Letterman's Lair

A Picture (Or in this Case, A Cartoon) is Worth A Thousand Words: Part II

2006-11-08T18:37:00.000-09:00

That cartoon is worth more than a thousand words. It's priceless!

Today is a good day to be a Democrat!

A Little More Musical Humor For Your Edification: Grand Funk Railroad Reimagined for Smirky Boy

2006-10-28T07:17:00.000-08:00

Here's my version of a Grand Funk Railroad standard (the tune for which can be found here) from the Arena Rock days of the early 1970s, when bands filled entire stadiums with tens of thousands of screaming fans and went off on long musical excursions to weird places. It's my take on Smirky Boy's current predicament as he and his party find themselves adrift on a sea of voter anger, mired in scandal, corruption, malaise, and with a dispirited, disaffected base:

I'm the Decider/Headed for Meltdown

Everybody, listen up now
And come back, my sheeple
I'm the Decider, I'm the Decider
Though I'm feeling might lost

I've been stuck now, weeks uncounted
And it's been months of mindless spin
Can you hear me, can you hear me?
Or am I all alone?

If you return to the fold, my sheeple
You can kiss your ass goodbye
Take me back now, take me back now
To the ranch up in the sky

Am I in my office dreaming,
Or are you really scheming
To take my toys away from me?

You'd better think about it,
I just can't live without them
So please don't take my toys from me
Yeah, yeah, yeah

I can feel the hand of Uncle Karl
And it's dragging me down into the night
Laura help me, Laura help me
Get this turdblossom from my sight

I'm your leader, I'm your leader
Although I'm feeling mighty weak
Everybody listen to me
And return now to the fold

I'm The Decider, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm The Decider, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm The Decider, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm The Decider, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …
Ohhhh …

We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …
We're headed closer to meltdown …

(Repeat until Smirky Boy fades into well-deserved obscurity)

A Milestone We Perhaps Should Not Be Proud Of: 300 Million Americans

2006-10-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

Our country is about to hit a milestone in the next two or three weeks or so, one which we perhaps should not be proud of.

In less than a month, the 300 millionth American will enter the world.

Think about that for a moment. There will soon be 300 million people in this country. When this country got started 230 and some odd years back, our population then was almost 4 million people.

Our population now is almost 100 times that number of Americans counted in the first census.

We are the third most populous country in the world, behind China and India and then followed closely behind by Indonesia.

There are too many people in this country, in my opinion. There is no way you can effectively and efficiently govern a country of 300 million people.

This is part of the problem of trying to maintain our vast economic empire. It's too big for its own good and in the end, it will be our undoing unless we can divest ourselves of it and step down out of the catbird seat.

We shouldn't have been there in the first place anyway. It's time to step aside.

FoleyGate: The Karma Fairy Giveth, and the Karma Fairy Taketh Away

2006-10-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

This is a gift. Our old friend the Karma Fairy has come along and ripped away the nice, neat facade the Republicans have manufactured to cover the real face of their party and exposed the steaming, malodorous pile of horse manure underneath the mask.

Here we have a guy (Mark Foley) who regularly trolled the internet, looking for teenaged boys to be his next victims. And the "leadership" of the House did nothing to stop him or alleviate the situation by asking him to resign. They knew about this for more than a year and they did nothing.

This man is a serial pedophile who may have hurt, mentally and emotionally, many young men who put their trust in him. The Republicans can't blame this on the Clenis. Bill Clinton had nothing to do with this nor was any Democratic office-holder involved.

They own this scandal lock, stock, and barrel. All we have to do a mere month out from the election is remind people of who they're supporting when they support Republicans.

These people are hypocrites who have shown time and again that they can't be trusted with power. It's long past time to kick them out of the halls of power and send them to the curb to be thrown out with the other garbage of history into that famous dustbin of history.

When they tell voters that they are "Keeping Us Safe From The Terrorists" we just have to come back with "And you are you doing about pedophiles.

It's time we take back our government from these fools.

It's Official: They (The Republican Party) Stole Ohio in 2004

2006-09-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

First, go read this article from Opednews.com, then read on.

Have you finished reading the article? Good, then consider the implications of it. If you've not read it, go back and do so forthwith, we can wait.

For starters, Kenneth Blackwell, the Secretary of State for Ohio, a Republican activist, and the man in charge of Bush's 2004 campaign in that state, should be sitting in jail right now for breaking innumerable campaign laws, ethics violations, and electoral fraud on a massive scale.

George Walker Bush is not the legitimate occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This article proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Short of someone coming forward and confessing to his or her role in the 2004 election theft, this is as close as we will ever get to a genuine 'smoking gun' in this case.

The Republican Party stole the 2004 election in Ohio from John Kerry. Period. There is no question, there can be no doubt, there can be no second-guessing about this. This is now an established fact.

The question now before us is this: what do we do about it? If this had happened in another nation, we would have taken to the streets and demanded the immediate resignation of an illegitimate government that had usurped the right of the People to govern themselves.

We can't bury this away or pretty it over. It is the elephant in the national living room we can no longer ignore and/or pretend it doesn't exist.

George Walker Bush and his minions do not legitmately occupy the halls of power and they should be removed forthwith so we can reclaim our government. To do anything less will be to spit on the graves of those brave Americans who gave their lives to purchase freedom from tyranny and oppression so that we could be a free people.

George Walker Bush is a liar, a fraud, a thief, and a war criminal to boot. He does not deserve our support (if he ever did at all, a proposition I find highly offensive on its face) and we should not support him or prop him up any further. He is a liar and to call him anything but that is to participate in the lie.

Our government does not belong to us at the moment. It is being run by a bunch of greedy oligarchs bent on draining the United States treasury dry in their quest for unlimited power and influence and to permanently extend the American Empire's reach to every corner of the globe.

These people are criminals who should be brought before the International World Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We have to stop these people before they destroy what's left of our country.

Getting Warm Yet?

2006-09-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

The planet is getting warmer and pretty soon we will be as warm as we were a million years ago or so.

Bush still thinks global warming is 'just a theory' whereas thinking people (like you and me) know the planet is getting warmer because the scientists are telling us.

In the BushWorld universe George W. Bush resides, you can have your very own 'reality' to play in and ignore the realities of the peoplea around you.

I think George W. Bush is a lunatic myself.

The Gulag Archipelago, Redux?

2006-09-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

Did anyone ever read The Gulag Archipelago, the book written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the network of prison camps in the old Soviet Union into which the KGB would put dissidents and anyone else opposed to the Soviet Union?

