ADullAche

I realize we live in complicated times and the old black & white world—or red, white & blue vs. commie red—is long gone, but I miss those anything but halcyon days. We didn’t have satellite TV and surveillance was a plain old bug in a phone, but at least you knew where you stood.

I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Richard Milhous Nixon. For those who slept through history class (do they teach that anymore?) or didn’t catch All The President’s Men the last time it ran on AMC. Richard M. Nixon was the 37^th President of the United States, forced a genuine Constitutional crisis with the Watergate mess, and in 1974 became the first President in American history to resign. He was, as describe by the late Hunter S. Thompson, “a thieving pigf—er.”

But he was a smart thieving pigf—er.

He tried “Vietnamization” to end the war in Viet Nam; the Vietnamese Army was supposed to stand up as we stood down—didn’t work out all that well. (Seems it ain’t just the kids who don’t know history). But all’s well that ends badly, and today you can buy a coke and cheeseburger in Ho Chi Minh City. That little misstep aside, Nixon’s foreign policy was groundbreaking. He brokered SALT I &II with the Soviet Union and pushed back the threat of nuclear annihilation, (look it up, they used to be really scary). As important, he was the first U.S. President to open relations with China, who now have all our money, so he was something of a visionary there.

On the home front things were a little different; wonky economy, illegal domestic spying, enemy’s lists, renegade C.I.A. agents violating whatever law they could find, an imperial presidency…no, really, I’m talking about Nixon.

But the best part of Nixon was how easy he was to dislike. He was jowly, sweaty, had a five o’clock shadow at 8:00am, and in the end, a little loony. He wandered the halls of the White House, probably drunk, talking to the portraits of past presidents, and smart enough to know he’d screwed up and it was time to pay the piper.

If only we had a guy like that in charge today. But instead of a shrewd, megalomaniacal, world-wise professional, we get the idiot cousin who won the lottery.

George W. Bush, good old 43, headed for infamy and doesn’t have the brains to figure it out. A bunch of people, including hundreds of historians think he’s the worst president in U.S. history. He may be the only leader in world history (that’s ALL OF HISTORY including Nero and Rameses) who has waged war and lowered taxes at the same time. That aside, his administration is so secretive and so corrupt it makes Nixon’s reign look transparent and saintly. Hell, Nixon’s V.P. Spiro Agnew got busted for tax evasion and resigned. Viceroy Cheney has broken more laws than a coked up Dubya speeding down I-10 to avoid National Guard service, and he gets a 60 million dollar pay day from his old company.

Where’s the reliable, old school evil. Nixon stood up, looked you in the eye and said, “I am not a crook,” and you knew he was lying. Bush stands up, stammers a few unintelligible words, and half-wits like Chris Matthews think it’s cute.

When the Watergate Scandal broke and things went south around Tricky Dick, you knew he was in it up to his elbows. With Dubya, unless he’s fooling us all—and no one is that good an actor—the continuing calamity called his presidency goes on all around him while he sits back and dreams of the day he can drink beer again.

I guess that’s the price of getting older, you think even the bad stuff you had when you were young was better than the bad stuff you have now. But there’s hope on the horizon. If Hillary gets elected, we’re sure to once again have Nixonian hi-jinks in the nation’s capitol…but unlike simple cousin George; once she gets caught let’s hope she’s smart enough to be like Tricky Dick and resign.

I realize all you folks who bought caves in the middle of nowhere and truckloads of freeze dried mac & cheese back in 1999 were a little disappointed when the world didn’t fall apart. It’s probably why most of you potential cave-dwellers voted Bush/Cheney – just one look at them and you knew they’d hasten the end of days.

Since then, there has been sign after sign that we are running out of time.

I’m not talking about Dubya’s attempts to bankrupt the country, or even about Satan’s right hand man, Overlord Cheney, trying to set the world on fire. All that’s way too obvious.

But while all the Sturm und Drang of Team Bush’s efforts to destroy America was going on, we overlooked the real work of Old Scratch.

