The Daughters Are as Smart as the Old Man

Boy, one of the few things I caught - and I mean caught in the painful sense, like a really horrible flu or leprosy - was the Bush twins' speech. Hudson at Daily Kos has faithfully captured it for (cough) posterity.

No. I joke. The Bush Twins have an IQ of 120, which is above average. The only unfortunate thing is that they have to divide it between them. That's only five points lower than the 125 cumulative IQ and Dad and Laura share.

Beauty (cough) fades, but dumb is forever.

The Russian Horror

What little I managed to catch of the horror at the Moscow school was, of course, extremely disturbing. But you knew that it would end in much death. That's a) the Russian way and b) definitely Putin's M.O.

It's horrible that these innocent children and other were engulfed in this. I don't excuse the terrorists. Trust me on this.

But while Russia was very willing to have us see this on the news, Putin never allows much Western coverage (and the American media isn't exactly hot on the sniffer trail anyway) of the extreme horrors and brutality in Chechnyan where Russia exacts terror each and every moment of the way. The crime? Russia wants to retain Chechnya, and the citizens of Chechnya do not want that. Democracy Putin and Bushie style.

Anyone who thinks that we haven't behaved very much like Putin towards Chechnya (and his career was built on the body count there), aren't hated because of Bush's love and partnership with his "Putey-Put" (Bush's nickname for him), and that Moscow's horror can't play out here directly because of the Bush-Putin love affair, is sadly, tragically really, blind, stupid, and dead of mind. The Chechnyan issue for Muslims is every bit as central as the Palestinians.

The Bush coalition is taking direct and deliberate steps to drive hatred and death rather than prevent it. Talk of democracy and freedom and all that happy horseshit are just that. No - wait. Horse shit has some value in decomposition.

Bill Clinton

Hope he does very well with the bypass surgery.

I was impressed when - as if reading my mind - Hilary Clinton said today that Bill was very fortunate because he had access to very good health care, and their hope that someday, more Americans would be so fortunate.

But I'd put an extra guard on his room. Karl Rove and Tom DeLay might still be in NY, and I would not exactly put it past them to steal some doctors' coats, slip in, and perform a little surgery of their own to give Bushie the election by ripping Clinton's heart out and delivering it to the nutwing. They already tried this before with Bill's testicles.

Bill, however, maintained to retain his. I understand they're quite large and still work... unlike Rove's and DeLay's.

Most Hammered-Home Message of the GOP Convention

"If you're planning to vote for John Kerry, be very, very, very, very afraid. If, however, you're considering Mr. Bush, then feel very, very, very secure and try not to pay attention to any of those pesky little details like crumbling public education, the fact that we're hated even more by some extreme factions than we were in 2000, that all the homeland security schlock is just that (high-priced artifice when the only surprise is that we have not been hit again), and that Halliburton and Bechtel are practically running the country."

Inspiring is Not the Word I'd Use

CNN is running a poll right now asking who gave the most inspiring speech at the Meeting of Dead and Dumb Elephants. Their choices: The Groper, Rudy "give me some of those no-bid contracts too" Giuliani, Zell from Hell Miller, or Georgie.

Can we have a None of the Above option please?

Even the GOP pundits did not find Mr. Bush's speech much of a big deal. Zell's busy arranging a duel to shoot Chris Matthews. Rudy's social climbing knows no bounds and The Arnold proved quite a girly man when faced with protestors.

I notice they didn't bother to nominate George's newest bitch, John McCain (nice choice, John: he's treated you so well, too), George ("Forget Rudy. I want to be president next!") Pataki.. and any of the folks that remind you that the GOP lately is all about proving Darwin wrong.

Man oh Man oh Man

Sorry about the absence this week. Since last weekend, I've had to write six chapters on three books, fix a Table of Contents for a fourth, come up with a proposal for a fifth, author a dozen databases and spreadsheets each, take a couple hundred screenshots, write 12 Office college-level projects, de-flea the dog (which is a lot like writing relational databases), burn a half dozen meals, and miss a lot of sleep. Oh yeah, and I've gone marvelously deaf in one ear but who has time to see a doctor? Mono sound seems to make me stupid.

But I'm back. Only thing is, if you want to talk to me, you have to aim for my right ear.

Thinking Not Allowed

I overheard a comment made between two women of advanced age today in a pharmacy checkout line that made it difficult for me not to jump in. Stay tuned for the kicker at the end.

As one woman said to another (paraphrasing), "You know, I was watching the TV coverage of the GOP convention."

"Me, too," said her friend.

