All smiles

I spent the past week in a cabin in the woods in rural America. I was far from the tethers of the Internet or even of answering machines. I didn't watch any television. I didn't read any newspapers.

When I returned home I decided to catch up on what I'd missed.

My favorite bit of missed news was of course Tom DeLay's arrest and smiling mug shot.

It's nice that he's smiling.
I'm smiling too.
We're both smiling.

Another welcome story was that the nomination of Harriet Miers seems scuttled:

Harriet like New Coke

And there are many furtive-looking photos of Karl Rove and Lewis Libby to enjoy.

Furthermore the Jack Abramoff case seems about ready to make many more Republicans decidedly uncomfortable.

It looks like decent Americans have awoken as I was away and said, "Holy crap! This guy Bush isn't just an idiot, he's corrupt too!"

Can I get a blast o harmonica?

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

- Bob Dylan -

The winds of change may be upon us.

Fear

There is so much to fear:

Disease.
War.
Environmental collapse.
Death.
Persecution.
Humiliation.
Torture.
Obesity.
Ozone.
UV rays.
Food borne illness.
Willful ignorance.


That I hate to add to the list but I am compelled to by expectations.

Moe's Musings will be on vacation until October 23rd.

Try not to panic.

Constitutional?

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

- Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution -


"Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court"...

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion"...

- President Bush, Wednesday October 12th -

God and STD on your side

Someone sat down and analyzed whether or not religion is beneficial to society in objectively-measurable terms. The results are hardly surprising to humanists, and will probably be met with strong denial by the pious, but if you believe in facts you may care to know that...

Within the United States "the strongly theistic, anti-evolution South and Midwest" have "markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the Northeast where ... secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms."

Much more here...

Surprised?

Another macabre milestone

More journalists have been killed in Iraq in 2.5 years than in Vietnam in 20 years.

This is just one more example of something going awfully wrong with the plan which we are encouraged to embrace by the Whitehouse.

Mourning bells are ringing

Now Kurt

Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, was on the PBS show Now recently. He's old now, 83, but has a lot to say and managed to smile through most of it.

Here is an excerpt:

KURT VONNEGUT: I have one more thing I wanted to read. It has something different.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: Something in the other pocket, too?

KURT VONNEGUT: Yes.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: Alright.

KURT VONNEGUT: You know, Christianity is very big now in particular-- and our president, of course, is a Christian. These are words I never hear.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is kingdom of heaven.

This isn't original.

Blessed are they that mourn. For they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers. For they shall be called the children of God.

Not exactly a Republican platform.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: These, of course, are called the Beatitudes.

KURT VONNEGUT: Yes.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: From the Holy Bible.

KURT VONNEGUT: Yeah.

And here is a link to the transcript of the segment:

Kurt Vonnegut

This was the first time I saw David Brancaccio in action and I have to say I thought he did a good job. It can't be easy to talk casually with a man like Kurt and he pulled it off well.

Click picture if you think Jesus is wrong 

Bush's weak response to torture

In June of 2003 President Bush declared, "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example."

That statement has been exposed as another big fat lie by his recent pledge to veto legislation banning the torture of anyone in US custody:

Details here

The President's position is cowardly.

When you notice dog-shit clinging to your shoe do you leave it to fester and stink, or do you scrape it off to be rid of it?

I call on all Democrats to denounce this stain on America's honor with open contempt and ridicule. I call on America's allies and friends to join the choir and sing on this issue. I call on the press to run the newly released torture photos and remind Americans of the moral argument against the President's stance.

How do we win hearts and minds to our side when the world sees our hand in the indifference to torture cookie jar?

What does it matter if the Homeland is saved if America is lost? Does soil define a country?

I again applaud John McCain's leadership on this issue and hope you'll read his idea of an adequate response to torture. I also applaud the many legislators that joined Senator McCain and voted to pass the amendment.

Let's get this dastardly practice stopped. Here is a petition to sign that will help get America rolling in the right direction again.

A man that cries "Torture is unAmerican!" should not feel alone on our watch. Otherwise, well, he'd be wrong and what could be worse?

Of geese and ganders

If I were to proclaim in a headline, "US behind poison-gas attacks on Iraqis" because the US provided Saddam Hussein with the WMDs he needed to gas his own people, I'd wager readers would be outraged at me on the grounds that guns don't kill people.

Well, the BBC has a headline which says:

Iran 'behind attacks on British'

Delving into the article it seems the Iranian Republican Guard has made weapons available to some people inside Iraq and those weapons were further used against British troops.

Should I be outraged at Iran or the BBC?

If I should be outraged by Iran's actions then mustn't I be outraged at America's coddling of Saddam when they found him convenient?

If I should be outraged by the BBC then I guess that lets Iran off the hook.

Principled outrage is such a difficult thing to maintain.

Bush crony in charge of pandemic response

The President doesn't care about our national security as much as his rich incompetent friend advancement program (rifap). He proves that on a daily basis with appointments like Michael Brown at FEMA and his new laughably underqualified appointment for the Supreme Court.

The only qualification that the President wants to see in his appointments is loyalty to his fancy. So he has, like a tin-pot communist dictator, surrounded himself with yes-men. Ignorance favors simplicity.

However, some tasks are not simple.

