Pat Tillman: Rest in Peace

One of the horrors of war is death by friendly fire. Every war has killings by friendlies. I detest the cover up of Pat Tillman's death in the name of patriotism. Lies and deception are a staple of Bushworld and the military. However, I can only imagine the horror of knowing a soldier killed one of his or her own. Theree was a video of two pilots awhile ago, who were told to take out a target and suddenly realized the mistake they had made. You could hear the horror, the shock, and the pain in their voices. Those two pilots will pay the price for being given bad intelligence, for following orders. Plus, they have to live with knowing they killed one of their own. Again, there was a cover up. The military is good at deception. The generals and politicians need to be held accountable for inventing the current wars and the cover up of Pat Tillman's death. I have heard the soldiers talk about the Pat Tillman death, and the hurt and horror in their eyes and voice stays with you. Of course, some of the same soldiers were also part of the cover-up. Some claim they were only following orders. Some just wanted to forget what happened. War is always deplorable because war destroys any sense of humanity. The lies and cover-up just add to the inhumanity. However, I have all the respect in the world for the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of them will return and never be the same, ever. Their pain doesn't replace the lies told to the Tillman family, or the lies told to the family whose son was killed by the pilots. The lies by the military leaders only reinforce the horrors of war, which include friendly fire war after war. The politicians who started the wars need to be held responsible too. The politicians are responsible for the deaths of over 3,200 soldiers. The blood of the soldiers is on the hands of Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, et. al. I can only imagine what the soldiers experience in the moment of a fire-fight. Then to realize you have killed one of your own, I have no idea how you live with that experience. Punish the people who are responsible for the lies and deceit and war. But have some compassion for the soldiers. I can support the troops, but not Bushworld and the Neocon War Machine....

Raping of the Fourth Amendment

I am still amazed how we average American citizens can have our phones tapped, our email and mail read and recorded, and all our private financial information recorded and analyzed by the government. No warrants needed. Our fourth amendments rights have been trampled in Bushworld. The fourth amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." If you are an "idealist" and believe the Constitution is an ideal worth protecting in the post 9-11 world, you simply want more planes to fly into buildings and have more innocent Americans killed. Bushworld's three notes are sounded repeatedly. You are for us or against us. You support the troops, or you support the terrorists. Clinton is the root of all evil. People tell me if you have nothing to hide from the government, why is it a problem that the government monitors all your information? I believe in the Bill of Rights! I offer back if Bush has nothing to hide, and neither does Rove, Miers, Gonzales, et. al. why does Bush want to hide behind executive privilege? Why does King George hide behind the same Constitution he raped when he rescinded the fourth amendment for everyday Americans. Ironic that the Constitution only makes Bush's "private" information unavailable to the government, to Congress, or to the people. I am not an expert, but doesn't executive privilege only apply to information between the President and his minions? I don't think executive privileges applies to communication between Miers and Rove, Rove and Gonzales, Sampson and Rove, and all the combinations of the players that don't include Bush. John Dean said basically the same thing tonight about what executive privilege covers. Sad how Bush has manipulated the Constitution. Sadder, the current configuration of the Supreme Court is one of the most Conservative in history. Even helped King George get elected. I hope the Constitution and the laws and the courts will finally be used against Bush, Rove, Gonzales, et. al. instead of as support for their agenda. On a bright note, Chaney's name hasn't appeared in the AG-gate...wonder where he was???

Gonzales Gate

Bush is only angry and upset because all the administration's lies, secrecy, obfuscation, and deception are being revealed. All the abuses of the Patriot Act are coming out. His total disregard for the Constitution with all his signing statements. He let the AGS go because they didn't tow the Bushworld company line, and now we are suppose to believe his feels bad for them. He is only sorry because the AGs went public and didn't remain loyal to King George and Prince Rove. I wonder how sorry King George would have been if the whole fiasco remained quite, and the AGs crept away silently. Bush, Chaney, Rove, et. al., have lost all credibility. How can we believe anything they say after all the lies since 9-11? I hope the Democrats don't back down and fight Bush to the end over the subpoenas. Rove, Miers, Gonzalez, and the gang need to be under oath for any chance of the truth to be revealed. Like intelligence, truth and Bushworld are mutually exclusive. Bushworld, the party of values and morals....NOT

If the Attorney Generals were truly fired over their "performances," where is the accompanying paperwork? Have any performance appraisals of the AGs been released? None. The AGs simply didn't follow the Bush agenda to the letter of its law. Why follow the established laws or the Constitution when Bushworld law supersedes everything in history. Seems to me all the performance related issues only exist in the minds of Bush, Rove, Miers, Gonzalez, et. al. Just like the weapons of mass deception in Iraq, Iraq and Saddam roles in 9-11, there is no civil war in Iraq, the insurgents are in their last throes, the Iraq War will be cheap and a cake walk, etc...after all the lies from Bushworld, how can we ever know then they might actually speak some truth. Do anyone really think Rove and Miers will speak any truth since they will not be under oath?

