Smokey's Corner

Smokey read one of my posts about godbags getting their underroos in an unholy bunch about the very idea that godbags can have fun, and acusing anyone having fun of "unnatural godbaggery." The preceding photo was the response. Yay! Smoke!

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Environment - Goodbye Cruel World

I keep expecting a spaceship to show up with some jackbooted thug type aliens emanating from it, handing us an eviction notice, and telling us we violated the terms of our lease. Yet another lake in China is now tainted with toxic algal bloom:

A massive algae bloom has spread out over another of China's big lakes, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on years of clean up efforts.

"In recent days, due to the hot and humid weather, a large amount of algae has bloomed in Dianchi Lake, turning the water as green as paint in a stretch along the shore near Kunming city," the Oriental Daily reported Monday.

"Wave after wave of rolling green lake water laps up on the shore giving off an awful stench."

Well, fuck. I think it's downright cruel to reproduce in this kind of environment. You're condemning your descendants to a life of starvation, water wars, resource wars in general, and unending death and strife. Someone get me off the fucking planet!

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Environment - What Global Warming Part II

On the plus side, it's nice to see that China is at least making an effort to reduce power consumption on a governmental level. It's kind of embarrassing to think that the Chinese government is doing better on this issue than the U.S. government.

Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, is the latest city to set a limit on air conditioning use as pressure from the central government to save energy starts to take effect over fears of power failures this summer.

Members of China's cabinet have also called on office workers to ditch business suits in favour of t-shirts in an effort to cool down cheaply, and ordered that air-conditioning units in most public buildings be set no cooler than 26 degrees Celsius.

I need to buy more clothes, preferably linen, but I don't want to spend a single penny as long as the Misadministration is in power.

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Environment - What Global Warming?

As any gardener worth their salt knows, the world is changing. Weather patterns are changing. Normally, anise swallowtails come in late March through early May. I saw my second anise swallowtail of the year in my garden two days ago. What happened to the rest? I'm happy that this was an egg-laying female, but usually I get a few dozen several months earlier. And the bees have finally started showing up. All I had during the echium bloom season (which normally lasts into late June, but ended in May this year) was a couple of stray bumblebees, a handful of natives, and a very occasional honeybee, Apis mellifera. But I still have it better than the denizens of western China:

Westernmost China's Xinjiang region was under a blistering heatwave Sunday, with the mercury hitting as high as 44.8 degrees Celsius (112.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in Turpan city, a local official said.

Turpan is usually regarded as the hottest place in China, but in June temperatures normally average about 31 degrees Celsius, a meteorologist at the Urumqi meteorological bureau said of the desert region.

I'm not complaining, I swear. I've only experienced anything over 110 F once, and I was lying on the porch with a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in a towel leaking cold water over my head as my eyelids slowly turned crispy and every cell in my body began leaking its precious nutrient fluids. I wanted to die, and my only regret was, there was no handy walk-in freezer for me to walk into.

But that was before Chimptard von Idiotski announced that there was no such thing as global warming. It's a mild, sweet evening here, cool but comfortably so. How many more of such evenings shall we have, I wonder?

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Health - If You Need An Excuse To Drink Coffee

here it is. From Auntie Beeb comes a story explaining that coffee reduces your risk of blepharospasm.

The first symptoms may include eye irritation and discomfort, sensitivity to light and increased blinking.

Professor Giovanni Defazio and colleagues from the Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences University of Bari in Italy said a previous study had suggested smoking had a protective effect on the condition.

I guess the Mormons are doomed, but any cult that believes sinners are punished with dark skins is pretty fucked anyway, so I'm not gonna lose sleep crying for them.

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Iraq - Standing Up, Standing Down

Maybe this is why the Iraqis are not Standing Up so we can Stand Down. From an AP article by Pauline Jelinek come these nuggets of wisdom:

WASHINGTON (AP) - About one in six Iraqi policemen trained by U.S.-led forces has been killed or wounded, has deserted or just disappeared, a senior U.S. military commander says.

[...]

Speaking before a House subcommittee, Dempsey said some 32,000 Iraqi police had been lost from the newly trained force of 188,000 in the 18 months before January.

About 8,000 to 10,000 were believed killed in action and 6,000 to 8,000 wounded severely enough so they cannot serve, he said Tuesday.

Another 5,000 ``probably ... had deserted.''

The remaining 7,000 or 8,000 are unaccounted for. One lawmaker wanted to know if they could be among militants causing the violence in Iraq.

``Is there any basis to believe that some portion of those ... are fighting our people?'' asked Rep. Robert E. Andrews, D-N.J.

Dempsey said he didn't know.

Good grief. How ... inspiring. We're arming the insurgents because they're going to fight al-Qaeda - even though al-Qaeda is a very small presence in Iraq - even though we know the various factions are attacking each other viciously - even as our people don't know whether the same people we're training are killing our troops. Lovely. What a massive clusterfuck this has turned out to be.

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Health - Contamination

Just what in hell is going on here? Is this the fallout from a trade war between the U.S. and China? Is the American consumer is being spoonfed hysterical warnings about China-made products being contaminated and unsafe while simultaneously not being told about contamination in American food products? Or is there an all-around failure in inspection and setting standards here? Is the Misadministration screaming hysterically about contamination from other sources in the hope of distracting us?

According to The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, June 18 — China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.

[...]

Over all, the number of products made in China that are being recalled in the United States by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has doubled in the last five years, driving the total number of recalls in the country to 467 last year, an annual record.

