first time since America was founded that there is no check on the ruling party.

As a senior adviser to President Bush told Ron Suskind, former senior national-affairs reporter for the Wall Street Journal, "We're an empire now". We are history's actors . . . and you, all of you (people he called members of the "reality-based community", will be left to just study what we do.'"

We can't let neoconservative bullies pad the Supreme Court with "yes men". If they do, they will suppress dissenting opinion for generations. Write or call your Senator and complain. Sign the petition at the MoveOn website and while you're at it, email a letter the newspapers in your area. Silence is compliance so speak up.

Bush names trophy hunter to direct US Fish and Wildlilfe Service

Bush recently named Matthew J. Hogan, a big game trophy hunter and Safari Club lobbyist, to protect our nation's fish and wildlife. Lovely. The fox is guarding the hen house. No surprise, of course. Bush is all about maximum exploitation. What a fuck.

Not my decision

I watched some clips of Terri which seem to demonstrate that she is at least minimally conscious at times and then I am asked to decide whether she should live or die. This is absurd. This is not my decision. I agree wholeheartedly that hers is a heartbreaking situation but it's not up to me to chose her fate. And it's definitely not something I, as an American citizen, want my government butting into. Stop and think. It's not your decision either. Whatever you believe, however painful it is to watch, let it be. Consider yourself a religious, spiritual, compassionate or aware person? Butt out. Pray if you like. Write your own living will. It's sad, but let Terri and her family go.

If you're an anorexic learn from Terri's experience. As I read it, that is what triggered the heart attack that left her in a vegetative state. Now Washington DC gallops to her rescue in a big show of "compassionate conservatism"??? No. Politicians are hoping to increace their political capital. It's Jeb Bush smarmy power grab. Starry-eyed evangelicals are expecting him to break in and steal Terri away.The whole thing is sad.

Imminent rapture

Isn't death supposed to be part of "god's" plan? Judging by the fervor of all these so-called religious people, death is the worst thing that can happen to somebody. Isn't Terri Schiavo supposed to "go to heaven" when she dies? Isn't that what's suppose to await all good Christians? Instead evangelical politicians have hijacked the government and overruled her wishes, as bequeathed to her husband. They have violated one of their own sacred principles, the sanctity of marriage. They are not doing "god's" work. They are doing their own (political) work. If "Terri's" Law, stands, what's next? Bush is on a roll. Obviously, he believes the law is under his thumb. Why wouldn't he? He gets everything he wants. Terri is an incidental; a tidbit for the congregation; a way to bring little brother Jeb onto the bully pulpit. In fact there are rumors today that Jeb plans to rush the hospital and kidnap Terri if the courts don't appease the evangelical fever to keep Terri out of heaven. If he does that, perhaps he'll name her his vice president when he makes his move.


So what else is on the Bush agenda? The Arctic Wilderness is next. And Social Security. And Iran. And whatever. If Bush manages to install his judges on the Supreme Court, the last balance of power is gone. He has big plans for the everyone who doesn't agree with him, not just the Iraqis.

If you're so inclined, you can read more about God's Plan here. Apparently it's all part of the "imminent Rapture".

Keep US courts democratic

This week the Senate is debating the judicial nomination of William Myers III. He's a career cattle and mining industry lobbyist who is now up for a lifetime appointment to the 4th District Appeals Court. He's just one of Bush's 20 judicial nominees that Democrats rejected last term, compared to over 200 that were approved.

These 20 judges were singled out because they consistently picked corporate interests over basic rights, and want to roll back decades of progress on anti-discrimination, women's rights, worker's rights, and the environment. If we don't act now to support a real opposition, these corporate lapdogs will be given lifetime appointments to lock in Republican ultra conservative ideology for decades.

Plus, the Bush administration has threatened to use this fight to take away Senate Democrat's ability to resists any future judges, including Supreme Court nominees.

MoveOn has started a petition calling on our Senators to stand firm against Myers and all 20 of these rejected corporate nominees, and to fight any manipulation of the rules to force them through. Please sign it.

H.S.T. / R.I.P.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote to provoke, shock, protest, and in general, piss people off. I loved him for that, even though his shotgun approach sometimes did more to obliterate than clarify what he chose to discuss. He did his job, his way. As a writer, he wasn't a watchdog. He was a watch wolf, flushing out the absurdity and rage that strangles us from the inside. I didn't read him for the facts. I read him for the truth.

Excerpt from "Kingdom of Fear" 2003...

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you...

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

-- Hunter S. Thompson

There's a comment about his suicide circulating tonight that "he died most fittingly, in a gun fight with his most vicious enemy". If that's the case, without glorifying his end, I'd like to think he won— not by taking his own life, but living it as a transparent voice rising from his own, inimitable dark. And I love that his 3 million dollar funeral included his ashes being fired from a cannon.

