Thursday with the girls

I have dinner and a show tonight with Nancy and Nicole and that's going to be a lot of fun.

So, today I've been working on commercial deals. They take longer, but they're more reliable. And, they're completely within my own control for producing them as packages, which is a good thing.

The other day, while waiting for sanity to return..

The events of last week to me were so shocking - up until now, we've not been faced with direct affront to the Constitution. Everything in my lawyer trained brain has been chipping away at edges. Last week, we had direct affront and direct assertion that "those rules don't apply to us."

I've changed how I respond to Neoconic conversation. Most of the time, I'd try to counter their assertions with gentle facts and my own logic. Now, I'm directly questioning their sources and logic (especially after some kind assistance from Guy in focusing my dissatisfaction.) "Where did you hear THAT? Who said it? Where did they get their facts?"

Why does this work? Because it's a valid form of argument and debate.

BROOKS: But, so you think "OK, get out." On the other hand, if we leave....we could see 250,000 Iraqis die -- you had the John Burns quotation earlier in the program. So are we willing to prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month at the cost of 125 Americans?

WOODWARD: And the problem, though, is we don't know. People can say, "Oh, it's going to be a disaster." I mean, you've -- you cite numbers which are pulled out of the air -- "10,000 dying" -- I mean that's -- where does that come from?

BROOKS: Well, A, it comes from John Burns. Second, it comes from the national intelligence...

WOODWARD: Well, no, he doesn’t say 10,000.

BROOKS: Well, no, no, but it talks about genocide.

WOODWARD: Yeah.

BROOKS: So I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.

They just make this shit up. We're going to see how long these ideas hold up when scrutinized. It ought to last about as long as "welfare mothers driving Cadillacs" and "illegal immigrants swamping the emergency rooms for free health care" bullshit.

We were talking about the movie "Sicko" the other day, and how it was portraying our health care "system" as fundamentally broken. That group's resident neocon was carrying on about how the doctors would leave, how there weren't enough good doctors now because of malpractice lawsuits, how the Big Pharma wouldn't research new drugs if they couldn't make a profit blah, blah, blah.

If there's even a lingering question in your mind about those points, or if you're still convinced that medical treatment in another country is a danger to your health (as did the lawyer who recently violated a "no travel" order from the CDC and traveled on commercial air carriers with a particularly nasty strain of TB) then you should read this.

Someone was telling me the other day that a hospice worker in a large medical facility associated with the US Government was alarmed that they were treating ten patients terminal with Mad Cow disease, for which there is no cure. This worker asserted that the US Government was intent on that humans were catching Mad Cow in the US out of the awareness of the population, so that the dead cow industry (including steak houses, McDonald's, and the monolithic food production corporations) could continue to abuse illegal migrant workers and pump cheap beef into our food supply. I'm going to do some searching of media articles on Mad Cow infections in humans to see if there is anything going on about this.

Okay, so you can concede that the Neoconic social arguments may have flaws, but after all they're just SO GOOD for the economy. Are ya sure, bunky?

The huge deficits that were created by the government's choices and the tax cuts are bearing down upon us, and it was the CLINTON administration's financial goodness that provided them with the cushion to transfer all of this wealth to the wealthy. And, the policies of this government disincentivize the next governments to change anything.

Just so you're clear - YOU reading this are NOT one of the wealthy persons who received a penny's benefit from all of this "robust economy."

And, and just so you're REALLY clear, the "fix" for social security isn't to have privatization, it's to index the benefits age to life expectancy and to raise the SS tax. A smidge.

If you're thinking that the Bush tax cuts "trickled down" into the economy as did Reagan's, you're smoking that voodoo weed (with credit to G.H.W. Bush, who called Reagan's "trickle down" plan "voodoo economics during the 1980 Republican primaries. Or did you not remember that?) there is now data, numbers, proof that it's not that way.

When Bush took office, the Dow was at 13,851. Most of the increase has been because of the corporate tax rate cuts that, conservatively, have added 20% to ALL stock prices. If you deflate the Dow (which is not an indicator that the economy is generally healthy for normal people - it's an indicator that the economy for fund managers, stock brokers and the investor class is healthy) by that amount, the Dow WOULD be at 11,081 - or a mere 381 points higher than nearly seven years ago.

Now factor in inflation and you have ... ? Not a Goddamned thing. They have not advanced the economy by the SOLE MEASURE THAT THEY CAN POINT TO by squat.

Good job on that voting booth choice there. You keep that sort of thing up, and we're going to be an amusement park for foreign tourists. ALL TERROR, ALL THE TIME! WHOOT! Vote for the Fright wing! They'll protect us!