Those with young children should check out the article. It includes information about resources that let you track contaminated toys. I guess this series of articles on food/consumer product contamination is proof, if you should need it, that corporations will gladly kill you for profit, and that they cannot be trusted to police themselves. And that you should never, ever vote for anyone who claims, in the interest of reducing spending, to curb government agencies that protect the lives and health of people. Sheesh!!

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Health - That's Nice To Know

I confess, I've always liked pate de foie gras. Actually, I like anything that has fat and salt in it. When I found out how foie gras was produced, I decided my tastebuds were less important in the grand scale of things than the torture of a helpless animal. I no longer eat foie gras. So it gives me great joy to announce that it's actually quite bad for you. Well, some of you, anyway. Chances are, I'd be one of the lucky sods who would contract something disgusting and die in agony.

"Eating foie gras probably won't cause a disease in someone who isn't genetically predisposed to it," said Alan Solomon, the lead author on the paper, and a specialist in amyloid-related disorders at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville.

But, "people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or other amyloid-associated diseases should avoid consuming foie gras and other foods that may be contaminated with fibrils."

I don't have any of those, yet.

So now I can feel all virtuous, in a backpatting sort of way. Pah! So much for your foie gras, my friends in the Culinary Mafia. I pick my teeth at you.

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Iraq - How Bush And The Pentagon Support The Troops

And you can do your bit, too! Buy a Suburban Assault Vehicle of your very own! Preferably one that doesn't get more than 8 mpg. Maybe an armour-plated Hummer. You'll need it for those daily drives to Starbux to get your triple-decaf-half-caf-mocha-latte.

The Army, in a stunning show of support for its rank and file, is considering - yep, you guessed it! Extending tours of duty!

Don't that make you feel all warm and supported now? Huh? Don't that make you feel a lot better???

Jeebus fucking J.H. Krist on a pogo stick. I wish I could kick these guys' collective ass into a mound of mush.

Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq war commander, suggested Sunday that conditions on the ground might not be stable enough by September to justify a drop in force levels, and he predicted stabilizing Iraq could take a decade. Earlier this year, Bush ordered the deployment of some 30,000 additional troops as part of a massive U.S.-led security push around Baghdad and the western Anbar province.

How much blood does Commander Poopypants have on his hands by now? He and his Number Two (and I use that term appropriately), the biggest draft dodgers on the planet, have the gall to send other people's families into harm's way. Thank TPTB for James Webb. Getting him elected instead of Macaca George is a great feather in the cap for the netroots and the blogosphere. Webb asks:

"Who was talking for the well being and the health of the soldiers when this requirement was put down?" asked Webb, referring to the 15-month combat tours. After four years of combat, the strategy in Iraq cannot "justify doing this to the soldiers in the Army and the families back here," he said.

Please, for the love of all you hold dear, if you know anyone who is thinking of a career in the military, convince them to wait till this pathetic excuse of an administration has stopped tossing the nation's armed forces into a meatgrinder.

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Iraq - Rumsfeld Lied

I'm not really surprised so much as disgusted. Of course he lied. They all lie. They lie unceasingly and shamelessly about everything, no matter how trivial. If you asked them how the weather was, they'd tell you it was raining even as the sun shone out blinding them. So I'm not really surprised. But why aren't they behind bars? Here, General Taguba, now forced into early retirement, speaks:

"I described the naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum and said, 'That's not abuse, that's torture,'" Taguba said. "There was quiet."

The following day, May 7, Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services Committee.

"It breaks our hearts that in fact someone didn't say wait, look, this is terrible," Rumsfeld said. "We need to do something to manage -- the legal part of these proceeding along fine. What wasn't proceeding along fine was that the president didn't know, and you didn't know and I didn't know and as a result, somebody leaked a secret report to the press and there they are."

[...]

"The President addressed this fully," a White House statement says. "He first saw the pictures on TV and was upset by them. He called for the investigation to go forward. He found the actions abhorrent and urged the Defense Department to get to the bottom of the matter."

"It's not when they saw the photographs," Hersh stresses. "It's when they learned how serious it was. They were told in memos what the photographs showed... They showed other, more sexual abuse than we knew, sodomy of women prisons by American soldiers, a father and his son forced to do acts together. There was more stuff [than] was made public.

Video available here. So you can see and hear for yourself.

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Iraq - Then And Now

I'm glad to see the military finally speaking out - or perhaps it's just that people are only now making the channels available to them.

Lemieux said that when he first went to Iraq, the troops were greeted as liberators by Shi'ites who had been oppressed under Saddam, but that during his second tour of duty in the Sunni Triangle "the difference was indescribable. ... It was like human life just lost all meaning. ... The population despised us." He described being in a 12-hour firefight where his section leader and number two man were both killed and the responsibility fell on him to bring everybody else out safely, saying that "solidified my all of my beliefs that the war was just not worth the cost."

This is the Misadministration's idea of progress in this war? Things have gone from bad to worse to worst. And now Iraq is a training ground for terrorists who are going to fight in Afghanistan. And who knows where else. Nearly four thousand American troops killed, nearly one million Iraqi civilians killed, four million "displaced" Iraqis, how many thousands of Americans, Iraqis, "coalition forces" and private security personnel injured and maimed, uncounted numbers of "security contractors" killed, a privatized paramilitary that owes allegiance to no one but its corporate masters, and this is all we have to show for it. A population that hates us and a regime that barely even lives in Iraq and is propped up with U.S. military might.

