"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Another View

Here's another view on the Iraqi's pull down the statue thing the other day. I have to say, if this is an accurate arial shot, then the propaganda machine is in full swing. I was watching some live satelite feed from Baghdad with my oatmeal this morning, and part of what they had was footage of teenage boys running around smashing just about everything. One of the kids had an RPG launcher and was using it to break windows. Good thing he had no ammo, I suppose.

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Best. Rant. Ever.

This gem popped up in the comments over on Daily Kos in a thread about the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelling an event commemerating the anneversary of Bull Dhuram because Susan Sarandon's statements "endanger the troops."

What rankles me is the non-stop, continuous nature of this thing. If it's not the Halliburton scandal, the AWOL scandal, "with us or against us", "crusade", "axis of evil", "WMD", cutting veterans benefits on the first day of the war, nominating crazy super-loon judges to important positions, defunding the 911 commission, providing virtually no terror defense funds to blue states, fake rioting to stop vote counting, rewarding the fake rioters with government jobs, trying to drill in protected lands, the fucking patriot act, getting caught lying about the existence of patriot act II, gitmo, 'disappearing' of US citizens, the craven disappearance of any sort of trustable American video media, the hiring of Coulter + Hannity + Savage, the continuous lies of Ari Fleischer, the ties between Bush and Enron, "the free market has to work" (to punish California), the fact that we control about 400 square feet of Afghanistan, Ahmed fucking Chalabi, any sentence ever uttered by Donald Rumsfeld, a rainbow of stupid colored alerts just in case we can't understand English words, the Department of Homeland Security, the continued inability to kill one fucking 6 foot 5 inch crazy man who lives in a cave, the continued inability to find a one eyed muslim cleric who likes to rant loudly, the deforestation of our natural forests in the guise of 'forest fire prevention' by loggers, the loosening in 'acceptable levels' of arsenic in our drinking water, the part ownership of voting machine makers by Republican party hacks, fucking Clear Channel whipping up fake rallies in order to (successfully) buy off the partisan FCC, fucking Scalia suggesting that homosexual teachers are a threat and ought to be illegal because they'll indoctrinate our children, Enron and the rest of the evil bastards getting off scot free because they're Cheney's best friends, Cheney getting US$30,000 A DAY from Halliburton as a golden parachute, massive tax cuts for the rich as a way of forcing Congress to cut programs like Head Start and school lunches, 'No Child Left Behind' except those children who don't get to go to fucking private kindergartens because their daddy doesn't have million-dollar stockbroker connections to the guy who heads CitiBank, the covering up of failed missile tests followed by an attempt to secretly rush through a bill so that we don't have to run the embarrassing tests any more and Star Wars can proceed, the attempt to remove all responsibility for declaring war from Congress and concentrate power in the presidency, the attempts to make the patriot act permanent, our continued violation of the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Convention, our flouting of all international law and the attempted destruction of the United Nations and NATO, the crack about "old Europe" that miraculously didn't get Rumsfeld fired, "Fuck Saddam, we're going to take him out" -- even as Bush 'searched for a peaceful way to resolve the situation', "Mr President, Rumsfeld just threatened Syria and Iran on national television" "Good.", the fucking Project for a New American Century -- a concept so crazy that even Pat Buchanan turned pale, "Freedom Fries", pouring out French wine in protest after buying it, it's just a fucking non stop list of shit which not just Democrats, not just Libertarians, but any human being on this planet who hasn't been totally indoctrinated must LEAP out of their FUCKING CHAIRS AND UPON READING, MUST JUST SCREAM OUT THE GODDAMN WINDOW, "WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS COUNTRY GOING AND WHY DID IT GET HERE? AND WHAT IN THE NAME OF ANYTHING THAT IS EVEN REMOTELY IMPORTANT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS SHIT FROM EVER HAPPENING AGAIN? WHY ARE MY GODDAMN POLITICAL LEADERS PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE TO A BUNCH OF INVISIBLE SUPERMEN WHO LIVE IN OUTER SPACE? IF THEY HAVE TO DO THAT, CAN'T THEY FUCKING READ THE BOOK THE INVISIBLE SUPERMEN ARE SAID TO HAVE LEFT BEHIND, THE ONE ABOUT HELPING THE POOR, NOT BEING BRUTALLY VENAL, YOU KNOW, THAT BOOK? IT'S NOT ABOUT SUSAN SARANDON, IT'S ABOUT THE ENTIRE DISGUSTING MELTING BALL OF PSYCHOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE CONTRADICTORY NONSENSICAL BULLSHIT WHICH JABBERS FORTH FROM THE MOUTHS AND MINDS OF THE MILLION-HEADED BEAST THAT EATS OUR FUCKING CIVIC SOUL AND SHITS OUT A NOISOME CONCOCTION OF MONEY, FALLACIES, PROPAGANDA AND LIES, LIES, ENOUGH FUCKING LIES TO FILL THE COFFERS OF A THOUSAND ENRONS, MAKE A THOUSAND VICE PRESIDENTS INTO LORDLY OLIGARCHIC GREY SARCASTIC PRINCES, AND HURL ANY CONCEPT OF REASONABLE PUBLIC DISCOURSE INTO THE SEWERS OF A DOZEN MURDOCHS.



when are we going to fucking wake up

wake up

WAKE UP

--Willhelm

Sounds like something my friend Nick might summon forth.

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Holy Shit, Blogs Save Lives

Yeah, I'm a day or so behind on this, but it takes some time for memes to work their way around the world. I've got a few Koenig Originals in the hopper, but for now please enjoy this story about how a dude with an accordion was warned off from dating a complete psycho by someone who read his weblog. It's quite a harrowing tale. And if after that you're still hungry for more nail-biting first-person accounts, I gladly refer you (again) to back-to-iraq.com, possibly the best $20 I've ever spent.

Another thing to stare at: Come on, Dow, support the troops (theonion.com)

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Ah, Shit... Here We Go

It's hard not to be happy for the people in Iraq they show us on TV and talk about in the news. They're psyched, pulling down statues of the dictator, smacking his face in murals with their shoes -- I've seen this every time, but the specific meaning has never been explained (ohh! here it is! found by total accident...) -- and really greeting American GIs as liberators. On the one hand, it's hard not to be pumped about all of this, but it does give me the Fear. Two reasons. The first -- small -- reason is that we didn't kill all the bad men with guns. Maybe they just decided to give up. Maybe they're waiting for the Marines to let down their guard. Hard to say at this point.

Here's the second reason to be afraid. Conservative writers are already writing pieces with titles like "Syria and Iran Must Get Their Turn." This scares the living crap out of me. Anyone who thinks America can handle more of the liquor of empire than any other nation in history had better think again. We may be the fattest fucks around, but that shit packs a much bigger punch than Cuervo. Let's hope Team Bush has the sense to rein in this animal quick. On the other hand, since back home the economy is still in the crapper, another jolly war might look pretty enticing to Dr. Rove. Watch for some rehetoric about Iran/Syria (probably Syria as they're the softer target) supporting terrorists and maybe (*gasp*) having WMD. Maybe if we don't find any significant WMD in Iraq, they'll float the story that they bad juice was moved to Syria. Oh, shucks! It isn't here: must be in Iran...

Yeah, we need to stop. If the freedom of Iraq is for real, then let's just lead by example, ok?

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