Bram had a dream about me the other night that I was killed in a car jacking. The next night, Brian had a dream about me that I was living in Cuba - because Cuba was such a great place to live. In his dream, Cuba's current environment hadn't changed an iota, but the rest of the world had fallen apart, so it was now a paradise.

If any single point in this blog made you sit up and think "oh my, well .. " and you're wondering why we're here politically, it's because THIS is all anyone is willing to talk about.



If you're more concerned about John Edward's haircut than you are about what they're doing with your tax money and your Constitution, then you deserve to live in a shithole that makes Cuba look like paradise. I'll send you a postcard.

No politics. Not a shred. Nope. It's safe to read.

Where to start?

First of all, I love my new teakettle. It's pepper red, it's awesome, and it's slower than Vermont syrup in winter. The box had instructions (who knew?) that advise one shouldn't ever use high heat, only medium at most.

You have any idea how long it takes to heat water on medium heat?

However, the teakettle heats the water VERY hot. I made coffee this morning with the cool drip thing I got at the House of Coffee beans and a pot of water which had just been whistling on the stove. The coffee drips down through the paper filter (containing the coffee) and straight into the carafe. It (the coffee) was HOT. Like, tongue burning lava hot.

It was awesome!

Then, I took off the red bed stuff ('cause I was bored with it after three or four years) and replaced it with the beige. I like it. Now, I REALLY hate the sky blue paint in there.

I also swept, and dusted, and tidied. And as you know, railed about politics a while.

Picked up the dry cleaning. $29 for five pair of trousers and five shirts. Talked to the TV repair guy whose shop is next to the dry cleaner. He thinks that the TV can be easily repaired - I'll have to get Bram to help take it over there. He has a gorgeous Samsung LCD television that I'm really in love with.

This evening, Guy came over to hang out a little - he had a programmable thermostat that is vertically oriented and cooler than the one I already had, which tomorrow is going to the church. Vertically oriented, it covers the wallpaper that was behind the old Honeywell thermostat that we replaced back in March. Then, he went into the attic and balanced the air flow through the air handler - so now there is less air going into the front to bedrooms and a lot more coming out downstairs and into my room. YAY!

Larry and I were emailing today back and forth. He always has something going with his friends; tomorrow, people coming over to his place to hang out and have burgers on the grill. It's just crazy - I sit here most days alone (save and except for my computer) because there's no one to play with or hang out with.

Makes me think about moving to Dallas. Again.

Was talking to David, my best friend from college the other day. I was joking with him that someone in one of my yahoo groups was asking why we hadn't seen any new work from the porn star who is the reason for the group - I knew that said porno person lived in South Africa and was hard to get out of there to DO the work. I suggested to David that porn stars have expiry dates, and his was long past - he replied that he was actually going to use said pornpers in a movie next month, and was just then working on his airline ticket.

So, I pitched in and helped. He was quite stunned that I should know the rough airline connections between Johannesburg and the US; but, I do. I just can't help myself.

Saved him about $600.

It's almost time to head up to bed to get some sleep before church in the morning.

How does Bush feel about Roe vs. Wade?

He really doesn't care how the poor leave New Orleans.

So, a few days ago (if you clicked through and read the article about neocons and their unadulterated thoughts) we learned that the entitled, white, wealthy neocons believe that everyone other than themselves should be .. um .. killed, shunned or working in indentured servitude for them. And that Europe and England were overrun by Muslims and were basically lost to us. Well, not us - to them.

Now it's time for you to do some work. And for those who don't LIKE to have to think, ponder, consider, weigh, or evaluate, I'll give you the bullet points:

* The Bush administration has arguably (well, not really, but people will say it's not so) made it illegal to speak out again their policies at all
* The US Justice Department has been completely politicized to the extent that only the intentions of the Executive will be pursued
* The most important courts in the land have been completely politicized to the extent that only the intentions of the Executive will be enforced
* It is no longer possible to bring suit against the Federal Government to invalidate laws or policies on constitutional basis unless you can prove actual damage
* The Executive has declared itself above and beyond Congressional oversight, and declared itself exemption from subpoena, hearing, or testimony on issues that the Executive wishes not to speak about
* The mainstream media with very little exception is promoting the mission and message of the Executive
* The Executive is telling us that another significant terror attack is about to happen
* When it does, you can expect that these items set forth above will be used to suspend the national elections, prevent court challenges to the Executive's actions, take firm control of the media - including the internet, suspend the Bill of Rights (those parts of it not already suspended - just wait until they make private ownership of guns illegal) and likely suspend the Congress.