Read it and weep.

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Silly Cat Tail - er, Tales

I know I've promised to tell the stories of all the felines over here at Casa de Los Gatos. Well, the time has come. My injured knee is acting up today, so I have time to blog. And of course, Gojira is being the thorough pest she plays so well. Gojira is about 4 now, a mostly Russian Blue mix of sproing and spite. We adore her. She is utterly wild and unpredictable, though. You never know if she's going to bite or run away, or thoughtfully lick you or step on an injury. Or pee on the bed, though she doesn't do that too often, thank TPTB.

At any rate, Gojira, Dennis, Madu, and two other little gray/black stripers were born to a feral female named GrayGirl, who hung out around Dave and Jo's. Jo asked if I would take one or more of the kittens, who she carefully hand-nurtured to remove the feral mama's influence (mama had access to her children at all times! Jo is a kindly human). I ended up taking Madu and Gojira, and their mama. Mama was way too feral to be happy and comfortable living inside, although I kept her locked in initially. After some 2 months, when I judged that the kittens were old enough to be weaned and comfortable without their mother, I let all of them out to explore. Mama ran off, although I did see her lurking nearby for a while. The kids really loved the new digs, and enjoyed romping outside but also liked the comfort of a warm safe bed at night.

Cut to the present, with Madu The Mighty Hunter who is worth his weight in dead rats, moles, gophers, and mice. Fortunately, he leaves the birds and snakes alone. Gojira, at a mere 6 lb., is too small to hunt effectively. She's deadly on moths, but the rats don't fear her. However, she periodically has insane fits when she pursues moths, running vertically up the wall before gravity overwhelms her and she bounces onto the bed below.

A couple of months ago, she noticed that moths fly around outside the French doors on the porch. Some atavistic memory must have bubbled to the surface of her tiny little brain. She watched them for a day or two displaying worrying signs of fascination. Then, suddenly, in a "shock-and-awe" move, she blitzkrieged - the curtain. It's a good thing she's light and the doors are double-glassed. I'd hate to see her fly through the closed door. In any event, the little idiot hung on to the curtain by her front paws, kicking furiously at the moths. I'm screaming "Get down! Get down, you'll tear my curtains," and the sound must have eventually penetrated that famously nonlistening little brain. She looked at me with enormous round acid-green eyes as her hind paws slowly sank and her little potbelly bulged out. I was laughing so hard! She looked like a little, hairy fruit slowly slipping off the tree. Then - rip, tear! - it dawned on her that her sole support was shredding and she was closer to the floor (and Gustav's sharp teeth) than she wanted to be, so she propelled herself somehow into a sidewise leap onto the bed, jumped three feet in the air, turning round in mid-jump, landed on my injured knee, ricocheted off a wall, and disappeared in a flurry of fine gray fur down the stairs.

What a pest.

Gojira with her Zingiber


Dennis with his Saint Blondie

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Caturday!

This week's featured guests are Dennis, Gojira's brother; St. Blondie, his favorite fluffcuddle; and Valentine, the pup. So sweet, how they all sleep together.

Dennis has the same "huh-wha?" expression on his face as his sister when she first gets up!

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Friday Is Memorial Maxx Day

And 4LG has a very sweet post up in Maxx' honor. The most dignitudinous Lion Kitty in the world.

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Entertainment - Silly Quiz Time

Well, poopies. I only rated a

Mingle² - Online Dating

.

Blame watertiger and s.z. They started it.

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Another Rat Flees The Sinking Ship

I'll admit, I felt a frisson of delight upon viewing this headline on the InnerTubes: White House Budget Director Resigns

I don't know about other industries, but in the Silly Valley, "resigning to spend more time with [my/his/her/their] family" was codespeak for "I got the boot," or "Ship's sinkin', I am so outta here."

He's being replaced by one Jim Nussle, who I will dutifully research as time allows.

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Smokey's Corner

Today's treat is a poem from Smokey

Misrepresented

The Angels are angry
bitterly and intensely angry.

They feel used.
Used by painters, sculptors,
tombstone carvers and
church leaders.

Their purpose has been misrepresented
for centuries.

Their one and only task
given by their Creator
has been to make each and
every Lesbian
happy
deliriously happy.

© 2007 K Smokey Cormier

Does anyone remember that ubiquitous slogan from the mid-'80s/'90s, "Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians"? I used to have a button that said that. I think I'm gonna make me a tee-shirt.

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Food - Recipe for Sandy

This is a very tasty stew - surprising (to me, at least, because it's not spicy) but nutritious and delicious. You can freeze this, and I would recommend that you do, because it makes an enormous quantity. Put it in four-serving size containers and it should last for a month or so. You can use leftover cooked rice, pasta, or any other grain.

Chicken Vegetable Stew

1 stewing hen, cut up
2 onions
1 bunch celery
8 carrots
8 parsnips
2 large leeks
4 tomatoes
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch dill
4 cloves
4 large cloves garlic
2 cups brown rice (or whole wheat pasta)
1 cup dried beans
10-12 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water. Drain, rinse, and pick out any stones. Wash the chicken. Halve (but do not peel) the onions. Smash the garlic (do not peel) in a mortar, or with the side of a knife blade. Cut 6 stalks of celery, 4 carrots, 2-3 parsnips, 2 tomatoes, in large chunks. Cover the chicken and the cut vegetables with water, add cloves, 4 sprigs of parsley and 4 sprigs of dill, and the smashed, but unpeeled garlic, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for approximately 1 hour, skimming off any foam. Make sure that the water covers the other ingredients, adding water as needed. When the chicken is done, turn off the heat, take the chicken out of the pot and let cool. Remove the skin, and shred the meat. Strain the broth. Save the bones and vegetables for stock, if you wish, or discard them. Refrigerate the broth overnight, then skim any fat off.

