Protest!

After two weeks on the road, I'm finally back home, tired but at the same time energized by the events of last weekend.

The protest in Washington DC was one of the high points of my entire activist life. I have never been in a group of over 100,000 people (don't let the news media lie to you – the parade route blocks were literally packed with protesters) who had that much energy and drive and desire before. I managed to miss all of the big demonstrations of the 60s and early 70s, which is one reason I was goddamned if I was going to miss this one.

An old friend of mine from high school who is now living in West Virginia drove overnight to come to the protest and incredibly he managed to find me in this huge crowd.

The whole event was as well organized as it could be, but naturally when you get that many different organizations and "affinity groups" together, it's a lot like herding cats. Things got off to a very slow start, with entirely too much standing around and waiting. The start of the parade was at the corner of Constitution and 15th, and the local cops had put up barricades – snow fences, really – to funnel the crowd into 15th, and that's what took the most time, I think.

I was originally with the Veterans for Peace contingent, but when we were kept standing and waiting for so long, five of us took off on our own, threading our way through the crowd until we were able to slip into the parade.

Shouts of Impeach Bush, War Criminal, Bring the Troops Home, etc., echoed off the stately facades of those grand monumental government buildings along the way, and the air was filled with cadence chants like these:

·Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters!
·We're veterans against the war, we know what we're marchin' for. Bring our troops back to our soil, we say no more blood for oil.
·Dubya's lies should make him choke, he must still be snortin' coke. Saddam's secret poison gas must be something Rumsfield passed.

People carried signs that said Stop the War, Out Now, and Worst President Ever (thanks to Bartcop.com). Make Wine Not War (Democrats of Napa Valley). Guilty of War Crimes (impeachbush.org).

Homemade signs included Real Support is Not Asking Our Troops to Die for a Lie. College Not Combat. Our Troops Are Dying in Another Quagmire. Been There. A hand-lettered t-shirt said An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind.

Counter protests? Pathetic. One poor deluded fucker – who I must say did have a lot of balls – was standing by himself at the start of the march with a big sign over his head that said "Al Qaida Thanks You for Your Support". His face said that he had a huge chip on his shoulder, but the few people that engaged him in conversation remained calm and nothing happened.

At the FBI Building (fittingly) we met a group of about 80 or so counter-demonstrators who were cordoned off behind portable fences and a line of DC's finest. They were shouting incoherently, drowned out by the singing and shouting of the protestors. The cops all had amused expressions on their faces – the ones who didn't look bored out of their skulls. This must be an everyday thing for them.

The last marchers came straggling in to the Camp Casey site, between the Washington Monument and The Ellipse behind the White House about six o'clock. There was a concert later but I was too tired from all the standing, marching and shouting, and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so I fell in with a couple of guys from my hotel – one of whom had been carrying all day a large sign with a laughing strawberry on it that said "Just another fruit for peace" – and after we went to dinner I collapsed in my hotel room.

The next day was a rest day, more or less. It was also the day that the counter-demonstrators were supposed to meet en mass and march around their own section of the mall. Sadly for them, despite the fact that it had been flogged to death on rightwing radio for the last couple of months, all they could manage to get together was a paltry 400 or so.

I went to the orientation/training session for those who intended to get arrested Monday afternoon, held in a tent just below the towering Washington Monument. I was ready to sit in with the 400 or so other people and get my name on the arrest records of our nation's capital until I found out that chances were, with that many people, I would probably not get out of jail until the next morning. I had a plane to catch in Philadelphia (long story, not now) at 8:30 the next morning (i.e. yesterday), so much to my disappointment I was not able to get arrested. This time.

During the course of this orientation session, three Marine One-type helicopters came overhead and settled in on the White House lawn behind us. We didn't know if Bush was aboard, but just to be sure that we were on the side of right and justice, three hundred hands shot into the air with the "Bush Finger" extended.

Behind us the two plainclothes cops on bicycles who had been trying unsuccessfully to blend in were not amused.

