I will conquer
Space around me
So maybe I’ll win
Saved by zero
Maybe I’ll win
Saved by zero
—The Fixx

If you want to smell the fear you must click it

Zero:  A contemptibly worthless, undistinguished person…

The Republican Party is rife with Zeros these days. The nine nincompoops above are just a random gaggle selected from the dozens and dozens of them pining to spend time in the GOPper boxes of national leadership-ness-ness.  The assortment of  war criminals, gas bags, elderly has-beens, living and dead, and a burgeoning bunch of weiner wanna-bees will continue to plague the nation until the electorate relegates them to the slag-heap of history.

Why are there so few qualified leaders?  Because the number of capable leaders has never exceeded one percent of the population.  That makes it even more critical that we elect only the best qualified individuals to leadership positions in society.

Leadership is vital to progress.  Wisdom, insight, and foresight are indispensable to the endurance of any nation, and just now all such essential qualities are in short supply in our government, despite the fact that Barack Obama shows every sign of being able to fill the shoes of leadership we so desperately need.

Obama’s speech in Cairo is a stirring demonstration of his willingness to confront the changes that are needed now, but it is just the beginning of his efforts to grow into the enormous job confronting the United States and the world.  We certainly haven’t exhausted our national stamina and courage in confronting our many problems just yet, but if you’re not already doing so, it is time to add real prayer to our arsenal of hope.  Pray for our country, pray for our people, pray for our president.  And if you’re feeling really generous, pray for our world.  And remember, prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict, but rather a stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict.  Dig it.

Society is the offspring of age upon age of trial and error; it is what survived the selective adjustments and readjustments in the successive stages of mankind’s agelong rise from animal to human levels of planetary status. The great danger to any civilization at any one moment is the threat of breakdown during the time of transition from the established methods of the past to those new and better, but untried, procedures of the future.
—The Urantia Book

If you wanna see it good, you must click it

Seems like you can’t turn on the tee vee these days without being assaulted by the tortured logic of Dick Cheney.  His recent flailings have been focused on massaging a flaccid argument for brutality against America’s foe’s, especially the one’s we already have in leg irons.  But now he’s managed to interject himself into yet another battle raging on the front lines of the war on culture culture war.  Sure, closeted gay Republicans have become passé in Washington again, since the pre-trial sequestering of the Bush sock puppet down in Dallas, but Dick is on the loose again, and this time he’s got a Sildenafil Citrate chubby for a sweet young stud named Preston.

Like me, you may already be wondering how Lord Vader thinks he’s keeping his gayness secret by appearing on the cover of a gay mag and announcing same.  But then, you also probably thought Dick’s “undisclosed locations” were just hide-aways for national security purposes.  Or that his ludicrous defense of torture is flamingly hypocritical.  But then, psychopathic chickenhawk ( yes—  it’s a double entendre* ) liars like Dick Bruce Cheney are simply impossible to categorize in any meaningful way;  even though a lot of Americans are determined to seeing a court of law do just that:  Dick Cheney: America’s Biggest War Criminal— ever.

Think I’ll hole up and read “PRIDE & GREED: Why Dick Keeps It In the Closet,” just for the giggles.  God knows there’s nothing funny about the prospect of having to watch old Dick whore around with the MSM rent boys for the next eight years, continually attempting to justify his insane view of reality.

*   Chickenhawk is a political epithet used in the United States to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly supports a war or other military action, yet who actively avoided military service when of draft age.  Chickenhawk or chicken hawk is also slang used in American and British gay culture to denote older males who prefer younger males for partners.

Sigh.

They cannot lead.

They will not follow.

They refuse to cooperate.

Fine, assholes.  Let’s take a look at your bullshit charge of socialism.

Robert Scheer.

Let the record show that it was George W. Bush, the rich Texas Republican, who brought socialism to America. …  The government takeover of the banking and automobile industries not only happened on President Bush’s watch, it was also the deregulatory mania of this president’s family, beginning with his father, which took this country into such starkly unfamiliar territory.

You’ve got a choice.  You don’t have to participate in America’s Socialism.

Stop using the people’s airwaves.  They are a tool afforded you by the socialist government you decry.

Stop driving on America’s roads.  They are the result of America’s collective tax dollars, clearly the fruits of socialism.

Stop using the U.S. Postal Service.  They are a subsidized socialist enterprise cooked up by the American people.

In fact, consider getting the fuck OUT.

I mean, socialism has even brain-washed Christians.

Did you know there are even Christian Socialists?