Cut off the green part of the leeks and discard. Wash the remaining white part thoroughly, soaking if necessary to remove sand. Chop the remaining vegetables (carrots, parsnips, celery, tomato and leeks) in bite-size pieces, and mince the parsley and dill. Place the strained chicken broth in a soup pot and add beans, vegetables, and rice (if using pasta, add right before cooking time, i.e., 6 min). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook about 45 minutes or till vegetables are tender. Add shredded chicken and herbs, stir, then add coarsely crushed pepper and salt to taste. Stir, and serve. If using precooked rice or pasta, add with the cooked chicken.

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Environment - Did I Just Say Drought, Part 3

Oh, dear. Spain is hosting a conference on drought. The rain in Spain, it would appear, no longer falls mainly on the plain. In fact, it plainly ain't. Falling, that is. Much.


Some words of wisdom from the Malian minister of culture:

Traore warned that simply sending immigrants home would not effectively address the problem as on returning home they would find "the same poverty and shortage of water" that had driven them to seek a new life in the first place.

And she criticised developed societies for a consumer-orientated lifestyle which he said was using up scarce resources and speeding up climate change, bringing desertification and drought to Africa and beyond.

See, the problem with some people having a great deal and others having little to nothing is that, sooner or later, those who have nothing come calling on those who have it all. And if you don't share what you have with them, they take it away from you. Forcibly. Sure, you can pay men and women with guns and bombs to ensure that you got yours for a while longer, but guns and bombs are of little use against huge masses of people. You can only shoot so many people before they overrun you. And sooner or later, the people doing the shooting figure out what's going on, and they don't want to be a part of it. Or, worse yet, they decide to shoot you.

Remember Dien Bien Phu? Masses of Vietn Minh guerrillas stormed the camp and literally overran it. When people have nothing to lose, they will throw their lives away without counting the cost.

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Environment - Did I Just Say Drought, Part 2

Well, I could've told them that! U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is opining as how the conflict in the Sudan is due to competition for scarce resources brought on by global warming. No shit, Sherlock.

"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said in the Washington daily.

When Darfur's land was rich, he said, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water, he said.

With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.

"For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out," he said.

A UN peacekeeping force may stop the fighting, he said, and more than two million people may return to rebuilt homes in safe villages.

"But what to do about the essential dilemma: the fact that there's no longer enough good land to go around?"

Tell you what, people! Stop reproducing!!!

If there isn't enough for all the people, there needs to be fewer people. Time to dump the abstinence programs and aggressively implement a ZPG solution. Otherwise we're fucking doomed.

I don't understand why this simple fact is so difficult to grasp.

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Environment - Did I Just Say Drought?

Am I turning into a prophet? Or is my natural cynicism finally failing to keep up with the deteriorating State of the World around me? Almost makes me fearful to predict anything. In any event, in my most recent post, I speculated about whether this was going to be a drought year.

Guess what, peeps? No? Not one teensy guess? Three choices, no prizes.

It's going to be a drought year. In some places.

Northern China has been fighting a drought that has lasted nearly 10 years, sapping rivers of water and leaving reservoirs at near record lows.

Water volume in the Guanting reservoir is only about three percent of its 4.2-billion-cubic-metre (147-billion-cubic-feet) capacity, according to Zhang Junfeng, a water expert with the Green Earth Volunteers environmental group.

Zhang blames the building of reservoirs upstream, but more importantly global warming and a lack of rainfall.

Chinese authorities have also acknowledged in recent months that global warming is at least partly to blame for the unusually high temperatures to have hit northern China.

I wonder when Stupie McPoopyhead will finally figure it out. Or maybe he did, already, and that's why he bought land that sits on top of a Paraguayan aquifer. He'll have his, and screw the peasants, they're not getting any.

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Environment - A Hundred Degrees In Hungary?

Photo from National Geographic
Today, stockings and ties, tomorrow they'll be coming to work in their underroos. Wonder if it'll be a drought year? Probly not, with storms washing out the U.K., Switzerland, Australia, Bangladesh, and who knows where-all.

The thermometer is set to rise above 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit) this week, with average daily temperatures forecast to be above 25 Celsius for three consecutive days.

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Food - The Eating Plan

Picture from greekfood.about.com
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's WW for me. All that wonderful cooking and good food was packing on the poundage. If I could walk it wouldn't be so much of a problem - a weekly 5 mile hike would soon put paid to the avoirdupois. Sadly, I'm afflicted by major gimpitude, and may continue to be so until I have my knee replaced.

But! The avid foodie is always on the lookout for tasty AND healthy food. This month, I've made multiple vegetable soups and stews (with almost no fat, or no more than 2 teaspoons of olive or canola oil). I didn't take pix, though I probably should have. I made a chicken vegetable stew with parsnips, carrots, celery, tomatoes, brown rice, dill, parsley, and pinto beans. I made a chicken and chickpea stew with cilantro, turmeric, red chilli powder, fresh chillies, garlic, raisins, and a mirepoix of onions, celery, and carrots. I made a pork tomatillo chilli with black beans, tomatoes, lime juice, cilantro, red chilli powder and cumin powder.

