Author: jp

(Click the thumbnail above to enlarge the image)
As this CNN.com screenshot from this morning’s headlines indicate, sometimes web publishing software seems to reveal some sort of virtual Lewis Black residing within–vitriolic anger and sarcasm pushing forth to convey a broader message while working within the tedium of the mundane, i.e. code, technology, news, headlines, whatever…
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not the one who’s conflated the developments in Iraq with those of the War on Terror™. That was the Bush administration’s initiative, you’ll recall.

As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met with President Bush at the White House today (both men presumably enduring the event with forced smiles and pseudo-affable buddy posturing), Number 43 let fly with a puzzling new iteration of one of his trademarked “Bushisms” as the two leaders discussed that whole war/crisis thing going on in the Middle East — specifically, the potential for democracy to flourish in the region.

“Bush and Schroeder also talked about the Middle East, with Bush stressing the need to put democratic institutions in place ‘that survive the whims of men and women.’
He didn’t offer specifics about what that meant, but repeated his belief that democracy and freedom can help stem terrorism.”

At the tail end, there, the AP’s Jennifer Loven was thoughtful enough to remind readers of the confusing tenor of the President’s remarks, but, in true objective journalistic fashion, neglected to take the opportunity to provide the most likely interpretation: his remarkable ability to stay on message all week long!
Of course, Bush seemed to have forgotten which event this was, and that he had already proposed his “marriage as a union of a man and woman” constitutional amendment earlier in the week, and that today’s particular remarks should have instead featured the President making the usual hyperbolic proclamations about making the world safe again.
Presumably, even, for homos, though we can forgive Bush for mixing up his discussions of conservative minority-as-majority regimes.

from Reuters: Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed

The British government was rocked by allegations by a former cabinet minister that it spied on United Nations chief Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war last year.

As expected, President Bush (decked out in full white-male, closed-minded power-broking asshole regalia) came out in support of a constitutional amendment today which would aim to specifically ban same-sex marriages, ostensibly in an attempt to “prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever” after the occurrence of events in California, Massachusetts and New Mexico which have indicated that “a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.”
That fundamental institution, of course, is the ability of one man and one woman to marry. Historians familiar with the establishment of religion, the writing of the Magna Carta, the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, and the onset of the American Revolution know this firsthand: these events were each based primarily upon the ability of men and women to wed, and were in no way grounded upon issues of individuality or self-respect or self-governance or human and civil rights. Right? Oh, I’m sorry, I was reading from the rightwing playbook there for a moment.
Back to that most fundamental of institutions, marriage…
Bush went on to explain, “Our government should respect every person and protect the institution of marriage. There is not a contradiction between these responsibilities.”
Hmmm…let’s take a look at the current Bill of Rights and the other extant amendments to the current United States Constitution. I think I see some of these potential “contradictions,” to say the least, despite President Bush’s reassuring words to the contrary…

Article IX.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Article X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Article XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If, in some burst of mass hysteria and irrationality on the part of our legislative body, this proposed 28th Amendment is passed, we can hopefully look forward to the eventual and subsequent passage of Article XXIX, which, in the tradition of Article XXI, would state, “Section 1. The twenty-eighth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”
At which point the U.S. Constitution will be nothing more than a cheapened document, comprised of little more than the expression of a series of conflicting values, borne of an “issues of the moment” ideology.
RELATED: Immigrating To Canada – Resources For Moving To Canada

ANSWER KEY:
1. The bus in the center, presumably destroyed by a suicide bomber, much like yesterday’s blast which killed 8 people and injured scores more.
2. The wall itself, a 24-foot-high concrete monstrosity subject to review by an international tribunal at the Hague today to debate the “legality” of the wall, a gargantuan construction which certainly plays no part in dehumanizing Palestinians, but instead provides security for Israelis and prevents suicide bomber attacks (See answer key item #1, step, and repeat).

Actual waste products
As Ed Gillespie, Karl Rove, et al prepare for this fall’s upcoming Republican National Convention in Manhattan, we thought it wise to advise the party’s pollsters to not have President Bush’s chief economist N. Gregory Mankiw give one of his customarily rousing speeches about economic populism, which, in the past, have gone something like this:

Outsourcing jobs overseas is “probably a plus for the economy in the long run…outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that’s a good thing.”

Perhaps Gillespie and Rove might consider having Pennsylvania State Legislator Frank LaGrotta speak:

“I wonder if George Bush believes this. I doubt it, I tell myself. George Bush is a ‘compassionate conservative.’
Compassion: A feeling of empathy, concern, care…
Outsourcing: Treats working Americans like waste products of a Robin-Hood-in-reverse strategy to rob from the poor and give to the rich.”

OK, scratch LaGrotta, too. Better to avoid the topic entirely and stick to “safe” themes, like recalling how close Madison Square Garden is to Ground Zero.

From the February 22, 2004 Washington Post:
Edwards, Kerry Were Barely Solvent Last Month

New campaign finance reports show that the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination were barely solvent at the end of January heading into a prospective $50 million-plus ad blitz by President Bush.
Bush ended January with $104.4 million in the bank, nearly 100 times as much as the net balances of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic front-runner, and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Kerry’s leading challenger for the nomination.
“We will never catch up,” said Michael Meehan, Kerry’s spokesman, noting that so far in February, Kerry had raised $5 million.