A Sneaky Christian on the Phone

Last night the phone rang and a man asked to speak to the woman of the house.

"That would be me," I replied.

He said he was with the Dove Foundation and he wasn't trying to sell anything (this statement proved to be false), so I stayed on the line.

He then asked, "Do you believe that offensive material in TV, movies & the internet is on the rise?"

I answered, "No."

My reply threw him off-stride and he had to skip the rest of the questions on his list.

After he recovered he asked if I had any children or grandchildren under the age of 16.

Once again, I said, "No."

At that point he gave up questioning me, and started to make a statement. I cut him off after hearing, "Do you know that Hollywood controls ..." This is where I realized he had something to sell - something that sounded a lot like Christianity.

I googled "Dove Foundation" and found their online survey with their skewed results here.

Here's their main page where you can enter to win an Amy Grant CD.

My instincts are pretty good - I can spot Christians in a minute, even when they think they're being slick.

Here's the Dove Foundation's mission statement:

This survey helps Dove represent the desires of the public to Hollywood filmmakers. Many surveys in the past have been conducted by the entertainment industry itself, which produces skewed results. For example, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), an organization funded by the major film studios, has continuously maintained that 78% of the movie-going public is "satisfied" with the movie ratings system. The MPAA survey results are obviously designed to protect their position in the industry. The Dove survey, on the other hand, is the largest poll ever taken that measures the public's opinion about the state of entertainment content. As such, the results will be unquestionably accurate and without prejudice.

They're trying to claim that surveys taken by the movie industry are skewed! Give me a break. Why would I believe that the movie industry pays for biased polls. They're in business to make money - not garner converts.

The Dove Foundation's push poll is so obviously biased I saw through it in a minute even before I confirmed that Christians were behind it.

Wife Swap for Infidels

Don't forget to watch Wife Swap tonight. It'll feature the Infidel Guy's family and possibly some of our emblems.

Avast, there mateys!

This swashbuckler be named Peck, (AKA Dr. Joe Garner). His brother-in-law, Jerome, gave him a Pirate fish emblem at Thanksgiving. Arrr!

Cheap Oil for America's Poor

You might think that the U.S. government would find a way to assist the poor who need oil to heat their homes this winter, but instead that help is coming from the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

ABC News: Cheap Oil for America's Poor:

"Venezuela has agreed to sell heating oil at discount prices in low-income communities in Chicago, New York and Boston.

Venezuela's president has decided to expand his Oil-for-the-Poor program and sell cheap oil to the number one superpower of the world. The Houston-based petroleum company CITGO, wholly owned by Venezuela, will begin the program in Boston. Up to 12 million gallons of heating oil will be offered at a bargain price, representing $10 million in savings for locals, according to CITGO.

'With this initiative, CITGO is showing its commitment to the U.S. marketplace and to communities where we have a presence,' said CITGO president CEO Felix Rodriguez in a prepared statement. 'As good corporate citizens, we are making an effort to help those in need.'

Despite being the United States' fourth-largest oil supplier, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has had a contentious relationship with America.

Elected in 1998, Chavez was removed in a violent uprising in April 2002. He accused the United States of aiding the coup and wanting his death, a charge the U.S. denies.

A month later Chavez returned to power and subsequently won the referendum recall in 2004.

With oil profits padding the government's coffers (a barrel of oil currently costs $60 vs. $15 in 1998), Chavez upped his criticism of the liberal American economic model. He has called Bush a 'crazy man' and an 'assassin' and has threatened to stop exporting oil to gas-guzzling America saying he's against its imperialist ways.

Chavez thumbed his nose at the Bush administration's poor handling of aid to New Orleans residents, all the while offering to re-route oil tankers to Louisiana since many refineries along the Gulf Coast had been shutdown after back-to-back hurricanes.

More recently, Chavez joined an anti-Bush rally in Argentina during a Latin American summit.

As winter grips the United States, Chavez has pursued his pledge to help America's poor. He had suggested using the windfall from record oil prices during the United Nations plenary session in late September. Venezuela already doles out cheap oil to a dozen Caribbean countries, including Cuba.

