Category Archives: News and politics

The Dumb Bin is full, so it needs emptying.  It has been a particularly long week for dumb people.

We can start with the Paris Hilton video.  The heiress was filmed at New Years, dancing like a drunken debutante.  At one point she faces the camera and says something to the effect of "We’re dancing like a couple of niggers".  Hmmm.  No, actually you’re dancing like a drunk white girl who has about as much dancing ability as I do.  Which would be none. 

Of course the various groups are up in arms about the use of the the word "nigger", as they should be.  Not one dance group, regardless of racial affinity has come out to criticize her terpsichorean efforts.  Please Paris, don’t dance for the camera, as all you do is perpetuate stereotypes that White Folks Can’t Dance. 

Republican Sen. Joe Byden decided that he liked Barak Obama because he was the first African-American candidate who was smart, intelligent, clean and good looking. Byden has also just announced his running for President.  Let’s see.  Barak Obama is a clean African-American?  Meaning, what?  That Obama performs basic ablutions each day?  Or that he is clean of scandals? 

As for good-looking, well, yes, Barak Obama is a handsome man.  Unlike Joe Byden who has the pinched faced bitterness that only comes from years as a second-string walking verbal IED that is just as likely to detonate because it is Tuesday, as for any other reason.  That low, rumbling boom you heard was your campaign cratering Joe.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist has finally woken up and looked outside.  He’s asking the Fla. Legislature to spend more than $30 million to replace all the touch-screen vote-bots with paper Mark-Sense-type ballots by 2008.  At least he’s trying to de-Bush Florida election process, but he is cutting his personal campaign out of the largesse of Diebold. 

Oil giants Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips have posted their economic results.  Exxon reported profits of $39.5 Billion dollars.  ConocoPhillips was a more modest $15.55 Billion.  I’m not going to ask how much both companies got in tax breaks or incentives to drill holes in the planet, as any company that profitable should be willing to do their own exploration out of their own profits and not rely on government handouts.  Right?

President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy is going to ask Congress for just a bit over $100 Billion to continue to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this fiscal, plus an anticipated even larger whack to keep it going into fiscal 2008, which starts October 1st. 

Didn’t I read somewhere that the reconstruction of Iraq and the funding of the war was supposed to come directly from the oil revenue from Iraq?  Which makes me ask why Jo Jo the Idiot Boy has to suck the tax tit for $100 Billion to keep the guns and groceries going.  Or, was that just another in the series of lies fed to the US by their government.

Speaking of lies, occasionally the truth sneaks out:  "I think that the vice president is a person reflecting a half-glass-full mentality."—Speaking on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007, is the Bushism of the Day from Slate.com.  I think I’m following here:  Shotgun Dick is a half-glass full mentality.  This means he’s drunk, as well as Undead.

Shubenacadie Sam, Wiarton Willie and Punxutawney Phil have all agreed:  Short Winter, Early Spring.  Ahh, at least there is some upside to global warming.  Ask me again in May when it hits 35 C with 99% humidity.

Time to catch up on what has happened with some stories in the past few months:

Maher Arar:  He was the Canadian whom the US decided to extradite off to Syria, because his Canadian passport said he was born in Syria.  After a year of torture and confinement, Maher Arar was eventually released back to Canada. 

An inquiry into the RCMP and the reasons Maher Arar got shipped to hell by a foreign government, turned out to be a tissue of lies, innuendo and unmitigated cattle manure.  The Commissioner of the RCMP, Guiliano Zaccardeli lost his job over it.  Even US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) carved US A-G Alberto Gonzales a spare hole in open committee session over the piss-poor way Maher Arar got treated by the US and Canada.

Today, the PM, Stephen "Steve" Harper actually said the words:  "We’re sorry" and cut Maher Arar a cheque for $10.5 million.  Damn straight.  That’s a fair use of my tax dollars and I’m not being ironic.  Maher Arar got screwed and I hope he enjoys every cent. He still can’t fly to the US, but with ten and a half extra large I could live with that.

Alexander Litvinenko:  The British Cops have found a radioactively hot teapot at the Millennium Hotel in London.  Sources say the cops are going to bring charges against Andrei Lugovoi an ex-spook who had tea with Litvinenko on November 1st last year. 

The teapot reading was "off the charts" for Polonium-210.  Of course the interview was in Russia and the FSB (KGB-Lite) is adamantly denying anything to do with murdering Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope. 

George Bush:  This clip from Associated Press, datelined today:   President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday "I’m the decision-maker" about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to prematurely condemn his buildup.

"I’ve picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed," Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with senior military advisers.

He’s become the Decider again, which means his attempts at getting along with the elected representatives has lasted, oh, 48 hours.  Cowboy Diplomacy gets back in the saddle. 

I can’t wait until the same ghouls who keep Cheney and Rove alive, decide to resurrect General Curtis LeMay to handle the Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan and North Korea situations.  Perhaps the Global Nuclear Winter will be offset by the Global Warming.

Kousin Karl:   This from MSNBC today:  White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.

Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters.

Awkward testimony?  Not a chance.  Even if the prosecutors produce live video and sound of Irving Scooter Libby being told by Karl and Shotgun Dick, to "fuck Plame over until Joe plays ball with the yellowcake and Saddam" the potential for awkwardness is slim to none. 

