An excerpt from Uri Dan's new biography of Ariel Sharon:

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon's delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: "I will screw him in the ass!"

Oooo-kay. There's so much wrong with this, that I'm sorta at a loss for words- I will confess:

When I consider the folks that I despise in this world, I occasionally spend a bit of time entertaining thoughts of rendering Dante-style suffering upon them. However, for some damned strange reason, the idea of committing violent sodomy upon them never entered my brain (yes- even in the case of Ann Coulter- there are limits, even within heterosexuality- her entire body looks like Reagan's neck- I could eat a truckload of Viagra, and I doubt I'd be able to perform...)

Now, a lot of folks have leapt upon this, citing the rather tenuous homosexual element- but they're missing the bigger issue, here. Any rape counsellor will tell you- rape isn't about sex- it's about control, and power.

Bush Jr, when he says he wants to do the nasty with Bin Laden, isn't saying he's interested in any sexual gratification- he's just exhibiting the tendencies of any jailhouse member of the Aryan Brotherhood, when contemplating the tender mercies he would exert on a potential cellmate, if only the damned warden would let him out of solitary confinement.

But I guess it's Laura's problem now- every time Bush plunges his three and a half inches into her holiest of holies, she has to wonder: "Is it me, or is he thinking about Bin Laden?"

This is another patent insult- hundreds of Iraq vets are coming home, and winding up on the streets.

These people went through hell for George Bush's lies- these men and women saw and did things that many of us only contemplate in the depths of our worst nightmares- and when they come back, they're cut adrift. We already know how our VA hospitals are overwhelmed by the returning casualties from Iraq- and Bush's budget is calling for more stringent cuts to veteran's benefits, in years to come...

This is a sin- this is an unconscionable dereliction of duty, on the part of this administration, and the VA.

Dig this:

http://www1.va.gov/homeless/

Yes- the VA has a website for HOMELESS VETERANS. This website shouldn't even FREAKING EXIST.

But what the hell do I know? I didn't even want these guys to go to Iraq, in the first place- I'm just a peacenick liberal. I guess we should listen to the chickenhawks who wanted this war from the beginning- like Rush Limbaugh- who once said:

“One of the things I want to do before I die is conduct the Homeless Olympics. The 10-meter Shopping Cart Relay, the Dumpster Dig, and the Hop, Skip, and Trip.”

HAW-HAW-HAW! Isn't that FUNNY? (Well, in all fairness- after a dental operation last year, I was prescribed one of Rush's favorite happy pills- Percocet- and after one or two of those- EVERYTHING is funny...)

The only problem is- I'm not a patent drug abuser like Limbaugh, and I have a problem chuckling, knowing that hundreds of my fellow citizens who went through hell are being given the Katrina treatment.

Have I mentioned, tonight, how much I HATE REPUBLICANS?

As many of you are aware, I've been prevented from doing proper updates, as of late, because of freelance work. This is only partly true...

My roomie moved out at the beginning of this month, and despite by best attempts, I've been unable to find a replacement. Had I been intelligent, I would have announced my intentions to move out, at the same time, and gotten my own place- however, despite the rampant gentrification of Montclair, I just didn't wanna move- I love my true-blue town.

Long story short- I'm under a buttload of stress to find a suitable roomie- otherwise, I'm stuck with a rent bill that's beyond my means. I apologize if I cannot be here much, for the next week, but I have to spend the time I'd usually spend here keeping the apartment spic and span, and advertising like mad.

Yesterday, while waiting for 3ds Max to finish rendering segments of a 10-minute film about Blood Transfusion Mixers (another freelance job), I discovered that the full version of "Threads" was available for viewing, at google video.

For those who are unaware, or too young to remember:

"Threads" was the British answer to "The Day After"- both films sought to depict life in the wake of a full scale nuclear war. "The Day After" was widely lambasted by the folks who eventually went on to start Fox "News" as being "alarmist." To be honest, even though I saw TDA at the tender age of 13, I found it to be far too sanitized and "clean." Even at that early age, I knew I was seeing a patently "feelgood" version of the apocalypse...

"Threads" was shown on TBS, about a year after the airing of TDA, and I couldn't recall much remarkable about the movie, other than it being a shade darker than TDA- that was until just yesterday, when I saw the full, unedited version (see it below.) After viewing this, it's apparent that the TBS version was heavilly censored for american audiences.

"Threads" is still a sanitized and (barely) palatable vision of what would ensue, in the wake of a full-scale nuclear war, but it is still visceral, and disturbing, on many levels.

Thus, I present it to you:

Now- how does this relate to where we find ourselves, today?

