Just one question

OK. So let me get this straight (so to speak).

J.K. Rowling has come out and said... excuse me. Let me rephrase that.

In an interview, author J.K. Rowling said that headmaster of her school for wizards, Dumbledore, is gay. Not that she ever made him do anything homosexual, but that she kept that fact in mind.

This has caused great consternation among the right wing.

So now, we are supposed to be concerned with the intent of people who don't exist. Not their actions (which never happened), but the non-actions (which also never happened). Is that about right?

We are supposed to get outraged by the things that aren't done by fictional characters, in a world that likewise doesn't exist.

I think my brain just exploded.

Domenici Doesn't Love Me

You know, sometimes I've been known to write stuff elsewhere than here. (Which is good, actually, since my output here has hardly been record-breaking...) For example, one week ago today, our Congresscritters blocked a bill that would have done a simple thing - it would have given our military equal time away from the battlefield as they are forced to spend getting shot at and blown up.

New Mexico, as you might be aware, has two Senators: Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman. One Republican rubberstamp for Bush, and one human being. And I've been known, whenever I'm feeling like getting illegally wiretapped, to express myself to the people who are supposed to be representing me in Washington. Now, Bingaman, while he may not be a fire-breathing maverick, at least had the common decency to say "Yes. I believe it's only fair to let you come back to America and get shot at less often."

Domenici, on the other hand, being a shriveled, dried-out worthless bag of pus, decided to block this act. Pretty much like the Republicans have chosen to block everything that the Democrats try to do, because they're the worst example of partisan hacks in the history of the government.

So I decided to express myself on this subject. I suppose that, to be completely fair, I should probably have also written Bingaman and thanked him for supporting the military, but I didn't. I went to Domenici's website, and wrote this.

Senator Domenici,

You just voted to block a bill that would have allowed troops to spend as much time at home training with their units as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan (and Members of the National Guard or Reserve would be guaranteed three years at home before being sent back). This would have allowed them to be better rested, better trained, and more likely to survive. Oddly, you apparently don't want that.

I understand that you did not, yourself, spend any time in the military. I spent 21 years in the military, and two tours in the Middle East. Perhaps you don't understand the stress of family separation, combined with the uncertainty of survival for the troops in Iraq. Almost 4000 of our soldiers have died, and tens of thousands have been injured by our ill-considered invasion of another country. A country, incidentally, that was not involved in any way with the 9/11 conflict, despite the White House conflating the two consistently for the past seven years.

Your disdain of the troops and your dismissal of their well-being disgusts me, Senator. If you believe that we need more servicemen and women, you should try to institute a draft (preferably one that forces the children of the rich and privileged to serve alongside their less-fortunate counterparts). That is, if you really believe that you could ever get reelected after that.

You have eight children, and presumably a number of grandchildren. Without knowing anything about them, I will guarantee that none of them are in the military. And I doubt that any of them ever have been.

There is no reason for American troops to be in Iraq. The Iraqi people don't want us there: they are in the middle of a civil war. Iraq is not a hotbed of anti-American terrorists - they merely want the foreign invaders out of their country.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is not a threat to any Americans, except those in Iraq. Even General Petraeus agrees with that.

Your vote in this matter shows that you are no longer in touch with the feelings of the people you represent, and that you do not care about the welfare of the military that you sent, and keep sending, into Iraq.

See? I didn't call him a "shriveled, dried-out worthless bag of pus," or anything. I didn't insult him in any way, although I did suggest that his actions disgusted me.

Normally, when you write your Congresscritter, they are polite enough to write you back. Although I have noticed a tendency on the part of Domenici's staff to send out a canned response that is occasionally barely related to what you wrote him about - usually just some speechwriter's platitudes.

Well, it's been a week now, and no word from Domenici.

Very strange. I'm not in the military any more. You'd think he'd have started to care about me by now.

Why aren't they smarter?

You know, a major study at NYU and UCLA recently proved that conservatives don’t react well to changing circumstances, and liberals do. And we can show the truth of that with recent politics.

Take, for example, Dick Cheney. Didn't people make fun of him enough during his original claim that he wasn't a part of the executive branch of the government? In responding to a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee, first he says that he's upset that they didn't just ask him first.

-- The issuance of the subpoena to this office was procedurally irregular. First, the committee did not follow the congressional custom of sending a letter to this office requesting the material before it sent the office a subpoena.

Because Dick's always been so open and forthcoming on these matters up until now, right?

But then they're right back into the trenches with this bizarre Vice Presidential confusion regarding how the government is set up.

--In the performance of executive functions in support of the President, the Vice President respects the legal privileges afforded by the Constitution to the presidency, such as the Executive Privilege protecting among other things national security secrets and policy deliberations. Similarly, in the performance of legislative functions, the Vice President respects the legal privileges afforded by the Constitution to the Senate, such as preservation of the confidentiality of a session of the Senate with closed doors over which a Vice President may preside.

Now, I admit that I'm not fluent in Lawyerspeak, so perhaps there's some other translation of this that I can't work out. But it looks to me like he's continuing with his bone-headed contention that he is neither completely in the executive branch of government, nor in the legislative branch.

(I believe it was that great philosopher Jon Stewart who said that he was part of the mystic Fourth Branch of Government.)

You know, President Bush is known to occasionally sign a bill into law. Does this mean that he's also part of the legislative branch? (I shouldn't say that too loud. They might actually try that...)

The first time that Cheney tried to claim that he was not part of the executive branch, he backed off as soon as Congress tried to agree with him. After all, the government couldn't support double-dipping. So, as Rahm Emanuel put it, "we will no longer fund the executive branch of his office and he can live off the funding for the Senate presidency."

But see, Dick got caught just trying, as he always has, to do exactly what he wanted to do and damn what other people want. And in support of his whim, he makes some brain-dead statement like “I’m not part of the Executive Branch. Even if I do claim Executive Privilege every so often!” And then he doesn’t know what to do when people call him on his arrogance and stupidity.

It's always been about the money for Dick Cheney. He was the CEO of Halliburton for quite a while, only getting out when he decided that being the hand-up-the-backside-of-the-Bush-puppet would be a viable job to put on his resume. And then Halliburton kept getting billions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the government, but nobody felt that it was unreasonable for them to be paying the Vice President millions of dollars every year. Can somebody explain that logic to me? Is that the "free market" they keep talking about? Buy a politician and get rich?

And now the Republicans want to expand the battle into Iran. (Or Syria, if you ask Joe Lieberman.) Where's the money going to come from for that? We stripped the economic surplus that Clinton left him years ago, and now, Bush owes more money to foreign countries than every president ever, added together. Not "than any one president has ever owed." If you add up the foreign debt of every president from Washington to Clinton, you end up with a sum that's less than what Bush now owes. And we owe this money to countries like China, who've never been our friend. (Isn't that like owing money to Guido the Loan Shark? You're fine until you get behind on those payments. Then a couple of boys might come around and "explain things" by breaking a few kneecaps...)

