Yes I Am In A Really Bad Mood

I don't even know where to start to explain where I'm at with this mess we're in. First off there really hasn't been much to say about the latest primaries and caucuses because, doh, like it or not the outcomes have been for the most part quite well known to everyone not living in Oz beforehand.

That kind of led me to my second conclusion which was that sometimes it's better to just shut the fuck up than engage in the sort of shrieking, shrilling, and whining I've been seeing on at least half the blogs (and I'm being generous here) and most definitely in many of the comments including here on my own at times.

Oooooh the media is mean to me and hates women/black people/brown people/liberals/conservatives/really cute puppies. Yeah well, the media doesn't love or hate anyone, they love ratings and as long as there are assmonkeys willing to park in front of the tube and listen to idiotic dribble and wage wars over trivia they'll keep right on keeping on. Ok, I'll admit I do love to watch Pat Buchanan but that is only because I enjoy the way the veins pop out of the side of his head and he starts to turn purple, it relaxes me.

I've made it pretty clear that I am not voting for Clinton, no secret there. If you are or aren't and wish to make an argument for or against that's fine but make it at least semi-rational. I do not give a damn about her ankles or her pantsuit. Above all please refrain from demanding I feel oppressed because I happen to possess a vagina. I've never been oppressed in my life for longer than 5 minutes because I've never tolerated it and this is still America, so far anyway. Every other man in the country is not a foaming-at-the-mouth misogynist, quite a lot of them are clueless. Give them a clue and save the baseball bats for the truly deserving. When you do actually run across a true misogynist I'd suggest breaking his kneecaps but it would be a good idea to learn to recognize the difference.

I've also made it clear that I did and will again, vote for Obama. Again, if you wish to make a point for or against that's also fine but keep it sane. I do not care whether or not he did or did not use drugs/attend a Muslim kindergarten/is or is not "Black enough". As for the heavy doses of sarcasm I've read regarding the man's powerful oratorical skill and overwhelming charisma...bitch please....those have come in handy in winning over some of those 2,999,999 other people I have to share the country with and I'll be the first to admit that but has little to nothing to do with my reasons for supporting him. Remember you're talking to someone who favored Bill Richardson, charisma is not a deal maker or breaker for me. I tend to look at stupid ass trivia like THEIR FUCKING VOTING RECORDS.

Do not even try the "Clinton has more experience" argument with me. Sen. Clinton never held public office until the year 2000 so where this "35 years of experience" tag line is coming from is beyond me. If sleeping with or being married to someone confers some sort of educational and experiential bonus then I'm a fucking diesel engine technician and a jet pilot. If "experience" is truly your criteria then just vote for John McCain and bugger off.

Speaking of voting records, outside of Joe Lieberman I cannot think of a single dem who has voted more in lockstep with the GOP than John Edwards so why on earth half the "progressive" universe seems to believe he is their saviour is beyond me. From nuclear waste to Iraq to the current majorly fucked up bankruptcy laws Sen. Edwards has a long and established history of caving to GOP pressure. Granted, he does a fine mea culpa after the fact but how many times do you want a mea culpa after the fact??? He may have the best of intentions, not going to try and second guess the mans motives but he's pretty much proven he does not have the best judgement in the world, at least not for a self-professed "progressive". I'd not even mention him here except that many of his followers seem to remain in denial that he is out of the race.

Finally there are the ultra snarky, I'm-too-cool-and-embittered-to-get involved people. Everyone is bad, all the choices suck, nothing will change no matter what we do, yada, yada, yada. Fine, to borrow a phrase from the Galloping Beaver, sit on the fucking corner and wish for ponies. Make sure to save a seat next to you for the Perpetual Victim crowd m'kay?

Things I Know That Are Not Worth Wasting My Time Arguing About

1. This election is not "all about Obama". He's tapped into something that was already waiting to happen. Right person, right place, right time. Sometimes shit happens that way.
2. He could lose/Clinton could win, all things are still possible.
3. An Obama loss would set off an even larger tidal wave than the one currently in motion, some things I just know in my bones. My bones have never lied to me.
4. I would not want to be on the wrong end of that wave.
5. There is a certain historical inevitability to whatever course it is we are currently on, this too I know in my bones. What I do not know is how it will play out and how many heads will roll in the process but there is no realistic way to deny that there is a process in motion. Unless you are wishing for a pony.
6. It is entirely possible that Pat Buchanan's head will explode by the time this is all settled, whichever way it settles. I can only see this as a good thing.
7. Last but not least I am struggling to make sense of the fact that I belong to a party that believes I am so utterly retarded that they must appoint a 21 year old Alvin the Chipmunk look-alike to vote for me. I am too old to need a nanny and after this election I may decide I'm too old to be bothered with this party any more. Jury is still out on that one. If you are Republican don't get all excited, I still would eat nails before voting for a single one of your regressive, retarded, assmonkeys. It simply means that I may no longer register as a Democrat or give another penny to the DNC. Individual candidates may still apply.