At that level of power, perjury is common coin of the realm.  Jo Jo The Idiot Boy would probably give them either immunity, or a big, fat pardon.  After all, anyone who doesn’t believe every single word that Karl says is from the Right Hand of God, is a terrorist, in league with Osama and the Axis of Evil Evildoers of the Axis of Evil. 

Thanks to John Ashcroft and now Alberto Gonzales, the government can do whatever the hell they want to, as long as you are suspicious.  Not believing Karl, or Dick, is obviously suspicious.  Do make sure you get the right size of orange jumpsuit for your trip to GitMo.

If Irving Scooter Libby had a lick of sense, he’d do a John Dean.  Ari Fleischer has already cut an immunity deal with the prosecutors, so why can’t Irving?  Perhaps Federal subpoenas for any and all recordings from Karl’s office and Shotgun Dick’s office?  That would exonerate Scooter, as just the messenger boy. 

Let’s start another Watergate-style fight over the tapes now, if only so that we can have something to watch on TV this summer, rather than reruns of American Idol. 

Sheep:  WELLINGTON, N.Z. (AP) – New Zealanders’ love affair with sheep gained official recognition Friday when the agriculture minister declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb Day."

New Zealand has four million human inhabitants and 60 million sheep. Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton suggested New Zealanders have no reason to be embarrassed about their sheep population and said Lamb Day would mark the 125th anniversary of the first shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand to London.

"We hope all New Zealanders will recognize this meat industry milestone and mark it by enjoying lamb for dinner on Feb. 15, to celebrate 125 years of meat exports," Anderton said.

Oh, come on.  You know you want to.  I know I’m tasting blood from biting my tongue.  Do remember that bestiality is illegal, even in Washington State now. 

Kids, Bestiality with Sheep is Baaaaad. 

Sorry, I had to. 

There’s just too many fake documents around these days, but I wish this one was true.

DA: Your name for the record is?

SL: I. Lewis Libby, Junior…

DA:  No, I’m not asking you to take an oath, I just want to enter your name in the record Mister Libby

SL: Its is I. Lewis Libby Junior, that’s my name, Aye

DA: I as in in the initial I?

SL: Aye

DA: You mean I as in yes, or I as in I

SL: Aye, I…

DA: Judge will you instruct this witness so we can at least find out what his name is please?

DEF: I Object!

Judge: Over ruled, The Witness will give his full name

SL: I. Lewis Libby Junior

Judge: Do you not have a first name sir?

SL: Aye, no, I do

DA: Will you tell us what it is then?

SL: Aye I will…

DEF: I Object, badgering the witness

Judge:  Over ruled, he’s not a witness yet, as we’re trying to get to the point where we can enter his name in the record first, then, swear him in, then you can object all you want, is that OK?

DEF: Aye! Thank you

Judge:  I’m going to do this slowly Mister Libby.  What is your first name, the one that appears on your driver’s license?  You understand me?

SL: Aye, I do. Aye

DA:  Your Honor, will you tell the witness, er, soon-to-be witness that even though he’s dressed like a Scotsman, it is a bit disturbing to see him with his, um, kilt, um, er, misadjusted

Judge:  What?  Oh Holy Hannah!  Mister Libby!

SL: Aye?

Judge:  I know that Knowlton versus the Supreme Court upholds the right of defendants to wear elements of dress that are important to their cultural heritage and religion.  This means that you can wear a full dress kilt to court, but Mister Libby, please remember that you are wearing a garment that may allow members of the jury or the court to inadvertently see parts of your anatomy that you should not have on display

SL: Aye?  I can? 

Judge:  Yes you can.  Do you not feel a breeze Mister Libby?

SL: Aye, Noooo.

DEF:  I Object

Judge: Over ruled.  Mister Prosecutor, help me here.

DA:  Mister Libby, you are wearing a kilt, correct?

SL: Aye

DA: Judge, I’m…just not…I’m, um, errr…

Judge:  Clerk of the Court, please

Clerk:  You’re Regimental you great pillock! Close your friggin’ legs.  We can see your hairy balls clear back to your arsehole!

SL:  OH!  Aye, I am Regimental.  Sorry.

Judge:  Thank you Clerk.  I appreciate you promptness in this matter.  Now, where were we.  Ah yes.  Mister Libby, what is your first name, the full name as it appears on your driver’s license

SL: It’s I, Aye it is I.

Judge:  Mister Libby, I’m going to go out on a limb here. 

DEF:  I Object!

Judge: You what?!?!

DEF: Oh, um…I…never mind.

Judge: Mister Libby, I’m going to ask you a direct question that I require a direct answer for, do you understand me?

SL: Aye, I do

Judge:  Are you Scottish?

SL: Aye, well, nooo, I’m not…

Judge:  Where were you born then?

SL:  New Haven, Connecticut

Judge:  So you’re not Scottish at all then?

SL: Not technically, no, Aye

Judge:  Not even a little bit Scottish?

SL: Nooo

Judge: But your dressed in a tartan kilt, high stockings, a flouncy shirt and wearing a tam?

SL: Well, yes. I am.  Aye.

Judge:  May I ask why?

SL:  It is, well, it is Robbie Burns’ Day.

Judge: Oh Aye it is! Well then, now were getting somewhere.  Mister Libby, what is your first name?

SL: (unintelligible)

Judge:  Could you speak up sir? 

SL:  Irving

Judge: So your full name is Irving Lewis Libby Junior.

