I can dream, can't I ??

OK, so Skilling and Lay got the first taste of the rest of the life we having been wishing for them since 2001. Probably a pyrrhic victory for America. I mean, we'll NEVER see the money they made disappear, and if their lawyers are really good, they'll be able to stay out of prison until January of 2009, at which time Junior will pardon them both. He needs to make sure that they won't rat him out over Cheney's Energy meetings and the other collusions amongst the oil men in and out of the White House. After all, the one person Junior can't pardon is.....Junior!
Instead of continuing to rain on your parade, allow me to suggest that 'going away' presents would be in order for 'Kenny Boy' Lay. And being a good liberal, wanting the best for my fellow man, let me suggest the following:
Send along an order of condoms (my favorite brand) and some single-use packets of KY (also makes those gas prices easier to take) to Kenny Lay, in care of his legal representative, Danny Petrocelli, at O'Melveny & Myers, in Century City (aka LawyerLand) in LA.
I'm sure he'll be able to pass these gifts along to Ken.
After all, lawyers have a better chance of delivering to the prisoners than the rest of us. It's their job!

For the irony-deficient conservatives...

"There is nothing wrong with holding an opinion and holding it passionately. But at those times you're absolutely sure that you are right, go find somebody who disagrees. Don't allow yourself the easy course of the constant 'Amen' to everything you say."
- Condi Rice, 5/22/06, Boston College commencement address

Obviously, she never gave this advice to her boss, because she's still Sec. o' State.

And is that how the cabinet members reply to the utterances of the anointed one? 'Amen'? Do they also genuflect when they enter, or when they exit, or both? And must the eyes be averted?
Just wondering...

Competence By Design

New York holds seemingly never-ending design contests (and legal battles) over how to memorialize those lost there on Sept. 11th, and how tall the new target, er, office building should be. Sen Jeff Sessions has weighed in on a preliminary, three-barrier design for the new fence at the Mexican border, and bidding has been opened to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, so no one will be suspicious when Halliburton gets the primary contract. And yet, if you Google "New Orleans Levees Design Contest" in the news, you get nothing. And THAT's how seriously this nation is taking the idea of bringing back New Orleans.

We've all seen that snarky, but oh-so-telling email that's gone around, the one with the photos of the Thames barrier in England, the mid-ocean barrier that protects the Netherlands, and the new one (after a huge design contest) to protect Venice Italy from sinking, all very high-tech, demonstrating serious, nation-level investment, followed by the weed-covered dirt piles and collapsed concrete panels that were supposed to protect New Orleans.

So, now that Naigin's been re-elected, and the Republicans can't withhold support anymore just to try to swing an election, I think the mayor should announce a design contest. And just shame the damned Army Corps, and the whole Republican Monarchy, by demonstrating that the job CAN be done, as long as it's taken seriously, and done competently, neither of which is possible under the Republican theory of government.

Mary Cheney really tics me off

Mary Cheney really tics me off. She's got a book out, explaining why....why...why her parents could use her sexual orientation to win votes among the Log Cabin Republicans, but she's pissed off that Kerry used it to point up the hypocrisy of her parents, her party, her campaign, HER, in supporting the BushCheney '04 campaign against gays! She doesn't think people (gays) should be one-issue voters, but her Party's whole campaign is to create a union of one-issue voters, whether they're anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, or anti-gay marriage.

One of the little conflicts I'd like her to address is that homo-haters, this administration's supporters, claim homosexuality is either a choice or the failing of the parents. Of course, no one would choose to be treated the way gays are in America, so it must be bad parenting. So which convicted drunk driver is the failing parent here, Dick or Lynne? These two paragons of the Party of Family Values! (I won't even mention those other fine parents, George and Laura.)

The fact is that most evidence says homosexuality is genetic. So which side of the family did it come down to arrive at Mary? Since her older sister's conception date was exactly 2 days after the military lifted the ban on drafting married but childless men, Dick's fifth(!) deferment seems to demonstrate that neither Dick nor Lynne was particularly interested in parenting, just in staying out of Nam (him) and keeping him in better paying jobs (her.)
The answer may lie in Lynne Cheney's "Sisters", a fine novel of women on the American plains.

I'm just saying...

Give the NSA something to track

At the NSA.gov site, there are lots of phone numbers you can call, where you can get lots of information.

My high school English teacher always said 'Go to the original sources.'
Why not give them a call about the program? That's the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program,' you little old American (=terrorist?) you!

Surprise! I'm AGAINST Impeachment !

All these angry people, buzzing about, 'Impeach! Impeach!'
Don't they see what has happened in America? Don't they see how it has happened?
Don't they understand that Junior is just the hood ornament, the cherry on top, the symptom of the disease?
And if they insist, immediately, on the passion play of 'The Impeachment of George Walker Bush,' that no one will have any stomach for the REAL investigations into the real crime, that of one-party rule, collusion among the three branches of government, collusion between the government, the ReagaNaziCorporation (RNC) and corporate America! And with Republicans running a rear-guard action that these additional investigations are just retribution fro Dems being out of power for so long, they'll look like the underdogs.
If they really believe that removing the hood ornament means anything other than that the car goes into the shop for a few days, they're wrong.
I want to put the Republican machine in that car cruncher that OddJob used in Goldfinger. I want every participant as the guy in the trunk of that car when it went into the compactor....

And then I want to put the hood ornament on my mantle as a trophy. Like Franken says, do a quickie impeachment between Election Day '08 and Jan 20 '09, just to show the world the disdain we hold for this petty tyrant.
...and then cancel his Secret Service detail, just for grins....

It depends on what 'Accomplished' accomplished

During the 'celebrations' earlier this week, of the third anniversary of Junior's landing(?) on the carrier, and of 'Mission Accomplished,' I realized two things:

First, 'Mission Accomplished' was exactly 6 weeks after the start of the invasion. You know, as in "it'll take six days, six weeks...I doubt six months." So this is a celebration not only of their lack of planning for the war, but of their pre-planning for the photo-op. Boy, was Colbert right!

And second, I figured out why Junior's bulge was so large.
Before you think I'm overly-focused on Junior's package, realize that most Fox commentators spent that day remarking on it (listen to Stephanie Miller's podcast of April 28, 2006, reading the transcripts. They're hysterical!) My dad, a WWII Air Force bomber pilot, had duty in England, including teaching flying, and being trained on how to land on a carrier. The Navy then had an unofficial 'Order of the Diaper' for each new initiate into the sheer terror of letting someone else, the flagman on the deck, tell you how to land your plane on a short, pitching airfield in the middle of the ocean.

If you stage a massive, internationally-televised photo op, you don't want your star refusing his big entrance 'cause he's wet himself, do you?! What's your insurance policy?

Can you say 'Depends?'