Now that I've pissed off everyone and their mother too, have a nice day. Vote for whoever you want to vote for but at least make a choice and stand for something. Try to do it like grown ups. If we want leaders that don't behave like assclowns we need to stop behaving like assclowns.

The Ultimate Fixer-Upper

I'm not terribly excited about which democrat wins the nomination because there is one thing I believe all of them get.....that we can't keep ignoring domestic matters. This alone puts all of them ahead of all the republican candidates who are too busy looking for Osama under their beds to care if American children go to bed on full stomachs or if they even have a bed of their own to go to.

Then too I have my doubts about how much even the most dedicated president will be able to accomplish given the fact they'll have the peanut gallery we call congress to deal with. I hope for the best but plan for the worst.

All of this led me to contemplate the faux news conference held by FEMA. Hold yer horses before you scream....they just might be on to something there. Maybe we ought to just go with a faux government altogether. They could issue faux statements, hold faux press conferences, pass faux resolutions that do absolutely nothing and basically just let the rest of us deal with the problems on the ground. Oh wait, that's already happening. The only thing we need to do is eliminate the presidents ability to actually act upon any of his positions and we'll have this mess all sewed up. We'll make him some foreign Head-of-State avatars he can teleconference with on the internets to keep him occupied. Faux news can be in charge of covering all the proceedings.

In the meantime the rest of us can begin going about the business of doing what needs to be done. I think this might just be a do-it-yourself project.

Progressives Please Calm Down

Please. I mean it. We're about to cut our own throats here and that's exactly what the Cracker-Barrel party wants us to do. Stop playing right into their hands, calm down, take a deep breath and think this through logically.

The Iraq war bill as it was written was never going to pass. Not if we sent it back 50 thousand times. In the meantime funding was going to run out and whether or not it actually ended up affecting the "troops on the ground", the Republicans were going to play that to the hilt. And lo and behold, a huge percentage of America was going to buy it.

Democrats are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position here and it is our fault. Both the sign and don't sign camps need to get a little reality here. "WE" can't agree or even get a majority on one side or the other....how in the HELL do you expect the elected leadership to???

If Americans had been serious about getting us out of Iraq, guess what? We'd already be out of there. We'd have stood up and stood our ground and it would be a done deal. We did not do that. No, we didn't do it for a lot of reasons but one I believe is the most significant: we don't want to accept responsibility for our choices. We want someone else to make the decision so if and when there are negative outcomes we will have someone else to blame and boot out of office.

This is exactly the way we've been playing the game for, well, forever and this is exactly why we have elected leaders waffling all over the House floor. We did not stand up to Dubya when he decided to invade Iraq because we were scared. If we stood up and said no and omg, Saddam DID do something to us...it would be our fault too! Can't have that now can we? So we swallowed the bullshit and kept our mouths shut so if things went south we'd have someone to blame. That worked out really nicely too. We can all scream at der Chimper for the mess he's made but nearly everyone seems to have forgotten that OVER 70% of Americans WENT RIGHT ALONG WITH IT.

So now I hear the Democratic base threatening to bash in the brains of any Democrat who dares to sign the amended bill. Do you think they aren't calculating the odds of you turning on them the first time something goes awry? The Republicans must be jumping for joy.

The saddest part of it all is it doesn't really matter. We're leaving anyway, most likely right after the next election...assuming Bushie can find enough troops to keep the current action going until then. If we are serious about ending it now we should stop working at cross purposes by attacking each other and get serious about removing Bush from office.

Race, Politics and Hip-Hop With Bill Moyers

Moyers interviews Melissa Harris-Lacewell. The sanest and truest discussion of race and politics in America I've heard yet. Bonus clip of Rush Limbaugh acting like the assmonkey he really is.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05182007/watch2.html

Best Wishes for Riverbend and a Note to Iraqis

"I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict. They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there."

I had missed the news that Riverbend and her family were leaving Iraq. I may have been the only one in the known universe that missed it but anyway, there it is. I wish them all the best of luck in the world and yes, I'm glad they have decided to go.