Part Deist, Part Atheist

Actually, my friend, I am a Deist. I know; doesn’t ring a church bell. Voltaire summed up the Deists by saying god is a comic playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh. For the record, Deism was the dominant religion of the Eighteenth Century. What is fascinating is that many of the founders and framers of this supposed “Christian nation” were Deists. Thomas Paine. Thomas Jefferson. Ben Franklin. Deists believe in a creator who was the watchmaker that wound things up, but then splits, leaving us morally alone. Deists find comfort in the seasons not creeds. No need for stained glass, weekly collections, and pews. God is no more moral than god is blue or square. Morality is the false hope that people are redeemable, with conscience. Morality is a human creation to relieve our guilty conscience of the heinous horrors we have imposed on each other since civilization began. We are the Christian nation that wiped out the Native Americans. We are the Christian nation that enslaved blacks and openly lynched them. We are the Christian nation, the only nation, to have dropped two nuclear bombs on another country. We are the Christian nation whose hands are covered in blood.

Exactly when was civilization totally civil?…Moral?

We are all a little broken. We fight the demons we create in our minds. Ironically, the more broken and tormented, the more interesting we become. Especially the ones who don’t even realize how broken they are. Recognizing one’s damage is the first step in repairing the damage. As Charles Baudelaire wrote “wickedness is always inexcusable, but there is some merit in knowing that one is wicked, and the most irreparable of vices is to do evil without knowing it.”

So You Wanna Be An Atheist

I fit in by not fitting. Not fitting is where I fit. Doesn’t offer much comfort, but at least I realize I don’t fit in…never have…but I fit in everywhere really, no where and everywhere are home…since I have no agenda, no desire or need to believe in the “not one of us mantra”…in the high school of life, I am a brain, a nerd, a jock, a misfit…a druggie…a warrior…a shaman …a ghost…a reject…an outcast…a broken heart…an atheist.
And fuck the adage if you don’t believe in something, you will fall for anything…I believed in Jesus and heaven until I finally realized how barren, corrupt, and desperate religion has become…the wedge dividing the world…reduced to a cult of ravenous, broken people so desperate to believe in something they fall for anything…believers arrogant enough, ignorant enough to believe that their god is bigger than the rest… believers who eagerly kill to spread their god’s love…the ten commandments have become the ten suggestions…condemnation of others has replaced compassion; Christianity is as mean-spirited as South Central, Compton, East Saint Louis, Camden… Broken…
I realize the simple idea of we are born in pain, live in pain, die in pain, then become worm fodder isn’t as elegant as a Genesis to Revelation…No justice, no heaven, no reward, no forgiveness is one bleak story…even a forever in heaven without the internet, sex, and cable is better than just birth, life, and death. However, I have no problem with the power of heaven…but since I don’t play real well with others, I won’t be allowed in downtown heaven…If heaven is America, I will be somewhere in northern North Dakota…near Canada…no problem…
No god. No devil. No evil. No spirit. No soul. No eternal bliss. No reincarnation. No getting 47,000 chances to finally figure out your life’s puzzle; a story to simple for the fragile masses to believe: Birth. Life. Death. No why!
I know you don’t meet many atheists, but I don’t even fit in with my fellow atheists. I laugh when I hear my atheist brethren want to remove god from our currency. Why? What will that prove? Only make the theists close ranks.
However, being an atheist reminds me of an Oscar Wilde quote: “Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.” Since only a few brave souls agree with me, I feel I must be closer to the truth than the theists. Even if two billion Christians believe a stupid idea, it is still a stupid idea. Sheer numbers just don’t count. There are atheists, and there are people who obviously have no clue about what is actually going on.
However, I have no problem with children saying the Pledge of Allegiance with one nation under god…although I wonder how many people know “under God” wasn’t added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954 as a way to differentiate the suddenly god-fearing USA from the godless Soviet Union. Apparently, god wasn’t important enough to be added to the Allegiance until then…strange since the Pledge’s first incarnation was in 1892!
Definitely evolution not creationism. Obviously evolution not intelligence design. Do you know that in a recent survey by Science, when Americans were presented with the question “Did humans develop from earlier species of animals?” 60% of Americans said that they did NOT believe in evolution. While 80% or more of the people in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, and England said that they accept the science of evolution. Of the thirty-four civilized countries surveyed, only a Muslim country, Turkey, was less likely to believe in evolution than America. Once again Bushworld is lagging behind the learning curve, retreating back to the dark ages. Hell, the survey revealed that even Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Estonia know evolution is real!

