Have A Good One...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I wish I could ice-skate. It looks like such fun. Oh well, if we ever get any good snow I still have my snow-shoes.

Maybe God DOES "Protect Drunkards, Fools, And The USA"?

I know. It sounds preposterous, but considering all the blunders and just plain stupid foreign policy decisions of late, you gotta wonder sometimes. Certainly Dubya qualifies on all three counts! Who knows? Maybe there is a compassionate, caring God out there somewhere---or else one who has a sense of humor, at least.
How do we always manage to squeak by? Is it because, no matter how bad we blunder, we honestly do try to do what's right? Or is it that our blunders are sooo calamitous that Somebody "up there" has to "save" us in order to keep the whole universe from self-destructing? For some reason, I tend to think it's the latter. Not that I'm ungrateful, mind you; it's nice to know we can go pretty far before the Powers That Be abandon us to our folly. Of course, that's little consolation for the rest of the world, who have to somehow survive our attempts at "improving" things. As Louis B Mayer of MGM was wont to say, when confronted by needlessly "ingenious" movie scripts: "You've improved it worse!" We can at least all be thankful none of the horrible "what-ifs" (well, maybe some of them, but not the worst) have yet come to pass---despite Dubya's penchant for "improving it worse". And I suppose a God who doesn't have television "up there" must need to watch us for "entertainment". Let's hope He doesn't "do" Nielson Ratings...

It's The "Hell-a-day" Season...

Never fails---crack of dawn that day after Thanksgiving and "tent cities" miraculously appear around Wal-Mart, sometimes stretching for miles as crazed shoppers battle to be first to get their greedy paws on this years "must-have" toy. Normally mild-mannered, friendly neighbors become raging fiends when those doors open at 4a.m., and woe to the hapless store employee who gets in their way! Teeth bared, claws unsheathed, these "holiday" shoppers are ready to kill for those famously-advertised limited quantities ("only six Playstations per store..."), while all the while those caroles grind out endlessly from the loud-speakers....
Good Will Toward Men? Fuhgehdaboudit! No time to help that little old lady who somehow got caught on your cart as you plowed your way through the mad hordes; hey, it's kill or be killed during the shopping season, y'know. She would have most likely driven her wheelchair into you if things had been the other way around, right?
Besides, why the hell do these old cripples always insist on getting ahead of normal people? Don't they know only the strong survive holiday mega-sales? Hell, if they want their grandkids to get this stuff, let'em get on the parents to do it. No red-blooded American parent would allow their little Johnny or Susy to go without that hideously over-priced, sweat-shop-produced (by little hard-working Juanitos y Susitas overseas) flimsy contraption all the poor kids on your blockhave been crying about since September. You care enough to fight for your kids rights to have everything, whether or not they need it---so why don't those? Damn peace-protesters, probably; too busy bawling over filthy kid-terrorists in Iraq to care for their own, naturally. What's this country coming to, I ask you?
Christmas shopping is an American tradition, for cryin out loud! Just like turkey, and the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to table on the first Thanksgiving... What? You say they didn't celebrate that way? The Pilgrims actually stole the food from the Indians, then let 'em all starve? Well, that's the American Way. Survival of the Fittest and all that. We work hard for what we get, so we're entitled to it. The rest of the world complains----tough! God's on our side....
And so it goes, folks. Have yourself a greedy little Christmas/Chanukah, and don't forget to give thanks to that Almighty Dollar, either. Did someone just say mammon?

Whoops! Sorry, Nancy...

I don't know why I thought Pelosi's first name was Barbara. Stupid of me, really. After all, I'M always complaining about Fox, but THEY at least got her name right! My bad.
At any rate, Murtha lost, so she backed down on her demands somewhat, but for how long ? Hopefully the Dems will get more moderates, and also the GOP. Iraq is almost hopeless, and Bush is STILL threatening Iran. Sigh. One problem at a time, fellas. Remember even WE didn't fight WWII on both fronts at once, and that's when we had the draft, too. If Vietnam taught us anything, it was you CAN'T keep on fighting all over the place---securing Hamburger Hill one day only to abandon it the next, then come back next week and have to fight over it all over again. Of course, politicians NEVER seem to listen to generals. Yes, MacArthur WAS right about Korea, but so was Truman...
Who's right about Iran is a moot point, though. Once a country has nuclear reactors, how do you prevent them from making plutonium? And the more we sit and threaten, the more time Iran has to develop WMD. Do we simply "cut and run" from Iraq to invade Iran? That's what we did in Afghanistan---after declaring we'd "won", naturally. Guess who's back in Kabul. Right, the Taliban we supposedly "defeated". "Mission Accomplished" and all that...
I figure by the time Bush's reign is up, he'll have made the whole Middle East "safe for facism". We certainly haven't made it safe for DEMOCRACY, now have we? Who taught Dubya history? Are we Rome, that we can spread "democracy" and "freedom" by force? Then how come it was always wrong when the SOVIETS "liberated" other countries? Wasn't the fact that they were over-extending themselves militarily one of the reasons the Soviet Union finally collapsed? Oh yeah, and don't forget Ronald Reagan, too. Sure, he yelled "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!", and just like Jericho...
So, we have a respite (of sorts) before January's "changing of the guard", I guess. Except for those @#$% phone calls from the pollsters about who'll we'll vote for in '08---the ones where the stupid machine disconnects after you pick up the receiver. Oh well, have a nice day...

