Loose Teeth

There was a lot of fiction passing as fact back in 2000.
There was the story that Al Gore claimed to have "invented" the internet. I didn't even vote for Gore in 2000, but I wasn't buying that one for a second.
But my favorite fiction from 2000 was the one that said GW Bush didn't really "need" to be president.
Al Gore needed to be elected to the presidenct because of his own personal insecurity and Bush just was just running becuase... well, they never actually said why he would subject himself to something like that, just that he didn't really "need" it.
Since then, it's become apparent that if GW didn't need it- whoever it is that he answers to sure did.
There was the the whole "were not going to let them win this one in the courts" statement that James Baker made, just before filing the first court case in the campaign.
There was the republican congressional staffers being flown in to Florida to stage the "citizens uprising" demonstration at the Palm Beach County vote count.
But what's really telling are the things like Cheney's energy task force meetings and subsequent refusal to release records of those meetings.
And, of course, the resultant war in Iraq.
Oh yeah, that was about liberating the Iraqis- sorry, I forgot.
And then there's the 2004 "election."
That there were that many anomolies favoring the republicans has been estimated by statisticians as being 250 million to one that it was pure coincidence.
(I'm not going to post links here- just google "2004 election irregularities" and you'll find plenty.)
So now that were winding down to the final months- thank the god of your choice- of this administration, we have a glaring example of just how bad these bastards wanted it:
Judge Finds NSA spying Program Unconstitutional

DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday struck down President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit is the first judge to rule on the legality of the National Security Agency's program, which the White House says is a key tool for fighting terrorism that has already stopped attacks.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The administration said it would appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Yeah, they wanted it. The chance to shred the constitution, wage war and rake in billions in the process. Maybe GW didn't care himself, personally, but if that's the case then time and again he's proved that he's not really the decider- he just plays one on TV.

Whoever it is that tells the president what to do and when wanted it. Real bad.
And the will of the people be damned, they weren't about to be denied. None of which bodes well for this coming November.

Despite Image, Cheney a GOP Rock Star

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060806/D8JALESO0.html

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - An anticipatory buzz fills the room. Six crisp American flags, erect as soldiers, line the dais. More than an hour before the vice president's arrival, the GOP faithful stand at the ready.

Never mind that Dick Cheney is favorably regarded by only about a third of Americans. To this crowd, in this place, he is a rock star.

If nothing else, this proves the GOP has terrible taste in music.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5602047

So it sounds like they're renovating the White House Press room.
Here's why I think that's bad:

Unbeknownst to people like me - the White House press room was a dilapidated shambles. "Falling apart" is how one reporter described it. The chairs were broken down and it was cramped and dirty.
So for the last 6 years the White House stenographers pool, the very same people who have been selling GW Bush as a tough, resolute, decisive "leader," have had to put up with third world working conditions.
I mean, you can watch the damn TV and see that they get no respect from the White House.
They've been intimidated, made fun of, told to "watch what they say", even threatened with charges of treason.
They've been snubbed and ignored while the official White House mouthpiece called on a planted male prostitute to lob softball "questions" written by the White House itself - who's very presence in the fucking room should have been an impeachable offense and should have been enough to offend any professional journalist in the country.
Still, they supplicate themselves and fawn and gush over Bush like he had been legitimately elected by the voting public.
They write down the carefully crafted talking points and PR spin and outright lies and report it all as though it were actual breaking news - even while the population starts to wake up, shake its head, look around and stand there gape jawed, amazed at how much irreparable damage the country, hell - the world, has sustained in such a relatively short time.
They dutifully shill for this bloodthirsty, power-mad, avaricious demolition crew while their audience starts to do the simple math of adding the 2 + 2 they can no longer avoid and coming to realizations that subtract substantial numbers from the presidential approval ratings despite what they're being told by their televisions.
And they've done all this from the squalor of a press room that's been as carefully maintained as the American citizen's constitutional rights.
Well, now theyre gonna get a freshly painted, fully refurbished space with brand new upholstery.
I shudder to think what the next two years is gonna bring from these clueless sycophants.

