Who's your Daddy?

Your Daddy Is Patrick Stewart

What You Call Him: Dada Why You Love Him: He takes you to Disneyland

Who's Your Daddy?

Yes!

No, wait... I wanna date Mr. Stewart, not get him a Father's Day card!

Damn!

And he would not take me to Disney, but rather here.

You Are a Pegasus

You are a perfectionist, with an eye for beauty. You know how to live a good life - and you rarely deviate from your good taste. While you aren't outgoing, you have excellent social skills. People both admire you - and feel very comfortable around you.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Cool! I love the Pegasus! I wanted one when I was a kid. All my friends wanted Unicorns, but seriously? what the hell good are they? Can they get you any place fast? Don't think so.

You Are 76% Lady

Overall, you are a refined lady with excellent manners. But you also know when to relax and not get too serious about etiquette

Are You A Lady?

76%? Must be my potty-mouth.

Mom would not be impressed.

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Hm. Okay. Didn't expect that. Paris, Madrid or London, yes, but not Amsterdam.

Good fences make good neighbors.

Der Fueher obviously believes heartily in that old axiom as he is signing into law, today, a bill which authorizes the construction of a 700 mile long fence along the border between the United States and Mexico.

Its cost is not known, although a homeland security spending measure the president signed earlier this month makes a $1.2 billion down payment on the project. The money also can be used for access roads, vehicle barriers, lighting, high-tech equipment and other tools to secure the border.

Mexican officials have criticized the fence. Outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has spent much of his six years in office lobbying for a new guest worker program and a chance at citizenship for the millions of Mexicans working illegally in the U.S., calls the fence "shameful" and compares it to the Berlin Wall.

27 countries back Mexico's border fence protest

Mexico urges Canada to help oppose border fence

In 1883, celebrating America as the "Mother of Exiles" from whose beacon-hand glows worldwide welcome, Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" to aid the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund. That sonnet, now inscribed on the pedestal of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, has America proclaiming:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The entire poem by Emma Lazarus is:

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Just as Lazarus' poem gave new meaning to the statue, the statue emitted a new ideal for the United States. Liberty did not only mean freedom from the aristocracy of Britain that led the American colonists to the Revolutionary War. Liberty also meant freedom to come to the United States and create a new life without religious and ethnic persecution. Through Larazus' poem, the Statue of Liberty gained a new name: She would now become the Mother of Exiles, torch in hand to lead her new children to American success and happiness.

Israel has it's own fence project. The Israeli High Court approves continuation of security fence today.

Life in Gaza steadily worsens

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Madonna does Oprah and bitches about how evil the media is.

I have a problem with these extremely wealthy people (yeah, I'm looking at you Jolie) going into impoverished countries and tossing about money and "adopting" children. They bring the media down upon people who are not helped by their invasion and all of whom, celebrity looking for one more ounce of fame and the media more than willing to be their pimps, disappear into the mists once they've all gotten what they wanted. It's sick.

I don't doubt that Ms. Madonna feels for the child, all the children of Malawi she encountered. How about setting up schools and hospitals instead of removing the child from his home land? A few million dollars goes a long way in those countries. And, if the media is such a problem for you, then shut the fuck up while building your schools and hospitals.

And what of the poor, impoverished children of England, your adopted homeland, Ms. Madonna? How about the United States? Are they all well fed, educated, inoculated? Alls well and peachy keen in both nations, right? You and the others might want to consider working at home first.

Why any of these people, celebrities and others famous for being (in)famous, merit attention is beyond me. That one second of news time is given over to what they do seems to me a huge waste of time. There are more important things going on in the world. For example, California closing on Wisconsin cheese crown. Man, if I were from Wisconsin, I'd be seriously pissed and distressed over this. What's the first thing you think of when someone says "cheese"? Wisconsin, of course! This is going to have dire repercussions on the entire state. In a few years the entirity of the United States might have to bail out Wisconsin just like the US had to bail out New York City in the early 70's. People, for the economy's sake, for the sake of all Wisconsonians, eat more Wisconsin cheese!

~ ~ ~

Mr. Olbermann was brilliant the other night. If you missed it, Advertising Terrorism is available through Truthout.org.

