Studying Bush's Jaw

I saw Bush on TV today and his jaw was jerking and jutting as usual. Sometimes I think it's going to come unhinged. It jerks to the left most often and occasionally it juts forward as he pauses between words.

Sometimes he can almost stop the involuntary jaw movements by clamping his lips together during a pause, but even then his jaw sometimes manages to jerk a little bit.

It's quite fascinating so I conducted a Google search and found that this is a side effect of drug use. Drugs prescribed for the treatment of schizophrenia can cause involuntary jaw movements, as can amphetamines and the drug ecstasy.

I found the following in Alcohol Handbook: Chapter 11:

"The effects of ecstasy are quite similar to those found with amphetamines, although it is reported that ecstasy produces a more positive mood and sense of intimacy than amphetamines.

PHYSICAL EFFECTS: Involuntary jaw movements; jaw clenching; teeth grinding "

Flying Spaghetti Monster Emblem: Update 2

The manager at the factory reports that it will take them about 4 weeks to create the mold for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They have hired extra people and have added another shift, but they are really busy.

Let's hope they beat that estimation and finish sooner.

Climate Change & Intense Hurricanes

Robert F. Kennedy, points out on his blog at The Huffington Post, that scientists see a link between "global warming" or global climate change and the increasing incidents of strong hurricanes. The ocean temperature is rising, the ice caps are melting and ocean temperature plays a role in the formation of hurricanes.

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

And Kennedy reminds us that Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, has contributed to the problems his state is now facing:

As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.

“A moment of truth is arriving,” Barbour wrote, “in the form of a decision whether this Administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore.” He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as “eco-extremism,” and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.”

As we used to say in the Ozarks, "The chickens have come home to roost." But rather than admit the truth, the Repugs would rather kill the messengers.

The Guardian reports that they are working hard to intimidate climatologists:

Some of America's leading scientists have accused Republican politicians of intimidating climate-change experts by placing them under unprecedented scrutiny.

A far-reaching inquiry into the careers of three of the US's most senior climate specialists has been launched by Joe Barton, the chairman of the House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce. He has demanded details of all their sources of funding, methods and everything they have ever published.

Mr Barton, a Texan closely associated with the fossil-fuel lobby, has spent his 11 years as chairman opposing every piece of legislation designed to combat climate change.

He is using the wide powers of his committee to force the scientists to produce great quantities of material after alleging flaws and lack of transparency in their research. He is working with Ed Whitfield, the chairman of the sub-committee on oversight and investigations.

The scientific work they are investigating was important in establishing that man-made carbon emissions were at least partly responsible for global warming, and formed part of the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which convinced most world leaders - George Bush was a notable exception - that urgent action was needed to curb greenhouse gases.

The demands in letters sent to the scientists have been compared by some US media commentators to the anti-communist "witch-hunts" pursued by Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

You have to ask yourself who has the greater credibility: scientists or politicians?

Cat Burglar in Berlin

From Reuters:

German police called to a break-in at an apartment in the northern town of Itzstedt found the intruder still on the premises and hiding under a kitchen cabinet.

The "cat burglar" had somehow crawled into the ground-floor of the apartment, broken window blinds, torn down drapes and trashed furniture.

Police also found fish and fish remains from a broken aquarium scattered around the apartment, said Julika Reinhardt, spokesman for the police in the town north of Hamburg.

Two officers finally found the offender, a cat, hiding under a kitchen cabinet but the heavyweight male resisted arrest, biting one officer in the thumb before they both managed to overpower it.

Reinhardt said the cat, wearing a name tag, was returned to its owner who would have to pay for the damage.

"No one knows how the cat broke in," she said. "But the damage was considerable."

President's Poll Rating Falls to a New Low

The headline for this article in the Washington Post declared that Bush's poll ratings had fallen to a new low, but I was interested in the last three paragraphs showing that people are not happy with the Democrats' "go along" to "get along" behavior:

"The survey also provided bad news for Democratic leaders, who are judged as offering Bush only tepid opposition. Slightly more than half of those surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with congressional Democrats for not opposing Bush more aggressively.

Self-identified Democrats were particularly impatient. More than three in four said congressional Democrats have not gone far enough to oppose Bush on Iraq or on administration policies in general.

'Somebody needs to speak up,' said Michelle Burgess, 41, a home health aide in St. Louis. 'Enough is enough. I don't understand why we're over there in Iraq or what he's doing on other issues. There are too many lives being lost.'"

My question to the Democrats is, "Are you clueless or spineless?"

Impeach Bush: the Tattoo

We are big fans of Sheila Leavitt, a tireless activist, who has been featured on this blog before with her creative protests.

She requests photos of your "Impeach Bush" tattoo.

Schwarzenegger: Going, going....

Over the weekend, we visited our favorite Buddhist-owned cafe in Santa Cruz and while waiting for our food, I noticed a man standing on the street corner gathering signatures on petitions. He was wearing a T-shirt with the name Arnold in a cross-out so I decided to find out what the petitions were all about. I was hoping to sign a recall petition. No such luck.

One petition, which I signed, would limit corporate donations to political candidates. Our Gropenfuhrer has taken corporate sponsorship to a whole new level and now we like him even less than we like Bush in California.

When Arnold Falls, Maybe He'll Take His Corporate Sponsors With Him:

"A funny thing happened on the way to the special election, though. The wheels fell off Arnold's Humvee of a Governorship. In this, his 'year of reform,' Schwarzenegger has become synonomous with corporate scandal and is suddenly less popular in California that President Bush.

Much of the damage was self-inflicted. This is a guy whose rent is paid for by anonymous corporate donors and whose top government aides, who work long hours at full-time jobs, are also on his campaign payroll. His corruption index seems to be going off the charts.

But Schwarzenegger and his allies are also very much in danger because his growing number of critics, with nurses in the front row, have hit on a winning strategy. At every fundraiser he attends, from New Jersey to Ohio to San Diego, Schwarzenegger is met with groups of protestors -- many of them nurses, teachers, and firefighters -- who publicize the corporate deals being made behind closed doors inside. Every dollar he raises comes at a cost to his image. Just last week, nurses followed him to Boston where he hoped to host a $100,000 per ticket private box fundraiser at the Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park. Apparently he was unable to find anyone willing to pay for the privilege of cozying up to him in his private box and when Mick mentioned to the crowd that Schwarzenegger was in the building, he was roundly booed."

I wonder if his inflated ego can handle the disapproval? Perhaps he lives in that alternate reality with Bush, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et al.

Update from Rob whose German is better than mine:: Der Gropenfürer und der Ego.

Too much ego deflation may cause Ahnie's head to implode. This condition known as "Kopfenplosion Syndrome" is a rare condition that only affects Austrian Politicians with egos bigger than Texas.

Pat Robertson's Greatest Hits

In the past nutjobs, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, spokesmen for God, have announced that God punished pagans, gays, and feminists by sending hurricanes to destroy them. When I heard the news today that Biloxi, Mississippi was hit hard, I wondered if it had become a center for the free-thinking and educated folks Pat Robertson and God hate so much so I searched the news to see if Falwell or Robertson had revealed God's purpose yet and that's when I found the following compilation of Pat Robertson's greatest hits in the News for Denton, Texas:

"Here are a few of Robertson's greatest hits. In a 1992 fund-raising letter he wrote, The 'feminist agenda' is a 'socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'

On his show 'The 700 Club,' Robertson once proclaimed that gay groups had better stop flying flags celebrating Gay Pride Month at Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Fla. or else.