But, best of all, I discovered the world's best snack food. Tasty, healthy, low in fat, high in fiber.


Lundberg rice cakes, each topped with 1 tsp. of spicy hummus and 1/2-1 tsp. salsa cruda or Pace picante salsa. It is indeed to die for. Incidentally, you can make hummus at home, although that is rated by WW as double the points value of store-bought hummus (???). Wildwood farms makes an excellent garlicky lowfat hummus. For a good hummus bi tahini recipe, look here. Whole Foods carries many different brands of hummus and salsa, as well as rice cakes.

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Animals:Giant Manta Ray Born

in captivity in Japan. Six feet across at birth, it emerged rolled up into a little tube.

I don't know about you, but I needed something to cheer me up, after all those horror stories of the Iraq war, the incompetent misadministration, and environmental disasters. Here's to animals.

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Environment - Storms Hit U.K.

We were in the U.K. and Ireland some years ago in June - very early June, I might add. It was so hot, we could barely move. The buildings had clearly been designed to keep the cold air out and warm, stale air in. We did the usual touristy thing of visiting the museums and libraries and taking the buses and underground everywhere, and I had come prepared for spring weather. I had to buy linen shirts and shorts because all my clothing was too heavy and thick.

More climate change this year:

Sir David King told a committee of MPs that global warming has already altered the climate and the country will have to prepare for extreme weather such as heat waves and "torrential downpours".

He said the summer of 2003, which killed an estimated 32,000 people across Europe, was a "climate change-driven event" and one of the world's biggest natural disasters.

The recent floods have claimed at least one victim.

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Environment - Toxic Algae in China

Photo: National Research Council of Canada

Great googly-moogly. Things are bad indeed, between the coastal pollution near Shenzhen and algal bloom off Hongkong that I blogged recently, and now the algal invasion in two lakes. China, which has 25 per cent of the world's population, has only 7 per cent of its water. The coastal algal bloom is nontoxic, although Chinese authorities have asked beachgoers to avoid it. The lake algal bloom is toxic and foul-smelling, and residents of cities which get their water from Lake Tai and Lake Chao have been warned not to drink the water.

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Politics - Iraq War: What's The Plan, Man?

Professional idiot and private cretin, Mitch "I Look Just Like Your Gramma, The One Who Terrifies You" McConnell is saying in public that the surge will be over in March.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday that he expects the US "surge" in Iraq to come to an end in September, a sentiment that deviates greatly from the official White House and military stance.

"I think that everybody anticipates that this is going to be a new strategy in the fall. I don't think we'll have the same level of troops, in all likelihood, that we have now," he said. "We're not [in Iraq] forever."

Well, that would sure as hell be news to that other professional idiot and private cretin, Commander Awol von Bunnypants:

WASHINGTON — President Bush would like to see the U.S. military provide long-term stability in Iraq as it has in South Korea, where thousands of American troops have been based for more than half a century, the White House said Wednesday.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Bush believes U.S. forces eventually will end their combat role in Iraq but will continue to be needed in the country to deter threats and to help handle potential crises, as they have done in South Korea.

I don't like the sound of that "eventually," especially when it comes from the mouth of The Mouth of Sauron.


Meanwhile, one pair of the "boots on the ground" opines:

Also this morning, appearing on Fox News Sunday US General David Petraeus said that the "surge" strategy would not be completed by September.

"I do not" think the job will be done by Semptember, said Petraeus. "I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do."

The White House expressed a similar sentiment in the daily press briefing on June 13th.

"It is humanly impossible to solve all this before September," said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow of the "surge."

Tony, you lying shitbag, it was supposed to have been solved years ago. Or have you forgotten "Mission Accomplished" starring Commander Codpiece?

Video available here.

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Politics - Blair the Poodle Knew

Image from Bartcop?

Tony Blair knew that The Idiot Child had no plan whatsoever for the Iraq war, yet he committed troops anyway! So says the Guardian on the basis of revelations by key aides of Blair. Gods, I hope the British public roasts him alive for this. To send other people's relatives to danger and death based on bullshit??? Unconscionable!

Update: Well, well, well. It appears that the House of Lords will hold an inquiry into the foofaraw after all. Let's hope they find Tony and his cronies guilty of war crimes and hang him by the neck till he is dead. How immoral is that, to know that you are entrusting the lives of people who trust in you into the hands of a psychopathic dry drunk of limited wit and perverse malignity? And he did it even though Commander von Bunnypants told him his military was not needed. Evil. These people are evil. What bought you, Tony? What was your price, man? Did he promise you the running of the World Bank, or a posh private estate near the Paraguayan aquifer? You made a deal with the devil, Tony, and I hope it burns you. As badly as some of those poor Iraqi children whose blood is on your hands.

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Politics - AttorneyGate: The Story Writes Itself

Unbelievable. The Washington Post reports that The Abu G Show, known to the hoi polloi by the familiar, catchy nick of "The Justice Department," is having trouble filling positions. What, Monica Goodling's alma mater, Regent U., is not sending them candidates? Apparently, no one's lining up to fill these plum positions. I don't suppose Abu G's recent pronouncements are helping any.

I'd introduce this quote with a "to wit," but wit appears to be in short supply in The Failed Administration of Commander von Bunnypants.

The developments add to growing personnel problems at the Justice Department in the wake of last year's firings of nine U.S. attorneys, which led to a political confrontation with Congress, lowered morale and contributed to an exodus of officials from the upper ranks of the department.