Americans, as I'm constantly reminded, have horrifically short memories. Yeah- 9/11 was a terrible day, but lemme remind ya'll...

From around 1949, until the end of the cold war, everyone wasn't worried about the possibility of a shoe bomber bringing down a jet- they were worried that some nutjob in Moscow or DC would press a button, launch a few thousand nuclear warheads, and end life on this planet.

Seriously- it was that grave. On any given day, we never knew whether Reagan or his numerous Soviet conterparts would decide to put an end to everything....

It was frightening, to say the least- but during all of that time, we never sank to the place we find ourselves, today...

During the entirety of the cold war, the congress never handed over their constitutional duty to declare and execute wars to the executive branch. No president gave themselves the right to tap our phones, read our mail, or detain american citizens without due process, or legal representation (and if they did, they were held to account). Torture and "rendition" were out of the question.

And despite these "coddling" measures, we "won" the cold war.

Now, just twenty years later, we've given the most incompetent and unqualified bunch of cowards powers that even Reagan would have shied away from, in fear of a far more diminished threat than which faced us, back during the cold war...

History looks upon us, and hides its face in shame...

Indeed, it's true. Tony Blair is going to announce that the UK is gonna pull back 3K troops out of iraq by year's end, and the rest, by the end of next year.

I'm trying to figure out who is still in the "Coalition of the Willing", but it looks like that in a few months, it's just gonna be the USA holding the fort in this irrational war, and we've already lost...

We told ya so...

Lemme tell ya- I love Utah- despite it being one of the few states that remains purely red, it's second only to New Mexico in breathtaking scenery, and is home to a uniquely American homegrown sect of christianity that (let's be frank) is so whacky, it makes my own religion look positively sane (and DAMN- I'm jealous...)

However, as is the case in many of the few remaining red states, Utah is playing host to an ongoing debate about "intelligent design" being taught in their schools. I say that's all fine and good- yeah- let's pass a law that says that every school has to teach creationism, alongside evolution- at the same time, let's pass a law that says that every church has to give equal time on the pulpit to an atheist (paid, at the churches expense, the same yearly salary as the residing pastor.) It's the only fair arrangement, really.

These ongoing tussles at various state boards of education nationwide always vomit out their occasional pears of idiocy, and Utah's just coughed up a hairball that deserves notice...

Recently, the office of Utah Republican State Representative Ben Bridges issued a memo, claiming that the Big Bang Theory and Evolution are, in actuality, "derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic 'holy book' Kabbala dating back at least two millennia"

WOW! So it WASN'T Darwin, after all- it was those DAMNED JEWS!

I feel myself beeing literally blown away by shockwaves of sheer, mind-blowing stupidity. It's shameful enough that these extra-chromosome "christians" are dragging their own faith through the dirt in pursuit of a political agenda- that's one thing. It's another thing entirely when they decide to add a bit of good ol' irrational third-reich bigotry into the mix.

I hope to have more for ya'll in a bit- I dunno what it is with YouTube, but they're taking almost 12 hours to approve videos, these days. They should spend a bit of that google cash on better servers...

Normally, I wouldn't comment on such a trivial matter, but after checking out the story on Crooks And Liars, I hadda present this to ya'll...

The art of comedy is complex, to say the least. However, satire- particularly that which ridicules the events and blowhards of the day has held a treasured spot in the hearts and minds of the american people since the day that Benjamin Franklin published his first "Poor Richard's Almanac." In my youth, I enjoyed watching the weekly news parody program featured in each episode of "Saturday Night Live," despite the fact that Dennis Miller held the anchor's chair (he had yet to transform into a right-wing comedy shill, in the 80's.)

In our current day, there are two kings of the comedic news brodcast, in this country- Jon Stewart, and my fellow Montclair resident, Stephen Colbert.

They're far from perfect- I still remember the Daily Show that was broadcast in the immediate wake of 9/11, in which a tearful Jon Stewart used the opening segment of his show to "thank God" for the steady hand of George W Bush.

However, since that rather odious broadcast, the writers behind the Daily Show have used their comedic license to repeatedly skewer those in power, in ways that have made their show both informative, and hilariously biting. The emergence of the Colbert Report heralded a rennaisance of "fake news," in which the methods and tactics of the right-wing echo chamber were used with deft skill and flawless execution to lampoon those which made these methods de rigeur in conservative broadcasting circles.

The right wing has constantly criticized these shows as having a "liberal bias", and the folks over at Fox "News" decided that it was high time that they rolled out a conservative answer to TDS. Enter Joel Surnow, co-creator and producer of the notorious torture-fest "24." His brainchild? The "1/2 hour News Hour", which will launch this sunday, on Fox "News." Witness the glory:

Now- I'm quite adept at casting my political convictions aside, when it comes to comedy- but DAMN...

