Spring in Roxborough

Bush Lies to Wounded Troops at Walter Reed

In his most recent installation of pathetic political theater, George Bush visited Walter Reed medical center where he toured an empty hospital room with a wide-screen TV and then lied to about a hundred wounded troops. He told them, "The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and adminstrative failures." The reality is that the problems at Walter Reed actually began when the Bush-Cheney junta tried to oust the VA bureaucracy and replace it with a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of Halliburton.

So That's What Happened!

The Bush-Cheney junta gutted the civil rights division of the Department of Justice a while ago. This must explain the so-called [and oxymoronically labeled] Patriot Act, Guantanamo, illegal wiretapping of domestic communications between citizens not suspected of any crimes, the heterosupremacist marriage ammendment, intimidation of poor and minority voters, &c.

Want to have fertile babies? Stop eating so much hormone-laden beef. Just a thought while I'm working on my review of Children of Men...

Here's some more free publicity for the gay and lesbian human rights movement.

The view from Rehoboth Beach could be about to change forever. So, what happens during a hurricane? Do we get lots more power for less money or does the whole Northeast Corridor go dark?

Here's a blog that's well worth the read. The author is not one of the "bloggers" quoted by Bush last week, saying things are getting better in Bagdad. According to another blog well worth the read, Bush actually quoted an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that he misconfabulated as a blog [he still must be getting used to all this new internets jargon].

Senator Kennedy voices dark thoughts on many of our minds. There is a Rovian plot to "win" the 2008 elections without actually winning a majority of the votes. The firing of eight US Attorneys who refused to play politics is only one small part of that plan.

Rush Limbaugh, I mean, Carl Rove [I always get them confused because they look and sound so much alike] didn't do it. He just thought about doing it [aloud in the presence of others whose job it is to do what he says]. That's still a sin.

Another Reason Why NYC Is the Safest Big City in the US [and Philly Isn't]

Now it's illegal [in a city of eight million souls] for more than fifty "pedestrians, bikes, or other human-powered vehicles" to go in the same direction at the same time without getting a "parade permit." Is that like a dancehall license? How can they outlaw dancing when the bars don't have to close 'til 4:00? What happens when everybody gets off the train from Jersey and sprints in the same direction out of Penn Sation? Do they need a separate permit for each escalator? I don't know, Virginia. I live in Philadelphia. We still believe in Mother Earth. Our traffic can be just as bad, but we don't freak out when a bunch of hippies on bikes go weaving in and out of our gridlock. We even maintain our calm while packs of roller bladers and skateboarders do it out of pure joy with absolutely no ulterior political motives [like saving the planet].

Is this a frightening new development or just Republican political operatives trying to plant evidence of chemical weapons being used in Iraq?

There is a giant hexagon on the north pole of Saturn. There are bars in Philly that still allow smoking despite a citywide ban.

Time to get ready for some more shocking flaws from the Bush-Cheney junta.

I'm not the most totalitarian FBI director in American history, just a bad administrator.

Firearm-based violence is out of control in Philadelphia, so this might actually be a good idea. I give the Philly PD spokesguy credit for doing his best not to sound like big brother.

This is such a good idea, it's almost like Leon Trotsky thought of it himself. If my damn "Check Engine" light doesn't go off soon...

In spite of my personal belief that organized Christianity is a cultural failure, I admire these folks for trying. If only the people they were trying to reach actually read the Bible and tried to live their lives in accordance with the principles set forth by Jesus. Every time the Soulforce activists are arrested, or even visit one of these parachristian extremist training camps [such as the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary led by Albert Mohler, Jr, the guy who advocates "treating" gay or lesbian fetuses with maternal hormone patches], it ensures a flurry of local media attention and even some national attention. This forces the extremists and the local warlords who habor them to expend money on extra police and court time. This is money that otherwise would be spent discriminating against and persecuting people with whom they disagree.

It's almost like there was no winter.

Thanks to Eric for this link to a BBC slideshow of a ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British Empire being interrupted by an activist demanding an actual apology and reparations. Apparently a ceremony in which the Queen lays a wreath at the feet of a statue of a white man is not enough. [The nerve.]