I don't know what political spin if any people in the middle east are hearing but the fact is we are leaving so unless one believes everything will be hearts and daisies as soon as the US troops are gone....LEAVE NOW. Do whatever you can and need to do to save yourselves and your families and do it quickly.

Quit worrying about who our next elected president is going to be, in this matter it will not matter. We'll be leaving regardless of who ends up running the show. Ok, worry if it's Giuliani because he'd enjoy pulling out our troops then sending some bombs over as a parting gift. Believe it or don't at your own risk. It just seems like it's only fair to tell you the truth so you can get a head start if you believe a run for the border is your best option.

Ok, I'm no one important, I have no inside information and I certainly have no power to affect any of the actions or outcomes of this situation but I do have eyes in my head and my hearing hasn't gone south yet. America has decided and hi-ho, hi-ho, it's home from Iraq we'll go and all the king's neo-cons and all the kings gen's cannot and will not put Iraq together again.

Spoken Like a True American Conservative

Speaking of our right wing and wormlike creatures, Reenee at Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos got this comment from one anonymous poster.

Seems you only like people of your own race, religion or political view. Shameful that Most of YOU are illegal and living in my country on phony social security numbers. Get a life you lesbian liberal loser.

Keep it up anonymous guy. You and your friends are the best recruiting tools the Democratic party has ever had. Emphasis on tools. In the meantime if you're short on cash, why not do your part to support the troops, I hear the army is offering extra large enlistment bonuses.

Race, Politics and Oops, Fox does It Again

All modern men are descended from wormlike creatures, but it shows more on some people.
-- Will Cuppy

Someone (actually several someones), somewhere far, far away on another blog commented on not seeing the connection between racial/ethnic identity and political affiliation.

Now had these someones been American I'd have probably not paid much attention because they'd have obviously been from our ultra-right wing and I do get tired of wasting my breath trying to teach pigs to sing. As it happened they were not Americans and were primarily from that population of folks in the middle east who have bought the right-wing spin that the Republican party cares about the people of Iraq and Democrats only want to cut and run.

I saw a bit on Fox's "1/2 Hour Comedy Show" a few days back that would have illustrated the point here beautifully. Sadly after endless time wasted searching the net, there is no clip of it available. They were poking fun at pregnant women in the workplace. I had no idea that was such a big issue in the country recently but apparently it is to at least some Fox viewers, enough for them to do a parody skit about it in any case.

In the skit the 2 news anchors interview a guest spokesperson for the "pregnant working mothers" movement (for the record and non-US readers, to the best of my knowledge there is no such organized or even dis-organized movement in the US). This "spokesperson" was, ta-da, a pregnant (read full-term, going to give birth any time) woman and the kicker: HISPANIC woman. Now if one does not live in this country you might not be familiar with the all too commonly heard "Mexican women are always pregnant and breeding like cockroaches" and sorry but you are not going to convince me this was not a deliberate choice to play to that particular attitude. They played it up to the hilt right up to having the lady's "water break" in the middle of the interview. There is the rightwing idea of humor. Pardon me for not laughing.

Yes, real live American people say things like that on a daily basis right here in good old US of A. They say a lot of similar and even worse things about just about every other racial or ethnic group on the planet too. You don't even have to try very hard to locate people who say these things. The bad news for Republicans is that almost always these people are members of the Republican party, Republican voters, and quite often define themselves as "Christians" and "conservatives".

Of course it does not mean all Republicans are racists any more than it means all Democrats are not racists but the preponderance of the evidence is in and racism is much more an accepted ideology on the right. A racist Democrat is an anomaly, something most of us find freakish and revolting. A racist Republican is so common it rarely draws comment.

Granted, the "official" Republican party line is that all are welcome and racism is unacceptable. then they trot out the handful of minority members they have for the media and say "see, we are diverse" but you can't really sell that line to the masses when you don't really walk the walk in real life. Especially not when most of your hardcore "base" are the same people still waxing nostalgic for segregation.

There was also a comment (on the far away blog, not on Fox) about how people "should not choose their political affiliation because of their race or choose to identify with a specific race". Nice ideal, I'd like to see everyone self-identify as members of the human race but see...it isn't really a choice when the society you live in identifies it for you and treats you accordingly. I could "choose" to call myself Chinese-American all day long or any other thing that suited my fancy but it would not change the way people around me identified me or the way they interracted with me based on that perception.

So there's my response to the connection. Believe it, don't believe it, get mad or get glad, it won't change a thing about what really exists and why yes, there is a connection.