Okay- first off- I notice that they've cobbled together a studio that's pretty much an exact copy of the Colbert/Stewart sets, right down to the crane shots at the outset of the program. Imitation might be the most sincere form of flattery, but you'd figure that Rupert Murdoch would be able to put together something a bit more unique, considering the billions he's rolling around in.

Secondly- if you're going to produce a comedy show- you might want to make sure that the material presented is, well- funny. This is just a series of lame jabs, interspersed with a recorded laughtrack (yes- even though they had a live audience, they needed to dub in laughter- it's apparent that the audience was mute, throughout this performance.)

Thirdly- They use footage from Barak Obama's recent trip to Kenya (featuring jubilant crowds of black people), and present it as "campaign footage." Nice racism, there- nothing gets the average viewer at Fox "News" more riled up than images of a lot of happy black folks.

I could go on and on...

This show isn't going to last more than two episodes, but here's the basic lesson we can all take away from this:

If you're anything like me: during the darkest hours of the past seven years, in between bouts of spiralling depression, stomach-turning disgust, and deep sadness, we've been at times able to sit back, and laugh at the utterly ridiculous nature of the sorry drama that is playing out before our eyes. Despite the hurt, the trauma, and the anger, we can still look upon this spectacle, as see it for what it is- a sad, grotesque farce.

And this fact- that we're able to maintain that most basic of human emotions- humor- amisdt such misery and hardship- galls these right-wing bastards into a state of apoplexy- why?

Because they've forgotten how to laugh- how to enjoy life- how to feel human. The only way they can feel good about themselves, is by tearing people down. In creating this show, they show themselves for what they are, yet again: spiteful, humorless, nitpicking, racist assholes.

If you have basic cable, I reccommend tuning in- it'll be a spectacle you'll never forget.

Monkeyboy's #1 initiative over the remaining months of his presidency is to keep the war in Iraq going, until he leaves office. His whole life has been a streak of failures, and he's damned if he's gonna exit stage right, with his "presidency" marred by a quick exit from the apocalyptic mess he created.

Ya see- if the war continues until it's passed to his (certain) democratic successor, he can claim the war to be a success, under his watch. The responsibility for ending it (and the consequences thereof) will be shouldered by successive administrations. However, if the congress should bring this war to and end, before the next president takes office, the war's failure will be forever viewed as a byproduct of his administration.

How to do this? Well- as I have previously stated, when the democrats took power just a few months back, we in the antiwar movement were hoping that this would signal a possible end to this horrific fiasco in Iraq. However, the Bush Bowl decided to up the ante:

Instead of talking about ending his war, we're now struggling to oppose his "surge." Instead of working to end the war in Iraq, we're now mobilizing to stop these idiots from initiating a war against Iran.

It's one step forward, two steps back.

I'm the last one to criticize the antiwar movement, as I consider myself one amongst their number- but those of us who have opposed this war from the very start must grasp a grisly, unpleasant, and disheartening truth:

WE FAILED.

Yes- we signed hundreds of petitions- we braved the bitter cold of winter, and the searing heat of summer, as we marched in our millions. We fought, we prayed, we hoped, we cried, we shouted, we struggled every step of the way, we did everything we could- but we failed.

The only reason that the Bush Bowl finds itself as isolated and despised as it is, today, is because of their own gross incompetence, and their own arrogant hubris. The corporate media dutifully reported white house propaganda, until their talking points became so divorced from reality that independent action had to be taken, for fear that their tattered journalistic integrity was to be totally lost. It wasn't until the MSM started to report a tad of truth about the reality of the war in Iraq, that the american people started to get a true glimpse of the consequences of their decisions, and turned against the war.

We had nothing to do with the downfall of the Bush Bowl- they hung themselves.

The democratic party (with a few notable exceptions- props to Kucinich, Wrangel, and Conyers,) is still trying to find their collective spines, even though 70% of americans are opposed to the Bush Bowl.

Now- I'm not going to say that because the antiwar movement failed, it is irrelevant- far from it. For the past three years, the antiwar movement in the USA has been analogous to an individual's conscience. Think about it:

We ignore our consciences, every day- we eat fatty foods and smoke, when our conscience tells us it's bad for us. We spend hours playing video games and watching TV, when our conscience constantly reminds us that we could be doing better things with our time. We neglect our personal relationships, when we know we should treasure those around us.

