Korean Missles, N/30, 9/11... The axis of evil... ah, shit, it's the motherfuckin' snakes on the plane, goddamn it!

Too punk... Not punk enough... You live where? You fought in that war? You read books? You are not an anarchist? You look queer? You talk like a pundit? You don't sound like you know anything... But, The Government!

Yes, what about it? Do YOU know the difference between The Administration and the principals of law that we administer ourselves by? Have you ever met anyone elected to a Federal office? A local one? For real? Had candid conversations with them?

If you did, this clusterfuck would make a lot more sense.

Over there, they are shooting missiles that hurt no one, but a competent foreign policy should have made that never happen. Impossible in the post-Gore/Bush environment. Over there, no that way, they are planting explosives (when not simply shooting them at our sons and daughters), raking up a death toll, let alone the exponential casualty count, that is simply astonishing...

But here we all bitch at each other and point fingers about who is not anti-everything enough... Pick your poison. And we say that the other doesn't know how it happened over there... But that is exactly how it happened here.

This is not Nazi Germany, but we act like it is. This is not Stalinist Russia, but we turn on each other like it is, letting them go against them who is not us... Anyone who divides the media into mainstream and non-mainstream should be put up on a holiday in Cuba. And Ambassador Bremer should give his medal to the editors in New York who brave this shit-storm with some facts about how The Administration is behaving.

I don't know... People who all agree on politics, in general, who end up deeply disliking each other after talking... This is what the enemy wants. Not new copies of The New York Times. And this is what The Administration has so perfectly, though I still say accidentally, set up. I do not think it was intentional. I don't know. Ask Joe Lieberman.

But in the end, it is still Democracy in Distress.

Why do they think we are weak? We are. Why do they hate our freedom? They do not. They see us as the sick old man of the west (like the Ottomans a hundred years ago)... Wasteful and self-absorbed and, damnit, we are.

If I wasn't made of more scar tissue than muscle, I'd join the Army but it is too late for me. Instead, I study the lands, the languages... I would anyway, it fascinates me and it makes me hate all of these stupid wars, but I do it inspite of this, not because of this, though it makes it my studies difficult.

And I talk about what I have learned over the years, about those lands, about those governments and about our government.

I could tell you stories about the Congress members, in both houses, that I have met, but nobody remembers their names any more. I do, however, remember turning on my TV to see where the police were shooting tear gas outside of my own apartment and how I remember how I had to sit there choking on it because I lived in the wrong neighborhood... The one where the rioters came from.

N/30. Yeah, 9/11 killed this. But it may still get us all in the end. It was also the last time I spoke to a Congressman. I asked, "why?" He said that he didn't know why it all fell down the way it did but he came out to support his constituents anyway, choking on the gas...

He came from a district that had no "rioting." He wasn't there for the voters. He was there for America.

Fuck everyone... That would not, could not happen today.

And this is why we are losing our own self-declared war against the world.

And I used to be a neo-con.

Too many blogs...

For a time, go here.

rubble.blogspot.com

I realize that there are things I want to do with my blogs- vague, amorpheous things that I cannot spell correctly, and to complile a look at life.... well, it just isn't going to happen with four blogs, no matter how much I like the title of this one...

Go, go... or just go...

Matters, matters not, depending...

Agreement with Bush (Probably a Second Term First)

Wow, I actually agree with Bush on vetoing any legislation blocking the port management contract to the company from the UAE. As he points out, if there is any problem, if there is no problem with a British firm running these ports, there should be no problem with an Arab firm. While I am not sure that foreign companies from any region should be handling these tasks for us, as it has been pointed out, these firms do not handle the security of the ports, this is handled by the U.S. Coast Gaurd.

And I agree that blocking this contract, essentially on the basis of race, would be a horrible move for the government.

Admittedly, I have not dug deep into this issue, but I don't think this is quite in the category of sneaking the bin Laden's out of the country in the days following 9/11.