He said all involved would incur the wrath of God if they didn't heed his advice. 'I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes,' Robertson declared on the air. 'It'll bring about terrorist bombs. It'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.'

On 'The 700 Club' two days after the 2001 attacks, Robertson's guest, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, suggested 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' helped cause the attacks.

'I totally concur,' Robertson replied.

Robertson also has said he would like to set off a nuclear bomb to destroy the State Department in Washington and declared that federal judges are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together. He said they are more dangerous than the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center.

It is baffling and somewhat frightening that Robertson still has any credibility.

But he soldiers on. "

No word on what God was up to when he struck Biloxi or why he didn't send that hurricane down to Venezuela to "take out" Hugo Chavez as Pat Robertson requested.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Emblem: Update 1

Rob modified this graphic so that a mold of His noodly likeness shall be rendered.

As soon as we get an estimated date of arrival, I'll post that information here.

Please be aware that this process will take weeks rather than days but we'll pester the factory frequently to expedite.

First they will create a mold and that usually takes a couple of weeks, followed by a production run. After the plastic emblems are molded, the factory will add an adhesive strip on the backs and chrome the fronts.

Thanks to all who've placed advance orders and thanks in advance for your patience.

The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation

Frank Rich's always excellent column is available at The Huffington Post. You'll want to read the whole thing, but here's a teaser:

The president ... has been forced to make what for him is the ultimate sacrifice: jettisoning chunks of vacation to defend the war in any bunker he can find in Utah or Idaho.

Frank Rich doesn't give a pass to Democrats who foolishly supported Bush's war either:

It isn't just Mr. Bush who is in a tight corner now. Ms. Sheehan's protest was the catalyst for a new national argument about the war that managed to expose both the intellectual bankruptcy of its remaining supporters on the right and the utter bankruptcy of the Democrats who had rubber-stamped this misadventure in the first place.

When the war's die-hard cheerleaders attacked the Middle East policy of a mother from Vacaville, Calif., instead of defending the president's policy in Iraq, it was definitive proof that there is little cogent defense left to be made. When the Democrats offered no alternative to either Mr. Bush's policy or Ms. Sheehan's plea for an immediate withdrawal, it was proof that they have no standing in the debate.

Instead, two conservative Republicans - actually talking about Iraq instead of Ms. Sheehan, unlike the rest of their breed - stepped up to fill this enormous vacuum: Chuck Hagel and Henry Kissinger. Both pointedly invoked Vietnam, the war that forged their political careers. Their timing, like Ms. Sheehan's, was impeccable. Last week Mr. Bush started saying that the best way to honor the dead would be to "finish the task they gave their lives for" - a dangerous rationale that, as David Halberstam points out, was heard as early as 1963 in Vietnam, when American casualties in that fiasco were still inching toward 100.

....

Among Washington's Democrats, the only one with a clue seems to be Russell Feingold, the Wisconsin senator who this month proposed setting a "target date" (as opposed to a deadline) for getting out. Mr. Feingold also made the crucial observation that "the president has presented us with a false choice": either "stay the course" or "cut and run." That false choice, in which Mr. Bush pretends that the only alternative to his reckless conduct of the war is Ms. Sheehan's equally apocalyptic retreat, is used to snuff out any legitimate debate. There are in fact plenty of other choices echoing about, from variations on Mr. Feingold's timetable theme to buying off the Sunni insurgents.

But don't expect any of Mr. Feingold's peers to join him or Mr. Hagel in fashioning an exit strategy that might work. If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

And this is why I won't support Clinton's candidacy for president.

As another politician from the Vietnam era, Gary Hart, observed last week, the Democrats are too cowardly to admit they made a mistake three years ago, when fear of midterm elections drove them to surrender to the administration's rushed and manipulative Iraq-war sales pitch. So now they are compounding the original error as the same hucksters frantically try to repackage the old damaged goods.

IN the new pitch there are no mushroom clouds. Instead we get McCarthyesque rhetoric accusing critics of being soft on the war on terrorism, which the Iraq adventure has itself undermined. Before anyone dare say Vietnam, the president, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld drag in the historian David McCullough and liken 2005 in Iraq to 1776 in America - and, by implication, the original George W. to ours. Before you know it, Ahmad Chalabi will be rehabilitated as Ben Franklin.

Even though their own poll numbers are in a race to the bottom with the president's, don't expect the Democrats to make a peep. Republicans, their minds increasingly focused on November 2006, may well blink first. In yet another echo of Vietnam, it's millions of voters beyond the capital who will force the timetable for our inexorable exit from Iraq.

Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark. Whaaaat?

A while back, my friend Dada, reported that he'd heard of someone who didn't believe dinosaurs had ever existed because they couldn't fit on Noah's ark.

The Los Angeles Times reports that some wingnuts have decided that Noah did load some dinosaurs on that ark and they bought a roadside attraction to preach their version of reality (a reality so completely devoid of scientific fact as to not be reality at all - it's like that world in which George Chimpy Bush resides):

Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion.The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists.

Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.

"Dinny's new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah's Ark. The gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon Dinosaurs, sells toy dinosaurs whose labels warn, 'Don't swallow it! The fossil record does not support evolution.'"

The Cabazon Dinosaurs join at least half a dozen other roadside attractions nationwide that use the giant reptiles' popularity in seeking to win converts to creationism. And more are on the way.

"We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that's already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.

Channeling

I found this quotation on my Google home page today:

"Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving. - Penn Jillette"

Intelligent Design: Comments from Other Nations

Damien Henderson of the Glasgow Herald notes that we Americans are still struggling to reconcile science and religious beliefs while in Great Britain they study science in science classes and religion in church. The theory of intelligent design belongs to the latter and British clergy agree with this position.

"But over in the U.S., where President Bush recently endorsed the teaching of intelligent design alongside Darwinian evolution, the line between church and state is not so clear."

So much for the separation of church and state.

An editorial in Dublin's Irish Times says that "President Bush is some kind of throwback." (RAmen to that)"His beliefs are actually more primitive than those of his predecessors in the early 20th century. It was Woodrow Wilson who said back in 1922: 'Like every other man of intelligence and education, I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised.' ... For the president to pretend human origins are an open question forces us to question his judgment -- even if we didn't already."

The London Independent notes that the U.S. President doesn't do facts. "All scientific fact the world's experts can muster, for instance, hasn't persuaded him of the reality of global warming. His White House is much more comfortable with Christian literalism. Just look at his rhetoric on good and evil in dealing with terrorism. It would be comforting to believe that Bush is just pandering to his Christian conservative base, but unfortunately there is plenty of evidence that he truly holds those fundamentalist views. What's even scarier: He's not alone. One recent poll found that almost half of Americans believe God created humans fully formed less than 10,000 years ago."

That's a lot of children "left behind" in the realm of education.

Philipp Gassert and Ole Wangerin in Hamburg's Die Zeit wonder how America got so backward. "We have to go back to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial when Clarence Darrow, defending evolution, made a laughingstock out of William Jennings Bryan, arguing for creationism.

"Even though the believers won the trial, they lost so much prestige that they simply withdrew from the "sinfully world". They started teaching their children at home or in private schools. Off the radar screen their numbers grew, especially in the south, until by 1980s they had founded their own think tanks and colleges. Armed with studies produced by their pseudoscience they launched a series of legal and political assaults against local schools. Since education in the U.S. is a local, not a federal, matter, fundamentalists needed only persuade some school systems in the south to adopt their views. Then other school systems could point to those in Mississippi or Alabama as precedents.