A quarter of all federal prosecutors are now on the job on an interim or acting basis -- reflecting a vacancy rate that is much higher than normal, according to department statistics. Five senior Justice Department officials have also resigned since March, including one who announced his departure Friday.

"There are certainly a lot of vacancies, even for the end of an administration," said Dennis Boyd, executive director of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. "For some turnover to be occurring is not that big of a surprise, but the department has handled . . . [the prosecutor firings] so poorly that you're left with an unusual situation."

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Politics - AttorneyGate: Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Now, why d'you suppose Georgy-Porgy, the ever-willing foot-in-mouth Blabberer-in-Chief, is holding his - hmph! - peace in the matter of the Democratic Congress' newly issued subpoenas of Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor? Could it be nerves, as the NYT suggests?

Bush had said, "I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials," and added that he was "absolutely" willing to fight over subpoenas in court.

"But when the subpoenas actually arrived on Wednesday, for Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, Bush said nothing," Stolberg observes. "The current White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding -- who recently beefed up his staff by hiring additional lawyers to handle the growing demands for documents and testimony -- has yet to offer a response."

Stolberg continues, "Those sounds of silence suggest that the White House is grappling with a dilemma. If Bush reaches an accommodation with lawmakers on testimony from Miers and Taylor, Democrats will inevitably demand similar terms for Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser. The last thing Bush wants is Rove going up to Capitol Hill to submit to questions from Democrats."

Fear that Karlie will sing like a canary to save his own skin? Or is he losing it as everything around him turns to shit, like everything within him, and the fetid stench of his own inner darkness reduces his world to a meaningless hell?

What am I thinking? Commander Codpiece would never admit to being wrong. “I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” he famously said recently. Of course he is. He's a psychopath. He doesn't give a fuck about the wounded, maimed, and killed, civilian or military, American or Iraqi. Punk.

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Politics - AttorneyGate

Jeebus, Gonezales is even more of a retard than Chimpy McStupie. And don't nobody give me shit about my use of the term. I wouldn't use it to describe a person with a genuine mental limitation, but it's perfectly OK to use it on an inane, underachieving draft-dodger with an allergic reaction to reality. This guy works HARD at cultivating stupid. Anyway, here's Abu G on his plans to add further dignificitude to the Attorney-General's office. Feckin' eejit:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales plans annual evaluations of US attorneys including a way to discuss grievances from politicians.

"If that should happen," writes Andrew Zajac in an editorial for the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, "expect the fair-mindedness and independence Americans still count on from their Justice Department to slip."

"At least once a year every United States attorney is going to sit down with either myself or the deputy attorney general, and we're going to have a very candid conversation about issues and problems in their districts," Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee last month. "If I've heard of complaints from a member of Congress, it gives me an opportunity or the deputy attorney general an opportunity to tell the U.S. attorney what we're hearing."

What this boils down to is, any halfway decent and/or competent lawyer will get the fuck out of there post-haste, leaving the toadying bottom-feeders and Professional Xian Rethuglicans to swill about in the devolving scum that Abu G and Stupie McPoopy have turned the Justice Department into.

Christ! It beggars belief.

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Memorial Maxx

Gone but never forgotten, dearest Maxx. Apologies for being a day late again, but Friday I got my pupils dilated and was blind for a while.

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The Blogosphere

sometimes yields little nuggets of blogtopia (y, sctp!). Here, for example, I present:

The Lives And Times blog. Do visit.

Anthony, if that's your real name, thanks so much for alerting me to your existence! I'll add you to my blogroll soon, but right now the garden is calling my name - or calling me names, it's not entirely clear.

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Politics - The Impeach Cheney Resolution

I'd be happy to bullwhip the entire congress, if I thought it would get them all to sign the damn thing. The good news is, eight more have.

"I don't know of any effort to whip members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to back the impeachment resolution," said a spokesman for Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), who is a co-chair of the CPC.

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Politics - 2008 Democratic Candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton Edition

Yes, I do plan to blog them all. Even the knuckledragging Brownback and Huckabee. Let's start with HRC, though, because she makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Way back when Bill first got elected, I liked Hillary. I liked what I knew about her. She worked with Marian Wright Edelman on the Children's Defense Fund, and was widely respected, especially in the progressive legal community, for her stance. I liked her commonsensical feminist attitude. Things have changed a great deal since then.

Like John McCain, a politician who I thought was exceptionally independent and free of toadying tendencies, Rodham Clinton has undergone a metamorphosis for the worse. I don't like this new Rodham Clinton. I'm deeply suspicious of her triangulating stance, her ego, her conservative-disguised-as-a-progressive posturing.

I've held off bloviating on the topic because much of the public dislike of Rodham Clinton is based on the poisoning of the political discourse in this country by the likes of that feculent swine, Karl Rove. But as the next Presidential elections approach, I fear that Rodham Clinton is gaining momentum and picking up endorsements that will result in her being shoved down the public's throat as the supposed "moderate Democratic candidate." And I don't want that. I really really do not want Hillary Rodham Clinton as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. I really do not want her as the next President.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast has a story to tell about Senator Rodham Clinton that touches on all my hillarysensors. Good work, Greg.

I wish I could accept her disirregardless (as some have said), but I don't think I can.