SL: Aye

Judge:  Cut that out, you’re not Scottish!

SL: Yes… its Irving, goddamn it!  IRVING!  Are you happy now!

Judge:  Mister District Attorney, are you happy?

DA: Aye!

Judge: Defense Counsel, are you happy?

DEF: Aye, but I Obj….Aye…

Judge: Clerk of the Court?  Are you happy?

Clerk: Nooo.  What kind of an idiot mother names a Scottish child Irving.  His name should be Gordon or Kieran.  Bloody Hell, Aye I am not happy your Honor!  But as long as he keeps his bloody legs together, I have no objection Aye.

Judge:  Aye! Heard and noted Clerk.  The Court will adjourn until after Robbie Burns’ Day and reconvene tomorrow at Nine a.m, when Mister Libby will not be talking with a fake Scottish accent and we will all swear the defendant in, under his full name of Irving Lewis Libby Junior. Aye?

Clerk:  All rise!

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I watched the State O’ Da Union Address with President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy last night, having read the text of his blather earlier. Let’s look at the challenges:

He’s deeply screwed when it comes to the war in Iraq.  The game is lost.  There were no WMD’s.  There were no linkages between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.  The CIA provided that which has been discovered to be manufactured or well-shined ‘evidence’ that has resulted in more than 3,000 soldiers being killed for no sound reason, except the Boss wanted to be The War President. 

New Orleans is still a festering mess of a third-world disaster area.  Everyone remembers the "Brownie, you’re doin a hell of a job" clip, about three days before Brownie got his ass handed to him for a hat.

Scooter Libby started his hearings yesterday.  If Libby had a lick of sense, he’d pull a John Dean and spill his guts.  Cheney and Rove don’t want to see Libby anywhere near a court, as the stories he could tell would surely curdle the coffee of half of the Republican party

Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Jack Abramoff.  Nuff’ said about the other half of the Republican party.  By the way, Randy Cunningham’s website is still up, the last posting being 11-18-05.  Cunningham is also known as Inmate 94405-198 in Tucson, AZ, while Jack Abramoff is either "mah beeyotch" or Inmate 27593-112 in Cumberland, MD, depending on whom you talk to.

The Military Industrial Complex has sucked so hard on the public tax tit that the wallet in Washington is flatter than a woodchuck under the wheels of a a five-ton truck full of undocumented workers.  The money is going to run out soon, so the boys have the milking machine turned up to 11.

Internationally, the US is looked upon like the village syphilitic:  Doomed, diseased and undesirable.   

China has shot one of its own satellites out of the sky to prove they can play with the big boys in space.  North Korea, is, well, it still is.  India has landed one of their own satellites without it turning into a gob of molten metal.  This gives Pakistan a case of the Fear.  A great combination that, a military junta that can’t find their own borders or stop anyone from getting in or out, even if they stop at the customs shack and list their occupation as "terrorist".  Then give both sides nukes.

Russia is playing The Clapper (Clap On – Clap Off) with oil in Europe and cranking up the KGB again just to bring a sense of fun to international politics.  Britain is turned inward as the Blair government lurches toward a leadership convention to figure out who is going to lead Labour into the toilet in the next UK Election.  Right now, the UK Conservatives could run a Weimeraner in a necktie and win a majority.

Hugo Chavez delights in telling Bush to eat shit and die, while shipping tankers of furnace oil to the US, gratis, to keep the citizens from freezing to death.  Iran’s Prime Minister keeps yelling "You suck!" at the US. 

Then there is the original sinner, Osama Bin Laden, who still drives a cab in Pittsburgh and has his own myspace site where his buddies post videos.  The technological might of the US military and security services still can’t find a six foot six Arab man with a dialysis machine strapped to his back.  

At least Castro is sick and will probably die soon, so Rove can claim, using the Presidential Meat Puppet, that"Commie-nizm Is Dead and the Axis of Evil is losing" while standing under a banner of "Mission Accomplished" in front of a Cuban sandwich shop in Miami.   

As you can see, up front, Jo Jo The Idiot Boy is behind on points. 

Into the middle of this mess comes The Decider Who Decides the Deciding.  He skulks into the Congress to deliver a State of the Union Address.  No more glorious high-fives and screaming Senators begging to kiss the hem of His garment.  Dubya looked like he wasn’t entirely convinced he should be there, but was going to put the squeeze on the widow to buy the deluxe aluminum siding, rather than the standard.  Maybe he’d win the set of steak-knives for Second place in the sales contest. 

President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy couldn’t order a Happy Meal without Karl Rove writing it down for him.  We got to hear what Karl and Dick have come up with to ensure the Legacy of The President who is actually rated lower than Richard Nixon just before Nixon did his own Saigon in 1974. 

So what did those two punks come up with?  A tax break for health care that adds up to jack squat, as the existing private insurers are already making sure their basic premiums will almost exactly match the dollars given back with the tax cut for the nine people who actually can get the tax break.  Of course, there must be medical liability tort reform, to save those poor doctors and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits.

When it comes to the Migra, he’s going to toss more bodies and technology at it but also do a temporary foreign worker program designed to keep out ‘drug smugglers and terrorists’.  Plus, he wants to create a new, documented, slave class, rather than the undocumented slave class he’s currently working with. 