On Monday I marched to the White House with the people who were intending to get arrested, Cindy Sheehan included, with two streams of protesters going up each side of the White House grounds and coming together in Lafayette Park. Snipers on the White House roof kept their wary eyes on us.

Cindy spoke to the crowd along with religious leaders from all of the major religions.

After more chanting and shouting, Cindy and the religious leaders approached the gate and asked to speak to the president. What a surprise to all of us that he wouldn't meet with them.

At that point the volunteers walked down the sidewalk in front of the White House, pinned the names of the dead to the fence and sat down.

From then on it was all kind of pro forma. The buses and paddy wagons drove up between the protesters and the crowd, people were put into plastic handcuffs with their hands behind their backs and loaded into the buses or wagons. I waited until Cindy was cuffed and the crowd cheered her bravery, and then it was time for me to go.

However, the next time I will know in advance what the drill is and I will proudly and gladly get arrested in front of the White House along with Cindy Sheehan, along with the religious leaders who stand in opposition to this immoral war, along with my fellow members of Veterans for Peace.

End the war. Now.

Update: See many more protest photos here

Going Dark for a While

I'm on my way to the East Coast for the national Veterans and Military Families for Progress conference in Arlington, VA, this weekend, and then I'm going up to Philly and NYC with some friends before I come back to DC to join up with my fellow Veterans for Peace members for the big anti-war rally on the 24th.

I'll try to post when possible, but it'll be on a catch-as-catch-can basis. I'm taking the laptop, but you never know when or where you can get a wi-fi connection.

Catch you all on a regular basis when I get back in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your continued support reading these random scratchings...

-- Farnsworth

Stare Decisis My Ass

There's no other way to say this: John Roberts is lying through his teeth when he says that Roe v. Wade is settled case law, and the principle of stare decisis applies (i.e., that the case is decided through prior court decisions and a precedent is set).

He is fucking lying, and the weak-kneed Dems are letting him get away with it. When it comes to the lying wingnut assholes on the Republican Supreme Court, there is no such thing as settled case law.

A quick review of the last court shows decisions on gay rights and death penalty issues that were, we all thought, settled case law.

And why shouldn't Roberts lie? We had twelve years of Ronald "I was asleep" Reagan and Papa Doc "Read my hips" Bush lying constantly, plus for the last five years every time anyone in this maladministration opens his or her mouth, lies pour out faster than the water over Niagara Falls. And everyone is getting away with it. There is no accountability, and there are no consequences to the flood of lies that wash over us daily.

And don't let's forget that Clarence "Houseboy" Thomas stated, under oath, in his own confirmation hearing in 1991 that he believed in stare decisis and he didn't have any strong feelings on the abortion issue. The fucker wasn't ten minutes under the hairy thumb of Antonin Quack-Quack Scalia when he started saying shit like this: "We believe that Roe was wrongly decided, and that it can and should be overruled...The issue is whether it [the right to choose] is a liberty protected by the Constitution of the United States. I am sure it is not."

And nobody has even bothered to try to call him on it. Why would Roberts lying under oath be any different.

This fucker is going to be head of the Supreme Court for the next 30 years. Or more. Can we really stand this as a nation? I guess we'll have to find out, since I'll bet the Dems are going to roll over and let the Rethugs walk all over them.

Again.

Nuclear "Preemptive" Strike?

In an unprecedented decision that so far seems to have eluded most of the MSM/SCLM (although other countries' news services have picked it up and are to our embarrassment spreading it far and wide), the Pentagon is preparing plans for a nuclear first strike, calling it "preemptive", against suspected WMD producing/ holding/ considering/ looking-at/ thinking-about/ barely-conceptualizing nations.

These fuckers are a bunch of Armageddonists hell-bent on bringing on the Apocalypse. That's been an article of faith for the moronic know-nothing suckers in the religious right for years, but it appears that the cynical neocons, having pandered to the glazed-face glassy-eyed Kool-Aid drinking Christianists for years, are now doing their level best to make their wishes come true.

