VOLTAIRE'S FAMOUS BUT

Does our 8 Trillion Dollar National Debt make our Lenders feel secure?

Any parallels between WWII Europe (Germany: Where wheelbarrows were needed to transport the inflated currency) & the United States?
Maybe not.
But…

Unnecessary Pre-Emptive Wars don’t work very well.
But look at Iraq.
(Of course, I mean this as irony.)

On Iran:
Would it be safer to let the Iranian nutcase get his bombs than bomb him?
Maybe.
But…

MORALS & MARBLES

"HAS GEORGE BUSH LOST HIS MARBLES?"
Patrick J. Buchanan/2-28-06

Yes he has Pat.
He was losing them well before he became the Long War President.
I lost my marbles when I was around 11 years old.
But these were the cats-eye, steely and agate kind of marbles.
However, George has lost more than his marbles.
He has also lost his morals.

IN PLATO'S CAVE

"The kernel here (in Iraq) is the acknowledgment of defeat." William F. Buckley, 2-24-2006

No more cover-ups or in-denial rhetoric please!
In Baghdad it is the beginning of the end, and not the end of the beginning.
The Long War President resides in Plato's Cave, and he does not know the difference between shadows and reality.
The Long War President believes the following shadows are reality:
"We are winning the peace in Iraq even though we are losing.'
"It is getting worse in Iraq but it is getting better."
"There won't be a civil war in Iraq, but the Sunnis and Shiites are blowing up each other and their mosques.”
“Trust me. I am cute. I am your Long War President who will not stop fighting in Iraq until freedom and democracy are spread and we have achieved total victory!”
“You can’t impeach me. The Congress and the Supreme Court are in my pockets!”

MY BRAIN KNOWS BEST

UAE citizen Marwan Al-Shehhi slammed Flight 175 into the World Trade Center. Eleven hijackers came through UAE, and half their money. A.Q. Khan shipped nuclear parts through UAE to North Korea and Iran.

This is The Brain of Bush Karl Rove.
Forgive the Long War President for not backing down from the Dubai Port deal.
He's been out of the loop in the past few days, weaning Americans off of their oil addiction.
Air Force One now needs a major tune-up.
As for me, The Brain of Bush, I have also been succoring Dick Cheney's wounds from his recent alcoholic shooting incident.
But I do have a Big Brain, so I can accommodate the Vice President and the President of the United States.
But back to the Dubai Port deal.
My Brain has advised the Long War President that it will ask our U.A.E. business friends to give us more time to sell this juicy deal to the Congress and the American people.
My Brain knows Best.
My Brain knows that we do not want our Arab friends to think that we don't trust or like them.
As long as Big Money is involved and coming our way, we like and trust anyone. Arabs, the Chinese, the French...well, maybe not the Frogs.
Just as the Long War President isn't that concerned about Osama bin Laden anymore, he is equally unconcerned about the U.A.E. where two of its citizens were 9/11 terrorists.
The Long War President knows that this rich and clean empire has allowed its banks to handle money for Al-Qaeda. No big deal.
As Donald Rumsfeld (who doesn't rely on my Big Brain) has told us: "Stuff happens... and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

GIVE ME ANOTHER BEER!

VP: "Alright fellows, I'm ready for another beer. This heart-thinning medicine gives me quite a buzz."
Aide: "Mr. Vice President, are you sure you should continue drinking? Are you able to walk?"
VP: "Yeah, yeah. I can walk. I can talk. I can shoot."
VP: "Hey, give me two beers instead of one so I don't have to stop in the middle of my shooting."
VP: "Hey, look! There's a big quail heading toward me right now!"
("Bang! Bang! Bang!)
VP: "I got him!! I got him!!"
Aide: "Sir, you just shot Harry!"
VP: "Well, at least I didn't miss."
Aide: "Quick. Get him to a doctor."
VP: "I'm going to take a shower and sober up."

OSAMA BIN LADEN COME HOME!

If the U.A.E. is going to help Homeland Security run U.S. seaports, then Osama bin Laden might be freed from whatever cave he has been getting his dialysis in...And come home!
Come to the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free!
All is forgiven!
Arab terrorists are welcome!
The Iraq war was a lie!
It was a mistake!
Nevertheless, the War President will do business with terrorist sympathizers, just like grandpa did with Hitler’s Germany!
Mr. Chertoff's incompetence is not complete yet.
He failed during Hurricane Katrina, and he can fail some more.
But wait!
Maybe giving contracts to the U.A.E. is a secret mission.
Maybe we want to attract more terrorists so that we can snuff them out in our ports before they reach our cities.
Yes, that's the ticket.
All is well.
Put out the red carpet for the United Arab Emirates!
Praise Allah!

MARS HERE WE COME!