Robert Marshall reports in the Melboune Age that the blight has spread as far as Australia where their education minister recently said that intelligent design has enough merit to be taught along with Darwin if their schools.

It's embarrassing to be an American in Bush's world.

That Good Old Christian Hypocrisy

Diane E. Dees points out hypocrisy in GOP strategy (I know, I know, I too was shocked to find that the party of Christian values was filled with hypocrites.)

How are they being hypocritical? Let us count the ways:

I hate to break it to all of you Republicans, but when Pat Peale wore that Band-Aid on her face at your convention, she hadn't cut herself on the barbed wire while she was clearing brush: She was using it as a symbol to mock a man who put his life in danger to fight in Vietnam.

When Bush served a platter of plastic Turkey to the soldiers in Iraq, he wasn't auditioning to be a food stylist for the House and Garden channel: He was promoting good will among those whom he sent to be killed for PNAC and Halliburton.

The Mission Accomplished sign didn't mean that the war was over--just that the White House wanted you to have a big old testosterone charge from all that killing and destruction.

And when Bush stuffed a pair of gym socks into his flight uniform, it didn't mean he was looking to co-host with Adriano Rio--it was just a ploy to create another splash of testosterone.

Getting back to Cindy Sheehan--it is a moot point. Bush will do anything--even leave his ranch for Idaho--to avoid facing her. A vacation from his vacation. That's a lot of vacating. Because it's hard work, being a liar.

The Wild, Wild West Show

I apologize for not posting anything today. I've had a really busy day. We've been working with Bobby Henderson to create a Flying Spaghetti Monster car emblem (he's the creator er.. originator) and we're delighted to be a part of spreading the word. More on that later.

Meanwhile Dada has an brilliant posting today featuring some familiar "stars" like "Bully Bob" Bolton of United Nationville; Hallibustin Bar owned by Dick Cheney, Condi who maintains a Pleasure Palace and a Rumsfeld's Rifle gun shop .

Read all about it!

The Christian Taliban

Michelle Pilecki points that:

While Americans may not be too happy about the idea of setting up a theocracy in Iraq, there's another group of Americans trying to set up one here. The Los Angeles Times reports on the Statesmanship Institute, dedicated to help prospective federal staffers "integrate biblical principles with [their] calling to public service."

Read the rest here on The Huffington Post.

Intelligent Design: Et tu McCain?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

John McCain has joined other anti-science Repugs in calling for the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools.

"On Tuesday, though, he sided with the president on two issues that have made headlines recently: teaching intelligent design in schools and Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who has come to personify the anti-war movement.

McCain told the Star that, like Bush, he believes 'all points of view' should be available to students studying the origins of mankind.

The theory of intelligent design says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and that a higher power must have had a hand in guiding it. "

Although skeptical at first, I now agree with McCain and Bush that Intelligent Design should be taught. I've become a Pastafarian and I believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is our creator and all children should be taught this in school.

Buy Blue, Don't Buy Dell

It was time to buy a new desktop computer and we wanted to spend our money wisely, so we visited BuyBlue.org to see where our purchase would do the most good. We already knew that Dell supports George W. Bush and Repugs in general so we'd already ruled them out.

We were pleased to discover that Gateway is a dark blue company, so we placed our order. We now have a new computer and we feel good about where we spent our money.

Buy Blue, Boycott Target

A boycott of the Target chain stores is underway in California because the company is contributing large amounts of money to Schwarzenegger who favors legislation friendly to pharmaceutical companies at the expense of the elderly :

A California consumer group is telling seniors not to shop at Target stores because of the more than $300,000 the retailer has given to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

California Consumers United has spent $50,000 for a Bay Area radio campaign aimed at hitting one of the governor's supporters in the wallet.

The campaign is designed to piggyback on Target's effort to attract more seniors and working families by putting pharmacies in their larger stores, said Cory Black of the consumer group.

"We're calling on Target to do right by their customers, who aren't the large political donors spending $100,000 to have their picture taken with the governor," he said.

. . . .

The folksy ad features an announcer talking to an elderly woman.

"Target Corporation is one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest special interest donors -- money he's using to promote his agenda against consumers and affordable health care,'' the announcer says.

"Well snap my girdle,'' the elderly shopper answers. "They're using our money against us."

The ad slams Schwarzenegger for taking money from drug companies and vetoing a bill that would have made it easier to bring lower-priced drugs into the state from Canada.

It also suggests that Schwarzenegger's Proposition 76, which would give the governor more control over the state budget, would allow him to slash health care spending.

Since 2004, Target has given $100,000 to Citizens to Save California, which worked to qualify the governor's initiatives for the special election ballot, and $210,000 to the governor's California Recovery Team, which supports Schwarzenegger's political aims.

Target also spent $250,000 to back a referendum that erased a law that would have required many California businesses to provide health care for their workers, $100,000 to the California Business Properties Association, another of Schwarzenegger's backers, and tens of thousands of dollars to the state Republican and Democratic parties and legislators on both sides of the political aisle.

This isn't the first time the consumer group has gone after one of Schwarzenegger's donors. Earlier in the year, the group announced a boycott of the Gap, whose founder, Donald Fisher, has given more than $200,000 to the governor.

The company quickly announced that the contributions were from Fisher and his family personally, and not from the retailer.

That rapid response shows just how concerned companies that depend upon public supporter can be about any threat to their business, said Barbara O'Connor, a professor of political communications at Sacramento State University.

"These type of protests are modeled after the efforts in the 1970s of Action for Children's Television, which went after the advertisers of the Saturday morning cartoons,'' she said. "It can be a very effective consumer protest strategy, since companies know that their customers can vote with their feet.''

Peace Vigil in Small Town U.S.A.

Peace Vigil

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Felton, California Population 8692

Insecure Men More Likely to Support Bush's War

To sell a mammoth SUV or the unprovoked invasion of a country to a man the best technique is to question his masculinity. Cornell University researchers reported in Science that they tested the effect of insecurity on men's attitudes by giving a survey on gender identity to about 50 men. The men were then told that an analysis of the survey showed that they exhibited "weak" male characteristics, that their attitudes were effeminate.

The researchers then surveyed men's attitudes toward politics, homosexuals, and car purchases, comparing them with a group of men whose masculinity had not been questioned. The threatened men were more likley to support the war in Iraq, more likely to oppose gay marriage and denounce gays, and more likely to express a desire to buy an SUV. In fact, they were so eager to buy an SUV that they said they'd be willing to pay up to $7,000 more for the vehicle than were men in the other group.

"Masculinity-threatened men also reported feeling more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile," said lead researcher Robb Willer.

The study found that women didn't change their attitude when told their attitudes were masculine.

More Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Sometimes watching the Bushites in action and the con-job of their neo-cons is more than I can handle, so I go back to Mark Bittner's book, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill to renew my spirits. Here are a couple more excerpts:

"... So in a very clear way, this issue of trust was being mirrored back to me in my experience with the parrots. I saw that to win trust, you have to be trustworthy - not simply most of the time, but constantly. The first time you cut even the smallest corner, doubt enters, which is corrosive to trust. This was a big revelation to me. To some it might seem too simple to be a revelation, but as with every virtue, the profundity is in the difficulty of practice. The issue of trust arises wherever there is temptation. Parrots are obviously tempting to some people. They've been taken out of their free and natural lives, locked in cages, and sold to those who have desired their beauty and personality. I wanted them [the parrots] to know I wouldn't do that...."