Jo Jo The Idiot Boy called for even more technology to be thrown at conservation and reducing the dependence on foreign oil that them terrorists could turn off.  By 2017, he wants to see 35 million barrels in renewable energy, meaning ten years from now. But, at the same time, he wants to see the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to double ASAP, which means more drilling, preferably through the head of a polar bear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, starting next Thursday.

Then came the shocker:  He said the word Global Climate Change out loud.  Then he said America is Addicted to Oil.  To quote Raoul Duke, "Kazart!"

Now this is not really news.  President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy has moved his lips to conservation before, starting back in 2001.  Same with tort reform, immigration reform, health care reform and all the rest of his pusillanimous applause lines.  At least this time he didn’t demand the right to nuke North Korea and Iran to get the right-wing nabobs up on their hind feet clapping like apes in a shock cage.  It means nothing:  He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Meanwhile up in the cheap seats, meaning where the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House sit, you could butter the tension on your toast.  Pelosi was at least striving to be gracious, wearing a pasted-on smile that could only be accomplished with epoxy and a bent coat-hanger inside her mouth.  Fortunately she was sitting far enough away from the Vice-President to not be at risk of having to perform CPR on the Undead. 

Shotgun Dick Cheney looked like he’d rather be performing testicular surgery on himself with a pair of rusty linesman’s pliers.  You know Cheney is trying to find a way to invite Donald Rumsfeld out for an afternoon of duck hunting. 

Speaking of Rummy, one of the original four of the Terror Trust, he’s now being compared to Robert McNamara, the micromanaging, meddling, money man who pored over individual bombing targets with LBJ in the 60’s.  Rumour has it, if Rummy had his way, he would have outsourced the whole Iraqi war to Blackwater Security:  Most of the rest of it was already in the hands of KBR, Halliburton, DynCorp and Triple Canopy.

At the end of the dog and pony show, what did we really see, learn or hear that was new, or showed some kind of accommodation for the can of WhoopAss the voters unleashed on the Republicans?  Nothing.  No points scored. On the ten-point must, with three judges:  World 30, Dubya 0.  He’s still ruling like the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and even the Magna Carta don’t apply to him, after all he’s Dubya and he’s been to college!  

Jo Jo The Idiot Boy is still all noblesse and no obliege.  More correctly, Karl and Dick are all noblesse and no obliege, as Dubya is too dumb to string the American people along with this many sound-bites in any coherent order.  It almost makes me long for the old days of Ari Fleisher.

Somehow this desk has received a transcript of an international telephone call between Nori al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister and George W. Bush.  I never know how this stuff shows up, but I have copied it over, warts and all:

NaM:  Good evening Mister President

GWB: Well, howdy Norrie, how’s things going over there.  Didja have any problems gettin a dial tone?

NaM: No, Mister President, the telephone system works well from the Prime Minister’s residence, as your contractors have done a fine job in hanging the wires.

GWB: Glad to hear it Norrie, now what can I hep you with tonight?

NaM:  It is the surge, as you call it, of troops to our country.  We have several issues with the number and strength of the escalation…

GWB:  Surge Norrie, surge, It ain’t no escalatoring…

NaM:  Yes, Mister President, the surge of troops that you have spoke so well of.  It is, well it is causing difficulties for us in our relations with the various groups in Iraq

GWB:  I ain’t followin Norrie.  Y’all tellin’ me somethin and I ain’t hearin you

NaM:  Yes Mister President.  Let me be frank for a moment….

GWB:  Good idear!  Put Frank on the phone.  He’ll explain what y’all lookin for

NaM:  No Mister President,  there is no one named Frank here.   I mean that I am going to speak with unclouded honesty and forthrightfulness…

GWB:  Oh?  (To someone else in the room:  Fucked if I know Dick, (unintelligible) carpet-jockey)

NaM:  It is the number of the troops Mister President.  It would seem to be insufficient.

GWB: Now what do y’all mean by insufficient Norrie?  Hell, we’re sendin 21,500 of the finest troops we’ve got in the Fight for Freedom for the Freedom Loving Peoples of Iraq for Freedom!

Nam:  Mister President, there are not enough troops being sent to the areas that are requiring the use of armored patrols to bestill the insurgents.  We require more troops to Anbar province and to the southern provinces, where the insurgents are most bold. 

GWB:  Ahh I’m not quite gettin that Norrie.  You’re tellin me you want more troops to be sent to a province?  Hold on a darn minute there…we’re not fightin in Canada are we? (To someone else in the room Jesus Dick, you didn’t tell me they were goin to Canada did you?  (unintelligible) They got oilsands?  How many barrels a day?  (unintelligible)  Well, that’s different then… (unintelligible) Yeah, Yeah, I will)  

NaM:  Mister President?  Are you there? 

GWB:  Uh…Yeppers Norrie.  I’m here.  So y’all want to send them troops somewheres else is what you tellin me right?

NaM:  It is not my intention to tell you how to deploy your forces Mister President, but I feel that I should ensure that you are comprehending the importance of the urgency.

GWB:  I surely do Norrie.  The Freedom Loving Peoples of Iraq want to Enjoy the Freedom that only Freedom can bring without the interference of the Axis of Evil and the Evildoers of the Axis of Evil.

NaM:  Mister President, it is of the utmost importance that the Iraqi Police be sufficiently armed to counter these insurgent forces.  Which is why I would respectfully request your military representatives provide us with the weapons to allow us to defend ourselves.

