Sunday, June 29, 2008

Whoa

Hola Amigos!

Tis I back from a mexican prison sentence which I can assure you was a mockery of justice. Imagine a jury full of pinatas. Bang. Tons of chocolate goodies for the kiddies. And freedom for yours truly. Bang I say.

In Mexico I have seen some truly sick things. People going to the bathroom and then eating awesome tomato adobado tacos without washing their hands! Delicous tomato based tacos. No salmonella poisoning! For all you haters, all I have to say is there must be some dirty russians at hand there my friend, i can tell you that.

Well, I'm going back to the states with a clean salmonella-free hand, I can tell you that. Its like Hillary Clinton at the end of her campaign. Like Obama after a full breakfast of whole wheat high fiber pancakes at IHOP.

No. Thats not it at all. Though I'm sure Obama and I share a few aborted squirrels in the bathroom.

No, you know what it is? I feel like Clarice Starling coming out of Buffalo Bill's basement. Clean. And afraid of butterflies.

More to report after my chopstick fingers have regained their strength with a few grumps at King's Chef.

Mitch

Monday, June 23, 2008

Carlin: He will be F#@king Missed

George Carlin Dead at 71He skewered us with his rapier-fast wit, acid-etched humor, and painfully honest opinions. His social commentary shed light on everything from the social value of private golf clubs (none) to the way "politcally correct" language dilutes the responsibilities of those who use it.

He was the first person I had ever heard attack the church as an institution, deride the media as a whole, and it was his frank views of mankind and our country that indoctrinated me into the world of skepticism.

He was angry. He was funny. And he will be fucking missed.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Tehran withdraws $75 Billion from EU banks, orders world's largest mattress to hide it in

Bush to write memoir, Crayola value skyrockets

Wallstreet's reaction to the latest news from Europe that President Bush plans to write his memoir was an emphatic "BUY" for Crayola Crayons. "This is going to be a huge coup for the crayon industry," one stockbroker said. "With drafts, revisions, redactions and endless doodles of tanks and helicopters blowing people up, he's bound to go through truckloads of the main forty-eight colors."

Unfortunately, Crayola is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark, which is a privately held company. Several old school brokers who haven't migrated to the new electronic model of trading, didn't know this and ran around the trade floor screaming, "Crayola, Buy! Crayola, Buy!" Other traders looked on in amusement and disgust.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What crime did he commit?

The follow-up question I have is if Bush (and his lackeys) are found guilty of misleading the public in order to convince us to go to war in Iraq and overthrow a sovereign nation, what then? Well, we should take a page from the Bush Admin playbook and consider what their tactics for something like this would be. Namely, what's the harshest crime we could actually make stick with an indictment?

Treason? Sure, we were already at war in Afghanistan, so technically, almost anything you do illegal internationally during wartime could be construed as treason (see pg. 32 of the playbook, "Drawing your own conclusions and twisting the meaning of the law to suit your needs"). But since the motive wasn't to commit the crime and go to war for another (i.e. enemy) nation, it would be hard to make that stick. Plus, short of him dressing like Hitler and being caught on videotape giving Kim Jong Il and Osama bin Laden each a nuclear bomb while he takes a crap on Old Glory, there's no way a sitting president would ever be convicted of treason.

Sedition? Again, since he wasn't working for another country, and particularly not for an enemy country, it would be hard to pin sedition on him. Though a savvy prosecutor could make a strong argument that his Patriot Act was in effect an attempt to overthrow our government by proxy.

No, I don't think either of those are the route to take. But, if we go back to their playbook (see footnote 3 on pg. 27, under "Making shit up when we can't find an otherwise legal reason to throw someone in Gitmo") we'll find that in relation to Americans working against our better interests during the war, they have successfully pinned one high crime on someone: Conspiring to murder American nationals.

The facts:
  • Based on discussions they had amongst themselves to sell the war to the American people, their own intelligence investigations since 9/11 and motives they have hardly tried to keep secret (see books by Richard Clark and Scott McClellan), their actions could without a doubt be described as "conspiring."