It’s hard to say where it all started. Certainly Bush’s non-election in 2000 is a good guess. But since then it’s hard to keep track. In no particular order and counting the one above, here may be the other five broken Seals that have unleashed horror upon the world:

The Democratic YouTube debate

George W. Bush re-elected

Alberto Gonzales

Cheney’s resurrection via mechanical heart

A black man and a white woman as leading candidates for the presidency of the United States (tell me that ain’t Little Horn working overtime…you know, giving you a glimpse of hope than screwing you)

Then, just the other day, I witnessed the final piece of the Armageddon puzzle – the personal Taser…in designer colors. And (this is why I know I’m going to be stuck in traffic behind Four guys riding horses) I saw it on a half-hour TV infomercial.

That’s right, now, from the comfort of your own home, using the same telephone you use to get the power of steam to clean your kitchen counters, from the same couch where you order the George Foreman Grill, you can get your own personal Taser in these terrific designer colors: BLACK PEARL, BLUE, METALLIC PINK, TITANIUM SILVER, RED HOT, LEOPARD, FASHION PINK, DESERT CAMO, FOREST CAMO.

And because it’s non-lethal, many people who don’t want a gun in the house would love to have one of this elegant beauties sitting on sideboard for guests to fawn over.

The best part of this is that there is no chance for abuse. I mean there is no way an angry wife is going to tase her husband for coming home late one night. Nor is there any chance of a teenage boy zapping one of his friends in the old sack because he saw it on MTV.

It gets better. You can become a Taser Party Host. Look, gals, it’s the 21^st Century, why should you be stuck trying to pawn off crappy plastic wear or over-priced makeup on your friends, when you can sell them a bit of non‑lethal loveliness that will not only match the purse it fits in, but will keep the kids quiet during that afternoon down time between when they get out of school and hubby comes home for dinner.

And if you order now you’ll not only get a monogrammed tactical gear bag – great for extra cartridges, with a separate compartment for your cell phone and eye liner – you also get, absolutely free, a custom holster to proudly display your pretty, pretty non-lethal weapon. Together they make such a stylish duo, they’ll go with any outfit…

…the perfect accessory for the end of the world.

Forrest Gump – the man the Cheney wanted to be president until he ran into George W – famously said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Well, stupid has done quite a bit in the last eight years, and as post-surge Iraq begins to unravel, let’s see if we can pick up the details Forrest Bush seems to have overlooked.

This week violence flared and the death count rose in the Basra. Well, it is a war and you can’t expect there not to be violence in war – in spite of flyboy Dubya’s pronouncement of it being over lo’ those many years ago. But the war has heated up because the Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’a cleric and head of the Mahdi Army, called a cease fire around the same time the surge began and it’s begun to break down.

I can understand why this might be overlooked by the White House; it wouldn’t do to have the public thinking Iraqis were in control in any way, not with this new strategy making things look so nice and peaceful.

But here comes the part the dopes on Pennsylvania Avenue still haven’t figured out.

Muqtada al-Sadr is probably the most powerful man in the country, certainly more beloved than Bush marionette Maliki. However, they’re both working for the same side – Iran.

Yep, you heard it right, Iran. #1 on ol’ stumblin’ Dubya’s Axis of Evil list. What tends to be overlooked is the very simple fact that Saddam was Sunni and he gave the Shi’a majority a really bad time when he was the boss. Every since he got the boot, the Iraqi Shi’a, with the help of the largest population of Shi’a on the planet right next door in Iran, have been trying to take back their country. Maliki put out the red carpet for holocaust denying looney President of Iran Ahmadinejad a while back. A way bigger party than when Bush or Overlord Cheney comes to town. And it’s a widely known fact that Iran is sending money, giving aid and training to the Mahdi Army and every other Shi’a in Basra – who have recently turned on one another.

