When we say we value life, you have to understand we don't mean actual people with functioning brains...

What's a Press Corps to Do?: "The case... raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected -- and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities."

Could this possibly be a statement from Bush regarding a death penalty case, possibly one involving a retarded defendant?

Of course not! Get your priorities straight.. if that were the case the policy might actually do some good.

Instead it's about the body of what was once a person known as Terry Schiavo, a brain-dead husk kept alive by modern science and effectively held hostage by her deranged parents for the past fifteen years! They're waiting for her to 'wake up' despite the lack of higher brain functions.

But then I guess their attitude towards their child isn't all that different from Bush's regarding the rest of us: as microcephalic bovine creatures.

Ringing endorsements?

And these are from his friends?!?

Nomination Shocks, Worries Europeans: "'Let's face it, in this administration we're not going to get . . . Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama,' he said. 'Given that, there are a lot of people who'd be a hell of a lot worse than Wolfowitz.'

Ah, the fabled 'is the glass half empty or is it half full' approach.

My question is, who? Who would be worse than Wolfowitz? Ariel Sharon? He's busy... Dick Cheney? Otherwise occupied... General Pinochet? Poor health would preclude his service... Hitler? He's dead and his clones are comfortably retired, living off their stolen gold in Paraguay.

"Francois Heisbourg, a leading French defense analyst who knows Wolfowitz, said the first reaction of many was 'fear and loathing,' but added, 'Paul is a man who has intellectual depth. He's not a one-agenda, single-point man.'"

How reassuring, his skills at eliciting 'fear and loathing' are not limited to one arena, he can spread doom and gloom in a variety of disciplines: political, economic, nation-building, development.

After all, who wouldn't want the architect of today's Iraq -- so in tune with the sentiments of the people ('we will be greeted as liberators') and in touch with reality ('the occupation will fund itself' and the ever popular 'no need for a hundred thousand occupation troops') -- working his 'magic' for the rest of the developing world?

Finally

The White House press strategy explained!

Now take my secretary of state... Please!

Oy vey! The steely-eyed rocketman let's out his inner punster and it's not pretty:

Don't Stop Him Even If You've Heard This One

Animalistic urges revealed

What can one say?

Randy rock doves join party with the dead: "The sad tale of the Dutch homosexual necrophiliac duck last week inspired enormous interest among readers all over the world and researcher Kees Moeliker was soon fielding calls from the United States, Canada and a radio station in Belfast.

EducationGuardian.co.uk has also elicited news of equally shocking behaviour in a British bird - recorded many years before the journal article that gained Dr Moeliker his coveted Ig Nobel prize for his discovery of the first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard (anas platyrhynchos).

That most respectable journal, British Birds, reported in 1987 the case of a feral rock dove (more commonly known as the pigeon) run over at a traffic crossing in Settle, north Yorkshire, on June 23 1983. 'As soon as the traffic had cleared a second dove alighted by the corpse. Clearly a male, it began to 'parade' by the headless body, puffing out its chest and strutting back and forth.

'Despite receiving no response, it mounted the corpse and engaged in vigorous copulatory movements. It was so stimulated that it did not move when cars approached and a small queue of cars built up as the dove went through its energetic performance. It then flew off.'...

Dr Moeliker was fascinated to hear of this earlier publication - until Dr Adams came forward he thought the only other scholarly recording of necrophilia in the bird or animal world involved an American squirrel run over by a truck."

Lest you think naughty behavior is limited to fowl, check this item out:

If it seems bizarre that serious scientists in Scotland should publish a study of farting in herrings, how improbable is it that they were almost beaten into print by a team of Swedish researchers who had discovered the same phenomenon? But that's great minds for you....

Ho hum

I thought newspapers were supposed to give us news, but no instead we have more librul kunspiracies about the media. The media effete just can't come to grips with the fact that they are so passe. People want to be told what to think -- just not by the wine drinking snobs of the left-wing media, but rather by the virile, Godly, not-at-all-wankers at Fox. And as evidence...

Media Notes Extra: "In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.

By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists' own views.

These findings -- the figures were similar for coverage of other stories -- 'seem to challenge' Fox's slogan of 'we report, you decide,' says the Project for Excellence in Journalism."

Don't worry, be happy!

