8/20/2006:   A couple of weeks ago, Gen. John Abizaid, with an incalcitrant Donald Rumsfeld sitting off to the side of him, admitted that the sectarian violence could plunge Iraq into civil war. Of course, at the time he said that, Baghdad alone was averaging only a hundred fatalities a day in Iraqi-only altercations.

Then today 20 Shi'ite pilgrims were killed and 300 were injured in a sniper ambush by Sunni militia. U.S. forces rushed to the edges of the conflict, but stayed back to allow Iraqi police and Shia militia to fight back. In other words, they were shooting at us, so we stayed out of it. We allowed the civil war to heat up a little more. Which, frankly, I have no answer for. We certainly can't stop it, and I think we've wasted enough troops on trashing Iraq.

The Sunnis and Shi'ites are going to duke it out. This was a foregone and forecasted conclusion to our invasion, foretold by every expert in Middle East socio-politics before we ever went in and ignored by the Bush administration. Perhaps he thought that so many voices constituted an "opinion poll," which he has repeatedly professed to ignore.

So the experts were right again and Bush was wrong again and Condi and Rumsfeld look like morons again and the American people look like dufuses for allowing the Monkey Faced Frat Boy to play cowboys and indians with our troops again.

Hey George! In case you're still on the fence about it, yes, it's a civil war. Really. No, really...

8/20/2006:   Halan Sager, member of the Travis County Republican Party and bloodthirsty Iraq war supporter, when asked about his opinion of a group protesting outside of a Republican fundraiser, was quoted as saying, with the vacuous grin of the soulless and evil, "I can't believe their lives are so empty that the best they can do is go down, uh, to this ho... come down to this hotel... uh... to say they're against the war..."

Ok, Halan, ignoring your testosterone-deficient name and the issues that must have caused for you growing up, your life is clearly not empty. You've filled it with money, and the quest for money, and the desire for money, and the love of money, until a human life means nothing to you. Your party lied to start a war that we clearly did not need to engage in, and the people of this nation are so sick of the cost paid for being tricked by your party that they have taken to bringing the message to you at every opportunity. And they're not at all sorry if they disturbed your money love-fest, because, Halan, you are already disturbed, and your party is disturbed, and the President you worked so hard to support has the blood of thousands on his hands, and we really, honestly, don't give a flying crap if you think our lives are empty. Because our lives are full, but unlike you we have to prioritize what's right and good into our lives along with everything else. We feel a duty to remind those who have no place for what's right and good that we will not tolerate their evil. We will not stand silent. We will break up your blood-drenched love-fest with money. And if that bothers you.... Good.

What an ass.

8/9/2006:   Cynthia McKinney is like a circus act gone wrong. She decided that her loss of the Democratic Primary vote was due to bad media, not asinine behaviour. She was wrong, but at least she was consistently unpredictable down to the very end. She played Pink's fantastic song "Dear Mr. President" and sang along. I wish she hadn't; Pink is such an amazing entertainer and singer, and Mrs. McKinney is only entertaining the way drug fiends on Oakland's streets are entertaining.

I don't care if she's a Democrat, she lacks the composure to represent the Democratic Party at this juncture. We don't need "characters," we need perfect execution. The fate of this country hangs on the ability of the Democratic Party to wrest control from the GOP when it loses its mind and starts trampling the rights of this country's citizens like it has for the last 6 years.

8/9/2006:   Why would illegal immigrants demand jobs? More to the point what right would illegal immigrants have to say anything about it at all? Who are these illegal immigrants to demand anything?

Well, now a federal judge has ruled that illegal immigrants can sue if they lose their job due to attempted compliance with federal laws. What the -- ?

Since when can illegal immigrants sue an employer for following the law? Not only are they... mmmm.. .What's the word I'm looking for?... Oh yeah: illegal... So not only are they illegal, here illegally and thus not entitled to anything except deportation, but they certainly can't possible have a right to sue someone in this country for following this country's laws.

What part of illegal don't you people get?

8/9/2006:   The Dixie Chicks, musicians, singers, entertainers, and true American patriots, are embracing a whole new popularity among music consumers. Jerkweed radio stations that refused to play their music because they expressed what so many Americans were thinking about George Bush, that he's an embarrassment to America, only boosted their visibility, and when you make talented people visible, they shine.

Not surprisingly, part of that new-found popularity is growing in Canada. The Dixie Chicks, unrepentant and strong, are just getting started, I'd wager, and more power to them!

8/9/2006:   Following the announcement that BP's closing of the Prudoe Bay Alaskan pipeline, which will remove 400,000 barrels of oil from our domestic supply, Samuel Bodman, the U.S. Energy Secretary, touted Bush's year old Energy Policy Act. It rewarded oil companies with billion dollar subsidies while they raised oil prices 30%. In fact, Exxon reported it raked in a $10 billion profit last year alone.

Did George profit from all this? His ENTIRE FAMILY PROFITED!! They've got HUGE investments in the oil industry. Can you, "Conflict of interest"?

8/9/2006:   Eleven Egyptian students, as part of a student exchange program with the Montana State University, are missing. That's right, eleven folks in the U.S. on student visas have slipped away. This has raised alarms since one of the 9/11 hijackers was in the U.S. on a student visa.

So it really doesn't matter if we seal the borders. You can fly in on a student visa and just melt away, prepare, and then attack this nation on its own soil with impunity.