This little item jumped out at me today:

Rove Blasts Journalists' Role in Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) - Presidential adviser Karl Rove said Saturday that journalists often criticize political professionals because they want to draw attention away from the "corrosive role" their own coverage plays in politics and government.

"Some decry the professional role of politics, they would like to see it disappear," Rove told graduating students at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. "Some argue political professionals are ruining American politics - trapping candidates in daily competition for the news cycle instead of long-term strategic thinking in the best interest of the country."

But Rove turned that criticism on journalists.

"It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists," he said. "Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance."

Karl Rove complaining about someone else's corrosive role in politics is a little like Dick Cheney leading the choir in a chorus of "Give Peace A Chance."
But it gets better:

Rove told about 100 graduates trained to be political operatives that they should respect the instincts of the American voter.

"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections. "I've seen this cynicism over the years from political professionals and journalists. American people are not policy wonks, but they have great instincts and try to do the right thing."

Rove said it is "wrong to underestimate the intelligence of the American voter, but easy to overestimate their interest. Much tugs at their attention."

But he said voters are able to watch campaigns and candidates closely and "this messy and imperfect process has produced great leaders."

I'm sure he considers his boy GW, a "great leader."

And I'm sure we're going to see a 2008 campaign based on honest debate about the Iraq quagmire- the issue every poll identifies as the most important - now that Rove is back in the driver's seat.

OK, not really. I'm sure that once again it will be about gay marriage and the fact that all the war veteran democratic candidates for office are really cowards.

There have been few factors in modern American politics as corrosive as Karl Rove's campaigning style. If that's showing respect for the electorate, then I would hate to see what disrespecting them would look like.

Personally, I can't wait for this guy's deathbed plea for forgiveness.

Another motherfucking obituary.
Nice clip here:
http://www.texasgigs.com/blogs/soundcheck/2006/jul/28/sweetsam/

When I first moved to Texas there was a guy running for governor, the late Don Crowder, who's entire platform was his opposition to the state's "No Pass-No Play" policy, which basically said if you don't get at least a D, then you can't play football for your school.
He was a democrat.
He was also a successful attorney- you might even remember him as Candace Montgomery's lawyer. She was the woman who hacked her lover's wife to death with an axe. He got her off on self defense, so it's not like he was stupid or anything. It takes a certain level of smarts to do that.
(For more on the Candace Montgomery case check out John Bloom's excellent book "Evidence Of Love"
Yet he was running for governor on a platform that said stupidity is every Texas student's right and failing grades were no reason a kid shouldn't get a scholarship to higher education as an athlete.
I thought that was a bad sign then, little did I know what was coming.
Fast forward 20 or so years and we have a former Texas governor as sitting president who only got enought votes to throw the election because just enough of the voting population didn't want the smart candidate to be their leader.
All I can say is that he's certainly lived up to their expectations.
A considerable percentage of those voters were, of course, evangelical christians.
Now I know a little something about evangelical christians. I was raised in a pentecostal household and was drug off to church 3 nights a week and twice on sundays. Unless there was a "revival" going on, when I got to go every night of the week- except saturdays.
One of the common themes from the pulpit back then was how education could be a bad thing. It made you question your faith and cast doubts on a strictly literal interpetaion of the Bible.
Anyone remember those bumperstickers: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it"?
Well, today on the Diane Rehm Show I heard something that made me pause and take notice.
Francis Collins, the lead scientist on the Human Genome Project was promoting his book The Language of God.
Here was a man professing not just a belief in God, but an unwavering faith in Christianity in particular. Evangelical Christianity at that.
Now it always seemed to me that "God" wouldn't really have a problem with science. I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that God exists and he created the universe and everything in it.
One of the things he created was the brain and intellegence of mankind. Using that brain and that intellegence man discovers things: Math, biology, genetics, evolution etc.
Now if you were God would you feel honored that your most ardent followers refused to believe any of the things that the brightest people using the tools you had given them had discovered because it didn't correlate with what more primitive, less advanced men had written 3- 4 thousand years ago?
I wouldn't think so.
That's basically what Collins was saying.
It always seemed contradictory to me that the same preacher that explained how to God the "twinkling of an eye" was like twenty thousand years to a man, then in the next breath insist that God had created the earth in seven days because that's what it said in the bible.
These are the people that still believe the universe is 6-10 thousand years old.
Now I'm not a scientist, mathematician, geneticist or anything even close- but I do know that some of the stars you see in the sky are millions of light years away, so it's taken millions of years for that light to get to the earth where you or I can see it.
He didn't even bother to make a case for evolution, he merely said the evidence was overwhelming.
He did make the case for stem cell research.
He also said that all the major religions have more common themes than differences.
So why is it that the stupid people control the debate for the christians out there?
Why isn't this guy the presidents advisor instead of Timothy Lehay?
Putting a person like this in a political position could do more to advance the case for people of faith than all the Fallwells, Robertsons, Dobsons and Bin Ladens combined.
OK, I realize this is Texas. Texans are frequently defiantly proud of their stupidity and Texas is, as they say, the buckle of the "Bible Belt."
You can catch the audio of today's Diane Rehm show here:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/07/25.php#10891
It's worth a listen if you think all evangelicals are hopelessly stuck in the middle ages.
I only wonder if there are any Muslims that arent afraid of the very tools their God has given them. If there are, then maybe there's hope after all.