GWB:  You tellin me you ain’t got enough guns Norrie?  (To someone else in the room:  He sez he ain’t got enough guns Dick.  Can we sell him some? (unintelligible) Yeah, through Haliburton if you want to, but spread it around this time.)

NaM:  We feel that our police forces could control the situation better than your offer of a surge of troops Mister President.

GWB:  Now you’re not plannin on using them guns on Shiites or Sooners or whatever the hell tribe you ain’t in, are you Norrie?

Nam:  Never Mister President, that would never be our intention to establish a theocracy based on the membership of a particular religious branch.  You have my word.

GWB:  Jes as long as we’re clear on that Norrie, as I wouldn’t want to see nothin like that happening on my watch, after all I am the Decider and I’m the President Who Decides.

NaM:  Of course Mister President. 

GWB:  (To someone else in the room  By Tuesday?  Hell, that’s good service.  (unintelligible)  Y’all tell them that Blackwater has to do the training though.  Karl said so. (unintelligible) Them Iraqi cops don’t know which end of a rifle to look down.  Give the boys some of them 50 cals too, but they gotta pay retail for the training.)  Hey, Norrie, do y’all want ammunition with them guns?

NaM:  I think it would be prudent Mister President, as a gun without ammunition is like a camel without legs, as the saying goes in my village.

GWB:  Jeeze Norrie, you guys crack me up.  We’ll git er done for you right smartly and send you the bill. 

NaM:  Mister President, regarding the surge of troops, then…

GWB:  Yeah?  They’re the cream of the crop Norrie…

NaM:  With the weapons and our existing police infrastructure Mister President, we believe we could handle the bold insurrectionists on our own.

GWB:  You mean you won’t need them?  Is that true Norrie? (To someone else in the room  He says he don’t need em Dick  (unintelligible) Iraq, Iran, I can’t keep em straight anymore.  (unintelligible) They’re already there?  Fuck.  (unintelligible) Could redeploy ’em to Niagra Falls you know (unintelligible) They’re a bunch of sneaky shitheels speakin French too.  They didn’t tell us nothin about no oilsands either! (unintelligible)  Good fishin up there (unintelligible) OK I will)

NaM:  Mister President?

GWB:  Right here Norrie.  OK, we’ll pull em back and ship the guns by FedEx.  That hold you over?

NaM:  It has been a pleasure dealing with you Mister President

GWB:  And a real pleasure here too.  I sure did like that joke about the camel too.

NaM:  And give my regards to your family Mister President.  Thank you for taking my call.

GWB:  I’ll tell Laura you said howdy.  Bye now!

NaM:  Thank You Mister President

Technorati Tag

I like it when politicians speak, on the record with journalists.  Invariably, their mouths open and you get to see exactly how mentally malnouished the leaders actually are. 

President JoJo The Idiot Boy, in an interview with Scott Pelley from CBS’s "60 Minutes" said, "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment. We didn’t find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a significant source of instability," 

Regarding the hanging of Saddam Hussein:  "I thought it was discouraging… It’s important that that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. [But] They could have handled it a lot better."

Then there is the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, who is quoted on MSNBC, “They’re convinced that the United States will pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us,” Cheney said. “They can’t beat us in a standup fight, but they think they can break our will.”  

Cheney added this gem:  “This is an existential conflict,” Cheney said. “It is the kind of conflict that’s going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term.”

Then, there is the quote from Perrin Beatty, ex-Canadian Cabinet Minister, now head of the Canadian Exporters and Manufacturers trade group, talking about the new eCustoms system on the Canada – US border:   "If al-Qaida can damage us, either physically or economically, they win," Beatty told the news conference, referring to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization. "It would be foolish for us to assume that there will not be any further incidents along the border."

The key message in all these quotes, is that we have to be afraid and everything that is being done is absolutely critical to our continued well-being.  In each quote, the subtext is that if you don’t agree, then you’re part of the problem.

However, my favourite is this one:  "Voice or no voice, the people can always be grought to the biddiing of the leaders.  That is easy.  All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country." 

That last quote was from Hermann. W. Goering, (1912 – 1945) Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall.

There seems to be a universal truth that badness comes in threes.  The first was James Brown passing away.  Then Gerry Ford.  Now Saddam Hussein and his suspended sentence. 

James Brown we’ve already written about.  That leaves Gerry Ford and Saddam Hussein by my count, so let’s start with the lesser of two evils, Gerry Ford.

Ford was a journeyman Congressman from Grand Rapids, Michigan who was well-respected.  He got his first big call in 1963 when he was asked to sit on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  The charitable comment was that Ford didn’t take too many donuts from the meeting room during deliberations.

During the Viet Nam war, Ford was one of the many Republicans giving Lyndon Johnson a nightly beating about the war.  This caused the immortal LBJ quote "That Gerry Ford.  He can’t fart and chew gum at the same time."

Fast-forward to 1968, Nixon’s landslide Republican victory and the beginning of the End of Nixon.  Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew was charged with a few hundred counts of tax evasion and money laundering from his days as Governor of Maryland.  Eventually, pleading no contest, Agnew resigned in 1973.  Nixon and Al Haig went to the Congress to see who they could get to fill the chair.  Gerry Ford! Come on down!