After Bittner earned the trust of the parrots, they began to take sunflower seeds from his hands, but one bird was biting his fingers. He didn't want to scare them away but he finally lost his temper:

"Marlon was biting me constantly, and it nearly always hurt. Although I was careful to restrain it, more and more often he was arousing real anger in me. One day, I finally lost my temper. I bent over and yelled right in his face: 'Goddamn it, Marlon, stop it! Stop biting me! I'm sick of it.' I immediately regretted what I had done. I expected the flock to tak off in a panic, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. The parrots know their biting hurts, and they didn't really expect me just to stand there and take it. Marlon looked self-conscious about being the center of attention. He acted as though I were exaggerating. His demeanor seemed to say, 'Big deal. I bit you. So what.' But he was clearly embarrassed. He wouldn't look at me."

I love this book. Buy a copy and help Bittner buy more sunflower seeds for the wild parrots.

Bush Is Less Popular Than Nixon Was During Watergate

I found this over at Think Progress via The Huffington Post:

George W. Bush’s overall job approval ratings have dropped from a month ago even as Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president are turning more optimistic about their personal financial situations according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 33% approve and 62% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 38% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 56% disapprove, and 36% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 60% disapprove.

For a little perspective, recall that Richard Nixon’s approval rating in the summer of 1973 (when the Watergate scandal was in full swing) was 39%.

Compared to Bush, that’s downright sunny.

Schwarzenegger: California Embarrassment

Guvunuh Ahnie of Kullyfornya tried to raise money by scalping tickets to a Stones concert. Reportedly, he managed to sell at least one ticket at inflated prices.

"Jagger gave Arnie a serve telling the audience 'As a matter of fact, he was seen out in front of Fenway Park tonight raising funds by scalping tickets and tee-shirts.'

'What a colossal embarrassment for California, the sight of our governor jeered as he fundraises across the nation and scalping concert tickets for corporate cash to buy ads for a wasteful special election most Californians did not want,' said CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro in a statement. 'Californians should send this governor and his corporate sponsors a message as well -- You Can't Always Get What You Want -- and vote No in November.'"

Who Would Jesus Kill?

Pat Robertson, self-appointed spokesman for God and his son, Jesus, wants Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez bumped off.

"Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a 'terrific danger' to the United States."

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Only last week, Pat Robertson was putting out a hit on members of the Supreme Court, begging God, to create a vacancy on the court. No word on which member of the court was targeted.

I miss the old days when it was the Muslim extremists who issued fatwas. Now we have the Christian Taliban taking up the practice.

Journalists with Principles

I've done a lot of complaining about journalists, but now it's time to recognize some who stick to their principles. I always love Frank Rich's articles and this current one is especially cogent. He talks about how the "swiftboating" of Cindy Sheehan failed this time. Karl Rove has lost his magic slime, apparently.

Bob Costas recently refused to do a Larry King show because the topic would be the missing white woman du jour:

"His decision is reminiscent of Keith Olbermann, the former sportscaster who left his MSNBC news show in the late 1990s in part because he was asked to repeatedly cover the Monica Lewinsky story. Olbermann is back now for his second run at MSNBC."

Speaking of Keith Olbermann, Countdown is my favorite TV news (excepting the Daily Show of course).

Hagel Compares Iraq to Vietnam

Senator Chuck Hagel (a Republican) is having a moment of clarity regarding the situation in Iraq. This from Reuters:

"An influential Republican senator said on Sunday the longer the United States stayed bogged down in Iraq, the more the conflict looked like another Vietnam War.

'What I think the White House does not yet understand and some of my colleagues, is the dam has broken on this (Iraq) policy,' said Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and possible presidential candidate in 2008.

A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Hagel also said the war in Iraq had further destabilized the Middle East and the White House needed to find an exit strategy for Iraq."

It looks bad for George W. Bush when even Republicans see through his deceit. You might think the Democrats had been leading the way, but you'd be wrong. Apparently the Democrats, with a couple of exceptions, are still waiting for inspiration. Cindy Sheehan's courage hasn't motivated them yet:

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) broke with his party leadership last week to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline. Feingold proposed Dec. 31, 2006. In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address yesterday, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out."

Although critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.

Biden and Clinton can count on me to NOT vote for either of them in the presidential primary.

Chihuahuas in the Park

We attended a chihuahua meet-up in the park in Felton (California) today and Rob took pictures. See the best of the photographs here. This one is my favorite.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

The letter to the Kansas School Board of Education begins:

"I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design. . . .

".... it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don't understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease."

Lest you think the Flying Spaghetti Monster is cheesy, visit this web site where you will find all the evidence you need in charts and graphs and words and stuff.

Thanks to Casey for bringing this movement to our attention.

Spammers Don't Waste Your Time

About 8 spammers attached links to their web sites from the comments section of my blog tonight and I'm deleting them as quickly as they are posted, so if you are a spammer, don't waste your (or my) time.

All others are welcome to post your comments and you are welcome to link to your own blog or web site, however, if you are selling the miracle cure for multiple sclerosis, or payday loans or other questionable products, your effort will be quickly erased.

Wild Parrots in California

I received an anonymous comment about wild parrots from a resident of Pasadena who has seen the birds in her or his tangerine tree. If anyone gets any good pictures of them, I'd love to see them.

James Gilardi, Ph.D., director of the World Parrot Trust, wrote the following about Bittner's book:

"By falling in with a flock of wild parrots, Bittner has learned more about a real parrot society than those of us studying wild or captive parrots could ever hope to learn. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill makes essential and delightful reading for anyone with an interest in the complex lives of intelligent and engaging wild animals...and inspires readers to find nature and peace in whatever place on the planet they happen to occupy."

It was difficult to put the book down last night at bed time. Having completed the first three chapters, I learned about how Mark Bittner discovered the parrots near his home in San Franciscio. He first saw them while on his knees at a house cleaning job. His life had been difficult. He'd been on the brink of suicide at one time and then had become homeless on the streets of San Francisco. He slept in shrubs and found coins dropped near parking meters with which he could purchase bread. He soon found that being homeless also made him invisible on the street. "People looked past me as though I didn't exist. But if I ever wanted a little attention, all I had to do was enter a place of business... Occasionally customers would leave behind partially uneaten meals, and ... I'd pick the food off the abandoned plates."

He says that people who gave him the most trouble were his fellow, native born Americans. "All my life I'd been treated as just another white, middle-class, regular guy; so it was a matter of disbelief for me that I was now generally despised as one of the hated homeless."

Eventually he was offered a job working for an elderly woman running errands and cleaning her home. In exchange he was given a studio apartment on Telegraph Hill. The apartment was a singe room "jerry-rigged into the lower half of what my neighbors called a cottage but was, in reality, a two-story shack." The room had been uninhabited, was filled with mold, had no insulation, no real foundation. The circuit breakers blew and the plumbing backed up but for a homeless person, it was a paradise.

Bittner's description of the parrots is enchanting. He describes them as having beaks that were comically large. "Their eyes were so expressive that even from a distance the birds struck me as personable and intelligent. There was something goofy about their eyes. It was as if they concealed the punch line to some joke."

Are you hooked yet? I hope you'll buy his book and help support this wonderfully sensitive and caring man feed his parrot friends.