"But did you hear them talking to the delegates? I was sayin' to Elmer it struck me as a little strange. They would all say the same thing about Mr. Bush being right and the war being right but each time they got asked to explain anything, they couldn't."

"What do you mean?" her friend asked.

"I mean they would say we had to go into Iraq because Saddam Hussein was so dangerous and had all the WMDs, but if the reporter asked them to explain their answer since there were no WMDs, they couldn't. They could only recite what they kept being told. Bunch a damned sheep."

"Well, I heard some say that we have to support Mr. Bush no matter what. I think they're probably right," said her friend.

"Oh please!" the first woman said emphatically. "Lois, if you can't explain your opinion, it's not an opinion. Dumb dogs and people get kicked for blind loyalty."

A few minutes later, as I hurried out of another store, I spotted the strong-minded woman again as both of us headed for our vehicles. Hers - an old but well-maintained Cadillac - was closer and as I watched her open her door, I spotted 3-4 bumper stickers on the rear, all for local GOP candidates including the Vermont governor. There was, however, no Bush-Cheney04 sticker.

The woman who noted all the rather mindless blather coming out of delegates is apparently a Republican. But she's a lot more than that. She's a savvy woman who realizes that the brain is an organ we should use. We - this whole country, regardless of political affiliation - need more people like her.

She's also absolutely right. Blind loyalty is a rather terrible trait and usually a destructive one for all parties concerned. Like her, I've been appalled that not one GOP delegate I've heard interviewed could explain why Iraq was a good idea except because the president thought it was. I was just as appalled when I heard one - just one - delegate at the Democratic convention say, "We have to stand by John Kerry no matter what."

This election isn't about George Bush or John Kerry. They're just window dressing. Neither will be our savior. This election is for the future of this country and the rest of the world.

We need a different direction. Different as in up rather than deeper down into the abyss. I'm not convinced John Kerry will place us on the right course, but I am very much convinced George Bush will not.

Red, White and Blue in the Face

I think that pretty much sums up the start of the GOP convention.

Notice how much more coverage the GOP is getting now over the Dems last month. Notice how the so called liberal media spent the DNC bashing Kerry and is spending the RNC praising Bush.

Notice how the RNC is trotting out their "moderates" (in the current GOP, a moderate is apparently defined as someone who might have sex with his sister but would take steps to avoid getting her pregnant, a friend said to me recently) when this platform is ALL ABOUT extremist views.

Rudy Giuliani behaved admirably on 9/11, but every day since, he has milked the cow of the American public, taking huge contracts for doing nothing that grinning (and with him, that's quite a grimace) and promoting Bush. I have socks more evolved socially than Arnold the Terminator, and Stepford Wives have more brains than most of the Bush family.

Oh.. and that 13-year-old they trotted out to sing! I have never heard a worse performance of "Star Spangled Banner." Methinks her dad gives oodles to the GOP. She couldn't enunciate many of the words, and hit maybe 30% of the notes.

But the week's young. I'm still hoping someone will catch Cheney ass-fucking (sorry, I read Wonkette too often) Tom DeLay while he's in turn screwing chubby little Denny Hastert as Bush sits there counting his toes. It's not like it doesn't happen. (Cough)

Half a Million Converge in NYC March

That's one heck of a "focus group" saying the U.S. needs to chart a better course, folks.

Consider this: last weekend in August, hot and humid weather, money's too tight for many to afford to travel at all, school about to start, New York City under its toughest lockdown since the aftermath of 9/11.

Yet 500,000 showed up to march. For each of those half million, how many people wanted to be there (raising my hand) and could not? One? Five? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?

To all of you who did get there, my profound thanks.

This isn't about "anti-Bush", regardless of how the media portrays it. This is PRO America, but an America of ideals, not just bullying, brute force, and extremely lucrative no-bid contracts to the military industrial complex.

Cheney, Rumsfeld and their ilk COME from those companies. They'll return to them, too, having made them so much richer during their tenure.

Continuing Deaths in Iraq

While so much coverage is being handed over to Swift Boat Veterans from a war that ended more than 30 years ago, to President Bush comparing his service to John Kerry's in Vietnam, and such, there has been almost NO coverage - save for the terrible incident where a grief-stricken father set a van ablaze and tried to climb inside - of the continued soldier deaths in Iraq (let alone Afghanistan, let alone innocent Iraqi or Afghan civilians, let alone contractors, et al).

As of Friday, the military reports there have been 59 military deaths in Iraq from combat operations, mostly through cities like Najaf.

Meanwhile, the Bushies will continue to denegrate soldiers and vets while pretending they're national security and uniform friendly. Uh huh.