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Environment - Death Toll In China Flood

Global warming. Disastrous floods worldwide. Admittedly, the number of people dying in these incidents barely makes a dent in the ever-increasing human population, but I'm beginning to track this, and should have better tracking tools and regular updates in place soon. I expect the numbers will rise drastically, and soon, at that. China's current death toll is 71. Floods also occurred last week in Bangladesh, Switzerland (flash floods), and Britain.

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Porn - Spam Victim Gets New Trial

Image from AP
Great news! Julie Amero, substitute teacher who was indicted for exposing kiddies in her care to porn is getting a new trial. Poor woman! Some fine people rallied to her defense, though. Thanks to regular reader Sandy, who passed on the tip, and lots of other good advice, as well.

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Health - Contamination Recall

Lovely. Nothing's safe, I tell ya:

A US importer is recalling 1.5 million "Thomas and Friends" wooden train toys made in China because of paint containing lead, the company and US government regulators said.

Wooden wagons and other train-set parts of the toy popular with young children were being voluntarily recalled by the importer, RC2 Corp based in Oak Brook, Illinois, in cooperation with US officials, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a statement.

"Consumers should take the recalled toys away from young children immediately and contact RC2 Corp for a replacement toy," said the US agency. Customers were advised to visit the company's website, www.recalls.rc2.com.

I wonder who's in charge of the FDA? Another Bushie "good buddy" who has plans for the rest of us?

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Laptop Fixed!

And Dell sucks. My partner contacted them to have them fix the machine, and they generated so much grief that we ended up taking it to a local guy who did it for about a third of what the Dell Assholes would have charged. So! Blogging is back to normal, dammit! More or less, anyway.

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Caturday!

Bandicoot and Gustav attempt to hypnotize us into providing freshly poured kibble

Well, it appears that the primary bunny-lover at Casa de Los Gatos is ... Gustav! While we were bedslugging this morning (i.e., being slugs in bed, not punching the poor damned mattress), a flurry of activity caught our attention. Noting that Gojira, Bandicoot, and Zingiber were snoring on the sheets, as is their wont, and positing that Madu was spending his usual "night out on the tiles," we opined lazily that it must be Gustav. The noise eventually reached a bed-evacuating crescendo, with nervous kitties actually waking out of their sound sleep to look around, whereupon we followed suit. Only to find Gustav delivering multiple death blows to the white terrycloth bunny. One wonders wherefrom this murderous enthusiasm. But one returns lazily to bed, tea, and newspaper anyway, after some mild words of admonishment. Not that he takes our admonishment to heart. In fact, it's my opinion that the little fucker is utterly deaf to human voices. He only hears cat bandwidth.

And what is with the freshly-poured kibble schtick? He can have mountains of food in multiple bowls, but the minute one pours so much as a single kiblet, he comes running. And turns his nose up, conversely, at kibble that has been sitting a while. Twit. Not that the others are immune to these shenanigans.

We firmly believe that people are regularly breaking into our home of nights and spoiling the little wretches rotten.

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Smokey's Corner - Entertainment

I love Smoke. I have to confess to it. Talented writer, photographer, reader, artist, all-around creative lunatic.

Here's a Smokey piece titled "Power Struggle With Chickens." It grew out of a conversation we had about chickens over tea and adda mara, one day. It came about as a result of my fervently praying for a change of power in this country. As I've mentioned, I'm an atheist. But, I said to Smoke, I'll pray, I'll even go to church, if this band of thugs, goons, looters, and all-out corrupt lowlifes goes to jail to the last man. Thus, the Monty Python skit at the end.

"Power struggle with chickens" ???? ... ya just never know what you're gonna get from me, do ya?

Here’s an excerpt from a book I’m “reading” right now ... book from the library on cd -- unabridged. The setting is Botswana. Contemporary times. It’s one of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series: Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. I think the author captures a lot of the thinking and attitudes of ... well, at least the people he met and knew in Botswana. He has certainly captured their humor. I recommend his books.

********

Mma Makutsi, Secretary of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and cum laude graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, sat at her desk, staring out through the open door. She preferred to leave the door open when there was nothing happening in the agency (which was most of the time), but it had its drawbacks, as the chickens would wander in and strut about as if they were in a henhouse. She did not like these chickens, for a number of very sound reasons. To begin with, there was something unprofessional about having chickens in a detective agency, and then, quite apart from that, the chickens themselves irritated her profoundly. It was always the same group of chickens: four hens and a dispirited and, she imagined, impotent rooster, who was kept on by the hens out of charity. The rooster was lame and had lost a large proportion of the feathers on one of his wings. He looked defeated, as if he were only too well aware of his loss of status, and he always walked several steps behind the hens themselves, like a royal consort relegated by protocol into a permanent second place.

The hens seemed equally irritated by Mma Makutsi’s presence. It was as if she, rather than they, were the intruder. By rights, this tiny building with its two small windows and its creaky door should be a henhouse, not a detective agency. If they outstared her, perhaps, she would go, and they would be left to perch on the chairs and make their nests in the filing cabinets. That is what the chickens wanted.

“Get out,” said Mma Makutsi, waving a folded-up newspaper at them. "No chickens here! Get out!”

The largest of the hens turned and glared at her, while the rooster merely looked shifty.

*******

Have you ever had a power struggle with chickens? I have. Folks, my life has been rich. Truly. I feel so fortunate. So many experiences.