Inauguration Day protests

This Thursday is Bush's gala Inauguration Day and he is treating himself and his corporate buddies to 4 days of parties, including Texas State Society's "Black Tie and Boots" ball, at which he'll serve up tons of beef, oceans of booze, and mountains of bullshit. All in all, the gaudy event will cost over 60 million dollars, about twice the amount of aide money he sent to help tsunami victims.

It doesn't matter that the corporations he gave huge tax breaks to are picking up the tab. It's obscenely insensitive. Some "moral leader". It's a Texas size event for a Texas size asshole. As he dances the night away, soldiers in Iraq are scrounging in garbage heaps for scrap metal for makeshift armor to protect themselves and their vehicles. Bush rejected criticism of his ostentatious celebration by claiming his Victory War Dance is his way of paying tribute to the men and women he has put on the line. A formal salute to troops is part of the inaugural program. What a hollow man.

Protests for every mood and mentality are planned around the country. Call me a slactivist, but probably the most I'll do is wear all black, observe the economic boycott suggested by Not One Damn Dime Day and bitch on my blog. Of course, I'll shop on Wednesday and Friday so what's the point? I don't know. But elsewhere there will street demonstrations like the silent Turn your back on Bush event planned in Washington DC. When Bush's bullet-proof limousine glides by, people will turn their backs on him. That could be visually interesting, especially if they are all wearing black. We love our photo opportunities. And there will be plenty of political theatre, a few counter-inaugural balls like the one being tossed by Billionaires for Bush, and elsewhere buffet feasts and free drinks for all. All fun, in true American style, but his Oil Wars are not only costing the lives of young Americans dragged into this thing through his back door draft, it is genocide on a nation of innocent citizens caught in the cross-fire. Nothing to celebrate.

Bush's "accountability moment"?

President George W. Bush, who mocks what he calls the "reality-based community", thumbed critics today asking him to be accountable for the mess he's made of things. In an interview with the Washington Post he said he already had his "accountability moment, the 2004 election". What hubris! He has never been accountable for his extravagant and bloody policies. All we get is smoke and mirrors, and his bullshit attitude. When asked by the reporter why he thought bin Laden had not been found, Bush replied, "Because he's hiding." What a pathetic idiot! And he is our leader. I am ashamed that, with however small a margin or rigged election, my country elected this boob. Bush's minions love to tell disgruntled critics, "get over it". Unfortunately, these geniuses don't have a clue how long that will take the millions of people worldwide appalled by our "choice".

Bush Unfazed by Reality

"And I believe firmly that I'm doing the right thing for our country by promoting an active foreign policy that makes the world more peaceful and more free."
- President George W. Bush

"Active foreign policy" as in starting wars, flaunting the Geneva Convention, plundering the environment wherever possible, so on and so forth, and "peaceful and more free" as in inspiring hatred of the United States world wide and inspiring, new legions of amateur terrorists everywhere. What an asshole!

Hopeless as it may be, I find it hard to resist ranting against this guy. He lies. Anyone with any sense knows that, even if they can't admit it. What's worse, we expect it. It's a sick little game we play with him. This must be the way it's always been for George. Charm over substance. Must have driven his parents crazy when he was a kid and I can't begin to imagine what kind of private, shame filled hell they live in now.

George has rendered the concept of leadership meaningless. And he has made the term "moral leader" a cruel joke. He can pose in his cowboy hat and boots all he likes. He's not a leader. He's just another macho idiot, incapable of admitting when he makes a mistake. He's a hit and run artist. A flim-flam man. A fail upwards born loser. Forget the guts. He's strictly in it the glory. His personal motto should be "Go for the gold at anybody else's cost". Command performance, maestro. And now he will spend more dough on his inauguration, over 40 million, than he pledged to the survivors of the tsunami 35 million (which I hear he cut later), as his chorus of smirking minions snigger, "get over it".

The world is a much more dangerous place since you invaded Iraq, Mr. Bush.
And now, because Bush decided he is above the mandates of the Geneva Convention, we have to watch his toady "officials" toss up a Kangaroo Court and sacrifice some little guys to cover his sorry ass. The articles of the Geneva Convention protect the underpinnings of civilization! Too bad you don't read, Mr. President. Since we won't follow it, why should our soldiers be given these protections. Too bad you don't think, Mr. President.

(And for the record, no matter how "successfully" your team hid the fact, I am 100% convinced you were a playboy deserter with powerful parents who covered up the scandal. What irony. A deserter is Commander and Chief of the United States Military. )

Geneva Convention - Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.