Our Elected Offi----uhh...

This photo kinda reminds me of Dubya and Barb "Wire" Pelosi working "together". Like the time he "playfully" rubbed the German ambassador's shoulders, scared the hell out of the poor woman, and just smirked like a drunken Frat-Boy. Okay, so we kicked out the GOP. Great, except that now the Dems are playing Monkey-See, Monkey-Do. With all the problems we have in Iraq (and possibly Iran soon), all THEY want to do is "pay-backs". And Pelosi has gone nuts, of course, in her glee at finally getting to BE the official "mouthpiece" of the House, God help us! Where are the ADULTS? Are we Boomers going to continue acting like spoiled children until this country finally IMPLODES, God forbid?!
I can't even accuse Fox of making this stuff up, either, because even THEY wouldn't be able to make up something this dumb. And all I wanted was for NEITHER party to get control---so they'd be FORCED to work together, for once. Sure I'd like to see Dubya impeached, but not if we'd just get Cheney. Worse, if BOTH were impeached we'd be stuck with MotorMouth Pelosi, yet.
Does she really believe she'll get AWAY with nominating Alcee Hastings? (I hope I spelled the name right. Where do politicians GET such weird names anyhow?) For a supposedly smart lady, she seems to be lacking a few screws. And Murtha, getting caught on TAPE saying he might just consider a bribe later on! Yeah, so it was almost 30 years ago. Big deal. He's screaming about being "Swift-Boated", but I'd LIKE to see a "swift boat" come take him away, too.
I guess the Dems don't think anybody notices their blunders. Like Clinton with Monica...

A Republic---IF You Can Keep It...

Can we? For how long? Or don't we care anymore? Tomorrow's turnout might answer that---if enough of us turn out, that is. Hell, tomorrow's vote might be our last as well---in a free election, maybe.

Sure, the voting












machines could be "fixed". Then again, who's to know for sure? Look at the last two fiascoes; you really think "they" are going to admit it? So you decide to stay home and whine about how both parties are corrupt, how your little vote couldn't matter one way or the other. Well, kiss the republic goodbye, then. Time to start loving Big Brother, I guess. Sigh.
Has it come to this? Is America nothing more than a nation of super-sized couch-potatoes, popping Prozac and nodding blissfully along to Bill O'Reilly's self-righteous rants, to Neil Cavuto's "happy-talk" Caust Of Freedom propaganda, conserva-bitch whatsername's daily blather on Osama bin Liberals? Puh-leeez! We can't be all brain-dead. I can sometimes agree with Bill, but Neil Ca-baby-face and that bottle-blonde motormouth? FOX used to be a real news channel, but sometimes I think I'm watching a bad imitation of Penn and Teller. At least the latter are intentionally absurd. I'm even beginning to miss G. Gordon Liddy, chas v'sholem! Give me the "Rotting Corpse Of Richard Nixon", at this point (check out the site. It's a hoot).
"...If you can keep it...", said Benjamin Franklin to a neighbor back in 1776, and he was a realist. He expected the Constitution would eventually fail, as every one before it had. What he did not expect, I think, was that the Constitution would simply become a "God-damned piece of paper" to a supposedly conservative "Republican" president! And a "compassionate" one, too. Don't forget the Republican's compassion, of course. Then there's the wonderful Democrats, so fierce for freedom they'll vote any way to stay in Congress. Shame on them all! I say let's vote them all out and start over. We may be electing nothing more than a bunch of new crooks, but we know what we've had. Maybe new crooks will make different mistakes. God knows, the old mistakes can start WWIII any time now.
VOTE, dammit! Sitting home only allows the idiots in Congress to keep on making the same old mistakes. Worse, sitting home means we're finished as a republic; it's that simple. If we're going totalitarian, then let's be honest about it. Otherwise, should this election be contested we might find ourselves looking at another (un)Civil War. Voting is a privilege, not a right. Yes, read the Constitution and see, folks. Women were given the vote in 1920, and another amendment could take it back---same as universal suffrage. After all, if we don't care enough to exercise the few rights we have left (gratis the Patriot Act), then why should Congress not take all of them away?

God Dissents

Wouldn't it be nice to have Bush chastized by a "Higher Authority"? Too bad God doesn't get involved anymore, or maybe he just decided to retire---to another universe! Frankly, if I were God I'd be more than a little ticked off by this Administration's glib insistance that they have his blessing in all things. Then again, he ought to let these smug Republicans know just how he feels, don't you think? With many Evangelicals feeling rather used at the moment, it's disheartening to realize they'll probably vote Republican anyway.
Of course, if you've been reading the news lately it appears no matter how you vote the Republicans will win, even without Kerry's stupid "jokes". Those electronic voting machines can, in some cases, be hacked merely by pushing or pulling on one of the buttons, I've read. No computer knowledge required! Or, as some of the conspiracy nuts are suggesting, the machines have already been pre-programed to flip Democratic choices over to the GOP. In fact, one website I've read actually says why even bother going to vote, since the machines have been rigged!
Well, I say go vote no matter what. Bring whatever photo IDs you need and line up as soon as the polls open, if only to intimidate the terrori---I mean---"Bush Babies" smirking all over the Fox Channel as I speak. Sure, maybe the election has been stolen already, but why make it any easier for the bastards?