Maybe Rush Limpbot will buy an island somewhere,
and you can all immigrate there, take a loyalty oath,
and form yourselves a little wingnut paradise.

(Click it)

“Hate is the shadow of fear; revenge the mask of cowardice.”
—Jesus

URANTIA — As the advocates of the dead and decaying values of the passing political paradigm cling more and more desperately to the disappearing justifications for their evil deeds, the criminals themselves feel compelled to go public with their insanity.

Mike Malloy.

Dick Cheney has suddenly become a champion of openness in government. Pigs are darting around the sky and Sean Hannity finally is pregnant. Which of those three statements is not true. Take your time. This is an open book test. And you can use your semester notes, too.

In his recent television appearance on Fox, Cheney says he wants transcripts of C.I.A. torture sessions made public. Those sessions, this insane war criminal maintains, will reveal how necessary the torture was in getting information that saved hundreds, nay, thousands, of American lives. (Duck! There’s another flying pig! Look out!) Beatings, partial drownings, slamming detainees against walls, punching, kicking, poisonous stinging insects, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, profound disruption of sensory input, exposure to extreme cold and heat, all of it was so very necessary in prying loose information the psychopathic former vice president claims would have been used to . . . to . . . (Look out! Another one!) keep us snug and secure at night when we climb into our cozy beds and he slides back into his box of sacred dirt.

Bullshit. Total bullshit, Dick. You know it;  the interrogators know it; and the clutch of voyeuristic administration freaks who joined you at midnight in the Offal Office to watch the videos know it.  You bastards did it for the same reason every despotic jerk-off throughout history did it:  Because you could.  Because you had absolute power over people who had never been charged with a crime, given legal counsel, provided a chance to confront [their] accuser, all that weak-kneed garbage guaranteed by Bush’s “goddam piece of paper,” the U.S. Constitution.  You’re the worst type of coward, Dick.  The type that worms his way to enormous power simply to act out his own sick interpretation of abuse, destruction and contempt for life. All life. The whole goddam planet, right Dick?

Malloy continues by quoting Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005, who ended seven years of silence concerning the false claims of the effectiveness of waterboarding, now that the torture memos have been made public to the world.  Soufan writes:

It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.

Soufan, one assumes, is referring to the “terrorists” we captured—  like Abu Zubaydah— not the “terrorists” we became— when we stooped to the level of our terrorist enemies by torturing them.  Anyone who can count to ten can also understand that waterboarding a man 83 times is not torturing him for information, but torturing him for revenge.  And that includes the men who performed the deeds, as well as the men who wrote the bullshit legal justifications for the methods of “interrogation.”

Congress, the president, the justice department, lawyers aplenty, even the people of the world— can wiggle around in the semantic haze which will surely form around our sickly attempts to actually be, once again, a nation of laws.  But make a personal note.
Those who refuse to grow into awareness of the new benchmark of ethical and moral understanding that is sweeping through the planetary consciousness— especially the cowardly, deluded hypocrites who call themselves Christians and still justify torture in the name of national security or any other such hypocritical nonsense— had better look forward to one day hearing from their Creator:  What part of, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” do you not understand?

The Bushies settle into private life with an innocent lil’ barbecue.

James Moore.

[N]one of this is our fault. America is not to blame. There are just some bad actors in high profile positions. Really? Our sports heroes are gone, exposed as liars and cheaters. The people we trust with our money turn out to be thieves of a magnitude not known to history. Our president lies us into war, ruins damned near every institution of our government with political folly, and then retires safe from the law in the western sun. You can’t even ask the question “What the hell’s wrong with us?” because the answer requires decades of explanation. An increasing number of Americans wonder if our country will even survive and a scary proportion of those have asked the troubling follow up question as to whether we deserve to survive and have entered our final decline.

Do we deserve to survive?
It’s an intricate question, even if a blunt one.  The people of America, taken as a whole, certainly want to survive, but to qualify that want with “deserve” questions whether or not we are entitled to survive, and that inquiry must take into account our national and personal values, and how we live them.

At least some of the outrage that courses through the American psyche today derives from recognition of our shredded values of justice, and whether we can still claim we are a nation of law when our leaders suffer no consequences for their crimes.

The Republicans can feign shock at such suggestions, and the Democrats can attempt to ignore the anger of the people, even as Obama skirts the issue with his remark that “No one is above the law,” which becomes a hollow platitude when divested from the will to prosecute War Crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney regime.  At the end of our days as a nation, should this sorry state of affairs be our undoing, history will certainly condemn our lack of will to live the truth of our professed values;  the dream that was America will have become a nightmare.