Hit Them Where it Hurts: Right in the Wallet

From AlterNet:

Why an Ultra-Conservative Texas Grandmother Hates the GOP

What could make Jordan Fogal, a 61-year-old ultra-conservative Republican grandmother from Texas, refuse to vote for a single Republican in the last election? Two innocent sounding words: mandatory arbitration.

I'll skip posting the entire story since if you are interested it is available at the above link but this paragraph should whet your interest:

Right now you may be thinking, "that is a sad story, but it could never happen to me because I would never sign a mandatory arbitration agreement." Unfortunately, if you have a new home, new car, car lease, credit card, bank account, cell phone, storage room, utilities, or an exterminator chances are you already have.

Do not just take my word for it, look at your contract.

More information on mandatory arbitration here and here.

Ok, I won't even try to claim this one is a strictly partisan issue, it isn't but (there's always a "but" isn't there?) let's say it leans heavily to the right.

While I'm on this train of thought, have you tried to purchase homeowner's insurance lately? Best of luck to you if you live in one of the Gulf States and in many cases, various counties all over the country that have been deemed "disaster prone". The number of major insurer's no longer writing policies in certain parts of the country has been increasing for several years....along with the number of places no longer considered 'insurable". Allstate pulling out of California is only the latest and largest case in point.

Now I'll grant that it is probably reasonable to not want to insure some homes in some areas. Hey, if you build your 5 million dollar mansion on an unstable, coastal hillside you're on your own as far as I'm concerned (these are referred to in CA as mobile homes (ie: Hey, look! Those people you just did the landscaping job for just got a mobile home!) On the other hand it is pushing entire populations of some towns and cities out of their present locations as businesses opt to relocate due to the high cost or unavailability of insurance coverage. Most of them opt out to another state....far, far away.

Face it southerners, many of your towns and cities are not going to rebuild after even moderate storm or flooding damage. When the jobs leave so does the population. In some cases that may be the best or only solution but do we really intend to de-populate the entire states of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana? We're certainly headed in that direction without some serious attention to disaster mitigation and looking at ways to deal with the growing insurance crises.

We could of course just go ahead and de-populate the entire hurricane, flooding and tornado prone zones and increase the population in areas deemed safer but then there is the water issue.

When the MSM bothered to cover the issue at all, and it was only minimally as far as I could see, I heard mainly criticism for this proposed bill which would tie climate change issues to national security. Both sides of the aisle had some detractors, one side saying we could not trust government to deal with this issue and the other jumping on their wingnut-mobiles to proclaim this was a "left-wing alarmist" agenda.

Government usually is only as competant as it has to be to keep us from rioting, unfortunately it is the best and only agency we have at least at this time. Who else to begin addressing the issue? Talk show hosts?

For the wingnut crowd, take a deep breath, the bill is sponsored by Senator Chuck Hagel , a Nebraska Republican, and Senator Richard J. Durbin , an Illinois Democrat. Not even your daddy O' Reilly could call Hagel a "liberal".

You might consider this from the CIA World Factbook too, last check they weren't exactly a bastion of left-wing propaganda and thought.

government water control projects have drained most of the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting the feeder streams and rivers; a once sizable population of Marsh Arabs, who inhabited these areas for thousands of years, has been displaced; furthermore, the destruction of the natural habitat poses serious threats to the area's wildlife populations; inadequate supplies of potable water; development of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers system contingent upon agreements with upstream riparian Turkey; air and water pollution; soil degradation (salination) and erosion; desertification

Getting blown to bits is but one of the obstacles to survival they are facing. The truth is they do not have a supply of potable water great enough to sustain the current population much less any future increased population. For certain they are not the only nation facing the same situation and situations like this tend to make people....testy. Maybe a look at how climate may impact security isn't such a bad idea after all?

I'm not going to worry about any of this too much because as with most things, probably not many people will pay attention until their water bill is in the hundreds of dollars. Funny how thousands of people dying of disease, hunger, thirst or warfare barely makes a blip on our radar but boy howdy, get one $300 dollar utility bill or a 20 cent a gallon increase in gas prices and we're all ears. Maybe we should start charging taxpayers for every preventable death, I'm thinking that might get our attention.

Speaking of "Presence"

Not trying to be difficult but I'm not sure how anyone in Nevada could say any presidential candidate does not look "presidential" enough or lacks "presence". This is our freaking elected governor. Makes Kucinich look positively debonair. Yes, he is a Mormon, no, he did not marry all of those women. Rumor has it he only even slept with a few of them.