Compounding this is the recently-released data on the Chernobyl Disaster which puports to show that it wasn't as bad as all that, a lot fewer people died than were predicted, the birds and animals see the contaminated area as a wildlife refuge, and so on, yada yada yada. Just what we need, something that would indicate, to the wrong mindset, that unthinkable nuclear war isn't all that unthinkable after all.

I keep saying it, but it keeps on being true: We are so fucked.

Dodging the Bullet?

One of the more baffling things that came out the inanity-dribbling mouth of Baby Doc Bush was his incredible statement that the papers said the New Orleans had "dodged the bullet".

Daily Kos has a montage of newspaper front pages from the day in question, and I don't see any of them proclaiming that any bullet was dodged or anything close to it. Instead words like "devastation", "death", and "destruction" seem to dominate the headlines.

These people will lie to you with no sense of guilt or shame, even in the face of all contrary evidence.

"Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

-- Baby Doc Bush, on a daily basis

Yet Another FEMA Horse's Ass

Jesus, can it get any worse? Turns out the FEMA director for Region 10 (Seattle), John Pennington, is another horse's ass in a cheap suit, an unqualified spoils-system political-hack serial liar.

Pennington, a former GOP member of the Washington State legislature, has zero experience with disasters. Aside from, apparently, his own marriage, since his wife filed a restraining order against him in January 2005 alleging physical abuse and injury to her neck.

When Pennington resigned from the legislature citing "health reasons" that left him unable to sit or stand for long periods of time -- over 30 minutes -- thereby leaving his fellow GOP legislators in the minority in a legislative body that was, up to that point, evenly divided.

The only problem with this was that Pennington, instead of staying home to convalesce, took off on a European vacation. Maybe things have changed, but the last time I went to Europe, I sat in an airplane seat for about ten hours. If I had physical problems that were so severe that I had to leave a part-time job (which is what legislators in Washington state are considered to work), then I don't think they would allow me to goet on a plane to Europe.

Even the Repugs in SW Washington (coincidentally the same area that was misrepresented by neocon fake-disaster-pundit and Baby-Doc-apologist Bob "The Weasel" Williams, back in the days of another major disaster, the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens) don't like him. See the ordinarily and consistently far-right wingnut blog, Clark County Politics, for an analysis of Pennington's shortcomings -- by one of his fellow Repugs.

To make it all even better, Pennington's college "degree" was from something called California Coast University, a SoCal diploma mill which was non-accredited at the time he paid his money and got his sheepskin. In other words, Alfred E. Neuman could have gotten a degree from this outfit.

The only way Pennington got the FEMA job was because of cronyism. There's no way else to explain it. Former Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn appointed this combination slacker/liar to a $138,000 a year job based on no qualifications at all except she "likes him". Dunn, BTW, was Baby Doc's campaign director in Washington State last year. Not that it helped anyone, since Kerry carried Washington by a large margin, so it's hard to see why she had any clout to appoint even a dogcatcher. Baby Doc doesn't like those who don't get him what he wants, and Jennifer fucked up big time when she lost this state to that dirty lousy wound-faking Fonda-loving Commie-tool John Kerry.

Are these fuckers really this shameless? Never mind, I answered my own question.

Bye-Bye, Brownie -- See You on the Unemployment Line

Yeah, you did a heckuva job, Brownie, but now it's time to move on.

It comes as no surprise that serial liar, former city manager's gofer/flunky/intern and nursing-home-director-that-nobody-ever-heard-of Michael Brown has finally turned in his "resignation".

They can call it a resignation if they want, but he was fired. And I'm glad to see that the incompetent fucker was fired. It marks, as far as I know, the first time in five years that the equally incompetent Baby Doc has actually fired someone. Maybe this will start a trend, and the moronic little cowboy-in-chief will finally realize that incompetence breeds more incompetence, and personal loyalty to the feuhrer is not the most valuable personality trait when it comes to governing this country.

