How Big is Your Gitmo?

What is the horseshit being bantied about "if we leave Iraq, they'll follow us here."?

They have access to Mapquest...or maybe that's why. I get so freakin' lost using Mapquest!

But really, weren't they already here? Doncha think they made a map of how to get back?

Listening to the blathering of talking points from the R's recent debate made me long for a round of telephone game. At least by the time we got to one end of the republican line-up of losers we would have had a different statement being made.

But seriously, after the viagra-induced ball scratching shout-out to bullies everywhere, Romney should have been answered by Huckabee with the school yard taunt of, "No! Infinity." as he hikes up his Barney Fife pants finishing, "If I were President, that's how big my Gitmo would be!"

So now we really should ask, "Just how big is your gitmo?"

Things To Watch For

We get routinely swept up by new and shiny events and often we forget to follow up, or insist that we get information on past news.

Time was when investigative journalism meant that there was an investigation with reports issued periodically as the investigation progressed.

But we seem to be short on investigation these days and long on opine. Opinions are easy, they have little weight and can be rolled out quickly for parties and other festive gatherings. You can be deluded by an opinion, carried off by the phrasing or alliteration and like chinese food, you get your fill but soon you are hungry again.

Investigation is very filling, but like a multi course meal, it takes time for the whole thing to be rolled out and in between courses, it may cause thought and speculation of the listeners and god knows "we just don't have time for all that."

We have the attention span of gnats and below-board leaders like it that way.

Case in point:

What about the Anthrax? A woman whose husband was killed by anthrax is suing the government, because nothing further has been done. Questions this should provoke are: Why? Who would benefit from a non-investigation? What have they found so far? Lawsuits are being filed by those caught in the inertia of this investigation.

Foreign countries gave money to help us with costs for Katrina. Was that money used? Where did it go? Where is it? Who benefits from not using it? Forgot about this? Well don't hold your breath, but it would seem that the hibernating bear that has been our media might be waking up on this.

Maybe.

And finally, though certainly not a definitive finale, Mark Foley...? Is he still in rehab? Has anyone come forward? Been paid off? Why wasn't he arrested? If he'd been on MSNBC's "Catch-a-Perv" he'd have grass stains on his slacks and cuffs around his wrists immediately upon viewing.

Speaking of hibernating media, ice water was thrown on them this past week by the one and only Bill Moyers. Bill, a Texan (of course) and oddly, a Methodist minister, is one of the most reputable, articulate, thorough investigative journalists we have left. If you've not seen his report on "Buying the War", it is a must watch. Moyers is our Murrow. I feel much better now that he came out of retirement.

Like running a marathon, perhaps we should all train for longer attention and not let these issues elude us. What else have we forgotten in the face of this trumped up war and smoke and mirrors administration?

My guess is that the one thing we've been conned on is the idea that we are at war to defend ourselves yada yada yada.

Is it not possible the war and all its trimmings are the ruse for the powers of the President to be increased- for the balance of power to shift to the executive branch as dominant in our government. Think it through...take time. Wouldn't that make more sense-as nothing else quite does?

Sometimes You Just Need to Listen

BLOG AGAINST THEOCRACY

On this, for some, hallowed day, there is a mounting swell of support to keep the separation of church and state. Blue Gal has started a ruckus I am more than happy to support! Also check out the fine folks over at First Freedom First.

For too long and by far too many people, there has been an actual call for a theocratic state here in the US. I think in other rational times this would be called rebellion. When you have politicians calling for it I believe the actual word is treason.

For too long we have been in a halcyon stupor, too obsessed with staying afloat in a turbulent economy and too scandal weary to care. But this is exactly when it happens. Like a magician's trick we are being distracted by one hand while the other is actually pulling off the ruse.

If this treason takes place we deserve it. If we cannot care enough to defend our rights, we do not need them. What we do not take care of will crumble. What we dismiss will overtake us.

So in honor of this day, I ask for a resurrection of not the Right, but what is right.

Why do we need the separation of church and state?

Well, let's see:
Religion, when state sanctioned, creates a superior class or group of people. Why is this bad? Because it establishes a position of domination over others. Why is this bad? Because not one of us should be in dominion over others as we all are capable of corruption, abuse, and deceit. Dominion implies scarcity and that means that at some point it is inevitable Might will be seen as right.

Then it encourages, nay, institutionalizes hate for those who are different. It makes heretical any thought or consideration of change.

How much more powerful it is to say I choose to act beneficially on my and your behalf than to say some mythological construct I believe in says to-otherwise suffering some to-be-determined penalities.

