What the ever-loving?

Well, it's been a LONG time since this blog saw any new activity. Why is it still here? Because we're too lazy to delete it!

If you have a blog or favorite blog, post it in the comments.

Sorry for the long absence

I believe this blog is DEAD! But hello to anybody who bothers to keep looking. Since last I posted, the congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham has been tried and convicted for bribery. Not much else has happened -- those connected to him, and to other bribery and appropriations scandals, are still freely scamming.

Oh well. Just saying hi. If you want to see the website of the main guy who used to contribute to Politart, go to Spoonbot.

Strangling Mary Poppins

From guest writer Juniper Flesco:

Early this week Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Republican representative from the 50th district (San Diego's north county) of California, plead guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors whom he then gave favorable treatment. At the end of Cunningham's tearful "boo hoo" press conference, a reporter pointedly asked, "Why did you do it?!" Cunningham just kept walking away. (Cunningham's long letter to constituents proclaiming his innocence, written when the bribery allegations first surfaced, seems so quaint now.)

Once you get past the big-ticket items like the million-dollar houses and yachts, Cunningham's laundry list of bribes is kinda funny. For example, who buys a $13,500 Rolls Royce that needs $18,000 in repairs? Cunningham also got a couple of groovy $9,000 Laser Shot shooting simulators — good for working out homicidal impulses.

I am against schadenfreude, or taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. But this is not misfortune, it is a supreme asshole getting what he deserves. Cunningham, a former "Top Gun" fighter pilot in Vietnam, is notorious for saying Vietnam war protesters should be lined up and shot. He later said the same about liberal Democrats. Cunningham also said he opposed "homos in the military" and argued for a flag-burning amendment by shamelessly invoking 9/11. He was present during the 1991 Tailhook scandal, but dismissed later efforts to combat sexual harassment in the military as "political correctness." On a smaller scale, Cunningham loves giving people the finger.

By taking bribes, Cunningham was really giving everyone the finger, including his donors, his staff, and especially the military he claimed to love.

Hopefully Cunningham will not go down alone. How many people were in on the bribery? What other U.S. officials are taking bribes? And why was the House Ethics Committee completely silent while Cunningham was being investigated?

"Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you want to strangle Mary Poppins," Cunningham said in 2002 after the military lost two F-14s. Now might be a good time to get Mary Poppins a bodyguard.

Catapulting the propaganda in Iraq

From guest writer Juniper Flesco:

Earlier this year George W. Bush blithely admitted his administration's manipulation tactics when he said: "...See, in my line of work you gotta keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kinda catapult the propaganda."

What's catapulting propaganda? Well it's sort of like slinging bullshit, but it reaches farther and delivers a much larger load. Bush's catapult now reaches all the way to Iraq. According to this article, the U.S. has been paying Iraq newspapers to run positive stories about the war, and presumably to avoid publishing stories like this or this.

Funny, I thought we were trying to promote democracy in Iraq, not Soviet-era totalitarianism. At least in the U.S.S.R. their fake, pro-government news stories were clearly fake.

Blow up the messenger

From guest writer Juniper Flesco:

According to the UK newspaper The Daily Mirror, George Bush wanted to bomb the Qatar headquarters of Mideast TV station Al Jazeera in April 2004. The source? A top-secret memo leaked by a high-level British official.

Some might doubt the Mirror, a paper that regularly publishes stories about such subjects as moms buying their daughters boob jobs. But with the British government now threatening legal action against any media that reports on the memo, the allegations are probably true.

It seems Tony Blair had to convince Bush not to blow the TV station up, though he was too late in preventing this from happening. Perhaps Blair pointed out that Qatar, a Western ally, is quite a distance from Iraq. Or maybe Blair made Bush watch this, which depicts a TV station closer to the style of Fox News than the public-access aesthetic of Osama Bin Laden's video monologues.

Unfortunately, Blair's restraining influence didn't stop the U.S. from destroying or irreversibly damaging around 60 percent of Fallujah's buildings during the massacre in fall 2004. Or from using white phosphorus as a munition (and then officially denying it).