And here he is wearing a do-rag and some bling-bling. Smokin'.

Photos from MSNBC News and big tip of the hat to Vote Gibbons Out where you see even more about our ever so dignified Gov. Gibbons.

A Few Minutes Minus Stupidity

Jon Stewart interviews Reza Aslan. Now that's hot.

Mittens For Kittens

The inner workings of congress for the unitiated.

Just a Few Questions

Why are we so obsessed with who has the most "presence"? If presence is what makes a great president then forget elections....just appoint Martin Sheen president-for-life and forget about it. Better yet....just have Reagan stuffed and plant him in the oval office. That's what "presence" will get you.

Why do people expect me to get all excited about Alberto Gonzales? He fired people the administration didn't feel were partisan enough.....ooooh, how shocking. This administration OUTED a confidential employee...CIA operative Valerie Plame because her husband had the audacity to disagree with them. Yeah, remember her? They quite literally ruined this woman's life and destroyed her career because they were ganked at her husband. And we the people LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. Some of us fuckers actually still have the nerve to defend this action. Piss off, I don't give a fig about Al-stupido and the republican hack lawyers, we already proved we have no priorities so suck it up.

Why are we prosecuting DC Madame Deborah Palfrey for allegedly promoting prostitution but not prosecuting the men who actually engaged in this alleged prostitution? If we are truly so disturbed about this "immoral" behavior then round up every single one of the men on her phone list and charge them all, otherwise shut the fuck up, I'm not interested.

Why is it that when John Edwards finally shows me he has a pair by finally getting in this administrations face about Iraq.....most of the other candidates get pissed?

Now that Senator Obama needs protection from the Secret Service....why are we making hay out of the fact that this is "the earliest" any candidate has needed protection like it's his damned fault and not hunting down the people sending the threats like the cowardly, shit-eating dogs they are?

You know what disturbs me the most? The fact that we probably will end up with exactly the government we deserve.

Edit: Forgot to mention....why are we so worried about Islamic terrorists and show very little concern about our own All-American Christian terrorists? I haven't heard anyone saying we should invade Texas and root them out to keep America safe.

Republicans at Play: Shoot the Mexican

Watching the Alberto Gonzales circus yesterday I was struck by the same thing it seems everyone else was, how little support he received even from his own party.

Now ok, if I believe a Democrat is crooked or incompetent I'm not usually shy about saying so because I don't see any value in defending people that I believe are just plain old bad for the party. Quite a few Democrats have a similar point of view, it's earned us the reputation of being "disorganized" and "fractious". I can live with that if it means we stay open to culling the herd of rotten apples.

The thing is, Republicans do not have any similar tradition. Point of fact is they have a well established history of rallying around their own regardless of what heinous crime the person has committed or what foolishness has been done. I'm not even going to attempt to list the number of outright criminals and fools they've stood by and vigorously defended....too many to even begin to count.

They essentially went into attack mode on Gonzales. What was so different about this case?

I really don't know, truth is I wouldn't even place Gonzales' actions in my personal Top 10 list of Stupid Republican Tricks....he might make the top 100 at best.

That being the case and in spite of not being a fan of Mr. Gonzales or his actions I had to ask myself if the Republican senators would have reacted the same way if Gonzales had been, say, a white man.

Somehow I can't quite bring myself to believe that and I couldn't muster up much glee over his treatment at the hands of his own because I don't believe they were offended by his behaviour at all.....I believe it was his color that made it acceptable to them to make him their sacrificial lamb.

Maybe down the road they'll show me they are capable of weeding out their rotten apples regardless of race, religion or whatever and prove me wrong. I hope so, I really do, but right at the moment I'm not buying that pig.

Just Trying to Be Fair

Alrighty, I needed to laugh and John McCain and Yahoo travel guide presented me with a primo opportunity. I laughed myself silly.

In the interest of at least attempting to be fair though I'll say this: McCain was right. Three years ago. He was correct in saying that we had not deployed anywhere close to enough troops to stabilize the situation in Iraq. On that one issue he was correct but he did what nearly everyone did and did not look at the big picture.

I agreed with him, we didn't. The problem was then, and even more so now, we don't have the numbers that would be needed to do so. Even more significant is the fact that we most definitely do not have the numbers that we would need to do so for any length of time and that is key to the entire issue.

No one with the slightest comprehension of the social and political realities in Iraq is confused enough to believe that we could stabilize the nation via military presence in anything less than a generation. A generation would be the optimistic view, we'd probably be looking at several generations.

