Eros is the shabbiest god, just as your preacher taught.
That he rules us more surely than all others is not so odd:
He lives on earth and touches us, the others are just thought.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Since the Dems don't have the balls...
...to take the liars, the wastrels, the incompetents, and the felons to task or to court, I suppose we will have to settle for the the parade of disgraced administration minions masquerading as good, if misunderstood, public servants and talking up a pall of normalcy around the resignations of the likes of Michael Brown, Tom Delay, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, the all-but-pardoned fall guy Scooter Libby and now the gibbering sycophant Alberto "the embarrassment" Gonzales.
So the reign of idiots may end with a bang when Cheney gets his war on with Iran. But if not , it will just peter out like a bad runny nose: the miscreants can point to the lack of indictments and impeachments and go off to their country clubs to chat about how best to invest the consulting fees they will get from the lobbyists. That will leave the Democrats, who have no fight in them, to pick up the pieces of a barely salvageable financial, moral, military and political mess the Neocons have made. And the Dems will catch all the blame, despite their feckless finger pointing, for the very high price the US will pay for all that it as broken in its international relations, all that it has squandered of its wealth, all that it has cast away of its moral leadership and all the forestallable energy and environmental disasters that it has neither attended to nor strengthened its technology or its students to face.
With the fines and penalties that could be assessed for all the cooked books and crooked profiteering of Halliburton alone, a department of special prosecutors could be funded at no additional cost to taxpayers. A few people remain who have not be bought and have the vigor to bring the culture of corruption to a final accounting. We would not burden the wimps in congress who are so afraid of upsetting the apple cart for all the fantastic improvements they have made in Iraq, immigration and health care.
I am sick of the gum flapping lot of them.
So the reign of idiots may end with a bang when Cheney gets his war on with Iran. But if not , it will just peter out like a bad runny nose: the miscreants can point to the lack of indictments and impeachments and go off to their country clubs to chat about how best to invest the consulting fees they will get from the lobbyists. That will leave the Democrats, who have no fight in them, to pick up the pieces of a barely salvageable financial, moral, military and political mess the Neocons have made. And the Dems will catch all the blame, despite their feckless finger pointing, for the very high price the US will pay for all that it as broken in its international relations, all that it has squandered of its wealth, all that it has cast away of its moral leadership and all the forestallable energy and environmental disasters that it has neither attended to nor strengthened its technology or its students to face.
With the fines and penalties that could be assessed for all the cooked books and crooked profiteering of Halliburton alone, a department of special prosecutors could be funded at no additional cost to taxpayers. A few people remain who have not be bought and have the vigor to bring the culture of corruption to a final accounting. We would not burden the wimps in congress who are so afraid of upsetting the apple cart for all the fantastic improvements they have made in Iraq, immigration and health care.
I am sick of the gum flapping lot of them.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
one flaw
satisfaction or even pleasure was all that I had planned
but many outcomes only served to tire or to disturb
as if some god reviewed each script and panned
one flaw of intentions small and grand
my flesh reports that I am a noun
bruising continues until I see mind is just a verb
but many outcomes only served to tire or to disturb
as if some god reviewed each script and panned
one flaw of intentions small and grand
my flesh reports that I am a noun
bruising continues until I see mind is just a verb
Friday, July 27, 2007
What should I do with this blog?
I have gotten annoyed and bored with my blogging. Vacation cannot go on for ever. Note the poll at the top of the right sidebar. Suggestions in the comments are welcome. The idea that I would write pithy little sentences to help us remember that sense of right and wrong that Carl Rove has nearly erased from American discourse was where I began this blog but nothing particularly valuable seems to have come of that. And I am getting long winded as I age here.
As I have hinted, I find steady engagement in the outrageous politics of our times requires personality traits I don't wish to hypertrophy by exercise. The focus on wrongs and problems is natural but life is too short for taking shortcuts to feeling righteous. Rather, I'd like to work in a more positive and constructive way. Building things, solving problems or at least fixing things...these have been the essence of my professional life as an engineer and my also of my most rewarding hobbies. The course I seem to have gravitated to in this blog, while within the rhetorical fashions of the liberal blogosphere is just not on a satisfactory bearing.
The time it takes to blog interestingly and frequently does not exist in my life at this time, so this is partly a way of deciding what will have to give way. The talent to blog interestingly at any frequency may be lacking but readers will know what they think I do better and what worse. This is your big chance here to get what you want with flattery.
Note: "Fold it up until it is all sharp corners and stick it up where the sun don't shine." is not one of the options. Neither is "give it a rest", though I am doing that a bit just now. I may nearly be over my withdrawal symptoms from my hit counter addiction.
