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Sunday, October 31, 2004 Here's a sunday funnie for you ~! enjoy -- and won't we ALL be glad when next Tuesday has come and gone? Altho i keep 'envisioning' seeing kerry sworn in, i also am resolved and resigned that it may just have to get even MORE 'worse' than bushie has already made it, 'it' being our country, before we wake up and take BACK our freedoms, our economy from the corpor-bastards, and clean up things, starting with the environment. After all, you gotta crack a lotta eggs to make an omelette, and we may not be there, YET.
from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1332876,00.html George, God here ... President Bush has words with the Almighty Terry Jones Friday October 22, 2004 "George?" "Yes?" "This is God here ..." "Hi, God. What can I do for you?" "I want you to stop this Iraq thing, George." "But you told me to do it, God!" "No I didn't, George ..." "But you did! You spoke to me through Karl Rove, Ashcroft, Rumsey and Dick and all those other really clever guys!" "How did you know it was me talking, George?" "Instinct, God. I just knew it!" "Do you really think I'd want you to unleash all this horror and bloodshed on another lot of human beings?" "But they're Muslims! They don't believe in You, God!" "But, George, they do believe in me. Jews, Christians and Moslems all worship the same Me! Didn't you do comparative theology at school, George?" "No, of course not! You think I'm some sort of peace-waving dope-headed liberal faggot-lover, God?" "No, of course not, George, but I expect you to know something about the people you're bombing." "Oh, come on! I know it's right to bomb those oily rag-heads until there's not one left to wipe a wrench on!" "How do you know that, George?" "Cause You tell me that's what I should do, God." "George, I do not tell you to do that!" "But I hear You, God! You speak to me! You tell me what to do! You tell me what is Right and what is Wrong! That's why I don't need to listen to any soft-baked, mealy-mouthed liberal Kerry-pickers!" "George, you're deluding yourself." "God! How can you say that? I got some of the most powerful people on this planet down on their knees every day in the White House just a-praying to You! Now are you gonna tell me You ain't listening? Because if You ain't listening, God, that's Your problem - not mine!" "George, of course I'm listening - it's you who is not listening to Me!" "And I'll tell you why! 'Cause You ain't addressing me right." "What d'you mean, you jumped-up little Ivy League draft-dodger?" "If you're so 'omniscient', God, you oughta know that you gotta go through Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Rumsey and Dick ... those fellas know what they're talking about! I can't listen to just any deity who can pick up the phone!" "But, I'm God, George!" "Does Karl say you are?" "But why do you believe Karl?" "Because my gut tells me he's right!" "Listen, you ignorant little pinch-eyed Billy Graham convert! Can't you get it into your head that I'm God and I'm telling you to stop all this 'pre-emptive strike' nonsense! Stop destroying Iraq! Stop supporting that monster Sharon! Stop picking a fight with the only other human beings on the planet that believes in Me! You're leading the world into unbelievable chaos and horror!" "That's enough, God! That's just the sort of defeatist crap that I won't allow in the White House! Get out of here!" "I cannot believe I'm hearing this, George." "Well you better start believing, God, because this is the new reality. Don'cha know that a recent Gallup poll shows that 42% of Americans identify themselves as 'born again'? That cuts across Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, white and black! This is a real political power base, God, and you'd better believe it!" "Look, all I'm asking is for you to show a little compassion to your fellow human beings!" "I'm not going to debate this with you, God! You're beginning to sound like you belong to the reality-based community!" "What the hell does that mean?" "Well by the 'reality-based community', we mean people who believe that solutions emerge from their judicious study of discernible reality." "Sounds fair enough..." "But, as one of my advisors told Ron Suskind of the Wall Street Journal: 'The reality-based community is not the way the world really works any more. We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'." "You mean...you don't give a damn, George?" "I mean You speak through me, God, not the other way round! Is that clear?" "Yes, Mr President." posted by ladywolfsong, 05:47 | link | comments (1) Saturday, October 30, 2004 A topic near and dear to my heart... and close to home -- renewable energy, since my electric bill is now almost 10% of my monthly income ~!! And i believe in 'renewable' energy (thanks to masters degree in environmental sciences) AND there's a pump jack less than a block away from my front door ( one of ONLY one, thank goodness, and i regularily harass the Texas Railroad Commission about the shody way in which it is maintained -- at least not in my back yard as it is the neighbors). And, too good not to pass on, in case there are still any undecided voters (small joke there) reading this blog -- at least you pass it along in case YOU have any fence-sittin' friends who can understand the following implications -- a two-fer for today, from yahoo group, living off the grid: Kerry has made several strong statements in favor posted by ladywolfsong, 13:41 | link | comments
Finally,someone can make some sense out of this whole mess!
This article is in the Topeka Capital Journal, 29 October 2004 You want truth? Here's some truth Ours.
There is no greater mistake a candidate can make than, in a moment of weakness, to speak the truth, particularly if it is a self-evident truth. The public will never forgive him for it. Remember when we captured Saddam Hussein and Howard Dean, running for president, said that it wouldn't make us safer? The press jumped all over him for it.