George Bush is Afraid to Visit San Francisco

The San Francisco Chronicle's front page story illustrates how Bush is cowardly staying away from San Francisco. Maybe he's afraid of the thousands of protesters who would clog the streets, or maybe he suffers from a guilty conscience because his FEC did nothing while Kenny Boy and the rest of Enron stole from Grandma Milly, but I doubt that. We can clearly see that he doesn't have a conscience.

"Presidents arrived by stagecoach and jet. One was shot at. Another died. In all, 20 presidents have visited the city, including every chief executive for the past 75 years. Except George W. Bush."

Dada points out that Bush might not be so welcome in some red state cities either. Gryphen at Immoral Minority points out that the mayor of Salt Lake City is urging citizens to protest Bush's planned photo-op there:

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson called for "the biggest demonstration this state has ever seen" to protest President Bush's appearance Monday before a national veterans convention.

Candi sent a copy of an article by Paul Harris from The Guardian where he says that Cindy Sheehan has tipped the balance against Bush.

Candles were lit all across America last week in one of the largest single anti-war protests in recent US history. At more than 1,600 vigils tens of thousands of protesters gathered in solidarity with the woman who has been the catalyst for the rebirth of the anti-war movement: Cindy Sheehan.

Her remarkable one-woman stand outside George Bush's Texas ranch has turned into a national phenomenon - and one of the most vicious political slanging matches in recent US history. On the pro-war side, Sheehan has been derided as a traitor to America, betraying her dead soldier son's memory. On the anti-war side she has become a secular saint, laden with the powerful imagery of the avenging mother roused to action. For them, she is the lone soccer mom who is taking on Bush - and winning.

Harris also collected excerpts from various sources that I'm providing here, but you can read his entire article here.

Perhaps someday a President will greet Cindy Sheehan this way: 'So you're the little woman who stopped the Iraq war' - New York Daily News columnist Mike Goodwin

Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming on to it. It's not real - Radio shock jock Rush Limbaugh comparing media coverage of Sheehan to the 'Memogate' saga last year over President Bush's National Guard record

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out or invite her in for a cup of tea - New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

Cindy Sheehan has become a political player whose primary concern is embarrassing the President. She is no longer just a protester -Fox News conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly

Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive - Pro-war Vanity Fair writer Chistopher Hitchens

As a result of Cindy's success, Bush will declare a war of words. He continues to invoke 9/11 as an excuse for the invasion of Iraq, demonstrating that he's out of touch with reality, out of touch with the truth and is hoping to impose this insanity upon the rest of us.

Summertime and the reading is easy

After reading the The Da Vinci Code (which I enjoyed very much), I started The Travelers by John Twelve Hawks and just finished it last night. Instead of excerpting it or reviewing it, I'll just refer you to a review someone else has done inThe Washington Post:

The Da Vinci Mode: ""The Traveler" is without doubt a most readable mix of science fiction and political jeremiad, one that imagines an international conspiracy to destroy individual privacy and freedom in the name of social order. It recalls earlier tales, such as the "Star Wars" movies and George Orwell's "1984," that portray a few brave individuals challenging an evil empire -- or a Big Brother with powers far beyond anything Orwell could imagine. Modern technology, the novel's arch-villain chortles, will enable him and his allies to watch and supervise every person in the industrial world. The story unfolds in the not-too-distant future, but it is based on an elaborate mythology that extends far back in history. In every age, we are told, there have been Travelers, visionaries who can explore other dimensions, interact with creatures there and bring back ideas to our world. They have included Jesus, Joan of Arc, Saint Francis of Assisi and Isaac Newton. These visionaries have always been persecuted by kings, churches and governments, who see them as agents of disorder and chaos. The armies of oppression are directed by the Brethren and their soldiers, the Tabula. But there has also evolved a race of warriors, called Harlequins, whose sacred mission is to protect the Travelers. By one account, Peter, when he sought to save Jesus from the Roman soldiers at Gethsemane, was the first Harlequin.

Although this struggle has gone on for centuries, in our own time the Brethren, helped by powerful computers, millions of cameras in public places, face scans and other technology, have tracked down and killed all but a handful of Travelers and Harlequins. The novel turns on the Brethren's efforts to kill the last of these freedom-fighters and rule the world unopposed. Most of us remain oblivious to this epic struggle, because we are drones, sedated by Britney Spears, the Super Bowl, video games, drugs, Fox News and other senseless diversions."

Fact or fiction? You decide.

Today I visited Bookshop Santa Cruz, our biggest and best independent book store, to get a new book to read. Funny story about that. As a community, we tend to support independent book stores over chains and Bookshop Santa Cruz has survived the competition from online stores like Amazon and local chain stores. After our downtown area was devastated by the earthquake of 1989 and Bookshop Santa Cruz lost their building, they sold books in a tent for a while. After the rebuilding of the downtown area, they put out a call for help moving into their new digs and hordes of volunteers showed up and moved boxes of books. A few years ago a Barnes and Noble opened a store across the street from Bookshop Santa Cruz and threatened to put them out of business. I can't recall how long Barnes and Noble lasted (maybe a year or two) but they're gone now and Bookshop Santa Cruz continues to thrive. Sure we don't get all the big discounts that chain stores offer, but we're supporting our friends and neighbors. (We don't have a WalMart in this county - they'd probably go the way of Barnes and Noble.)

When Rush Limbaugh's book went on sale, the owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz decided to sell it at a loss, not because he wanted people to read it - he thought it should be priced by it's value, so he used the price of boloney to determine it's worth.

Anyhow, I bought a copy of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story with Wings and I was so enchanted by the pages I read while in the store that I read some more pages on the way home. The DVD is on our Netflix list too. If you haven't heard about the Birdman of Telegraph Hill (in San Francisco) visit his web site. You'll be glad you did.

Oh, and next time you're thinking about ordering a book from Amazon - stop by Bookshop Santa Cruz's web site and consider ordering it from them. They sell books that the big chains don't offer and you'll help keep Santa Cruz weird.

If you're ever in the area, be sure to stop at the book store's cafe. It's called Chocolate and they have some yummy food. You'll find the walls covered with anti-Bush slogans, pictures, etc.

Breaking Story: Iraq's WMD Threat

Mother Jones has a breaking story about the WMD threat in Iraq that the Bushites missed:

Having invaded Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussein was ready to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Bush administration failed to secure the one undeniable WMD threat Saddam possessed: the scientists who developed Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

The September/October issue of Mother Jones magazine will break story of how the US failed to keep track of Iraq's nuclear scientists, with the result that today they're dispersed and more dangerous than ever. We're pre-releasing the story this Sunday, August 21st, on the Mother Jones website. Also on Sunday, tune in to Mother Jones Radio, heard on Air America affiliates around the country, at 1:00 p.m. EST, for exclusive interviews with the only Iraqi nuclear scientist known to have been granted refuge in the U.S. since the 2003 invasion, as well as former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright, and writer Kurt Pitzer.

Listening to Women is Hard Work

Discovery reports that when women are speaking at length, men tend to tune us out and they have an excuse. Our voices are more complex than male voices making men's brains work harder when listening to us.

The shape and size of female vocal cords and larynx cause us to speak with a greater range of sound frequencies than men. Women naturally have more melody in our voices.

Listening to female voices activates the auditory center of a man's brain, which must analyze the different sounds at the same time he's interpreting the words. Men process other male voices in a different portion of their brains.

This study helps explain why people who hear voices generally only hear male voices according to British researcher Michael Hunter.

"The brain would find it much harder to create false female voice accurately than a false male voice."