One of the bestest things our great Leader has done is to eliminate so much of the limp-wristed hand-wringing this nation has had to endure under the librul media conspiracy. Take for example the Washington Post, which any right-thinking patriot just knows is a pillar of librul blame-Amurica-firstism: they pretend to be all worried about the delicate sensibilities of Euro governments whose citizens and residents have been 'kidnapped' for some sodomizing in our powerful networks of world-wide 'Club Fed' anti-terror facilities in Egypt, Syria and Afghania.

So what if these folks are not guilty of any 'crime'? That is soooo pre-9/11. We got to get them before they commit crimes, like in Iraqia. And where were these whiny Euros when our Leader was standing on the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center? I ask you, what's a few individuals made to bathe in human feces or naked, anally-probed human pyramids among friends?

Who needs the 'effete' media's librul guilt? But rather than just piss and moan (like a librul) our Leader has hit on a solution: creating our own news! No, not just Rush and Fox, our own news paid for by US tax dollars! And this news doesn't waste time with self destructive emotions like regret or analysis or facts. (Leave it to the New York Times to try and depict the spreading of good news a bad light.) Of course, a 'stern father' like our Leader won't let our 'official' news get out of hand like with those pinko-Islamo-fascist-loving-commies at the BBC. Ours will be free of 'impartiality' in order to better deliver our Leader's true vision, sans the media filter.

Oh the irony, it takes a government-hating true hero like Bush to make government finally do something right. No wonder librulz are consumed by uncontrollable irrational hate of our Leader.

librul media tries to rain on victory dance

We all know how much the librul media hates Amurica and will stop at nothing to place the selfless toil of those grunts stuck in Bush's splendid little war in the worst light. But who would have thought that they would stoop to actually broadcasting an interview with one of those helplessly unsophisticated heroes of the GWAT?

This ex-sergeant was obviously befuddled by a twirling object or the devious satanic lies of his interviewer. Plus, as is noted, he's not really Amurican, being descended from folks from the backwards middle east. Those are the only explanations that makes sense of this hateful lie:

13WHAM-TV ROCHESTER "A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.

Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.

'I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced,' Abou Rabeh said.

'We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed,' he said.

He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: 'You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting.'

'Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well,' Abou Rabeh said.

Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon."

As if Saddam would have the cojones to actually shoot back when shot at. Of course he wouldn't, he was shivering in his boots cause he knows our God -- who chose Bush to lead us -- is a real god, not just some idol like the so-called Allah. We know Saddam was living in a hole in the ground -- like a spider or some kind of creepy, dirt-loving Iraqistan insect -- we saw it on TV!! How stupid do librulz think we are?

Now what Bush should do is recapture the ex-SGT and help 'deprogram' him with some R&R with his ex-mates in Guantanamo, where he'd be safe from the spiteful rage of the librulz, the media, the courts, the Red Cross... and have time -- between his mandatory colonics and water-boarding games -- to reflect and 'remember' what really happened in Iraqia.

PS thanks to Atrios for once again inadvertantly helping expose the librul media hate speech project.

Bush flips off whiny furrinners!

Nothing spells leadership like whipping out a donkey-sized member and whizzing on a bunch of smelly furrinners, and by that measure Viva Bush has once again shown he is el numero uno! U-S-A! U-S-A!

U.S. Quits Pact Used in Capital Cases: "The Bush administration has decided to pull out of an international agreement that opponents of the death penalty have used to fight the sentences of foreigners on death row in the United States, officials said yesterday.

In a two-paragraph letter dated March 7, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that the United States 'hereby withdraws' from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States proposed the protocol in 1963 and ratified it -- along with the rest of the Vienna Convention -- in 1969."

Mr. Bojangles

If you get the chance and feel up to some serious mental stimulation (I said mental now) feel free to check out Mr Bojangles (link on the right too): Mr. Bojangles

Cheers -MM

Conan stalked by domestic terrorists

How bad have things gotten when our own action-hero gubonator must endure the onslaught of domestic terror? Is nothing sacred?

Now as you may know, we all hate those Hollywood types who tell us how to live our lives and meet our budgets and who to ass-fuck or not ass-fuck -- unless they are Republicans! We just adore those GOP-made-in-Hollywood-tough-guys -- I get so excited when I see them on FoxNews that I just fart!