Well, Saddam's been in captivity for six months or so now. Feel safer yet?
In an effort to confound this trend, I am going to put forth my candidacy -- or rather, my candidacy as it would look if I were a candidate, which I'm not. I have only one plank in my platform: I will never lie to you. About anything. This is your chance to interrogate a candidate who is completely candid. Ask me your questions:
Q -- How do you feel about the war?
A -- A little sick to my stomach. Getting rid of Saddam, however admirable as a goal, isn't worth the price we've paid in blood, treasure and international good will.
Q -- If you were president, then, you'd pull out.
A -- No. Having blown that country apart, we can't just say "Adios Chumps" and go on our way. We broke it; we have a moral responsibility to fix it.
Q -- How would you do that?
A -- Beats me. I suppose I'd try a version of what Bush is doing, trying to prop up a reasonable facsimile of an Iraqi government to keep the place from imploding as we extricate ourselves. I'd forget about making it the Switzerland of the Middle East, however.
Q -- If you're going to do what Bush is doing, why shouldn't we vote for Bush?
A -- The dummy who gets you into a mess is seldom the best dummy to get you out of it.
Q -- On the domestic front, do you agree with the Catholic Church's position on gay marriage, that it is a crime against nature?
A -- No and I think an organization of celibates that has for decades protected and enabled child abusers has a hell of a nerve to talk about crimes against nature.
Q -- How do you answer the criticism that gay marriage violates the sanctity of marriage?
A -- By putting my tongue between my lips and blowing real hard. In any case, the sanctity of marriage is overrated. Traditionally it depends on the woman accepting a subservient role to a man who is very often not as smart as she is. What's sanctified about that?
Q -- How do you account for the voter turnout in our elections, among the lowest in the western world?
A -- The majority of Americans graduate from high school knowing little of history, nothing of political science and unable to find their home towns on a map of the United States. And you're asking why they don't vote? They have a hard time keeping up with reality shows on TV.
Q -- Why do you want to be President?
A -- I've always wanted to ride on Air Force One.
And that's the way it is. Really.
Donald Kaul recently retired as Washington columnist for the "Des Moines Register." He has covered the foolishness in our nation's capital for 29 years, winning a number of modestly coveted awards along the way. posted by ladywolfsong, 06:03 | link | comments (1) Friday, October 29, 2004 SAFER with Bubba in charge???? Someone needs to explain THAT one to me 'cuz i sure don't get it ~! Why doesn't anybody ever bring up the fact that 911 happened ON George W. Bush's "watch"? I wonder what makes him think that he can make us all feel safer with him as the President? We've SEEN what happened while he was President....one big mess after another! 911, a rush to war, practically ALONE... biggest deficit ever,flu vaccine crisis...the negative aspects that have happened "on his watch"...well it goes on and on and on. John F. Kerry has my vote and I'm also going door to door for him. We have GOT to get this madman OUT of our great White House! When Kerry gets in, he will have his hands full, but I think he'll do a much better job. I know one thing, he WON'T LIE to us and to our GREAT military. Bush HAS. Bush is a PHONY. War has cost 100,000 Iraqi lives: Lancet study
posted by ladywolfsong, 06:40 | link | comments (1) Thursday, October 28, 2004 When i was sent this site and read the first third of it, i figured it was a hoax -- some buncha dems got together to 'play like' bushie's relations were not supporting him. But as i read further, i decided maybe it's NOT a hoax after all. You decide -- "Bush relatives for Kerry" ~! read it all at: http://www.bushrelativesforkerry.com/pages/1/index.htm
My Christian faith leads me to a concern for the poor and the marginalized, yet Bush's actions in office have repeatedly cut funding for health care, aid to failing schools, jobs programs, after school programs, Head Start, and many more services that provide real help and hope to those living in poverty. Under the Bush administration, over a million additional people have dropped below the poverty line. 1.2 million more have gone into "deep poverty," which is one-half the $18,810 for a family of four that defines "poverty." My Christian faith leads me to a concern for the health and welfare of all of God's people, yet 45 million people in this country have no health insurance. The Bush administration, working hard to protect the interests of large, rich insurance companies, has done nothing to address the real health care crisis. My Christian faith tells me the peacemakers are the blessed ones, yet George Bush wants to resurrect the Crusades, one of the most shameful experiences in Christian history. I fail to understand how lying to the people of the United States about any of the many justifications they have used for going to war in Iraq can be considered in any way, shape, or form a remotely Christian activity. Yes, Jesus once said, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword." He was talking about liberating his OWN people from within, not invading an oil-rich country out of purely selfish motives, then claiming it was for the liberation of others. The only true liberation comes when the oppressed claim it for themselves. This is something George Bush and his Imperialist cabal will never understand. My Christian faith moves toward greater inclusiveness and acceptance, George Bush moves toward punishment, division, and exclusion. My Christian faith seeks to bring people into the circle of decision-making, George Bush seeks to keep them out. My Christian faith seeks to afford equal rights and responsibilities to all, George Bush seeks to reserve more rights for the privileged few. My Christian faith is not looking for a new Messiah named George Bush. I am, however, looking for a leader. I believe that leader's name is John Kerry. posted by ladywolfsong, 06:57 | link | comments Wednesday, October 27, 2004 KNOWLEDGE PROTECTS, IGNORANCE ENGANDERS... Jimmy Carter got rookey-do'ed outta a second term by republican 'tactics' in the middle east -- he should know whereof he speaks, below.