With so much bad news coming out about the Iraq war, you'd think White House press secretary Scott McClellan would want to clear things up. But he's been in hiding since November 9, after an embarrassing exchange over the president's position on torture. McClellan did write an email to Associated Press that said, "We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response" – hardly a denial. Maybe the White House should turn its attentions toward blowing up the U.S. media (etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.) instead.

Frist Worried About Leaks, Not So Worried About Torture

Senate Majority Leader and master of the stock market Bill Frist, responded to recent reports of secret CIA prisons by vowing to kill the messenger:

Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.

Because it's not a Senator's business to find out if the U.S. government is torturing and killing prisoners. (Also here and here and...)The Senate's job is to make sure that kind of activity gets covered up, and to punish anyone who doesn't go along with the cover-up.

Lying To People Can Make Them Think You're Dishonest...Sometimes

After repeatedly lying to the American people, George Bush has found that some Americans think of him as dishonest. Strange...

A new poll showed that 57% thought Bush to be dishonest, which is odd, because Bush is, in fact, incredibly dishonest. Like, he lies, and gets caught at it, and lies again. So you'd think 100% would find him dishonest.

But strangely, that kind of math doesn't work here...more than 4 in 10 found him honest! Who were these ill-informed people?

Whites, Southerners and white evangelicals were most likely to believe Bush is honest.

Hmm...so pale skinned people from the part of the country with the lowest educational standards, and who believe that the earth was formed in 6 days by an angry, angry man who lives way up in the sky, think of Bush as an honest truth-telling man.

And these, apparently, are the people who are out there voting.

Fox News: Asking The Tough Questions

Judge Alito Says Grown Women Need Daddy's Permission

Judge Alito, whom George W. wants as his new Supreme Court Superfriend, has some interesting opinions on adult women's ability to make decisions for themselves. Like, he thinks its not a problem to require them to inform their husbands before they get an abortion. You know, just in case their husbands want to beat the shit out of them for even considering it.

Bad justice! No communion for you!

Pat Robertson Tells Pennsylvania To Fuck Itself

Pat Robertson, the voice of reason and the man Karl Rove called for advice when seeking Supreme Court appointees, recently said that the residents of Dover, PA should expect to die in a horrible disaster. See, they strangely voted out the school board members who wanted to eliminate science from the science curriculum and replace it with crazy-man theories, i.e. Intelligent Design.

So Pat said "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city." Umm...wait, I thought the whole point of intelligent design was that it wasn't an attempt to sneak religion into the schools?

He went on to note that "if they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

Hey, that's crazy, calling on a dead guy to help!

Strangely, Iraqis Now Hate Us

According to this AFP article, the British Ministry of Defence (yes, Defence!) conducted a secret poll that showed that "up to 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks [against US and UK troops] and fewer than one percent think allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country."

Which is strange, because they welcomed us with open arms and threw flowers at our feet. Or at least that's what I'm told happened...

The New Conservative: Crybabies In Office

Sen. Tom Coburn, in a rare moment legislative clarity and common sense, thought it might be a good idea to limit spending on ludicrous pork projects until we clean up the open sewer that used to be New Orleans (full story here). Bully for you, Sen. Tom! I'll momentarily overlook the fact that you're an execrable idiot who denies global warming, has a paranoid fear of lesbians, thinks homosexuals form a secret cabal that's trying to take over the world, and believes that the worst thing that's ever happened in America is that "Schindler's List" was allowed to be broadcast on national television.

Sadly, Mr. Coburn was up against a corrupt government that is dead set on building bridges to nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but to tiny, nearly uninhabited areas of Alaska. Of course, such bridges will cost 453 million dollars (a million is a thousand thousand!), just to get them started.

So the fine Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, in an interesting display of "being a crybaby" and "acting like a spoiled three-year-old" said that if the Senate took away funding for his bridges (yeah, he named one of them after himself) he'd quit the Senate, and, I don't know, take his big bundle of cash and go home?

I say, let him go! Of course, the Senate is a loving, sentimental place, and not wanting to hurt Stevens feelings, they voted 82 to 15 against Coburn's amendment that would have cut funding for the special feelings bridges. While this kind of bipartisan support for a colleague's temper tantrum is touching, it also somehow makes me feel like my head is about to explode.