This might explain why George Coward Bush won't meet with Cindy Sheehan. He just doesn't have the brain power to process the voices of women. That might explain why he ignored Laura Bush's request that he nominate a women to the supreme court and the study might suggest that smarter men are able to process our voices and our words.

The study doesn't explain why Markos Moulitas of the Daily KOS can't handle typed messages of women on his blog however.

Camp Casey is Moving Closer to Dude Ranch 1

Larry Mattlage fired a shotgun into the air near Cindy Sheehan's camp on Sunday claiming to be shooting at doves, but tacitly admitted that he wanted to intimidate the protestors. His cousin Fred Mattlage said he does not share his cousin's frustrations with the group and has offered to let them use his land. Now they will be located closer to Bush's Dude Ranch than they were before.

One of President Bush's neighbors will allow use of his land by dozens of war protesters who have camped in roadside ditches the past 11 days, giving them more room and halving their distance from Bush's ranch.

Demonstrators said Fred Mattlage made the offer because he sympathizes with them. The protesters' makeshift camp off a winding, two-lane road leading to Bush's ranch has agitated other residents, who complained of traffic jams and blocked roads.

Impeach Schwarzenegger: One of Many Reasons

Gigi Goyette denies that she was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mistress. But that statement seems to run counter to some steamy comments she previously made about the governor. In a biography of Schwarzenegger, released earlier this year, Goyette described a relationship as “Outercourse.”

“It was whatever we wanted it to be,” Goyette told the author. “It wasn't the same all the time. Most of the time, it was just massages, really…maybe his wife wasn't there to relieve him."

During Tuesday’s television appearance, Goyette did shed some light on allegations that three major tabloid magazines may have covered up the story during Schwarzenegger’s run for governor in the summer of 2003.

“They wanted me to believe it was a book deal,” Goyette said. “In fact, they really wanted to keep me quiet until after the election, for fear that I had something bad to say about Arnold, which I don't."

American Media Inc. owns the National Enquirer and two other tabloid magazines. The company reportedly paid Goyette $20,000 for the exclusive rights to her story after Schwarzenegger declared his candidacy. A week later, Schwarzenegger signed an $8,000,000 consulting contract that was designed to lure readers and advertisers to two muscle magazines. Goyette’s story never made it to print.

Earlier this week, Schwarzenegger refused to comment on allegations that the publishing company held the story to protect its investment in the governor. On Tuesday, the governor was defiant when asked about his relationship with Goyette.

Signs of Life in the Democratic Party

Papers that have been released are painting a portrait of John Roberts as a rightwing nutjob. The Washington Post reports that Roberts:

"call[ed] a memorial service for aborted fetuses 'an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy,' and his reference to the legal underpinnings of the right to an abortion as the 'so-called 'right to privacy.' ' The groups note that Roberts once wrote that a Supreme Court case on prohibiting silent prayer in public schools 'seems indefensible.' Roberts, they say, had also called a federal court decision that sought to guarantee women equal pay to men 'a radical redistributive concept.'"

This man, like the Pope, is from the Dark Ages and if we don't send him back there, he'll drag us all back in time and turn us all into Stepford wives like Maria Shriver and Laura Bush.

The Democrats are beginning to respond:

...Kennedy said recently released evidence "shows that he was on or beyond the outer fringe of that extreme group eager to take our law and society back in time on a wide range of issues of individual rights and liberties, and on broad issues of government responsiveness to public needs." For instance, Kennedy said, he "opposed effective voting rights legislation, and wanted to restrict laws vital to battling discrimination by recipients of federal funds."

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement: "All this talk about whether Democrats will support the Roberts nomination is laughably premature. . . . The White House has so far refused to produce relevant documents, and the documents we have seen raise questions about the nominee's commitment to progress on civil rights."

Okay, we have two Democrats paying attention. Where are the others?

Cindy Sheehan's War

Mojo blog has a interesting blog today incorporating quotes in their commentary. I'm excerpting some comments and quotes here but to enjoy it in its entirety, please visit Mojo.

"The Army's wheels are going to come off in the next 24 months. We are now in a period of considerable strategic peril. It's because Rumsfeld has dug in his heels and said, I cannot retreat from my position." -General Barry McCaffrey to Time Magazine.

L. Paul Bremer inflamed the Shi'ite Militia into a rebellion which resulted in the deaths of Casey and 6 other brave soldiers who were tragically killed in an ambush. Bill Mitchell, the father of Sgt. ... This is a picture of Casey when he was 7 months old. It's an enlargement of a picture he carried in his wallet until the day he was killed. He loved this picture of himself. It was returned to us with his personal effects from Iraq. He always sucked on those two fingers. When he was born, he had a flat face from passing through the birth canal and we called him Edward G' short for Edward G. Robinson. How many of you have seen your child in his/her premature coffin? It is a shocking and very painful sight. The most heartbreaking aspect of seeing Casey lying in his casket for me, was that his face was flat again because he had no muscle tone. He looked like he did when he was a baby laying in his bassinette. The most tragic irony is that if the Downing Street Memo proves to be true, Casey and thousands of people should still be alive." -Cindy Sheehan testifying at Rep. Conyer's basement hearings into the Downing Street Memo

"The world has seen, in the last 3 1/2 years, the capability of the United States of America to go into Afghanistan . . . and with 20,000, 15,000 troops working with the Afghans do what 200,000 Soviets couldn't do in a decade. They've seen the United States and the coalition forces go into Iraq. . . . That has to have a deterrent effect on people." -Donald Rumsfeld testifying before the House Armed Services Committee in March, 2005

As it happens, Sheehan was one of the unexpectedly deterred and now, along with 1,846 other American soldiers, is interred....

"So who are we honoring here?" -George Bush on arriving for a meeting with families of the bereaved, including Cindy Sheehan and her husband on June 17, 2004.

Schwarzenegger Could Be Impeached

I found this headline on Google news. A guest blogger at The Brad Blog reports:

The California governor had a seven-year affair with Gigi Goyette, who now lives in Malibu. The affair may have started when she was underaged.

....

A California governor may be impeached simply for "misconduct" in office. California's corrupt governor was party to a bribe paid to maintain his political career. That action certainly qualifies as misconduct.

The state Senate must bring impeachment charges against Schwarzenegger. The Assembly will try those charges. The Republicans, I can happily report, do not control the California legislature.

There's more, including allegations of a right-wing owned tabliod conspiracy and mafia connections. Go read the whole story at Brad Blog.

Update: Here's a quote from Schwarzenegger's young mistress:

She also rejected claims in an American magazine that Schwarzenegger was a sex pest. "Sure," she said, "he will sometimes grab a woman's ass and say, like, 'Hey, you've got a nice ass,' but it is just, like, his way of making them feel better. Every woman likes to get a compliment from time to time."

Get the rest of this sordid story at Cannonfire in a post that asks why are the Democrats soft on Schwarzenegger.

It would be helpful if Stepford Wife, Maria Shriver, would dump the big oaf. Maybe that would mobilize state Democrats.

Chimpy in Action

Norm at One Good Move has some funny video of Bush being clumsy.

Bush Gets On With His Life

Cindy Sheehan wonders why Bush could find time to take a 2-hour bike ride when he doesn't have time to meet with her and he said this:

"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job. And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But, I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

In the past he's had some difficult staying balanced on his bicycle and on a Segway - and now he's going to try to balance his life too? Yikes!

John Bolton Visited Judy Miller in Prison!