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/signs.htm posted by ladywolfsong, 04:38 | link | comments Tuesday, October 26, 2004
"Karl Rove led the nation to war to improve the political prospects of George W. Bush. I know how surreal that sounds. But I also know it is true." - James C Moore May 7 2003 LA Times
posted by ladywolfsong, 07:57 | link | comments (1) Monday, October 25, 2004 I couldn't have said it better... and I'm SOOOooooo thrilled that Andy Rooney had the cajones TO say it live and in living color last nite at the end of '60 minutes' ~! So I lifted it, in entirety - short, but every amerikan citizen needs to ponder our military's 'priorities' -- and DO something about it - write or call your duly elected reps ~! Tell your friends -- planes costing a gazillion dollars don't hurt and bleed when they lose a wing -- our men and women in uniform DO hurt and bleed when THEY get blown apart ~! If we're going to fund a 'standing army', we need to support THEM properly, not support Boeing and Halliburton ~!
   Rooney: Too Many Weapons? Oct. 24, 2004 The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by correspondent Andy Rooney. Our military budget now is $447 billion. A billion is 1,000 million. Sometimes it seems to this old $250-a-month sergeant as if we're buying too many weapons for wars we no longer fight. Maybe our purchasing agent in the Pentagon ought to be replaced.
Our military leaders work pretty much in secret. They say they don't want our enemies to know, but sometimes, I think they don't want us to know, either. Look at some of the weapons we have and then look at the wars we fight. We have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out civilization. No one should have any, but I'm enough of an American to be glad we do. We have a lot of unnecessary stuff, though. The Air Force flies 30 different kinds of airplanes. That's good for the airplane industry, not so good for the rest of us who have to pay for them. Twenty different planes wouldn't have been enough? The Stealth bomber costs $1 billion, $1 billion. The Pentagon ordered 21. How would you like to have what one Stealth Bomber costs to pay teachers in your local school? There is a multi-billion-dollar boneyard for not-very-old airplanes in Arizona. They never flew much, and they'll never fly again. You're looking at a $100 billion-dollar parking lot you paid for. The Pentagon doesn't scrimp on the Navy either. Over the years, we built 69 battleships, even though battleships never did much except get sunk. The last one cost $3 billion. The good news is the Navy no longer uses battleships. These are mothballed now, just rusting away. We have nuclear submarines for sneaking up on enemies under water. One nuclear submarine costs $1.6 billion. We have 50. DIVE. DIVE. They don't dive in sand. The Army has 8,000 Abrams tanks. How effective was one of these $3 million vehicles in Baghdad? We captured prisoners and couldn't question them because no one spoke their language. With what we paid for one tank, we could have taught several hundred people to speak Arabic. The most effective weapon we have in war is still that poor dogface crawling forward on his stomach with a rifle in his hand. The Pentagon might consider spending more money on our soldiers and on better intelligence, and less on billion-dollar weapons that are as out of date as the bow and arrow. Written By Andy Rooney © MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. posted by ladywolfsong, 05:26 | link | comments Sunday, October 24, 2004 Memberships being taken in the "Flat Earth Society"... Based on the premise, of course, that i can see the edge of it, therefore we need to band together and not fall off the edge (of sanity or reason)...
The World According to a Bush Voter A new survey reveals that Bush supporters choose to keep faith in their leader than face reality. The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters – and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion would be critical of his policies or that the president could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters. In other words, Bush supporters choose to keep faith in their leader than face the truth either about their president or the world as it is. This election is not about John Kerry
George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.
Source: The American Conservative
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html posted by ladywolfsong, 07:03 | link | comments Saturday, October 23, 2004 Weekends are for reading, right? RIGHT. So here's tidbits for your readin' enjoyment.
Who reads what in the good old USA
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. 2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country. 3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country. 4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts. 5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it. 6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much. 7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train. 8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated. 9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. 10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores. Then, there's this one. Order it now, have it for next weekend and forget about Sat errands/house cleaning ~!