While signing a Military Commissions Act so monstrous that it has been criticized by even the John Birch Society, you told us, Mr. Bush, "there is nothing we can do to bring back the men and women lost on September 11th, 2001. Yet we'll always honor their memory, and we will never forget the way they were taken from us."

Except, of course, for the ones who've been lying under a manhole cover for five years.

Journalism at it's best.

It's Friday

It's raining.

I seem to be in a permanent funk these days.

U.N. envoy: Gaza situation 'explosive'

Months of contacts to bring the current Hamas-led government and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party into a national unity government have broken down over Hamas' refusal to accept international demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and endorse past peace accords.

Why would they want to do anything anyone asks of them?

"The combination of near total closure of the Gaza Strip, non-payment of public sector salaries, absence of basic law and order, declining service delivery, continued military strikes by air and land, and the lack of any apparent political horizon is a truly explosive one _ as potentially dangerous for Israel as it is currently dangerous for Palestinians," de Soto said.

I wouldn't cooperate. What does it get the Gazan's, the Palestinians, to recognized Israel's right to exsist when it's all too clear that they do exsist and want you, citizens of the Gaza Ghetto, to no longer exsist? Renouce violence while being bombed? Hm. Endorse past peace accords which have done so very much to help you have a better, more peaceful, quality of life?

Seriously, what's the point? Where's the incentive for the people of Gaza to capitulate?

~ ~ ~

Apparently North Korea is gonna play nice and not set off any more bombs.

I can't help but wonder at what China said to North Korea to make them promise this.

North Korea 'promises not to conduct further tests':

While Beijing has historically been reluctant to pressurise Pyongyang, in sending a special envoy to meet with Mr Kim, the Chinese sent an unusually blunt warning.

~ ~ ~

Shia Fighters seize Iraqi city which the Brits returned to Iraq in August.

It's October 20 and the US has lost 74 troops (possibly more) in just 20 days.

Really wanna be depressed? Read Professor Cole's blog in which, amoungst other devastating data, he reports:

31 Percent Increase in Iraq Poverty

60 Percent Unemployment

30 Bodies Found in Baghdad



* 5.6 million Iraqis living below the poverty line. (At a population of 27 million, this is about 21% or 1/5 of the inhabitants!)

*40 percent of this number "is living in absolute and desperate deteriorated conditions." This is 2.2 million persons in the direst poverty, and 8.4 percent of the country's population-- nearly 1 in 10!

*"this level of poverty is a 35 percent increase over the level before 2003. . ."

*"Local officials and NGOs put the unemployment rate countrywide to be more than 60 percent." (The Brookings Institution recently put it at 30 percent and said that the rate has been declining. What world do they live in.)

*"the price of basic necessities in Iraq has skyrocketed over the past year."

* "A report by NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) suggests a 70 percent rate of inflation from July 2005 to July 2006."

*"When prices are increasing and people do not get more money, poverty is also increasing," said Cedric Turlan, information officer for the NCCI.


The End of Maliki?: Will a Coup Unravel Iraq?, by Robert Dreyfuss:

A coup d'état in Iraq would put a period - or rather an exclamation point - at the end of the Bush administration's bungled experiment with democracy there. And it would open an entirely new phase in that country's post-2003 national nightmare. Would it result in the creation of a Saddam-like strongman to rule Iraq with a heavy hand? Or would it force the warring parties (Sunni insurgents, Iranian-backed Shiite militias, and Kurdish warlords) to intensify the bloody civil war that is tearing Iraq apart? No one knows.

Heck of a job Bushie.

NATO's, in Afghanistan, doing well too.

~ ~ ~

Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever, by Matt Taibbi:

Step Two: Work as Little as Possible - And Screw Up Whatever You Do

It's Thursday evening, September 28th, and the Senate is putting the finishing touches on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, colloquially known as the "torture bill." It's a law even Stalin would admire, one that throws habeas corpus in the trash, legalizes a vast array of savage interrogation techniques and generally turns the president of the United States into a kind of turbocharged Yoruba witch doctor, with nearly unlimited snatching powers. The bill is a fall-from-Eden moment in American history, a potentially disastrous step toward authoritarianism - but what is most disturbing about it, beyond the fact that it's happening, is that the senators are hurrying to get it done.

and

In the Sixties and Seventies, Congress met an average of 162 days a year. In the Eighties and Nineties, the average went down to 139 days. This year, the second session of the 109th Congress will set the all-time record for fewest days worked by a US Congress: ninety-three. That means that House members will collect their $165,000 paychecks for only three months of actual work.