Arianna reports on The Huffington Post that Judy Miller (the "journalist" who went to jail to protect a White House official who leaked Valerie Plame's identity) got a visit from John Bolton who has also been questioned in the CIA leak story. You might wonder what those two have in common and I'd have to guess that both are chicken hawks and Arianna believes that John Bolton was Miller's source for all those scary stories about Iraq's WMD:

"Ever since President Bush slipped him through the UN's backdoor via a recess appointment, John Bolton has been giving reporters the cold shoulder. He strode past them when he showed up at the UN on August 2nd to present his letter of appointment, and WaPo columnist Al Kamen shows that he hasn't opened up much since (via TWN).

But Bolton apparently has a warm spot in his heart for at least one journalist: none other than Judy Miller.

According to a trusted Judy File source, Bolton recently took time out of his busy schedule to pay a jailhouse visit to Judy. "

The Los Angeles Times reports that Patrick Fitzgerald may be pursuing perjury charges:

[He] is considering perjury charges in his current assignment — as a special prosecutor investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to journalists.

Plame's identity was first disclosed by syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak in what was widely seen as an attempt to discredit her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, for criticizing President Bush's rationale for attacking Iraq.

Fitzgerald's 20-month-long investigation initially focused on whether administration officials had broken a federal law that made it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of covert agents. But more recently, the inquiry is believed to have shifted to the question of whether officials — including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove — who discussed Plame with journalists may have misled Fitzgerald and his investigators.

Fitzgerald's tendency to invoke the laws against lying comes from two things, colleagues say: the particular way he uses grand jury testimony when he conducts an investigation, and his deep-seated aversion to being lied to.

Many prosecutors go before a grand jury only after they have a case pretty well wrapped up. But Fitzgerald's approach is to use the grand jury as a tool for compelling witnesses to disclose information. And if he thinks a witness has fiddled with the truth, associates say, he becomes indignant.

"He is an aggressive prosecutor," said Joshua Dratel, a New York lawyer who represented El-Hage. "If he feels someone is lying to him, he takes it personally."

Perjury charges can buttress an overall prosecution. They also enable prosecutors to bring charges against people when it may be difficult or impossible to prove them guilty of what are seen as their underlying crimes.

The perjury rap was "like using tax prosecutions for Al Capone," said Matthew Piers, a Chicago lawyer who represented a defendant Fitzgerald prosecuted for perjury after an investigation into possible terrorism.

Rumor: Robert "No facts" Novak Fired by CNN?

mediabistro: TVNewser: "While we try to confirm the anonymous tip that Robert Novak's 10th floor CNN D.C. office was cleaned out early last week...

The Arizona Republic's Bill Goodykoontz says the walk-off is the opportunity for 'a good purging of loudmouth ranters and a chance to reinvent televised commentary and debate.'

He writes: 'Maybe, just maybe, this will bring to completion what Jon Stewart's rant on Crossfire last year set in motion -- genuine debate instead of merely the repeated toeing of a company line...'"

Cheney Planning to Nuke Iran?

Dada has been hearing rumors that Cheney plans to attack Iran in September.

"Alex Jones .... contends [General] Burns was leading a coup against the neocon plans to nuke Iran as early as next month (September--Cheney has already ordered Pentagon plans for it according to Jones). He contends such action would be in retaliation for another terrorist attack on American soil yet to occur. "

There's more at Dada's Daily Dally.Update: An anonymous reader wrote and I'm adding it here in case other readers don't click on "comments":

It was mentioned on Air America and also on one blog that military leaves were to be cancelled after 9/07.Can anyone verify that?

Update II: If it's true that Cheney is planning to attack Iran in September, the implication is that he'll be responding to a terrorist attack in the U.S that hasn't yet happened. Dada notes:

Dada recalls 9/11 exercises that had much of our nation's Northeast NORAD command deployed elsewhere on a terrorist attack practice and, coincidentally--that same day--exercises were being conducted at the Pentagon to test reaction to an attack there, while Bush read "My Pet Goat" to second graders as people were jumping to their deaths from the top floors of the WTC.

Flash forward to the London subway attack and yet another strange synchronicity! London police were conducting training exercises for a terrorist attack on that subway the very day they happened. Do we live in an enchanted universe or what?

Dada notes that we may be entering tin foil hat territory, but then today I found this in my hard copy of The Week magazine (note that to view this source online you will need to scroll down to the entry on Paris):

Prior to the July 7 London bombings, France knew that Britain was about to be attacked by al Qaida, Le Figaro reported this week. In a classified memo quoted by the newspaper, French intelligence agents said that “operatives drawing on pro-jihad sympathies within the large Pakistani community in the U.K.” were planning an attack “decided at the highest level of al Qaida.” The memo said France should monitor its own Pakistani immigrant community, which has close ties to the one in London. The French Interior Ministry refused to comment on whether it had passed any warning on to London. The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said his country had warned the British government of an increased threat to London a few months before the bombings, but the warning did not specify targets or methods.

Now we learn via Rigorous Intuition that the following military excercise is planned:

Fort Monroe is holding a little exercise this month:

FORT MONROE, Va. -- Here’s the scenario…A seafaring vessel transporting a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead makes its way into a port off the coast of Charleston, S.C. Terrorists aboard the ship attempt to smuggle the warhead off the ship to detonate it. Is this really a possibility?

Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) here is planning its next exercise on the premise that this crisis is indeed plausible.

Sudden Response 05 will take place this August on Fort Monroe and will be carried out as an internal command post exercise.

The Week magazine excerpts an article by Michael J. Mazaar published in The New Republic (an article I'd missed earlier):

There’s certainly not a realistic military option, said Michael J. Mazarr in The New Republic. Some hawks argue that bombing Iran’s reactors might be a “low-risk” move. In reality, it could easily provoke Iran to “inaugurate a final showdown with the Great Satan.” From Iran’s perspective, “it makes far more sense to fight an overextended, exhausted, nearly bankrupt, internationally unpopular United States today than a possibly rested, rejuvenated” one later. But the regional chaos and interrupted oil supplies that would likely accompany a U.S.–Iran military showdown pose “an even greater threat to U.S. national interests than a continued Iranian nuclear program.”

A terrorist attack would quickly solve Bush's sagging poll numbers as a majority of sheeple would rally around the "war president" again. We, in the United States, suffer from a serious lack of critical thinking and questioning of authority figures.

Was the War Worth It?

Today the Cafferty File on The Situation Room on CNN asks:

Question: Is fighting for democracy in Iraq worth it if Iraqis end up with an Islamic state?

Answer: Of course it was worth it, just ask Halliburton.

Photos of the Protest in Crawford

Rob sent a link to photos of the protest led by Cindy Sheehan in Crawford. The first photo is an arial shot showing the location of the protest and the Bush ranch followed by photos of protesters.

The page loads slowly even on my DSL connection so if you have a dial-up it'll take forever but it's worth the wait.

There's another page of photos here.

Shotgun Blast at Camp Casey

According to the Los Angeles Times, some gun toting Texans are fed up with Cindy Sheehan's grief over the loss of her son in a senseless war and they're going to do something about it - they're going to kill them some birds.

"On the other side of Prairie Chapel Road, Larry Mattlage hopped into his pickup, barreled across his pasture and pulled up to a fence within a few hundred feet of the protesters. He climbed out of the cab, retrieved a shotgun from the back and fired at least one blast into the air.

Mattlage insisted he was shooting at birds. But he said the activists had worn out their welcome, and he wanted them to go away.

'I done made my case. It's over,' he said as he shooed away a reporter from the gated entrance to his ranch.