But they are a rare breed. Now that Reagan has been reverently ensconced inside his pyramid in Simi Valley (hey, wasn't Bush Sr supposed to go in there with him, ya know, Smithers-style?) and Clint has given up politics for his effete love of jazz and artsy-fartsy films there are few left to carry the banner of simulated machismo. That is why it is so important that we do what we can to protect what is perhaps the purest specimen of star-spangled-mock-hero from a Islamo-fascist-loving-commie-pinko-librul onslaught!

A New Kind of Crowd for Governor: "Everywhere Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger goes these days there's a crowd. But they're not looking for his autograph.

As he darted across the country in the last five days, raising campaign money and dropping in at the fitness exhibition he co-founded, Schwarzenegger was shadowed by demonstrators protesting his plans for overhauling state government.

The core group consists of nurses upset about Schwarzenegger's attempt to scale back hospital staffing requirements and firefighters worried about pensions. They're getting support from out-of-state colleagues, who turned up at Schwarzenegger's East Coast events this week and heckled him fiercely."

Yes, I know what you're thinking, 'if they can protest Arnold, who is safe?' But it gets worse -- listen to the things these rage-addicted 'progressive' losers dare say to our homonculus of hard work (as epitomized in Pumping Iron):

"'Screw Arnold!' protesters shouted from the street as the governor dined with donors Monday at the tony 21 Club in Manhattan.

Schwarzenegger had ducked into the establishment through a service entrance to escape about 100 demonstrators; New York Gov. George Pataki had gone in the front door."

What a shocking lack of respect. You just know that those pathetic 'nurses' and 'firefighters' would just love to be screwed by the mighty teutonic 'Schlonginator.' Nosirree! they can keep their hairy snatches and filthy man-pussies to themselves.

[Not that Arnold isn't man enough for some rough trade -- no one can gang-bang like Arnold:"Arnold Schwarzenegger once told a magazine interviewer about participating in an orgy with other bodybuilders, noting that 'everybody jumped on' the woman involved and 'took her upstairs where we all got together.' The California Republican added that not every muscleman participated in the gang bang, 'just the guys who can fuck in front of other guys. Not everybody can do that. Some think that they don't have a big-enough cock, so they can't get a hard-on....'"]

And finally, can you just imagine the indignity of entering through the servants entrance?: the filth smeared on the floor, the odors of rotting vegetables, the cramped elevator stinking of sweat... now, I ask you, how is Arnold supposed to focus on tapping the wealthy and privileged for "the maximum contribution of $22,300 to his reelection fund" with the stink of rotting celery permeating his clothes?

For the good of our nation and GOP-Hollywood-musclebots everywhere, this treasonous campaign of librul-hate-terror-speech must be stopped!

the creed is greed

How dare those greedy customers, who were deprived of their usual shopping routine for four and one-half months, not come back! They should be breaking down the doors to resume life as usual. Do they think it was easy locking out the unions in order to take away health care benfits from the coddled, babied workers? And who were those sacrifices made for?

Just because customers may have found a greater diversity of goods at higher quality and perhaps at lower prices outside the usual corporate chain stores, don't they realize that it is the corporations that have made America great? Such ingratitude!

Why, if it weren't for the actions of a few community-minded corporations, why we'd all be paying pennies more just so some of life's losers could visit a doctor or have their perpetually preggers wive's pop out another puppy in a hospital. Where are your priorities, folks?

Kroger's Recovery Is in Slow Checkout Line; Loss Widens: "'The recovery in Southern California has been slow,' said Kroger Chairman and Chief Executive David B. Dillon in a conference call with analysts. 'We are not back to pre-strike levels.'

Southern California is the biggest market for Ralphs, which has 282 stores here.

Ralphs hasn't been able to attract all the customers it lost to rivals such as Trader Joe's, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Stater Bros. Holdings Inc. during the 4 1/2 -month-long strike and lockout. In fact, Dillon said, Kroger recently lost its position as the market leader in Riverside and San Diego counties.

Still, analysts said Kroger, which operates 2,532 stores in 32 states, had been more effective at drawing customers back into its stores than had either Albertsons Inc. or Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Pavilions chains."

Gene wading pool?

Why am I not surprised? It seems humans got shortchanged when it comes to genetic diversity:

Unlike our close genetic relatives - chimps - all humans have virtually identical DNA. In fact, one group of chimps can have more genetic diversity than all of the six billion humans alive today.

