7/20/2006:   Bush finally met with the NAACP. For six years, he's ignored them. For six years he ignored the fact that predominately black counties' votes were not counted in the 2000 and 2004 elections. For the last year, he ignored the staggering losses the black communities in New Orleans suffered at the hands of hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

But now that the November elections are looking iffy for the Republican Party, Bush has decided to turn on the charm like nothing bad ever happened. He tied himself to Lincoln's legacy during his speech. He joked, he grinned, he made sure to bring Condie Rice along, he made it sound like the Republican Party was the only party blacks in America should trust.

What a bunch of hooie.

Black Americans, never forget that this man didn't care about you and probably would have been perfectly content to continue pretending you didn't exist if the Republican Party hadn't so desparately wanted to hold on to its death grip on the power in Washington, DC.

7/19/2006:   Experts on the Middle East have been asking this question since late 2002 when Bush first started making noise about invading Iraq: "Why Iraq and not Lebanon?"

Quick review: With Saddam in power, the Shi'ites and Sunnis weren't fighting each other in Iraq (no civil war), there were no "insurgents" (patriots fighting an invading or occupying force), there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda (they petitioned him for support and he told them to stick it), and the Kurds were irritable but weren't bucking for their own country (which would have completely ticked off Turkey and destabilized that area).

Additionally, Al Qaeda was on the run, the Taliban had been kicked out of Afghanistan, and we were in the business of hunting down Bin Laden. We weren't making a lot of progress with at finding him, but it was expected to be an ongoing process, and we already knew that he'd slipped through Tora Bora and managed to skate across the border with Pakistan where the Taliban had, and still has, a major presence.

So we wanted, ostensibly, to go after Saddam because he had weapons of mass destruction -- that we actually knew he didn't have -- and to fight terrorism. As in, "better there than here."

What we didn't do, even though what we really needed in a "War On Terrorism" was to go after terrorist organizations, was invade the countries where known terrorist organizations live. Lebanon has been home to the Hezbollah for decades, and the Palestinian organization Hamas has fought every attempt at a peace accord with Israel through suicide bombers and random rocket attacks. Both of these organizations have professed a deep desire to attack American interests as well as Israeli. Why didn't we invade Lebanon? Why didn't we walk in, announce that we would be in town long enough to clean up some terrorists, tell the Lebanese Army not to interfere, and do something positive about the terrorists. Door to door, on the ground type clean up activities. And why didn't we get together with the Israeli government, surround all the Palestinians, and go door to door picking up Hamas members? I mean, if you wanted to do something about terrorism rather than tearing a country to shreds that we already controlled, then why didn't we go after these two organizations?

And I'll tell you what got me to thinking about this: the Lebanese people. They are paying a terrible price for their government's inability to control the establishment of the Hezbollah on their border. Israel is out of its mind right now bombing Beirut and every other town they can reach. Whether they are to blame is a matter of conjecture that I won't address right now, but suffice to say that the Lebanese people just want the bombing to stop. Innocents are being wiped out. And that's just wrong. So why didn't we use our amazing military might to do the right thing?

If we're really committed to wiping out terrorism in our "War On Terror", why didn't we wage war on terrorist groups?

7/19/2006:   Today, the MFFB decided that it was time to dust off his pen and issue his very first veto ever. Not that he really gives a crap about stem cell research -- my twelve year old understands the underlying issues better than he does -- but it reassures his fundamentalist whack job supporters that the Republicans support their views. Even though they don't. See, Congress would like to overturn his veto, but while they could easily find a majority of Congressmen to support that effort, the required two-thirds needed to actually overturn the veto may be more than they can rally.

Bush decided that teasing apart an undifferentiated blastocyst, consisting of between 50 and 150 cells -- less tissue than you can pick up with the naked eye -- was a human being and therefore using discarded blastocysts from in vitro fertilization efforts was tantamount to using "boys and girls" as "spare parts."