Turns out he's going ahead with his plans. No specifics have been given but CITGO has brokered deals with state representatives and local non-profit organizations to target the neediest families and schools.

"My constituents are facing some of the highest energy bills in recent history, even as oil companies are reporting the largest profits in recent memory," said U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) in a prepared statement. Serrano said CITGO would provide 8 million gallons of home heating oil below cost the week after Thanksgiving to non-profit housing providers in the Bronx.

Meanwhile, U.S. oil companies haven't responded to lawmakers' request to share the wealth and donate some of their profits to the poor to cover higher heating bills.

Pat Robertson,who is as insane as Gee Dubya Bush, recommends that Hugo Chavez be assassinated. Apparently in Robertson's world, Jesus favors rich Americans.

What do Pastafarians do?

An anonymous poster asked:

Question (or thinly veiled suggestion) - what is the appropriate gesture(s) when showing obeisance to the FSM? If I encounter another vehicle bearing the FSM plaque, presumably a gesture of acknowledgement/devotion is called for.

Any suggestions?

Fritschie said...

Might I suggest holding out your hand with the fingers turned down and wiggling like hanging pasta?

This could become a bit of a secret handshake, with the returning member doing the same motion upside down.

The first part of this secret handshake reminds me of some of Bu$h's odd ways of waving his hand. He extends his arm and then holds it steady while shaking his hand around as if he's grappling with a doorknob that won't turn.

Are they giving us secret signals?

Diebold & GOP in California

California's duly elected Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, resigned under pressure and Schwarzenegger appointed a Republican, Bruce McPherson, to replace him. Shelley decertified Diebold electronic voting machines before the 2004 election and ostensibly he made some powerful enemies.

Not suprsingly, the Repugnican replacement seems less concerned about protecting our right to have our votes counted:

The Raw Story:

"On Monday, November 21st, California's Voting System Panel (VSP) was slated to hold public hearings on whether to recertify Diebold TSX touchscreen machines. The California Election Protection Network (CEPN) issued a press release inviting concerned citizens to speak at the 10 a.m. hearing and attend a rally at Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office to encourage state officials to send Diebold packing before Turkey Day.

But when CEPN spokesperson Sherry Healy called to verify the hearing date and time, she received startling news.

"I asked Bruce McDannold in the Secretary of State's office if the hearing is still on for Monday," she told Raw Story. "He said, 'You're half right. The VSP has been disbanded.' I asked why. He said, 'I can't speak for the Secretary of State."

According to Healy, McDannold stated that a stenographer and recording device would be on hand to record any public comments.

CEPN issued a blistering press release criticizing the Republican Secretary of State, for the last-minute change in procedures. The release questioned the sincerity of those in government to publicly discuss issues with their constituents. "Is this the new government trend for public hearings. just give the people a room and a tape recorder?" the release asked.

Activists also contend that McPherson's office failed to provide the 30-day notice required by law for a public hearing.

"We had to be full time detectives to find out when this hearing would be held," Healy stated, adding that CEPN discovered the hearing announcement posted on an obscure portion of the Secretary of State's website, not the usual location for public meeting notices.

Election reform experts who had filled out cards at prior meetings asking to be notified of future events received no notification, she added.

Healy expressed concern over a “secret” test done recently on Diebold TSX systems, without the public present. That test found only a 2% error rate, Healy said.

According to an analysis done in July of this year by Dr. David Jefferson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the University of California, however, the error rates were much higher.

Jefferson, who is also a member of California’s VSP, found that software crashes and printer jams totally ten times higher than permitted by federal standards.

"They’re trying to slam dunk this hearing, the certification. They’re just going to ram it through,” Healy fretted. “The prize is 2006. We don’t trust this manufacturer. They are the worst in class. They are the Enron of voting systems."

Schwarzenegger's attempt to pull-off a Texas-style redistricting scheme in California was clearly defeated in the special election earlier this month so the GOP cabal apparently wants to insure that they can win the 2006 election, regardless of the will of the people. Bastards!