If we didn't have such a bellicose, dishonest, manipulated president, we wouldn't have to ponder immediately the veracity of this headline about the increasing likelihood of some kind of military contact with Iran [beyond the small incident involving British soldiers and their wayward motor boat].

We have more in common with Iran than a lot of us would admit.

One of the Attorney General's chief advisors has made it clear that she intends to invoke her Fifth Ammendment right not to be compelled to testify against herself under oath. Isn't that nice [and ironic].

Slavery ended over a hundred years ago. Why can't everybody just move on? Oh, that's right, our government never apologized or tried to make ammends in any kind of meaningful or substantive way for allowing the forced captivity and labor of over half the population in the former attempted confederacy plus few border states. It would be worse if there were fabulously wealthy transnational corporations occupying the best real estate in the middle of our cities that became that way [gained their "starting capital"] partially through the slave trade, while in the shadows of their soaring glass towers, impoverished children and underpaid teachers struggled to learn with old books in cold, leaky, dangerous schools and they didn't do anything to help.

Now that's a Texas-sized civilian death count

The BBC is reporting that George Bush has the blood of over half a million innocent people on his hands, and that's only counting Iraqi civilians. Let's not forget the over three thousand American soldiers who have also lost their lives. The study that estimates over half a million deaths was initially published in The Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the English-speaking world. Because the number of civilian deaths is so large (and damning), the report was heavily criticised when it was first published over a month ago, so much so, the British government had the study's design and methodology thoroughly reviewed by the chief scientific advisor in the Ministry of Defence. He concluded that the study's design was "robust" and its methods "close to best practice." He also advised them against public ciritcism of the study [because it would make them appear stupid and callous].

Jesus Camp

I thought this movie would be funny. It was truly disturbing. [OK, the scene where the still-closeted meth-snorting, hooker-blowing Rev. Haggard tells the cameraperson to "Repent!" was funny and not the least bit disturbing–but only because it does not involve any innocent children.] Were I The Dictator, or even the District Attorney, I would arrest or prosecute most of the adults in this movie for child mental and spiritual abuse.

The documentary follows several preteen children from their home towns to a parachristian extremist summer camp where they are taught that their elders' particular set of peculiar superstitious beliefs and worldview are the only correct ones and that it is their duty to indoctrinate the rest of us into them. One girl reminded me of Mary Catharine Gallagher, but only the pathetic parts of the character, not the funny ones. It was hard to laugh during this movie because I felt so sorry for the actual kids who were its primary subjects. It was so obvious that they were parroting dogma that they clearly didn't understand to win the approval and love of the [very warped] adults in their lives.

It keeps getting worse

In response to the almost complete and utter disintigration of civil order and political stability in Iraq that has resulted from an illegal and poorly conceived US-led invastion and occupation, the Bush-Cheney junta insists on sending more of what made the situation so volatile in the first place–soldiers, threats of further violence, and more deadly violence. The only way to end this war could very well be to remove Bush and Cheney from office as soon as possible. They have proven themselves too pigheaded to admit that they fucked it up "bigtime" and need to change course.

That would be rich

Of course, no American-owned corporate media outlet is saying anything about this theory to explain the decimation of the North American honey bee population. We genetically engineered our food crops to save an ever increasing amount of humanity from starvation. Now we might face extinction by starvation because we fogot to take into consideration the effect that would have on honey bees.

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

- Albert Einstein

Why they really moved the capital south

Two people enslaved by George Washington escaped after he transported them to Philadelphia where he intended to continue to hold them captive and force them to do household labor he would have otherwise had to do himself or pay somebody to do. Philadelphia's large, free African American population (the largest in the country in those days according to this book) along with many sympathetic white folks, many of whom were Quakers, made it possible for the two to live out the rest of their lives as free Philadelphians. The Inquirer has a front page story today about the long overdue groundbreaking for a monument to the enslaved people brought here by elected representatives and government employees from southern states during the first ten years of the current republic. Although the sale and purchase of enslaved people had been outlawed by a democratically elected government in Pennsylvania, the population (the vast majority of whom were opposed to enslaving other human beings) was forced by activist judges on the Supreme Court to tolerate the transport and captivity of enslaved people from southern states. Through what we know now was a very obscure but contagious learning disorder, the justices on the Supreme Court had defined personal property to include other people.

Embers flare; fluid
movements of heat and color
reflect still faces.