Enough about Anna Nicole Smith

Hello anyone...someone please tell me why I am suppose to care about Anna Nicole Smith...Why I am suppose to care about a strung out ex-stripper who had nothing to offer the world but her train wreck of a life...it is outrageous how much money all the news channels, especially the cable news channels have made peddling this insipid story....do you know that over 120 soldiers have died since Anna's death...over 120 American soldiers died fighting for this country...Why are there no news stories about them? Even Fox Made Up News, who claims its supports the troops, showed over 50 videos on Anna, and only one video about the Walter Reed scandal, which technically didn't cover the 120 soldiers who died...only the news crawlers update the body counts...nameless, faceless soldiers die every day...where is our sympathy for them??? what am I missing? Anna matters more than our soldiers? Is Anna a way for people to avoid what is happening in Iraq, the Walter Reed debacle, Libby's conviction, the Gonzales Attorney General Scandal, the abuses of the Patriotic Act, etc...etc...All the news seems to care about is Anna Nicole...Why? I read that 29,000 children die everyday around the world from neglect, poverty, and disease. Anna died 29 days ago. Do the math. Why are there no stories about the hundred of thousands of children who have died since the strung out stripper died? 14% of Americans live at the poverty level or below. Many of them children. Yet, you don't see shows about those issues....just more about Anna, Howard K, and Birkhead...and Why do multi-millionaires like Angelina and Brad adopt kids from around the world but not children from here in America. If our adoption system is so bad here, why don't Angelina and Brad and Madonna use their influence to fix the madness here instead of adopting kids from around the world. I have always believed in taking care of your own first...and why do we clamor for more about Britney, Lindsey, and Paris. What do they offer the world? Why am I suppose to care about them again? Or the husband who cut his wife in half? Why is that news? How does that story better my life or increase my knowledge of the world? Remember the astronaut story that had everyone riveted until Anna died? Forgot about her didn't ya! Why do we care about an airhead-blonde stripper, who had nothing to really offer the world? True, her son tragically died, but so did hundred of thousands of other children. Is our sympathy and concern for the strung-out stripper and her family our way of caring about the insignificant, innocent children who die every minute of every day without notice, without fanfare? Think of all the money the cable networks and the regular channels have made selling Anna Nicole Smith. I wonder how many children the money could have saved from dying...stop watching the Anna disaster...stop the madness...force television and cable to cover stories that matter....not human train wrecks...not strung out strippers....think of how many children died while you were reading this. Hope you didn't miss the latest crumb about Anna....

Homophobic Baptists and the Atheist

Hello again all...I am a born-again atheist. I don't really want to be an atheist. The simple idea of you are born in pain, live in pain, and die in pain, then become worm fodder, is one bleak story. However, the current state of Christianity leaves much to be desire...I wonder why God actually talks with Pat Roberson? And why didn't God tell Pat where and when the nuclear attack was going to happen? God did say nuclear, or so Pat claims. Think maybe God watches 24? If I told my friends God spoke with me last night, they would have me committed. I digress...
The latest Born Again Yappist mania is from the President of the leading Southern Yappist seminary, Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., who came up with this gem...first he went against the grain and said there is scientific research that "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality...the conservative right-wing lunatic fringe must be boiling since they know homosexuality is really a choice...like I choose to be straight anymore than someone chooses to be gay....and I wonder why the Yappist's God is homophobic? First Timothy points out that God is misogynistic: "Women cannot teach or have authority over man: she must remain silent." The Catholics have made good on that misogyny, but the Catholics let pedophiles teach the word of God, but keep them women from preaching...keep them women silent...so I guess God is homophobic and misogynistic....I digress again...
but Mr. Mohler's real gem of thinking is that he would support the possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's orientation to heterosexual but tinkering with the unborn...never mind the fact the such gene or genes would be tied to other aspects of social and sexual behavior. If Big Religion cannot make people straight by changing their minds and making them choose to be heterosexual, or by forcing them to be straight, then they are willing to try prenatal techniques to reverse homosexuality....Mohler believes: " I realize this sounds very offensive to homosexuals, but it's the only way a Christian can look at it. We should have no more problem with that than treating any medical problem."..Paging Dr. Mengele....Paging Dr. Mengele, white courtesy telephone....even more chilling is a quote from Rev. Joseph Fessio, a prominent Roman Catholic thinker and homophobe....."Same-sex activity is considered a disorder. If there are ways of detecting diseases or disorders of children in the womb, and a way of treating them that respected the dignity of the child and mother, it would be a wonderful advancement of science." And these are the same people against stem-cell research...We spend more time and money legislating and trying to cure homosexuality and making Muslims Republicans than we do feeding the poor, helping seniors get their medicines, or helping the homeless....I wonder if the right wing lunatic fringe for war and intolerance thinks Mary Chaney, Dick's daughter, is immoral?