I linked this blog into a few causes: Saving the environment, ending the dark age of bushes and neocons and staving off the many collapses that dark age has fetched neigh. These causes I remain supportive of and for that reason, the blog may simply emerge as a less random outlet and relay station for the news and views supporting those causes. But if so, I am looking for ways to make some contribution to those causes others have overlooked.
To all who have left comments, I am particularly grateful as many of you have been fairly tactful and helped me see things differently. You are the flickering starlight of common sense in a black void of silently suffering masses and mindless numbing noise the telly says is the news.
As I have hinted, I find steady engagement in the outrageous politics of our times requires personality traits I don't wish to hypertrophy by exercise. The focus on wrongs and problems is natural but life is too short for taking shortcuts to feeling righteous. Rather, I'd like to work in a more positive and constructive way. Building things, solving problems or at least fixing things...these have been the essence of my professional life as an engineer and my also of my most rewarding hobbies. The course I seem to have gravitated to in this blog, while within the rhetorical fashions of the liberal blogosphere is just not on a satisfactory bearing.
The time it takes to blog interestingly and frequently does not exist in my life at this time, so this is partly a way of deciding what will have to give way. The talent to blog interestingly at any frequency may be lacking but readers will know what they think I do better and what worse. This is your big chance here to get what you want with flattery.
Note: "Fold it up until it is all sharp corners and stick it up where the sun don't shine." is not one of the options. Neither is "give it a rest", though I am doing that a bit just now. I may nearly be over my withdrawal symptoms from my hit counter addiction.
I linked this blog into a few causes: Saving the environment, ending the dark age of bushes and neocons and staving off the many collapses that dark age has fetched neigh. These causes I remain supportive of and for that reason, the blog may simply emerge as a less random outlet and relay station for the news and views supporting those causes. But if so, I am looking for ways to make some contribution to those causes others have overlooked.
To all who have left comments, I am particularly grateful as many of you have been fairly tactful and helped me see things differently. You are the flickering starlight of common sense in a black void of silently suffering masses and mindless numbing noise the telly says is the news.
Monday, July 23, 2007
MSM: not just stealing from dot-orgs, bragging about it.
An article in today's New York Times says of an upcoming CNN broadcast of candidates answering recorded video of queries culled from YouTube:
The supporting quote in the Times article comes from someone who should be even more aware of the trends but who, I suspect, considers MoveOn a threat to her party's grip on power and to her very paycheck:
The first of a new kind of presidential debate is scheduled for tonight, one in which members of the general public pose questions to the candidates via homemade video."First"? Not really. This is exactly the format of the candidate response we showed at about 1300 MoveOn house Parties for the Planet two weeks ago. The turn out was good for those so maybe CNN is just casting about for a way bump the ratings. I watched late last night as CNN took pains to give a peephole of transparency to the process by which they winnow down hundreds or thousands of videos. Basically they don't have a way or don't trust the ways they do have for polling: they said partisan hacking of a poll or vote was likely so their editors and consultants were deciding what was best or at least representative. That is bs. Why don't they just finish the job and swipe MoveOn's entire method. MoveOn does trust its members and polls them regularly for the issues and questions foremost on their minds. In theory, the Times is a newspaper and one of the better ones read for its information...so it can't be that both writer and editor were simply uninformed of what nearly 100 thousand people in this country just watched.
The supporting quote in the Times article comes from someone who should be even more aware of the trends but who, I suspect, considers MoveOn a threat to her party's grip on power and to her very paycheck:
“These debates are the first real political foray into citizen journalism,” writes Morra Aarons, a blogger and political director for BlogHer.org, which covers women’s issues. Ms. Aarons is also a Democratic consultant who supports Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton but is not affiliated with her or any campaign.Perhaps I should not be surprised that one MSM outlet is scratching the back of another as it attempts to make money through use of media with which they have not been able to innovate as well as groups who have only democracy on their minds and not advertisers. I can see what they are doing and unless they take to scratching people's eyes out, eventually we will all see it.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Creeping toward the exit
...patting myself on the back as I go.
I have spent enough time reading and getting upset and posting and finally blowing hours I should spend working just to do a particular kind of blogging. Not Jewish, not Buddhist, not Humanist, not wise, not even witty, just political outrage. The time has run out, and not been well spent. I bore even myself. This post is not my last but I hope it is the end of the perfunctory, egotistical repeating myself and others. I don't have time to write this...something must be boiling over somewhere in my so called life.