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home. The documentary places the Bush administration’s false justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neoconservatives to dramatically increase military spending in the wake of the cold war, and to expand American power globally by means of military force. At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intelligence, political imagery, and the fears of the American people after 9/11. posted by ladywolfsong, 04:31 | link | comments Friday, October 22, 2004 A riddle for you... in lieu of Friday Phunnies: Q: What's the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War Republican "Principles," Fox "News," the Sign of Satan, and other Myths posted by ladywolfsong, 06:00 | link | comments Thursday, October 21, 2004 HOMELAND SECURITY???? In whose 'homeland' pray tell?? Bush Administration Leaves Chemical and Nuclear Plants, HazMat, Ports and Water Systems Vulnerable to Terrorists
* Chemical plants
A strike at one or more of the 15,000 chemical plants across the United States could cause thousands, even millions, of injuries and deaths. But the Bush administration and the chemical industry have blocked legislation that would require chemical plants to shift to safer chemicals and technologies, and blocked Environmental Protection Agency efforts to compel security improvements via the Clean Air Act. * Nuclear plants Twenty-seven state attorneys generals warned Congress in October 2002 that the consequences of a catastrophic attack against one of the country's 103 nuclear power plants "are simply incalculable." The plants were not designed to withstand the impact of aircraft crashes or explosive forces, and the government does not require nuclear plants to be secure from an aircraft attack. Radioactive waste is stored in standing pools or dry casks, making it vulnerable, and the plants have grossly inadequate security. But the Bush administration and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have resisted congressional efforts for additional security regulation. In fact, the NRC proposed weakening fire safety regulations, which would make it harder for a reactor to be safely shut down in the event of a terrorist attack. * Hazardous materials transport The trains and trucks that carry tens of millions of tons of toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials annually on our highways make tempting terrorist targets. More than half of the nation's 60,000 rail tank cars carrying hazardous materials are too old to meet current industry standards and thus are more likely than newer cars to break open after derailing. A weapon as simple as the legal, widely available 50-caliber rifle has the potential to inflict serious damage on a train car or truck carrying lethal materials, by penetrating tanks and causing an explosion or derailment. Despite the risk, though, there are insufficient checks on where trucks carrying hazardous materials may drive; insufficient oversight and tracking of the types, amounts and locations of trucks moving these lethal loads; and insufficient controls on the issuance of commercial licenses for drivers of trucks carrying hazardous materials. Legislation to assess rail security has been blocked by members of the president's party, and other safety proposals have been dropped because of industry opposition. The terrorist threat is particularly acute in Washington, D.C., where 8,500 rail cars carrying hazardous materials travel through the city each year. Ninety-ton rail cars that regularly pass within four blocks of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., contain enough chlorine to potentially injure or kill 100,000 people within 30 minutes and could endanger 2.4 million people
* Port security Every year, 8,100 foreign cargo ships make 50,000 visits to the United States. International sea transport is an attractive terrorist target because there are millions of shipping containers, hundreds of ports and dozens of methods to damage infrastructure, disrupt the world economy, undermine our military readiness and harm Americans. Just 4 to 6 percent of shipping containers are inspected today. Inspectors are not adequately trained. And innovative pilot security programs have not been implemented. At least one important security initiative has been adopted since 9/11, the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002, but new security measures and proposed funding put forward by the Bush administration fall far short of what is needed. * Drinking water systems Few acts of sabotage against the public could be more insidious than delivering poison into a family's home through tap water. The water distribution network—the pumping stations, storage tanks and pipes that might cover thousands of miles within a metropolitan area—provides countless opportunities to introduce biological, chemical or radiological contaminants. But there is no funding mechanism for the federal government to provide direct grants to cities to upgrade water security, and the private water utility industry's campaign to take over public water systems is getting a push from the Bush administration. This could make securing our water supply even more difficult because private water companies, like chemical companies, nuclear power companies and other industries, will resist strong security standards mandated by the government. Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/homelandsec/ posted by ladywolfsong, 06:17 | link | comments Wednesday, October 20, 2004 Anyone besides me feeling a draft??? 'parrently i'm not alone, here....Eating your "seed corn"