It is thought we split from a common ancestor with chimps 5-6 million years ago, more than enough time for substantial genetic differences to develop.

The absence of those differences suggests to some researchers that the human gene pool was reduced to a small size in the recent past, thereby wiping out genetic variation between current populations.

Now, of course, this explains the eerie zombie-bot communal groupthink and wifeswapping ways of flyover country, but where did the rest of us come from?

A new hypothesis about recent human evolution suggests that we came very close to extinction because of a "volcanic winter" that occurred 71,000 years ago.

Some scientists estimate that there may have been as few as 15,000 humans alive at one time.

The volcanic winter lasted about six years. It was followed by 1,000 years of the coldest Ice Age on record.

It brought widespread famine and death to human populations around the world. It also affected subsequent human evolution.

This was because of a so-called bottleneck effect. The rapid decrease, in our ancestors' populations, in turn, brought about the rapid differentiation - or genetic divergence - of the surviving populations.

Aha! of course the 'bottleneck effect'! Now I see.

It's just like when you keep your Beam in the freezer -- you know, for that great freezing-burning 'taste' -- so the bottleneck gets really really cold and it gets hard to pour it into the shot glass (well, especially after so many shots) so you get that spillover and you're cursing is all garbled and whiz-bang you're speaking in a different language! The reemergence of human diversity. And the spilt Beam that calls to you to suck it up in a straw or... but I digress! is like all of the outliers -- you know, all of us who don't wifeswap (despite the messages beamed to us by TV) plus the redheads, lefties, libertarians, actors and the folks with webbed toes -- who make life such a rich pageant.

Moral of the story: preserve your genetic diversity by just saying 'NO' to wifeswapping with corn-fed midwesterners and drink your Beam straight from the bottleneck.

ass-fucking: not just for humans anymore

Ever have a day when you learn a new word and then it pops up everywhere you look? Like ass-fucking...?

The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker....

Ducks behave pretty badly, it seems. It is not so much that up to one in 10 of mallard couples are homosexual - no one would raise an eyebrow in the liberal Netherlands - but they regularly indulge in 'attempted rape flights' when they pursue other ducks with a view to forcible mating. 'Rape is a normal reproductive strategy in mallards,' explains Mr Moeliker....

His findings have provoked a lot of interest - especially in Britain for some reason - but no other recorded cases of duck necrophilia. However, Mr Moeliker was informed of an American case involving a squirrel and a dead partner, although in this case it is not known whether the necrophilia observed was homosexual or not as the victim had been run over by a truck shortly before the incident.

So it seems not only is ass-fucking good for human society but it is a normal part of the natural order. Damn, that Karl Rove is crunk!

Little did I guess that GOP efforts to turn us into the ass-fucking society was inspired by a Rousseau-ian desire to reintroduce balance via nature's laws. Whiny comparisons to Mark Hanna are sooooo banal, Rove is a freakin' Aristotle!

The ass-fucking society?

Here is Paul Krugman on how the GOP bankruptcy bill fits in with the GOP's other initiatives to create a more insecure society:

The Debt-Peonage Society: "Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a 'sharecroppers' society' than an 'ownership society.' But I think the right term is a 'debt peonage' society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors."

My, isn't that Krugman so shrill and whiny. As if debt peonage were so bad? After all, peoples gots to learns their place. And if they don't like the metaphorical ass-fucking, then the solution couldn't be simpler: go in for real ass-fucking. After all, a man-whore like Jimmy Guckert (Jeff Gannon to you ass-fucks) became a nationally known figure in the White House press corps despite having no journalistic qualifications (does it get any worse than plagiarizing WH press releases -- my God, have you ever read one!!).

How'd he do it, you whiny-assed Dems wonder? Ol' Jimmy G. met folks and made connections the old fashioned way, he bootstrapped himself up by his G-string: soliciting $200 an hour (or, blue light special $1,200 a weekend) for a little friendly ass-fucking. Before you knew it, his 'sponsor' arranged for him to play Q&A in the White House, eventually feeding the Prez schlong-orific oral satisfaction! Pure genius! Who else but the Rove would contemplate making a real whore a media whore!!