I will plead that it is easy to become obsessed. The rewards however are scant. I can, with no better sources than a few on-line newspaper articles, develop a slight sense for what crap should hit the fan next, or at least, writing two million characters of indignant posting, a few sentences are bound to match a footnote or a headline somewhere. Yesterday I protested we should be told what deals Cheney cut with the oil companies. Today TPM peels back the wraps on those old meetings. A few weeks ago I sarcastically suggested we give Bush a third term. The idea is so nauseating, MoveOn, coincidentally, used it in an email plea last week that began:
What does it mean that my anger becomes tuned to the anger of the reality based? What have I sunk to? What have we all sunk to? Am I so different from or any less formulaic than a Limbaugh or a Coulter? Did my hit counter's success not hang upon the outrageousness of my topic vis-a-vis our liberal values more than upon its significance to any wider audience or even its accuracy? Judgments of accuracy may be a matter of perception to some extent but I call myself a liberal because I found more accuracy on that side. What have we given up in order to get a little attention? Are we damned from the start when we decide that to slant things a bit is justified if being ignored is the alternative? Must hyperbole and emphasis of only the grotesque be adopted if those are the techniques of the other camp? I do confess I hate those who push corrupting and degrading half truths but why would that make their methods worth emulating?
For example, look up some puddle of poo like this presumably real plea for a third Bush term. Easy to find with google. Easier to throw rocks at. So easy I get tired of it. This could become habit forming but it is not respectable blogging. Enough.
I have heard you can dislocate your arm trying to pat yourself on the back but I am good at it. There is a callus back there big enough to make me look like Dumas' bell ringer. But the hunchback did not let his soul become grotesque.
I have spent enough time reading and getting upset and posting and finally blowing hours I should spend working just to do a particular kind of blogging. Not Jewish, not Buddhist, not Humanist, not wise, not even witty, just political outrage. The time has run out, and not been well spent. I bore even myself. This post is not my last but I hope it is the end of the perfunctory, egotistical repeating myself and others. I don't have time to write this...something must be boiling over somewhere in my so called life.
I will plead that it is easy to become obsessed. The rewards however are scant. I can, with no better sources than a few on-line newspaper articles, develop a slight sense for what crap should hit the fan next, or at least, writing two million characters of indignant posting, a few sentences are bound to match a footnote or a headline somewhere. Yesterday I protested we should be told what deals Cheney cut with the oil companies. Today TPM peels back the wraps on those old meetings. A few weeks ago I sarcastically suggested we give Bush a third term. The idea is so nauseating, MoveOn, coincidentally, used it in an email plea last week that began:
Dear MoveOn member,
What would a third Bush term look like? Endless war in Iraq, continued torture and spying, more ultra-conservative judges, more and more people without health care, and so on...it'd be awful.But that's impossible, right? Well, maybe not...
What does it mean that my anger becomes tuned to the anger of the reality based? What have I sunk to? What have we all sunk to? Am I so different from or any less formulaic than a Limbaugh or a Coulter? Did my hit counter's success not hang upon the outrageousness of my topic vis-a-vis our liberal values more than upon its significance to any wider audience or even its accuracy? Judgments of accuracy may be a matter of perception to some extent but I call myself a liberal because I found more accuracy on that side. What have we given up in order to get a little attention? Are we damned from the start when we decide that to slant things a bit is justified if being ignored is the alternative? Must hyperbole and emphasis of only the grotesque be adopted if those are the techniques of the other camp? I do confess I hate those who push corrupting and degrading half truths but why would that make their methods worth emulating?
For example, look up some puddle of poo like this presumably real plea for a third Bush term. Easy to find with google. Easier to throw rocks at. So easy I get tired of it. This could become habit forming but it is not respectable blogging. Enough.
I have heard you can dislocate your arm trying to pat yourself on the back but I am good at it. There is a callus back there big enough to make me look like Dumas' bell ringer. But the hunchback did not let his soul become grotesque.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Beating the drums for impeachment
The AP did most of the reporting I have found on the latest little tussle over whether we have a constitution or a monarchy. CBS writes it up pretty clearly as a disagreement this administration is having with the constitution...and the loser is you, dear citizen. That the white house and the vice president have their own peculiar understanding of what law means and to whom its obligations apply is familiar territory but still alarming. What self-styled democracy, what legislative branch would stand by and do nothing? The congress still thinks because we are in a war they cannot lay a hand on the executive while troops are afield. Bullshit. We are in a debacle this incompetent administration concocted, led and mismanaged. They should not be allowed the vicious circularity of arguing an ongoing war somehow justifies the war going on. They have had more than enough time and money to have taken out Osama Bin Laden and chose instead to let him regroup on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border...our real enemy lives to plague us further and we have sown a new crop of enemies just for good measure. We have destroyed the country we were told we meant to save. We have so angered and alarmed the Iranians they no longer take dollars for oil. A development like that preceded our invasion of Iraq. If only there were oil fields in Waziristan, perhaps we'd have been sold a war that, as a side effect, brought a little justice to the inspiration for the 9/11 plotters
Note in that CBS writeup that Gonzo, incompetent to the core, has had half a year to work out the legality of the Vice President's office excusing itself from executive branch reporting requirements on how secrecy is used but he has failed to deliver any guidance. Instead, the creepy VP has been pushing to abolish the watchdog agency ISOO that sees to it laws about government secrecy are used only as intended and effectively
Digging a bit deeper, note in this version of the AP story from PR-inside, that about one tenth of the 20 million documents that get some kind of secrecy clamped on them get that way without justification of why they should be classified. And since 2002, Darth Cheney has not even been submitting his paperwork to the ISOO.