Now, is there anyone who believes we can and will maintain a troop presence in Iraq numbering in the hundreds of thousands for a period of 50 or even 10 years? I don't believe that for a minute but unless that is what we commit to we are accomplishing nothing but putting off the inevitable moment when we will be forced to accept reality and withdraw.

Yes, executions of citizens are down significantly. They are down because we have our military essentially babysitting the Iraqi police, many of who were the same people making up the "death squads". They can't run around killing the citizens with those doggone Americans watching their every move in Baghdad. Not stopping them elsewhere but in Baghdad at least it has slowed them down.

That's a good thing but now what? Stay until every Iraqi with insurgent or death squad ambitions dies of old age? Based on their previously exhibited ability to devise new and different ways to kill, maim, and torture I'm fairly certain it's only a matter of time before they figure out a new tactic to subvert our attempts to squelch the violence. Yup, I have faith in their ability to thwart all attempts at imposing civilized behaviour. No, I don't think that means all Iraqis so get off the soapbox...I'm talking about those Iraqis who have a penchant for this sort of behaviour.

In the meantime we have a whole new generation growing up in this nightmare. I have to go back to my background in mental health. A person's prognosis is largely based upon their baseline, baseline being the optimum level of functioning that person achieved prior to becoming ill. It's nearly impossible to return a person to a better state of functioning than they had before their troubles began. So what do you suppose the baseline for Iraq's children is? Murder and mayhem and hate for every other religious or ethnic group and especially the Americans.

You see why I say it would take generations for a military presence to stabilize the country?

Is Iraq going to sink into chaos if we leave? Most likely, yes. Is it going to anyway? Most likely, yes. Is it possible to at least soften the blow with diplomacy? Maybe.

There's the other insurmountable obstacle. This administration cannot negotiate effectively with anyone. Not even if they really, really wanted to. No one on the planet likes, trusts, or respects them except for the roughly 20% or 30% of westerners who believe the earth is only 8,000 years old and are secretly hoping we'll just kill all of the middle easterners and have done with it.

If the rest of us are truly interested in saving as many lives as possible both American and Iraqi we have only one possible course of action. Impeach Bush and Cheney. If we truly had looked at the "big picture" we would have already done so. Getting them out and appointing an interim government to begin diplomatic negotiations is the only logical course of action.

Well, that's assuming we actually do care about the situation for more reasons than as a bone of political contention.

Vote McCain and Win a Wingnut Dream Vacation

Now that John McCain has informed us that "we are starting to turn things around" in Iraq and that one can now safely drive about in an unarmored vehicle I need some help.

Please help me select a hotel for our dream vacation to Baghdad.

1. Al Mansour Hotel - this review almost sold me on it:

Although only at the Mansour hotel for a conference, I found it had many positive features. There is almost continuous Peshmerga presence, rendering the hotel safer than many. It is conveniently located only a few hundred meters from the International Zone, minimizing the risk of roadside bombs. The pool is beautiful and almost always empty, and mortar impacts are rare. The manager was very accomodating to our security requirements, the AC blew cold, and no one was killed. A great stay!

But this one left me undecided:

First of all, let me say that if you are going to to Iraq and stay in a hotel and you are American......you are CRAZY!!!!!! This hotel is filthy, the rooms are filthy, the food is horrible. Staff is friendly, but who knows what is really going on in their mind! I would rather be homeless in the worst part of America than to stay in Baghdad again.

2. Palestine Intl Hotel - a possible 2nd option with more mixed reviews.

The most comfortable accommodation in the middle of a dangerous civil war you could ever hope for. The camouflaged tanks in the checkpoints outside the hotel are a nice touch.

Well I was not beheaded, so that alone is a plus. The pool is a great place to avoid shrapnel

The location is excellent. The food was great and the swimming pool simply fabulous. The only downside was the walls are too thin. I could hear the guy next door farting for hours. It was disgusting. Located near a wonderful shopping district.

I'm leaning towards the latter if I can get confirmation that the nearby shopping district still exists and they still give out the complementary burkas.

Special thanks to Mr. McCain for simplifying my vacation planning decisions.

The Political Spectrum: One Assmonkey's View

Other than being able to say without equivocation that I'm a Democrat I've never been able to self-identify politically. People who agree or disagree with me on various issues can't even agree on the appropriate tag to hang on me so how am I expected to?