Life on the Left Coast

We drove to Moss Landing tonight for the sunset and for fire roasted artichokes at the Sea Harvest Restaurant. While dining we watched flocks of pelicans over head and sea otters playing in the water. This is the life.

Freethinkers on Wife Swap (TV)

At last, the episode of Wife Swap that features a freethinking family in Georgia (yes, in GEORGIA) is scheduled to be aired November 28th on ABC. The family of freethinkers includes the Infidel Guy, Reginald Finley, whose wife, Amber, changes places with the wife of a Pentecostal pastor for two weeks. This episode was supposed to air last season, but was held over.

We'd be excited about seeing this program anyway, but we're doubly enthused because the Finley family owns some of our emblems and we signed a release to allow those emblems to be shown on the program (that doesn't mean they actually will appear but we'll be watching for them).

The press release is here (courtesy of Reginald Finely).

Arrogance in America

Last night I watched John McLaughlin interview the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in which the latter made the statement that the United States provides better care for their veterans than any other country in the world. No one ever disputes these claims that we are the bestest country in the whole wide world, but are they true? Are the Brits slackers when it comes to providing for their military veterans? Are their streets filled with homeless veterans who sleep under bridges because their psyches were damaged beyond repair by their war experiences? Does Australia? How about Sweden?

How do our international friends feel about us when "we" make those outlandish statements? (Disclaimer: I'm using the royal we - I don't say stupid stuff like that.)

I have some religious relatives who live in red states and who are avid supports of the Bush cabal. I don't have the patience to talk to them any more, but my sister does. Sis is more tolerant of religious people than I, but she can't stand Bush. Recently a Repug cousin told sis to remember that we live in the best country in the world and sis replied, "I don't know if that's true. I haven't traveled to all the other countries." Neither has the cousin.

That's one point for sis and a big zero for religious, faith-based, fear-based cousin.

Another Day, Another Investigation

No, it's not Fitzpatrick's request for another Grand Jury - apparently there's an investiagion into how intelligence was "enhanced" by Douglas Feith.

Pentagon Probes Office Headed by Feith:

"The Pentagon's inspector general said Friday it has begun an investigation into allegations that an office run by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's former policy chief, Douglas J. Feith, engaged in illegal or inappropriate intelligence activities before the Iraq war.

The probe, which two senators requested two months ago, comes at a contentious point in the political debate over President Bush's decision to invade Iraq and the intelligence upon which Bush based his decision.

It extends a controversy that has prominently featured Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a vocal critic of Bush's Iraq policy, who has accused Feith of engaging in inappropriate intelligence activities at the Pentagon and of deceiving Congress about intelligence on Iraq's prewar links to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Levin told reporters Friday that Feith provided the White House and its National Security Council with 'really erroneous and distorted intelligence' about Iraq and its purported links to terrorist groups."

If they get the goods on Feith will he take one for the team or will he turn on Rumsfeld? How high will it go?

I agree with John Dean, this is worse than Watergate and this cabal that has taken over the United States is the worst administration ever in power. Our enemies may shout "Death to America" but it's the Bushites who are actually destroying our image, our honor and our democracy.

Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design - Yahoo! News:

"The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that 'intelligent design' isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was 'wrong' and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

'Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be,' the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. 'If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.'"

Feingold to be Declared Quaint

The New York Times reports that Russ Feingold is prepared to filibuster the extension of The Fascist Patriot Act by reading the Bill of Rights.

Extension of Patriot Act Faces Threat of Filibuster - New York Times:

"'I've cleared my schedule right up to Thanksgiving,' Mr. Feingold said, adding that he was making plans to read aloud from the Bill of Rights as part of a filibuster if necessary."

Question: Didn't the Bu$hites declare The Bill of Rights a quaint document, along with the Geneva accords?

Volunteer for O'Reilly's Enemies List

Arianna Huffington is signing people to be on Bill O'Reilly's enemies list. You can add your name here.

Brodie's New Bed

Brodie trying out his new bed (he likes to sleep on his back). His winter coat is coming in so he looks bigger at this time of year.