There were two reasons some of us never believed Mr. Bush's budget promises. First, his claims that his tax cuts were affordable rested on patently unrealistic budget projections. Second, his broader policy goals, including the partial privatization of Social Security - which is clearly on his agenda for a second term - would involve large costs that were not included even in those unrealistic projections. This led to the justified suspicion that his election-year promises notwithstanding, Mr. Bush would preside over a return to budget deficits. It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. Mr. Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe stress our Army is already under. And the experience in Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy doctrine - the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war - would require much larger military forces than we now have. This leads to the justified suspicion that after the election, Mr. Bush will seek a large expansion in our military, quite possibly through a return of the draft. Mr. Bush's assurances that this won't happen are based on a denial of reality. Last week, the Republican National Committee sent an angry, threatening letter to Rock the Vote, an organization that has been using the draft issue to mobilize young voters. "This urban myth regarding a draft has been thoroughly debunked," the letter declared, and quoted Mr. Bush: "We don't need the draft. Look, the all-volunteer Army is working." In fact, the all-volunteer Army is under severe stress. A study commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld arrived at the same conclusion as every independent study: the U.S. has "inadequate total numbers" of troops to sustain operations at the current pace. In Iraq, the lack of sufficient soldiers to protect supply convoys, let alone pacify the country, is the root cause of incidents like the case of the reservists who refused to go on what they described as a "suicide mission." Commanders in Iraq have asked for more troops (ignore the administration's denials) - but there are no more troops to send. The manpower shortage is so severe that training units like the famous Black Horse Regiment, which specializes in teaching other units the ways of battle, are being sent into combat. As the military expert Phillip Carter says, "This is like eating your seed corn." read the rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19krugman.html?ex=1255924800&en=0f96c400a1705f81&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland Then there's this: Mr. bush and his cabal are VERY afraid of young Americans knowing about the draft that IS planned for them. A veteran of bush junior's current Iraq war, Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder of Operation Truth, created a very powerful website that EXPOSES the FACT that bush canNOT continue his insurgency there without a draft. Operation Truth can be found at http://optruth.org/main.cfm. Amy Goodman's powerful October 18th interview with Mr. Reickhoff can be seen at: Monday, October 18th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1438232 posted by ladywolfsong, 06:06 | link | comments Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Long, but too good not to share. While i'm personally OPPOSED to abortion, i also managed to never get myself into a position where i had to use the procedure (just plain damned GOOD luck, prolly) -- altho i did have enough 'late' periods to worry about it, decades ago -- still, i defend the option for ALL other women TO opt for abortion if THEY decide it's a desirable option and are willing to live with the consequences. apparently, not many republican men share my 'liberal' ie sensible and fair, viewpoint:
Oprah SLAPS BUSH
As Oprah Slaps Bush With 30 states poised to smack down women's rights again, the one true savior emerges... By Mark Morford SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, October 13, 2004 So there she was, the nation's most powerful and popular public female, kicking butt on a recent installment of her insanely beloved TV show with the help of celeb guests (Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, P. Diddy, Christina Aguilera) and galvanizing stunned women across the nation to participate in this election, or else. There was Oprah, doing what she does so freakishly well, cheerleading and extolling and impressing upon, getting women up and getting them angry and demanding that they exercise their hard-won right to vote and demanding that they quit dissing their feminist ancestors, the ones who worked so damn hard for suffrage and for freedom of choice and for the right to tell powerful sexist Republican men where they can shove their repressive sexist antichoice bigotry. This was her fabulous, much-needed message: Take your rights for granted at your peril, ladies. Move, or else. Choose how you want the laws to treat and respect you and your body -- or someone else, someone who hasn't touched a vagina for 30 years and who thinks sex is only tolerable in the dark, fully clothed and with a respectable prostitute, will choose for you. Sound like a cliché? Same ol' quasi-feminist rally message? Not exactly. Not this time. Just imagine this: Imagine Bush filches (ie 'pinches' -- that would be like 'STOLE') another election in November. Nations mourn, black clouds gather, children cry, colons spasm, the remaining shreds of the American experiment wither and die. And within a very short time, as many as 30 U.S. states have recriminalized abortion and made repressing women and hating sex fun again, as young American females everywhere who thought their right to choose was pretty much incontrovertible and indisputable and unfailing and who therefore didn't bother to vote in '00 or '04 suddenly go, oh holy freaking hell. Hello, 1950s. Hello, coat-hanger surgery. Hello, millions of despondent daughters of uptight parents. Hello, dead or mutilated teenage girls who suffer botched procedures. Hello, a fresh national nightmare, revisited, regurgitated, reborn. And hello again to smug right-wing males who've wanted to put women back in their place for the past 50 years. Check that: 200 years. Check that: forever. Just a silly nightmare? Utterly impossible? A ridiculous liberal daydream? Not even close, sweetheart. It's all about the Supreme Court, of course. Fact is, our next president will almost surely get to appoint a number of new high-court justices to replace those who will likely retire after enduring Bush's toxic first term. They hung in there, these few -- especially stalwarts Sandra Day O'Connor and moderate, pro-choice John Paul Stevens -- hoping to disallow the nation's highest judiciary from becoming overly stacked with homophobic self-righteous right-wing neocon wingnuts (hi, Justice Scalia!) who would have us revert -- morally, sexually, spiritually, misogynistically -- to 1953. Check that: 1853. Check that: 1353. With the exception of nearly useless neoconservative sycophant Clarence Thomas, not a single justice now serving on the court is under 65. Many insiders say Stevens, O'Connor and bitter old man William Rehnquist (almost 80) are all likely to retire before 2008. BushCo's chosen replacements could easily tip the scales of the court the other direction, from its very precarious 5-4 progressive tilt to a