But it may also be worse than that.  At the end of our days as individuals, there will only be one judge whom will be deciding our fate as continuing self-conscious, personal beings. Pleas of “It wasn’t my fault” will fall on the ear of infallible Deity;  not the bored and callow critics of the failings of a faint-hearted people.  The personal cost for the failure to live the values we say we profess in our hearts will be far more dear than the mere degradation of a failed nation.

•

But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home— man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival.

—The Urantia Book

•

George “W” Teh Failure Bush

•

Now that Bush the War Criminal President has been sequestered behind the federally funded gate on the dead end street in Preston Hollow or whatever the fuck the place is called, conservative revisionists are hard at work trying to wrap the stinking reality of the last eight years in a pleasant smelling blanket of denial.  And the good toads who exclusively wrap Republicans like Teh Chimpy in pleasing graphics for their campaigns hate to see their mawkish gravy dry up, so they’re marketing a bunch of useless ersatz crap to squeeze whatever blood they can out of the 22 percenters who are teh stoopid enough to buy it.

I am not making this up;  it’s here.  But rather than going  there and having to shower afterward, we’ve done a little revising of our own and bring you some of our commemorative products, products that never let you forget what teh evil stoopid can do when they manage to get a hold of our political and financial power.

Premium handmade Cigars made by genuinely poor folk in the Dominican Republic. A tasty Sumatra wrapper masks the horrible-shit tobacco inside.  The gold wax seal will preserve and protect this Dubious Dubya collectible for years to come, making sure you never forget what the monkey did to the nation. Imprinted with Commemorative “W.T.F.” logo and inauguration dates.
Single: $12.00 •• 10 Cigars: $95.00 •• 25 Cigars: $225.00

If you can still afford bumpers, then you can afford this reminder. The “W.T. F.” bumper Sticker.  4″ X 4″ black vinyl. Price: $5.50 ea.

Remind your buds WTF Bush did to us every time they see your topknot. Black micro-poison-fiber cap made in China and embroidered with “W. T. F.” on the front and “Teh Criminal” on the back.  Not adjustable;  one size force-fit for all. Price: $14.95

When you think you just can’t stand it anymore, get your booze on with these 13.5 oz. W.T.F. glass bourbon buckets, and drown your sorrow the way W tried to drown our government in a bathtub. Price: $24.95

Chillin’ means you’ll need a lot of ice, too. Here’s a “heavy mouth-blown glass ice bucket.” Measures 7″ H x 8″ W. Etched with Commemorative “W.T.F.” logo. Price: $99.95

Imagine the good life you’ve missed with this “W.T.F.” 30 oz. decanter. 22% lead-in-teh-head crystal, hand blown (natch).  Glass will ring when pinged as long as you’re drunk on your ass.  Measures 10.75″ H x 3.5″ W. Price: $114.95

As you know, it took an enormous amount of shiny white boy balls for Bush to spawn the clusterphuque of the past eight years, and now they’re for sale.   Just the kind of thing you’d like to lay a big four wood into for a satisfying smack down the fairway;  if you can still afford the green fees. Price: $9.95

But if none of this crap quite gets it done for you, you may need the expensive but reliable old stand-by:

Washing away the slime of corrupt politicians since the Reagan era, SLIME-A-WAY Evil Politician Cleaner has an all-new formula for the virulent W. T. F. strain of Bush politics. This stuff has what it takes to get clean again. Price: $17900
(Yes, it’s expensive;  but that’s the price you pay when eternal vigilance is neglected and the inmates run the asylum.)

Men can suck the heady juice of exalted self-importance from the bitter weed of failure— failures are the most conceited of men.
—D. H. Lawrence

This

is a

And this wanker is the

Even so,

Of Americans think he’s a gift from

They are simply

So.  If we want to do the

Thing— then we had better

UP—  And Soon.
Because when

Shows up it will be to turn our world into a burned out cinder.

One could almost hear Bush grinding his teeth as he sat in the front row, forced by tradition to listen to Obama’s inaugural speech:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.

And this:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.   And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

And especially this:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers — (applause) — our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man — a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake. (Applause.)

Bush shorter . . . and worser . . . and eviler . . . than you ever imagined.
(Even worse than the clip right below this one, because more of it will sink in.)

Duh Munny
(Click it.)

