January 17, 2009 archive

Jan 17 2009

Platitudes from sycophants

This is a combination of two posts from my Shenandoah Valley blog, cobalt6.net.

SWAC Girl never disappoints:

In this case, the President made us a safer people … holding off terrorist attacks … but warning terrorism is still looming and we must never let down our guard.

Never mind the fact that he permitted the attacks of 9/11 through inaction in the face of multiple warnings. That’s not relevant, right?

Do not permit historical revisionism on the part of the Republicans.

There is nothing – NOTHING – to thank George W. Bush for. To merely call him the “Worst. President. Ever.”  does not go nearly far enough.

He and his are criminals, and their sycophants and enablers should be ashamed of themselves.

Go AWAY, Bush. But please, be where we can find you when we come to take you away in handcuffs.

And I’m here to remind you

Of the mess you left when you went away

It’s not fair to deny me

Of the cross I bear that you gave to me

You, you, you oughta know

I should give you a bit of the back story as to why this particular SWAC Girl excursion into….well, blatant dishonesty…..bothers me so much.

This is an excerpt from a piece that originally appeared in my hometown newspaper end of last month, written, naturally, by a GOP hack: a past chairwoman of our local Republican party.

When you see the title of her piece, you will, I am sure, realize that it directly inspired the title of my previous post.

The title,in all its emetic glory, is:

“A Panegyric To The President.”

Here, then, is a small excerpt:

History should judge President George W. Bush as one of America’s great Presidents. His record of accomplishment in foreign policy, his grace in the face of unrivaled malevolence, his courage in the face of dreadful pressure, and his vision of a world made free are the stuff of greatness. Here is an abbreviated catalogue of his accomplishments and virtues:

Rather than putting you through the rest of the rectal osculations and historical revision the author offers up, I’ll let someone else pick up at that point.

Here, Ms. Bucknam, is your “catalogue of his accomplishments and virtues”.

You should watch this too, Lynn.

The only kick with this that I have is the use of the word, “legacy.” I’m uncomfortable with applying that term to the Bush presidency. It’s not a “legacy”.

Criminals have RECORDS.

Jan 17 2009

Weekend News Digest

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 America: What in the world does it want to be?

By TED ANTHONY, AP National Writer

55 mins ago

NEW YORK – George Washington, first president, said this: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”

Eldridge Cleaver, civil rights leader, said this: “Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on 24-hour call.”

Toby Keith, populist country singer, said this: “This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage – and you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A.”

And much more fatuous gasbaggery…

Jan 17 2009

My Slight Problem With Post-Partisanship,…just for the record

Point as made by Mr. Olbermann:

Thanks to Keith and segment producer Jonathan Larsen.

Jan 17 2009

Martians Demand Special Prosecutor For Bush War Crimes

Martians are smart people too, but they fart a lot it seems, and it’s given them away after hiding for eons.

Yesterday NASA scientists reported in Live Blogging The Mars Methane Mystery: Aliens At Last?, blogging at Blogs.DicoverMagazine.com that:

…they recorded plumes of methane rising from the surface of the Red Planet. Working back from their measurements of methane in the air, the researchers pinpointed some particular spots on Mars where the methane came from. And it’s a lot of methane they’re talking about-19,000 metric tons of the stuff in one plume.  It’s coming out of Mars at the same rate seen at methane-producing spots on Earth.

Those places on Earth happen to be places where microbes are churning the gas out. There might be other ways of getting plumes of methane into the air-generating it from magma, for example. But in a paper published today by Science, Mumma and his colleagues point to the possibility that microbes buried a mile or two under the surface of Mars might be responsible. There are certainly analogs here on Earth-or here under Earth. On our planet, scientists can study these deep microbes by traveling down through mine shafts. Sending the equipment to dig a mine shaft on Mars might be a wee bit expensive, unfortunately.

So-what’s going on?

What’s going on, you ask? Well, it turns out that after the Martians had been successfully hiding from Earthlings for billions of years, the Bush/Complicit Democrat/PNAC/Neocon faction that hijacked the US Government eight years ago and turned it into a murderous planet wide hegemonic killing machine of imperialism has finally pushed the Martians just a little too far, according to recent leaks by CIA spooks eager to save themselves from inclusion as defendants in war crimes prosecution of Bush, Cheney, Pelosi, Reid, and others.

This morning, less than a day after the NASA scientists reported the likelihood of life on Mars, their conjectures were confirmed incontrovertibly.

We are not alone in the universe. And apparently the rest of the universe is just as pissed as we are.

This morning another leak from another spook, this time in the State Department, has confirmed that a Diplomatic Communique was received from Mars addressed to the Bush Administration overnight.

Why would Martians talk to the Bush Administration you ask? Without even any pre-conditions?

It turns out that with all the recent media attention on a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush and Cheney and others, the Petition For A Special Prosecutor has apparently made its way to Mars too, along with old television transmissions of The Prisoner with famed British actor Patrick McGoohan (RIP), and has been enthusiastically received there.