very sneering 6-3 conservative one, a court that would then very easily overturn parts or even all of Roe v. Wade. Talk about a malicious legacy. It gets worse. It gets nastier, more widespread. Because should Shrub swipe another term, he will also be on his way to naming more federal trial and appeals judges -- hundreds, by most counts -- than either Clinton or Reagan, the last two-term presidents. Bush could, in short and for all intents and purposes, stack the nation's courts with enough neoconservative, antichoice, antiwomen crusaders to make Strom Thurmond giggle in his grave. Which brings us straight back to Oprah. Say what you will about the often weirdly effusive and overtly gushy and often slightly smarmy woman who just gave away 276 Pontiacs to her entire studio audience (hard to tell if that was an act of astounding generosity and beneficence, or some sort of weird punishment -- I mean, they were Pontiacs), but the woman can electrify and inspire and educate her millions of devoted viewers like nobody's business. And if there's one famously disenfranchised and alienated and apathetic voting bloc that needs to get off its collective yoga butt and stand up and make itself known this election lest it lose an even larger chunk of its basic human rights than it even realizes, it's youngish women. This is, after all, what so many women don't seem to know. That the Bush administration has already, in just a few short years, managed to roll back a truly astounding number of their basic rights, making it more difficult, for example, for doctors to perform abortions, or making it illegal for schools to discuss contraception or for hospitals to discuss pregnancy-termination options. From demeaning and ineffectual abstinence-only programs to biased counseling to cutting all funding for international women's health organizations that provide care to poor women in third-world nations (hell, Bush hacked that one away in his first month in office), Dubya has done more than any president in the last 100 years to smack women upside their sexually empowered heads. Oh and by the way, that suggestion currently being floated by some in Congress that the Iraq war has become so nasty and desperate that we might very well need to reinstate the military draft? That draft includes young women. And oh yes, Bush has already upheld the ban on abortions for servicewomen stationed overseas, even if they were raped, even if they pay for it themselves. Feeling patriotic yet? This has been the GOP's message to women since, well, forever: Be like Laura Bush -- submissive, matronly, heavily shellacked and ever flashing a disquieting mannequin grin, off in the corner reading stories to the kids and cutting lots of pretty ceremonial ribbons and keeping quiet about the Important Stuff and never having sex and always be standing just out of the spotlight, secondary and inferior and in the background. You know, right where you belong. Truly and sadly, few indeed are the powerful and articulate public female voices in our major media to counter this ideological poison. Who, Barbara Walters? Not exactly hotly connected to youth and issues of the day. Katie Couric? About as female empowering as a terrier. Martha Stewart? Busy designing barbell cozies for the prison gym. The wholly queasy pseudo-feminists on the wholly awful "The View"? Please. And while plethoric are the powerful women working behind the media scenes, execs and pundits and writers, senators and world leaders and even forthright, independent wives, and while there are plenty of strong-willed, outspoken female celebs making their voices known, in terms of visibility and raw power and sheer reach, nobody can touch Oprah. Which is exactly why her message was so wonderful. Here's the bottom line: 50 million eligible women didn't vote in 2000, and 22 million of them were single and nearly every one of them probably thought their vote doesn't matter and it isn't really worth it and who
cares anyway because no matter who wins, everything's still pretty much run by rich powerful men anyway. Which is, you know, sort of true. But not quite. Because as Oprah knows, there are powerful men who get it and who love women and who understand their issues and who have cool articulate daughters and opinionated self-defined multilingual firebrand wives (Hi, Teresa), and there are aww-shucks antichoice Texans with lifeless token wives who think your body is government property and you should just pipe down and keep your damn legs closed and go pray to an angry Republican God to forgive your plentiful vagina-induced sins. Hey, it's your choice. But not for long. /Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters. / / / /URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2004/10/13/ notes101304.DTL ©2004 SF Gate / posted by ladywolfsong, 09:53 | link | comments (1) Monday, October 18, 2004 Bushie's "instincts" -- not good 'nuf then, certainly NOT good 'nuf NOW ~! Messianic zeal and conviction are NO substitute for common sense, intelligence, understanding and "facts" ~! Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns" - concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?"' Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!"' A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners. Already Bush was saying, Have faith in me and my decisions, and you'll be rewarded. All through the White House, people were channeling the boss. He didn't second-guess himself; why should they? For the president, as Biden said, to be acutely aware of his weaknesses - and to have to worry about revealing uncertainty or need or confusion, even to senior officials - must have presented an untenable bind. By summer's end that first year, Vice President Dick Cheney had stopped talking in meetings he attended with Bush. They would talk privately, or at their weekly lunch. The president was spending a lot of time outside the White House, often at the ranch, in the presence of only the most trustworthy confidants. The circle around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era, and "it's both exclusive and exclusionary," Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. "It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered." Read the rest at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101704A.shtml posted by ladywolfsong, 07:27 | link | comments Sunday, October 17, 2004 Bushie is "good" for the environment like gasoline is "good" liquid for putting out a fire...