Yeah, right. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 464 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for the Bush children to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

Osama Bin Laden -- Remember Him?

On the 4th anniversary of 9/11, I think that it's important to recall that Fearless Leader swore into a megaphone while standing on top of that pile of rubble that he would get the people responsible.

It has now been 1461 days since he said that he'd get Osama dead or alive. That he'd smoke him out. That he could run but he couldn't hide.

Another reminder: It was only 1347 days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII.

I just thought you'd like to know.

Mr. Cheney, Go Fuck Yourself

Anyone watching CNN that day was shocked -- shocked! -- to hear the words. Cheney -- who uses them regularly on the floor of the senate -- must be used to hearing them, since he didn't bat an eyelash.

But the young doctor who said them -- who also lost his house to Katrina, and had to drive an extra 20 minutes to get back to the wreckage because of the Cheney motorcade -- was briefly arrested for his troubles. Read the story for yourself.

And this is America? Land of the free? And all that other happy horseshit they crammed down our impressionable throats all the way through school?

Bullshit. He broke no law; he merely fired VP Crashcart's own words back at him. Was Cheney arrested after he tossed that phrase so blithely at Senator Leahy on the floor of the Senate? No, I didn't think so.

Thank god for the Constitution of the United States and its First Amendment guarantees of free speech... What's that? Oh. Uh...never mind.

Bob Williams, Pundit???!!! I Have Now Officially Fucking Had It

I know you are asking the question: Who the fuck is Bob Williams and why the fuck is he a fucking talking head on the fucking MSM/SCLM discussing Hurricane Katrina?

Bob ("The Weasel" as he's known here in SW Washington) Williams is a former Washington State legislator (and I am sorry to say, when he was there he represented my district -- although, I quickly point out, he did not represent me) who just happened to be in the legislature when Mt St Helens blew in 1980.

"Our" volcano wasn't even in his fucking legislative district, so how this makes him an expert on disasters or anything else is beyond me. Okay, granted, the FEMA gang set up shop in a junior high school in Kelso, WA, which is in his district, but I can tell you from my personal experience of actually working there, filing Disaster Unemployment Insurance Claims, that the motherfucker didn't even bother to show up once.

Now he's the president -- and Fearless Leader, in the Kim Jong Il mode -- of an Olympia, Washington, based neofascist neo-Stalinist "think tank" called the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, whose sole mission in life seems to be to needle and meddle and interfere with the proper functioning of state government. How in the hell this asshole ever made it to pundit status able to comment on national affairs is beyond me, but there the little pissant is, all over the media as a learned Commentator on Disasters.

The only disaster this assbreath is at all familiar with is his own abortive attempt to run for congress, in which he was soundly thrashed by a true Washington State liberal, Jolene Unsoeld, who was, in my opinion, the best congressional representative Washington's 3rd District ever had.

All kudos to Media Matters, who calls the lie to this know-nothing-nobody-from-noplace-going-nowhere asshole.

We Are Fucked. We Are So Fucked

In a move that shouldn't really surprise anyone, the 4th Circuit Court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling and held with its overlords in the Baby Doc Maladminstration that the government can intern -- i.e., incarcerate indefinitely -- anyone that it wants to.

The three-judge panel, led by potential Supreme Court nominee J. Michael Luttig, says that Baby Doc had the right to detain Jose Padilla, a Chicago native -- and American citizen -- as an "enemy combatant under the powers granted the president by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon" without trial, without notification, without even the slightest nod to what the rest of us thought were constitutional guarantees that we have, up until now, taken for granted.

Powers granted the president. That's the Patriot Act, in case you didn't catch it.

This means, simply, that the assholes in the fascist Baby Doc regime can grab you, me, anyone at all, and lock us up for-fucking-ever, and they don't even have to try to justify it.