Some thoughts, like breezes
over a fading campfire,
flicker randomly.

Wool blankets of smoke
obscure smoldering embers
of recall unchecked.

ITMFA!

Bald-faced lying with no oath, transcript, recording, press, or witnesses representing the general public would be okay. Bald-faced lying in a congressional hearing room, under oath, with witnesses and recording devices present seems to have been causing some difficulties in making the public "hear the truth."

Perhaps they thought no one would have the time to read through 3000 pages of email and that it would be the best way to make the problem go away [or at least give certain individuals time to get out of the county if they don't already have international arrest warrants for kidnapping and torture].

They might have a difficult time catching him. He's a spy, and a chief one at that. Then again, I could be stupid for not assuming that he's some hapless Bush-Cheney campaign donor who thought it "would be cool" to be the CIA Bureau Chief in Milan. Villa full of antique furniture...

Quickly! Bring the fresh, virgin unicorn blood. The vice president is turning back into a giant clot again.

Casinos might open in Philly in 15 years

Our [that means us Fluffians'] mayor and the city's chief lawyer think we're being silly, but they have to let us vote because we collected enough valid signatures and City Council agrees with us enough to overide a veto. So what if a referendum to restrict all casino development in the city of Philadelphia to the former naval shipyard and the tidal mud flats under the piers of the Betsy Ross Bridge is held after the commonwealth's legislature has already voted to supercede all local zoning authority when it comes to the placement of the newly legalized, fabulous palaces of chance? I think we [meaning those of us who live here] know what the results of the referendum would (and hopefully will) be. So what if Commonwealth Court invalidates the results because the legislature thinks it has the authority to tell the population of Philadelphia where its two [for now] casinos have to be built despite a legally administered democratic referendum expressing a contrary opinion by a majority of the population? All I know is that casinos have breen sprouting up like toadstools on cow paddies in more economically challenged and less overcrowded parts of the commonwealth, but no one has even broken ground in Philly [or is likely to any time in the immediate future].

A British Roman Catholic churchy man is pissed that he'll have to stop discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation while adopting out children. He's threatening to close his adoption agency rather than obey the new law. Should we really trust an organization led by this man with the very serious task of providing social services for citizens too young to choose their own religious beliefs [assuming they want to choose any at all]? The English-speaking world seems to have a patchwork of adoption laws that vary by state, commonwealth, province, territory, queendom, district, county, and township. These laws reflect different levels of tolerance for nonmarried and/or nonheterosexual parents, although one aspect that appears to be constant is the involvement of superstition-based social service agencies in providing adoption services for a significant percentage of the local population.

The War Is Over!

No, but yeah, but no. Well, at least somebody in Congress has the balls to ask us if it should be. You have to go all the way to Salt Lake to find an elected official who is willing to recommend impeachment publicly.

Raw Story has more on the Rove-inspired policization of the Justice Department.

CBS has more on the pet food recall.

Unhealthy IHOP Food Now For Straights Only

A lesbian family was asked to leave an IHOP in Alabama and not return because their presence was disturbing a heterosexual attempting to feed. Detailed plans for an international boycott will be released shortly. In the meantime, don't eat there. Your cardiovascular system and Queer friends both will thank you.

Regular exercise might make you smarter and less likely to get disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

White House Suddenly Remembers Existence of Constitution

Apparently struck with terror at the prospect of several hundred thousand mostly nonwhite and/or nonheterosexual taxpayers in the District of Columbia obtaining a voting Representative in Congress, Geoge Bush announced his intention to veto the legislation that is the result of a bipartisan compromise. The pending bill would increase the number of seats in the House of Representatives by two. Utah, next in line for a new House seat according to the 2000 census, would get the other seat. It seems the Constitution says something about only the people "of the several states" electing Congress.

There is a big pet food recall. Products on this list can cause renal failure in dogs and cats.


A popular leader of the [Christian extremist] Southern Baptists is a living, blogging example of why most of mainstream Christianity is a Failure. Get your hormone patches now because aborting or having gene therapy for your gay or lesbian fetus would be a sin.

Here’s a real-life example of why the so-called Patriot Act was a tyranical idea. People are now trying to explain away their Orwellian fascist tendancies as "procedural errors."