That was a really, really scary book. What is really scary though is that it looks like we are creating our own Gulag Archipelago, only this one is not inside the United States, it is spread all over the world.

We now have our own network of concentration camps scattered in U.S. bases all around the world, islands of inhumanity beyond the reach of American or international law where we can torture prisoners and no one is the wiser.

Wake up, people! Our country is in peril of losing its soul because of the crimes being committed in our names. This is a little bit more imporant that who Paris Hilton is "servicing" who will be the next American Idol.

This is beyond horrible. It's a war crime and the people responsible must and will be punished.

Finally, an Update (With a Little Bit of Humor to Give You Something to Laugh About)

2006-09-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog in quite a while, as in seven months and more. Real life keeps getting in the way. Anyway, here is my version of a Shelley Fabares standard, redone to put Donald Rumsfeld in his proper place in the scheme of things.

Donny Rumsfeld

Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld
You're a devil to me

Donny Rumsfeld, how I loathe him
He's done evil things, I can't abide
And he runs away from the truth but he can't hide

Donny Rumsfeld, how I want him
To face justice for what he did
Every time he gets away my heart begins to fall

CHORUS
(I'm a Fury) I just want him to pay
I dream of him in chains, wearing an orange suit
(It'll be good) to finally see him put away
Answering for his many crimes, for these he must pay

Oh Donny Rumsfeld (Donny Rumsfeld)
'cause I loathe him ('cause I loathe him)
And I pray that someday he'll get caught
And at long last we'll finally see him come to naught

CHORUS
(I'm a Fury) I just want him to pay
I dream of him in chains, wearing an orange suit
(It'll be good) to finally see him put away
Answering for his many crimes, for these he must pay

Oh Donny Rumsfeld (Donny Rumsfeld)
'cause I loathe him ('cause I loathe him
And I pray that someday he'll get caught
And at long last we'll finally see him come to naught

(Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld)
Donny Rumsfeld, (Donny Rumsfeld), you're a devil to me

(Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld)
Donny Rumsfeld, (Donny Rumsfeld), you're a devil to me
FADE

Enjoy!

An Evening of Ironies: Celebrating the Golden Anniversary of Alaska's Constitution

2006-02-06T17:16:00.000-09:00

Wow. Fifty years ago today, (February 6th, 2006) the delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention signed their names to the document they had just finished crafting. After spending 75 intense and long days at it, the work of 55 people was now ready to bear fruition to the soon-to-be State of Alaska and its people.

We Alaskans celebrated that momentous event this past weekend, with a celebration in honor of its fiftieth birthday, held at the place where it was crafted all those years ago.

Of the original 55 delegates to the Convention, only five remain alive today. Three of them were present at the festivities, the other two were too ill to attend.

The celebration took place mostly on Saturday, the 4th. There was a four-hour Q&A symposium with the surviving delegates held over in the Schaible Auditorium on Saturday afternoon. This was ollowed by a dinner at the Wood Center ballroom, then the worldwide premiere of the KUAC documentary on the Convention, in the Davis Concert Hall with a reception afterward in the Great Hall.

I went to the dinner on Saturday and watched the movie afterward. The evening was full of ironies, multiple layers of them, actually.

First, when we got to the ballroom, there was a string quartet set up outside the doors, with a microphone on a stand in front of them, hooked up to a speaker inside the ballroom itself. Evidently, we would be serenaded by cello players as we dined.

I went in and found a table without a number (such was my ticket for the event), and took a seat. After a bit, the food servers came out and started laying out the salad appetizers and dinner rolls. People were trickling in (the dinner was supposed to start with a "cocktail hour" at 5:15 and dinner itself at 6:15) and finding seats here and there. I ate my salad and watched people mill around, waiting for things to get going, I supposed, as the strains of Handel and Bach and other classical music wafted in from the speaker at the side of the room.

The event was semi-formal (emphasis on the "semi" part, the invite said "Black Tie Optional" for example) and I knew there'd be a, shall we say, variety in the clothing and dressing styles of the attendees. I was not disappointed. Most of the people were wearing formal wear, elegant dinner gowns, floor-length dresses, suits, ties, etc. But there were a few outliers, for lack of a better word.

Like this one. Lady, granted this was a "black-tie optional" event and granted that this was a semi-formal event, but there still was an air of importance to the evening. We were, after all, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of our state's constitution and its signing, complete with guest speakers, and all the pageantry and elegance that stems from such an important event.

So, the question I have of you is this. Why did you come to the event wearing two shirts, one over the other, apparently a t-shirt of some kind with an Alaskan eagle emblazoned on the front, (sort of) longish sleeves you'd rolled up your arms a bit and not only that, a shirt about three sizes too large for you that hung down around your waist like a lost child or something?

Why? And to compound that act of sartorial carnage, you had on jeans and heavy shoes that looked almost like hiking boots. Plus your hair was frazzled and a bit unkempt. Lady, you looked like you'd just gotten out of bed five minutes before you got to the event.

Why, oh why did you take such a cavalier attitude to the staid formality of the proceedings? Granted, this is Alaska, but still, you could have at least made some kind of effort to appear at least somewhat presentable.

I was still trying to figure out the reason for this woman's lack of fashion sense when I heard the familiar strains of a song being played by the quartet outside the room. After a moment, I placed it. It was the theme song to Titanic, the James Cameron film from 1998, which came out more than four decades after the convention whose anniversary we were celebrating.

I started laughing at the absurdity and the irony of it. The quartet was earnestly trying to channel these guys for some strange reason. The irony works on several levels, some of them contradictory. The song is about lost loves, remembrance, and a yearning for closure, as is the movie whose theme it is. It's a poignant irony, given that most of the delegates to the convention are now dead, as one of the signers remarked in his short speech at the dinner, he could remember all those who'd gone on before, choking up a bit as he said it. He was also helped up to the podium as he's well past 80 years old now, I think.

But, on the other hand, I had this picture of Celine Dion showing up in the old newsreels from the convention, belting out a version of her song ("Yea, Nea, whenever you're done, I know that the voting will go on ...") as the delegates studiously went on about their business. I suspect that if she'd been there singing to them, they'd have finished a lot sooner than the 75 days it took them to complete their assigned task. I half-expected one of the players at the end of the song to get up and announce to the other cellists, "Ladies, it's been a pleasure to play with you tonight, Godspeed to all of you! (as the S.S. Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration sinks into obscurity?) or Leonardo DiCaprio to come running through the ballroom with Kate Winslet, followed by Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews or something.

Then, they played that that Aaron Copeland song made famous by the "Beef, It's Whats for Dinner" advertising campaign, ironic considering that beef was on the menu that night.

Finally, after we watched the movie over in the Great Hall and came out for the reception afteward, there was a bit of generational and sartorial irony happening. This radical feminist, in-your-face, Bush-bashing slam poet was having a show in the Salisbury Theater, at about the same time as the documentary showing. Both shows ended at about the same time.

So picture this. You have a bunch of old white guys, old fogeys, elegant dinner gowns, suits, ties, etc. milling around the Great Hall while at the same time, a bunch of twentysomething fans of the radical slam poet, Alix Olson, are coming out, ready to stick it to the man, take over the world, and rock the vote, Sideshow Bob 'dos, nose rings and other piercings, floor-length mulicolored dresses (presumably made of organic fabric and hand-dyed), long scarves, parkas, scrappy-looking young folks looking for all the world like they'd just wandered off the set of a Phish video or Ralph Nader rally milling around off to the side a bit.

Generation gap indeed.

Which one are you?

2006-01-21T13:02:00.000-09:00

It's long past time for me to update this blog with a new post for the new year.

I was just reading this editorial over on crisispapers.org yesterday.

Mr. Partridge lays it all out. Basically it comes down to this: either you understand the peril our country is in or you don't

Too many liberals and internet activists simply don't understand what we're up against. The Republicans are no longer playing from the same rulebook we're using. They have fixed the game such that we can no longer trust the integrity of the electoral process.

Their operatives now own the companies that make the machines that count the votes. If they have their way, we will no longer use paper for our ballots. When that happens, we can forget ever having free and fair elections in this country ever again.

If we do not stand up to them now, there will be nowhere left to stand when the time comes to stand up to them. That time is now and we are the people to do it.

Do not assume that all of us on this side of the issue are "wild-eyed conspiracy theorists" bent on undermining Bush's "election" (I am putting that in quotes because I believe his "election" is about as legitimate as an offer from Engr. Michael Okumbo, son of the late Nigerian dictator Gen. Sani Abacha to give you the sum of $21,000,000 [Twenty-One Million Dollars U.S.] in overbid oilfield service contracts) and partisan whiners who can't get over losing an election.

We didn't lose the election. We won. They stole it and we're now forced to deal with that fact.

Bush and the Republicans are thieves who have stolen three national elections in a row and are well on their way to stealing a fourth unless we do something about it.

Certainly, we need to organize for the 2006 elections, but get what? That's not enough this time around. We need to stand up to them and stop them.

Which one are you? A gulliberal with your head in the sand or someone who knows tha the Republicans have to be stopped at whatever the cost.

I'm not a gulliberal. Are you?

If you are, get ready for the day when the jackbooted thugs come knocking on your door to take you off to the "re-education camps" they will have set up in the Utah desert somewhere far away from prying eyes.

Get ready for the real world to come crashing into your little fantasy. While you're worrying about "getting our message out" or how to "reach swing voters" they are putting in to place the mechanisms of an overtly facist police state.

I for one know where I stand on this. Do you?

We must stop them or else it's over.

A Sunday Winter Ride Down Noyes Slough

2005-11-06T19:08:00.000-09:00

Today was the first official Sunday Winter Ride of the FCC '05/'06 winter riding season.

We kick off the Sunday rides every year with a ride down Noyes Slough, after it has frozen up enough to ride on and/or the snowmachines have been down it enough to pack it down.

The meeting time and place was by the Beaver Sports Outdoor Center building at noon. I rode over there a little before 11:30 and got there just about exactly at noon (with a stop at the Tesoro on University Avenue to buy a sandwich and donut for lunch. The temperature was around -5 Fahrenheit.

There were a few riders already there, milling around waiting for the ride to start. Andi Hunter was there (I'd invited her to come along with us) along with her friend Terri. And there was one other woman rider present along with Gail Koepf.

After a bit, Simon showed up and then we got in gear and took off. We took a circuitous route down through College and over to the railroad tracks. We followed along the trail that parallels said tracks as it rode up and down the bumps and rises. Terri dropped out (she was out of shape) a bit before we got to the slough, and then it was relatively easy riding from there on out.

Noyes Slough winds and wends along through and behind several neighborhoods in North Fairbanks and the only thing we really had to watch out for were soft spots at the various beaver dams. Mostly, we had to get off our bikes and walk up and over said beaver dams. That was always a bit interesting, to say the least, in that you never would know what kinds of wood and how sturdy the wood the beaver use for their dams.

Finally, we got over to around where Danby Street crosses over the slough (I have to say, those bridge crossings are pretty cool, because you're riding under these bridges, sometimes with only two or three feet of clearance), and we stopped to take a breather.

We collected our breath, and took off again. Andi and the rest got up ahead of me, I was ahead a bit of Rocky, Gail, and their group. We encountered some nasty overflow/soft, watery ice past Minnie Street Bridge and another beaver dam, and it was basically walking from there on over to the river. Rocky and the rest bailed there (they had another ride planned, all the way up Cranberry Ridge), so it was just me to catch up with Andi, Tom, Simon, Dallas, and the others.

We gathered our energies and rode over to the Wendell Street Bridge, then through downtown Fairbanks over to McCafferty's Coffee House to have some warm drinks and warm up. We parked our bikes by the restaurant and went in.

We sat around, regaling Andi with stories of bike rides past and some of the things we'd done and seen on some of our rides in both summer and winter. We shot the breeze for a while, warming up. There was some strange-looking homeless guy who came walking by the restaurant and looked in and waved at us. Andi waved back and he came in and started joking with us. The owner came over and kindly asked him to leave, which he did. "I know most of the regular street downtown, but that guy I don't. He must be an irregular street person." was his comment.

Finally, it was time to head back. We took a circuitous route back over to the slough and I decided I didn't want to ride all the way back over, so I decided to take College Road back over to Beaver Sports. Andi decided to follow along with me.

We rode down College Road without event, other than me pointing out the various landmarks along the way and the history of Fairbanks thus presented.

Finally, at 3 or so, we got back to Beaver. We were the first, so I went in to warm up. Andi came in a bit later to ask the bike guy about her tire. He adjusted it for her and then we hung out with him for a bit.

She had to go swimming up at the UAF Patty Center pool and I had to head home, so we parted company there. I told her the next ride would be next Sunday at noon at Ivory Jack's parking lot in the Goldstream Valley.

All in all, it was a great kickoff ride for the '05/'06 season!

Gaming the Endgame: The Stevens Solution

2005-10-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

We may at long last be finally seeing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

It is possible that the grand jury investigating the Plamegate mess may be about to issue indictments in the case. It is quite possible indeed that Peter Fitzgerald's carefully aimed missile lobbed right at the heart of the Bushies' precariously stacked house of cards may bring said house of cards down upon the shifting sands of fortune on which it stands.

The game may be up for Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rummy, Condi, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the criminal cabal squatting in the halls of power.

The malignant fascist cancer that is the Republican Party of today may be about to implode. The only question now is this: what will replace their rapidly-crumbling facade?

The answer is really simple: a caretaker government until we can have another election to sort out this whole mess and get our country back on track.

Here's how I see it playing out (in the best of circumstances):

Rove gets indicted, is tried, and goes to prison. Cheney sees the handwriting on the wall and either up and quits or gets indicted before he can cut and run. Without his brain to tell him what to think and without the puppetmaster pulling his strings, Bush implodes, perhaps even on national television.

He's either forced to resign or he's impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and then is dragged out of the White House in handcuffs, along with the rest of his criminal cabal.

The rest of their minions flee prosecution and/or jump the gun.

We then have a dangerous situation. Seeing that Bush and his house of cards are both about to implode, cooler heads in both parties realize that, for the good of the country, it's time to step in and take over. The Democrats because they know this may be the only way to show the country that desperate times call for desperate measures and the Republicans because they want to save what's left of their party before it's dragged down with Bush will both realize that it's long past time to be responsible and do what's right for the country.

Now that both Bush and Cheney are gone, who gets to be president?

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is a no-go. He's in too deep with the Bushies from the get-go. He should be forced to resign and should be frog-marched in handcuffs and leg restraints along with the Bushies and their ilk to face justice for their many crimes. That leaves the President pro tem of the Senate to step in and mind the store until another election is held, unless Bush appoints a successor to Cheney (which I do not want to see happen) who'll save his bacon by pardoning him after he's forced out. I would hope the Republicans in congress would see such a move by Bush as the last, desperate attempt of a pathetic worm of a man to wiggle his way out of facing the consequences of his actions. I would hope they would reject such a move by Bush without even giving him the fig-leaf of a vote on the matter.

If Dennis Hastert is out, that means that my senator, Ted "Teddy Warbucks" Stevens gets to be caretaker president under this scenario.

Let me tell you a little bit about him and why I think this would be the best possible scenario for the country. Ted Stevens, despite being probably borderline senile and cursed with an ethically-challenged son, does actually, genuinely care about this country in his heart of hearts.

If he felt it was the right thing to do for the country (and to save his beloved Republican Party), he'd be honored and humbled to step in as caretaker president for the duration.

This is a good thing, because he won't have any real power behind him. He'll just be an amiable caretaker president until we can have a real election. With the Republican Party imploded, Stevens might very well end up as being the last Republican president this sorry excuse for a country will be saddled with.

He'll have to give up his cushy Senate seat to do this. Despite his gruff exterior, Ted Stevens actually has some vestigial sense of honor and integrity.

The real power for the duration of this crisis will be held by a consortium of Democratic representatives and senators allied with the few remaining moderate Republicans in congress to steer our country through this minefield it is in.

Then, in the end, Ted Stevens gets to preside over the demise of the Republican Party in America and he becomes as relevant as yesterday's news, riding off into the sunset at the end of the three years (or two, as the case may be).

Once he's out of the senate, we'll run a good candidate and win that seat for the Democrats, putting a Democrat back in that seat for a change.

We get our country back, Ted Stevens gets to cap off his career as a caretaker president, and hopefully the Republican Party will die with him long before he leaves the building.

That's my dream, and I am sticking to it.

An Evening With The DNC (Or One of Them, At Least): Mike Honda (D-CA) Makes the Trek North

2005-10-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

I and a bunch of other Democrats here got a special treat yesterday.

Congressman Mike Honda, (D-CA 15th District) paid us a visit this past weekend.

He's the First Vice Chair of the DNC and this past weekend was the Alaska Democratic Party Central Committee meeting, held here in Fairbanks.

So, as part of his duties, he came up here to meet with us and see how Democrats are doing in the Last Frontier.

We had a banquet in his honor down at the Best Western hotel on South Cushman yesterday. It cost $35 to get in, but it was well worth it.

I got there at around 6:15 (the evening was scheduled to start at 6:30) and met up with a friend of mine whom I had realized was coming to this event. Andy is originally from Minneapolis, but moved up here about a decade ago to help keep ANWR out of th oil companies' greedy hands. He'd just gotten off the plane a few days ago after spending two weeks in D.C. lobbying for the Refuge.

We wandered around the lobby for a minute or two before he asked one of the employees where the dinner was to be held. We were told it was upstairs, and after a couple blind leads, we found the room.

Paul, another one of our mutual friends (who is a Japanese-American from Hawaii) and fellow Esterite, was sitting over at a corner table. We migrated over to his table and sat down. We spent a few minutes hobnobbing together before the guest of honor came in. The room was beginning to fill up by then (even though it was still early) and when I called out his name, the congressman came over to our table. He shook our hands and we welcomed him to Fairbanks.

A couple other friends and fellow Esterites, Ed Davis and Sean McGuire, showed up a few minutes later, and we all gathered around the table to talk politics.

We were all happy about the local election results from the October 4^th election. The food was being laid out on the table, and after it got past seven or so, people started lining up to eat.

Andy and I got in line early and each had a generous helping of the rice, mashed potatoes, and I had a large cut of the roast beef along with my halibut (and salad in a separate dish!).

Everbody lined up to eat, and the line led right past our table. One of our gubenatorial hopefuls, Eric Croft (a legislator from Anchorage) and the chair of the Alaska Democratic Party remarked as we were eating our dinner to "go ahead and start without us" to which I replied that we'd been waiting for dinner for a while. They laughed at that one.

Finally, everyone sat down and started eating. The festivities were supposed to begin at 7, but by 7:30, everyone was still in dinner mode. Andy and I enjoyed our meals so much that we went back for seconds on the rice, halibut, potatoes, and roast beef after everyone had eaten their fill.

Finally, the food was eaten, everyone was sated, and it was time for speechifying.

The new chair of the Interior Democrats, David Bantz, along with the vice-chair, was introduced. He then introduced our state party chair, Jake Metcalfe, who spoke for a few minutes about our local election results, building the party from the ground up, and stuff like that. Jake then allowed Eric Croft a few minutes to talk about his campaign and then he introduced our DNC national committeeman, John Davies (who is my former state representative), who then introduced Congressman Honda.

Finally, Congressman Honda got up to speak.

He talked about our party-building efforts here as being part of the 50-state strategy that Governor Dean is implementing across the country. He remarked that our party here is very strong, vibrant, and going places, just like the state parties he's seen in Washington, Hawaii (he nodded to and exchanged a few words of Japanese with Paul at our table), and other Western states.

Finally, he concluded his remarks with a plea for us to do our part to get rid of Don Young. He reminded us that if we can elect more Democrats to Congress next year, we can and will take the House back. If we do so, we can start asking the questions that need to be asked. That got a round of applause, as did many of his other comments.

Then it was time for dessert and more politicking.

It was a fun evening and one which I hope will lead to a refreshed, vibrant Alaska Democratic Party next year.

On to '06 and then '08!

'Finding' vs. 'Looting': A Tale of Two Pictures

2005-08-31T20:06:00.000-08:00

You will need to read the captions in the links provided to both these pictures in order to understand the import of this post. It is sickening in its implications.

First, this picture:

Then this picture:

So let me see if I understand this correctly, if your skin is white, you're "finding" stuff in grocery stores but if your skin is black, you're "looting" stuff from grocery stores.

Once again, racism rears its ugly head in the United States of America in the 21^st Century.

What the hell are we coming to?

A Little Humor to Lighten Things Up

2005-07-30T16:34:00.000-08:00

Some song parodies here, for your reading enjoyment. Hopefully you'll get a laugh or two out of them:

To an old Barry Manilow standard, the tune for which can be found here

Condi

I remember all her lies
Coming from her heart of ice
Shadows of the truth
Hidden from her eyes
Lyin' through her teeth
She lies like a rug

Lyin's just her only way
Happy Murkans don't care why
Speakin' for the Chimp
She is Bush's bitch
I never realized
How dumb she really is, oh Condi

Well you came and you took without askin'
And we'll put you away, oh Condi
Well, you sold yourself out and told all those lies
And someday you'll face the music, oh Condi

Hopin' for the day to come
When you'll be doing the Perp Walk
Caught up in your web of lying and deceit
The vision is in my mind
Of you in handcuffs, oh Condi

Lyin's just her only way
Happy Murkans don't care why
Speakin' for the Chimp
She is Bush's bitch
I never realized
How dumb she really is, oh Condi

Well you came and you took without askin'
And we'll put you away, oh Condi
Well, you sold yourself out and told all those lies
And someday you'll face the music, oh Condi

Yesterday you lied
You'll face the truth one day
Cryin' for your Chimpy
They're coming for you, oh Condi

Well you came and you took without askin'
And we'll put you away, oh Condi
Well, you sold yourself out and told all those lies
And someday you'll face the music, oh Condi

Well you came and you took without askin'
And we'll put you away, oh Condi
Well, you sold yourself out and told all those lies
And someday you'll face the music, oh Condi

Oh Condi

etc.

To an old Frankie Avalon standard

Rummy

Hey, Rummy! Oh, Rummy!
Hey, Rummy! Oh, Rummy!

You had better watch your back
The truth is catching up with you at last
A war based on lies, it's all your fault
A war you wanted for your neocon buds

Rummy, get ready to walk
You're going down with the Chimp over this
And no amount of dissembling will save you
From doing the Perp Walk in chains

Rummy, architect of the neocon plans
Even you must realize
This can't go on forever

Rummy, you'd better 'fess up
Or you'll go down with the Chimp over this
You started an illegal war and we can't forgive you
As long as we have something to say about it

Hey Rummy!, Oh Rummy!
Take a hike, straight to Gitmo!

Rummy, architect of the neocon plans
Even you must realize
This can't go on forever

Hey Rummy! Oh, Rummy!
Hey Rummy! Oh, Rummy!
Hey Rummy! Oh, Rummy!

and finally,

Here's one to the theme song of a Seventies cinematic experience I'm sure more than a few people recall, perhaps fondly, perhaps not:

Scott

Who's the dumb patsy
That's a mouthpiece for the Bush machine?
SCOTT!
Ya damn right!

Who is the fool that will risk his neck
For his Chimpster man?
SCOTT!
Can you dig it?

He's the deer-in-the-headlights dude
Caught lying through his teeth
SCOTT!
Right on!

They say this dude Scott is a bad liar
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I'm talkin' 'bout Scott
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!

He's an implicated man
And no one cares about him except the Chimp
DUMB SCOTT!

The Wreck of the S.S. Turdblossom

2005-07-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

In honor of Uncle Karl's ongoing legal "issues", I present this reworking of a well-known Gordon Lightfoot song, the tune for which can be found here.

The Wreck of the S.S. Turdblossom

The legend lives on in the West Wing on down
Of the big cheese they called Bush's Brain
The man, it was said, never gave up an inch
Even when the ship of state was heading for the drain

He was evil and cunning, a thousand times over
Then did the S. S. Turdblossom set sail
Karl kept a tight ship, yes this is true, to the end
When the ship of state sank like a stone

Karl Rove was the genius behind the White House
Coming down from a stolen election in November
As the architect of their evil plan, he was on top
With a West Wing and a press corpse to his liking

Then came Valerie and hubby Joe, speaking the truth
Karl could not abide by this, no he could not
And later that day, he spoke her name out of turn
Could this be the beginning of the end for them?

The whispers online made a tattletale sound
And the wave soon broke over his ship
As everyone knew, as Karl surely did too
T'was the ghost of Bad Karma come knockin'

The day would soon come when the truth would come out
As the lies kept on piling and piling up
When the truth finally came, it rode right on in
In their faces, did it come a-crashin' down

When the press corpse finally noticed what Karl did say
It was too late for him, yes it was
At high noon did the house of cards finally collapse
He said, "Guys, that's it, I'm outta here"

Karl Rove then tried to go to the ground
But the West Wing would not let him go
And later that day, when the lights came on up
Came the wreck of the S. S. Turdblossom

Does anyone know where old Karl has gone
While the country awaits Mr. Fitzgerald
The pundits all say they'll get right to the root of this
If they could just understand it at all

He might have gone south or he might have changed names
He might have lost weight and gotten a new face
But all that remains is the truth of what he did
To tell her name to one who should not know it

George Bush stumbles, in a confused daze
In the ruins of his house of cards
And Condi still lies like a good little wench
She does what her Dear Leader commands her

And farther on down the political food chain
The press and the pundits still sit there
And they all say they would have done it right
With the "election" of November still fresh

In a small little courtroom Patrick still struggles on
In the search for the Truth will he prevail
The presstitutes still lie, 24 hours a day
For they still fear the S. S. Turdblossom

The legend lives on in the West Wing on down
Of the big cheese they called Bush's Brain
The man, it was said, never gave up an inch
Even when the ship of state was heading for the drain

Mariko (my dad's cat), 1989-2005: An Appreciation.

2005-07-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

For the first time since 1970, my dad's house is now catless. With a heavy heart, I buried my dad's cat Mariko, a Japanese Bobtail, aged 16 years, two months, this afternoon. She died earlier this afternoon. Apparently, her liver failed her, the vet thought. My dad is out of town for a week, and I was watching the cat for him, and looking after his house. This meant going out there every day, dropping off the paper and/or mail, and feeding Mariko.

I came by late Friday afternoon and noticed that she seemed listless and lethargic and wasn't eating the food my dad had put out for her on Friday. I tried to feed her, without success. It was the same thing yesterday, except she seemed slightly more active yesterday. Today, when I went out there, she still hadn't eaten. It was time to take her to the vet, which I did. An hour after I dropped her off, they called and left a message that she had died. So, being very sad, I went back there to collect her and take her home to bury her.

This is my letter to Mariko, her eulogy, if you will.

Well, Mariko-san. You've done and crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You're in a better place now, and your 16-year journey on Earth has come to an end. I put you in the ground today, just downhill from the Usual Food Guy's house, the only home you ever knew.

My dad got you in October, 1989. You were a little five- or six-month kitten at the time, and the other cat, Buttons, didn't like you. You and she fought and eventually worked things out. You explored every nook and cranny in that house and in 1990, you had one litter. My dad got you fixed a couple years later. You were a good hunter, you caught quite a few birds, squirrels, mice, voles, and even a rabbit or two.

You and Buttons got along, and when she died in 1995, you were sad. When my dad got Madori in the latter part of 1995, you were initially hostile, but you took her under your wing. You were a good cat, friend, and foster mother to Madori.

I got to be your occasional food guy from time to time, when my dad was out of town. I think you could always tell when I was on the way to the house. I would come in, and there you would be, clamoring for the Food Guy to do his Food Guy thing (and Kitty-Litter Changer thing, and Scratcher-Behind-the-Ears-Guy thing too), impatiently demanding your food, and making sure that Madori got fed too.

I was there for you, and when Madori died in 2003, you were alone again. My sister's cat, Hanna came to stay with my dad for a while, and you didn't like her much, so she spent most of the time downstairs.

You were getting old by then, and you couldn't get around much at all. I would still come out and feed you from time to time, but you were starting to get a bit more demanding about your food. You would meow a lot, and that got on my dad's nerves at times. He loved you dearly, but sometimes you drove him up the wall.

And then finally, came the last few days of your life. You got out of the house on Wednesday and apparently returned before my dad left on Friday morning. I came out there and there you were, hiding in the corner. I held you and petted you, but you were listless and lethargic and didn't want to eat anything. You were getting thin and emaciated. I had to leave because I had a meeting to go to that evening. I was worried about you.

You were still the same on Saturday, and I should have taken you to the vet then, but I thought you might just simply have been exhausted for some reason. And then today, when I went out there, you were still hiding in the corner. You wanted to die. So, it was time to get the cat carrier out and take you to the vet. I was scared for you , and I cried when I went out to the shed to get the cat carrier.

You were trying to meow on the way down there, but your meows sounded more like chirps, you were that dehydrated and emaciated. The vet took your temperature, blood, and your weight and did a few tests. She told me you were probably infected with something and/or had a liver problem and that she wanted to keep you for a few hours for observation.

And then I got the phone message from her. It came an hour after I dropped you off, and I got it a couple hours later. You were gone.

I was sad for you, but I knew you were now in a better place. I went down and got you, and talked to the vet about what did you in. Your liver apparently failed you, and you hid it from my dad and me for a long time. You lost the will to live, and that was that.

You were a good cat, and I was a good (Sometimes) Food Guy for you.

Goodbye, Mariko, and I'll see you on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. I'll have your favorite toy with me and we'll play some more then.

The (Sometimes) Food Guy.

Rest in peace, and I'll see you later, my friend.

Adding Insult to Injury: Yet Another Reason Why We Will Not 'Win' The Hearts and Minds of Iraqis

2005-07-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

Read this article and answer me this: how can Bush and company even suggest that we're "winning hearts and minds" of ordinary Iraqis and that the Iraqi Resistance is "in its death throes" and we've almost won the war?

The answer is "Because the Bushies and their ilk are not part of the reality-based community."

We lost this war a long, long time ago. The only question now is, when do the people "in charge" finally figure that out.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

2005-06-30T22:52:00.000-08:00

The single best commentary of Bush's use of 9/11 I believe has ever been done by an editorial cartoonist.

The URL is here.

The Endgame: Can Bushie Get Himself Out of This Mess?

2005-06-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

Bush has blown his load. His approval ratings are in the toilet and going south, people are fed up with the war and increasingly seeing it as the utter fuckup we know it to be, his Bamboozapalooza tour promoting the handing over of Social Security to his Wall Street buddies went over like a lead balloon, and he's rapidly running out of options.

He's in a bind because his lies are catching up with him. Perhaps the whole house of cards is about to fall apart? Perhaps his immense sand castle is about to be hit by a rogue wave of seismic proportions?

Perhaps the American people are finally starting to wake up?

Time will tell. One thing is for sure, things are about to get "interesting" in the Chinese sense.

God willing, we'll survive what's about to happen here.

If we don't, then that is that and we can put the final nail in the coffin for the United States of America.

Riding the Midnight Sun Run in the rain

2005-06-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

The 2005 Midnight Sun Run was a wet one this year.

It rained steadily leading up to the race and all the way through the race. I was the organizer for the FCC riders again this year. We're tasked with the job of pacing the lead runner(s) and we had fun doing it, as always.

There were six of us all told, and something like 3,000 entrants in the race.

There was me, Tom Clark, Richard Stolzberg, Doug Burnside (in his recumbent bike with the mp3 player from his car down behind his windshield), and a couple other guys.

I got over there to the Patty Center parking lot at UAF a bit early, as I always do, just to see the costume entrants. People can enter the race in the costume division (essentially noncompetitive) and every year, people come up with weird costumes.

There was a lady dressed up as the "Runaway Bride" (with a guy next to her dressed up as a Greyhound bus), a kid dressed up as a shark, people pretending to be a school of salmon, and the like.

We lined up over on Fairbanks Street bridge, and as soon as the Army guys set up by West Valley High School set off the blanks in their howitzer, the race was on.

We cruised along across Fairbanks Street into the subdivision, then up along Geist and over to the other side of University Avenue. The cops had partially closed off University on one lane (the eastbound lane) but traffic was still open through the intersection. Tom had to wave one motorist off from driving right through the intersection just as we were about to go across. It was raining all the way. We sometimes couldn't keep up with the motorcycle cop on the Harley he was riding (which bikes are donated by Harley every year, and returned in September to be sold) and he had to stop several times, sometime to help us keep the course clear.

There were people having solstice/garage parties all along the route (more about that in a moment) and we were riding along, enjoying ourselves in the rain.

Finally, we got over to the Riverview subdivision, and more of the same. The race wound and wended its circuitous route through the Riverview Country Club (as I like to call that subdivision) on its way over to the crossing under the bridge at Peger Road. Just before we got to the bridge, my friend Mike called out to me from his front yard, where he always has a party every year.

It was on that part of the course that I realized that Mike Kramer was the lone runner at the front of the pack, with the second runner (Kevin Brinegar) some hundreds of feet behind him. This was unusual. Usually it's Kevin who is up at the front.

We got under the bridge and had to pick up the pace to stay ahead of Mike. Then we had to get down First Avenue, loop up Moore Street, thence back over on Crosson (I think) to get over to ~~Pioneer Park~~ Alaskaland, where the race ended.

It ends inside the park, and we had to stay with Mike right up to the end, when we pulled off to the side. He won hands down, almost 30 seconds ahead of Kevin.

I bid my buds a farewell and headed back over to Mike's for the party.

There was still plenty of food left over, and I got a cheeseburger, potato salad, and some excellent marianated chicken. I hung out there for a while, watching the parade of runners come down the street. The Army guys came through en masse as they pushed their howitzer cannon (used at the beginning) to the finish line. I missed the "Runaway Bride" entrant as she came by.

Finally, it was gettin along to late in the evening, and I had a long(ish), cold, wet bike ride back to my cabin, in the rain. I bid everyone adieu and rode on home, in the rain, wearing my FCC jacket, with an FCC t-shirt under it.

An NPR Icon Comes to Fairbanks: An Evening With Bob Edwards

2005-06-16T23:21:00.000-08:00

I got to meet one of my heroes in person yesterday.

For many, many years, all the way up into the 1990s and beyond, my ritual every morning while either on the way to work or in to town or whatever I was doing was listening to Morning Edtion on NPR.

And the biggest reason I listened to that show on KUAC every morning came to Fairbanks for a sit-down interview in the Davis Concert Hall with Robert Hannon, a KUAC mainstay and reporter.

I am speaking of none other than the incomparable and illustrious Bob Edwards, of course.

I'd heard about this last week and was eagerly awaiting Wednesday, June 15th with great anticipation. The evening did not disappoint. The discussion was scheduled to begin at 7:30. I got there at about 7:15 or so and the concert hall (which seats 800 people, if memory serves correctly) was already starting to fill up.

I grabbed a program playbill and took a seat in the center of the concert hall.

People were coming in from both entrances and were walking down the aisles to take their seats. There was a hub-bub of conversation going on as the audience was waiting patiently. The set was a spare, simple one: two very comfortable-looking chairs with a little table between them, a pitcher of ice water and two glasses and a simple floral arrangement behind, framed by the flags of Alaska and the United States.

A few minutes after 7:30, Robert Hannon came out the the center of the stage. He introduced himself (to a round of applause, I might add) and then told us that when he was considering public radio as a career, he had always liked to listen to Bob Edwards because his interviews were always informative and entertaining, almost like conversations. He then played a brief sampler of Bob Edwards' 25-year career at NPR, a sort of "Bob Edwards Greatest Hits," as it were.

When the clip of Bob talking to Red Barber came on, the audience applauded loudly and long.

Then, without further ado, Robert introduced us to Bob Edwards, also to loud and long applause. He was dressed casually, in a black t-shirt and blue jeans and looked for all the world like somebody you'd see at the neighborhood bar or coffee shop and someone you would want to hang out with. Bob took a bow and sat down next to Robert and they started talking.

Robert asked him first about his departure from NPR, which wasn't on the greatest of terms. While still singing the praises of NPR, he had some (justifiable, in my view) animus toward his former employers, who basically forced him out of his job and position there.

Then they started talking about Red Barber and Bob commented on how he'd heard the audience applaud at the clip Robert had played of him interviewing Red. He talked about how he and Red had done their little four-minute chitchats every Friday for almost 12 years or so, until Red died in 1992. They then played a clip of Bob interviewing Red at the time of the first Gulf War, in 1991.

You could have heard a pin drop in that concert hall.

They then got into a discussion about Bob's book on Edward R. Murrow (copies of which were on sale in the Great Hall) and his new career on XM Satellite Radio.

Bob talked at some length about what he saw as the strengths of that new network and what he wanted to accomplish with it. He talked about why he wrote the book about Murrow and what Murrow's example meant to him. Essentially, he thought that Murrow showed by his career in journalism what a true, courageous journalist was supposed to be and lived that example by reporting to America from London during the Blitz and standing up to Joe McCarthy, among other things.

They covered a lot of ground, and finally, Robert opened the floor to questions from the audience. The first question was about Bob's trip up here in 1982, when the Alaska Public Radio Network first went up. A number of NPR personalities came up here for that. Bob went to Talkeetna and talked a social worker. He relayed the anecdote to us about how she'd used as an example of "cabin fever" a woman who "just last week" had killed her husband with a frozen beaver.

That got more than a few laughs.

Then there was a question about the meida coverage leading up to the Iraq war. Bob talked about how the commercialization of the media and the increasing pressure from sponsors as well as the business-driven model have turned the media into a shadow of its former self. He talked about how the disucssion of WMD's came down to swift boat veterans and he talked about how the serious, substantive issues about the war were brushed aside for "entertainment" stories like Michael Jackson or whoever else is the media focus of the moment.

Essentially, how the media has become trivializing and trivialized as a result.

He still said we should support NPR, which lead to the next question about what is the future of NPR and should we start supporting XM radio. His answer was essentially "yes," and "if you think it's a good idea." He thinks that XM will never supplant NPR nor should it anytime soon and they should be considered complimentary.

He reminded us that there was no way Ted Stevens would let the House of Representatives gut funding for public broadcasting. He talked a bit about Kevin Tomlinson and how he would be politicizing NPR coverage. He made the comment, to much laughter, about how Tomlinson wanted Brit Hume to come in and lecture NPR reporters on being "fair and balanced" and how he'd love to be a fly on the wall when Hume tried to tell Nina Totenberg how to "practice journalism" in a professional manner.

The last question was about why NPR now had a Los Angeles office. His answer was esentially that NPR had to branch out, because people ont the West Coast felt that it was too Washington-centric.

He told us to keep supporting our local station and write letters to Congress to demand support for public broadcasting because "you Alaskans do write letters and you know how to do it well and you write a lot of them."

Finally, it was time to adjourn to the Great Hall and eat some ice cream and get our books signed. I told Bob when I got to the signing table that he didn't look anything like I thought he would look.

I now have an autographed copy of his book (along with a CD of his XM radio broadcasts) and I'm a happy camper.

98 Firings Under the Belt: Liz Berry's Kiln is Fired Up for the 98th Time

2005-06-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

I've been busy these past few days, but some interesting things have been happening in my world of late.

My old friend Shawn is back in town. He and I biked with the Fairbanks Cycle Club for many years before he had to leave Fairbanks in 1999 to help his mother out. His dad was dying of lung cancer (he died in late 1999) and he went down to help her sort out his dad's estate and move her to Reno. He's been in Reno ever since, with an occasional trip up here since then. The last time I saw him was September, 2002. We rode part of the Equinox Marathon route and then rode over to Liz Berry's place for the kiln-firing party.

Anyway, I saw him over at my favorite coffee shop yesterday after work and we traded stories and talked for a bit. He's up here for our mutual friend Malcom McEwen's wedding on Sunday. Shawn also told me that there would be a kiln firing on Saturday morning. I told him I would be there.

I slept in this morning and spent some time on the computer, catching up on emails, TT subs, etc. I then rode my bike up Henderson Road to the top, then down Ester Dome Road. I stopped at the turnout by Ann's Greenhouses to talk to Rocky and Gail, who were participating in the Tour of Fairbanks stage race. Then, I rode up the bike path and took the trails up by Black Sheep Lane and the horse farm to come down Miller Hill and stop by Liz's place.

She's living at the Pioneer's Home now and her Parkinson's Disease has gotten much worse over the years. However, she fires her wood-fired pottery kiln up twice a year, once at the beginning of summer and once in the fall. Today was Firing Number Ninety-Eight for Liz Berry's kiln.

I got there a little after noon. There were crews of people splitting wood into kindling to be thrown into the fire. The potters were watching the fire carefully, checking the temperature and looking at the cones on the various levels. I parked my bike and basically watched as things went on. Wood was cut, stacked in boxes, and at either end of the kiln, bundles would be thrown in onto the grate. Ashes would be removed and put in buckets. There were other buckets full of mud for sealing up the kiln, which came in due time. Once Liz had decided that the kiln was hot enough, she signaled the potters and helpers that it was time to seal up both ends of the kiln. My friend Tom Clark was one of them. First, they took the grates out of each side, then grabbed boxes of kindling for each side. Then, they stacked up wood to be crammed in behind the boxes.

Once the boxes were secured in the kiln, they crammed wood in behind them, all the way up to the back. Then they put the sealing plates over the holes, carefully stacked bricks up around them, and piled mud around and on top of the bricks everywhere to seal up the kiln.

Then it was time to clean up around the kiln, sweep up the wood scraps, and put everything away until the next kiln firing.

They will open the kiln up tomorrow to see how things are doing in there. It should be a good group of pottery!

Impeachment: The Logical Conclusion to the Ramifications of the Downing Street "Memo"

2005-06-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

In case you've not heard, The Downing Street "Memo" (actually it's a set of minutes from a meeting) surfaced a little over a month ago. It is the minutes of a meeting between the British intelligence chief and his American counterparts and his report to Tony Blair about that meeting.

It is, in a word, damning. In essence, it says that Bush and his cabal had already decided to invade Iraq as early as midsummer, 2002 and were fixing (i.e., lying) the intelligence and evidence to point to the conclusion that Saddam had WMD's and was still a threat to his neighbors and we had to invade him to stop him.

For all intents and purposes, this document shows the naked truth for all the world to see: Bush and other high-ranking members of his "administration" lied from the get-go about the reasons for the Iraq war.

Bush Lied. People Died.

Bush lied through his teeth and he, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and the rest must be held accountable for what they did.

Over 1600 American soldiers are dead, tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead or wounded, some permanently, and our standing in the international community has gone down the toilet.

All because Bush wanted to show his Poppy that he can "be a man" too and he's got a bigger schlong than Poppy.

Bush and Cheney must be impeached. Then they and the rest can be brought before the World Court to face justice for their crimes. These include war crimes and crimes against humanity, among many others.

They must be removed from the offices they have usurped.

Then and only then will we have any sense of closure on this horrible crime that has been perpetrated in our names.

The Faces of the Fallen: A Tribute

2005-05-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Go here to see an online slideshow of portraits of those American soldiers who have paid the ultimate price in Iraq and Afghanistan while in our country's uniform.

Those who died in Afghanistan could be said to have died in something resembling a worthwhile cause (that of securing the capture of Osama bin Laden, remember him, he's the guy who is actually planned, bankrolled, and carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001?) but those in Iraq have died for no reason.

They did in the service of a lie. They were in our country's uniform to defend our freedoms yet those freedoms were never, ever under threat from anything or anyone in Iraq.

Yet they died anyway. They died so that Bush and his oil buddy corporate patrons could have easy access to a cheap source of oil in order to line their pockets with cash.

This is an evil against which there can be no lesser moral obligation than to stand against it and say, "No."

This must not stand. We must do whatever we can to stop Bush and the men behind him. Perhaps then, those many, many brave men and women who died there will not have died in vain.

Let us remember this on this day we set aside to honor our nation's fallen warriors.