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Mailto:: rur42 at yahoo.com

 
Higher Math

SFGate columnist Mark Morford asks 11 Hard Questions For Bush ::

The First question involves some tricky math--

Mr. President, if a train leaves San Francisco at 10 am carrying 1,000 happily gay happily married couples and travels at 85 mph for three hours, while at the very same moment a train departs Crawford, Texas, loaded with 2,000 vaguely miserable Christian fundamentalists and nail-wearing fanatics of "The Passion of the Christ" and travels in exactly the opposite direction at 65 mph for the same amount of time, at what point will almost every single fundamentalist secretly wish s/he could be the towel boy for the hot-tub parties on the other train?

Can Dubya handle it?

Stay tuned. Unless Ashcroft turns the internet off.

Or google bans your sassy ass.

posted by degustibus at 5:12 PM

 
Bushamentalism

This is an administration that is addicted to breathing its own exhaust. Time and again -- from its failures to act on warnings about imminent terrorist attacks, to ignoring intelligence about the non-presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to its utter failure to properly prepare for the aftermath of any invasion of Iraq -- the Bush administration has demonstrated its modus operandi:

It determines what "the truth" is by a sort of faith-based process that is predicated primarily on whatever political advantage it might gain from policy. Then it pursues only the information that will back up that thesis. And it adheres to it through hell and high water, regardless of the consequences for anyone else -- particularly the nation. Its hallmark is a pronounced tendency to believe its own bullshit.

Note, in fact, its close similarity to religious fundamentalism, which determines the "truth" ahead of time and then seeks anything, even outright falsehoods, to support it.

Earliest coinage?---> Link

Me? I suffer from bush-related tourettes is all.

Sputter, sputter, froth froth, pass the prozac please.
posted by degustibus at 12:37 PM

 
Scotchguard This Fabric :: Ed Brayton's Brilliant Proposal

Is there a more meaningless cliche than "fabric of our nation"? I can't think of one. It's a perfect little piece of empty rhetoric, repeated ad nauseum without anyone bothering to ask what on earth it means. It just seems to be a phrase that people trot out when they're against something but they can't come up with a tangible, concrete reason why they're against it. So they say that it "destroys the fabric of our nation" and everyone who agrees with them nods in agreement, not having a clue what it actually means but knowing it sounds good. The perfectly pointless rhetorical flourish.

This phrase tends to be used more often by conservatives and the list of things that have been accused of "destroying" this fabric is long - flag burning, abortion, separation of church and state, drugs, divorce, moral relativism, and of course, gay marriage. Sometimes these things are said not to destroy the fabric but merely to "stain" the fabric. You know, you'd think with a nearly $2 trillion budget, we could afford to Scotchguard the fabric of the nation.

posted by degustibus at 2:25 AM

 
The Miracle Songbird

The Weekly World News reports that Janet's boob has healing powers::

Jiggly Janet Jackson's titillating antics at the Super Bowl half-time show enraged many Americans. But she's won the gratitude of thousands of people worldwide, who claim they were cured of disease after watching her exposed breast on TV -- or simply touching a photograph of it!

Sports fans who tuned in to the game and inadvertently got an eyeful of Janet's bare boob have flooded health departments with letters stating that the sight cured them of a host of medical woes, ranging from cancer to zits.

Perhaps even more incredibly, hundreds of others who only saw the censored image when it was replayed ad nauseum on TV -- or touched a still picture in their morning newspaper the next day -- also claim to have received miracle cures.

And while angry FCC honchos are investigating Janet and MTV, which produced the half-time show, for possible violation of federal decency rules, folks whose health was restored by the naughty display are begging the agency to give the miracle songbird a break.

"When Justin Timberlake tore Janet's costume and her breast popped out, I felt a shock go through me," says 85-year-old Edith F. of Paterson, N.J., who had been confined to a wheelchair due to crippling arthritis since 1993.

"I was so disgusted, I stood up, crossed the room and turned off the TV. Then I realized what I'd done -- I'd walked for the first time in 11 years. There's no pain in my legs anymore. My arthritis has been cured. Janet's miracle boob healed me.

To read more about Janet's Miracle Boob , pick up the latest Weekly World News on sale now!

Will any of Michael Jackson's body parts turn out to have similar curative powers? One can only pray.



posted by degustibus at 8:03 AM

 
Sunday Insect Blogging
Dung Beetle
posted by degustibus at 12:55 PM

 
Suckah!

Oh, aye, ya gotta love this kind of flagrant flim-flammery. News organizations are reporting this with a straight face...

The US has made clear that the transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government on 30 June will be a limited affair, and that ultimate authority will reside at a gigantic new US embassy in Baghdad and with the military occupation force.

In sometimes heated hearings on Capitol Hill this week, senior Bush administration officials admitted they did not know who would be in the new government, precisely what powers it would exercise, nor the exact shape of the new Security Council resolution that Washington is seeking at the United Nations.

Marc Grossman, Under-Secretary of State for political affairs, said the government would put "a very important Iraqi face" on many aspects of the country's life. But the US military, not the Iraqi security forces, would be in charge of all security matters.

Asked what would happen if the temporary government acted at variance with US foreign policy - such as by seeking closer ties with Iran - Mr Grossman implied that would not be tolerated. "That is why we want to have an American ambassador in Iraq," he noted cryptically.
US Admits It Will Still Control Iraq After Transfer

Is this Newspeak?


posted by degustibus at 12:34 PM

 
Bowdlerizing BD :: How to for prissy editors

Sun uv a buck!

Son of a b*tch!

Son of a gun!

Dang! (Or dadgum it!)

##@$**!!


Oh my goodness, my leg's been blown off.......
How about::

posted by degustibus at 1:27 PM

 
Mission Indeed










posted by degustibus at 10:41 AM