But the conscience is still there, and over time, we learn. The day comes when we eat a yogurt, instead of a super-sized McDonald's breakfast, or make the decision to quit smoking, or vow to use our time more wisely, and take an evening off with close friends, and- wouldn't ya know it?

Despite our fears of swaying from the familiar, hurtful lifestyles we've led, we find that our consciences were right all along- doors are opened, inhibitions are broken down, and old habits are shed like the cocoon of an emerging butterfly...

Yes- we failed this time- and we might fail again, and again, and again, but we're not going to stop- and we'll win- it may not come in our lifetime, or our children's, but the day will come that the current crop of neocons and their brand of myopic ignorance will be but a distant, reviled memory.

And despite our failures, despite our setbacks, despite a patently cowardly democratic party, our day will come- because there are only two options:

A monkeyboy future of eternal war, creationism, denial of global warming, militarism, and grotesque plutocracy- or a better vision: peace, enlightenment, environmental stewardship, and social justice.

We just need to keep fighting, despite our momentary defeats. The future is ours, if only we have the will to claim it.

My, but the right-wing echo chamber is in a twitter today, over the DOD claims of the proliferation of Iranian-made muntions in Iraq.

Let me interject two common-sense points into the drumbeat of war:

1: Iraq is now in the midst of a full-scale civil war. Over a hundred Iraqis are dying a day, and our Apaches are being gunned down with a regularity that is eerily reminiscent of how things went for the Soviet MI 24 after we gave stinger missiles to the Afghani Mujahadeen. Anbar Province, which constitutes a good 30% of Iraq, is now effectively ungovernable and mired in chaos.

Iraq is effectively a war zone- and war zones are sponges that suck up armaments from any ready source. After the 90's Balkan conflicts, armaments from Russia, The United States, The United Kingdom, Israel, Czech Republic, Poland, China, and even South Africa were found to have been used.

The situation in Iraq is even more confusing. Tons of coalition weaponry and munitions have gone missing in Baghdad, and have found their way to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Considering that there are a few hundred miles of unpatrolled borders with Iran, Syria, and Jordan, and folks in the area keen to make a quick buck- The appearance of Iranian weapons should be a shock to no one.

(BTW- we in the antiwar movement warned the world specifically about this sorta situation, back in 2002, but no one listened- nice move, sheeple!)

2: Imagine, for a moment, if Mexico was invaded and conquered by- let's say- Nigeria. After a brief but horrific war, Mexico falls to the forces of Lagos- soon, there's a full-scale mexican insurgency against the Nigerians- further- the indigenous peoples in southern mexico rise up, and engage in full-scale ethnic warfare against the north. Before you know it, car bombs are going off in Mexico city marketplaces every day, refugees are flooding across the border, and things look dire...

Now- in such circumstances, it's pretty damn sure certain that the United States would start sending operatives and munitions into the war zone that has suddenly erupted on its border.

I don't like Ahmedinejad, and I find the ties between religion and government in Iran to be a tad too "Falwell-esque" for my tastes- but folks...

Iran finds itself in a rather tenuous situation- they have one failed american misadventure (Afghanistan) to the east. They have another (Iraq) to their west. They know that they are next in the neoconservative crosshairs.

This being the situation- they'd be IDIOTS not to send arms and operatives into these american-created hellholes.

Again- this was a situation that was easily predictable, back in '02. However- back then, the folks sounding the alarm were labelled as "terrorist sympathizers" and "commies".

I hate to end this missive with the traditional "We told you so"- but:

WE TOLD YOU SO...

Again- it's a strange situation in which we find ourselves- where peacenick college dropouts like myself have a better grasp of geopolitics than the folks over at the American Enterprise Institute.

Seriously- it's simple logic- we create hell- and others will create further hell to counter the hell we created- is this an arithmetic that's too hard for harvard graduates to grasp?

Straight outta the land that brought us Mel Gibson and Rupert Murdoch, Prime Minister John Howard exemplifies the spirit of good Aussie right-wing lunacy:

"If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."

The reason for this spiel? Mr Howard claims to find Barak Obama's antiwar rhetoric a tad disagreeable. However, I have a feeling that Howard is still one of those sad holdouts who bought into the madrassa hoax.

Uhh, Mr. Prime Minister- you apparently didn't pay any attention to the recent election we had over here. The whole "Democrats=Al Qaeda" thing went over like a lead balloon- no one's buying it, anymore. Continuing to spew this kinda drivel makes you look like some sorta backwater rube who's patently unfit to hold such high office.

But hell- we knew that all along...

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.

Read more here...

I once again apologize that I've been so out of touch- life blows, at times...