  • They knew ahead of time that their actions (us going to war) would cause the loss of American lives, the lives of military servicemen and servicewomen as well as civilian support and news reporters.
Sure sounds like conspiring to murder American nationals to me.

Add on top of the fact they knowingly misled us that they conspired to kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and you've got another whole can of worms to open in the international courts. Plus, there's the matter of the ongoing investigation (heavily gagged by court order so no one can talk about it -- luckily I was watching BBC news this morning and caught report they did on the subject) of war profiteering by companies with government contracts in Iraq.

For such a small guy, Kucinich has huge balls

Congressman Dennis Kucinich has my vote. Not just in the primaries where I was sad to see him drop out last January, but in the "real American" contest. It takes a true patriot to love one's country enough to stand up to a man like George Bush and his administration, rife as it is with strong arms and below-the-belt punchers, and demand that we begin impeachment proceedings. He wants congress to look into the president's motives and direction for his argument to go to war.

The public tends to mistake the meaning of an impeachment. It is not instant removal from office. The first part is merely a congressional vote to determine if the president, vice president or other public official committed wrongdoings. And there is plenty of evidence to warrant a vote. The second part of impeachment (conviction) is removal from office. As then-Congressman Gerald Ford is quoted in Wikipedia as saying in 1970, ""An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."

I think we're at that moment in history. And I hope the House of Representatives agrees.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

McCain War Ad Powerful But Misses Mark

John McCain War CommercialI saw the new John McCain "I hate War" ad on TV last night. It was the second ad I saw that made me actually say something outloud. Of course, what I said outloud was, "Wow, the f**cking general election has already started and the paint on the Democratic Primary Is Over signs isn't even dry yet."

I was impressed by the moving nature of the ad, but disappointed because he's playing to the people who are against the war in Iraq without saying he'll end the war in Iraq.

Never forget he said he was for the war in Iraq and that we might be there for 100 years.

The other ad I saw last night was much better. It made me say "oh my God" and laugh out loud. It was the Huggies ad where the baby pees all over the bedroom at the dinner party. Of course, if McCain doesn't win the election, maybe he'll be doing Huggies ads in the near future. Hell, Bob Dole was pushing Viagra after he lost (and Doritos for that matter).

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Cost of Change

I was in an email discussion string the other day with mostly conservatives and non-progressives, navigating the dark and murky depths of the pros and cons of a McCain presidency versus an Obama presidency. The general consensus of the conversation (except me) was that of the candidates only McCain was interested in lowering my taxes, improving the economy, securing the country and defeating the evildoers of the world.

In response to my saying I was going to vote for Barack Obama, one of the conservatives thought he would tordepo me with, "I hope you're ready to pay for it for a long time." He was referencing the right-wing argument that social programs implemented today are monies wasted that become a societal burden paid for over generations.

I decided to bring my response to the blog with the following points:
  • All Americans, and especially American politicians, want to improve the economy. It's the primary litmus test for the success of their programs and the justification for the continuation of their political philosophies.
  • Who doesn't want to make our country more safe? Does his statement imply that Obama stays up at night asking Michelle, "Hon, America is too safe. How can I make it more dangerous for our children?"
  • "Pay for it for a long time?" Pay for what, a government that is less corrupt, influenced less by lobbies, and not in the pockets of corporate conglomerates? Yes please! For the price of closing a couple military bases abroad (do we really need bases in Italy and Japan?) we could fund a substantial amount of other social programs or redirect that money to homeland security and desperately needed infrastructure. I'd much rather have a chunk of my taxes pay for something like universal healthcare and rapid transit than to continue to pay for an unrighteous, morally bankrupt, terrorist training ground like the Iraq War.
  • Is it really our place to "defeat evildoers?" How do you define them, identify them, and even find them? If we can't find Osama bin Laden... c'mon, we're obviously not that good at the whole defeating evildoers job. It shouldn't even be on our résumé.

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