What was ruined for everybody by one person?

Democracy, by GW Bush.  The first election, I don’t fault America for voting for that assclown.  I get that people didn’t love Gore.  He has absolutely zero charisma.  The re-election, though… we knew.  We knew he fucking sucked as a president.  We watched him fail at everything.  We watched the worst attack in American history happen under his watch. By then, we knew he was incompetent.  We knew he was a liar.  We knew he was a half wit.  We knew he could have defeated the Taliban for good, and was SO goddamn close… when  he pulled everyone out right in the middle to attack Iraq.  We knew he lied about Iraq having ‘weapons o mass destruction’.

In fact, let’s talk about that criminal endeavor so sick that he and Cheney should be hung for war crimes.  GWB sends a known and trusted ambassador to Africa to see if they had the materials necessary to build a nuke.  Specifically, we were looking for ‘yellow cake’, which is enriched uranium.  We knew who to send.  We sent Joseph Wilson.  I don’t even think his mission was to find if they had uranium enriched.  I think it was more like “we know they have it.  We just need you to go there and rubber stamp our suspicions”.  He did not find any.  Didn’t just not find them, but felt without question they did not have any.  So, dude reports back and tells the White House that Iraq was clean.

GWB and Cheney ignore his report, and go all in on the war.  We were told, verbatim, that the case was a ‘slam dunk’.  Wilson is not amused that the White House was heading straight to war against the known fact they were innocent of this.  SO.. Wilson writes a NY Times article that said “What I did not find in Africa”.  This wasn’t politics.  This is a guy risking his career and state department job by publically calling out the president and urging America not to go to war on bunk intel.

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Btw, this isn’t the scandal, yet.  This part above is not why I think these men (Cheney and Bush et all) should be tried and hung for war crimes.  It gets WAY worse.  How does the White House handle this?  Stop the war?  Double the efforts on intel?  No.  they discredit him.  How?  Oh, in the most fucked up way.  Cheney has Robert Novak leak a story to discredit Wilson and his findings.  That isn’t even the scandal.  Cheney & Novak leak that Wilson was just a patsy and a butt boy for his wife.  His wife the very active spy.

A week after Wilson’s op-ed was published, Novak published a column which mentioned claims from “two senior administration officials” that Plame had been the one to suggest sending her husband. Novak had learned of Plame’s employment, which was classified information.

In order to make their point, the threw Wilson and his wife WHO WAS AN ACTIVE SPY IN DEEP COVER under the bus.  This puts her, a patriot, and employee of GW Bush and crew, at risk.  Even better?  To make sure people knew this wasn’t just hyperbole, Novak and Cheney, he names her cover.  Like any spy, she had a cover.  She was a legal person for a fictitious law firm:  Brewster, Jennings, & Associates.  It was not just Plame’s cover, but several deep cover CIA agents.  By Novak naming that law firm as a fake CIA front.

This meant EVERYONE who was using that cover was now compromised.  You know that part in the movies where the spies realize their cover is blown, and have to flee stat?  That happened.  Our own govt outed our own spies, just to make a point.  Now, not only does Plame have to GTFO, so does every other NOC.  That, my friends, on every level… is a war crime.  That is James Bond type villainy.

where there consequences this?  Not really.  Cheney’s chief of staff took the hit, and then was instantly pardoned.

I will never, EVER forgive them for that. 

My point being, you assholes knew all of this and still re-elected him.  For that, I will never forgive you, either!  I know I got a little off course, there, but every American needs to know this about their government.

When is bigger NOT better?

 As an American, I think we all know that bigger is better.  You some kinda commie,   bro?

What never gets old?

Boobies.  Looking at ‘em, playing with them, playing in them.  Talking about them, guessing about them, and violating them in a sexy and terrible way.  As I grow older, my libido has become less urgent.  Unlike when I was 20, I do not having to think about sex 20 hours a day.  Boobies, though, that love has never waned.  Nature and evolution went WAY overboard on that one.  When god was planning this out, he thought “hmm.  In order that people procreate, I think I will make breasts rather desirable to the male species.”  That… that would be reasonable.  Instead, we got this “hey, pretty much every waking moment of being a man, you are going to think about titties.  Wanna work?  Wanna fight?  Wanna sleep?  Wanna show your love for me in church?  Too bad; you ain’t doing any of that.  Instead, I designed it so that all you will ever think about is titties!”