I was watching 60 Minutes the other night.
The subject was Global Warming.
It was reported that CO2 levels haven't been this high for thousands of years.
Maybe millions!
The earth will still rise ONE DEGREE more even if every CO2-spewing machine stopped its polluting right now!
It was then stated that the ice caps are still going to continue melting regardless whether the machine stops!
And what will happen when the world doesn't decrease current CO2 levels?
It was also stated that the U.S.A. is the world's biggest polluter.
More intense storms are in our future.
Live like hell now, because a larger hell is on its way.
Mars...here we come!

THE LONGEST WAR

"Since the invasion of Saddam's Iraq, those bases -- call them what you will -- have been at the heart of the Bush administration's "reconstruction" of the country. To this day, those Little Americas, with their KBR-lands, their Pizza Huts, their stop signs, and their miniature golf courses remain at the secret heart of Bush administration "reconstruction" policy. As long as KBR keeps building them, making their facilities ever more enduring (and ever more valuable), there can be no genuine "withdrawal" from Iraq, nor even an intention of doing so. Right now, despite the recent visits of a couple of reporters, those super-bases remain enswathed in a kind of policy silence. The Bush administration does not discuss them (other than to deny their permanency from time to time). No presidential speeches deal with them. No plans for them are debated in Congress. The opposition Democrats generally ignore them and the press -- with the exception of the odd columnist -- won't even put the words "base," "permanent," and "Iraq" in the same paragraph".
"It may be hard to do, given the skimpy coverage, but keep your eyes directed at our "super-bases." Until the administration blinks on them, there will be no withdrawal from Iraq." [Can you Say "Permanent Bases"?, Tom Engelhardt, Mother Jones, 2-14-06]

George W. Bush and his writers have been telling us what they want us to hear, but not what is really happening.
In order for the Bush regime to retain its stranglehold of power over Congress, the American people and the world, its propaganda apparatus must constantly remind us that the Long War will continue until it has been "won" (VICTORY!).
This is both delusion and deception.
It is a grand illusion and the big lie (which I know is offensive to the liars).
The turf of Iraq must remain in the talons of the U.S. Eagle even while we tell the world that our high and mighty bird (of prey?) is just passing over and through until the Iraqis can stand on their own feet (if they don't get knocked over by the bombs of us or them).
This Long War has been sad and tragic; but lucrative.
The lucre has gone to the civilian and military contractors there and over here.
The American people, of course, have been (and will continue to be) the obedient and devoted financiers of the LONG WAR.
In the meantime (and it is a very mean time indeed), the money filling the treacherous trough (& black hole) of Bush's Long War has decreased funding for (among other things) the education of America’s children (Bush’s No Child Left With A Behind ) and Health Care (Screw the old folks...they're going to die pretty soon anyway!).
But the U.S. embassy in Iraq will still get its funding:
"The Bush administration is sinking between $600 million and $1 billion in construction funds into a new U.S. embassy. It is to arise in Baghdad's Green Zone on a plot of land along the Tigris River that is reportedly two-thirds the area of the National Mall in Washington, DC. The plans for this "embassy" are almost mythic in nature. A high-tech complex, it is to have "15ft blast walls and ground-to-air missiles" for protection as well as bunkers to guard against air attacks. It will, according to Chris Hughes, security correspondent for the British Daily Mirror, include "as many as 300 houses for consular and military officials" and a "large-scale barracks" for Marines. The "compound" will be a cluster of at least 21 buildings, assumedly nearly self-sufficient, including "a gym, swimming pool, barber and beauty shops, a food court and a commissary. Water, electricity and sewage treatment plants will all be independent from Baghdad's city utilities." It is being billed as "more secure than the Pentagon" (not, perhaps, the most reassuring tagline in the post-9/11 world). If not quite a city-state, on completion it will resemble an embassy-state. In essence, inside Baghdad's Green Zone, we will be building another more heavily fortified little Green Zone. [Can You Say "Permanent Bases"?, Tom Engelhardt, Mother Jones, 2-14-06]

And those huge ("non-permanent") bases in Iraq will receive their funding:
"Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post paid a visit to Balad Air Base, the largest American base in the country, 68 kilometers north of Baghdad and "smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." In a piece entitled Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel, Ricks paints a striking portrait:

"The base is sizeable enough to have its own "neighborhoods" including "KBR-land" (in honor of the Halliburton subsidiary that has done most of the base-construction work in Iraq); "CJSOTF" ("home to a special operations unit," the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, surrounded by "especially high walls," and so secretive that even the base Army public affairs chief has never been inside); and a junkyard for bombed out Army Humvees. There is as well a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, "an ersatz Starbucks," a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges where TVs, iPods, and the like can be purchased, four mess halls, a hospital, a strictly enforced on-base speed limit of 10 MPH, a huge airstrip, 250 aircraft (helicopters and predator drones included), air-traffic pile-ups of a sort you would see over Chicago's O'Hare airport, and "a miniature golf course, which mimics a battlefield with its baby sandbags, little Jersey barriers, strands of concertina wire and, down at the end of the course, what appears to be a tiny detainee cage." [Can You Say "Permanent Bases"?,Tom Engelhardt, Mother Jones, 2-14-06]

LET ARABS RUN AMERICAN PORTS?