In another horrifying new development, Iraqi sectarians begin using chemical weapons in their civil war that was catalyzed by an illegal invasion and failed occupation.

Nesting bald eagles return to Philadelphia for the first time in over 200 years [despite the best efforts of the Bush-Cheney junta].

Even the Old Gray Lady is indignant. And that’s saying something, because next to Roger Ailes, she’s one of the Bush-Cheney junta’s favorite whores.

FAUX News Moves Quickly to Distort the Truth, Again

During Valerie Plame’s testimony to Congress today, FAUX News cut off her audio feed and replaced it with a hostile editorial voiceover by Robert Novak, certified dickhead. In not so few words, he accused her of lying under oath because she has donated money to Democratic political candidates in the past.

Insert Bombshell Pun Here

Valerie Plame is going to testify in Congress today.

Review of 300

Oh, did it suck. I know the violence is supposed to be “stylized,” but I’d describe the style as gratuitiously gory to the point that only a sociopath would enjoy viewing it. The sex scene would have been fine if they had limited it to two positions. Why did all the Persians appear to be of mostly African ancestry and all the Greeks appear to be of Norse or Celtic ancestry? Could it be..... RACISM? The oracle appeared to be channeling someone at a rave who’s had one too many pills. Why do I continue to let my partner talk me in to viewing movies based on books, comic books, or video games? [Because he puts up with me renting cheesy TLA productions with subtitles?] They all suck. It’s always better to read or play the original. Don’t let anyone talk you into seeing this movie because it’s “visually stunning,” either. It’s not. I know it was supposed to be “dark,” but most of the scenes were simply not lit well enough, and the camera work was uninspiring and average. The plot [the existence of which could be debated] would have been more appropriate for a Monty Python skit.

Yesterday NYC cops arrested and detained human rights activists, including a rabbi and the president of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who were protesting a bigoted diatribe against gay and lesbian service members, which was recently delivered by the chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The protest was organized following a speech given by Larry Kramer on the 20th anniversary of ACT-UP. I read a transcript of the speech and actually posted it.

Wow

Larry Kramer shares some thoughts on the 20th anniversary of ACT-UP.

Gnomes

They’ve organized.

Chairperson of Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Raging Bigot

Big surprise today, some stupid general who was appointed by Bush-fils is a bigot. He thinks gay sex is “immoral."

US Attorney General Attempts to Politicize Dept of Justice

Alberto Gonzales is the worst Attorney General the United States has ever had. Of course he should resign. Now, will someone with a spine please ask Bush to resign? Or, at least begin impeachment proceedings?

"When the rain washes you clean, you will know"

A friend of mine [Jason] has just about convinced me to attend Night Of A Thousand Stevies in NYC this May. For all I know, it could already be sold out. Looks like a fun time though. However, the same friend convinced me to go to a Star Trek convention at the Valley Forge Convention Center a number of years ago, and that was kind of a bust. Lt. Uhura was the only cast member there, and she seemed to be there primarily to promote her novel, which had nothing to do with Star Trek. She even read a passage. It should have been ghost written. It was the kind of scene they make fun of on late night TV with one big exception–the dozens of vendors selling crappy computers and other sundry electrotrash that outnumbered the legit Star Trek merchandise hawkers five to one. I won't be holding out any hope for Stevie to show [is she still alive?], so this is bound to be less disappointing. My elementary school music teacher in the 70s, Ms LaPorte, was such a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, she covered most of those ugly, asbestos music room sound-proofing tiles with five or six huge Fleetwood Mac posters that I realize now were probably included with the original vinyl albums (because they had creases). Don't know why some memories are so vivid. Ah, if only I had reverse memories and knew about eBay. I could have told her to take them down, fold them up, and put them away for 30 years. I have a feeling she could use the cash now, and she was cool.

Narwhal

You might remember from an earlier post on this blog that KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was recently implicated in the inhumane treatment of wounded US combat veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center. Today the Army’s Surgeon General who was responsible for administration of the center from 2002 to 2004 resigned. In a move that may or may not be related, Halliburton announced plans to move its world headquarters from the US to the UAE. I can’t help but wonder if this is some kind of preemtive maneuver to avoid impending legal accountability for crimes likely committed during the period of absent congressional oversight of the war in Iraq from the 2003 invasion until shortly after the 2006 elections.