Nevermind that we treat them as waste when we discard them anyway -- who the heck is going to give birth to a litter of children just because a dozen embryos were successfully created during the in vitro preparation process? -- just so long as we don't use these balls of cells, which can't think, react, feel pain or anything else for that matter, in any positive manner to advance science. No, rather than tease apart the stem cells to do research, Bush feels we should send them into the sewer lines.

Nice.

Fortunately, his action doesn't outlaw stem cell research, it just prevents federal funding for it. The 60 lines of stem cells that were available to scientists are, in large part, tainted and unusable. Best case, private funding continues and scientists are able to derive replacement lines so research can continue into treatments for cancer and spinal injuries, organ replacement, muscle and bone repair or replacement, etc. You name it, stem cells are the starting point for medical technologies only imagined in science fiction to date.

Could we PLEASE get Al Gore into this office? I mean, really folks. We need someone INTELLIGENT who can take us out of the frikkin' stone age and back into the age of enlightenment and science. Dear God above, help your creation to stop acting so STUPID.

7/19/2006:   I saw a white Ford dually in Modesto a couple of days ago. It had a license plate that read, "LOVEGW", and to clarify, the vanity plate below that read, "Bush." How unfortunate. To be stuck with a license plate like that. That's what happens when you fall in love with a goober that doesn't belong in that office. Perhaps the fellow driving it has a blue dress that he only brings out to reminesce about the one time he actually met the Monkey Faced Frat Boy. I dunno. Sounds personal, doesn't it?

If my family hadn't been in the car, I'd have followed him and asked him how he felt now. I wonder if he feels like the abused girlfriend who, with her arm in a cast and sunglasses to hide the blackened eyes, continues to proclaim her love for her boyfriend while everyone around her begs her to come to her senses.

Or, like some morons who are determined to stand by the guy they voted for as he plunges them into the very depths of hell, does he actually intend to wave the MFFB's banner and cheer Rush Limbaugh (broadcasting from prison by this time) as he tells people years later that George was the best ass-kickin' president this country ever had, killing Rag-Head Camel Jockie Commie Pinkos and taking names to preserve freedom?

What an ass. One thing I can definitively tell you about this dip is that he doesn't read, only listens to Fox News, and never votes for anyone unless they're a Republican, no matter how dirty they are. He believes what the Republican propoganda machine puts out, that Democrats are gun-hating, abortion-loving, God-killing, flag-burning, gay-envying, tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, anti-American, big government tax and spend hippies and anarchists who are doing nothing less than tearing this country apart. He hated Clinton, who created more jobs and prosperity, better foreign relations and good will, cut government way down, created the largest budget surplus in history, and protected the rights of all Americans, not because he did all this and protected the environment and natural resources for future generations as well, but because he was a Democrat, boo-frikkin'-hoo.

If anyone knows the ass I'm talking about, show him how to use a computer and have him write me an email. I'd love to meet him sometime.

7/19/2006:   George Bush has uttered some profanities about it, but he has taken a largely hands off approach to the volcanic conflict between Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah and the tremendous damage its doing to the Lebanese and Israeli people. While Lebanon burns, George is fiddling. Why?

Let's put it in terms that matter to George the Elitist: Here we have a conflict that has already disrupted oil prices, adversely affected stocks and the Dow, and threatens to slow our economy as a result. While restocking all sides of this conflict will mean big dollars for a small handful of American companies, overall this translates into a negative hit. So why not take a stronger stance?

There are two reasons. First, we can't commit our military to taking a part in the conflict in any way. Primarily because George has wasted most of our military in Iraq (which, it bears repeating, was a war engineered on lies and designed to both deflect American interest from the failed search for Bin Laden and give George political currency that he has since overspent) and because enrollment in the military is down so drastically that he'd have to reinstitute the draft to man such an action. And such a move, spending more American lives in the Middle East as though they were toys and not people, would be disastrous politically. Secondly, though, and this is key, is that this conflict is diverting American attention from the Iraq war.