Bob Woodward: From Hero to Zero

Bob Woodward, heroic reporter of the Watergate scandal, has become a zero in the CIA leak case. From exposing governmental misdeeds in the 70s, he's now implicated in covering up governmental criminality. Before we learned that he was involved in the Plame case, he had been appearing on TV pretending to be an impartial critic of Patrick Fitzgerald, even calling Fitzgerald a junkyard dog. Now we find out that Woodward, like Judy Miller, has been covering up for miscreants among the Bushites.

Raw Story says that Woodward's unnamed source for Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA operative was Steve Hadley, who was an aide to CondiLiar Rice at the time he revealed information about Plame Wilson to Bob Woodward.

Raw Story also has an interesting timeline of Hadley's complicity in intelligence manipulation before the invasion of Iraq:

On Jan. 28, 2003, Bush claimed that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address. It is the very claim that Hadley had seen from Pollari and the very claim that the CIA rejected.

Two days later, the Washington Post reports that Hadley is acting as liaison between the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee in helping to “sift through intelligence with the help of the CIA, and trying to determine what can be released without damaging the agency’s ability to gather similar information.”

In March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discredits these documents as forgeries. It is also in March that the US begins combat operations in Iraq.

According to sources, Woodward’s meeting with Hadley occurs in mid-June of 2003, around the same time that Libby begins to meet with New York Times’ Judith Miller, who has since left the paper.

In early July, Wilson writes his New York Times op-ed, entitled “What I did not find in Niger.” The White House responds on two fronts, according to an article published at the time in the Washington Post.

“Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words [on uranium] to have remained in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not believe Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.”

Several days later, columnist Robert Novak outs Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.

On July 22, Hadley takes full responsibility for the Niger claims in the President’s State of the Union, even though Tenet had already done so on July 11.

The same day, Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls Hadley to testify in closed door hearings.

O'Reilly's Enemies List

Joe McCarthy Bill O'Reilly, terrorist sympathizer and loofah fanatic, plans to publish an enemies list.

Last Tuesday he encouraged terrorists to strike San Francisco because the city voted to discourage military recruiting in schools. When people noticed that he was sympathetic to the terrorists, he struck back at his critics with a threat to publish a list of enemies on his web site.

"I'm glad the smear sites made a big deal out of it. Now we can all know who was with the anti-military internet crowd. We'll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on billoreilly.com. So check with us."

Shut up! No really, just shut up.

Run Away! Run Away!

Today's headlines:

Bush Will Be on Friendly Terrain in Japan

and

Schwarzenegger mobbed by crowds on his first day in China

If Asians like them so much, they can keep them both. I wouldn't miss either of them (well, okay, I'd miss counting Bush's involuntary jaw jerks).

Flying Spaghetti Monster Sighting at Second Life

Courtesy of Tim Holland in England

http://secondlife.com/

Bird Flu Alert

People figured out Bush's use of terror alerts to change the subject when things are going badly for him, so he needed to find a new way to scare us: ta da - the Bird Flu.

Rob created a Bird Flu alert chart so we keep up with the threats facing the Bushites.

The current threat level elevated.

Bill O'Reilly, Terrorist Sympathizer

skippy sez:

"here's an excellent idea...in light of bill o'reilly's latest comments on how al qaeda should blow up san francisco...why not google bomb him as a terrorist sympathizer?

after all, his words make him a terrorist sympathizer. anyone who encourages a terrorist act is a terrorist sympathizer. and we don't condone any terrorist sympathizer making statements like that on american airwaves. no terrorist sympathizer for us!

damn that terrorist sympathizer! "

The International Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

FSM and Darwin fish on Jeremy's car in Australia

Holy FSM relics are now proudly displayed on cars in the following countries:

Canada, Sweden,Denmark, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Japan, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Spain, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Pirate Fish Have Come Ashore

Hear ye! hear ye!

The Pirate Fish have landed.

Arrrgh mateys. Spread the word.

They be shipping out over at Ring of Fire.

Intelligent-design and a Raving Lunatic with a Microphone

We got a flood of orders yesterday which I think was a response to the school board in Kansas who voted to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution. One order arrived with a notation in the section for special instructions, that read, "Please hurry. I'm in Kansas."

