Dear Speaker Pelosi

Flattery is something i always try to avoid– such a transperant manipulation technique– but in your case, I have to say it because it’s true: You are special.  There just aren’t more than five people on the planet that inspire the physical sensations in me that you do.  Like when I read

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.

I’m filled with a tightness in my throat, kind of like choking on bile, or vomit, except it stings more.   I call it obsenity gridlock.  All the exiting new names, slurs, theats, suggestions about your mother’s love of pets– the whole schmear– get caught right near my adams apple.  There’s just so much to say to you that I cannot even say one thing.  I am struck dumb.  And before I drop over on the ground, scratching my broken finger nails at my neck in terror, I just need to tip my cap to you.

Good job Ms. Pelosi. 

Clap clap.

Quote of the day

I find the NY Times and Washington Post much more comprehensible if I just think of them as the church newsletters for a particularly unpleasant religion. OF COURSE the people who write the newsletter believe in transubstantiation.

And the silly shit

First off, can i just say how happy i am that this stupid crap didn’t start until well after 9/11?

And then this.  You know, call me a paranoid, but MMORPGs creep me out a little.  No, wait, I meant a lot.  Yes, as a person older than twelve devoting 6 plus hours a day killing orcs online seems like a sign of mental illness, but it’s a bit more than that.  When you play these you are trying to develop a new persona in a universe completely created and maintained by a corporation.  Now, I’ve never heard of Blizzard using child labor or something, but still: Creepy.  And when you’re talking about Disney?  Freaking Disney? 

Yikes.  So many sensible people are going in for this.  Weird. 

All right…

I wanna throw out a bunch of links, but I’ve noticed that they all fall into one of two categories: Either deeply upsetting or just plain annoying. In the interest of not trivializing horrible stuff, lets divide these into two separate posts, and start with the nightmare inducing.

Like this.

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the “imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west’s most senior military officers and strategists.

Yeah, didn’t hear much about this one, but it sounds pretty important, in that maintaining-global-hegemony-with-terrifying-violence kinda way, huh?

Oh here: Looks like hospitals will soon be able to mine your credit history to see if you’re a risk for bailing. No problems there.

Oh, and brace yourself for this one kids: Turns out Bush wasn’t exactly truthful in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. I know, I know. Who can we believe in? Aquaman, where are you?

You probably should be busy hating yourself over this:

From January 2006 to April 2007, sporadic conflict and related effects such as closure of clinics and disruption of food supplies caused the deaths of approximately 727,000 people, the group estimated.

Yes, what is happening in Darfur is awful, but this is worse, and it gets minimal attention, perhaps because the story isn’t as clear cut and simple. You know how we love our narratives nice and straightforward. That’s because we are simple minded idiots.

I don’t wanna read the news today

Here’s the Smif ‘n Wessun with Raekwon instead

Yes, 90s rap was just better.  Deal with it.

God help me

But i think i agree with Bush on this one.

Congress has reached a compromise with the White House over a defense authorization bill provision that had drawn complaints from the Iraqi government.

Those complaints prompted President Bush to veto the defense bill last month. He complained that a provision in the bill that allowed victims of terrorism to be awarded compensation from frozen foreign assets of state sponsors of terror could have crippled the fledgling Iraqi government with billions of dollars in liability.

Under the compromise, Iraq is excluded from the provision, but other state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Syria, could see frozen assets used as compensation. The compromise is likely to leave American victims taken hostage and tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime during the first Gulf War without recourse in U.S. federal court.

I’ve been watching this for a little while, and I’ve been confused by the liberal blogworld’s take. Atrios, for example, describes Bush’s reaction as being “on the side of the torturers”. Well, far be it from me to suggest that Bush isn’t a torturer himself, but in this case, I really don’t see the problem. Why should Iraqis be penalized for crimes committed by a regime that inflicted a tremendous amount of suffering on the Iraqis themselves? Wouldn’t this qualify as odious debt?

Wonderment

The NYT notices that things aren’t going so well.

Just gets worse.

Via Dusty we learn that:

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a “walk in the park,” according to an interview published in the New Yorker’s print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America’s intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker’s Web site.

McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

“Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search,” author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said,” Wright adds. “Giorgio warned me, ‘We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’”

Sweet.  Protect me from my privacy oh great Republican father figures, for the sight of brown people make me shit myself in terror.

It’s getting to the point where the family friendly happy ending –the one where the good, honest, folk show up at the White House with pitchforks and torches–is looking less and less likely.    

not the smartest thing I’ve ever seen.

Those of you who waste your time reading these things may have heard about Kos pushing Michigan Democrats to vote for Mitt Romney. His reasoning:

And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

Well, for better or worse, Kos got his way: Mitt won last night. I suppose this will burn more GOP money. It also keeps Mitt Romney –the Republican that scares me the most– in the race.

Why does he scare me? Because he has no principals, no scruples, and no discernible goals other than advancing his own power. Everything he ever did as Governor of Massachusetts, for better or worse, was designed to put more authority in his own hands.

Some more excitable liberals talk about Bush as a fascist. That’s simply not accurate. There are some elements of fascism in the Bush’s America, but when you really boil the fucker down to his component parts, Bush is just another corrupt oligarch. True, he’s grabbed a lot more power than the last few have, and he’s definitely done much more damage, but  what he did to this country was somewhat mediated by the fact that he and his cronies were utterly incompetent. Mitt Romney is a smart guy; he will be worse.

Dems look at the polls and think he won’t win. That’s really stupid. He’s pitching this family values line, and when the GOP establishment is done running Huckabee off, who the hell do you think the crazies will vote for, Rudy? To make things worse, this is the guy that can get the mainstream Republicans behind him, because, unlike the Huckster, they know he doesn’t mean any of that Jesus shit.

So you really think that a sparkly clean white dude with great hair is definitely going to lose to either a black guy or Hitlery? What alternate America do you live in?

Ya’ll need to stop reading Time magazine.

Don’t mess with football!!!

A heckling radio ham known as the Filipino Monkey, who has spent years pestering ships in the Persian Gulf, is being blamed today for sparking a major diplomatic row after American warships almost attacked Iranian patrol boats.

The US navy came within seconds of firing at the Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz on January 6 after hearing threats that the boats were attacking and were about to explode.

Senior navy officials have admitted that the source of the threats, picked up in international waters, was a mystery.

And now the US navy’s journal, Navy Times, has claimed that the threats, which were broadcast last week by the Pentagon, are thought to have come from an infamous radio prankster.

 This sounds familiar: Another prank used by the Bush admin to freak out the stupid and advance their own agenda.  I’ll be interested in seeing just how much play this part of the story  gets in the US media.  Unless they’re too busy stalking Britney, that is.