As Lou Dobbs was quick to point out, we lost 10 Americans and more than 300 Iraqis just last week. Did you see that on the news? Did you hear about it? Did you think about it? No, because it's become tedious hearing about all the people being lost in Iraq. And before that, it had become tedious hearing about the losses in Afghanistan. Are you aware that the Taliban are back in Afghanistan and killing our soldiers there? Did you even notice? Or have you become so inured of hearing about the country George abandoned and the Al Qaeda leader George *hasn't* been chasing that you've completely blocked it out?

In summation, George doesn't have the resources to do it well, and if he tries anyway, his political goose will be cooked, and right in time for the November elections. But more than that, he needed something on the news that took attention away from the news grind of American and Iraqi deaths in the war he started for no good damn reason.

7/17/2006:   Bush was caught on an open microphone at a G8 luncheon chatting candidly with Tony Blair about the escalating war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Hamas. He used some colorful language during that chat, and of course news agencies just love showing Bush acting like a moron, so that got everyone in a news-flash tizzy.

But what caught my attention was how the President was eating. What a slob. Just before the "sh*t" hit the mic, our glorious leader was masticating a piece of bread he'd gnawed off like a cow chewing its cud. You can barely hear Mr. Blair's words over the noise of Bush smacking his food.

I'd always heard that Texas wasn't part of the South, it was part of the West, because Texans had no manners. I always thought that was unfair. Now, though, we have Texas' shining star on international television proving me wrong.

No. No. I'm not going to generalize Texans that way. I'm just going to make fun of Gee Dub and the parents he's mortifying with his every move and word. Geez, George and Barbara, couldn't you teach this kid ANYTHING? He has no morals, no character, no regard for human life, no respect, no spine, no loyalty, no patriotism. Couldn't you have at least taught him basic manners?

7/7/2006:   Stephen Hawking, famed physicist, posed the following question on Yahoo Answers: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"

Over 1700 people attempted to answer the question. The answers ranged from pessimistically insightful to odd and boring.

I guess what people didn't understand is that the question is rhetorical. Given the context posed in the question, mankind is doomed to extinction or, at the least, a shameful fall from grace. Allow me to expound by hitting on the topics that seem most pertinent. It helps if one thinks reposes the question in terms of an alien races and why we've never seen or even overheard one.

Energy. Oil will begin to be depleted. I don't doubt that we'll continue for the next 100 years finding new and innovative ways to produce crude oil and similar complex hydrocarbon fluids, but demand will outstrip supply no matter how it's done. Corn-based ethanol would seem to be the heir-apparent, but that requires space, water -- increasingly valuable commodities -- and fertilizers which pollute water sources through field run-off. Solar power production requires space, but as solar films becomes easier to produce and more efficient, solar may become a viable means of mass produced energy. The problem with solar is, again, pollution created during its production, although that is much lower per watt produced than ethanol. Wind seems great, but windmills break down, so it's not as economical as one might first think. Wave energy is new and not viable as of yet, nor does it appear that it will ever make major contributions to the overall energy budget. That leaves coal -- which releases megatons of carbon no matter how it's burned -- and nuclear. Nuclear creates waste that mankind hasn't figured out a good way to handle, but it would certainly see us through the next century. I doubt anyone is to produce a fusion generator worth the trouble in next hundred years, but if they did, that would be the panacea to all our energy woes.

2. Food. If we stopped the human population for growing by even one more person, we would still have major problems producing enough food to feed everyone. We don't feed everyone now. Look at the people starving in various places in Africa. Heck, we have people starving America, although that's an issue of poverty, not production. But if we continue growing at the rate we are, there simply won't be enough food to go around, regardless of how much money you have. We can only pull so much food out of the ground and the ocean. They are not limitless, and entire species of animals are disappearing as we eat our way through their populations. Too bad you can't eat electricity.