"Sure as shooting I know that a couple of the 9/11 terrorists were from the U.A.E.”
“O.K. I also know that some money got to the 9/11 bombers through the banking system in the U.A.E. "
"But we have to move on."
"We are making a bundle on this sale."
"America can be safe when Arabs run our ports."
"It just takes some faith."
"And War."
"Our mighty military is spreading the freedom in Iraq."
"The terrorists there...the Islamofascists...are getting their faces pelted so that we can have Arabs safely run and control our American ports here."
"All right. I'm now going to do some bird hunting.”
“No, Dick won’t be coming."

QUAIL HUNTING IS NOT WAR

He is likes to pull the trigger.
He likes to hunt birds.
But these things are not the same as a real war.
He said that he had other priorities when asked why he had received five deferments to avoid going to war himself.
He is good at taking American boys and girls to war.
He is good at pulling the trigger.
Quail hunting is not war.
He likes to have money.
So do all of us.
His ties with Halliburton before the Iraq war enabled him to help his Halliburton buddies after the pre-emptive war.
The soldiers continue to die.
They are like the helpless quail that Dick Cheney so enjoys to hunt and kill.
Hunting quail is a sport.
WAR IS NOT!

DICK CHENEY: I PULLED THE TRIGGER

"[Go] F**k yourself"
Dick Cheney

Direct threats require decisive action.
Dick Cheney

We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
Dick Cheney

"I successfully shot U.S. cruise missiles which peppered Iraq with shock and awe."
"It's a day I'll never forget."
"It was one of the best days of my life."
"Of course, many civilians died during that daring peppering, but this can happen when you're hunting for evildoers and dictators."
"I take the blame."
"I pulled the trigger."
"I shot a country."
"I hope the patient survives my shooting."

DICK CHENEY AND SHOOTING BIRDS

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. (Shakespeare, Henry VI)

The Scene:
Quail hunting in South Texas.

Characters: A United States vice-president (not Dan Quayle), but Dick Cheney and Harry Whittington, 78, a lawyer.

Dick Cheney, the man with the crooked smile who likes to torture (except when he is hunting birds.)
Dick Cheney, the man with the bad heart who told us that Iraq had those WMD (and still looks for them while he is Quail-hunting).
Dick Cheney missed again.
Correction: He made a hit.

"The shooting, which occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, left a prominent Austin lawyer and Republican campaign supporter, Harry Whittington, wounded by shotgun pellets in the neck, shoulder and chest." [New York Times, 2-13-06]

A spokesperson described how birds were flushed out and then the VP fired, “peppering Mr. Whittington pretty good”.
We all empathize with the lawyer who was shot by the vice president and wish him a speedy recovery.
In the meantime, the VP should forego any more Quail hunting but continue his planning for bigger birds such as Iran.
And remember, GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE DO!

ODE ON SNOW

Snowstorms!
Piles of snow!
Soft, crystalline white snowflakes!
Feathered rain!
Powder snow!
Falling snow!
Up to the kneecaps snow!
Snow stuck on sidewalks and streets!
Snowballs!
Snowmen!
Snowdrift!
Sledding on soft snow!
Crunching snow!
Snow cones!

COCKPICK

Bush is doing it again.
He said cockpick...not cockpit.
How can anyone take this guy seriously?
Especially the world.
The War President bungled badly when he attacked Iraq.
He is still bungling the English language.
The War on Terror and the Terrorists are shaking in their boots...with laughter.
Cockpick.

A FUNERAL WITH MEANING

Thank you President Carter.
Thank you Reverend Joseph Lowery.
Thank you President Clinton.
You have honored Coretta King.
Even funerals can be political.
The politics of life and the politics of death.
The issues of peace and civil rights do not disappear in death.
They did not disappear with the deaths of Martin Luther King or Coretta Scott King.
Instead of giving just sound bites of praise (which is fine), two former presidents and one reverend mentioned social and political issues that Martin and Coretta King would have applauded.
O.K. It was the Kennedy administration that approved the F.B.I. to spy on MLK. It was wrong then and it is wrong today.
Martin Luther King was a man of peace and justice.
The Iraq War is unjust, and he would have said so.
The Republican Media mouthpieces are singing their usual shrill songs of indignation and disapproval that anyone should be critical of the current administration...even at a funeral.
But for once Rove & NeoCons did not have pre-approved robotic shills or a staged audience to wrap the flag around George W. Bush.