I am not complaining, I am just a little puzzled.  It’s not necessarily a great thing.  It leads us men to objectify women, rape women, and beat them.

What Do You Do That Other People Don’t Do?

Think about boobies all day long?  Oh.  Everyone else does, too?  Ok, cool.  Um… lesse.  I can play guitar well, but so can millions of others  My mind goes to ‘stupid human tricks’ here.  I can play the intro to ‘Piano Man’ on harmonica.  But… so can Billy Joel.  Lemme think on that and get back to you.  Ask my wifey.  We have been together 20 years… half our lives.  Odds are, she knows me better than I know myself.

What life experiences should be on everybody’s bucket list?

Tell you a little about mine.  Skydiving, seeing the Dalai Lama, and seeing the northern lights.  These are just the ones that come to mind of late.  Ideally, I will have settled and experiences half of those things by the end of summer.

For you?  Well, I highly and deeply recommend seeing a show at Red Rocks.  I recommend traveling to Europe.  Oooh, and another couple extraordinaire venues; the Gorge in Washington, and the ‘Mish’… the Mishawaka amphitheater in Northern Colorado (about 2 hours North of Denver).  The ‘Mish’ is a small concert venue that is in the woods, and on a river.  See here, and here.

Friday Fives – freedom edition

1. Ed Snowden > patriot or traitor?

let me first say I don’t know the whole story.  I don’t pretend to.  What I do know, though, I say patriot.  I see his take, and my take, as ‘the govt is our employee, and works for us.’

plus, the govt’s severe reaction to this concerns me.  If I was the govt, this is how I would have handled it.  “Yeah, we are listening to phone calls.  Big whoop.  We have been doing it ever since 9/11.  Also, we TOLD YOU we were going to do that in the Patriot Act.  We are doing this FOR you, not TO you.  Our supreme goal is to protect America and Americans.  Those who mean no harm have nothing to be concerned about.  Basically, we view Snowden’s leaks as really late press releases about the Patriot Act.”

1. Julian Assange > patriot or traitor?

traitor.  Well, he isn’t American, so that isn’t the correct characterization.  I do not like what he does, though. 

I would imagine many people perceive the actions of Assange and Snowden as almost the same.  I absolutely do not.

Giving out state secrets to make a point is a dick move, and technically makes you a terrorist. 

Or, as I call it ‘pulling a Robert Novack’.  Robert Novack, you see, is a terrorist and a sty on humanity.  I am not sad he is gone.  What is this about Robert Novak?  He is a piece of shit, and he is dead. I have written about him here.  I am still angry because he never copped to it, was never held accountable, and never apologized.  So, died a coward and a traitor in my book.

1. Using communist China to bankroll two wars to spread freedom.  Ironic?  Brilliant? 

stupid.  We now owe 1.3 trillion dollars for Bush’ unfunded wars.  Allow me to explain why I use those terms, lest they seem hyperbolic and biased.  During the two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) the US cut taxes.  to my knowledge, that has never been done in history.  Wars are SUPER expensive.  No one argues that.  What is strange is during these two world wars, our govt under Bush actively decided to collect less taxes from Americans. 

So, how did that manifest?  Thusly – someone has to pay for all those tanks and guns and stuff.  Since we weren’t collecting money, we had to borrow.  Borrow we did.  In order to fund the two wars to spread democracy, we borrowed 1.3 trillion dollars from communist China.

So, the following President (no matter who, or what party, it was) inherited colossal debt.  historic debt.  debt like a motherfucker.  the kind of debt two ten year world wars creates.  Naturally, that guy needed to keep borrowing to keep the country solvent, since we weren’t collecting taxes anymore.  When he did that ONCE (Bush did it 13 times, mind you) they tried to start a revolution calling him fiscally insane.

Who are ‘they’?  Am I just being hyperbolic and super liberal Democrat apologist here?  Nope.  ‘They’ are the tea party.  The Tea Party was started and funded by the GOP.  Specifically, by Dick Armey.  The GOP started the Tea Party to give Americans the illusion they had a third party standing up to govt.  Really, though, it was just the GOP in disguise.  This is why ALL tea party candidates, you will note, were Republican.

