WTF Is It Now?!?

Finally back at work after being out sick for three days, sleeping, mostly.


That thunderstorm we had yesterday afternoon was a doozy - a bolt of lightning struck the rock wall very close to the house, and it sounded like a machine-gun being fired. I even had my hands covering my ears. Found out later that somehow it blew out the hot-water heater. Like I wasn't cranky enough. The furnace guy showed up around 1:00, and he's still here.

Did I mention one of the dogs has grown a second evil head? She's developed a fatty tumor on her shoulder that oozes and stinks to high heaven. The vet says it can be removed with no problem, except for the fact that she's old and may not tolerate the anaesthesia. I offered to use tylenol pm and some fishing line, but the BF said forget it.

The Pledge of Allegiance controversy: when I first heard about this yesterday, in my stupor, I thought those jackasses on the 'supreme' court had finally lost their marbles. I said to myself, 'why don't they just substitute some damn nazi oath and be done with it, that's the way this country's going anyway'. Turned out to be the decision of some politically-correct "atheist lawyer"* in San Francisco. And while I'm close to converting to Druidism, I've got enough things to be pissed off at these days - whether or not "under God" is unconstitutional barely registers on the FU Meter. I'm a bit more concerned with Asscroft possibly keeping a list of my amazon.com purchases or monitoring my website for subversive activities. Hey John! I have calico cats! Bwwaaahahahahaha. So no, I can't get too worked up over this except to say it's more more example of how f*cked up everything's gotten. Like the Toxic Tinhorn blaming the wildfires out West on environmentalists, for petessakes. I could go on:
*Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd, D-W.Va



Daddy's Widdle Dumbass, Unscripted:

Napoleon Bonehead said he would use "diplomatic pressure" to get the Palestinians to reject terrorism, but added: "I'm never ruling out military. All options are available."

A senior Bush administration official said the United States would not "interfere" in Palestinian elections "if they're free and fair." (Here we go again...) But the official said "the consequences are clear" should the Palestinians rebuff the United States by rallying behind Arafat and his policies. - - From Yahoo News.


More Moments in Churchilliana

"If people are interested in peace, something else has got to happen. If their leadership is compromised by terror, we won't be on the path to peace. I've got confidence in the Palestinians, when they understand fully what we're saying, that they'll make right decisions as to how we get down the road for peace," - the Oaf of Office , Calgary, Canada, 6/26/02.

"Listen, I can assure you we won't be putting money into a society which is not transparent and corrupt. And I suspect other countries won't, either." - ditto.



Hardly-elected U.S. pres tries to 'shape up' other democracies

In Bush World, the one in which he is never wrong, he won the election in 2000. His first few months in office, he said so with eerie frequency: "Since I was elected," "That's why the people voted for me," "After I won the election," etc. I thought it was a Rove-ian ploy to gradually brainwash us into forgetting that Al Gore got 540,000 more votes than Bush.

But as often happens in such cases, Bush most likely convinced himself, too. That's why he didn't see how odd it looks for him to demand that the Palestinians get rid of Yasser Arafat. Arafat got 88 percent of the vote in an election in which 80 percent of the voters turned out. The election was monitored by international observers, among them Jimmy Carter, who found fewer irregularities than later turned up in Florida.

This is the second time Bush has displayed indifference to the minor matter of democracy. After the administration tried to abet the abortive coup against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a "high administration official" was quoted as saying: "(Chavez) was democratically elected. Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however." Chavez won his election by 60 percent. It's kind of hard to convince people we're working for democracy and freedom when we do things like this. - - Snipped from Molly Ivins' column.



"an abdication of responsibilty by a president eager to shift the blame"

Once again aides escorted President Junior to a White House podium amid excited speculation. Wearing his determined face, with only the faintest apprehension in his eyes, managing for once not to look like a fraternity boy who'd borrowed his older brother's clothing to appear before a traffic judge, Bush read his much-anticipated, twice-delayed address on the Middle East.