The actions taken without resistance by the People, the Congress and the media are nearly identical to those taken in Nazi Germany that allowed Hitler to declare the opposing political party members to be traitors and criminals, to dissolve their party, arrest and detain those political leaders and end any opposition to their policies. You should remember that the Nazi regime was the most financially corrupt of any organized government EVER in modern history - something that we here in the US are encroaching on as a record.

But, go ahead and think about what movie you're going to to watch this weekend - it's not like it's really going to change or anything.

A little click through here to listen to Reagan's assistant Secretary of the Treasury telling us that these folks are about to suspend the constitution and make USAmerica a police state. Unless we act RIGHT NOW.

Which is about as likely to happen as me getting out on a ladder today and painting the front of the house - us acting right now.

Of course, what if we all changed course against all predictable outcomes and began to actually scream, holler and pitch fits?

The government could seize all of your property, that's what. This woman's writing about this new tack is succinct and direct, and brings in historical elements that you should be aware of.

Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States
By Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers 7-19-7


In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens,
the American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing
all forms of protest against the Iraq war.

President Bush enacted into US law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th
titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization
Efforts in Iraq", and which says:

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and
the laws of the United States of America, including the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the
National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section
301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find
that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and
foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the
peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic
reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian
assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States
to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in
Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315
of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive
Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004."

According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they state, are written 'so broadly' as to outlaw all forms of protest against the war.

These provisions state:

"(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of
this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury
in a timely manner of the measures taken."

To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts, that
says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word 'services' has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi war is, in fact, supporting the 'enemy' and therefore threatens the 'stabilization of Iraq'.

In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as reported by the Seattle Times News Service:


"The [Patriot] act also expands the use of National Security Letters, which are a kind of warrant that the Justice Department writes for itself, authorizing its agents to seize such things as records of money movements, telephone calls and Internet visits. Recipients of a National Security Letter are not allowed to tell anyone about them, and so cannot contest them."

It is interesting to note, too, that this is not the first time that the United States has unleashed the brutal power of their government against its citizens to further their war aims and stifle domestic dissent, as during the European conflict of World War I they enacted a law called The Sedition Act of 1918 and which ...forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war."

It is curious to note that after the enactment of this new law there has been no protest by any of the other political leaders in the United States, with the exception of the only Muslim member of the United States Congress, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, and who compared President Bush to the Nazi War Leader Adolph Hitler by stating the attacks upon the World Trade Center could be likened to the burning of the Reichstag.

Today, as the United States faces an imminent economic collapse, while at the same time its war bill has reached the staggering amount of $648 billion, one of the last freedoms the American people have had to protest their leaders actions against them, and other peoples in the World, has now been taken away from them, the freedom to speak and write in opposition to what is being done to them.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.", said the great British writer George Orwell, but, and sadly, liberty has been lost to the once free people of the United States who are no longer allowed to tell their leaders, or each other, what they don't want to hear.

With this being so, the American people should, likewise, contemplate their 'new' future, and as, also, stated best by George Orwell, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

C July 19, 2007 EU and US all rights reserved.

Neocon jokes

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, by way of Harper's magazine...



Q: What do you get when you cross a neocon with a lemming?

A: Peace.

* * *

Q. How many neocons does it take to screw in a light bulb.

A. None. God won’t let their light bulbs go out. And it’s an impertinent question.

or

A. None. George Bush predicts the light bulb will be fully capable of changing itself within 3 months.

* * *

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Joe Lieberman are all flying over New Orleans in a Blackhawk, surveying the progress that has been made in rebuilding the city and the levees. As they fly over the Ninth Ward, Cheney looks out the window, grins, and says, “You know, I could throw a thousand-dollar bill out the window right now and make one of those poor bastards very happy.”

Bush says, “Well, I could throw ten hundred-dollar bills out the window right now and make TEN people very happy.”

Not to be outdone, Lieberman chimes in, “Oh yeah? Well, I could throw a hundred $10 bills out the window and make a HUNDRED Americans very happy.”

Hearing this, the copter pilot rolls his eyes and says, “Man, I could throw all three of you out the window and make 300 million Americans very happy.”

What if this has been a long-range plan coming to fruition?

Turns out that these neocons who have our country by the throat were going to try it in 1934:

1934: The Plot Against America

I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

The Plot Against America portrayed in this episode of the BBC series “Document” gives fascinating insight into a dark and little known piece of American history in which the nation stood on the brink of betrayal. The role of the most powerful political dynastic family in the nation’s history in this whole affair is shocking.