If you think about it most of Europe would consider at least 80% of us "rightwing" and most of the rest of the world considers us wildly liberal if evil, capitalist tyrants. Ok, I have not a thing against Europe but let's be really honest, most of it has more issues with division by race and class than we do. We do have our good points, even when we are racist/classist most of us have enough self-awareness to be embarassed about it and not deny that it exists.

You can't even get consensus from one region of the country to another. Most of the southeast thinks Schwarzenegger is a "liberal hippie" and northeasterners figure anyone with a shotgun must be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, redneck hillbilly.

So if believing in equal civil rights for everyone is "liberal" or "progressive" then I'm a progressive liberal....or "liberal hippie" depending on your point of view.

Not wanting to cook the planet on broil would I suppose make me a "tree-hugger". Oh, wait a minute, believing we can use the market to help effect change and expecting individuals to take personal responsibility for the impact of their own lifestyles would make me conservative though, wouldn't it? Oops.

Being opposed to invading Iraq put me in the category of so far left I was called a "terrorist enabler" but initially supporting our continued presence there in the hopes of being able to stabilize that which we had broken tossed me back upon the rightwing dung pile.

Realizing quite some years ago that we were completely failing in that mission at first labelled me a "liberal hippie" but over time has made me positively......mainstream. Go figure.

Being strongly pro "fair trade" wins me the evil, capitalist pig award in many camps and a "commie-sympathizing socialist" award from the right. Socialism is a beautiful theory, I could live with it....good luck getting all the SUV-driving, newest-toy-on-the-market buying, Mc/Mansion-owning people to agree to it.

I don't like the current senate bill for troop withdrawal for many reasons so that would make me a rightwing warpig, right? Wrong, I want us out of Iraq as much as anyone. I'm not opposing the bill either because a) it will be vetoed and b) pressure from the base forced their hands...they passed the bill that they could get passed. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it, eh? The only thing it accomplishes in reality is showing that percentage of voters smart enough to figure this one out that we have elected a lot of people who have to be bribed to do the right things and it should effectively get the hardcore protestors to leave the elected officials who are trying to further their cause alone.

Then there is the hoohaw about which candidate is best on GLBT rights and who said it best. I don't care very much what they say or how they say it....what will they DO. Fact: not one of them is going to espouse same-sex marriage, some will make more noise about not being opposed to it but they are not going to vote for it either. Not going to happen. Civil union? Pretty much all of them. Biggest question: based on track records which one(s) are most likely to make the issues a priority? Or to put it more simply...who's most afraid of the big, bad wingnuts?

Same story on immigration. No Democrat OR Republican is going to deport 12 million people, I don't care what they told you. Ain't happenin', wingnuts get over it. Only difference will be whether they get to stay as underpaid slave-labor under a rightwing sponsored "guestworker" plan or as human beings on a path to full citizenship under a leftwing "path to citizenship" plan.
Rightwing plan might seem great to the racist-pigs out there but before you jump on that bandwagon keep in mind that such a plan would affect your wage scale, plan B would probably force it higher.

Healthcare, there are pros and cons to either a single-payer system or making changes to the existing market based system. I'm either a commie-socialist or an evil, corporate-owned whore on any given day, roll the dice, just show me the money.

So what exactly does that make me politically? A person who cares about results and tries to choose the path most likely to be accepted, implemented and gain at least some if not all of the results I want. Either that or I'm a tree-hugging, liberal, progressive, communist-sympathizing, socialist, rightwing, capitalist-pig, redneck, hillbilly, who owns a shotgun but has never shot anyone or any living thing, drives an economy car and lives in a very inexpensive house but has a weakness for very expensive linens. Yeehaw.

Insane Prophecy of the Day

Since I love making seemingly ridiculous predictions and don't get terribly bent about missing the mark sometimes (unlike some of the anti-Fox debate folks who having won the battle are attempting to keep the battle alive, please, you won, now let it die) I have one that ought to set at least a few people either laughing or screaming.

I'd give it at least a 30% to 40% chance that Arnold Schwarzenegger R-Governor of California will endorse....Bill Richardson. Crazy, huh?

Think it through. Schwarzenegger cannot run for president, he cannot run for governor again, he's young and I do not believe tired of politics. That leaves a senate seat. A senate seat currently occupied by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a heavily Democratic district.

Schwarzenegger has nothing to lose by offing his party and everything to gain by endorsing a Democrat. Even so I don't see him doing a total backflip over to the far left and there is only one candidate who's platform is reasonably close to his own, Richardson. Most of the Republican candidates are miles away from matching the Gubernator on nearly any issue besides the very obvious fact that endorsing most of them would end any chance of him ever being elected in Marin and Sonoma counties. Say what you will, the Gubernator is not retarded, if I know this then you can bet he does too.