Here is an analogy of your illusion of choice.  Remember when craft beer starting being all the rage?  It was back when every beer was a ‘red’.  The big two breweries, quite wisely, got on the bandwagon and created independent microbrewery looking organizations.  Miller had ‘Plank Road’ and Coors has ‘Blue Moon’.  So, when American sheep (myself included here) started buying beer from these microbreweries to support small business and stick it to the majors… we were all just still drinking Coors and Miller.  THAT… dear reader… is the story of the Tea Party.

1. Explain to someone who comes from a benevolent monarchy the benefits of freedom in a twitter like 3 sentences max

here is what is swell about America.  I can (and have) spent every waking moment railing against the suckiness and tyranny of American leadership… and I do not disappear in the morning.  That makes America, no matter how hard I bitch, pretty fuckin’ great.

1. What is the one thing you would change with stroke of a pen about the United States if you were the benevolent monarchist?

it would be about feeding people.  I get that not everyone can have a home… or even a job.  Everyone should be able to eat in America, though.  I am sure if we put out resources to it, it shouldn’t be an issue.  It just seems doable.  So, what am I doing towards that goal?  Nothing.  I volunteer plenty, and I am not that passionate about hunger.  Like I said, it just seems solvable.  Like drinking and driving.  That seems awfully preventable if resources were put to it.  The average DUI costs over $10,000.   But, how much of that money goes to preventing future DUI’s?  Maybe $200 in court costs.  DUI is big business. Trust me, I know.  It is all privatized, and it creates a ton of jobs.  But… DUI shouldn’t be good for the economy like it is.

* about the picture up top – ok, you know I ALWAYS do a mandala.  However, I did not want to do an American Flag mandala.  Know why?  The American flag is not to be used as a decoration.  Like, on a race car or as a pair of shorts.  So, you can imagine it is also not to be used as a bikini top.  Her use of the US Flag as a sexy ‘hey y’all, isn’t America just the best’ is belittling to the flag, and frankly sexist and insulting to women.  I get that. Here is the thing, though.  I am mortal, and only a man.  I really really really like this photograph.  So, I have left some of my principles at the door in exchange for boobies.  It will likely happen again, America.  I am not proud.

the worst person alive

Ok, we have an update. Historically, we have featured terrorist sympathizer and unindicted conspirator Robert Novak. Then, he got cancer the day after running someone down in the street and driving off (check the chronology) without even knowing.

Truly, a terrible person. Then, I dropped my fatwa on him for a super evil dude, Rev Fred Phelps. Rev Fred Phelps still remains one of the worst people on earth. No question about that. See, here is the thing about Rev Phelps… no one listens to him. I wish I could say his was harmless. He is not, but the world knows he is a dipshit who should die a horrible death.

These two douchebags are still on the loose.  However, they are no longer the ‘The Worst Person Alive’.  Wanna know who is?  Of course you do, you are still reading.  The ‘Worst Person Alive’ is the Pope.

The worst person alive is the pope.

Yup, I just said that… and now let me tell you why.  The Pope just told everyone in developing nations (code for… not educated… people who listen to the Pope for science).  The Pope is the worst person alive for telling people not to use condoms.  Wait, it gets worse.

He tells them (them being Africa, the hardest hit place on earth by AIDS) that condoms don’t protect against AIDS.  Then, he tells them he forbids condoms.  Yes, condoms are against god’s will.

what    the   fuck is    that    about   ?

I can’t even tell you how angry I am.  Wait, that is exactly what I am doing right now.  The pope is a fucktard.   Yup, I just said that.  Condoms prevent AIDS.  This is a fact.   Even better, they prevent unwanted pregnancy.  In a part of the world plagued by disease and hunger and general unpleasantness of every biological kind… maybe birth control would be the best thing in the world for Africa.

To be fair, this wasn’t his policy.  It has been a pope policy for a while.  Pope John Paul (the one we all liked) re-iterated this before he died… which still upsets me. However, this Benedict character went with all knowledge of condoms and the human disaster that is African AIDS and told them don’t use them.  This is a death sentence for millions.  The real problem here, and the reason why the Pope just jumped ahead of Novak and Phelps, is that people listen to the Pope.  People believe the pope.  People do what the pope tells them to do.

This makes the Pope the worst person alive.

Now, you may ask if I am Catholic.  I was.  I am recovering.  I am, however, a legal and licensed Reverend.  So, I am somewhat qualified to say these things.