Then General Pace makes his brilliant statement that homosexuality is immoral...there are 65,000 gay people serving in the military. So when a gay soldier dies in Iraq or Afghanistan, his or her death doesn't matter since he or she is immoral. Do gay soldier deaths figure into the body count? Nah. One way to keep the body count down. I guess the families of the dead gay soldiers don't grieve for the loss of their sons and daughters...They're relieved. I guess gay soldiers are not heroic and don't serve their country with honor...when gay soldiers die, the world is a better place...no death with dignity for gay soldiers...and people wonder why I am an atheist...

We heterosexuals have committed incest for years...is that not immoral? Why not stop incest in the womb? Heterosexual marriage has fostered mental, verbal, physical, and verbal abuse for years....isn't that immoral? why not stop abuse in the womb? Christians refuse to see their own immorality. The Born Again Yappists only see gay people as immoral, when we straight people have been immoral for years....Why aren't the Yappists against everything immoral? Why pick only on Gays? Why not be fair and see the immorality in straight people too..and what about bigotry and hatred and intolerance? Isn't that immoral too? Why can't we eliminate those traits? I guess when God is homophobic and misogynistic, it follows God's followers would be homophobic and misogynistic too...I wonder who created whom in their image...seems humans have created a God in their image more than a God created humans in God's image....guess the line in the Bible "don't judge lest you be judged" is only a suggestion....another of God's many contradictions...God is such a trickster...I have a hard time with Yappists because I have heard several delusional Born-agains actually say Catholics are not Christians...the arrogant and ignorance of that statement...Yappist really believe they are the only ones that will be saved....the Yappist's God is bigger than every one's else God. What if God and Jesus are really Catholics??? I didn't know religion has become my God is bigger than your God....but I digress again...
Morality is the false hope we are redeemable, with conscience...we are the Christian nation that wiped out the native Americans. We are the Christian nation who enslaved blacks and openly lynched them for years. We are the Christian nation, the only nation, who dropped two nuclear bombs on another country. We are the Christian nation whose hands are covered in blood. Morality is a human creation to relieve our guilty conscience of the heinous horrors we have inflicted on each other since civilization began. When exactly was civilization totally civil? Moral?... I digress....

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Vietnam and Iraq

Hello again...my only solace about Iraq is that the same drum beat was sounded during Vietnam...if we leave Vietnam, it is victory for the Communists....if we don't win in Vietnam, we will be fighting the Communists in America...The Bush and Chaney mantra...plus, you are for us or against us...you support the troops or you support the terrorists....wouldn't it be nice if the Republicans changed their two note message....had a new idea...what happened to the new way forward??? well, we did leave Vietnam, and the dominoes didn't fall...the Communists didn't take over America and the world...we didn't end up fighting the Communists in the streets of America...and most importantly, we didn't bankrupt the country...so Reagan could outspend the Russians in the 1980s and Russia went bankrupt...we may have lost a war in Vietnam, a police action, war was never declared, but we ended up winning the war against Communism and Russia...maybe that is the lesson Bush needs to learn...that and the civil war in Iraq should not be confused with the war on terror...two different wars....amazing that people cannot see the difference...the Sunni fighting the Shiite are not going to attack America...the Shiite fighting the Shiite are not interesting in attacking America...they are fighting a civil war...remember in the election Bush bagged about, the Sunni did not vote or participate....the Sunni did vote on the Iraqi constitution and the Sunni against it....sure sounds like a civil war to me...not a war on terror...there was no Taliban in Iraq before Bush invaded...I have not seen any proof to support the claim of Saddam harboring terrorists...only in Chaney's pipe dreams...I totally support the war on terror. I am against our participation in a civil war in Iraq...we tried aiding a Civil War in Vietnam and failed...maybe Bush can learn from history...