Again, there’s no logic involved here. Where is the money coming from? The White House keeps telling us that we have to stay in Iraq "until the mission is done." Without, of course, telling us what the mission is. It’s always some nebulous argument like “they don’t have travel agents, so they won’t be able to get to America unless we leave. And then they’d just be able to follow us!”

And they don’t bother telling us how we’re going to pay for staying in Iraq, much less moving along to the next Middle East country. Except that we’re pretty sure that Bush isn’t going to pay for it by taking his tax cuts away from his rich friends.

So obviously, we're going to pay for it by continuing to take money away from repairs to our crumbling infrastructure, by failing to improve the air traffic control system, and by not ensuring that our poor have adequate health care.

I don’t understand any of this. But that’s the problem with the Republican mindset these days. They get one idea (say, "going into Iraq might be a good idea”) and then they can’t think of anything except succeeding at this mind-numbingly stupid plan, even if the facts prove that their idea is unachievable or self-defeating. They don’t react well to changing conditions.

For an example of this, let’s look back a few months, at the actions of one sad little Idaho Senator named Larry Craig. On June 11, Senator Craig went into a bathroom in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, lurked around for awhile, went into a stall, waved his hands under the divider, tapped his foot against his neighbor’s foot, and was then arrested for lewd behavior. He then pled guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct (probably hoping it would all go away), and he then tried to retract his guilty plea (probably because it didn’t go away).

OK, so he went into this bathroom stall looking for something. Maybe a place to relieve himself, or maybe for a little homosexual excursion. It doesn’t matter. Either way, whatever it was Larry Craig was looking for was suddenly interrupted. Suddenly, whatever it was that he wanted, whatever portion of the lower torso he wanted to relieve, he abruptly found himself being arrested.

Now, consider how he reacted – he panicked. Where was the crime? At what point, in fact, was he even particularly disorderly? He could easily have brazened it out. "Well, I lowered my pants as I sat on the toilet. Maybe the policeman saw my hands at that point. I don’t know what he thought he saw." Do you mean to tell me that there isn’t a lawyer in Idaho who could have gotten those charges dropped? Hell, a Public Defender could have made this whole thing go away in twenty minutes.

And is Larry Craig gay? Hell, I don’t know. The facts, such as they are, don’t look good, though. (I guess it would be polite to ignore the men who've claimed to have sex with Senator Craig, wouldn't it? Rude to the men, perhaps, but at least polite to the senator. And that's what's important, right?

I see this as a somewhat twisted metaphor for Iraq. George Bush, who became the least-documentable member of the Air National Guard in order to (successfully) avoid going to Vietnam, decided that he wanted to get his war on, prove he had bigger cojones than his dad (whose "victory" didn’t seem that impressive to him), and he found some friends who wanted very badly to get a permanent base in the Middle East. So suddenly, he’s a "war president."

But when his plans go awry (waving his hands in Fallujah, tapping his foot against Anwar Province), he refuses to accept the inevitable. What he’s doing now is what Larry Craig should have done – Bush found himself a Public Defender named Petraeus who was willing to say "Nothing was wrong in that bathroom! See, they're succeeding admirably!"

Understand, I'm not saying that he's right. I'm just saying that he's mounting an effective defense. We'll ignore that the statistics are openly cooked. We'll ignore that deaths are up in Iraq. All we have to do is listen to Bush, and everything will be all better.

He’s not failing. He’s just taking a wide stance on Iraq.

The Depth of Rudi Giuliani's Ignorance

OK, I only read this post on Bats Left Throws Right because C&L linked to them, but everything he says is 100% correct. So here, in its entirety, is the work of someone calling themselves Doghouse Riley.
____________

Rudolph Giuliani, "Toward a Realistic Peace", Foreign Affairs September/October

THIS is, I think, the most ignorant thing I've ever seen attached to a politician's name, and I've heard Everett Dirksen, S.I. Hayakawa, and Steve Symms speak.

We are all members of the 9/11 generation.

And that's it. He could have stopped there, for all the evidence he supplies, all the analysis that flows from this "fact". This is a man asking us to name him to follow the most incompetent administration in our history, to take charge of the colossal mess created precisely because we relied on this sort of sloganeering instead of looking for ways to create a realistic peace.

Or any peace, for that matter, because in the heyday of the use of Red White an' Blue as a charm against falling objects we had no interest in peace whatever. If that's ever changed for Giuliani you won't hear it about it here, just as you'll never hear it on the campaign trail. Peace, a solution (other than the Final one), these are not even a part of the narrative, as they would be in any real war, no matter how odious the enemy. It's Ultimate Victory Which Demonstrates for All Time God's Righteous Guidance of our Tax-Cutting Program vs. Demoralizing, Humiliating Defeat Which Turns Our Brave Heroes Gay. If you want an accurate title here, or at least one that refers to what's in the body of the piece, it's "How to Recycle Cold War and Post-Vietnam Rhetoric In Such A Way That It Might Win Us One More Election."

Okay, I know that Giuliani's just saying things to win a nomination--not that I think he's shamming--but this is Foreign Affairs, not NASCAR in Pictures Monthly. The base ain't listenin'. So we're forced to conclude he learned international relations playing Telephone with Young Republicans during the Reagan administration. After suggesting that our every international concern is the result of, or has been exacerbated by, our short-sighted refusal to simply explain to the other nations of the world why our system is logically the best for them if they would like to prosper, join in a secure community of nations, and avoid having us blow their fucking heads off--said persuasion to be accomplished by submarine, "paramilitary groups" (I kid you not!), and the Voice of America--Rudy assures us that, like all responsible Presidential candidates, he's already got the exploratory committee on his own canonization hard at work:

Our cultural and commercial influence can also have a positive impact. They did during the Cold War. The steadfast leadership of President Reagan, working alongside British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, helped the Soviet Union understand that it could not bully the West into submission. Although such leadership was essential, alone it might not have toppled the Soviet Union in the time that it did. But it was effective because it came with Western economic investment and cultural influence that inspired people in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. Companies such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Levi's helped win the Cold War by entering the Soviet market. Cultural events, such as Van Cliburn's concerts in the Soviet Union and Mstislav Rostropovich's in the United States, also hastened change.