Arabs are not the enemy, and anything that fosters closer ties between America and Arab states should be encouraged. It is a much surer strategy for ending terror attacks than creating new terrorist states where none existed before.

Filibuster This! Alito and Abortion

I've been wondering whether the Dems should push for a filibuster on Alito, a fight they would probably lose. Finally, I landed... Go for it. The opposition party has been so careful about only picking fights that they can win that they do not fight at all anymore- at least it feels this way. So gird up those loins, show some testicular fortitude, and just do it. Ignore the Republican taunts and show some damn conviction for a change.

Anyway, Alito isn't too scary. I understand the reluctance. He seems to have a brain and to not be evil, only conservative.

Finally, no guarantees on Roe, but... It is time to stop living in fear of this issue. It is not something that should be in the courts anyway, and very likely, after a massive political blood bath, it would become law (eventually). It would be devastating for some while it worked its way into law if the court overturns it, but it would also put the political status quo into a blender and in the end, I think the numbers are there for the Democrats to come out on top in the end in many different ways.

As I said, the short term effects to private, personal lives would be devastating, but the long term effects of a maintained Republican hegemony in Washington will be even worse.

Besides being very busy with real life, the issues have just been too messed up to comment on much in the blog recently. I will do better.

Bush Poll Numbers (Something Stinks in DC)

I should be taking a nap. But I just ate and I thought I would write for a moment as I digest...

Watching the poll numbers this morning, I am finding myself actually starting to believe that the other 51% is figuring out what our 49% feared all along... It is impossible to know for sure, but some part of me is remembering promises made about the leak investigation many moons ago and is wondering if Bush's numbers can go up while his brain still has a job?

In the modern age of telephones and e-mail, just kicking Rove out would not lessen his influence. Still it would be a sign that Bush even notices the desires of the general public these days, not just the ultra-conservatives who seem to have mostly disliked Meyer's gender, who disliked the number of poor that managed to survive the recent disasters and then to have the audacity to expect help from the government, and who only blame the administration for getting caught in the leak investigation.

Bush won't shitcan Rove, though. Not without an indictment. And he'll ride the stinking carcass of his non-existent political capital all the way down into complete uselessness.

I can hope at least. I can also hope that the Democrats and moderate Republicans can use this opportunity to fix much of what is going wrong in America right now... But they, and the American people, have let me down so many times before that I fear one halfway decent event turning in the Administration's direction will erase the last two months of clarity.

Still, Brown, Meyers, and Scooter all coming together at once is a pretty difficult revelation into the current nature of the Executive Branch to ignore.

Alito early for slugging metaphors (and for bad puns)

So sick of it. Not awake yet, coffee pot still brewing, and Gary Bauer is weaseling on the phone on CNN talking about Grand Slam Home Runs. No wonder this country is going to shit, no one has enough imagination anymore. People yakking on and on about he hit a home run here, I don’t think he’ll claim to hit a home run with this, and so forth… Speeches, nominations, morning constitutionals...

It is time for a new metaphor, people. A friend of mine declared 1992, if I remember right, the year of the over-extended metaphor. That was 13 years ago, people. It's over. Done.

Samuel Alito. Blah. Bauer said that this is a man who, like most Americans, won’t care if there is a Christmas Tree on public property.

Maybe baseball is a good metaphor after all. It could be that Skippy the Wonder-preddident just hit the separation of Church and State out of the park… Put some mustard on it, it’s out of here. Gone.

And I knew the nomination had to come through today, but before the sun is even up over most of the country, come on. Not quite as desperate looking as if the announcement had been made on Scooter day, but pretty damn close.

Speaking of economics...

This law just went into effect this week. I thought that I would bump this.

Fun with the Bush Administration.
How come I have a feeling that when they are discussing tort reform they are not discussing the suit filed against me over one of my son’s medical bills? They are discussing this issue in Congress. They are making it harder for people like me to file for bankruptcy. Most bankruptcies result either from divorce, family illness or job loss. I’ve got something in common with Bush. “Little did I realize we’d get the trifecta.”