Then, there's this ...

The Birchers from Digby, July 27, 2007

by tristero

The blogosphere seems astounded that Glenn Beck fluffed a John Bircher. In fact, it really should surpise no one. There is no ideological difference of any importance between modern conservatives and the John Birch Society, something I noted in my very first post, dated February 14, 2003:

In October of '02, I made a speech to a parent's gathering at my daughter's school about the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that speech I asserted that the Bush administration had been mistakenly classified by the press as "conservative." Instead, they are right-wing extremists with "intellectual" ties to the nuts of the Kennedy era, like Curtis Lemay or the John Birch Society members.

What follows is adopted from a post I wrote in September of '04.

The John Birch Society arose in the late 50's and rapidly grew to considerable prominence. It is worth noting that the Birchers were thought to be so extreme that William F. Buckley himself denounced them in the pages of National Review. Among their goals were:

1. The abolition of the graduated income tax.

2. The repeal of social security legislation.

3. The impeachment of various high government officials,

4..The end to busing for the purpose of school integration.

5. The end to U.S. membership in the United Nations.

As you can see, these goals, which were, 40 years ago, the platform of an extremist group on the fringes of American politics, are the all but spoken platform of the Bush administration and the modern Republican party. We have seen numerous attempts to eliminate the income tax; Bush has proposed changes to Social Security that will send it down the road to extinction; Bill Clinton was impeached and Governor Gray Davis of California removed from office; the busing issue has morphed into an intense focus of the easier-to-frame affirmative action; and the Bush administration, on the issue of Iraq and in many other ways, great and small, has worked assiduously to bypass the United Nations and make the actions of the UN worthless (see this notorious article by Perle for a neo-Bircher perspective.).

It is useful to read Bircher literature because, if for no other reason, it will give you insight into what underlies some -perhaps a lot - of the secular components of Bush's worldview.

Birch Society Founder Robert Welch believed that "an elite international cabal...is seeking to establish a world tyranny." In the U.S., that cabal was centered in the Council on Foreign Relations. Of course, Welch and his followers were convinced that Franklin Roosevelt was a communist and that the New Deal was pure socialism. But the Birchers went further. Some of the abettors of the vast communist conspiracy Welch saw as an imminent danger to freedom were President Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles.

But there is more, much more, to the Birchers than just this. At one point, the Birchers had "a minimum of 6,600 corporate-financed anticommunist broadcasts, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations at a total annual budget of about $20 million," which was an enormous sum in the early 60's.

Important Birch Society members were close to the Bush family and the close relationship between the families has continued to the present. The Birchers had major sponsors among Texas oilmen, of course, men like H.L.Hunt and J. Howard Pew. President George H. W. Bush was close enough to the Hunt family to say that H.L. Hunt's wife was "one of the loveliest human beings I have ever encountered." In the fall of 2004, the ambassador to Saudi Arabia is James C. Oberwetter; he was appointed by Bush II, and he was a high ranking member of the oil company founded by H.L. Hunt.

In short, the intellectual tradition, if you can call it that, that underlies Bushism is a branch of the conservative movement that's grown directly from the trunk of a crackpot tree. Since the 60's, the heirs to the Birchers dropped the more bizarre claims (no one's talking too much anymore about Eisenhower being a communist), and learned ways to disguise what they say (Dave Neiwert has written brilliantly on this; for a start, download his "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism"). But they haven't lost sight of their end goal: to create an America fully in sync with Robert Welch's core vision.

Take, for example, the UN. Naturally, the role that an international organization might have in world affairs is a complex and subtle topic. However, the criticism and contempt Bush heaps on the UN does not address any of the real issues involved, nor can it, because it descends not from a serious intellectual engagement with the concepts, but from paranoid rumination.

The Bush administration's view of the UN and and the views of their apologists are directly analogous to the creationist assault on evolution. In both cases, there are serious issues and differences to be hashed out (how to respond to genocide/whether the punctuated equilibrium model fits the evidence for evolution). And in both cases, the people who are heaping the most scorn and garnering the most attention are completely unqualified for a serious, useful discussion.

So this says to me that all we're seeing is the success of these bastards (I want to call them cocksuckers, but that would make Fern's point to me when I visited Wendy in 1988, and I won't do it) in accomplishing their aims.

I've also read today that ALL of the military planning has been from the American Enterprise Institute on Iraq. NONE of it's coming from the Pentagon or from the Generals on the spot. All of it through Cheney.