What this means is that the current Congress will not only beat but shatter the record for laziness set by the notorious "Do-Nothing" Congress of 1948, which met for a combined 252 days between the House and the Senate. This Congress - the Do-Even-Less Congress - met for 218 days, just over half a year, between the House and the Senate combined.

The whole article is just fantastic and worth reading. When you're finished, follow the link there, or here for Rolling Stone's list of the 10 worst Congressmen.

It gave me a lift to an otherwise dreary day.

Did you know Habeas Corpus died yesterday? Did you notice?

Probably not.

Do you care?

I'm curious what the difference is between Bush and his signing statements, the new act he's signed into law and the old lettres de cachet?

By the way... if it matters... this new law? It's unconstitutional.

Not that it will be challenged in the Courts. Oh, the ACLU will put up some token battle, but it won't last.

Because no one cares.

This country wasn't destroyed by some brilliant enemy who invaded, overwhelmed us and took over. It was destroyed by apathy and George W. Bush.

Congrats, folks, and all hail His Imperial Majesty, King George.

It's all in the numbers

No Art Appreciation Friday. I'm not interested this week. Maybe next week.

A number has been going through my head all week. One I can't wrap my mind around.

655,000

More or less.

The Idiot in DC, only because someone told him to, says the numbers are inaccurate, the methodology is flawed or some such shit.

Really? MIT and Johns Hopkins have copies of the actual death certificates for over 90 percent of those reported dead.

90% of 655,000 is 589,500 documents.

589,500 death certificates.

Inaccurate. Flawed methodology.

Bullshit.

If you can't wrap your mind around 655,000, try 4.


~ ~ ~


Olbermann. I don't need to say anything, do I?

Documents Reveal Scope of US Database on Antiwar Protests.


~ ~ ~


October Anniversaries:

Battle of Karbala, October 10, 680, in Iraq. Battle of Tours, October 10, 732, in Tours, France.

The Bugs Bunny Show aired for the first time on ABC on October 11. I've found myself wishing for Bugs to rule the US - hell, I'd settle for Marvin the Martian.

Man, I so want my own Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator. Guess you know who I'd aim it at.

October 12 is the birthday of Jonathan Trumbull, for whom my hometown was named.

On October 13, 1775 the Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy.

While Congress deliberated, it received word that two unarmed British supply ships from England were heading towards Quebec without escort. Plans were made to intercept the ships, but the armed vessels to be used were owned by individual colonies. Of greater significance, then, was an additional plan to equip two ships under the direct authority of Congress to capture British supply transports. The plan was not carried out until October 13, 1775, when George Washington announced that he had taken command of three armed schooners under Continental authority to intercept any British supply ships near Massachusetts. With the revelation that vessels were already sailing under Continental control, the decision to add two more was made easier. The resolution was adopted and October 13 would later become known as the United States Navy's official birthday.

The Miracle of the Sun took place today, 89 years ago.

It's also Sacha Baron Cohen's birthday.

And it's Friday the 13th.

Tomorrow is 940th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

October 15 is the 66th anniversary of the premiere of The Great Dictator, directed and starring Charlie Chaplin.

Hm. I guess it's turned into Art Appreciation Friday afterall.

Secrets. Shhh... don't tell anyone.

God and I have a love-hate relationship. Well, more to the point, I have a love-hate relationship with god. Ever just want to smack someone in the head and scream, what the fuck is your problem?... kinda sucks when that someone is... god. What makes it worse is when you actually have more faith in the Easter Bunny being real than god.

Yeah, I have issues. You must be new here if you've just figured that one out.

In any event, it's October 4. The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. This is the only Saint I have any affinity with - why that is, I don't know.