But it wasn't all bad news, as Dan noted when he sent a link to an article on Yahoo News:

" Voters on Tuesday ousted a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an 'intelligent-design' alternative to teaching evolution, and elected a new slate of candidates who promised to remove the concept from science classes. "

Kudos to Dover, Pennsylvania who have now been denounced by raving lunatic, Pat Robertson as godless heathens who should have a natural disaster visited upon them and don't bother asking Pat's invisible friend to help if that disaster arrives like Pat thinks it should. (Okay, I paraphrased a little - but Robertson is a raving lunatic and I'm happy to report that Hugo Chavez is still alive.)

Ahnie Schwarzenegger wasted 50 million dollars on a special election so he could smack the "girly" men down and the voters of California kicked his butt. He hid out Wednesday and then emerged yesterday acting all humble and stuff. Nancy Pelosi (I love that woman) said he should consider a career change.

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening followed Ahnie around the state and got insulted by the big dumb oaf's staff who criticized Beatty's acting skills. These are the people who support Schwarzenegger so that explains a lot about their sense of judgment (or lack thereof). Their juvenile response to Beatty's serious challenge on the issues suggests to me that they thought Kindergarten Cop was a great movie. I forget, how many awards did it get? Oh, that's right - NONE. How many Oscars does Ahnie have? NONE.

He's been to the Academy Award show as a presenter but Warren Beatty has been there as a recipient of the honor.

It's late and I should get some zzz's so if you missed Nomad Coder's comments about California's election, go read them here.

Thanks for all the orders. You're keeping me too busy to blog much so I'm on a stream of consciousness jag now.

P.S. Some orders going out today will be delayed by a day. Veteran's Day is a postal holiday, but UPS is on the job.

Pants on Fire

Dada wonders how Bush can deny that we torture prisoners while Cheney is lobbying the Senate to allow the CIA to continue using torture.

I wonder how Senator Roberts can continue to claim to be working on phase 2 of a report on the Bushites' cooking of intelligence. His committee has been "working" on that report for two years. Give me a break!

Now there's Schwarzenegger:

"On one day last month Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed three bills and on the same day accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from groups who opposed those bills. CBS News correspondent Vince Gonzales reports that Sunday Schwarzenegger responded to CBS News' report from last week that there was an appearance the governor was accommodating the special interests he had once vowed to fight.

'It must be a coincidence,' Schwarzenegger says. 'But the fact of the matter is different.' "

It was probably like that coincidence when Frist sold all those shares in his family's company before the prices fell. First it was a blind trust and then it wasn't.

Apparently they don't even have to lie convincingly because there are plenty of people like "anonymous" who placed a comment on this blog indicating that he or she believed Senator Roberts who claimed his committee was actually working on phase two of that report. As indicated by "anonymous" the gulliblity of the public can't be underestimated.

If Honest Abe were around he'd be saying, "You can fool most of the people most of the time."

Harpers has a history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies. All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers. Well worth reading.

Impeach Cheney First

ImpeachPAC Electing a Congress to Impeach Bush and Cheney:

"By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003."

This Is Your Country Under the Control of Idiots

The New York Times is revealing more about how we were mislead into war:

Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions - New York Times:

"A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, 'was intentionally misleading the debriefers' in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that 'we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.'

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee."

I suspect this is the quality of intelligence we get from torturing people who will eventually tell you what you want to hear and yet we learn in an AP article that Darth Cheney is still at it.

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to participants in a closed-door session.

This is Your President on Drugs

I've been speculating for a while about Bush's twitching jaw and the probablity that he's on psych meds. I think his doc will have to increase his dosage soon because there are signs of life in the Democrat Party. Apparently they recently grew a backbone.

Today, Harry Reid, took control of the Senate to demand that the reluctant Repugs stop covering up for the Whitehouse and investigate how Big Dick lied us into this war.

If this newly acquired backbone holds out - Chimpy is going to need lots of meds.

If the Democrats can grow a backbone, maybe someone can remove Bush's head from his butt.