Further to what I posted earlier

Here is a five page article in which Neocons, unedited and observed in their natural habitat, tell it the way they see it.

Compare this long tome to what I cross posted this morning, and tell me whether you understand the writer's viewpoint from this morning more clearly.

The serendipity of the two coming hot on each other's heels is nearly too much to bear.

Ah, Bill in Portland Maine

This guy is someone who's regular posts on Kos make me smile. I'm just going to show you the whole thing:

Iraq will become a Shiite theocracy.

General Patraeus will eventually be thrown on the scrapheap with all the other generals who displeased President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Vengeance Lieberman. A few months after he resigns he'll tell a congressional subcommittee that the Commander-in-Chief is insane.

The next "general" to be put in charge of Iraq will be a private contractor from Blackwater. Within 30 seconds of his appointment Senator Lindsay Graham will praise the amazing progress that "Skullcrusher Tim" is making.

"Atrios" is really Walter Cronkite. Duncan Black is his doorman.

Homes will soon be so cheap that they'll be offered as a free gift with the purchase of a flat-screen TV.

Free gift is redundant.

The first blogger to win a Pulitzer Prize will be either Digby or Glenn Greenwald.

The Catholic church isn’t sorry for its behavior during its decades-long, hierarchy-wide orgy with children. It is sorry, however, for getting caught. This is also true for whorehouse-frequenting "fidelity hawk" David Vitter, a sitting United States Senator whom children used to look up to but no longer do.

America's government is in a constitutional crisis but it's no big deal.

President Bush is to Congress as Cat is to Cat Box.

Democratic candidates who advocate for the poor must be poor themselves or else they're hypocrites. Democrats who promote environmental responsibility must stop using electricity and gas altogether or they're hypocrites. Republicans may flaunt their wealth and have sex with whores without penalty.

It's currently the middle of July. If you blink it'll be December.

Some clips from an article that I found speaks for me

This is from Daily Kos' poster AndyS in Colorado:

The first thing you should know about me is, I have Republican and right wing friends and family.

You should not take this in any way as approving of you, your philosophy, or the way those prominent people among you have destroyed and ruined not only the country, but the ability of some of us to even view you as fellow countrymen.

Nevertheless, I recognize the ability (unlike many of you) the need to "go along to get along".

To me, you "all" have destroyed civility, dialog, and compatriotship. Not me. To me, we are not fellow Americans, but only because you have made being fellow Americans impossible. We are Americans, you are something else. And I will not get into that here.

See, I don't want to destroy you, at least, not as human beings (I may very well want to destroy your political party). Instead, I want you to hit bottom.

So the first, Republican friends: These are business colleagues. I had no choice in their political affiliations. One of them told me, "All liberals should be lined up against a wall and shot", without provocation of any sort. He was smiling when he said it, but his eyes were cold. He meant it. Nevertheless, he and I are quite friendly and that relationship continues to this day. But, you should not confuse a necessary relationship with an optional one. And you should realize, even from these people, my attitude towards you all is informed by those people.

The second: Republican family: I barely talk to them anymore, in some sense, to my sorrow, in another sense, thanks to my final inability to take any more nonsense.

Other than those two categories, I have no Republican friends, nor do I wish for any.

Bill O'Reilly may state that liberals "hate" you. This is a distortion, but there is an element of juvenile truth in that observation, and I will explain the how and the why:

First of all, I despise the Republican predeliction for demonizing everything and everyone who (and that) does not conform to your ideology. It's not just that "you" started it, it's that the leaders of your movement, which you evidently approve of, continue it, with no evidence of contrition, remorse, or even will to desist.

What you may think you are seeing as "hate", I ask you to consider, as a somewhat dimmer reflection of your own hate, reflected back at you. And, like a reflection, it is a projection, the reflection of which will stop as soon as y'all stop emitting the radiation.

For me, as a gay man, it is very similar to a homophobe telling me I'm "intolerant" of them. Well, yes, that may be true, in terms of being intolerant of the intolerant, but only because homophobes tell me things like I should be put into a gas chamber, or a concentration camp. And, yes, I have been told those things directly.

In fact, I take it back -- it's exactly the same.

It's a point of human nature that those you hate will tend to hate you back, or at the very least, dislike you. I know of very few people (even so-called "Christians") who can rise above this basic human instinct to dislike those who dislike you. Yes, the Christian tradition tells its adherents to "love their enemies", though apparently very few of their followers actually seem to observe it.

And here is the rub, and a big part of the reason I consider Bill O'Reilly and all those like him, at best juvenile. What I would ask him: Just what the hell do you expect?