When the rats started jumping off the Ship of Nixon and it looked like the Supreme Court was going to sign a "no-knock" search warrant to get at the Nixon tapes, things got all back-room dealish.  Nixon knew he was screwed but if he were impeached, Nixon would lose his pension of nearly $400,000 a year as an ex-President.  Nixon knew that the tapes were the smoking gun and if they ever got out, Nixon would wind up in a shallow grave in San Clemente.  So the deal came down, to resign, then get a pardon.

Rumor has it while Ford was still Vice-President, Alexander Haig, Nixon’s chief fixer (Liddy and Colson were in jail) presented Gerry Ford with three choices:  1:  A resignation followed by a full and free pardon, with Nixon keeping the tapes.  2: No resignation, no pardon and a years-long Senate investigation of Campaign Finances that would gut both parties and destroy the American Political System.   3: Two rounds in the base of the skull from the Secret Service with Nelson Rockefeller taking over as President.

On August 9th, 1974 Nixon resigned:  Ford took over the Big Chair.  By September 8th, Gerry Ford had pardoned Nixon and given Nixon all rights to the actual tapes.  Needless to say, the public has what could be best described as a collective shit fit.  Everyone knew that the Watergate tapes would have not just convicted Nixon of high crimes, but would have exposed the entire inner workings of the biggest shakedown job of America since Cheney asked the Oil Companies to write US Energy Policy. 

Fortunately the US Economy fell into the toilet at the same time and the price of oil went through the roof.  Ford’s reaction:  Wear a button with the words WIN:  Whip Inflation Now.  Gerry brought in some bench strength.  Henry Kissinger was given the Sec of State job to finally get the US out of Viet Nam.  A little known Texas monster called George H.W. Bush was called up to be the White House liaison to the People’s Republic of China, then to head up the CIA in 1975. 

Two other troglodytes were brought in.  Donald Rumsfeld was Ford’s transition chairman and chief of staff.  Rumsfeld was also the youngest Secretary of Defense ever appointed.  The other punk was a young Wyoming pol called Richard Cheney who took over from Rumsfeld as Ford’s Chief of Staff and later managed the 1976 Ford Presidential campaign.  Cheney was so good at managing political campaigns that he went immediately to Haliburton after Ford got his ass kicked by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 elections. 

In the final summary, Ford was a do-nothing President who brought Regan-era pimps into the power circles of Washington and kept the meanest of Nixon’s remaining fixers around long after they should have been sent to jail. 

Saddam Hussein, was a barely-literate hitman in the Ba’ath party in 1958 when he was involved in trying to overthrow the government of Iraq, backed by some CIA friends.  By 1963 the Ba’ath party succeeded and with their CIA backing (must stop Communism of course) set off on a course of religious intolerance and personal graft. 

By 1976 he was the top General in the Iraqi Army and was feared as the meanest man around.  Talks were underway to work out an alliance between Syria and Iraq, the presidents Hassan al-Bakir of Iraq and Hafez al-Assad of Syria would have cut Saddam Hussein out of the loop.  Fortunately Saddam was able to get al-Bakir to resign for health reasons on July 16th 1979, appointing Saddam as President. 

On July 22, 1979 Saddam Hussein rolled into a televised assembly of the Ba’ath party and reeled off the names of 68 enemies of the state who were wanted for high crimes.  Many of them were in the room and were taken into custody.  The rest were complimented on their wise choice of leader and their loyalty.

As an example of how open dialogue was encouraged in Iraq, during a meeting of the Iraq cabinet in 1982, Saddam asked for candid suggestions of how to end the war with Iran.  One cabinet minister, Health Minister Riyadh Ibrahim, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations:  Ibrahim’s chopped up body was delivered to his wife the next day. 

After getting into a long term war with Iran, Hussein started playing the Soviet-American dance card.  Playing kissy-face with the Soviets meant the US would pour millions of dollars of aid into Baghdad.  One visitor was Donald Rumsfeld, special envoy of Ronald Regan, in 1983. 

There were other atrocities, like gassing Kurds in 1988 and the removal of entire villages from the face of the planet for such minor slights as not providing the proper welcome to the Presidential Party.  Of course, Tikrit, the hometown of the President, did just fine. 

Then came Gulf War I, where George H.W. Bush went to defend Kuwait and their oil from Saddam Hussein.  After a left-handed victory, whereby Saddam was not disarmed or ousted, George H. W. Bush gave it up and decided to lose to Bill Clinton.  Clinton had more sense than a box of hair and knew that Saddam would be around later.  Meanwhile, the Republicans went on the warpath regarding a consensual blow job from an intern, spending years analyzing dress stains, instead of actually trying to make government work.  I offer Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr and Tom Delay as evidence.

A few years later, mostly because the Republicans were still chasing blowjobs, a group of terrorists struck at the US.  Most of the security apparatus in the US were caught unawares and oblivious.  Rather than pin the blame where it belonged (interservice fratricide between the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the DIA over political turf and Republican revenge) Dubya decided that Weapons of Mass Destruction and all kinds of Evidence were needed to tie al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.  About the only ‘evidence’ not presented were Valentine’s Day cards from Sammy to Osama. 