Good Lord, it's history as told to People magazine. No, make that Us. Reagan steadfastly ran from Lebanon, after getting a couple hundred Marines killed to no purpose whatsoever, all because Realism Informed by Idealism dictated that he toss out the Camp David Accords as being, if I recall, "too accomplished by Jimmy Carter". As a result, of course, there hasn't been a bit of trouble on the Israel/Lebanon border since, and we've developed a special relationship with the Saudi royal family, once it understood the benefits of free elections and unfettered trade. The Pope managed to muzzle some mouthy South American priests and give hope to millions around the world who felt that the 19th Century was moving just a little too fast. Thatcher, meanwhile, took a failing British economy and, by dint of superior principles, drove it into the dumpster. Plus, in a certain light, she looked a little like Churchill. And who can forget that she kicked some Argentine ass, a move roundly applauded in the United States by people who couldn't have pointed to the Falklands on a map, and who apparently sided with the British in the hopes that one day we'd get our own Spice Girl out of the deal.

The next U.S. president should take inspiration from Ronald Reagan's actions during his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík in 1986: he was open to the possibility of negotiations but ready to walk away if talking went nowhere. The lesson is never talk for the sake of talking and never accept a bad deal for the sake of making a deal. Those with whom we negotiate -- whether ally or adversary -- must know that America has other options. The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure.

It's amazing that the party which used to grouse about Unintended Consequences now seems to imagine there are no consequences of any sort, or where there are some, however unpleasant, it's because we haven't doubled down enough yet. Elsewhere Giuliani spits out the recent commonplace that the Iranian people "actually like us"--the whole thing is current events as scrapbook--but somehow they'll be happy to have us fuck with them from 30,000 metaphorical feet provided we've got a really good reason to do so.

This, by the way, is the essence of Giuliani's military thinking, a return to 9/12 and the infinite possibilities of crafting military action using logistical maps and vapor.

The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs.

Which, of course, doesn't mean we can afford it, or even that it's a good idea. But let's look at this one from the top, beginning atop the spires of the alabaster castle he's erecting in the clouds and continuing down to the crater we'll leave when we climb onto the thing.

Ten combat brigades. That's 50,000 men, plus materiel, plus the neglected-to-mention-'em-because-they-ain't-sexy support troops. Forget where they're supposed to come from when we haven't been able to recruit 50,000 a year despite raising the age limit and lowering the physical and mental requirements to "Present". Every recruit receives an automatic $90,000 ($20K in cash) benefit package upon acceptance, plus unknown future educational benefits and whatever medical care we don't cheat them out of when they're no longer of any use. We spend between $50-100,000 on training each soldier in his first year. That's a commitment to a minimum $7 billion dollar increase before anyone gets a haircut, and doesn't include feeding, housing, or equipping him, and it presumably comes after we re-equip and re-man the existing ten divisions. The current Pentagon wish list is for an increase of two divisions (roughly 30,000 troops). Rudy wants half again as many at a minimum while we're sitting around trying to figure out what we really need to do. This at a time when combat readiness is at an historic low, when we may need to requisition Yellowstone for use as a parking lot for junk equipment (sorry, I shouldn't have said that out loud), and at a time when we've already transferred the responsibilities of the Army's "Ready Brigade" to the 101st Airborne--which is by training and equipment incapable of performing all the doctrinal requirements--so that we could send every brigade of the 82nd Airborne--which can--to assist in The Surge. At the best of times--like, say, when we had a standing army that was equipped and prepared to do its job--creating a single division would require a minimum of five years. Forget who's supposed to pay for all this and how--presumably vapor taxpayers and vapor money are as easy to conjure up as ghost brigades--who's going to train them? You'll have to retain practically the entire fighting force we have left, promote them, and a corresponding increase in benefits and pensions, as a training force.

Wait, we've barely begun. We've created an army of soldiers many of whom are not yet born, and saddled their younger siblings with the bill. But what th' fuck is the mission? We've already seen that a standing force of 1.1 million--double that with Reservists and Guard--was unable to deploy, let alone maintain, much more than 200,000 troops between Iraq and Afghanistan. Which force, as everybody but the Republican Presidential contenders now knows, was woefully inadequate for the job, which was to occupy the poorest country in the world, with little more than a leftover insurgent force to defend it (albeit in favorable terrain, but that terrain did miraculously get tougher on September 11), and a tenth-rate military power still more than decimated by the pounding we gave it twelve years earlier. Neither of them is Iran, and Iran is no Pakistan. Where are we sending these boys and girls, Rudy? What're they supposed to do once they get there? Or has Camille Paglia--who mused last week that we might have to return to Iraq sometime in the near future and bomb the hell out of 'em this time, as though to emphasize the fact that this was another subject she didn't know a fucking thing about--signed on as your secret military advisor?

I told myself I was going to ignore it this time, but the song of the sirens is too persuasive. It's not just current military matters on which Rudy is certifiably insane:

America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. Then, as now, we fought a war with the wrong strategy for several years. And then, as now, we corrected course and began to show real progress. Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America. The consequences of abandoning Iraq would be worse.

Fiction. absolute fiction from beginning to end. Wrong in every particular. (For the record, Your Honor, America needs to learn the lessons of Vietnam before it worries that it's getting a little fuzzy about the details. And perhaps you'd care to go first?) And it perfectly underscores the depth of the problem in front of us--not just the eventual breakdown of what remains of US forces in Iraq, which the Bush administration determined several years ago was preferable to its admission of error (these are the patriots, folks), not the wresting of temporal political control from a party of lunatics, in order to hand it over to a party of lunatic enablers, but the complete reversal of sixty years of military fetishism, insane spending priorities, and a view of history somewhere between "Unlettered" and "Hallucinated", all of it transfered from ear to ear, one whisper at a time.

Health food for everyone

I'm going to see if I can't make the world a better place in one simple blog post. Since it's July, this is a particularly far-reaching and important piece of news, and will increase happiness in much of this hemisphere.

First, let me point out that a study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture tells us that researchers in Thailand and America discovered that the antioxidant properties of strawberries are increased by the application of a little alcohol. (This is true of blackberries and other colored fruit, if you're curious.)

Now, some naysayers would like to point out that too much alcohol damages the liver. Screw them. They always want to rain on our parade. So we'll ignore them, in that responsible manner of the Bush administration, which bravely ignores any scientific evidence it doesn't agree with.

Straight strawberries have other beneficial effects - vitamins, minerals, fiber. You know, stuff that nobody wants to know about, but, like traffic laws, we need to have to stay happy and out of trouble.

Then we have the benefits of honey. It's good stuff. Plus, if you get honey harvested locally, it can have beneficial effects on your allergies, as well.

So, here's how I'm going to improve your life.

Strawberry Daiquiri Smoothie

1 pint (16 oz) frozen strawberries
1/4 cup local honey
1/2 cup water
Juice of 1 lemon (around 1/4 cup)
¾ cup rum (spiced is good, by the way)

Put sugar in blender first, to grind for a second or two. Pour in water rum, and lemon juice. Blend until to mixed (a few seconds). Start adding frozen strawberries, a few at a time. At the end, you'll probably need to stop the blender and stir with a spoon, pushing down any floaters. Serve.