Lastly, Bush invented reasons to attack Saddam and Iraq...there are plenty of evil dictators left in the world...however, most don't have oil...and if you don't think oil factored into Bush's decision to invade Iraq, go back and listen to some of his speeches before the 2006 election. I paraphrase: we are fighting in Iraq to keep the extremists from controlling the oil fields and holding the oil hostage. Read about the troubles with the Iraq Oil Deal being discussed. Bush wants to have a say in Iraq's oil production and Iraq doesn't want the West interfering with its Ministry of Oil...but a deal was agreed on recently by Iraq's cabinet, allowing foreign oil companies to cut long-term exploration and development deals with the government for 20 years, renewable for another five years...however, there is already strong opposition against the deal...Moqtada al-Sadr for one...the Iraqi parliamentarians just want to know the details...and the Iraqi oil unions are against the agreement too...sure sounds more life civil strife to me....more ammunition for the civil war Bush created...all in the name of terror...

Independent Ranting

Hello all...welcome to my first blog, post, and rant...I find it amazing how the right wing doesn't think perjury is a crime...or raping the constitution...Scooter Libby didn't do anything wrong...lying to a Grand Jury is fine if you are a Republican, but if you are a Democrat, say President Clinton, perjury is a crime against humanity...an impeachable offense....and yes, Clinton was President while Libby was only part of the President's inner circle...but Libby, Chaney, and Rove did nothing wrong, didn't commit a crime...although to most sane people, perjury is a crime...violates the whole legal system...just ask Clinton...and the party of morals, values, and families supports Libby's lies...guess the commandment Thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor is only a suggestion for Conservatives and a commandment for Liberals...ten commandments or ten suggestions...Perjury is still a crime...President Clinton lied about fellatio and playing with a cigar...I am not condoning what he did...or Gingrich either, but Clinton's lies didn't cost 3,100 soldiers and counting their lives...didn't cost us taxpayers 400 billion dollars and counting which could have been used for a litany of positive causes...say increasing the VA budget...amazing how the Right Wing thinks it is the only party that supports the troops, but most if not all Conservative mouthpieces and lap dogs have ignored the whole Walter Reed fiasco and the fact Bush has cut the VA budget time after time during his war...thankfully Gates had some balls and axed three people....the 400 billion and counting dollars could have been used to fight the War on Terror, which needs to be fought with intelligence. 9-11 could have been averted with better intelligence...but intelligence is something Bush knows little about...Libby, Chaney, and the gang lie about Saddam purchasing yellowcake, the WMDs, Iraq and Saddam had something to do with 9-11, Saddam was harboring terrorists, Saddam was going to attack the USA., etc, etc...a war based on lies and deception...Vietnam ring a bell...the mystery bullet fired at the Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin...Iraq and Vietnam are twins....the dominoes will fall versus the axis of evil...both wars were instigated...no-bid government contracts a plenty...Halliburton...the country turned against both wars over time...but the Right Wing simply turns their heads about the lies that lead to the war in Iraq...perjury is no crime when it is Bush, Chaney, Libby and gang, but Clinton's perjury was a crime....I am still amazed at the hypocrisy in Bushworld....as for the Democrats, I hope they one day find a clue. The Left Wing has as many plans to the end the war in Iraq as the number of soldiers that have died fighting the war. My favorite was the plan to change the initial War Resolution, which is a good idea, but they wanted three provisions for the mission, one being the troops can only engage the Taliban...like the Taliban are going to be wearing bright red shirts, identifying them, separating them from the Shiite and the Sunni...great idea...I like that the Democrats debate ideas and have slightly turned the tables on the Republicans...but they lack a consensus and a focus that the Republicans have in their genes...the Dems come across as clueless...so the lunacy continues....now, we have learned the Patriotic Act was abused...what a shock....and The Attorney General fired conservative Attorney Generals who weren't conservative enough and who had the balls to actually follow the Constitution that Bushworld ignores and rapes....one AG was released so Rove could give his aide a job....another provision buried in the Patriot Act that replacements can be appointed indefinitely without confirmation hearings and the consent of the Congress....let King George appoint whoever he wants to enforce his agenda instead of following the confirmation process required before the hidden Patriot Act provision...who needs the constitution and rules in Bushworld anyway....but at least the Democrats have awaken from their six year coma and have some oversight and subpoena powers now...all amazing to me...the two party system is in shambles...wonder what the framers and founders think of Bushworld....and what Oliver Wendell Holmes thinks since he wrote: "The principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.".....enough for now...more later....