Since Osama was invisible, in a cave in Afghanistan, Saddam was left as the obvious target.  Like all money-grubbing Republicans, Dubya cut a sponsorship deal, leading to Gulf War II, Brought to you by Haliburton and Raytheon, Sponsored by Exxon and Lockheed. Don’t forget John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act as example of open and responsible governance at home to set a shining beacon of democracy for the newly freed peoples of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was deposed and captured.  His two sons Biday and Qusay were killed.  Saddam went on trial, in what could best be described as a Lance Ito job, but with significantly more violence.  Guilty?  Most certainly. 

This morning the Iraq Government (Dick Cheney Prop.) hung him and, like all good media-savy political organizations, allowed a camera crew to tape it.  This actually makes sense, as real footage of Saddam Hussein being executed is likely to be believed.  A simple news report that he was executed would never be trusted.   

Globally, what does all this mean?  Gerry Ford was an idiot caretaker who couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a roadmap, who brought pimps like Cheney and Rumsfeld into power.  Worst of all, Ford pardoned that fascist thug Nixon, who should have been tried, convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac mass murdering dictator, propped up at various times by the CIA who got to be Dubya’s bumboy to get Dubya out of some deep shit at home.

James Brown was the Godfather of Soul.

One of these three people gave the world much happiness.  I’m still voting for James.

For the past several months we’ve been seeing all kinds of E. Coli outbreaks in food that we buy in the supermarket or have served to us in restaurants.  This week, Taco Bell closed a bunch of outlets when it was found that the green onions supplied to the restaurants were tainted with E. Coli bacteria. 

The Escherichia Coliform bacteria is an intestinal flora that normally occurs and shows up in mammalian feces.  As humans are mammals and we shit, guess what?  This is why your Mom, the School Nurse and a bunch of other people have been saying "Wash you hands" after using the bathroom.  Simple washing with soap and water removes much of the bacteria from your hands.  The usual symptoms of E.Coli infection are vomiting, diarrhea, fever and on through septicemia and death, depending on the initial health and age of the patient. 

You can kill E. Coli by heating it, or by washing, or flushing it with various anti-bacterial solutions.  Alcohol, Betadine and even vinegar will work.  This is why the Food Safety folks strongly recommend cooking meat to medium or well done.  Heat or cold kills Salmonella too, a happy coincidence there.  However, for food eaten raw, like spinach, green onions, carrots or lettuce, heating is not an option. 

So why are people getting sick with E. Coli?  Here’s the problem:  We rely on the farmer or packer or wholesaler to ensure the food is well-washed and protected from contamination until it gets to the restaurant or supermarket.  We expect the produce clerk to have basic hygiene when they load the lettuces into the display at Loblaws.  We expect the person who prepares out spinach salad to have at least a lick of sense in the back of the restaurant.  It would seem that we were wrong. 

Like some problems in our society, this one has an economic root.  The root is deep and you have to understand how things you eat get in front of your face, so you can eat them.  This will take a moment, as our modern life is complicated.

The company growing the spinach or green onions makes very little money growing or harvesting the product.  Therefore every fraction of a cent saved in producing a pound of food, times a few thousand pounds, means a few dollars extra profit for the grower at the end of the day, perhaps squeezing an extra $10 out of $10,000. 

To squeeze out that $10, hiring off-the-books labour at less than minimum wage is common in the agricultural business.  Paying piecework wages means the picker is not interested in anything that detracts from picking 10 pounds of whatever, as fast as possible to earn that 41 cents they might get paid for picking 10 pounds of green onions. 

The grower looks at production.  Washing the product costs money for the water and the equipment to thoroughly wash it, as well as the people to do it.  Confronted with a wholesaler who dictates the price paid, the grower has to cut enough corners to make a whole extra square. 

The wholesaler knows that the middleman or broker demands delivery at a certain price.  Produce shippers have to move the goods rapidly by truck, so the trucker has to work extra hours, on razor thin profit margins, to deliver to the terminal.   

The food prep company or central commissary hires at as low a wage as they can get away with, to chop the green onions and bag them up for shipment to the restaurant.  The restaurant hires as cheaply as possible to have someone open the bag of chopped green onions and put it in the salad bar or in the prep area.

At each step, from field to the top of your taco, someone is making a little bit of money (sometime a very little bit of money) each step trusting the other one that they have done their job properly.  With that kind of economic pressure, the rewards of cutting corners are too great everywhere along the line.

So, to eke out another cent or two the grower doesn’t wash the produce with clean water.  He uses field water from a well and a fire hose.  The wholesaler demands the grower deliver at a certain date and time or risk never getting another order.  The wholesaler also bitches about the amount of water in the boxes, as water has weight, so he cuts the price per pound he pays the grower to account for excess water.

The wholesaler leans on the shipper to shave a nickel off the price per pound of shipping, so the shipper has to use a cheaper, less reliable company that doesn’t always do the maintenance on their rigs and routinely makes their people drive overtime.  The driver is getting paid by the mile, so he avoids the weigh stations and routinely runs faster than the speed limit, dodging the cops. 

The dock master at the terminal gets a kickback from each trucker so his truck gets unloaded earlier, rather than waiting around, not earning mile money.  The dock master has to get the boxes off a truck and onto another one faster, as the terminal owner has promised the green onions will be fresh and still refrigerated when they get to the food prep company. 

However the wholesaler shipped less than perfect produce last time, so the food prep company is going to lean on the terminal manager to deliver faster and better quality, to make up for it, or get their next four shipments refused for quality reasons.  The terminal manager will lose money, which means those boxes of green onions move fast across that loading dock.