3. Environment. I like to rant about how Bush is destroying our environment, whether it's drilling in ANWAR or giving American industry carte blanche to pollute our air, water, and earth with toxins and heavy metals. He's sold off our future to aid his corporate buddies. He's given the elite the money to invest in order to stave off the coming disaster. Well, good for him, bad for you. But it may not matter because our climate is starting to show the effects of global warming, and it's going to get truly ugly before it gets better. It wouldn't be so bad if Al Gore had been awarded the election he won rather than it being given to the loser, Bush, but only because Al is smart enough to understand what's going to happen if we don't stop our current industrial practices. As the planet heats up, we're going to be wasting a vast amount of our resources attempting to protect cities that should rightfully disappear beneath the waves including but not limited to New Orleans, New York, most of Florida and the east coast, and a respectable amount of the west coastline. Along with that, areas in the U.S. used to grow food are going to undergo climate changes that may make them too wet, dry, or windy to grow the foods that have historically been produced there. There goes more of our food supply and living space.

4. Resources. I'm a big believer that, as some nations weaken, other nations will step up to take them over. National lines are going to be redrawn a lot in the next 100 years, and most of that will be strong countries taking over weak ones to exploit their resources. Genocide will rear it's ugly head as one people exercises the final solution to their envy of their neighbor's property. And they will be called the "Resource Wars."

5. Outer space. The sci-fi fanatics in the audience will make statements like, "The only way to survive is to get off this planet!" That's so naive. We simply do not have the technology to survive on another planet in large groups for a lifetime. And I don't mean, we don't know how to get there and how to live there, because clearly we can go to the moon and back, and people have lived quite comfortably for extended periods on the Internaional Space Station. I mean, we don't have the means to take a town of people and put them on, say, Mars. Because the business of running a town is vastly different from putting three highly trained and carefully screened scientists on a space platform for 150 days at a time. Right now, we'd have to get there without everyone on the ship suffering staggering genetic mutations from cosmic rays, we'd have to transport everything we'll ever need because there wouldn't we wouldn't have manufacturing capabilities for years, and we wouldn't have the ability to grow enough food to sustain everyone until the pressurized farming domes were built and water could be produced by cooking the rocks.... On the other hand... Getting all that stuff into space will be easier once we get a space elevator built, and given the immense profits and advantages that could be realized by the first nation to build such a device, I'm positive it will happen in the next 100 years. I still don't think we'll be living on Mars, but we'll reach it, pat ourselves on the back, and then wonder what we're going to do with it, just like we did the Moon.

6. The Final War. The "living on another planet" argument is going to be moot, because things are already as bad as they are and we can't make that jump quick enough to avoid what is coming. At some point, China and the U.S. are going to come to blows. BIG blows. And when they do, the rest of the world is going to join in, and then the nukes will be unleashed. Maybe Pakistan and India will start the party. Maybe Iran or Israel. Maybe Russia and Europe. But it won't matter, because the end game will result in the near annihilation of every living thing on the planet. The people of South America, if they were smart and biding their time, will take over as the collective powers in this hemisphere, and Africa, if it's still there, will take over on their half. I'm betting on Brazil as the new superpower when it's over. We won't wipe ourselves out, but if there isn't a nation left with decent industrial capabilities, we might slip back to an earlier stage of civilization. More the Iron Age than the Silicon Age. At least for the 100 years that follow that war.

7. The Only Solution. The only way to avoid all of this is for a single governing body to come into power, take over the world, and regulate everything mentioned above. Clean energy only, balanced food production and distribution, attacking the problem of global warming like our lives depend on it, careful husbanding of our resources, population control, and a serious focus on easy, economical, efficient space travel and colonization. And you know what? It ain't gonna happen. No way, no how. Nationalism is the only thing we know, and it's how ugly little men who crave power attain it. There are too many people right now only too eager to carve a nation into smaller parts so they can have a piece of the pie.