When Johnny Cash teamed up with producer Rick Rubin and American Recordings to release the first of his “American” series he managed to both resurrect his career and earn genuine indie cred at the same time.

The four records that followed 1994’s “American Recordings” have all pretty much kept to the same formula of sparse, stripped down arrangements that lay bare both the singer’s voice and the raw emotion of the songs.

He’s produced the best work of his entire catalog in the process.

His last release, “American V –A Hundred Highways” is a beautiful final chapter to a truly original American artist’s long and influential life.

How good it is probably depends a lot on your view of the American series and how you regard Johnny Cash in the first place.

If you’re in the camp that considers Cash that most rarified of artist, one that occupied a higher plane than mere mortal men- my camp, that is- and if you think that the highlights of the “American” series: “The Beast In Me,” “Delia’s Gone, “One,” “Hurt,” “Solitary Man” etc. are stronger than his classic hits like “Ring Of Fire” or “Walk The Line” then you’ll probably love “A Hundred Highways”.

It’s the sound of a dying man publicly and honestly assessing his life and work and finding himself at peace with his own heart and his own legacy.

It’s striking juxtaposition of Johnny sounding clear and strong and Johnny sounding weak and frail underscore the honesty of the songs and the genuine humanity of the man singing them.

Not just anyone could pull this off, either. In lesser hands the plaintive, heartbreaking cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” would sound calculated and trite. The naked sentimentality of “Rose Of My Heart” would sound maudlin in the extreme.

But that’s not the case here.

He sounds bold and righteous on “God Is Gonna Cut You Down,” humble and sincere on “I Came To Believe,” and even kind of happy on the closer “I’m Free From The Chain Gang Now.”

You can’t escape the circumstances of the record. Recorded after the death of his wife, June Carter Cash, alone for the first time in his life, in poor health and staring his own death squarely in the face; even the liner notes by Rubin recount the man’s last days. Taken altogether- “A Hundred Highways” is almost too moving for words.

It’s definitely not a disc to pop in on a Saturday morning, nor is it likely to make any club DJ’s playlists. But now that the man in black is no doubt sitting at the very right hand of God in judgment of all of us lesser men here on earth, listening to and fully appreciating “American V- A Hundred Highways” should be at the top of any Johnny worshippers to-do list.

You gave us an awful lot in your time on earth, Johnny, and now this.

Rest in peace, bro.

Cross posted at http://slackercountry.com/