Makes 2 good-sized daiquiris (3 if you skimp a little).

If you want don't really care about the health bonus from honey, you can go ahead and use 1/4 cup of "superfine sugar." Just put regular sugar in a dry blender first, and run it for a few seconds. If you actually pay extra money for "superfine" sugar, I'll have to come to your house and break your kneecaps. I'm sorry, but that's just the way life is.

(Some people would tell you to increase the sugar by 1/4 when substituting for honey. Well, to tell the truth, that kind of measurement is too much for me. I'm lazy. And I recommend that you avoid trying that much math when you're cooking, too. Or drinking. Same problem. It'll cause brain rot.)

Now, I'm willing to go for something that'll make your life easier and cheaper almost every time. But I'm not willing to substitute the "juice of one lemon" part for an equal amount of any brand of "reconstituted lemon juice." Because if you look on the label, every one of them that I've found uses either potassium benzoate or sodium benzoate to preserve the stuff. So avoid it.

There. See? One simple blog post, and you're healthier, more regular, and more relaxed. So what could be better than that, right?

Patriotism (slightly updated, July 31)

Sometimes, it's difficult to be a patriotic American. But that's only because "patriotism" has been carjacked by the White House.

The Bush administration and their ilk have made dissent a dirty word. If you disagree with them, you're either un-American, or worse, you're "endangering the troops."

Personally, I like to judge people by their actions, not their words. And when you look at the actions committed by our White House, you don't see anything that resembles a normal definition of "patriotism."

As the cost of the Iraq debacle increasingly spirals out of control, running us about $12 billion dollars per month at the moment, it's becoming increasingly apparent that we can't afford to stay in Iraq. Not that George W. Bush sees this as a problem. After all, he's managed to build up our national debt to nine trillion dollars, or seventy percent of the economy. Which puts the American economy at risk from hostile foreign governments.

(Let's make an analogy that hits closer to home. George Bush is spending his entire paycheck every month, and paying the bills with credit cards. Do you see how that might be a bad idea?)

The more human cost of White House policies, the price in American lives, is now approaching 3600 dead servicemen. Again, not a problem for Bush & Co. None of them has even bothered to serve in the military, nor are any of their relatives. The White House doesn't feel that "sacrifice" is an important component to a war. (Of course, if you ask Laura Bush, nobody is suffering as much as they are. So they've got that going for them, I guess.)

Meanwhile, we have an executive branch which has no interest in following the law. If the president doesn't like a bill passed by Congress, instead of vetoing it, he'll write a quick (and probably misspelled) paragraph explaining why he's going to ignore it. Meanwhile, the vice president isn't even clear which branch of the government he's in.

(On the other hand, by ignoring the court system and the appeals process, and commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby before he spent even a day in jail, George Bush apparently decided he's part of the Judicial Branch, as well as the Executive Branch. So between the two of them, Bush and Cheney have all three branches of the government covered. Cool, huh?)

And less than a month after telling a group of high school students that "the United States does not torture and... we value human rights," he signed an executive order that essentially lets the CIA do whatever the hell they want (except sexual abuse) to a prisoner.

So, what's Bush's latest trick?

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

In case you've been living in a cave these last few weeks, this particular mutation of the law is meant to protect Harriet Miers, to keep her from squealing like a two-bit loan shark in a Mafia druglord trial.

Basically, what Bush is saying is "I told her not to tell you what I've been doing. And so, if she lies to you, it must be legal. If she refuses to talk to you, it must be legal. Because I said that it is.

And that's not all. The White House set up a secret plan to run the government in case of terrorist attack. (You remember the terrorists, right? The boogeymen that they've been waving over our heads for six years?) Well, you'd think that sort of thing would fall under that overarching title "Homeland Security," right?

So a couple of the constituents of Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR) asked him to look into the plan, thinking that there might be some kind of nastiness buried in it. Seems reasonable, right? After all, he is on the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee. So Defazio went through the proper channels, and asked to go into a secured room and read the plan. And was refused permission.

No, that doesn't look suspicious at all, does it?

And now, as if to prove that Bush is either corrupt, willfully ignorant or both, the White House has asked Congress to approve a $20 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Now, let's be clear here: nearly half of the insurgents captured in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia. And let's not forget the White House's favorite topic of conversation for the last six years = 9/11. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

What is it about Saudi Arabia that makes George Bush trust them? (Oh, yeah. They have oil.)

At this point, the only true patriot in America is one who opposes the White House.

Olberman says it all

The following is Keith Olbermann's commentary from the Countdown of July 3, 2007. (Yes, Melissa, it's Keith's birthday present to you...)

I have nothing to add.

"I didn't vote for him," an American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

That—on this eve of the 4th of July—is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The man who said those 17 words—improbably enough—was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.

"I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne's voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president's partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world—but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust—a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

Our generation's willingness to state "we didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job," was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most. And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us.

We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he should have been elected—indeed those who did not believe he had been elected—willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison—at the Constitutional Convention—said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised by" that president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish—the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens—the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of "a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing—or a permanent Democratic majority—is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.

"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate—instantaneously—became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting—in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.

Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.

But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush—and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal—the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one—and it stinks. And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.

It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.

But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them—or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them—we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time—and our leaders in Congress, of both parties—must now live up to those standards which echo through our history: Pressure, negotiate, impeach—get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.

For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone—anyone—about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

Happy birthday, America. And may God help us all.

The day after Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day, and I've found myself feeling distracted and melancholy all day today. I think I miss my Dad.

The odd part is, that would make a lot more sense if he was dead.

Let me explain.

Especially in the last several years, I've always had a pretty good understanding of myself. Some people go through life doing what other people expect, and never figure out why they aren't happy.

I got out of the military because George Bush got reelected. Unlike a lot of people, I've figured out what's important to me. I've looked into myself, found a person that I kind of like, and I cultivated that guy. I'm comfortable in my own skin.

My father was a career Army officer. A graduate of West Point and a field artilleryman, he eventually earned a degree in nuclear physics. So basically, he just kept finding bigger and better ways to kill more and more people. I always thought that was kind of cool.

But he was also a good officer. Which means that, to a large extent, he had to put his career first. "If the Army wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one, maggot!" It's not just a line in a movie - there are people in every branch of the service who actually believe it.

And he always had great control of his emotions. He'd laugh a lot, but only occasionally a full-out guffaw - it was more of an echo of laughter than a real sound of pleasure. But I remember him seeing him angry several times (it was usually my fault), and I could actually see it in his eyes. But for the most part, he kept himself on a fairly short leash.

So while I was growing up, I wasn't as close to my father as I might have liked.