8. The Unknown. Let's pretend for a moment that we manage to limp along for another century, making adjustments as we need to in order to continue to survive. In that case, my biggest fear is science. I actually believe we'll survive anything we can do to each other, but let's review -- we've never heard so much as a peep from an alien civilization. Why? Well, I have a theory on that, it amounts to this: once a civilization becomes scientifically advanced enough, they all trip up and make the same mistake, the one mistake that not only wipes them out, but takes their entire solar system with them in a single pop. And wouldn't you like to know what that one mistake is, that one fatal misstep, that single oversight, that one risk they shouldn't have taken? Yeah, so would I. If you figure it out, write me. But my theory is that our supercolliders will be the death of us. No kidding. The next generation of supercolliders is supposed to be so powerful that we'll be able to produce extremely small black holes. You remember, those things that suck up everything around them, so powerful that light can't escape them, etc., etc.? Well, these will be so small that they'll burn themselves up almost instantaneously in a burst of radiation and particles. Cool, huh? Except that won't be good enough. Next they'll make bigger ones, big enough to trap, collect, and bottle them. And when they have enough of those, some smart cookie will wonder what would happen if you accelerated them and collided them. And one day, in some lab somewhere, you'll hear a switch click, a humming stop, and some college intern say, "Oops." The next news report will be about how the kid accidentally dropped a baseball-sized black hole that has fallen to the center of the earth and is busy consuming it from the inside out, and how we have roughly a month before the earth starts to collapse in on itself, and good luck everybody, over and out... Ok, so maybe it won't be the supercolliders, but something really, really bad could happen, something we can't foresee that would obviate all the whining about the environment and peace and love and unity and respect and....

Well, this has been a fun ramble. Gotta run.

7/7/2006:   A couple of days ago, Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron and pillager of his employees retirement funds and stock investments, after having been found guilty of fraud and due to be sentenced to several centuries in prison, had the audacity to up and die before he could put in prison for the rest of his life.

One of George W. Bush's best friends -- no surprise there -- Ken Lay was due to be stuffed into a prison cell to spend his days thinking about the lives he ruined when he made the decision to pursue stealing every cent he could from those that worked for him. Now justice is denied.

And the Lay family has decided to cremate him. No wonder, since there are so many people that would probably have attempted to steal his sorry corpse to recoup their losses, prying his fillings out, selling his bones and organs, and finally using what was left to create weird artworks or just chili meat...

But the real injustice is that his death complicates the efforts of those that would sue him. Now his estate will be wrapped up in probate court. The saga just drags on and on. I feel really bad for the folks that worked for Enron. I can't imagine what I'd do if someone convinced me to sink my entire life savings into a company I worked for, only to find out that the company was little more than a shell for corporate stock fraud and due to fold in days. Talk about bitter.

7/6/2006:   Today, Bush was quoted as saying he'd, "rather be wrong than popular."

All the more tragic that he's neither.

7/6/2006:   On Larry King, Bush predicted that Republicans would keep their majorities in Congress this November, "Because we're right on winning this war on terror, and we've got a good economic record."

Staggering, isn't it?

The Bush administration and the GOP-oppressed Congress were wrong to pursue the war in Iraq when Bin Laden was still runing around loose, they've devastated the economy, the huge budget surplus, educational funding, Social Security, VA benefits, environmental protections, all our peace treaties, all our foreign relations, most of the Bill of Rights, high tech and manufacturing jobs, etc., etc. This isn't a matter of conjecture or opinion, it's part of the public record.

Do Bush's handlers ever let him see an actual newspaper, or do they tell him only what they want him to know to keep him loyal to their cause, whatever evil that may be?

It's a credit to Larry that he didn't fly across the table and slap the mortal crap out of Bush, screaming, "WAKE UP!!!"

7/6/2006:   I've modified the site a bit. I didn't get rid of the frames, but I changed the font, style, size, and contents of the views list, and I'll be adding ad space to all pages, and putting some Flash content in the header and footer.

What I won't be doing is adding a visitor blog. Tactfully put, while most of the people that email me about my views are highly educated, well-read, insightful, and thought-provoking, some of the folks that stop through here are morons, and I don't wish to give them anything resembling equal time on my personal soapbox.