The McLennan County Sheriff's Department said Mattlage had broken no laws. A man has a right to fire a gun on his own property, the authorities said, as long as he didn't point it at anyone or issue any threats.

Sheehan said her supporters were respecting Mattlage's rights and would continue to assemble peaceably about two miles from the ranch where Bush is vacationing for five weeks. Only a meeting with the president would get them to go, she said.

Other neighbors expressed admiration for Mattlage's one-man stand. 'I wish I had the nerve to do something like that,' said Army Sgt. Vernon 'Dusty' Harrison, who spent a year in Iraq and owns an adjacent property. 'I salute his bravery.'

....

The inhabitants of Camp Casey, the activists' tent village, said they were a bit shaken by Mattlage's blast, but considered it more a clash of cultures than a declaration of war.

'This is Texas,' said Bill Phillips, 48, a New Orleans social worker who spent the night at the site. 'I kind of expect people to fire a gun off now and then.' "

And that, my friends, is why I live in California.

Christopher Walken for President

I think Christopher Walken is going to run for president and he might just be my kind of candidate.

"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."

Where are the Democrats?

Craig Crawford has an interesting comment at The Huffington Post:

Isn't it amazing how one soft-spoken Mom figured out how to challenge President Bush's war handling more effectively than all the Democratic lawmakers who have tried for years.

At midnight Tuesday I posted here my prediction of the coming media frenzy over "Protester Mom" Cindy Sheehan. And sure enough, now she is giving the White House 'Mommie Dearest' nightmares. But instead of 'No More Wire Hangers' it's 'No More War.'

Although you could see this coming, the Democrats in Washington and the geniuses who advise them are still on the sidelines, arguing among themselves, as usual, about whether to embrace Sheehan. But they have become so irrelevant to the war debate that it doesn't much matter. Still, it will be interesting over the next few days to see if any prominent Democrats seek photo opportunities with Sheehan or come to her aid in any way. For it looks like things could get ugly at Camp Sheehan. The President's supporters are now showing up to confront her. That's all we need: Warring factions in an open field this close to Waco.

[Emphasis added]

Are the Democrats trying to decide which way the wind is blowing? What a bunch of spineless weasels.

Update: What I should have said, is that the Democrats are our best and only hope but they too often behave like spineless weasels.

The Senate Helped "Fix" Intelligence on Iraq

Larisa Alexandrovna at the Democratic Underground found an article at The Raw Story that should be reported in the MSM but I haven't seen it there.

"Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.

'The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information,' he writes, 'are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate.'"

Larisa goes on to say, "This is a major story and I have intentionally not quoted any further details as it deserves to be read in it's entirety ..." and I agree with her.

Iran in Bush's Crosshairs

CNN reports:

President George W. Bush said on Israeli television he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.

Didn't he say the same thing about Iraq while he was secretly fixing intelligence to justify an invasion? Be worried. Be very worried. The coward from Crawford is a lying sack of crap..

The Da Vinci Code Movie May Not Be Worth Seeing

I loved the Da Vinci Code book by Dan Brown and I was excited when I heard they were making it into a movie, but I'm beginning to think the movie won't be worth seeing if the New York Daily News is correct:

"In May 2006, Sony Pictures will release the big-screen version of Dan Brown's mega-best-seller. Since it was published in 2003, 'Da Vinci' has captivated readers - and exasperated Christians - with its core contention: That Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene, and the Church conspired to keep women out of power.

The movie, now being filmed by Howard, could alienate some audiences if it sticks to that plot. So the studio reportedly has been conferring with Catholic experts on how to soften the story - a tactic that could backfire with both secular and devout moviegoers."

....

Msgr. Francis Maniscalco of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' office said the book's image of the Church and of Opus Dei - a Catholic fundamentalist sect - are a distortion, and a film showing them as villains is unwelcome.

There's a rumor that Robert Novak is a member of Opus Dei.

All Roads Lead to Rove

Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher has a scoop about an article soon to appear in Vanity Fair criticizing Time Magazine and the New York Times for their cover-up of Karl Rove's complicity in leaking Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA official:

In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair (not yet online), Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media -- principally Time magazine and The New York Times -- who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been “one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.” Not only that, “they helped cover it up.” You might say, he adds, they “became part of a conspiracy.”

If they had burned this unworthy source and exposed his “crime,” he adds, it would have been “of such consequences that it might, reasonably, have presaged the defeat of the president, might have even -- to be slightly melodramatic -- altered the course of the war in Iraq.” In doing so they showed they owed their greatest allegiance to the source, not their readers.

And their source was no Deep Throat, not someone with dirt on the government -- the source “was the government.”

So in the end, he concludes, “the greatest news organizations in the land had a story about a potential crime that reached as close as you can get to the president himself and they punted, they swallowed it, they self-dealt.” And why did they do it? Well, “a source is a source who, unrevealed, will continue to be a source.”

Even after the news first emerged last month that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the media still waited days to even ask the White House press secretary about it. It was a story, "in full view, the media just ignored."

The title of the Wolff article is "All Roads Lead to Rove."

....

He closes with a frontal blast at the media, many members of which will soon be exposed, he predicts, for having “lined up for these lies” spun by the White House.

The SCLM has some 'splainin' to do and it's about time they get called on it.

Just Drive On By

George Coward Bush drove past Cindy Sheehan and others standing by the roadside today as he made his way to a fancy BBQ.

When Bush's black sport utility vehicle carried him past the site to a Republican fund-raiser, the protest leader, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was one of the nearly 1,850 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, held up a sign that said: "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"

Other signs said: "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam," "Bring Them Home Now" and "Meet With Cindy."

The protest vigil began last Saturday and is being led by Sheehan, who has been demanding a meeting with Bush to discuss her opposition to the Iraq war.

Two rows of state troopers faced several dozen activists behind a cordon of yellow police tape as Bush's 15-vehicle motorcade cruised by without slowing.

About two hours later, the president passed by on the return trip and did not stop. Sheehan raised a white cross as the convoy passed.

I'm a mother like Cindy Sheehan, but I can only guess at the pain Cindy feels at the loss of her son. My daughter is still alive, but I clearly remember the anguish I felt when I wasn't certain that she was safe. Dawn was with friends who had a small private plane and when I heard that the plane had crashed and there were no survivors, I was suddenly so weak, I could hardly stand. My mind was in a fog and I couldn't think of what to do and when it finally occured to me to make a phone call, I was trembling so much I could hardly dial the number. I think I made several attempts before I managed to dial the number correctly. Finally when I was able to confirm that Dawn was unharmed, my mind finally cleared and I could think and react normally again.

I don't understand Cindy's suffering because I haven't experienced it. I can only imagine what it must be like for her but I don't think George Coward Bush has the capacity or the inclination to understand Cindy's grief.

I saw him at that press conference when he tried to screw his face up and look compassionate and caring and spoke those carefully rehearsed words:

"I grieve for every death," Bush said. "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."

If he truly cared, he wouldn't have pumped his fist gleefully before going on TV to announce that he was sending America's children to kill and die in Iraq. If I believed in an anti-Christ, I would think that George Coward Bush is he.

And so when Bush passed those grieving parents lining the roadway, he just drove on by. I bet that BBQ was some good eatin'.

Coward in Crawford

I'm so thrilled that Delilah Boyd at the Democrat Underground included Fishwars in her Blog Box. She gave the entry a brilliant headline:

Cowardus PigFarmum HideOuticus

She also provided a link to a web site where we can all urge Bush to meet with Cindy Sheehan.