For instance, the responsibility for a competent pandemic response rests with the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness (ASPHEP). Stewart Simonson, appointed in 2003 by Mr. Bush, has a familiar bio, that of a well-rewarded Unqualified Crony.

The President is now busy pretending to prepare a plan for dealing with avian flu. He is a simple man with only two ideas in his head. Cut taxes or use the military on it. In this case he seems to favor both ideas simultaneously. Perhaps he had an epiphany?

A man with a mind like that could use a few competent people around him. Unfortunately for us all, nothing threatens the barricaded ego of the incompetent like capability.

Perhaps that is why so many Americans didn't vote for John Kerry?

Senate Approves Detainee Treatment Rules

It is not often I praise Republicans but today I will praise the efforts of Senator John McCain for attaching an amendment to a military spending bill that would:

Prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held

Full story

The vote itself on the bill was also impressive, 90-9.

Predictably a few Bush dead-enders (like Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama) called the legislation unnecessary because "We do not have ... systematic abuse of prisoners going on by our United States military"

The logical response to such a statement is to say that if a thing is unnecessary then there is no good reason to oppose it, particularly when doing so would curtail resources from our troops.

It is high time to end the reputation-eroding, troop endangering, alliance-deteriorating, practice of prisoner (or detainee) abuse. Few things have brought as much disgrace to America as stooping to the type of moral cowardice that leads to torturing a charge.

Our troops do not escape harm when they engage in such misdeeds. The message from the top needs to be that Freedom is something to aspire to, not empty rhetoric.

Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book called Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.

BuzzFlash interviewed her
here and you can read all about it.

I thought it was an interesting interview and it sounds like it will be another good book from Barbara. In a way she is doing what Charles Dickens did by peeking under Society's covers, but with journalism rather than fiction.

Maybe our compassionate President should read her books so he has an idea what life is like when the road ahead isn't paved with gold bars?

Stopping torture

Ray McGovern writes about the use of torture in the Iraq war and our complicitous silence in the face of it.

Ouch.

Reichbishops 'r' us

Are we really like Good German citizens under Hitler that heard about dark deeds in dark places and kept silent?

Are we like those white church-folk throwing stones and curses at Martin Luther King's marches?

Are Democrats a loyal opposition party present only to support the myth of an alternative?

What should one do?

Shall we fight them with facts?

There are mountains of facts, truckloads of facts, books, and sacks and pen-fulls of facts. Facts that show lies. Facts that show more. Facts that make men of reason abhor what they've done!

No, torture is no match for facts.

Shall we fight them with Religion?

There are billions of Bibles with trillions of pages that scream against cruel-ness in all forms and stages. The robed ones they tell us be kind to each other, treat every man just like a dear brother. But pendulum and rack and turn of the screw were all to God's service before the Spanish were through. Burning hot pokers and salt on a wound were God's love expressed from Him down to you.

No, torture is not slowed by Religion.

The U.N. then, is that where we'll turn?

They make the sound of crickets chirping, of butterfly wings, and caterpillar footsteps on moss as men are borne to their doom. They prance like peacocks and fuss like hens as demented men defile in the gloom.

No, the UN is a social club that is only useful when there is consent among members.

Maybe all these things together?

Is that what Good Germans thought?

1,942 dead, 14,641 wounded, and counting...

Andy Rooney of 60 minutes and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show hammer the Bush administration over Iraq here:

Take that


As far as I can tell we are now in Iraq to keep the President and the Congress that backed him from being embarrassed by their poor judgement.

That ain't worth dying for if you ask me.

Supreme Crony

Why would anyone in their right mind nominate a person with no judicial experience whatsoever to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States of America?

Harriet Miers

This looks just like cronyism to me.

Apparently it looks like cronyism to many on the right too.

Harry Reid seems to favor the nomination, which would normally incline me to agree, but I instead think her lack of experience makes a mockery of the Supreme Court and the careers of those more qualified for the job.

Tom DeLay's Blues

Poor Tom Delay is being indicted by a new grand jury:

DeLay faces money laundering charges

I expect there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth over these charges, except among Tom DeLay's many detractors (including myself).

Tisk Tisk Tisk

It just doesn't stop.

The GAO has called the Bush administrations use of taxpayer-funded propoganda illegal:

Can you do the time?

One question nobody seems to be asking in the big-tent media is this, "Who else is on the whitehouse payroll besides Mr. Williams?"

Isn't it to laugh to recall that Mr. Bush was to restore accountability to Washington?

If that were true he'd show himself the door and give the Presidential posterior a good stout kick.

Bushmouth

Sometimes you just have to watch ol' George talk and laugh...

And sometimes, you have to package it up in a nice bit of satire and laugh even harder:

Where wings take dream

U.S. troops launch 'Operation Iron Fist'

US Troops have just launched operation "Iron Fist" inside Iraq.

Uhm.

Who's leading the charge the Fuehrer Brigade?

Nazi rhetoric

Who names these things?

Abort all black babies and cut crime, says William Bennett

I know that modern Republicans are big-government, nation-building, defecit-growing, crony-promoting criminals.

But...

I didn't know they were also dumb-ass racists too:

Strange moral values

Is Mr. Bennett in a close race for KKK leader in his home state?

WTF?