Flying Spaghetti Monster on Schedule

I'm pleased to announce that all back orders are now shipping and new orders will be processed and shipped immediately.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all you wonderful pastafarians who were eager to get your emblems, but patient with our backlog of orders. I'm proud to be a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

We're still expecting the Pirate fish any day, but they haven't arrived yet.

The Chimperor's New Drugs

A few of us have been theorizing that Gee Dubya is on drugs. My theory stems from watching his jaw jerk around when he speaks. I seemed to be the only one who noticed it, so I emailed my friend Dada and he replied that he hadn't noticed it before, but after I mentioned it, he can't stop seeing it.

A couple of weeks ago, Keith Olbermann and Dana Millbanks mentioned Bush's body language and said that he's "twitchy".

Now Nora Ephron is mentioning it on her blog at The Huffington Post:

"...I keep thinking about the day the plane flew into the airspace while the President rode his bicycle.

As you may recall, on May 11, 2005, a small plane made an unauthorized detour into the air space over the nation's Capitol, setting off a red alert. The Secret Service evacuated Dick Cheney and rushed Laura Bush to a bunker in the White House. The President was not there. He was off riding his bicycle in Beltsville, Maryland, and the Secret Service didn't notify him about the incident until it was over. At the time they claimed they didn't want to disturb his bicycle ride. It's my theory that this incident was one of the reasons for the rift between Bush and Cheney -- a rift, I'm proud to say, that I was one of the first to point out (on the Huffington Post), on the basis of no information whatsoever, and which now turns out (according to this week's Newsweek) to be absolutely true.

Emboldened by the success of this deduction, I would like to ask another question that I've been wondering about for some time: What's wrong with the president? Is he fighting depression? ....

But I've been wondering about what's going on with W ever since he emerged from his bizarre groundhog-like vacation and responded to Hurricane Katrina as if he were under water. He had no affect at all. He was almost robotic. His meager vocabulary seemed to have shrunk even further. He conveyed no feeling for the victims -- and this was early on, way before anyone realized how many poor people were involved. It was strange. What's so hard about cranking yourself up for hurricane victims, especially when you think they're mostly white people who have lost their second homes on the Gulf Coast?

At the time I wondered if Bush was on Paxil or Lexapro, drugs that several of my friends are taking and that seem to have turned them into strangely muted versions of themselves. I asked my friend Rita, who's a shrink, but Rita is very careful about committing on subjects of this sort. She did point out, though, that sometimes, when the President talks, his mouth has a strange sideways twitch, which is apparently common in people who are on antidepressants. Actually it might have been my husband who said this, I can't remember.

....

He has, of course, a lot of reasons to be depressed -- no point in enumerating them, you know what they are. But most of all, I think he's depressed because the job has turned out to be so much more onerous than he expected -- he said as much to a friend of mine in September. "You have no idea," he said, "how hard these five years have been." This is a fairly breathtaking remark given the number of people who, thanks to this president, are now dead as a result of his five years in the Oval Office, but never mind.

The point is that it seems possible to me that when George Bush gave up alcohol in 1986, he dealt with the depression that often accompanies sobriety by becoming an obsessive exerciser. And that's what he's essentially done ever since. He's never held anything that could be confused with a job. Owning a football team is not a job. Even being governor of Texas takes only a couple of months a year, it turns out. So he was free to exercise.

But at some point this year, something happened and the exercise regimen stopped working. Bush started becoming depressed. My theory is that a certain amount of panic ensued, and more exercise was prescribed: hence, the afternoon on the bicycle in Maryland, and the reluctance to disturb an already disturbed, irritable man. (Interestingly, the incident happened just after the President returned from a four-day trip to Europe, which had not only required him to work several hours each day but undoubtedly interrupted his exercise routine.) Then came the vacation in August, the odd, sequestered vacation, a perfect time for the President's doctor to try medication, or change medication, or adjust medication. Then Katrina and the emergence in the fall of an unenergetic, irritable, muted, unfocussed President, the man you see today.

Look it up: depression + symptoms. You'll read it for yourself: loss of energy, irritability, feeling "slowed down," inability to concentrate....