Three Hundred SUCKS. Full review later tonight...

The New York Times is running an interesting article about how the National Steinbeck Center and other similar, often fiscally challenged intstitutions that house valuable historical collections, which have not yet been digitized and uploaded to the web, risk being forgotten in a world that is increasingly digitized. The piece is based on an unstated premise – that humanity will be able to sustain a level of technological advancement necessary for a web or even the power infrastructure needed to maintain it. I don’t want us all to get flooded by rising sea levels or killed by a new killer virus, but I’m just saying. Someday, the only remaining evidence of our existnce may be minute pieces of physical artifacts.

The Bush administration’s uniquely corrupt brand of crony capitalism ultimately leads to the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center. Campaign contributors line their pockets by denying decent medical care to thousands of veterans.

This video is vaguely metaphoric of a certain somebody's environmental policy.

Can’t wait to get a new iPhone [Darryl] even though you don't have a two-year contract with the same mobile service provider as Steve Jobs? Read this awhile.

Nevada Democrats respond to activists – FOX “News” will not be handed an opportunity to inject Republican misinformation or talking points into the Democratic primary debates.

Parachristian hate mongers invade San Fran

As if we needed another good reason to build an impenetrable wall around Texas. What do you think would happen if these folks decided to invite 15,000 of their closest friends to Lubbock, TX for a massive weekend rally followed by organized attempts to convince the locals to repent their chosen lifestyle of false-god worship and obsession with controlling the consensual behavior of others [because Zeus doesn’t like that]?

Some Germans are fretting that they “might become complicit in civilian deaths” because the Bundestag just voted to send half a dozen [honestly] new planes to help out NATO forces in Afganistan. Quaint that there is still a capital some place on Earth where the acceptability of being complicit in civilian deaths is up for debate. At least they're getting along with the French.

The French are becoming very wary of us.

Nope. No abuse of power to see here, folks, just a little “shoddy record-keeping” by the FBI. Move along.



More Dirty Sanchez, in which the existence of a pic with Rick Santorum is allegedly disclosed at, yo.



Ronald and Nancy Reagan are coke whores.

Be nice to your Roomba.

Bye, bye, Mr Humphries (né John Inman). Thank you for the schooling in gay sarcasm and for rolling your eyes in that special way after all of Mrs Slocum’s pussy puns. I had no idea your theatrical interests were so diverse.

This is a great idea. If only “no-kill” could be applied to us humans, too.

Few things are brighter
than the March sun reflected
by fresh fallen snow.

It's Like Ladies Night, Only Gay

Finally. It looks like the Black Party might be getting its groove back, but no. I’ll give them a few points for choosing a fun theme this year, but I still won’t go. After a several-year hiatus induced by increasingly crappy music and a strong upsurge in the popularity of crystal meth, my man and I briefly considered going to last year’s BP. Then we saw they were advertising steeply discounted tix to kids under 30 and thought better of it. When we were under 30, we had to scrimp and save for months just to be able to afford to go. (I even remember trekking all the way to Franklin Mills to get a good deal on black Levis...) This year instead of coming right out and saying that they want more party-goers under the age of 30 and are willing to subsidize it, they are only offering discount admission after 4:00 am and only to kids born after September 20, 1980 (the Saint’s birthday). I might have smoked enough pot in my lifetime to stop a sperm whale on its way up for air, but I can still do the math. My gut tells me the result will be a crowd composed mostly of 20-somethings and well-off 50-and-up-somethings. The guys in their 30s and 40s, for whom $125 is still a hefty cover charge, who remember having to pay full price when they were that age, will probably find something better to do.

Mmmmmmmm... Antibiotics make meatloaf taste better.

Keep slathering up with that antibiotic soap.

Why am I not surprised that, before we found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we found the secret prison to which agents of our government (being paid with our taxes) abducted and tortured people (in our names) who may or may not have aided the religious fundamentalists responsible for the 911 attacks?

Holy Dirty Sanchez!

Q: What did the corporate media miss in its rush to repeat and amplify the gay-baiting of John Edwards this past weekend?



A: Following the attack, one of their favorite pit bulls was photographed with her arms around a gay porn star!