I will confess, unless you fit into the two categories listed above as people I have to deal with, I don't want anything to do with you.

You are not welcome in my home. I will not offer to sit down with you over a cup of coffee. I do not wish to speak with you or hear anything you have to say.

That is not because I am a hateful person -- exactly the opposite. It is because I have, finally, had enough of your (or at least, your political movement's) hate.


We are back, and we're done taking crap from you. So the best thing for your movement to do would be to dump your Ann Coulters, your Rush Limbaughs, your Newt Gingrich's and your Bill O'Reillys, your Michael Savages, your Michelle Malkins, your Jonah Goldbergs .. see? the list is endless. If you think you are better than them, then dump them in the garbage where they belong. And stop demonizing "liberals" as an entire group.

And maybe, just maybe, you should avoid slurs such as "Democrat" when "Democratic" is the appropriate word.

We will do the same, but we need good faith from you first, since your movement, by and large, started the hatemongering as a political tool. Nothing less will do than good faith first from you, for me.

If you genuinely are bewildered at so-called "liberal hate" you have only to read Daily Kos for a while, and witness the daily body dump of right wing hatred and contempt for us, to realize why.

If you want a real dialog, a productive dialog, it is possible, but not under the conditions your movement has fostered, and the conditions it has maintained.

If you want to fix it, and have a dialog, the proper time for a dialog is when you have communicated with your movement's leaders, and reformed yourselves. Until then, I believe, you are simply pissing in the wind. Some, well, ok, many of us are done with you.
If you want to have a dialog with me, you cannot have it under conditions of either direct or proxy contempt.

And, I'm sorry, but that's not unreasonable, or in any way, even remotely, "hateful".

Goodbye, and good luck.

My first dream with MOT and with guns!

So, in this dream, you and I and my parents were driving along in my red car on the I-45 feeder road near Lone Star Ford, and there was a white SUV in front of us that was parked with one driver side door open, and a very well dressed black man standing there.

He glared at me - I hadn't pulled up very close, but there was no way to go around him and I was just waiting.

He pulled out a VERY large handgun and I put the car in reverse and hit the gas. He fired a single shot as I flew backwards, trying to avoid the traffic that was behind me.

Then, we were driving around, trying to avoid the minions he had sent out to find us. A white guy in a blue van pulled up alongside and before I saw his gun, I stamped on the brake, changed direction and hit the gas hard.

We finally pulled into what looked like a rural and nearly abandoned group of lake front cottages and I pulled all the way into the back. The people who occupied one of these ramshackle places came out to see why were were pulling in behind their house, and we all went inside. They were very welcoming.

After a while, my dad suggested that we should go back out and try to go home. We drove home without incident, but when I opened my door - an intuition that something dangerous was inside.

And then - I woke up.

Only able to act in a manner consistent with the training

Yesterday, I drove to work (because it's Tom day - Tom the massage guy.) So, I drove into town (19 miles - at least a gallon and a half of gas plus 1.75 in tolls,) and parked. The car didn't move ALL day until 5:30 when I got into it to drive to the UPS store and to Tom's place behind the 611.

Then, I drove home - it was 7:00, so I thought I'd take the Katy Fwy, since it was SEVEN O'CLOCK and all - it took a fucking hour to get home. Two accidents. And another probably three gallons of gas (all the sitting and idling.)

Today, I'll ride the bus. It picks up on the corner by the door, costs a dollar and drops me off a block up the street from the office. Takes 45 minutes. The car will sit in the garage all day. I will read one of many of my spiritual or self-growth books that are unread on the way in. At any 10 minute interval after 4:00 that I want to go home, I walk two blocks to the stop and in 55 minutes, I'm homo.

For another dollar. And I'll read ANOTHER of my unread list on the way home.

Yet, I'd rather have my car. Amazing how we're conditioned.

Guy is telling me that emotion and other matters are far more involved here than is logic. Well, news flash - I have to FORCE the logic choice. This is why the work with the pattern and other than conscious beliefs are so important - otherwise, your conscious brain doesn't stand a chance.

Many years ago (well, four or five) Jenny Hunter used to tell me to break habits on a lower level - put the other sock on first. Tear apart your morning routine and do it all differently. Clean the kitchen differently. Do your laundry on a different day.

Lord, that woman knew what she was talking about.

What and where can I interrupt the patterned behavior by consciously forcing a different choice, and how will that show up in providing me with other, lesser visible but still controlling behavior patterns that I could force/choose to have be different?