Ya gotta give Rove kudos- after overseeing a catastrophic republican defeat just a few months back, you'd figure the guy would have spent a few weeks contemplating the need for a bit of personal political contrition- but not ol' Karl...

Remember how, in the weeks following the election, we were looking forward to the Dems bringing the war to an end? Well, here we are, just a few months later, and instead of discussing a possible end to the war, we're desperately struggling to stop an ESCALLATION.

It's a perversely brilliant move- Bush's "surge" has completely changed the subject.

Listening to the right-wing echo chamber, as of late, the usual suspects have brought up a very good point:

"Why don't the democrats put their money where their mouth is? Instead of offering up non-binding resolutions, why don't they just cut off funding?"

Indeed? Why not? The answer is, of course, that such a move is politically suicidal. However, our dems need to be reminded that they weren't elected to do what's politically expedient- they were elected to do what's RIGHT.

Just today, the republican minority was able to shut down debate on the non-binding resolutions- despite all that has happened over the past few months, nothing has changed- if anything, the antiwar movement has suffered SETBACKS in the higher levels of government, since the dems took over.

How pathetic is that?

While the corporate media's been obsessing about Obama and Clinton, I've been paying more attention to the republican field, and while a year's a long time in politics, it looks like we're in for a good show...

They're basically stuck with two kinds of candidates. On one hand, they have the ultraconservative "christian" whackjobs like Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter (whose issues are the traditional John Birch trail's mix: Abortion, Anti Gay Marriage, and Immigration.) On the other, they have what the echo chamber have deemed their "electables"- right now, numbering two: Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

The folks at the top of the republican dunghill are tolerating the flying monkeys for the time being, but are putting all their eggs in the McCain and Giuliani campaigns.

Here's the problem:

The primary season always favors those who cater to the party's base- it's true on both sides of the political divide- the democratic primaries favor the more liberal, and the republican primaries always go for the more conservative. This tendency has intensified among the republican party, and for well over a decade, that party has been pretty much taken over by the "christian" right at the local level. This infiltration began over twenty years ago, when Karl Rove's mentor, Lee Atwater, actively fostered the inclusion of "Extra Chromosome Republicans" (his term) into the party. Abandoning the "Big Tent" concept that swept Reagan into office, the republican party was coming to God, and my, but it reaped big rewards.

In 2000, the republicans were able to install George Bush as president, even though they lost millions of votes amongst Catholics, Jews, African-Americans, Women, etc... In just about every demographic one can name, the republicans lost ground, with the exception of protestant "christian" white men. Walking away from that "election", Rove was confident that he had forged the new political demographic that would secure a permanent republican majority.

However, in 2004, the white male fabric was wearing a bit thin, but a healthy dose of fear and disinformation was enough to hold the line, ensuring that Bush would sail to a second term by the thinnest margin in american electoral history. In 2006- well- I guess we all know what happened...

Now, here's the problem: The local republican parties are in the hands of the aforementioned "christian" patriarchate, and it's gonna take decades to turn that around. After a half-century of operating at the fringes of government, the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world finally have a controlling share in a major political party, and they ain't gonna go quietly. The GOP party bigwigs might have walked away from the '06 debacle having learned a few things, but amongst the folks that run the party at the local level, the consensus is universal:

"The reason we lost, is because we weren't conservative ENOUGH! We didn't talk ENOUGH about gay marriage and abortion! If we had candidates who were gutsy enough to put a picture of an aborted fetus or two black men kissing on their campaign signs, we would have won!"

The Brownbacks and the Tancredos are going to enjoy an early surge, but McCain and Giuliani are the party favorites, for now, and here's what's delicious:

Giuliani is in favor of women's reproductive rights (abortion,) civil unions for gay americans, and is more liberal than half the democrats in office, right now- the right-wing base of the party will chew this guy up, and spit him out, before super tuesday arrives.

McCain- oy, where do I start?

McCain, after an admirable effort in 2000 to pry the republican party away from the clutches of the religious right, has flip-flopped, and is now bending over backwards to appear even more conservative than Bush. Everywhere you look, the guy's sucking up to the most radical elements of the party, and well, John- it just ain't gonna work. Amongst the radical "christian" right, this guy remains a pariah, and hasn't a prayer.

The republican party sold its collective soul to the most extreme elements of our society, and thought it would make them immortal- now, just a decade later, the party is set to eat itself.

Enjoy the show.

Molly Ivins passed away, a few hours ago.

She was a champion, and I'll miss her more than words can say. I'll remember her, every time I kick a republican's ass.

(Two weeks away from deadline- I'll be back, soon.)