Naturally the contract from the food prep company to the restaurant chain is based on supplying 350 restaurants at a skinny margin per bag.  They hire cheap labour to chop and bag the green onions as fast as possible.  As long as they make their delivery and there are no fingers or thumbs in the green onions, they get paid. 

The restaurant is set up for just in time delivery.  The bag of green onions has to be delivered by 9 am to be ready to be out for 11 am.  The restaurant doesn’t have room for a big fridge to store a couple of days’ supplies in the kitchen.  The whole store has been designed for maximum revenue per square foot:  A bigger fridge does not generate revenue.  The franchisee has been promised a certain revenue can be made as long as they buy their supplies from the central prep company, under contract to the company.

The restaurant doesn’t actually have chefs and cooks.  They hire assemblers for less than a chef would cost.  Everything is prepared in advance, off site, so all that is really done is ladling out the components in the right order.  As long as the truck shows up in time and someone can figure out how to open the plastic bag, it all comes together as a meat-related taco with green onions on top.

Cost to you for that half-teaspoon of diced green onion on the top of your lunch?  Perhaps 2 cents at the most.

This chain of supply is based on literally hundreds of interdependent contractors and companies all along the line, each trying to cut costs to improve profitability.  There is nothing wrong with a company making a buck.  Try telling that to someone who has just spent the last three days on the toilet spewing from both ends because they got sick.

One thought is for all of us to pay a little more for a safer food supply.  Let’s say, using our green onions at 99 cents for three bunches (Dominion store at Mississauga Valley Drive, today’s price) that we, as consumers, all agree we’ll pay an extra dime for the green onions so we can feel confident they’re not contaminated. 

Of that dime per half-pound of product, how much do you think would actually get back to the grower?  If you said nothing, you would be right.  It might even cost the grower money.  The wholesaler would have to certify the grower, which costs the wholesaler money, so they can’t pay as much, which means they have to mark up the price to the shipper. 

The shipper won’t absorb the cost, so their cost to the terminal goes up but the prep company is on a fixed price contract for two years, so they have to either lean on the terminal, or get another source of supply, or lay off a half-dozen people or pay even less per hour, which means hiring off-the-books labour. 

Meanwhile the restaurant franchisee is looking at increased costs for green onions from the head office, as the head office sets the price and you don’t have a choice.  That cuts into profits and means the franchisee isn’t making enough to keep up on his financing obligations.  He has to lay off two "cooks" as he can’t change the prices, as that is controlled by head office.  Or cut breaks for his now short staff to keep up with demand, which means leaving out one cleaning shift per week and not telling the company he’s doing it.   

Odds are the paperwork alone to certify the green onions are safe would consume the entire dime we’d willingly pay for some kind of guarantee we’re not eating bacteria-laden food.

What it comes down to, truly, is everyone wants to make more money.  Nobody can afford to do what is right.

The Baker Iraq Study Group has released their thoughts on the war in Iraq to the sound of much sucking in Washington.  The Cole’s Notes (Cliff’s Notes for the Americans) are that the US should move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.  There should be benchmarks and use of funding to reward good behavior.  Golly.  It took how many high-priced brains to figure this one out?

To quote James Baker just now, they do not recommend a "Stay the Course" solution.  President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy will have to swallow a few hundred thousand sound-bites.  I suggest he invite over Tony Snow, the White House fartcatcher to help eat his words.  Perhaps a buffet with Rove and Cheney eating their share of Kung Pow Cut and Run.

Baker is recommending a new consensus be built at home and abroad to deal with Iraq, as they can’t pull out and they can’t stay.  Since it took nearly nine months for Baker and Company to figure this one out, odds are it will take double that for some kind of consensus to be sifted out nationally, then another nine to get the Coalition of Willing to buy into it. 

That’s just over two years, which will put it right in the fat spot of the Presidential Election cycle.  President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy won’t be running, of course, but John McCain will be forced to carry that can of manure.  So will whoever the Democrats prop up, be it Hillary, Barak Obama or John Edwards.  Both parties will be sprayed by this report, the Iraq war and Jo Jo The Idiot Boy’s lack of motion one way or the other to fix Iraq. 

The result of the Baker Iraq Study Group is to saddle anyone considering running for the Big Chair with the War in all its aspects.  No candidate, from either party, can escape it. 

Pro-war?  You’re an insane baby-killer raping Iraq for Oil. 

Anti-War?  You’re a disloyal American and might as well be Osama Bin Laden’s boyfriend.  

Diplomacy with other countries in the Middle East?  You’re an Anti-Semite and hate Israel if you dare talk to Syria or Iran. 

UN diplomacy?  You’re Jimmy Carter in a new suit.   

Benign Neglect?  You’re a war criminal who wants to see the various religious groups slaughter each other and you hate all Islam.

Appeasement?  Don’t make me laugh.  My gums hurt. 

What has really happened is that Daddy Bush has bought and paid for his son’s Get Out Of Iraq ticket, just like he bought and paid for his Get Out Of Viet Nam card.  For the next two years expect Bush to become the "Consensus President" trying to obtain "Peace With Honor" while being "obstructed at every turn by partisan politics". 

Incidentally, it took Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon about two years to obtain "Peace With Honor" in Viet Nam, so the historical math works in Jo Jo The Idiot Boy’s favor.  He won’t have to deal with Iraq any more. 

The Decider has no more decisions to make.