The search re-continues.

Sunday - is it raining or sunny?

Or both? How many videos can one watch in one weekend?

We're wondering when or if the Comcastic technician is going to show up. Ah, he has just called. So, I advise Bram and .. Bram ensures that we get internetic. Or not.

There was a neighbor's non-secure wireless network that has been available from time to time - with about a single signal bar. Fun stuff. Hopefully, I'll be frustrating the neighborhood soon with big bad signal, totally locked down.

Just was amused a minute ago, responding to a potential client on guru.com. He's been pestering me since February. He wants 25 articles, 750 words in length, on various gay oriented subjects he has defined. He wants to pay $125 for the articles in toto. $.00666 per word. Back in March, when I found out that it was a for-profit web based naughty lingerie website he wanted these articles for. I said no. He has asked over and over - most times as if he didn't remember that we had talked. This morning, there was another message from him asking me why I kept sending him back messages saying that I wasn't interested.

Uh - which part of this is unequivocal?

Today, I replied by quoting him $75 per article, or $.10 per word. Hopefully, that will shut him down.

Reading, reading, reading about the various shenanigans in Washington and elsewhere. I'm feeling increasingly that there's a probability that the conservatives, especially those with fundamentalist religious ties, will be swept out of office come 2008. People (not here in Houston, except for the 16 of us that are "liberals") are fully aware that the Republicans are lock step with the President, and they don't like anything that they're seeing. The tax cuts - not working. People are increasingly frightened and insecure financially. The war? Don't get me started. Health care? That issue belongs in the ER.

I think that people are going to reflect on the promises of those who have governed us since 1994 (and don't be handing me that Bill Clinton hooey. He was no more liberal than was Dwight Eisenhower) and realize that it was all bunk.

"Politics is just like driving - you put it in "R" for reverse and "D" for forward.

My letter to Sirius Satellite Radio

From Daily Kos

The liberal channel is called "SIRIUS Left."

The conservative channel is called "SIRIUS Patriot."

SIRIUS Satellite Radio doesn't think you're patriotic. This is an obscenity.

SIRIUS's media relations representative for talk radio is Hillary Schupf. Her email is hschupf@siriusradio.com.

Hello Ms. Schupf -

I am an XM, not a Sirius subscriber. I've been an XM subscriber for about four years now, and have four radios on my account.

The choice of Sirius to define people who believe in any left of center politics and sociology as NOT patriotic is deeply disturbing and inconsistent with the founding principles of this country.

XM and Sirius are scheduled to merge.

If this remains the policy of Sirius, which appears to be the likely dominant entity in the proposed merger of XM and your firm, I can assure you that I can live without satellite radio as I did for the 43 years before I became an XM subscriber.

In the meantime, I intend to inform everyone with whom I have contact that XM does not so label persons who view life in a way that is not right of center as anti-American and that Sirius does. Perhaps that single market distinction can provide XM with sufficient advantage to avoid the need for the proposed merger.

Saturday quiet time

It looks like rain, but not raining. I'm just lap topping away and watching a DVD. Nothing else to do here, really at this point.

So, it seems that the Minnie Phaeton is gone. It will re-appear, probably, but the Phaeton popularity is on the mend. However, today I stumbled upon ANOTHER Phaeton, that's just gorgeous. GORGEOUS, do you hear me? Overpriced, though. Bleh. Black with black.

Bram seems to have found employment here in town, and he's very pleased with those prospects. Hopefully the Comcast people can fix the internet connection tomorrow ... bleh.

Phaeton Phantasm

Yeah, I'm all up for a Phaeton again.

I was reading today - some guy was saying he wanted a Phaeton badly, a twelve cylinder as I want to have. He wanted to know whether they were reliable, and whether it was true that an oil change cost $300.

The explanation that followed made me want the car even more. The bit about the engine compartment being completely sealed from the bottom?

Brian is going to spew his coffee when he reads this, but I am not dissuaded, I want it MORE.

Here are a few pictures of the exact one I've had dreams about driving or being driven in...









Blue leather interior! Rarer than hens teeth for the very few Phaeton W12s that were imported here. And, I think it's a custom blue color on the outside. Gorgeous.

Thursday that feels like Thursday

Last night was amusing. Erik, who I rarely talk to, hit me up on IM and was talking about Houston being nuked - had I ever heard of such a thing?

Why, yes, I have!