Then, sometime after I graduated high school, he retired and moved clear across the country, from Virginia to Oregon. I only moved halfway across the country (from Virginia to Texas), and eventually entered the Air Force.

I was never sure what my father thought about my choice of:

1. The Air Force, and
2. the enlisted branch of the Air Force

He had to feel some pride that I was continuing the family tradition of military service, I suppose. But most officers also see the enlisted ranks as "grunts." The low end of the evolutionary scale. Cannon fodder. So I'm really not sure how he felt about that.

I was never a great fit in the military. And I'd never planned to spend more than one tour in the Air Force anyway. But with one thing and another, I was enlisted for 21 years, plus a few months.

My first base was in California. A days drive south Gold Beach, Oregon, where my parent had chosen to retire. I used to go visit them every year or so. At least at Christmas, if not more often.

During that time, my father grew his beard out, relaxed a lot, and became a genial gentleman farmer. My kids loved him. He laughed and joked and built things for them.

He wasn't the same guy I knew relatively well as a kid, but I adapted. Never really managed to get through the distance between us, though. There was always just the thinnest of separations. And I always thought that was a shame.

My wife can wax eloquent about her father. She can reminisce for hours about the things they did together when she was a kid. It nearly killed her when he died.

My dad is just some guy.

When my mom died, I had to come back from Germany for the funeral. My dad had been married to her for decades, and for the most part, I'm pretty sure that he loved her. He broke down several times over the course of that week. I'd never seen that before.

But life went on. I went from Germany to Wyoming, and then down here to Albuquerque. My dad sold the farm and did some traveling; he even lived in a motor home for awhile.

And then he married a woman in Gold Beach named Ann. She had a relatively large family in California, and she'd apparently always been close to them. They drove south to visit them all the time. Eventually, they even moved down there, to build a house and be closer to her family.

But oddly, farther from his.

I don't think it's anything conscious on their part - Ann has just always visited her kids. They're very close. I've only seen my father a limited number of times since he married her. We're not.

Things haven't been getting better as the years have passed. I'll call on birthdays, anniversaries, Father's Day. We usually talk for a while, exchange stories about what we've been doing, but it's kind of like talking to somebody in a bar. You tell them what you're doing at work, but nothing deep or meaningful.

Admittedly, I never called on Mother's Day - Ann might have thought it was a nice thing to do, but I have to admit, I'm closer to my father than I am to her. And she's never been my mother. She might be a nice lady, if a little straight-laced for my tastes. But she's never warmed to me.

Maybe it's because I've never fixated on money and fashion. I'm not a "success," in the classic American "get all you can NOW!!!" sense of the word. I make enough money to get by. I'm not rich. But I'm not broke. And I'm happy. I don't see where getting rich is worth the cost. I work with people who are trying to "claw their way to the top." I'm happy down here, about halfway up.

I have no idea if that has anything to do with how things are. I'm just sayin'. She's very close to her children. I haven't seen my dad in a couple of years now.

And I'll admit it. I haven't made much of an effort to go see him, either. Our phone conversations have become more and more stilted. Neither of us really has anything to say to the other. We talk for about fifteen minutes, more or less. He tells me what he's been doing. I tell him what the kids and I have been doing. Neither of us really goes in to how we're feeling about anything. I say "I love you, dad," and he responds with "I love you, Tiger," (he's always called me "Tiger"), but it's more out of rote habit at this point, I think.

If I were to go visit him, Ann would have no idea how to react, and we'd have stilted conversations at close range instead of over the phone. An uncomfortable few days, and I'd go home again. It doesn't seem worth the trouble.

And that's probably where the problem is. You're ingrained with it as a child in Sunday School: "Honor thy father and mother." Movies and literature are full of people undertaking huge, heroic quests to avenge the death of their father. There's national days to honor each of your parents individually.

What if your dad is just some guy? What if you have little or nothing in common?

And I'm really not sure whether I miss my dad, or if I miss the concept of my dad. I don't know whether there's a hollow spot shaped like him, or whether I just feel like there should be. I know who I am. And I know how I've always been told I should feel about my father. But that place inside me seems a little empty. Society tells me that I should have a bond, and there doesn't seem to be one. No link on either side.

So yesterday, I had a nice Father's Day. I spent it with my family, and I managed to forget to call my own father.

I didn't realize it until today. And I should feel worse about that. What I feel bad about is the fact that I don't really feel bad about it.

Mostly, the only person who tries to make contact in the last couple of years is me. I call him. He doesn't call me. Hell, he didn't even call on my last birthday. And I failed to call him yesterday. I know that I'm supposed to feel bad about that. But you know what? The thing that I feel bad about, is the fact that I don't.

I wonder if he noticed? He probably did. Or if he didn't, I have no doubt that Ann pointed it out to him. I should probably feel bad about that, too.

I don't know if the problem is me, or the lack of him.

And I don't have any answers.

22 Ways to be a Good Republican

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They found us. Can we go home now?

Does anybody remember one of the most oft-repeated mantras of the Bush administration regarding why we needed to stay in Iraq? It was simple enough for Bush to memorize it, and rhythmic enough for the average American to keep it in his head when Fox News went to their commercial break.

"We're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here."

He’d rephrase it every so often, like "we're taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don't have to face them here at home." And apparently, a lot of people were quoting his talking points back at him, too: "General John Vines put it well the other day. He said: 'We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us'."

He loved that bumper sticker. Or at least, he used to. Somehow, I don't think we'll be hearing that particular quote too often anymore.

You see, a suspected Muslim terrorist cell was just caught in a plot to blow up the JFK International Airport in New York. A big one. A huge plot. A plot that would have created untold death and destruction.

"The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable," U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."

Go ask them on Fox News, and I'm sure that they'll tell you what a terrible, evil plan this was: "a plot to create a deadly jet-fuel firestorm reaching from New York to New Jersey."

And it was only stopped by one thing. The dogged determination and unstoppable fortitude of George W. Bush, and his continued insistence on shredding the Constitution.

Well, you know, Bush's policies and the laws of physics.

Federal authorities said that four men were hoping to blow up Kennedy International Airport and a large swath of Queens by detonating a fuel pipeline and storage tanks, but oil industry executives and local officials said yesterday that such a plot was probably not feasible.

While it is true that the tanks at Kennedy Airport are connected to a network of underground pipes that run from New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, an exploding tank should not ignite the pipeline, they said. The pipes, which carry jet fuel, gasoline and heating oil, have valves that can be operated from headquarters in Pennsylvania to cut off the flow if sensors indicate that there might be a leak or rupture, said Roy Haase, an official of Buckeye Partners, the company that operates the pipeline.

Having worked most of my life on flightlines, I could have told them that. Fuel pipes have a series of valves and interlocks to prevent an explosion at one point from destroying the whole network. It's pretty simple. You don’t want to lose everything because one smoker can't figure out where to flick his cigarette butt.