And in the end who's to say just who is right?

Fundamnmentalism

Fundamentalisms will especially thrive wherever there is violent conflict, and wherever there is stark poverty, simply because these religiously absolute movements promise meaning where there is no meaning. For all these reasons, fundamentalisms are everywhere. See article here

Assent to Dominance

I am struck this week by the volume of "news" crap this week. And a good deal of it centers around the age-old premise that women are weak, women are frightening and anything of woman is just oh so very wrong.

Case in point: Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a faggot. He is also referred to as the Breck Girl and Limbaugh asked who would design Edwards' inaugural gown. It is touted already, if elected, he will be the first woman president. The latter was seen as a good thing, based on his stance for women's issues. But doncha know that'll be spun to south in criticism of him?

Oh yeah and the other media message is Hillary is not woman enough. Oy!

The students in Cross River New York, (girl students) said the word "vagina" during a reading of Eve Ensler's "My Short Skirt" from Vagina Monologues." “My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.”

Now the students were told or asked not to say the word vagina. But they did, and now they are in trouble. But here is my question: If anyone reads Eve Ensler's work, who the hell thinks the word "vagina" is not going to come up? I mean its like asking someone to read The Raven, but not utter "nevermore"!

Either the administration was stupid, and I mean dumb as a Sam's Warehouse size box of rocks, to think they could ask precocious teen-age girls to skip the one crucial word and basis of AN ENTIRE SHOW AND INDUSTRY, or the students were set up to be cogs in someone's agenda. Maybe it was their own agenda! If so, and by the report that it is right, then hail the young women for scissoring through the emperor's linguistic clothes to reveal this foolishness!

As to John Edwards, he has been called a faggot this week. Of course this is meant to cast him as a weak, passive, feminine, penis-less being. He has been called "too pretty". He was referred to as the "breck girl" by women journalists. Not a man but heaven forfend, a woman-like-man.

And all of this in light of it being Women's History Month.

I could go on about wage disparity, though California is seeing progress in a shrinking gap between wages of men and women. There are more women in leadership of countries, too. But rape is the highest conveyor of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. 3 out of 4 women in parts of Liberia have been raped. 75%, folks.

Equality is still a goal. Peace is but a dream.

But from where does perception this come? Where do men and women get that women are weaker: women are lessor?

You know, it doesn't really matter where it comes from. I could cite reams of data, historical evidence and theory to get to the origins of this nonsense, but it almost doesn't matter.

What does matter is that women have a responsibility for carrying it forward. For whatever religious, societal, or legal reasons this conditioning and consequence is perpetuated, without fullout resistance, we convey assent.

We get all happy and burn bras, stop shaving, bend genders and say we hold up half the sky. But we act as though we are not doing it together. Where is the consolidation among women to stop the violence and the disavowal that women are less than? We can say we are powerless, that society and religion has made us such, but if we do not resist enmasse we might as well give up.

But this goes beyond just women. When we talk of a dominant class or structure, all but the dominant are assenting. Case in point: When the construct deigned the african american community votes for an existing powerbase which does not speak to their concerns, but does so BECAUSE they have not assumed their own power and must hold the coattails of someone else's, this is what assent to dominance means. When women vote for men who do not speak to equality, they assent to dominance. When black students who make a 3.4 and above GPA are shunned and have on average only 2 friends, the community assents to dominance. When urban public school students do not assert their needs and insist on a good education, this is assent to dominance. When women do not even ask for fair wages, this is assent to dominance. When we say someone talks black or talks white, we assent to dominance.

We buy into the idea that we are powerless, therefore all that is left is assent. For if we have no power we can't even give consent.

Right now, the dominate structure has us so convinced of our lessthanness, our power isn't even in the same zip code!

We have bought into the idea that we are less than, we are weak, we are evil, we must not tempt, we must not resist. We are our own worst enemy.

It's All About THE GAY

Quite a while back I was talking with a few people about what the Telebangelists were after with regards to THE GAY. See Michigan and Kentucky domestic partnership rulings and legislation.

What I said then and what I see more evidence of today is this:

First they will define us and our relationships (DOMA etc)
Next they will attack where we can work (this is being subtlely done by limiting where we want to work thru passage of bills to prevent partnership benies and all that)
Next they will attack where we live (again by making rules against our existence they will limit where we live, too) But look for neighborhood exclusion laws, mortage restrictions, property ownership and draconian code enforcements (limits on unmarried people co-habitating in a single family dwelling)

With this momentum they will actually limit types of places where we can work. What is left?

But what if we are still here?