It would also fit in quite handily with his recent calls for bi-partisanship.

Ok, it's a longshot. A very wild longshot but I figured out a long time ago that if I could think it, it could happen.

If You Drink Too Much Kool-Aid You WILL Get a Pimple on Your Ass

I've tried several times to comment on a post written by the ever Omnipotent Poobah about our political culture of corruption. Actually he takes it further than the typical kneejerk squealing I usually hear about all those naughty politicians which is probably why he is one of my favorite bloggers, he tends to do that.

I ended up not commenting but not because I disagree. I agree completely and it's central to what has been giving me a huge case of too-numb-to-write a coherent sentence and increasingly less than enthusiastic and hopeful about the '08 election.

I haven't written very much at all about either Bush or Cheney. Actually I haven't written anything at all about a lot of people and events that have captured media and blogging interest. It isn't because I don't notice it, it's more a case of all of it looking much like different versions of the same story to me.

Certainly Bush, Cheney and all their minions are a problem. They are not the problem, Americans are. They did not stage a military coup and wrestle control of the country from us by force, Americans handed it to them. Fox network did not use a secret mind-control weapon to force Americans to slavishly follow Bill O'Reilly who I am convinced is the direct descendant of the very first snake oil salesman. Nope, Americans did that voluntarily. We have insane fools like Inhofe attempting to legislate based on his interpretation of biblical verses because....oops...Americans voted him into office. Yes, even after this, "Inhofe outraged some federal employees on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building by stating on national television that there probably weren't very many casualties because federal employees wouldn't be at their desks at 9 a.m. and that they would instead be off having coffee somewhere." Oklahomans still voted him right back in. Lookee here Oklahoma, don't call me the next time one of them thar tornaders wipes half your state off of the map, m'kay. My cup of empathy is running low.

All of the above people and more are just symptoms of the problem.

I'm looking forward to '08 because in all seriousness, nearly any change will be welcome but I'm not overly optimistic. I can't get past the fact that the same voters who got us all into our current predicament will be the people deciding our fate in '08. That's not very encouraging.

There is an old Native American story I recall that says something along the lines of if your brother falls behind you should wait for him to catch up. If he falls behind again, you should help him carry his load and wait for him. If he still falls behind you should leave him because he is not your brother.

I'm seeing a lot of Americans who are not my brothers.

I SWEAR He Never Called Me

Richardson is out of the debate according to Kos so it will either be a Hillary-Barack slugfest or far more likely, no debate at all.

Good riddance to a nuisance issue.

Hat tip: Las Vegas Gleaner

UPDATE: It's official, the debate has been cancelled. Head on over to the commentary if you want to join in kindergarten fun in deciding who gets demerits and how many for what they did or didn't do and why. Nice of Kos to break the news for us but ya, I remember why I don't hang out there. If this is the biggest issue you use in deciding your vote for the man or woman who might become leader of the free world....no wonder we're in deep shit.

Let's Commit Suicide So the Rightwing Can't Kill Us

I'd been thinking about writing something about the difference between being a Democrat or a Republican so I'm going to give it a shot.

It's the difference between being for things or against things.

Democrats are for things. We're for equal rights and equal opportunity. We're for everyone having at least their basic human needs met. We're for trying to talk things out instead of using force as our first option and most of all we are for people. All people, even the ones we don't like much.

Being a Republican is about being against things. Against having to pay your share, against providing for the less fortunate, against equal treatment for all people and certainly against allowing people to make their own choices and decide what is best for themselves.

At least that was how it stood.

I'm beginning to wonder. I've been a Democrat all of my life and for sure I'm not about to turn into a Republican but at the rate things are going I may be left with no party at all.

Lately it seems like both parties aren't about anything but being against things. It's looking like we're going to tear each other to shreds while our opponents march right over us one more time. You'd think we'd have learned by now.

Blue Lyon just said adios to MoveOn.org now that they've declared war on the Nevada Democratic party. I've already said my two cents worth about the whole Fox news debate, I'm pretty much done with it and don't care much one way or the other who winds up airing the debate or even if it gets aired at all. I do have a few words for MoveOn.org though: exactly who in the hell do you suppose is going to be your voter base in Nevada if you continue waging your little war on the state party? Wild burros or jackrabbits?

Whatever, wage your little war and maybe win a battle just don't act surprised if you lose the war.