My grandparents’ in Ireland had chickens (and turkeys) and it was my daily job to feed them, gather the freshly laid eggs, and, with a burlap sack, also gather the bricks of peat that were burned in the stove. I’m old folks. I remember those telephones that were on the wall ... that you see in movies ... where you crank it ... the cord goes to a separate ear piece:

Yes, I remember that type of phone. And, yes, my grandparents had a stove that you burned bricks of peat in for cooking. ‘member that scene in Monty Python’s movie ... I think it was The Meaning of Life ... and one of the characters calls Ireland the only Third World country in Europe?

Back to the chickens ... oh, I had many a power struggle in those days with those chickens! And ... ya know ... you’re a human ... so you think you’re gonna win ... but no. Ya don’t. Because humans have a tendency to get distracted by more interesting things ... but those damn chickens will keep their one brain cell tuned into that one thing they want to do ... and they’ll win every time while your back is turned.

And ... as a small bonus for reading my diversions and meanderings down this far ... a scene from The Meaning of Life:
Chaplain: Let us praise God. O Lord...
Congregation: O Lord...
Chaplain: ...Ooh, You are so big...
Congregation: ...ooh, You are so big...
Chaplain: ...So absolutely huge.
Congregation: ...So absolutely huge.
Chaplain: Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Congregation: Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Chaplain: Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...
Congregation: And barefaced flattery.
Chaplain: But You are so strong and, well, just so super.
Congregation: Fantastic.
Humphrey: Amen.
Congregation: Amen.

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Entertainment

I'm sorry but this just brings the tears to my eyes.



Tears of laughter, of course.

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Religion - It Makes You Insane

Without fundie nutjobs, we would be starved for entertainment. It is to point and laugh when you find such a po-faced, pinched, whey-raised creature blathering on in this utterly drivellicious fashion about the dangers posed by Harry Potter making common cause with terrorists. It can bees tiem for white jacket with extra-long sleeves and many fasteners now. Yes, yes. Harken to the idiot, in her own words:

America is on a path to a greater threat then we thought. It is those wicked Harry Potter books. The reason why Harry Potter is a terrorist threat, for the spells in the books are speical codes for terrorist groups in the middle east. The characters represent well known terrorist who have attack our borders. This is why we should ban these books from our schools. So, that no child would be influence by these materials of mass killings on a free country. There is also popular podcast like PotterCast, MuggleCast who are spreading words of prasie to this horrible book of evil. And they must be stop, so that they won't brainwash anymore children with their terrorist views and support. They are the reason for the VT shooting, causing that boy to commit an act of mass murder all because of a internet show that talk about the evil that is in Harry Potter.

Ignore, if you can, the fact that she can neither write nor spell, and displays a sadly nonexistent acquaintance with grammar. Concentrate, rather, on the loony quality of her words.

Then consider, if you will, her sister in arms across the Atlantic. From the Guardian's report on education:

Sariya Allen, whose case is expected to end today at the south London employment tribunal in Croydon, claims Durand primary school in Stockwell discriminated against her as a born-again Christian and put her at a disadvantage compared with teaching assistants who were not of her faith. After three years in the job, she quit in July and is now jobless.

And why, exactly, did she lose her job?

Ms Allen, 47, said the mother of a seven-year-old girl who was a fluent reader had complained to the girl's teacher that the book Ms Allen had given her was too easy.

The girl then chose a Harry Potter book from her reading folder, but Ms Allen refused to listen to her reading it because God had stated in the Bible that witchcraft was "an abomination", she told the Guardian yesterday. "The girl went home and told her mum. I also had told the teacher that I objected to hearing that book read because of my faith," Ms Allen said.

What I really dislike about the fundies is that they choose to be employed in a field where they might have to do something contrary to their beliefs, and then want everyone else to accommodate them. She lost her case, and a good thing too. I wouldn't want such a feckless twit teaching my sprog, would you?

Incidentally, she lost her case.

For the record, I'm an atheist. I accept that other people don't share my irreligious point of view. As long as they don't beat me about the head with it, I'm fine with their beliefs. I don't think any public policy decisions should be based on religious belief, but I accept that each human being has their own ideas about the existence, or lack thereof, of Deity. But people like these two nutcases give religion a bad name. Come to think of it, they give *people* a bad name.

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War - What Is It Good For?

Found somewhere in blogtopia, thank you, whoever you are.

He was right, yaknow.

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Health - Food Contamination Update

And Yurk again. This is simply huge.

A meat supplier has greatly expanded a ground beef recall, which now includes about 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen meat that may be contaminated with E. coli.

David Goldman, acting administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, announced on Saturday that the recall would be expanded to include products with sell-by dates from April 6-April 20. The beef, sold in 11 Western states, was distributed by California-based United Food Group LLC.

From The Associated Press via The Huffington Post.

"Greatly expanded." That's corpospeak for "it's all fucking rotten, guys, eat it at your own risk." And I like ground beef. Now how will I make Ants Climbing Trees?

Anybody out there shop at Mall Wart? Be extra careful. In fact, to be on the safe side, you should probably avoid all beef (unless it's organically raised) for a bit.

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Science - Storm Update

I don't know why, but weather patterns are definitely changing. Any gardener could tell you that. And, of course, the victims of such changes. The death toll in Australia is higher than originally estimated. Death toll in Oman here. Flash floods in Switzerland.
And the red tide is spreading in Hong Kong.

I wonder if anyone is tallying all the environmental disasters that seem to be occuring and comparing the data? It seems as if there are more storms, more severe, that drought is hitting some parts of the world, and cyclones, storms, hurricanes and floods are hitting others. I wish I had an apron. I'd throw it over my head and run around in circles, screaming.

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