Spent all your munny, yet?  Did you burn through your extra cash on the holidays War on Christmas?  That triple-bypass you need?  The mortgage meltdown? Gas? Groceries?  Well then, you needs you some Bush Bucks®.   Here we are at the end of  two terms of Republican governance, and the Wall Street scalliwags— and everybody else with a wallet, it seems—  are lined up at the guvmint trough with they hands out, getting they Billions from the Bank ‘o Bush.  Every swingin’ dick from Larry Flynt of Hustler, (ah ha ha ha), to Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild have fallen on hard times, just like the rest of us.  They neeeeedz the munny, cuzz if they fails, WE all fails.

And since that “we” certainly sounds like it includes you and me, don’t you deserve just one single teensy-tiny piece of billionaire legal tender  save-yur-butt paper?  You know all the problems it would solve;  your mortgage, your insurance, your health care costs, sexual and other moral and ethical  indiscretions, food, gas, college for the kiddies, toys, yachts, jet planes for you and your pets, your own island, drugs, rock ‘n roll… so why aren’t you in line with the fat cats?

Well,  because you can’t be.  Why not??  Because.  • Just Because.

Because we’re not all fuckin’ “socialists,” ya tankards.  Just those humps at the top of the human food chain.  Where there’s billions, there’s always enough to be good little socialists. The line for a bailout is hierarchical, kids.  The more you have had, however you managed to get your grubbies on it, the more you deserve.  The less you had, the less you deserve. Here’s the bottom line:  if you had/have a mortgage,  you don’t get squat.

And thus the sad irony of the poor capitalists, the humble peons of poverty; they shall inherit the earth; um, the dirt;  for theirs are the treasures of the kingdom of heaven;  but not now, not ever, the collective debt treasure of the United States Treasury.

Conservative Think Stink Tank patrons gathered recently to revivify their ailing philosophy, and to wonder out loud why no one likes them;  right to far right: Rummy-teh-dumby, Dick the Cheney, Hannity Teh Stoopid, Rush teh Outrage, John “You Will Know There Faces and You Will Know Their Names” McLame, Turdblossom Rove, Princess Palin, Loofa O’Really, CondoLeza, James Dobson, Dubya teh Bush, Rev. John Hagee, Joe the Lieberman, Roger Fauxy Ailes, Lindsey the Suck-up, Count Novak, and Phil Gramm-Cracker. Out of the picture patrons include Richard Perle, Mrs. Dick the Cheney, Poppy Bush, and a veritable host of other conservative shitheads. (Click it)

WASHINGTON D.C. — In the film “K-Pax,” Sal, one of the inmates of the ward, was put there after pointing out he could smell the stink on the elite that came and went from the hotel where he served as doorman.  These days, quite a lot of people profess to being overcome by the reeking of the Washington elite, and are not considered mentally unstable, except of course, by the Washington elite themselves.  They recognize the malodorous waft is coming from the inmates patrons of Washington’s oldest and rankest conservative Think Stink Tanks. (Ironic that it was an early incarnation of Senator-elect Al Franken who pointed out the problem of “stinkin’ thinkin’ ” a long time ago.  They ignored him then;  but he’s on their radar now.)

But yes;  the wonder that is conservative national provincialism:  Every nation sovereign, a god unto themselves.  No need for supranational unity.  Some of those nations have open state religions, and some, like us, often pretend they don’t;  some believe might makes right, and some believe they’re right and everyone else is wrong.  One more thing.  If it appears God didn’t create a planetary life system that could withstand the worst amoral attacks and abuses of man, it’s not our problem;  it’s God’s.

Uh, no.  He did not begin any investigations; nor did he spend any time looking for that one moral bone that may be in his body.

The cleansing of the temple, a story most every Christian knows, demonstrates that Jesus did not look with approval upon the refusal to employ force to protect the majority of any given human group against the unfair and enslaving practices of unjust minorities who may be able to entrench themselves behind political, financial, or ecclesiastical power. Shrewd, wicked, and designing men are not to be permitted to organize themselves for the exploitation and oppression of those who, because of their idealism, are not disposed to resort to force for self-protection or for the furtherance of their laudable life projects.  —The Urantia Book

During the past eight years, the Bushmen have done their utmost to entrench themselves behind political, financial, and ecclesiastical power.  Their make-believe foreign policy has failed to do aught that it set out to do, except enrich the coffers of the war profiteers, bankrupting our nation’s treasury in the process. But self-aggrandizing alliances will never prevent wars, or control the several most powerful governments.  As long as America suffers from the delusions of national sovereignty right along with every other so-called sovereign nation in the world,  War will continue.

