A Little Shrill, ness pa?

Our Dear Leader this morning:

"It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

No, Mr. President, it is not absurd. It is the judgement of the rest of the World on America. Instead of spinning off into your linguistic fairlyland, would you please, just for once, heed the voice of reason.

Our Dear Gov - 19 CLICK CARTOON TO ENLARGE

Deterrent?

In a caption to one of the photos on Yahoo there is this interesting bit:

" With four death sentences handed down within the space of days, judicial executions are set to return to Iraq where the authorities are desperate for a deterrent to halt rampant insurgent attacks."

Now, excuse me, but why would an execution be a deterrent to someone who was willing to commit suicide? Why aren't the Iraqis at least talking to one another? Are we so all fired stupid not to realize that negotiations with the insurgents with a cease fire would be a frigging public relations coup? After years of killing in Vietnam we finally started talking to the other side. Yes, it took another five years to get us out of that mess, but at least the killing eventually stopped. We can't WIN there. The best we can hope for is to avoid a civil war. Let Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran handle it. Jebus!

Some Humans

I always liked John Prine. I still sing his:

Came home from work this evening
There was a note in the frying pan
"Fix your own supper yourself
I run off with the Fuller Brush Man."

Unfortunately, John is no longer in his prime. But, he still cranks out some good lyrics, even if I can't understand the words half the time. Thanks for CD liners (I almost said album liners; how passe.) This is from his "Some Humans Ain't Human"

Have you ever noticed
When you're feeling really good
There's always a pigeon
That'll come shit on your hood

Or you're feeling your freedom
And the world's off your back
Some cowboy from Texas
Starts his own war in Iraq.

There you have it in a nutshell.

Friday Crab Blogging

Our Dear Gov - 18 CLICK CARTOON TO ENLARGE

Our Dear Gov - 17 CLICK CARTOON TO ENLARGE

How Many Governors?

How many Governors does it take to screw Maryland?

Twenty-five?

WRONG.

Just one (but he does it twenty-five different ways).

Oh, and as a bonus, you do it on Friday afternoon of Preakness Weekend. Talk about playing the news cycle. And, Gov, you are no Afleet Bob. You are stumbling in the home stretch and you are not even going to make it across the line. Mighty Martin is a'coming down the line.

From Holden

From First Draft discussion:

From by Anonymous on Wednesday, May 25 @ 15:38:21 EDT
All this talk about embryos makes me want to tell a joke:

Did you hear about the traveling embryo who wanted a womb for the night?

But he wanted to make sure he could get womb service.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry about that.

Least We Forget

Stealing the Farm

Could it be that all this whup-de-doo about the judges is a smokescreen for other, much worse things? We who work with children should be much more upset about the budget. As Marian Wright Edelman states:

Children's Defense Fund Founder and CEO Marian Wright Edelman issued the following statement in response to passage of the 2006 Budget Resolution by both chambers of Congress:

"This Budget Resolution unjustly hurts our children and grandchildren by lavishing billions in new tax breaks on the wealthy even as it forces major cuts in critical investments that low-income children need to survive and thrive.

"Millions of our children will suffer twice from this unwarranted action. In the short term they will be denied vital investments in their health, their early childhood development and their education. In the future they will be saddled with a crushing debt in order to heap more tax benefits on the rich.

"The budget measure approved by the House and Senate will severely damage the framework of policies and funding levels that was crafted over many decades to protect the vulnerable through the Medicaid, Head Start and other programs. While the tax cuts primarily benefit the wealthy, they starve our nation of the resources essential to our children's health, education, safety and community stability. This is neither right nor sensible."

So, our work is cut out for us. We need to change the composition of the House and Senate (3 years for the presidency) and impeach any of the sorry judges that become outrageous.

From Harris Poll Online CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE

A Parable

Once upon a time there was a king of a great city in Mesopotamia. His name was Belshazzar. This king was descendent from the great king Nebuchadnezzar II who had built the city Babylon into the greatest city of the world (think hanging gardens). Neb II was a very powerful ruler and conqueror. He subdued a local city state, Nineveh (think Mosul). Nineveh stretched for 30 miles along the Tigris river and was 10 miles wide. (that's pretty big; see the map below).

In any case, according to certain sources (the Book of Daniel Chap 5) Belshazzar called for his pipe, and called for his fiddlers three, but made the mistake of calling for his bowl. At least he claimed it as his bowl. But, actually, his bowl belonged to the Israelis. And, as everyone knows, the Israelis have nuclear weapons. They had them then. They have always had nuclear weapons.

At this point, sources state that a magic finger appeared and "Wrote Upon the Wall." (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel). What this magic finger wrote was, again according to sources, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL and PARSIN." Well, that was a stumper for sure. So the king took a Harris poll as to what it meant, but that didn't help. So, he called in this guy Daniel who said:

"And this is what it means. MENE means that God has counted out the number of days you will be king, and they are over. TEKEL means that God has tested you, and you have not passed the test. And PARSIN means your kingdom will be divided, and given to the Medes and the Persians."

You see, the writing was in Aramaic, and the king could only read French.

A low and behold the Persians (think Iranians) came busting up to the walls of Babylon and Belshazzar was pretty confident that they would go home, because he lived in the Green Zone. In fact:

Belshazzar and his officials assumed that the city of Babylon could never be taken. It had been built as an impregnable fortress with massive walls, and with vast stores of food, water, and other supplies to withstand a siege.

But, Herodotus (think English Patient) tells us that they simply diverted the Tigris river around the city, and then marched under the walls. Pretty simple, heh? Thus ended the Babylonian empire.

(Now, if I had been that finger, I would have said "Babba, Babba, Yar" which means "when the river stops flowing, watch the big hole it came in through." But then, what do I know about disembodied fingers.)

In any case, the moral of this parable is:

When the Finger Speaks, Get the Hell out of Iraq!

How big was Nineveh?

The Usual Farce

As usual, when looked at closely, something that the Bush Administration is up to is deeply flawed. For instance, as per the Liberal Oasis who links to Texans for Public Justice:

More than $500,000 (37 percent) of the $1.4 million that Owen raised for her two Supreme Court campaigns came from lawyers and litigants who had cases in her courtroom.

Owen ranks No. 2 on the court in the share of campaign money that she took from these docket donors.

Owen’s 11 biggest litigant-donors (including Enron Corp., Farmers Insurance and Dow Chemical) appeared in her courtroom 26 times.

While these big docket donors prevailed an enviable 77 percent of the time before the court as a whole, Owen was even kinder—favoring them 85 percent of the time.

Now, excuse me, but this is corruption. It is not the way our Constitution is supposed to play out in the day to day. And this corruption extends all the way to the White House. God help us if Frist and his "nuculer option" wins out.

What our president believes:

From the Gaggle today via Holden (Scottie is out until Monday):

MR. DUFFY: Well, the President was asked if he thought the photos would inspire the insurgents. The President responded that the insurgents have already been inspired, way prior to these photos, to kill and murder innocent civilians in America and around the world. The President has been briefed on the situation regarding these photographs, and he strongly supports the aggressive and thorough investigation that's already underway. (emphasis added)

You see, the insurgents in Iraq have been able to transmigrate themselves out of Iraq onto our streets and have killed innocent civilians here, and, of course, elsewhere. Unless the President is resurrecting the meme that Saddam was behind 9/11. Or maybe suggesting that the scrawny old guy in underoos is actually running the insurgency from prison like a Mafia Don. Wow!

Friday Crab Blogging

The Dead

One of the things that we lack as Americans is perspective. The following graphs were constructed from:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm

US War Dead CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE

Major Battles CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE