Weekend Snippets

Yesterday I was at the Army hospital seeing the optometrist. As I stood in line, I started chatting with a frumpy sort of bloated guy about 58 or 60-years-old.
CNN was playing in the background, and we both watched a snippet about the British sailors Iran was holding. Then I said, "Oh great, I guess that means we're going to invade Iran next."
See, by now I just assume everyone realizes the Iraq invasion was a mistake, so now I speak freely about it even on an Army post. But then I mostly only talk to doctors when I'm there, and they certainly share my views regardless of their military rank or civilian status.
Anyway, the guy in line turned out to be a totally enraged wing-nut.
First, he told me he was a covert military agent in Germany during the Vietnam era, where he said he was trained to drive trains, then learned to work the switches and derail them in preparation for the military's secret plans to invade Iran. He said his ultimate assignment would have been to hijack an Iranian train, kill all the crew and take the train over. But them he said the special op was canceled without explanation.
Why do these nuts who allege to be covert agents always want to blab about it?
I didn't bother to ask questions because the whole story so defied credulity I had no idea where to begin in my debunking expedition. Some battles just aren't worth the trouble.
Anyway, he went on to explain to me why the Bush invasion of Iraq was vital to our national security. Basically, he parroted the neo-con sound byte playbook and I took the bait and started challenging each erroneous point, one by one. He was getting angry, but then so was I.
I mentioned being a journalist, then he said, "Oh well, that explains it, all journalists are communists,"
I laughed out loud and asked if he watched Fox News. He said, "Of course I do."
I said, "Well, what do you call their reporters, zoo keepers?"
Before he could frame his cro-magnon reply, I chuckled, moved toward him to playfully pat his shoulder and said to him, "So the truth is, you don't think all journalists are communists, just the ones you disagree with."
He recoiled in horror, moved back and in a loud voice said, "Don't you dare try to touch me!"
Just then his name was called and he stomped away.
As he stormed off, I said, "Hey, you might want to ask for a psych consult while you're in there."
I don't think he heard me, but the people at the desk did and they died laughing after he left the area.
That prick. I should have smacked him.
When did calling people communists come back into vogue? Are these neo-com imbeciles are so out of it they still use 1960's insults? I should have called him a Whig.
I don't know why I still let these Bushian lemmings get to me. They are so much in the minority now, I should be basking in the serenity of my prescience about Bush and his vanity war and simply look upon them as I would any mentally disabled person.

I planned to do some serious gardening this weekend but last night's mammoth thunderstorm has turned my yard into a cranberry bog.
Oh, well. I guess I could look at San Antonio.com and see if the communists are having any mixers this weekend.

We Need Half an Inch

You know you're getting old when you start measuring rainfall and it means something to you.
One more half inch of rain and this will be San Antonio's wettest March on record.
Between the showers when the sun comes out, the new growth, budding trees, shrubs and plants are verdant and beautiful.
The Edwards aquifer that serves our community's water needs is getting very full. That means no rationing this summer, when the heat shivers off the streets and yards turn brown after one day without water.
I planted a bunch of flowers and herbs over the weekend and it was fun to watch the rain pelting them, fusing their soil with the soil they were planted in and getting them used to their new homes right away.
Here's a nursery we visited last weekend. It really got me in the mood for spring.

The Revenge of the Pyracantha!

See the picture below?

Yep, I planted five of them on the nasty neighbor's side of my front yard. Each plant is said to get 12 feet high and 12 feet wide. Right now, they are only about 5 feet high and a foot and a half wide, so I planted them about four feet apart, just for good measure.

Soon the neighbor guy will be pricked and scratched if he comes too near. Birds will eat the berries and crap on their cars.

Yes, there will soon be a solid wall of privacy. Scratchy, pointy privacy.
Hooray!

Where Bush Gets His Colossal Balls

That's right, they grow them right here in Texas.

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings

WASHINGTON — Attorney General & Mo Fo Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in an hour long meeting last fall, according to documents released Friday that indicate he was more involved in the dismissals than he has claimed.
Last week, Gonzales said he "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on" in the firings of eight prosecutors that has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.
Adios, you fucking LIAR.

Oooh, He's a Little Bitch When He Gets Cornered

From the AP:
"A House committee was to vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for political director Karl Rove and other administration officials despite Bush's declaration a day earlier that Democrats must accept his offer to allow the officials to talk privately to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but not under oath and not on the record. Would he fight Democrats in court to protect his aides against congressional subpoenas? "Absolutely," Bush declared Tuesday in televised remarks from the White House..."

Oh sure, drag it through the justice system and let the ultimate judgment rest with the Supreme Court a few years from now.
Does Bush even realize that his stubborn refusal to have his dos amigos Rove and Harriet Myers exposed to the rigors of Senate testimony under oath plainly shows the American public how little they can bear scrutiny?
Give me a fuckin' break.

Skinny Bitches

A couple of the ladies at work are obsessed with dieting, exercise and everything they put in their mouths.
One carries a slide rule of calories contained in every dish at every fast food and restaurant chain in America.
The most gullible one (the one I wrote about earlier who said women were too emotional to be president of the US) was standing with me up at the receptionist's desk the other day.
I said I liked to melt a stick of butter in a skillet, then fry my bacon in it, eat the bacon and reserve the "bacon butter" for pancakes, toast and corn on the cob. She believed me!
I need more recipes like bacon butter so I can continue to mess with her head.
Your entry?

Under Oath

If Karl Rove and the other culprits hiding in the shadows of the Attorney General's slice and dice political vendetta have nothing to hide, then publicly testifying under oath should be no problem.
This is so much like the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when Toto pulled back the curtain and exposed the 'great' wizard.
The GOP shell game being played right now makes it all seem so obvious that these bastards are liars.
I just wish they'd do enough to finally piss off Faux News and talk radio.

Ahh, Spring.

San Antonio is very pretty right now. Spring has sprung and all the little trees and bushes are getting their feathery new growth, while the infant squirrels and birds are testing out their baby legs and wings.
Yesterday I visited my friend Susan at her beautiful house in Alamo Heights. We sat on her enormous second story balcony and watched a little hummingbird suck nectar from a flowering Mountain Laurel for what seemed like hours.
Then we saw a new family of cardinals making the rounds. Looked like a dad, a mom and an aggressive teen son. The dad was overseeing his little family and we spotted him on a fence railing, lecturing the wife and kid on some bird-related issues.
In the tree closest to us, we observed an enormous nest way up high. It was the size of basketball and I laughed and said it might be a condor or an eagle's nest. It turned out to be a squirrel's nest- at least we saw a baby squirrel going in, but he may have been looking for a little egg snack.
Unfortunately, I no longer have time to mess around in my yard. The guy next door is rehabbing from a serious hand injury and he's become my unofficial gardener. He also sometimes washes my car without telling me. He's about 30 and lives with his parents, but he's very savvy about the world and strangely liberal considering he was reared by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Anyway, the neighborhood is turning green and lush.
The neighbors on the other side of me that I had so much trouble with last Fall are very quiet lately. We ignore each other, which suits me fine.
When I'm sure the cold weather is gone for good, I plan to go out and buy a mess of large pyracantha bushes and begin my shrubbery cold war with them. I wish I could find a way to electrify it. :)

What are you planting this spring?

The Trouble With Tolerance

I work with two people whose politics are somewhere to the right of the average Ayatollah.
One is a lovable, big fat bald guy in his early 60's who likes to call anyone who disagrees with him a communist. He thinks global warming is a hoax. He thinks the Bush administration is right in their kick ass and take names brand of governance. He thinks Al Gore and John Edwards are both gay.
The other is a late 30-something woman who thinks the Bible is wholly endorsing everything the Bush administration stands for. She likes Newt Gingrich and wants him to run. His three marriages and admitted adultery are of no significance to her, in fact she lauds his "honesty."
She actually said she didn't think of woman could be president because "women are too emotional."
They both think homosexuality is an affront to Jesus and inherently evil.
They think every scandal Bush is mired in is a left-wing plot and entirely without merit.
They want us to stay in Iraq until victory is achieved, but neither can define what victory might entail.
Naturally, they love to vomit their views on me to get a reaction.
It worked at first, but now I just look at them with a bemused expression and shrug it off. Ignorance can be remedied- stupidity cannot.
Even Don Quixote would consider these clowns a lost cause.
I think being tolerant of other people's stupidity is a positive character trait, so I try to remind myself of that.
But I don't think it's fair that these people are so intolerant to the extreme and have no apparent moral qualms about it.
I kind of wish Jesus would reappear and tell these people what assholes they are. I wish he'd make them feel petty and small for their dim world view. I wish he'd smite them for being faux Christians.
But then I'm as intolerant as they are for wishing that.
So I have to take a more secular approach and just say fuck 'em.

Under the Bus

Which Whitehouse operative will take the fall for JusticeGate next?
We know Bush and Rove were all over this stinking US Attorney witch hunt, and we know lil' whatsisname Kyle Sampson was kind enough to step down as the traditional Bush scapegoat (ala Harriet Myers) but the Capitol Hill gang just aren't satisfied. The story has legs, they have to be accountable.
Yep, they want a bigger fish this time.
Like Bush loves to do, Alberto Gonzales "accepted responsibility" for the mess- without any vow to do anything about it. Like convicted criminal Kenneth Lay unsuccessfully did, he accepted responsibility then quickly added, "But I have 100,000+ employees and it's hard, hard work to keep track of what all of them are doing..."
Bullshit. The Attorney General of the United States is responsible for the acts of all of his employees. His proclaimed ignorance is no defense. We all know Gonzales was in this despicable caper up to his neck.
We all know Karl Rove and Bush were in this up to their necks.
And Capitol Hill isn't going to accept a nobody like Kyle Sampson as the sacrificial lamb and move on without further consequences. Not this time.
I predict Gonzales will have to take the fall this time and throw himself under the bus.
I only wish I was the bus driver.

Alberto Gonzales: Scram, Pendejo

What a filthy liar this Bush-chum is. We all know good and well a bunch of perfectly capable federal attorneys were canned because they refused to march in lock step with the Bush agenda.
He admits, "Mistakes were made, I accept full responsibility for this." Then he refuses to even consider stepping down.
Even hyper right-wing conservative Texas Senator John Cornyn, a long time buddy boy of 'Beto Gonzales was on the news this morning saying this situation stinks to high heaven and needs to be looked into.

Just how much more of this bullshit must we endure?
Beto needs to get his swishy ass out of Washington, DC. He's a boil on the ass of the Justice system.

Mayan Ruins n' Beyond

You gotta love it.
Several Mayan priests plan to do a purification ritual on the Mayan ruins in Guatemala after Bush leaves. They want to remove the "evil spirits."
Clue: If a president goes on a "goodwill tour" to South and Central America and they need tens of thousands of troops and fake motorcades to protect him from being shot, there's not much goodwill to be had.
America's biggest contractor Halliburton is moving its headquarters from Houston to Dubai. May as well- that's the region where Dick's company is making most of its billions. Can you say "U.S. tax evasion"? How about "national security concerns"?
I figured it out. In order to be a Republican candidate for president in 2008, you have to have been married at least twice and cheated on at least one wife. Family values proponents apparently don't count infidelity, pedophilia or male prostitutes in their list of no no's.

A Modest Proposal

Everyone knows Fox News has an unabashed right-wing bias.
Recently, Fox's corpulent President Roger Ailes made a stupid joke about Barack Obama being hard to find and likened his elusiveness to that of Osama bin Laden's. Hardy, har, har.
As a result, candidates Obama and John Edwards pulled out of a Nevada debate co-sponsored by Fox News. Good for them.
Of course Fox News pretended to be shocked and blamed the whole thing on MoveOn.org, alleging they claimed to "own the Democratic party" and that Democratic candidates obey when they direct them not to speak to right-wing news media.
Please.
I think all candidates who object to broadcasting outlets with an obvious bias should simply boycott those outlets.
I don't mean boycott them for now, I mean boycott them forever. Don't offer any explanations, don't apologize, just walk away and don't go back.
It doesn't matter what Fox News will say about candidates who refuse to deal with them-- Fox News will say shitty things about them anyway.
Bullies are all the same. Take their ball away and they'll pout and whine, but eventually without a ball they will go away and try to find new victims.
I say let Fox take out it's childish, petty editorial stance on campaigning Republicans. Tear all of them apart- and start with their proclivity for pedophilia, infidelity and religious hypocrisy.
Let their idiot viewing audiences chew on that for a while.

Random Thoughts on a Lovely Friday Afternoon

I took the afternoon off today and it's been great just puttering around my new PC.
Now that I work in an office with 30 or so employees, I can see why BushCo has gotten by with so much criminal activity.
Never have I been in a group with such political incuriosity and such little awareness about what our Federal government has done to screw us.
Even those with strong GOP ties cannot explain why they support these criminals. In fact, they get defensive when asked to explain. They show no discernable knowledge of anything BushCo has done, and when they are told of his latest fuck-up they say, "Oh, all politicians do that."
But bring up Britney Spears, Kevin Federline or Anna Nicole Smith and they are encyclopedic in their knowledge of every twist and turn in their stories.
They know which stars are dancing with whom, they know which wannabe American Idol has the edge and they know all the words to Carrie Underwood's hymn to infidelity, "Before He Cheats."
Now I understand how the comic strip "Dilbert" got to be such a success.
Don't get me wrong, I like nearly everyone I work with, but their intellectual mediocrity is frightening.
Even the few who are politically astute tend to hush me up when I get on a roll, reminding me we work for a very conservative group of professionals who would not appreciate knowing of my anti-Bush intensity.
The same group we represent (physicians) are getting fucked left and right by BushCo, yet we are supposed to pretend he's on the side of patients and the doctors who treat them? How?
I know this is Texas and Texas is the state the Bush carpetbaggers claim, but it's pretty sickening to live in the hub of such political complacency and enabling.
I love so much about Texas, and I suppose I could ply my trade in any state and still make a good living, but I don't want to move. I'm a Texan just like Ann Richards, Bill Moyers, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins.
The only true activist politicians we have left in Texas tend to be Hispanic, and no offense, but they do tend to go off the deep end verbally and scare the white folks.
We had Henry Cisneros, but he's such a pussy hound and self-aggrandizing money grubber nobody can stand him.

Which brings me to Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

I'd love to love Hillary but I just can't find a way to do that. Her recent speech in Selma, Alabama where she did her impression of a black person imitating a white person doing a black person was right up there with poor Al Gore trying to dance to Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" during the Clinton/Gore Democratic convention. It was embarrassing to hear her reading an excerpt from an old negro hymn. Her darkie dialect was as abrasive as me trying to play violin.
I think I like Obama, but he too went all fried chicken and watermelon when he addressed that same day another audience in Selma.

It all ties in with my office coworkers who look for political style and not substance.

Obama and Hillary are intellectually gifted and should be more politically astute. They don't need to pander to whatever audience with talk (or dialect) they think they want to hear. They need to hammer the Bush administration with simple truths about their widespread dishonesty, failed policies and political malfeasance.
Hillary needs to admit that she's stiff and cranky- she needs to own that shit and get on with it. She should say, "Sure I'm angry, and here's why..."
Obama needs to be less of a chameleon and just say what he's got to say the same way in Selma as he would in Portland. His candor is not a liability that needs to be sanded down to a fine finish.

I don't write much about politics these days because I am thoroughly appalled by what's happened over the last six years. I can't even speak anymore to people like my former political nemesis BarCode Clyde because he got to be so goddamn stupid and insulting it wasn't even amusing to keep telling him I told you so anymore.

I guess what Bush has done will have to hit everyone on a personal level before Americans demand a change.
Their kid may have to die in Iraq. Their credit cards may have to start charging them 29% interest. China may have to call in the trillions Bush has borrowed to finance the Iraq invasion and bankrupt the nation.
Cheney may have to kill someone in another drunken hunting incident.

It's sickening, even on a beautiful spring afternoon like this.

This About Sums Up These Republican Neo-Cons:

Following is an excerpt from I. Scooter Libby’s 1996 novel, The Apprentice, which chronicles the depraved training of a Japanese prostitute:

The young samurai’s mother had the child sold to a brothel, where she swept the floors and oiled the men and watched the secret ways. At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch. Like other girls who have been trained this way, she learned to handle many men in a single night and her skin turned a milky-white.

The System Works! (Kinda)

Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, was found guilty of being a conniving liar.
Since the Justice System is on a roll, I hope Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame's planned lawsuit against Libby, Cheney and Rove is held in a Washington DC courtroom with a jury of Washington DC residents.
Those neo-con bastards have no human emotions but they do have a lot of money, so I hope their deceit and complicity costs them dearly.
Go get 'em.

The System Works! (Kinda)

Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, was found guilty of being a conniving liar.

Since the Justice System is on a roll, I hope Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame's planned lawsuit against Libby, Cheney and Rove is held in a Washington DC courtroom with a jury of Washington DC residents.

Those neo-con bastards have no human emotions but they do have a lot of money, so I hope their deceit and complicity costs them dearly.

Go get 'em.

On Forced Hiatus

Two Decembers ago when my iMac committed suicide, I was low on cash and needed an immediate replacement.
Enter a $600 Compaq, which was adequate for maybe two good years before it started acting up. Now it's a stuttering, jabbering, non turn-offable piece of electronic shit- soon to be stripped of its files and relegated to my front lawn for the scavengers to grab.
Meanwhile, I contemplated buying another Mac, but it wouldn't be totally compatible with the Dell I have at work, so dude, I'm getting a Dell.
Should arrive next week, so if my e-mail and blogging are spotty, you'll know why.