Not, of course, that this is the only group of Muslim terrorists who have been captured "on American soil." It was only a month ago that six Keystone-Kop terrorists got caught trying to attack Fort Dix, NJ, wasn't it? A group that was caught, remember, because they took their training film to a local Circuit City to get copied onto a DVD.

Yup, that’s some good tactical planning, right there.

But apparently, despite the fact that the terrorists are apparently able to find America on a map and get here despite all the roadblocks in Fallujah, our President doesn't want to accept that his foreign policy in regards to Iraq could use a little work. In fact, it seems like every time our military does what the President says we need to do in order to go home, he moves the finish line farther back.

Attack Iraq? Yup, did that. Capture Saddam? Did that, too. "Free and democratic Iraq"? Hey, they had elections – doesn’t that count? Every time we have one of those "Mission Accomplished" moments, they come up with some new mission that we're supposed to accomplish.

And now, despite the fact that we're fighting them over there, it seems that we have to fight them over here, too. That doesn’t seem right, does it? If having our troops in Iraq doesn't stop the terrorists from coming to America, shouldn't we bring them back home to protect us here?

But something simple like logic isn't going to help our Republican friends see the light. For some reason, if you throw the words "Iraq" or "terrorism" into the mix, they lose their little minds.

For example, there's Dennis Milligan, the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, who apparently likes the idea of Americans getting killed.

At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001], and the naysayers will come around very quickly

Why does Mr. Milligan hate the American people so much that he wants to see them dead?

Or then there's Dick Morris, another right-wing pundit, who has an even better argument for why we can't "cut and run."

I think that withdrawal from Iraq -- it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On the other hand, if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like.

One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we're putting the Americans right within their arms' reach, they don't have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the Trade Center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you're a terrorist.

I love that logic. "That's why we need to keep the military in Iraq! So that the terrorists can kill our troops!"

But maybe that’s the problem right there. There aren't enough American troops in Iraq for the terrorists to kill, and they're fighting back, too! Our Army needs to die faster!!

That's it! It isn't Bush's fault! The terrorists are winning because the military isn't doing a good enough job! They don't make good targets! That must be why the Bush Administration doesn't think that the military deserves a pay raise. The White House is taking all this flak, and it's really the military who sucks!

So, somebody tell me. Why does George Bush hate the military? Do they make him feel like less of a man? After all, there have only been a few Presidents who didn't have documented time in the military: Bill Clinton (who Bush's dad apparently likes better than him), Warren G. Harding, Grover Cleveland - there was a stretch in the first half of the 20th Century where no President had served in the military, but 31 out of 42 Presidents have done time in the military. Even the "increasingly irrelevant" Jimmy Carter did seven years as an officer in the Navy.

And unlike Bush, Carter can document his time. There isn't much to prove Bush's time in the National Guard except for a dog-eared list with his name on it.

So maybe that's the problem. Maybe Bush is experiencing some sort of Freudian disconnect, and that's why he doesn't mind when a few soldiers get killed. Maybe that could explain his behavior lately.

Let's get this man some therapy. And get our troops out of Iraq.

Everybody else is doing Memorial Day stuff. I'm going to do a movie review.

I very rarely see movies in theaters any more. Mostly because people, as a whole, suck. (Have I said that before?) For example, we went to a theater the other day (summer blockbusters often require the Big Screen), and I ended up with some cackling idiot behind me who talked to the screen. Apparently, the advent of the VCR took away the inclination of parents to train their children with the most important life lesson of all:

Shut the hell up during the movie!

So my wife and I get most of our movie-watching experiences at home on DVD. And the other night, we were looking for a random piece of fluff to watch - nothing too intellectual or high-brow. And since we'd enjoyed the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore vehicle "Music and Lyrics" last week, we decided to rent the other music-related Hugh Grant movie from last year, "American Dreamz."

Let me make the following disclaimers here:

1. I'm not the world's biggest Mandy Moore fan. In fact, I make it a policy to avoid movies by pop princesses. But that's just me. I've never seen a Britney Spears movie (is there more than one, yet?). I never even saw a single episode of that Jessica Simpson reality show. On the other hand, I did see Dick Tracy, despite the fact that Madonna was in it. Likewise Vibes, with Cindy Lauper. (You see? I'll never get those hours of my life back. It's important to stick to your principles, even in movie-watching.)

(It's strange, really. Drew Barrymore, then Mandy Moore. Mr. Grant seems to be picking his female costars from the ranks of women who most of America think are amazingly beautiful, but who I don't really find attractive. It's like he's stalking me, trying to force me to watch movies with his costar, despite my disinterest in them. But I suppose that my paranoid fantasies are entirely unrelated to the subject matter at hand. As is my nightmare of Ann Coulter as a dominatrix, for that matter...)

2. I often enjoy the work of Hugh Grant. (But that's because I'm amazingly shallow.)

3. I have never seen an episode of American Idol. (Apparently, I'm not shallow enough.)

4. And lastly, I did, in fact, enjoy this movie. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to find fault in it.

For those of you who haven't seen it, this is a comedy about what happens when a Muslim terrorist cell infiltrates the cast of a show identical to American Idol, in a plot to use a bumbling (but music-obsessed) suicide bomber to kill the bumbling (but recently-reelected) President of the United States because of the damage he's caused in the Middle East. Hijinks ensue.

There are other "Dreamerz" (American Idol lookalikes) who I can recognize, even having avoided the show - Clay Aiken, Bo Brice, and a third one who might be Fantasia but I don't know enough about her to recognize any of her quirks.

Apparently, somebody wanted to make a parody that had enough pop culture (Mandy Moore, American Idol, and to an extent, Hugh Grant) that they could skewer the President, and still make money in red states. (And maybe they had dreamz of Joe Sixpack in Utah seeing this movie, having an epiphany, and suddenly becoming a Democratic activist. Yeah, good luck with that.)

This is a hugely unsubtle movie. Everything was painted with these huge, wide strokes that would make a housepainter proud. I'm not going to use the phrase "thinly-veiled" to describe anything, because this movie had no veils at all.

Not even on the Muslim women.

~~ ba-DUM!! ching! ~~

(To be honest, there were no Muslim women in evidence, except for a few who were thoroughly Americanized. So no burka's at all. There were no women at the terrorist camp at all, unless they were behind a couple of the cheap fake beards, doing some kind of Life-of-Brian homage. But I'm going to assume they weren't, at this point.)

My biggest argument with this movie, aside from the huge, unforgiving club they use to hammer their points home, would be the fact that their Bush-clone is a mindless drone whose only responsibility for the mess in the Middle East is the fact that he allowed himself to be led into it.