Four More Years for the Earth During the second debate, President Bush tried to defend his environmental record. He said, "I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land. The quality of the air is cleaner since I've been the president." Nothing could be further from the truth. By every measure the Bush record on the environment is atrocious and terrifying. The Natural Resources Defense Council has compiled a list of more than 300 rollbacks, rule changes and policy initiatives that Bush has used to hand out precious natural resources and subsidies to his corporate cronies at great cost to the rest of us. As bad as it has been, we now have to think seriously about what Bush could accomplish with another four years - and what it would cost the Earth. When making predictions, it is always helpful to have a sense of the past so that trends can be discerned. The first thing to note is that the environment is still a relatively new concern in society and the relationship of environmental protection to the economy is not clear in most people's minds. So here is what we can expect from another four years of Bush environmental policies:
Most important will be the ever increasing move of foxes into the henhouse. Former mining, timber and oil executives already occupy the top positions at the Forest Service, Department of Interior and EPA. Four more years will give them time to sweep out environmentally concerned professionals from thousands of positions. As a public lands advocate, one thing I noticed during the Clinton administration was the steady increase of the "-ologists" - the biologists, geologists, ecologists and other scientists who began to take charge at every level of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Many of these scientists will not last through another four years of Bush. They will be replaced by resource industry minions. Next will be the resulting rule changes and policy rollbacks at the administrative level along with selective enforcement, no enforcement and defunding of programs. An agency like the Forest Service can be turned into a complete servant of the timber industry in this way. Al Gore recently called it "institutionalized corruption." The role of science will continue to be diminished at every level. This administration has already stacked scientific advisory panels with industry hacks. It has buried the results of studies it did not like and it has made the EPA remove references to global warming in reports. In the future, if it bothers to convene scientific studies at all, they will be far from objective. We can expect to see more sweetheart lawsuits from industry aimed at lifting environmental protections. The timber industry has sued the federal government on a variety of issues including roadless area protections, Endangered Species designations for salmon and wildlife survey requirements. The government has refused to defend itself. Only timely interventions by environmental law groups like Earthjustice have been able to stave off some of the damage. As the rule changes and policy rollbacks continue, won't environmentalists be able to bring their own lawsuits? Yes, in some cases, as time and resources allow, environmentalists will be able to challenge Bush rule changes as going against the intent of the environmental laws that the rules interpret. But as Bush continues to stack the judiciary with pro-corporate judges, environmental litigation will be less and less effective. If the November elections also bring in a sweep of new Republican, anti-environmental legislators, the damage Bush can do in a second term will not be limited to rule changes and "institutionalized corruption." He will finally have a chance to destroy the bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act that have been untouchable until now. And when all else fails, there is always delay. Delay is a tactic that is especially valuable at election time and Bush is using it today on some hot button environmental issues. Bush originally targeted the popular roadless rule for destruction by September, but after a huge outcry, delayed the final decision till November. Hunters and fishermen, the "hook and bullet crowd," (seen as a key Bush constituency) complained about the impact to wildlife of gas drilling along the Rocky Mountain Front. Bush responded by delaying the decision for several years, well into his possible second term. The consequences of the total meltdown of environmental protections in this country will be devastating. Already, after only four years studies show that our air and water are dirtier. Childhood asthma is on the rise. Toxic waste sites are festering as the Superfund to clean them has been wiped out. Wild places are being drilled, cut and mined. Wildlife is disappearing every day. posted by ladywolfsong, 02:57 | link | comments Saturday, October 16, 2004 OF COURSE, politicians LIE ~!!!! IF they told the god's honest truth, they'd either a) never be elected at best, or b) drawn and quartered on the Court House square, at worst ~! Politics in amerika has come down to which liar you can most easily stomach ~! I sent the info below to a person who dislikes Kerry because he turned against the Viet Nam 'war' (i think they called it a 'police action') and he "lies" -- weellll, so what else is new? She was then sent places BELOW this post to go do her own factoid check-ups. Two highly reliable and strongly recommended sites if you care anything at all about your future income and/or the future of this country. BUSH MISLEADS ON TAX CUTS At Thursday's debate President Bush said most of his tax cuts "went to low- and middle-income Americans."[1] That statement is flatly false.An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that, in 2004, the top 20 percent of earners received 69.8% of the tax cuts enacted by President Bush.[2] While the middle 20 percent of earners received an average tax cut of $647, the top 20 percent received an average tax cut of $5,055.[3] As a result, those in the middle class are paying a greater share of the federal taxes today than they were four years ago.[4] Sources: 1. "Transcript of Debate Between Bush and Kerry, With Domestic Policy the Topic," New York Times, 10/13/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1342965&l=62975. 2. "Tax Returns: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration Tax Cuts," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 04/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1342965&l=62976. 3. Ibid, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1342965&l=62976. 4. "Tax Cuts Go Mostly to the Rich," OMB Watch, 2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1342965&l=62977. Visit www.Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion You might want to consider the facts that do not come via either political party. The following facts come from www.factcheck.org "Bush could hardly have been farther off base when he said most of his tax cuts "went to low- and middle-income Americans." That's just not true. In fact, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center recently calculated that most of the tax cuts -- 53% to be exact -- went to the highest -earning 10% of US individuals and families.Those most affluent Americans got an average tax cut of $7,661. And as for the "low- and middle-income Americans" Bush mentioned -- the bottom 60% of individuals and families got only 13.7% of the tax cuts, according to the Tax Policy Center, a far cry from "most" of the cuts as claimed by Bush. The President came closer to the mark, but still got it wrong, when he said in the same breath that the top 20% of earners pay "about 80% of the taxes in America today." That's incorrect. In fact, as we reported only that morning, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the top 20% now pay 63.5% of the total federal tax burden, which includes income taxes, payroll taxes and other federal levies. It's true that the top 20% pays nearly 81% of all federal income taxes, but the president spoke more expansively of "taxes in America," not just income taxes." source: http://www.factcheck.org/article281.html ... and, another excellent source on $$$ is: http://www.cbpp.org/, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ALSO non-partisan. posted by ladywolfsong, 08:28 | link | comments Friday, October 15, 2004 Look out Iran, HERE WE COME.... ~! Since anything can be typed up on a keyboard and then aired over the internet, and often NOT verified, you may want to take the following with a grain of salt -- but since i don't get paid to 'report', no one can fire me for rumor-mongering -- and i do have enough of a guilty conscience (in re: spreading rumors) that i almost didn't post this one -- but IF there's merit to it... IF this is our 'october surprize', it's worth the risk. With that disclaimer...
posted by ladywolfsong, 07:50 | link | comments Thursday, October 14, 2004 Jeeeeeeze but motime was acting wonky today ~! tried to log on this a.m. and couldn't even get main site to come up. Then this afternoon, it loaded very slowly ~! Whatzup?