That led to a long conversation that brought Bram in, and everyone (but me) was freaking out for a while. I was nonchalant, as I already spent my nights awake worrying about that issue. Anyway, it was a hoot all around. This morning, I could barely drag myself out of bed and get to it. I finally did, and mid-posting the garage refrigerator on Craigslist, the cable modem went out. Knowing Bram couldn't survive without internet access, I fiddled with that for about an hour, and made myself very late to the office. Bleh.

That refrigerator is generating a lot of attention, and I only thought about dealing with selling it after talking to Guy about that when his grandparents disconnected their big freezer, their electric bill plummeted. I asked Bram last night whether we really needed that fridge, and the answer was clearly no.

I just fired another client who was telling me "another loan officer told me the rate would be 6.85%" Adios.

Monday, Monday ver. 911.01

So, it's an interesting day. I started working with a pipeline sheet, which I've never done - I've always tried to keep it in my head. It both motivates and rewards, as it shows what is actually true, and what needs to happen to keep things going. I've asked Tom to help me with that, making it more custom for my needs.

A few weeks ago, I sent an old friend a snail mail piece, nearly twelve years since we were last in touch. He wrote me back by email, and we've been having a lot of fun getting the communication re-established. It's so cool to learn about how someone else saw something and thought of something, and compare it to how it was for yourself.

Went to lunch today, had a great bowl of French Onion soup and picked up nearly $1.1 Million in new loans. Whoopie!

Tonight, Jackie goes into the tub for a soak and a bath. She'll not be happy going in, and will be VERY happy coming out.

And, we have lunch with an appraiser tomorrow .. oof. He's handsome. Okay, more workie must be done here.

Just a couple of late Sunday things...

First, two reviews of Michael Moore's "Sicko." A couple of quotes from the reviews to entice you to click the link and read:

There is one story in the film of a woman whose husband was denied a bone marrow transplant allegedly because it was an "experimental procedure," --- is one a thousand excuses health insurance companies use to keep from having to provide care for those whose premiums they eagerly cashed in the years before their customer got sick. But I think what got me about that particular story was the fact that this woman worked in the hospital where the board of directors of this managed care company also worked. She spoke to them personally. She wasn't just a piece of paper in an in-box. It was a real live person, a colleague and neighbor, literally begging for her husbands life ... and they said no. For profit. It makes me want to howl in pain and outrage.

(Apparently, the film is making the insurers howl too. Check out this post from Michael Moore today in which he posts an internal Blue cross memo. The rep they sent to see the movie and report back wrote: "You'd have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore's movie.")

Moore's movie is actually quite successful in showing that people in other first world countries with universal care live very well despite the fact that they pay higher taxes for medical care (and other things) because --- they don't have to pay for medical care and those other things. The people who live middle and upper middle class lives as professionals don't lose anything --- and the society as a whole gains tremendously because those crippling worries are removed from all, the poor and middle class alike.

Is my sister reading this?

Next, an article about how the Iran-Contra affair (you don't remember that, because you intentionally forgot. The whole thing was hard to understand, no one was really driving it as a news story, and the Iran-Contra investigation committee neatly whitewashed the whole thing.)

Tell me we're not paying for that now. Tell me we're not paying for tolerating a renegade theory of Executive power. Tell me we're not hearing how inconvenient and cumbersome and counterproductive the impeachment process of the Constitution is. Tell me the Democratic candidates aren't soft-pedaling the whole issue, preferring to micromanage the end of the kind of war that the renegade theory of Executive power makes not only likely, but inevitable. (Go back and read the minority report of the Iran-Contra committee. Go see who wrote the part about how the president has an inherent right to do stuff like this. Hint -- he has a lesbian daughter, a bad heart, and lousy aim.) Tell me the press isn't running away from the gravity of the whole business. Tell me you haven't heard some anchor-drone or another sigh about how hard it all is to understand. Tell me that Bush presidencies don't invariably come down to buying the silence of the people who can put you away. Tell me Alberto Gonzales isn't Edwin Meese, except less competent. Tell me that Elliott Abrams, John Negroponte, Michael Ledeen, and the rest of the Iran-Contra Legends Tour ever would have found their bloody hands back on the levers of government if we'd done what we should have done as a nation 20 years ago. Jesus, even Ghorbanifar's back in the news.

It's official - the NYT says 'Get out of Iraq now"

You should read it.

Later today, at 3:30 Pacific/5:30 Central, you can watch the roll out ceremonies for Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner - webcast at http://www.newairplane.com. As part of the ceremonies, they're going to have a sequential landing of each of the Boeing "7" aircraft, starting with the 707, through the end - presumably the 777, since the 787 hasn't flown yet.

Finally, FINALLY someone pushes back