EX-Gay movements rooted in Telebangelists dogma, psycho babble to effect our affect, they count on most folks not being curious enough to question the misquoted or contrived stats or too bleary-eyed to battle ideas slimed in circular logic.

But why, you may ask?

Well here it is in a wingnut's shell:

Its all about salvation. If all your eggs of faith are in one basket (society), then not one of the tenets (eggs) can be removed without the whole basket coming into question. They all rest on one another. And remember its about salvation. If your belief is that salvation is achievable only one way and that salvation is possible, given a belief that there is something one must be saved from- dust or devil, then everything you do must be hinged on that belief. Or else it is dust or devilment for you.

We count heavily on bad being punished and good being rewarded. In this way of thinking it is the only way of making sense. Since some bad folks do not get punished here, they are to be punished somewhere. This keeps our current society in check, or so it is thought. There is this notion that if a punishment is not looming for bad deeds then nothing will keep one from committing said bad deeds. Society goes headlong into the abyss, Fidel comes sailing over the Rio Grande, we are on the way to absolute rack and ruin and we never are saved from ourselves.

So anyone cited in the texts (which are translated, altered and edited for whosever purpose it served at the time) as wrong doers, any acts cited as damnable, those must be held as true as nothing can be in question. If they are, in the end, it is all questionable and then salvation is not the end result for good folks and afterlife punishment does not capture those who slipped through the legal cracks on Earth. And if you're not Christian, you are far more likely to comiit evil because you do hold fast to the tenets. We are told a previous push to save folks from being evil and doing evil was the Crusade to the Middle East. Hmm might be again, but this time around, the Crusade here is all about THE GAY.

There are the passages in the Bible known as the Clobber Passages. Verses and chapters detailed against behaviors now viewed as GAY, but oddly enough not stated as being gay in original transcripts. Those pesky translators...No word existed in ancient times for what we now call GAY. Must not have been very important if it wasn't named, right? But I digress. These verses now cited, are the means by which Telebangelists legislate to limit and ultimately eliminate us.

So let's recap: Gay= Bad. Straight and Christian=Good. Bad= damnation Good=salvation

The Telebangelists have to be victorious. A loss means utter damnation experienced now and for eternity. For the faithful are the victors. If they do not win now they most certainly lose everything forever.

There is no swaying them from their death grip on the basket, folks. There is no intellectual victory to be won here. We are either here and they lose forever or we are not here and they win forever. Imagine what Telebangelists would do if they were ever proven wrong, or asked to change. Remember EVERYTHING is resting on their salvation. There is no room for any other thought or belief. There cannot be. Its absolute.

As for me, anyone else hot in here?

(hattip: Pam's House Blend )

Forward! To The Past!

I cannot help but feel a serious case of whiplash as I read the news this morning. Here I thought we were moving toward another age of enlightenment where advanced science gains acceptance, where women are FINALLY respected and in leadership positions in the US and where we were pretty much done with flat earth drivel.

But then, I read:
Faith trumps intelligence as a leadership quality
McCain is preaching abstinence and a complete reversal of Roe v. Wade
The Anglican Church is pondering a unification with the Catholic Church from whence they came. If this happens, what will the UK do in support of a state church and should there not be a HUGE apology to Ireland?
Some folks are STILL catapulting propaganda about EARTH BEING STATIONARY and THE CENTER OF ALL THINGS
Oh yeah and the jews are behind Evolution and it's evil
90 minutes of CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Anna Nicole Smith's unremarkable death and circumstances ( really was anyone surprised?)
Britney shaves her head (unremarkable) but her locks garner over $1 million on Ebay! Unbelievably shallow of us, no?

Quick, Marty, Back to the Future!

Raping for Jesus

Haters without a new target loitering in a inbox near you...

These poor hatin' wayward souls believe they possess the genetic beauty and perfection that deserves to be passed on. The conduit for passing this perfection is also gifted. They seem to possess superhuman-magical- cure-everything-that-ails-you penises. And while invoking God they spew on and on. Raping for Jesus 's sake.

Below are samples of emails sent to the great people who were working for John Edwards' Campaign. For those who missed it, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwen of Shakespeare's Sister (both excellent bloggers) were working for the campaign to manage the netroots and technology. Well, Donohue of Catholic League spewed a bit o'hate saying they were anti-catholic and bigoted (he should know) based on their statements in their own respective blogs. There was talk about the Edwards campaign letting them go. That did not happen. But they did resign this week, but only after this evil came their way in waves:

From Pandagon 's email

YOU RACIST WHORE. FAT UGLY BITCH. SUCK MY LONG COCK ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU KIDS NEVER LIVE AND YOUR PARENTS DIE A TRAGIC DEATH YOU ASSHOLE BITCH!
I HOPE YOUR WOMB IS BARREN AND YOUR CAREER PLUMMETS TO HELL YOU BITCH

Andy Driggers from Dallas, TX was also so moved by my criticisms of religious anti-choicers, that he wrote:

Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven't found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn't want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears.