MY gut instinct tells me bushie is a dolt, a liar and just plain ignorant ~! and this is NOT based on his being dyslexic. my daughter and i both are dyxlexic and i speak that lingo very well, interpret it even better.
bushie is just plain arrogant and stupid ~! i wouldn't buy a used car from the man or let him sell me a vacuum cleaner or insurance ~!
i sure don't buy what he says about running the country. such are MY gut instincts. for a longer review of same, read on, from: http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/bush-gut.htm Sometime during the 2000 campaign, I heard an ordinary citizen say, “I trust George Bush – he has good instincts.” It’s a comment heard frequently in this campaign as well. Anyone with a modicum of critical sense is then compelled to ask: “How do we know that he has ‘good instincts’?” “I dunno, I just feel that he does.” (I.e., “instinct”). “But why should we accept your ‘feeling’?” Well, you can see where this is going: nowhere. Somewhere along the line, there must be some “reality principle” – a grounding in confirmable facts, otherwise the mind is idling – like an engine disconnected from the drive train. And yet, as Jonathan Alter reports, Malcolm Gladwell writes in defense of snap judgments: “Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.” Really? And how does Gladwell come to this conclusion? Snap judgment? Not likely. Writes Alter: “Gladwell explains how the instant intuition of art experts that a Greek statue was a fake proved superior to painstaking chemical analysis.” So how was that question eventually settled? You can be sure that it required more than the experts’ “instant intuition.” “Intuition,” “hunches,” “gut feeling” – none of these have any place in science or in law, right? Wrong! They are all essential, as the history of both science and law have amply demonstrated. For while scientific laws and theories do not consist of "hunches," creative imagination ("hunches") can play an important role in scientific investigation. Legend has it that Archimedes came upon the concept of specific gravity while taking a bath. (Did he really? Who knows? Who cares? The story is illustrative, not scientific). James Watson tells us that the idea of the double helix came to him as he recalled his boyhood exploration of the spiral staircase at a lighthouse. And Einstein thought of relativity as he was riding a Zurich trolley and contemplated the "relative motion" of a passenger walking in the trolley . But here’s the crux – and remember this, if you forget all else in this essay: to a subjective dogmatist like Bush, inquiry ends with the hunch. To the scientist, inquiry begins with the hunch. The same rule applies in courts of law. The prosecutor may have a “gut feeling” that the defendant is guilty, but that won’t suffice either in his opening statement or his closing argument. He must provide evidence as he presents his case. If the defense comes up with clearly refuting evidence, then the prosecutor's “gut feeling” will be proven wrong. Once again: to the dogmatist, inquiry ends with the hunch; in the practice of law, and in criminal and civil investigations, inquiry begins with the hunch. Accordingly, when the hunch is the final word, as it seems to be with George Bush, mere facts cannot touch it. In contrast, when the hunch begins the investigation, all kinds of possibilities open up, some of which might leave the hunch far behind. Returning to science: Einstein, and Crick and Watson took their hunches to the library and the laboratory, and when they emerged ready to publish, they had a body of evidence and tightly structured formal and inductive arguments to support, respectively, relativity theory and the double-helix structure of DNA. Trolley cars and lighthouses had nothing whatever to do with their supporting arguments. (For more about how science “works” see my “Is Science ‘Just Another Dogma’?”). Not all hunches are equal. Their dependability (as determined by subsequent investigation) is enhanced by practical and professional experience, and by study (i.e., “book larnin’”). Thus the “gut feeling” of the experienced physician is to be preferred to that of the medical student. And the “sense” of what ails your car is more dependable when it is experienced by a trained mechanic than by a weekend putterer. This is what is especially scary about George Bush: he lacks that fund of experience and knowledge that enhances the value of the “gut feeling.” Bush doesn’t read, he doesn’t tolerate dissenting views much less critical analysis of his instincts, he has no curiosity whatever about alternative theories or avenues of investigation. His “wisdom of experience” is meager, having failed in all his business ventures, and having served in the weakest Governor’s chair in the nation. Such an individual is capable of blundering into catastrophic errors – witness Iraq and the federal deficit. Still worse, such an individual, when caught in a morass of error and ignorance, is incapable of reassessment, redirection or, if necessary, strategic retreat. Instead, he “stays the course,” and insists that his stubbornness is a virtue – “strength of leadership” and “resolution.” And so George Bush, whose “gut” is his final, infallibl |
Jeanny House (Wisconsin): I'm voting for John Kerry because I'm a Christian. I know that my second cousin, George Bush, claims that he is the anointed leader of the American people and that God told him to run for office. I believe he may even believe that. I don't.
hose who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when