In the words of Jack Nicholson in that great iconic 60s New Orleans movie Easy Rider, "this used to be a great country -- what happened?"

What happened is that the redstate rubes who voted for these motherfuckers can be secure in the knowledge that despite the loss of our freedoms, the loss of family wage jobs, the loss of everything that made this nation great, it's all just gonna be fucking peachy keen as long as Adam and Steve can't get married.

Fuck you, each and every stinking one of you, you goddamn motherfucking kuckledragging redstate moron assholes. You're now reaping what you have sown, and god help this country if the rest of us don't work as hard as we can to elect progressives to Congress next year in sufficient numbers to put a halt to this naked capitalist-pig-assault on everything we hold dear.

In the words of the great American labor leader, Joe Hill, "Don't mourn. Organize."

Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery

Everyone should read George Orwell's 1984 again -- or for the first time if you (incredibly) haven't read it before.

The Pentagon, in a excessively orgasmic display of Orwellian doublethink, allowed people to join the Freedom Walk only if they registered in advance with the DoD. And then they will be fenced off while they are walking.

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

See the WaPo article for yourself and see if you agree that there's something deeply wrong with this picture.

Where is the NRA?

The government is confiscating all guns from the residents of New Orleans who are still there -- even legally registered one -- except for those carried by the private Blackwater Security Company who are on the scene with M16s and other assault weapons to protect the houses and possessions of the wealthy -- and mostly white -- residents of the city.

The NRA remains strangely silent about this gun grab.

What is going on here? I thought the NRA was the last bulwark of freedom guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Why are they not storming the palace and hurling accusations of fascism at the government for taking this patently unconstitutional action?

Could it be that the short answer here is the obvious one? The NRA is all for gun ownership, as long as the people owning the guns are the "right kind" of people?

Is that it? I'd like Mr. LaPierre of the NRA to speak to this issue, and while he's at it, tell us how many persons of color are members of his fine organization.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I wish I belonged to the NRA, just so I could resign in protest. But I don't need to belong to a parafascist organization to protect my own gun rights. I can do that just fine on my own, thank you.

And it is obvious that they don't care about the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment. Not really. All they care about is the power that their sheeplike whitebread membership gives them to support the Republican Party and campaign against those gun-grabbing Democrats. So why aren't they up in arms over this? Could it be that they recognize that is their own Republican party in the guise of FEMA who is behind the disarming of the American public in New Orleans.

But that's apparently okay, since I'm betting the last thing the NRA wants is a bunch of black people with guns.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up -- But Brownie Can

Turns out that Michael "Hell-of-a-Job Brownie" Brown is more than just another Baby-Doc-ass-kissing inept patronage spoils appointee to the top job at FEMA. He's also a serial liar.

According to Time magazine and UK's Guardian newspaper, Horsefucker Brown says -- and a White House press release in 2001 backs him up -- that he worked as Assistant City Manager overseeing the emergency services division of the City of Edmond Oklahoma in the 1970s. Too bad he didn't coordinate that story with the city, since a spokesperson there says he was just an assistant to the city manager, with no one reporting to him and no job responsibilities other than doing what he was told. Like an intern. Like a gofer. Like a flunky.

He also stated that he was "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University", when he was actually just a student there.

And finally, Brownie reported that he was director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. Again it's too bad he didn't coordinate with them, since they say they never even heard of him.

His real résumé isn't much better: Fired from his job as director of the Arabian Horse Gelding Guild or whatever the fuck it's called, political hack flunky for the GOP, and so on. One of Knuckledrag, Oklahoma's finest products.

And this is the best and the brightest, the very pinnacle of what we can expect in a person appointed to head the most important crisis-response agency in the world?

Give me a fucking break.

So now he's been relieved of his field command and is going home to DC to "spend more time with his family"... that's not exactly what he said, but that's what will be coming out of his mouth next week when he resigns. Spend more time with the family. That's what all those fuckers at that level say, and they are always lying when they say it.