The Martian Diplomatic Communique was delivered in the form of one single image transmitted through NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover, and is reproduced below…

Jan 17 2009

Listening to those who came before

Jan 17 2009

Lie to Me – Go Ahead and Lie to Me

On the eve of a new and historic Presidency, one I have yearned for and supported, I find myself increasingly unable to savor our victory.  We are still at war, still killing innocent people for bogus reasons, and there is every reason to believe that we are not about to stop our militaristic bullying of our neighbors on this planet.  Otherwise we would not be escalating that idiotic and immoral war in Afghanistan – or opening a billion dollar embassy bigger then the Vatican in Baghdad, along with fourteen ‘enduring’ bases across the country.  There are too many indications that not nearly enough has changed.  We are still firmly entrenched in the idiotic war business, people are still being tortured, there is too much money still being stolen and too many lies are still being told.

Jan 17 2009

Petition: Obama Free Leonard Peltier

Photobucket

Jan 17 2009

Guantánamo Reports: Research Of

Those spreading or falling for the cheney/bush administration spin on the Released Guantanamo Prisoners going directly back into the Guerilla/Insurgent conflict and or Criminal Terrorism might want to educate themselves on the studies exposing that the government numbers just don’t Tell The Truth, not surprising!!

On the Rachel Maddow show last night, 1-16-09. she had a discussion with Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Director of Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, who supervises a group of talented Seton Hall students in preparing a series of Reports concerning the United States Navy Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Jan 17 2009

Docudharma Times Saturday January 17

Bush Takes A Vacation

Except This Time Its Permanent  




Saturday’s Headlines:

After the Splash, Heroics and Comedy

Chinese mother sentenced to death for hiring man to kill her 9-year-old son

Tibet celebrate end of ‘bad old days’ with new festival

Roquefort war rages across the Atlantic

Lithuanians attack parliament to protest taxes

Jestina Mukoko: ‘Mugabe’s henchmen came for me before dawn’

DR Congo rebel faction ends fight

6 die as Israeli shells land near Gaza school

‘Small disaster’: Gaza journalist finds his apartment destroyed

Gaza war ‘in final act’ as ceasefire looms

From The Times

January 17, 2009

Martin Fletcher and Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

Israel is expected to announce a unilateral ceasefire tonight that will end its three-week war in Gaza.

Officials said that the Israeli Security Cabinet will be asked to approve the surprise move after Israel secured commitments from Egypt and the US to stop Hamas re-arming by smuggling weapons into Gaza.

If the Cabinet agrees, Israeli troops will halt Operation Cast Lead – but if Hamas continues to fire rockets into southern Israel they will resume the action. The plan would allow Israel to stop fighting before Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, and avoid direct dealings with Hamas, which it regards as a terrorist group.

Weighing Crimes and Ethics in Urban Warfare



By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: January 16, 2009

JERUSALEM – Your unit, on the edges of the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, has taken mortar fire from the crowded refugee camp nearby. You prepare to return fire, and perhaps you notice – or perhaps you don’t, even though it’s on your map – that there is a United Nations school just there, full of displaced Gazans. You know that international law allows you to protect your soldiers and return fire, but also demands that you ensure that there is no excessive harm to civilians. Do you remember all that in the chaos?

You pick GPS-guided mortars, which are supposed to be accurate and of a specific explosive force, and fire back. In the end, you kill some Hamas fighters but also, the United Nations says, more than 40 civilians, some of them children.

 

USA

For Obama, a Party Tempered by Tough Times



By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, January 17, 2009; Page A01

When a train pulls out of Philadelphia today carrying President-elect Barack Obama on a symbolic journey to Washington, it will set off a four-day inaugural celebration of unprecedented ambition that has been calibrated to strike a balance between marking a moment many thought would never come and setting a tone that suits the sober economic times.The event’s planners want to conjure optimism about the country’s ability to rebound from a deep downturn, yet do not want to create unrealistic expectations for Obama — a tension that will dominate the early months of his administration.

Jan 17 2009

Late Night Karaoke

It’s Just Mellow

Robert Palmer – Simply Irresistible

Jan 17 2009

Late Night Karaoke

It’s Just Kind Of Mellow

Robert Palmer – Simply Irresistible

Jan 17 2009

Random Japan

Going down?

The OECD predicts that Japan will sink to last among the world’s 22 major aid donors in 2009. After leading the world in overseas developmental assistance for much of the ’90s, Japan fell to third in 2006 and fifth in 2007.

The OECD also said that Japan’s per-capita GDP of $34,326 ranked 19th out of the 30 member nations and was the worst of the G7 nations.

A survey found that every single one of Japan’s 49 “Inochi no Denwa” suicide hotline centers are understaffed.

It was reported that local governments across the country are setting up miniature torii in places where illegal garbage disposal occurs in an effort to “appeal to the better nature of even the basest trash dumper.”

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