THE PLANET WITHOUT A NAME

If Pluto remains the yardstick for planet classification, our solar system's family of planets might increase.
The dark and mysterious connotation of Pluto may also disappear if larger planetary bodies are discovered which are more distant than Pluto.
Right now (the planet without a name) 2003 UB313 (which sounds like a Rap band) is larger than Pluto.
Pluto's diameter is 1,430 miles. 2003 UB313's diameter is 1,860 miles. Not a huge difference, but a difference.
And 2002 UB313 travels twice as far from the Sun as Pluto.
Scientists now believe there are hundreds of planets located in the Kuiper Belt as big as or bigger than Pluto.
But instead of being called planets these other round worlds may be named dwarf planets.
(Do we have to be so perjorative and condescending?)
Additonal Kuiper Belt Objects with the largest albedos (reflectiveness and diameter) could keep expanding our own little neighborhood in the Cosmos.
Keep your eyes on the skies!

F**KING CRAZIES AND TIME FOR A THIRD POLITICAL PARTY

I knew immediately that John McCain had started his engine and had saddled his horse for the 2008 election when he indicated that a military option for Iran shouldn't be ruled out.
McCain wants to polish his badge as a former P.O.W. and show that he isn't timid or afraid to continue Bush's LONG WAR.
A war with Iran just might be the ticket that finally throws this planet into World War III.
The Christians and Muslims will be overjoyed.
I wish there was one statesman in America with his or her eyes on the White House in 2008 who would be a diplomat instead of a warrior.
But America may have to put up with NeoCon types that do not want to let go of the Imperialistic pitchfork that is going to throw all of our souls into a Hell on Earth.
Plenty of more details for the Devil...plenty of more reasons to make corporations richer who make the armaments.
Colin Powel was correct when he called them f**king crazies.

THOU SHALT NOT PROTEST!

"I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back."
"I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether or not he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let BushCo take anything else away from me ... or you."
Cindy Sheehan, "What Really Happened?", truthout.org. [2-1-2006]


It was the State of the Union.
Dress code: Formal Wear.
Cindy Sheehan should have worn a Versace outfit.
Not a T-shirt for Pete's sake!
And she should have hidden the anti-war message until the president mentioned his freedom and victory song...then Cindy could have had bared her shirt, and let the network's cameras pan her message...and the placid, hopeful, disingenuous State of the Union could have gotten an additional lemon twist inserted into its whisky sour.
But tossing Ms. Sheehan out is not the real issue.
This Congress and this president are threatened by the voices of protest. That they are threatened indicates how insecure they are about their war.
They want the people to swear allegiance and goose step to their fuhrer and to themselves.
Only American swastikas...I mean flags!
You are either for the president...or against him.
You are either with the terrorists...or with the president.
Don't embarrass or threaten this regime.
It will bite back.
It will put you on its list of potenial terrorists.
Victory for the Homeland!
You've been bugged!

WAR ADDICTION

Hearing that War Pesident Bush wants a $120,000,000,000 installment this month for spreading more freedom, paving the way to Victory in Iraq,
it dawned on me:
WE ARE ADDICTED TO WAR.
Oil addiction takes second place.
War is our addiction.
But this has been the planet’s addiction for millennia.
Whether
I like it or not (and I don't like it that much)
I am a part of the problem.
I am part of the addiction.
I pay my taxes.
My taxes are used in Bush's latest request.
If I don't pay my taxes, I spend time in jail (Room & Board...and unpleasant encounters).
I do a lot of criticizing.
I do a lot of satirizing.
But I am still a part of the BIG ADDICTION.
War...this Iraq war---tomorrow's new WAR by the U.S.---
is going to be funded by you and me.
Again and again.
Until we reach the end of the movie:
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." (Einstein)

FULL OF HOPE FULL OF DOPE

He gave us his State of the Union, but it was actually his State of Mind.
He made it sound like everything was just ducky and peaches and cream.
Hopeful.
Hopeful.
Hopeful.
Full of Hope.
FULL OF DOPE!
(Give me a Rope.)
After an energy policy that was created IN SECRET by oil moguls, giving themselves huge profits, our War President wants us to believe his oil addiction admonition.
Uh-huh. The moon is made of cheese.
The president waxes on about the country's addiction to oil, but he has been waning for five years on making progress to kick the habit.
Just a lot of hot air (not gas).
There was no crash program or sense of urgency until last night.
A few mere honks were made by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union about hydrogen cars, but Bush and his Arab boyfriends, plus his American cronies, are making too much dough for anyone to believe his whimper about oil addiction.
Iraq was the same old mantra.
Don’t leave until there is victory.
“…We’re spreading freedom now…It’s amazing to see.”
And more hot air about giving health coverage to all Americans. The Clintons tried that, and they were shot down.
Bush is an appealing speaker.
He reads the script well (although some words still get garbled).
His speechwriters are superb writers.
Too bad there isn’t more veracity in the speeches.