But it will save Baby Doc the embarrassment of having to fire his sorry ass. Even though that's what it will be.

Baby Doc, don't forget, asked "What problems?" just the other day.

Nancy Pelosi said it best about Baby Doc: "Oblivious. In denial. Dangerous."

Friday Cat Blogging

I missed last week. Somehow it just seemed a little too frivolous in the face of the unmitigated disaster that befell the gulf states.

It's not too late to donate to the Red Cross or the Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund.

A special thanks to everyone who donated as a result of this blog.

Sometimes it Just Happens by Itself...

The Eternal Darkness of a Beautiful Mind

After professional cranky-old-lady Babs Bush stated Monday that while the evacuees to the Astro Dome in Houston were scary, they were also better off -- "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway [chuckle] so this is working very well for them" -- yesterday, the White House Media Monkey, aka Little Scotty McClelland, said that her comments were a "personal observation".

Yeah, them ole personal-observation-devils, they will get you every single time. Better to stay with those impersonal non-observations that the Bush Crime Family is so adept at and so well-known for.

Jesus, Scotty McWeasel, give us a fucking break. There's no way that you can slice this piece of fetid baloney so that it doesn't stink.

You'd think that somebody in the Baby Doc entourage (not Papa Doc -- obviously he can't get the job done) would tell that old battleaxe to keep that fat ugly gaping-maw mouth of hers fucking shut. Every time she opens it, we get to see just a little bit more of the uncaring unfeeling pompous self-absorbed bitch-shrew that was in charge of Little Georgie's potty training.

No wonder the little shit is so fucked up. Too bad he's fucking up the rest of the world because of it.

Respect for Dead Justice

Baby Doc, show a little repect for the dead, will you?

Rehnquist's corpse wasn't even cold when Baby Doc, eager for a story, any story, that would take the heat off his dismally lacking performance in the face of the worst catastrophe ever to strike this country, quickly recast his stealth homophobe-racist-misogynist rightwing nominee to the Supremes, John Frenchfry Fuck You Veterans Roberts, as the best qualified candidate for Chief Justice.

Roberts, if you will recall, is a man who has barely two years experience as a judge, someone who has now come out of nowhere to leapfrog over Antonin "Quack-Quack" Scalia, who must be hugely pissed that this upstart WASP punk with a face like a smiley button is getting the job that he, by divine right and all that is holy, was destined to have. Not to mention Clarence "Houseboy" Thomas, who must be splitting the seams on his Can't-Bust-'Em overalls because he surely thought that HE had a chance at it as well, after he's been putting up with Baby Doc rubbing his head for good luck for the last five years.

Sorry, boys. You have just been Bushed -- they'll let you advance because they want to give the impression to the redstate rubes that the Repugs are the "party of the big tent". But they'll let you advance only so far. You want to get that plum lifetime appointment as chief-among-equals? That's not going to happen -- one of you looks too Italian, and the other looks too Black.

You were lucky to get where you are, so don't be fucking greedy. Be thankful for what you have, and concentrate on being a credit to your race.

What the Fuck is Going on Here?

When three Duke University college students can drive into New Orleans, make it all the way to the Super Bowl, pick up survivors and ferry them out of the city, not once but twice, then something is way fucked up with the FEMA response to the tragedy in the City of New Orleans.

We've been told over and over again that no one could get into the city to pick up survivors. Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Even fucking Faux News could get in, and they are the biggest pussies in the business. There is absolutely no goddamn excuse for the death and suffering in New Orleans.

Read the Duke University students' story on the Durham Herald Sun website and be prepared to get pissed off!!!

Who the fuck are these people in the evil Baby Doc Maladminstration who would allow this kind of thing to happen???? Who the fuck do they think they are???

I want a lot of resignations. I want a lot of firings. I want a goddamn impeachment of that uncaring unfeeling motherfucker at the top of this heap of stinking turdpiles.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 464 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for the Bush children to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

And BTW, where are they now? At a time when they could really make a difference by helping out their fellow storm-ravaged citizens in the Gulf, they seem to be singularly invisible.