As the most powerful nation on earth, we have an opportunity and an obligation to lead with our highest vision of the world, a world that offers freedom and liberty to every man, woman, and child in every country;  offers them safety and protection from any source of organized aggression. This can only be accomplished when all cooperative nations join together and form the genuine rudiments of the government of all mankind.

Peace will not come to Urantia until every so-called sovereign nation surrenders its power to make war into the hands of a representative government of all mankind. Political sovereignty is innate with the peoples of the world. When all the peoples of Urantia create a world government, they have the right and the power to make such a government SOVEREIGN; and when such a representative or democratic world power controls the world’s land, air, and naval forces, peace on earth and good will among men can prevail;  but not until then.

And that stink tank philosophy of global hegemony?  That effluence must be washed clean from the minds of the jackasses entrenched in our government.  Dick ‘n Bush are out smearing around vast quantities of…

…but the shine is off those turds for good, and it ain’t ever comin’ back.

Greed in the name of torture and domination has shown itself bankrupt, socially, morally, ethically, and spiritually. Drain the pool.

Not possessing the steely intestinal constitution of the heroic Driftglass, I simply cannot breakfast on the barf of Sunday morning hurl coming outa the teevee talking head mouse circus, as only he can.  So I seldom miss reading what he draws from that frothy culture muck-pit.  It’s just one more great reason why he’s in a class by himself, and for want of some finer, more worthy yardstick, that class would be “Best Individual Blogger.“  Do your due suffrage.  Go vote.

But. I digress. My substitute Sunday morning vittles includes a steaming hot cuppa Huff Poop, a whirled dervish of headlines served up cafeteria style at Huffington Post.  And just so you know I have an opinion about every-fucking-thing under the sun Son, here’s a portion of poached-posts that promise a soothing colonic of today’s tastiest tidbits.

Serving up noogies world-wide for the past ate years. . .

Bush: I Refused To “Bail Out” GOP
Yeah; sure you did.  In a waning melange of Brit Hume wallowing in Bush’s hubris, we must quaff the dregs of Republican noblesse oblige:  Bush spurning his own party’s Whiner’s For Self-preservation-wing for the principle of— yes, he said this: “freedom in people’s souls”—  to prosecute the Iraq war into the depths of depravity.

Obama: Gitmo Not Likely To Close In My First 100 Days
Appearing on “This Week” with pamper-sniffer George Sniffalottapus, president-elect Barack Obama continued to adhere to real values and the rule of law, to the continued amazement of practically everyone with a journalism degree by reiterating his commitment to close Gitmo.  WTF;  there’s nothing new here except our nation’s valiant return to it’s values and the rule of law;  next.

Darth the Cheney in cheery field garb

Cheney On Not Catching Bin-Laden: “We’ve Got A Few Days Left”
I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised to run across the word “scabrous” in an article on the antics of Dick the Cheney. An yet, every time I brush against the grating armature of DtC’s alternate universe, the thought of a souped-up cattle prod sautéing the truth outa his pacemaker haunts me. . . Yeah, Dick;  You gotta few days left.

Bush’s Most “Anxious” Moment
When asked by that bastion of cultural flotsam People Magazine, what moments from the last eight years he revisited most often, George the Bush coughed up— God’s truth— the miserable excuse for a pitch he threw at the start of the 2001 World Series. “I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”

Ask yourself.  Why would incurious George find that ceremonial twaddle so anxiety-laden— as apposed to say, torturing human beings in the name of the freedom to do so;  or ordering up the fricasseeing of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian Urantians in his elective war fur awl.

Also of note.  The Dowd says she was twice close enough this past week to kick Dick Cheney— um— “in the shins.”  And this confession of the lack of testicular fortitude comes via the same NYT op-ed limp noodle salad that includes the revelation that “Cheney’s theory of executive ‘unitary’ power and pre-emptive (sic) war was a theory of Constitutional thuggishness.” Gosh. Feh. Darn. Ya think?

Yellow food makes a president gooed

Obama Drops By Famous D.C. Diner For Lunch
Barack and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty got down on some smoked pork ‘n beef sausage to the delight of unscreened, actual patrons of Ben’s Chilli Bowl, Saturday.

Can you say: “Man of the People’s Grub”?
I knew that chew cud.

Obama On Critics: If Krugman Has A Good Idea, I’ll Listen
“IF” he has a good idea??
Well I suppose there’s always a chance, huh.  Let’s put him on retainer.

Conservative Bloggers Apoplectic Over GOP Cooperation With Obama
So?

Well then.  Time for lunch.