Meanwhile, George's new and improved Secret Service can arrest protestors without cause, violating their right of expression and to peaceably assemble. Well done, George. See, folks, the point of the Office of Homeland Security wasn't to secure you and me, it was to secure Georgie's right to be expand the powers of the Presidency to the point of making it a dictatorship. Nice.

8/9/2006:   Joe Leiberman lost the primary race for a Connecticut Senate seat to Ned Lamont, but has decided to continue running as an independent. This is good and bad. Joe Lieberman, a widely recognized DINO (Democrat In Name Only), was an awful choice for Vice President to Al Gore and an awful choice for Senator. On the other hand, by running as an independent, he shows his true colors by splitting a vote he can't win and thus ensuring that the GOP candidate will win.

If Lieberman were a real man and had a spine, he'd just shut the hell up and step aside. But instead, he's putting his paycheck and his own political status quo over the good of the American people. See, by screwing up the Connecticut election, he puts at risk the Dems ability to wrest control of Congress from an out-of-control GOP and restores the checks and balances on the MFFB President that are currently missing entirely. In other words, he's become a Ralph Nader.

Hey Joe! Shut up and sit down! The Dems have a nation to save!!

8/9/2006:   (see next month)

8/6/2006:   I've heard a few people in the last few days going on about various conspiracy theories concerning the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Aside from the utter shame of using pseudo-science to try to lend credence to hogwash in order to question an event that took thousands of lives, scarring their families and friends and giving our asinine "president" the leverage of fear with which to attack our Constitution, our diplomatic relations, our infrastructure, and any nation who's rebuilding he could monetarily benefit from, aside from all that it also smacks of stupidity. Like any well written fiction, in order to buy into it, you have to engage in a suspension of critical thinking.

There are people who believe that the planes that slammed into the World Trade Center, filled to capacity with jet fuel, were not enough to bring the towers down and that the leading theory that the fuel burned hot enough to weaken and cripple the steel infrastructure of the buildings doesn't make sense.

Personally, I have yet to hear anything in the various alternative theories -- thermite, explosives, etc. -- that accounts for placement and execution of the demolition preparations, and nothing that disproves the weakened steel theory.

And then there are those that believe that a missile hit the Pentagon. There are even those that postulate the the last flight, forced down by the passengers in an heroic attempt to prevent their use as a weapon against their country, never crashed. They've come up with all kinds of questions and posed all kinds of answers to those questions, all of which suggest that the United States government faked the attack in order to have an excuse to execute the PNAC plan.

But not one of these theorists can explain where the two planes went with their passengers. If they didn't crash as described originally, then where are they? How do you make that many people disappear?

It's crap, and it's a disgrace.

8/6/2006:   Mr. Stantis, who is capable of drawing insightful political cartoons, apparently is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican that, like most post-Newt Repubs, failed math in high school.

He circulated some trash recently that had George Bush, holding a piece of paper that said, "Deficits Decline," trying to get the Democrat Donkey to say the words, "Tax cuts work."

Apparently Mr. Stantis didn't take the source of that news release into account. Bush's spokes-liar saying deficits are down and basing that lie on a report requested and funded by George's administration does not equate with the reality that our deficit is higher now than it's been, in adjusted dollars, than the last 10 presidencies combined. Bush's tax cuts didn't reduce the deficit. Juggling accounting numbers may have made it appear smaller, but when you take off the MFFB-issued rose-colored glasses, it just ain't so.

That's not to say the tax cuts didn't do what they were intended to do; they made the rich far richer. And that was the real intent of the tax cuts, nothing more. Trickle down theory never works; a dam doesn't put more water in the river.

Here's a cartoon idea: have teachers, the elderly, the sick, and the poor following Bush around with numbers showing how social net and educational programs have been virtually wiped out and saying, "Say it with me, come on, 'tax cuts during war time and economic downturns don't work.'" Now there's a cartoon that would reflect reality.

8/6/2006:   Mel Gibson, pulled over for a DUI, went on a rant to the arresting officers about Jews. It was hate-filled, anti-Semitic spew, and it naturally made all the headlines. Gibson's PR folks, along with various friends of his, all argued that Mel isn't a racist or an anti-Semite.

Um, well, yeah, he really is.

I've never said a harsh word about Jews. I'm not a Zionist or a huge supporter of Israel either, but I personally have nothing against the Jewish people, and I've never understood the anti-Jewish sentiment I hear from some people. It doesn't make sense to me. But when I do hear it, I always come to the same conclusion, that the speaker is racist. How can you make generalizations like, "All the problems of the world are because of the Jews," and then turn around and claim you're not a racist or an anti-Semite?

8/1/2006:   Canada recently bestowed honorary citizenship on the Dalai Lama. This extremely rare honor has only been given on two prior occasions: to former South African President Nelson Mandela and to Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during WWII. The Dalai Lama, world reknowned for his humanitarian works, stands in good company.

And this has China in a tizzy, oh yes.

Because the Dalai Lama has been telling the truth on them publicly and globally ever since China rolled into Tibet and destroyed the culture and religions there, China has labelled him (parents, you may want to cover your children's ears if someon is reading this out loud) a "separatist"!

Oh! The shame!

And now they've growled at Canada, saying that this award is going to strain relations between China and Canada.

Canadian officials, showing they have cajones of brass and are more than willing to tell China to stick it, and who have had to deal with Chinese industrial espionage in recent months, declined to comment. Basically, their response amounted to ignoring a petulant child acting badly.

Nicely handled, I say.