The "Pretend Iraq Constitution"

Billmon at The Whiskey Bar makes some excellent points.

Bush's Poll Numbers - Worse Than Nixon's at Height of Watergate Scandal

Attaturk at Rising-Hegemon details the bad news. Go read.

And before someone drops a note asking if I don't secretly enjoy Bush's approval rating close to negative numbers, the accurate answer is that I do not. It's at the very least an embarrassment. But almost every American (except a small few collection of Bush favorites) is doing so much worse for every day they spent under George. The rest of the war suffers terribly, too.

He's destroying the economy, the military, public education, health, civil and constitutional rights, and just about everything we hold dear.

Judy Miller

Anyone else happen to catch the Women's Wear Daily piece (I have to admit, I've never read WWD before - not my cup of tea) on how Judy Miller's having the time of her life in prison because all these important people are coming to see her? How all the rules get bent for her? How special meals are brought in for her?

Also, the article questioned whether Miller took jail to hide less nice things from coming to the surface about her. The latter, I believe wholeheartedly.

How Well Do You Know Your Religious Nutcases?

Mimus Pauly at Skippy International points us to the Falwell-Robertson-and yes, even Osama Bin Laden aptitude test found here.

The General Gives Senator "Man on Dog" Santorum Some Much-Needed Advice

Read here.

Walter Reed

For all the talk yesterday about closing Walter Reed hospital yesterday, not one damned journalist or pundit asked the question, "Why are our military folks - active service and vets - waiting so damned long to get any treatment if one of the primary hospitals in this country is no longer needed?"

The happy horseshit cycle is running on triple time on this issue.

What? Did Halliburton offer to build Rummy a new hospital that will cost 4-8 times the planned budget to build? Overcosts are (quite literally) where Halliburton makes its best money. They brag about it.

To Keep Your Bush White House Lie Scoreboard Straight

Now, after telling us specifically Bush was off on a vacation, now they deny he has ever been on vacation. Remember all the pictures of him catching fish, and taking two-three hour bike rides, and taking books along (some without pictures, too)? Yeah, so do I.

They also deny that these never planned and then suddenly, planned overnight, trips to "friendly" communities to profile moms who just love having their soldier kids killed in this fool war were scheduled all the time and are not just a response to the growing crowd Cindy Sheehan is drawing to the ranch where he's NOT on vacatin.

The Iraq (Dis)Accords

What's your take on them?

I feel like it would be disastrous if the Iraq Constitution with many of its current provisions would be horrific if it passes. The Bushies, however, have no problem with the power trips and the destruction of women's rights under this new document; they just don't want Iraq to become an Islamic theocracy.

I mean, we can't have Iraq becoming as extremist in religious doctrine as the Lakuud's have made Israel or the Dobson/Falwell/Robertson contingent's eagerness to turn the US into an extreme righty Christian theocracy.

"It's the Pelvic Thru-ust That Really Drives You Insa-aa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aane. Let's Do the Time Warp Again."

Clearly, Rocky Horror Picture Show is on TV.

Damn, I still love that movie.

Note to Pat Robertson:

Both killing and lying are commandments not to be broken. Tsk tsk tsk.

And you call yourself a Christian.

Blogger the Cannibal

It's consuming posts again.

!@^%!*@$

Uh....

I hate Mondays in general, but today I learned my agent quit (or whatever exactly happened, no one has said except by form letter) my literary firm.

You'd think maybe someone at the agency would be in touch to say, "Don't worry" or "We'll line you up with someone else." But no.

I've got five books in process (three in production) and we were just starting to look for more work. But.. uh... I don't want a new agent. I liked my last one. And I don't like that my agency hasn't called or written.

It's the first situation in a long while that made me tempted to smoke away my anxiety. I don't like alcohol and I'm probably a little old to take up heroin, crystal meth, or even Vicodin. (I need the opposite of dope: I need smart.)