But I shan’t belabor the point. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the hate mail the Bill Donohue’s “Christian” campaign against me has inspired. This is all stuff from days ago—I’ve gotten more than 100 since. Hell, from the looks of my email from last night, I’ve had more than 100 in the past 12 hours from self-proclaimed Christians who want me to know that I have hurt their feelings and this has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with their own misogyny and tendency to witch hunt.

From Melissa: There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats. It is not right-wing bloggers, nor people like Bill Donohue or Bill O'Reilly, who prompted nor deserve credit for my resignation, no matter how much they want it, but individuals who used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation.

This is a win for no one.

Indeed it was not.

We Can't Keep Up With Our Stuff

So the wife brought up an interesting point. How is it we can "conclusively" identify that bombs and weapons are from Iraq when we can't find the TONS of weapons we lost over there? How is it we know more about other people's stuff than we do our own?

And by the way, has anyone else wondered if any of the bombings and such our troops and the citizens of Iraq endure were aided by those TONS of weapons we lost a while back?

And another thing....where are the stories of Iraqi refugees???

You've Been Surged!

A new reality talent competition for all neo-cons and media cons who have urged for a surge!
No immunity, no passes for difficulty!
Come One Come All to Iraq and watch the hawkish darlings get picked off one by one as we say to them,

"You've Been Surged!"

This week's Competitors will be:
William "I never met a fascist policy I didn't like" Kristol -the man who sees no wrong in Neo-conservative thought

Dick "He ain't got what they call da social skills"Cheney-Water boy for Neo-Conservatives.







Ann "I wasn't lying when I was lying about where I live" Coulter- the cheerleader for every Bill, Dick and Rummy







Rush "Cigars remind me of little island boys" Limbaugh-the smoke to neo-con mirrors







and last but not least....

Heather "Maybe I shoulda worked for equal marriage" Poe

Not Another Iraq

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release — most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.

"The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.

The acknowledgment comes amid shifting administration messages on Iran. After several weeks of saber rattling that included a stiff warning by President Bush and the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf, near Iran, the administration has insisted in recent days that it does not want to escalate tensions or to invade Iran.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seemed to concede Friday that U.S. officials can't say for sure whether the Iranian government is involved in assisting the attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq.

"I don't know that we know the answer to that question," Gates said.

More here

Lost and Far From Found

Lost recently- Molly Ivins. A fave quote: "The reason religion and policy make such a bad mix is that religion brings the dread element of certitude into what needs to be a constant process of questioning." Molly Ivins Dec 06
I choose to be in a bad mood over this loss. Very few people have written well enough to make me laugh, wince and tisk all in the same article. The din of complacency is louder without her.

Molly is why I ask questions. Which has led me this week to what I think has got to be an obvious question among about 100 others: what privacy of Mary Cheney and her gestating spawn?

Should she have privacy? Yes, absolutely. But she has created or at least help ALOT to keep her pregnancy a matter of civil discourse. In fact I am sure that her pregnancy, juxtaposed with her efforts prior, will charge the batteries of some-dead legislation to ban single women from having children: single is spelled L-E-S-B-I-A-N. Cuz it jus tain't natchrul.

I hope she pays attention to all the states rights loving states out there who supported her daddy and his puppet. Because in some of those states if she were to get sick and Heather "herlesbianpartner" Poe were left to make decisions- even so much as decide to put the child in a car and take it home- she might not be able to. Infact, by law in some of those fine states, their extrastepswetaketoprotectourlovedonescuzwedon'thavetherights legal parenting documents would be null AND void. Meaning, ol'Heather "herlesbianpartner" Poe would just be another Joe with no say and no way. But then if Darth Daddy comes to the rescue or folks choose not to follow the law then is it not simply a case of some Poe's are more equal than others?

As for Mary's child and act of childbearing not being political- Mary, you have only aided and abetted gay pregnancy to be political. You cannot have rights and not work for them...let alone against them.
How much kool-aid does one have to drink to not see the personal and greater damage fighting against your own rights has? Does it come in flavors, pill form, or in a patch? It certainly has caused inflammation and poor judgement.