If ever a presidential speech was written by committee, this was it. Ever since the latest sickening wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli reprisals forced Bush to quit pretending that the crisis would magically pass if he ignored it or blamed his predecessor, we've been reading reports like this one in the Chicago Tribune: "Inside the White House...a struggle over emphasis and nuance has played out between pro-Israel hard-liners, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who would grant no concessions to the Palestinians until all terror attacks cease, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has aired the Arab argument that Palestinian desperation over the deferred dream of a state is fueling the violence."

As ever, the missing factor in the equation is President Junior, tacitly understood to have no informed opinions worth reporting, although news organizations expecting future White House access won't say so. - - Read more of Gene Lyons here.



'Arafat calls for democratic elections in the United States'

Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief xecutive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine.

"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn't deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East."

Hugo Chavez, elected president of Venezuela with 62% of the popular vote, concurred with Mr. Arafat. Chavez has long been a victim of Bush's anti-democratic attitude, as the Bush administration funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars through the "National Endowment for Democracy" to anti-Chavez forces and reportedly gave the go-ahead for an attempted military coup by those forces. "After it was over and I was back in power," said Chavez, "his administration actually told me 'legitimacy is not conferred by a majority vote.' Unless, of course, it's a majority of the Supreme Court. I respect the local traditions, however quaint, of the United States, but he hardly sets the best example for the Middle East, does he?" - - Rahul Mahajan at Counterpunch.





Kudos to Eric Alterman:

"George Bush had just given his Middle East speech, in which he spinelessly caved into every one of Ariel Sharon's demands, thereby ensuring nothing but more bloodshed and misery for both sides, and here's who the allegedly anti-Israel "Communist News Network" thought provided a balanced and expert stable of commentators:

REV. PAT ROBERTSON, FOUNDER, CHRISTIAN COALITION: "Judy, I think it was brilliant."
RICH LOWRY, THE NATIONAL REVIEW: "I think it was a marvelous speech."
CARL JEFFERS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: "I applaud the president for staying engaged and continuing so."
ROBERT NOVAK, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: "I don't think that the Israel government could be happier with that speech if it were written by Prime Minister Sharon's people.
RA'ANAN GISSIN, ADVISER TO ARIEL SHARON: (What do you expect he said?)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Well, I think president has once again shown incredible leadership."

Here's my question: Has Hell frozen over? Six speakers and Robert Novak as the voice of reason? Just how pathetic has CNN become? Isn't Pat Robertson the guy who said that the 9/11 attacks were God's revenge on America because of abortionists and the ACLU? What is an anti-American nutcase doing as an analyst of the Middle East? Who is Carl Jeffers and why is he considered a match for the editor of America's most right-wing opinion magazine. Where was the Palestinian spokesperson to balance Gissin? And where was the liberal lawmaker to balance the extremist DeLay?

I suppose it's too much to ask to imagine the CNN might have thought to consult, um, someone familiar with the history and politics of region who could speak to the likelihood of his plan achieving any success whatever. Nahhh."

Fair and balanced, if you're a neonazi. They spew propaganda and take away the burden of deciding for yourself! Hey, everything's perfect in Bushistan!



In Other News:

Israel Building Fence Around West Bank
Will become first gated community that accepts Jews.

Bush Gives CIA OK to Covertly Kill Hussein
Iraqi leader "must not know of our plans," he tells country.

Most Americans Enjoy Being Surveyed
85% prefer it to being poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

People Choose Aqua as New M&M Color
Supreme Court overrules vote, declares purple the winner.


And from News of the Weird:
According to Spanish biologist J.J. Negro (Estacion Biologica de Donana), reporting in the journal Nature in April, male Egyptian vultures compete for females on the basis of how brightly yellow the males' faces are, and that brightness varies directly with the amount of excrement they eat. Cartenoids in dung produce the yellow around the vultures' eyes, and only the strongest vultures can safely eat enough bacteria-laden feces to get a rich color. [Nature 416 (2002)] This may help explain the weird complexion of so many reporters in the WH press pool.

And?? You gotta problem with that?? South Korea's Supreme Court overturned theft convictions (31 incidents, about $2,400 worth of merchandise) agaiinst a woman on the ground that she was menstruating, which, according to one justice, made her like a "mentally deranged patient," "unable to control her impulses" [Korea Herald, 6-7-02].