The Iraqi Constitution

Under the new Iraqi Constitution, in a point (unlike some others) that doesn't bother the Bushies one bit, Iraqi women will become the low-value chattel they are in most Arab/Islamic nations.

Iraq, to my knowledge, is the only nation of its type that has permitted women far more freedom to be close to, if not fully on par with, males. This was because it was a secular nation.

While granted, I'm not very big on religious zealots of any flavor, I find it sadly hysterical that our government, so busy embracing rightest Christian rhetoric and so supportive of Israeli's move toward a near total theocracy, is so upset with Iraq making its constitutional fall far more in line with an Islamic nation.

Sadly, among the world's religions today, I think it would be nearly impossible to have a progressive nation that is NOT secular at its root. Again, that's not to deny the belief in and devotion to a god of whatever name but the government itself has to beyond the reach of religion. This is why the US has been going so horribly backwards for several years,

Now, we're ready to pretend the Scopes trial never happened, that women didn't get the vote, that Roe vs Wade does not exist in the law books, and that the recall of civil rights (in the service of a "greater good") is just a great idea. And while we're at it, we're eager to end the American public school system because for that to operate, it also must be secular.

The Concept of American Civil War, Redux

CK and Daily Read have made some excellent points on why a civil war is less likely in this land than some are starting to think. I encourage you to jump in and make your points.

Question of the Day

Is it possible - in any way conceivable that the deep, deep, deep divisions in our country now, all the shouting outrage on all of the many sides of the so-called two sided debate between the right and the left could lead us as a nation to another civil war?

This is something I have been pondering for a few days. In that time, what seemed like a very strange idea has somehow seemed far more possible. And, even worse than our first Civil War, the "other side" in this war will seem far more crass, far more desirous of "the dark ages" than those who argued for the right to own people of a different skin color.

Answer This Question

Why is it Mr. Bush has never been in one of America's largest, best-known cities, San Francisco:

And yes, the question is largely rhetorical and even without reading this post about it, I assume I knw. But lordy!

Speaking of Mr. Bush, Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey

This, from the WaPo:

It would have taken half an hour or less, and it might have lowered the temperature on a month's worth of searing publicity.

When Cindy Sheehan showed up outside President Bush's ranch on the fourth full day of his five-week working vacation to talk about a son who had been killed in Iraq, he declined to meet with her -- a decision that has been widely second-guessed, even by some Republicans. The way that choice was made, and the reasons for it, provide a vivid illustration of several hallmarks of Bush's style, including his insistence on protocol, his concern with precedent, his resistance to intrusions and his aversion to hand-wringing.

According to the accounts of several advisers, Bush and his aides concluded that it would be a mistake to yield to Sheehan's demand for a second meeting with Bush to discuss the death of her son, Casey, who was killed in Iraq at the age of 24 last year when his Army battalion was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. The president had made it clear, going back at least to a California railroad swing during his 2000 campaign, that he does not care to meet with protesters or to reward them.

White House officials maintain that Sheehan may have discredited herself with statements about impeachment, her insistence on a withdrawal from Iraq, her mixing of her cause with that of the Palestinians, and her accusation that Bush "killed" her son. If Sheehan has lost credibility with the public, the "peace mom" might turn out to be only a summer sensation.

But if Sheehan winds up providing the catalyst for a muscular antiwar movement, Bush's handling of the matter will turn out to be not only characteristic but also consequential.
Before leaving Thursday after her mother had a stroke in California, Sheehan had spent 13 days camped out in Crawford and had galvanized liberal activists at a time when a spate of U.S. troops had just died in Iraq, Iraqi leaders were flagging in their effort to complete their constitution, and polls were showing a notable souring of the public view of the war. The resulting "Camp Casey" has provided the biggest platform for the left since last year's release of Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Escaping Crawford

It's almost amusing to see the president inventing reasons to flee Crawford because the size of Camp Casey (the one started by Cindy Sheehan) is growing every day.

The Bankruptcy Rush

Thank you, President Bush, for the most ever bankruptcies in American history! You must be so proud.