Ten thousand dead, and the Bush Twins are AWOL. As usual.

Baby Doc and Pickles, the two of you should be ashamed.

Disaster Upon Disaster from the Masters of Disaster

Over the last several days we've seen disaster upon disaster visited on us. First came the terrible damage done by Katrina, and then that was compounded by the horrible damage inflicted not only on New Orleans but also on the entire country by the inept and bumbling maladminstration of Baby Doc Bush. More people died because of the bungled response to the hurricane than died in the hurricane.

As if cutting the Corps of Engineers funding by over 40% wasn't enough, the fuckers in the maladministration, at the behest of Fearless Leader, also cut FEMA's budget and folded it into Homeland Security.

Not a bad idea -- on paper -- folding it into Homeland Security. IF it actually helped to make the homeland secure. Which it didn't.

Look carefully at the chaos that has erupted, and watch the inevitable finger-pointing. Horsefucker Brown started it by blaming the victims because they didn't evacuate, and blaming the state and local governments for not asking for help sooner (Note to Horsefucker: The Louisiana governor called for help two days before the hurricane hit, and you assholes have the fucking nerve to say that nobody could have predicted it, you goddamn two-faced hypocritical liars).

Watch it and tell me if you feel more secure. Watch it and tell me that if another panic evacuation of a major American city has to take place, the assholes at the top are going to be anything but even more Keystone-Kop-fucked-up than they were in their reaction to Katrina.

Watch it all. Because our enemies are watching it. If anything could give them "aid and comfort", it is watching the Gang that Couldn't Think Straight trying to react to this hurricane: Baby Doc eating cake, playing golf and pretending to strum a guitar while people are dying. God forbid he should have to react to a real emergency.

In short, if a real emergency comes along that requires, say, the evacuation of Seattle on very short notice, we are fucked. Blue city in a blue state? Forget about it. We are on our own. I'm keeping a full tank of Citgo gas, a bunch of canned food and extra drinking water, and a few more boxes of .357 shells close at hand from now on.

If I were a religious man, I'd probably ask god to have mercy on their souls. But I'm not, so the best I can hope for is some cosmic karma to smite them mightily. Problem is that the rest of us may feel the brunt of that mighty smiting as well, since the kind of cosmic karma they deserve would probably have to come in on the head of a comet.

Nero Fiddling While Rome Burned

Thanks to Bartcop for this one.

Baby Doc Totally Clueless -- As Usual

After fucking around for several days, still on vacation, speaking to wealthy donors in California, eating cake with John I-Have-No-Ethics McCain, and playing guitar (How fucking clueless can you get? It's like Nero fiddling while Rome burned; would you really want that picture to be your legacy?), Baby Doc finally listened to his advisors and spoke to the American people about the disaster in the Gulf.

As usual, it was a case of too little too late. A litany of numbers, a catalog of "stuff", all designed to make the world think we are doing everything we can.

We are not.

Bush could have said – and didn't – that he is reducing this year's tax cuts on the wealthy in order to have the cash to repair the damage.  That he is postponing his call for repeal of the so-called "death tax". That he is calling on every American to donate to disaster relief.

He also could have issued a call – but didn't – for conservation of oil resources in the face of this sudden shortage from the wells of the Gulf. He could have called for fewer trips by car for everyone, more reliance on public transit, increased carpooling – there are any number of proven strategies that would cut back on gasoline consumption.

Cut back on gasoline consumption?

Yeah, when the BFEE calls for reduced gasoline consumption, monkeys will fly out of my ass.

Do Something. Now.

Please donate to the Red Cross or the Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund -- animals are Katrina victims, too.

My good friend Billmon has a good list of disaster relief organizations -- please donate as much as you can afford.

Thank you all for you generous donations. We have to help -- it's all up to us.