I can accept certain aspects of that.

a. George Bush is a hugely unimaginative C-student who is more than willing to allow himself to be led by people who appear to know more than he does.

b. George Bush has little or no knowledge of the Middle East.

c. Other people have instigated all of the damage he has caused in America and around the world.

However, rather than allowing himself to be led blindly into this mess, I personally believe that George Bush walked into everything with open eyes. He may not have been smart enough to set anything in motion himself, but he is the man in charge, and he's just too flamingly stupid to see that he's leading the charge into a bloody morass that's going to take years, if not decades, to dig our way out of.

In the movie, the Bush-clone is actually a good person, if stupid, who would stop the mess if he could. I don't believe that.

But, sure. See American Dreamz. Just don't expect anything world-shaking.

On the other hand, maybe you should rent it for your teenaged daughter and those proto-Republican mall-girls she hangs out with. Maybe it'll work on them.

Did God get tired of Falwell misrepresenting Him?

Jerry Lamon Falwell was born in Lynchburg, Tennessee on August 11, 1933. He died on Tuesday, May 15, 2007. It's now been five days, and he didn't rise after the first three. So maybe he had no right to judge people the way he did.

Jerry Falwell has done more harm to the American scene than most other people of his generation. His fanatical hatred of everything and everyone who didn’t follow his personal viewpoints on life, morality and religion caused him to create the Moral Majority, which can easily be said to have started the factionalism currently infecting the American political landscape.

I will give the man this much credit. He apparently never said that Tinky-Winky (one of the Teletubbies) was gay. That was a claim made by an unknown writer in Falwell’s National Liberty Journal. Which means that, although Falwell was responsible for the quote, he didn’t actually say it.

Falwell’s hatred of most of humanity led to him making all manner of stupid statements. I think that the most famous would have to be his attempt to blame 9/11 on everyone who disagreed with him.

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Falwell…

Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has "got to take a lot of blame for this…"

Then Falwell broadened his blast to include the federal courts and others who he said were "throwing God out of the public square." He added: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

Some people will follow that statement with the claim that he later apologized for saying it.

But in a phone call to CNN, Falwell said that only the hijackers and terrorists were responsible for the deadly attacks.

"I do believe, as a theologian, based upon many Scriptures and particularly Proverbs 14:23, which says 'living by God's principles promotes a nation to greatness, violating those principles brings a nation to shame,'" he said.

Falwell said he believes the ACLU and other organizations "which have attempted to secularize America, have removed our nation from its relationship with Christ on which it was founded."

"I therefore believe that that created an environment which possibly has caused God to lift the veil of protection which has allowed no one to attack America on our soil since 1812," he said.

If you read that carefully, he never apologized. He just said that, while the pagans (and abortionists and feminists and everybody else he didn't like) didn't actually fly the planes into the buildings, it was still their fault. (He also ignored things like geographical separation, and the other attacks on "our soil." Anybody remember the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Or what about domestic terrorists like the Unabomber?)

The man basically decided that anyone who didn’t follow his personal belief system was under the control of the devil. He didn’t support the idea of equal rights for anyone. Except, of course, white males. Even women, despite the fact that they make up more than half of the American population, were, in the dark and shadowed recesses of his closed mind, a “minority group.”

Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc. are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.

But Falwell never had a positive view of any minority group.

At the height of the civil rights movement, in 1965, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, an ambitious young minister in Lynchburg, Va., gave a sermon called "Ministers and Marches."

Falwell laid into Christian leaders who were actively supporting civil rights, reminding them of a Bible verse that fundamentalists often invoked as evidence that God did not want them to participate in politics: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh" (II Corinthians 10:13)...

Falwell was plain enough about his views; in 1964, he told a local paper that the Civil Rights Act had been misnamed: "It should be considered civil wrongs rather than civil rights." His "Old Time Gospel Hour" TV program hosted prominent segregationists like Govs. Lester Maddox of Georgia and George Wallace of Alabama.

He later backpedaled from those views when they proved unpopular, and might have impacted on his collection plate. But he also, in 1985, supported the white minority government in South Africa, saying of Bishop Desmond Tutu "I think he's a phony, period, as far as representing the black people of South Africa." Although that statement was something else he had to apologize for, he still, in the words of a 1985 Time magazine story, "urged the good Christian folk of America to buy up gold Krugerrands and push U.S. 'reinvestment' in South Africa."

So, hide it though he might, and no matter how much he apologized for some of the blatantly wrong-headed bile he spewed to his followers, Jerry Falwell was a narrow-minded bigot, and his loss does not diminish the world in the slightest.

And let me just remind you of the words of a certain philosopher you might have heard of, Jesus of Nazareth. We won't even make it all the way to that seventh chapter in the Book of Matthew (7:1, if you're curious), where He says "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

That's NIV, by the way. Me, I prefer the KJV language of "Judge not, lest ye be judged." But let's stick with the NIV for clarity of language, for now.

We'll stop at Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 1 through 6. And yes, this qualifies as Holy Gospel, incidentally.

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Words to live by, I think.

Let's look at the news

As my two regular readers might have noticed (and I'm only married to one of them, to the best of my knowledge), I usually prefer longer blog entries with multiple links, occasionally comparing or contrasting news items that I consider related in some way.

It's simple. By concentrating on this "long-form blogging" rather than the brief blurbs most bloggers go for, I can feel better about my sheer laziness in only posting an entry roughly once per week.

Not this week though. I found two unrelated stories this weekend that I'm going to heckle. That's just the way it is, sometimes. First of all, the reason I have no plans to move to Utah any time soon.

You have to admire any story that starts with:

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants.

I mean, come on. For an opening line, you just can't beat that.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials.

You kind of wonder if "embarrassment" had anything to do with that...

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

And he's right. They'll pick lettuce for pennies per day, they'll collect your garbage, and generally do jobs that nobody else wants for less money than any American would accept. Anybody who tries to claim that they're "stealing jobs from Americans" needs to show me a list of Americans who would accept those jobs, at those wages.

"Illegal aliens are in control of the media..."

Excuse me? Not even Univision... ah, never mind.

...and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

(Excuse me while I misquote an American doing a bad Spanish accent.) You know, you keep saying that word "fact." I do not think that word means what you think that word means.

While I realize that Larsen probably doesn't consider "Roman Catholic" (the religion of most Mexican immigrants) to be equal to "Christian" (they are, after all, godless idolators under the sway of the Antichrist in the Vatican), it does give a somewhat limited definition to his concept of "Christian America."

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

"Self invasion"? They're invading themselves?

I suspect that he started to cry because he'd finally realized what an idiot he is.

One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil.

"Marxist"? This just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald...

Again, "embarrassment," perhaps?

...said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

So if their ship is taken by pirates, they won't be able to use the standard international symbol of distress?

Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, spoke against the resolution, saying Larsen, whom he called a "true patriot and a close friend," was embarrassing the Republican Party.

Finally, somebody who makes a little sense.

"This only gives fodder to the liberal media to give negative attention to the Republican Party."

Too late.

Larsen was allowed to finish the debate with a one-minute speech.

"If the Democrats take over the country, we will be dead, and we will have abortion and partial-birth abortion and the Republican Party will go into extinction," he said.

OK, let me get this straight. We'll all be dead, right? So how will we be getting abortions at that point?

And isn't the "Republican Party will go into extinction" bit a little redundant at that point?

But these mental giants couldn't manage to not embarrass themselves even when they switched to other subjects.

(Enid) Greene (state Republican Party chair) said she was disappointed in BYU professors who protested Dick Cheney's visit to campus, calling them "self-appointed intellectuals."

OK, folks. Be real. These guys were hired as professors. Yes, they're "intellectuals." Isn't that what you want as a teacher?

But they definitely don't qualify as "self-appointed." If anyone, BYU and the Dean of Faculty appointed them to that position, right?

But while that was my favorite story this weekend, I've got to pass along this little gem.

Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges... The charges followed a Nov. 21 “no-knock” drug raid on the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92. An informant had described buying drugs from a dealer there, police said. When the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, killing her.

Fulton County prosecutor Peter Johnson said that the officers involved in Johnston's death fired 39 shots, striking her five or six times, including a fatal blow to the chest.

He said Johnston fired only once through her door and didn't hit any of the officers. That means the officers who were wounded likely were hit by their own colleagues, he said...

When the plainclothes officers burst in without notice, police said, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston's home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

So they're some real winners, right? Fine, upstanding knights in blue. (And really bad aims, too.)

But let's ignore the fact that a bunch of unidentified men broke into her house, and Ms. Johnston was only protecting her home. (Shouldn't the NRA be all over this story?) She was 92 years old! Let her get baked once in a while. At her age, she's earned it.

But that isn't the punchline. This is.

The case raised serious questions about no-knock warrants...

Well, duh! But it gets better.

...and whether the officers followed proper procedures.

Yup. That's would be the question, all right...

Well, I already talk about politics. Might as well include religion.

My son is now an ordained minister. I don't really know what to make of that.

When he was a kid, we asked him what he wanted to be. His answer? "A policeman, a fireman and Spiderman." So this seems like a step down, really.

Technically, there are probably people who might argue the point of whether he qualifies as a priest of any kind. He got ordained for free over the internet, by the Universal Life Church, because he wanted to perform the wedding for two of his friends.

This might possibly come as a surprise to my sisters: one's a Wiccan and might be OK with it, but the other is an ordained Episcopal minister. Somehow, I don't think she'll see the humor in all this, really.

But that isn't the most disturbing news on the religious front, though.

Studies are now coming to light that show that "abstinence-only" programs, Bush's biggest "faith-based agenda" effort, don't work. They're ineffective. Not only do these programs not have any effect on whether children will have sex, they don't even have any effect on whether the sexually-active children will use a condom. (At least a traditional sex-ed class can improve that statistic.)

That's $176 million dollars in federal money, and millions more in state and local grants, teaching a program with no effect at all. And they intend to waste more money starting this year, because they plan to push it on adults (as old as 29) despite the fact that it's a complete waste of our tax money.

However, we can take heart in the fact that this program was merely ineffective. Usually, the policies coming from the White House are disasterous and destructive - in effect, the "abstinence-only" program is actually an improvement in job performance for our Chief Executive.

And in other news, the latest hero of the Religious Right is Gordon James Klingenschmitt, a former chaplain for the Navy. He says that, in March 2005, he was released from the Navy as punishment "because he refused to practice a 'government-sanitized' faith that he calls 'Pluralism,' with a capital P." He claims that he was kicked out of the Navy because he wanted to "pray in Jesus' name." (The Religious Right calls him "Chaplain," or sometimes just shorten it to "Chaps." There are so many Village People jokes here, I don't know where to begin.)

You can trust me on one thing, by the way. Having gone to military chapels for my entire life, there is no shortage of prayers to Jesus or about Jesus, and the vast majority are in Jesus' name. And I've even met one or two chaplains who seemed to think that they might be Jesus (I'm pretty sure they were wrong).

After Klingenschmitt (or his handlers) convinced the Kentucky House of Representatives to honor him for his "service to God, country and the Commonwealth of Kentucky," his former commandant, Capt. Norm Holcomb, sent an email to the members of the Kentucky House, explaining what actually happened. The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State (who, admittedly, have their own agenda on the matter) printed part of Holcomb's letter.

I was the dishonored ex-chaplain's supervisor for the past 2 years... I found him to be totally untruthful, unethical and insubordinate. He was and is contemptuous of all authority. He was not court martialed for praying in Jesus' name. I sent him out in uniform every week to pray at various ceremonies and functions. He always prayed in uniform and in Jesus' name. He was never told that he could not pray in Jesus' name. In fact, the issue of prayer had nothing at all to do with his dismissal from the Navy. He disobeyed the lawful order of a senior officer. I am sure that you understand that Navy Regulations forbid any of us, regardless of rank or position, to appear in uniform in support of any political or partisan event.

At the time that it happened, incidentally, even the Associated Baptist Press (speaking of people with their own agenda) reported it this way:

But the commanding officer at Klingenschmitt's base, Capt. Lloyd Pyle of the Norfolk Naval Station, had earlier ordered him, in writing, "not to wear your uniform for this or for any other media appearance without my express prior permission." Pyle's order came shortly after Klingenschmitt spent 18 days last December on a hunger strike in front of the White House to protest the policy on sectarian prayers.

Of the conviction, Klingenschmitt said he was only "guilty of praying in Jesus' name," according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. His attorneys claimed that he had the right to appear in uniform at the event because he was conducting a bona fide religious service.

But the jury agreed with prosecutors, who argued that the evangelical Episcopalian's uniformed presence at the press conference alone was sufficient to determine he had violated Pyle's order and military policy.

But that isn't the way you're going to hear it from his supporters these days.

And finally, the most important news story about the things we worship would have to be this:

The federal Food and Drug Administration is proposing to redefine the very essence of chocolate and to allow big manufacturers such as Hershey to sell a bar devoid of a key ingredient — cocoa butter. The butter's natural texture could be replaced with inferior alternatives, such as vegetable fats. And consumers would never know.

There's even a website which will tell you how to defend your constitutional right to good chocolate. Those of us who've lived in Germany, and eaten chocolate made in Europe for European consumption know that Hershey's is a waxy, paraffin-filled bar of faux-chocolate already. Don't let them make it worse.

They can have my chocolate when they pry it from my cold, dead, chubby fingers.