Let me remind everyone, especially you, sick Dick, why we have the notion of classified documents and the elaborate protocols and bureaucracy for shepherding those documents: There is some information believed to useful to those who would harm us militarily or economically. NOT POLITICALLY. Your fellow citizens and other members and branches of the government are not the enemy. It costs us tax payers an arm and a leg once a piece of paper gets that red stamp on it. All the work done with that information going forward is done under expensive contained and guarded conditions. The one to two year back log to obtain a clearance [unless you are Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend] means much of the work does not get done in a timely fashion....which may be exactly what Darth Cheney is aiming for. Confusing the interests of Halliburton with those of the people of the United States might be forgivable were it not for the huge appreciation in Cheney's personal wealth that resulted from this war he worked so hard to start. I find it reasonable, based on all the misrepresentation and mismanagement that has already been exposed, that we should be suspicious of what Cheney has been up to, starting with his "energy policy" closed door meetings with oil company executives early in the first term. What has Mr. Cheney and company got to hide from its own government? No one has asked that paperwork of the VP office be read onto the airwaves or even to the Senate Democratic leadership...just that everyone in government should follow the laws.
I am just one more citizen who has taken up pounding the drum for impeachment because its clear creepy VP is not listening to me, to you or to congressional subpoenas. And I herewith abandon my wait-and-see hopefulness about the congress we tried to turn blue and true...they as a body are behaving like gutless fools. Pelosi: sic sick Dick or you will pay come next election, your party will pay.
You will hear this again and again. You will hear it from others, experts like Greenwald who have prepared the cases against these usurpers and destroyers of democracy. I have not listed the economic and domestic failings, some that literally got thousands killed. I will not apologize for adding nothing but volume to the debate. The volume needs to be turned up.
Note in that CBS writeup that Gonzo, incompetent to the core, has had half a year to work out the legality of the Vice President's office excusing itself from executive branch reporting requirements on how secrecy is used but he has failed to deliver any guidance. Instead, the creepy VP has been pushing to abolish the watchdog agency ISOO that sees to it laws about government secrecy are used only as intended and effectively
Digging a bit deeper, note in this version of the AP story from PR-inside, that about one tenth of the 20 million documents that get some kind of secrecy clamped on them get that way without justification of why they should be classified. And since 2002, Darth Cheney has not even been submitting his paperwork to the ISOO.
Let me remind everyone, especially you, sick Dick, why we have the notion of classified documents and the elaborate protocols and bureaucracy for shepherding those documents: There is some information believed to useful to those who would harm us militarily or economically. NOT POLITICALLY. Your fellow citizens and other members and branches of the government are not the enemy. It costs us tax payers an arm and a leg once a piece of paper gets that red stamp on it. All the work done with that information going forward is done under expensive contained and guarded conditions. The one to two year back log to obtain a clearance [unless you are Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend] means much of the work does not get done in a timely fashion....which may be exactly what Darth Cheney is aiming for. Confusing the interests of Halliburton with those of the people of the United States might be forgivable were it not for the huge appreciation in Cheney's personal wealth that resulted from this war he worked so hard to start. I find it reasonable, based on all the misrepresentation and mismanagement that has already been exposed, that we should be suspicious of what Cheney has been up to, starting with his "energy policy" closed door meetings with oil company executives early in the first term. What has Mr. Cheney and company got to hide from its own government? No one has asked that paperwork of the VP office be read onto the airwaves or even to the Senate Democratic leadership...just that everyone in government should follow the laws.
I am just one more citizen who has taken up pounding the drum for impeachment because its clear creepy VP is not listening to me, to you or to congressional subpoenas. And I herewith abandon my wait-and-see hopefulness about the congress we tried to turn blue and true...they as a body are behaving like gutless fools. Pelosi: sic sick Dick or you will pay come next election, your party will pay.
You will hear this again and again. You will hear it from others, experts like Greenwald who have prepared the cases against these usurpers and destroyers of democracy. I have not listed the economic and domestic failings, some that literally got thousands killed. I will not apologize for adding nothing but volume to the debate. The volume needs to be turned up.
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