If only those coddled Dems weren't so squemish and cottoned to the discipline their 'stern father' (wink wink) Bush is doling out they too could be rolling in the hay (and the dough). But NOOooo -- they're too caught up with 'principles' and 'dignity.' How predictably pre-9/11. In today's rough world the only way up is by rough trade!

The GOP: they just don't fostor whoredom, they deliver -- right to your boob tube!

misinformation out in the blogosphere

More info discrediting the GOP attempt to scare bloggers regarding McCain-Feingold:

There Will Be No Crackdown. (And What To Do If There Is One): "Thus, Bradley Smith is pushing the truth a long way when he says that the judge is pushing the FEC to start going after every single link in every blog directing to a candidate's website. Whether or not that is the case is up to Mr. Smith and his cohorts, not Judge Kollar-Kotelly. I think it is highly unlikely that the FEC is going to come up with a huge scheme to monitor blogs for links to a candidate's web pages. The FEC could create a definition of 'general public political advertising' that would only include obvious canned political ads provided by the candidate or third party which linked to a candidate's website. Mere advocacy and linking would not count as advertising. This would not prevent bloggers from advocating for whomever they wanted.

So then why did Smith attempt to paint his hands as tied in this matter? Simple--he wanted to discredit the McCain-Feingold bill as a whole. If he can get left-wing bloggers to start up a 'united front' with the rest of the denizens of the Internet, pressure might build for the repeal of the law."

do as I say not as I do?

China Says U.S. Has Double Standard on Rights: China accused the United States on Thursday of using double standards to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a growing list of nations suggesting the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.

The sharp Chinese retort, which contained a long list of what it labeled U.S. human rights abuses at home and abroad, came directly from Wen's cabinet, giving it more weight than a Foreign Ministry comment or an editorial. In addition, it used unusually frontal language, charging for example that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks."

The sentiment it expressed -- the Bush administration has compromised on human rights and has no standing to criticize others -- reflected similar views in a number of other foreign capitals where governments were chastised for violating human rights standards."

This is bizarre

Scroll down after hitting the link for the full story

The coming crackdown on blogging : "Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.

In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. 'The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines' the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote."

Since it is the three Democrats who are preventing an appeal of the judicial ruling, I have to wonder what the extent of the 'crackdown' would be. Would it merely target partisan Websites that masquerade as independent of a campaign? But how would you distinguish them? Didn't the Dems reap a huge harvest of contributions via the Web? Then why kill the golden goose? Something in this article is just not adding up....

Update (3/5/05): it seems I was right to be skeptical of the story above.

Wonkette: "in the ass"

ACLU Suing Rumsfeld: "The ACLU is suing Donald Rumsfeld over the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. At first, this tactic struck us as heavy handed, the equivalent of going after the CEO of Mcdonald's because you got incorrect change for your Happy Meal. Then we realized that wasn't quite the right analogy: It'd be like going after the CEO of Mcdonald's because you got incorrect change for your Happy Meal in your ass. That might make you prone to do things like sue someone who did not directly supervise the dispensing of the change but probably should have found out about the whole 'we're going to give it to them in the ass' thing sooner."

censorship on the march

First they came for the antiwar activists, then they came for... the commedians?

The Talk at the Oscars Is Over What Was Not Said: "At the Oscar awards, what was not said was probably more interesting than what was.

Hollywood's big night on Sunday was beamed to the world with a five-second time delay, and broadcaster ABC ordered some controversial quips cut before the show, sparking debate about how far political correctness should go and freedom of speech controlled.

Comedian Robin Williams said it all when he walked on stage with a piece of white tape over his mouth.

Williams was to have performed a song lampooning conservative critic James C. Dobson, whose group had criticized cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in a video it branded 'pro-homosexual.'
He was going to do it by concentrating on the dark underside of other cartoon characters, asking, for example whether Casper the Friendly Ghost wore that white sheet as a member of the Ku Klux Klan...."

more right-wing domestic terrorism

This is how it started in Brazil and Uruguay... intimidation, fear and the depiction of fellow citizens as 'treasonous' due to their political beliefs. Are we too on the way to becoming a banana republic?

Threatened U.S. Judge Finds Family Slain: "U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow found her husband and mother shot dead in the basement of her home Monday night, less than a year after white supremacist Matthew Hale was convicted of trying to have her murdered for holding him in contempt of court."