I suppose part of the reason is the prayer attributed to him which was actually written several centuries after his death:

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace,
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.


With the exception of the Pater Noster and Ave Maria, it's the only prayer I ever bothered to memorize.

As for the rest of the reason, it would be that I have an odd fondness for the truly bat-shit crazy, yet harmless, people of this world. And, really, do you get any crazier than hermits who give up everything they have to wander about their known world barefoot, begging for their food, preaching peace and redemption?

The stigmata he "received" has always fascinated me. First of all, he tended to lepers early in his religious life, so I think he might have picked up the disease from them, leading to his "stigmata". However, I also think the human mind is capable of causing something like that to happen in the human body; a faith so deep, an empathic ability so strong, could cause someone to bleed.

Faith of this sort, that which it is said can move mountains, I have a great deal of respect for. I don't understand it, but I undertand the reality of it for the person who has it.

That makes no sense, does it? Ah well. I know what I mean. Which probably means I'm also bat-shit crazy.

Dogmatists and/or religious people just piss me off. There is no room in those people for the faith of others. "My way or the highway" attitudes piss me off in general, but when wrapped in religion it really steams me. Belief in god, a creator, whatever, is a deeply personal, intimate, thing. Codifying and structuring those beliefs just makes no sense to me. As far as I'm concerned everyone's path to god is right - as long as they don't try to make others conform to what they deem to be "right". Afterall, how could we be right about what god or the creator wants? How could human beings even begin to guess at the thought process of a being so far beyond us we cannot even conceptualize it?


See also The Canticle of the Creatures

Don't you hate it when there are no answers?

Foley Scandal Could Cost GOP Control of Congress

# Truthdig says: As badly as this country needs a change in the control of Congress, it would be awful for this to be the impetus. Democrats deserve the opportunity to win in November based on the strength of their ideas and policies—not via the fallout of a tawdry GOP sex scandal. But that’s the hand we’ve all been dealt.

That's what I've been thinking. Not that the Democrats have done much to form a platform this year - seriously, what are they for? What are they against? Where is The Issue(s)? There isn't a great deal of noise from the Democrats - not nearly as much as one might expect.

So the Democrats may take the House and Senate because some perv couldn't keep his sick thoughts (and please, please, let's all hope that's all he did) to himself.

Sex trumps policy. Again.

I hope the Democrats step up to the plate and make good on the opportunity they've gained.


~ ~ ~


There are five little girls from Lancaster county, PA, who dead are dead today. Last week a man sexually assaulted some girls and murdered one in Colorado. Is this a pattern or is it too soon to tell? I've never been much of a feminist... but I'm wondering and I'm seeing the same questions sort of questions on many blogs. The deep-seated lack of respect for women in the far right of the radical Christian community is very disturbing. Are those messages starting to seep up through the collective psyche? I know many people look at pornography and x-rated games and say the same thing: disrespectful, down-right dangerous, to woman. Is it part of a pattern?

I don't know. I'm just wondering.

~ ~ ~

Go read Professor Cole today:

Informed Comment:

Lies and Cover-Ups are not "Being in Denial" Foleygate, Ricegate and Insurgencygate

The right wing of the Republican Party has a problem with the truth. The American press corps has an addiction to euphemisms.

I don't understand why US reporters and editors won't call a spade a spade.

I don't understand either, Professor.

Woodward has no cred with me after his previous asskissing books on Bush and Company.

Maybe she just forgot about the Clinton plans, the way she "forgot" about the Director of the CIA informing her that his hair was on fire and he was sure that the United States was about to be attacked by al-Qaeda.

The Professor is referring to Miz "I don't recall" Rice.

Didn't that signal the downfall of the Reagan administration?

When everyone lies or covers up the lies, what do you do? What is truth? Where is it? How do you discern fact from fiction?

~ ~ ~

Wandering around the web I've noticed bloggers, at Kos as well as other sites, talking about Rove's October Surprise being the invasion of Iran - nothing new there. But they've now got a date: October 21. Supposedly there are nuclear subs headed for the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. True? Not True?

I don't know.

~ ~ ~

NATO is taking over in Afghanistan. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Hopefully it means my sister's friend Rob will be home soon.