So, if I have this figured right; Iran, the country Bush tried to lie us into bombing a few months ago, the country McCain will nuke his first day in office, is sending money to and training the people we liberated from Sadam, as well as making kissy face with the guy the Iraqis elected to run their country, and is the biggest supporter of anti-American activity among the people we are fighting for and whom we are paying to be our allies in a fight against the people whom we are….paying…to…be…our…allies…

Oh yeah, this was a real good idea.

We’re all so tied up in the current election, the war in Iraq, and the sinking economy, we tend to forget there’s a whole world out there. So I thought I’d take a minute to let you see some of the other stuff going on around the globe. Here’s a little glimpse at stuff no one’s thinking about – and as we all know, it’s the stuff you overlook that bites you in the ass:

***

Toxic Snow From Streets Of Kiev Thrown Into Dnepr /21.11.2007/

In capitalist cities nobody cares of man and his health: everyone is in a hurry to “business” – to work, from work, to shop, from shop. People care about survival and everyday life so much that they do not have any time to think about really important things.

Welcome to the Kabul Golf Club, the best and only golf course in Afghanistan. This is a desert-style course where 18 tee boxes play to 9 holes.

Begin your round with a dramatic tee shot from high over the valley. Be sure to bring a camera and get a trophy photograph of yourself teeing off because your friends will never believe that you played golf in Afghanistan.

Lessons are available from the club’s English-speaking Pro, Muhammad Afzal Abdul, who had a zero handicap when he played in tournaments before the war. He was the club’s last Pro in 1978, and is back to supervise the reconstruction. The course first opened in 1967, closed in 1978, and re-opened in 2004.

A round of golf is the perfect idea for a group outing or to entertain visitors. The Pro is available to accompany your flight to help beginners and ensure that everyone has an enjoyable time.

Mar 25, Colombo: Sri Lanka rugby team leaves for Hong Kong today to participate in the 32^nd Hong Kong Sevens tournament from March 28 to 30.

According to the Sri Lanka Rugby Federation, the team under the captaincy of Pradeep Liyanage is a fine blend of young blood and experience that have the potential to give a good show of rugby.

The team of 12 players include Radhika Hettiarachchi , Asean Karthelis, Wasim Thujudeen, Imran Bisthamin as forwards while Amjad Buksh, Fazil Marija, Pradeep Liyanage, Sanjeewa Jayasinghe, Ashan de Costa, Kapila Knewlton as the backs.

Sri Lanka team is to test themselves against past champion Samoans on 28^th March and to meet England and Canada on the following day.

***

So we still got Commies out there, we’re fighting for club membership in the Middle East, and Sri Lanka is sidling up to Hong Kong in what can only be a first step toward mainland China and global domination.

“World, thy slippery turns…”

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex…you can’t turn around without bumping into another story about sex. It’s almost like we’re Europe.

Things ain’t good. We have a trillion dollar war grinding on, a truly arrogant and almost dictatorial regime running things, (did Cheney’s “So” remind anyone else of Marie Antoinette’s putative comments to the starving peasants at the palace gates), and an economy that’s reminding the few living survivors of the Great Depression that the bad old days aren’t so old. Speaking of old, someone wake up Grandpa McSame and tell him it’s time to campaign again, but not too hard because the Democrats are figuring out how to lose this one all by themselves.

Gas prices are ridiculous, bread is going through the roof, the dollar is sinking faster than Hillary’s credibility, and yet, in the midst of all this real world tumult, we get a daily dose (of course it’s an intentional pun) of sex.

First Spitzer and a young woman whose Bat Mitzvah I swear I went to a few years back. (Got her a Berkshire Hathaway B Share and never even got a phone call let alone a ’special’ massage.) Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth over that, but it ended pretty quickly as these things go. Nothing drawn out, no, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

New York gets a new guy and seemingly within minutes of David Paterson sitting in the big chair, he get a crisis of conscience and admits having extramarital sex, doing drugs, and any minute now we’re expecting him to confess to being part owner of Bada-Bing.

Before anyone had a chance to figure out what it meant to have a governor confessing to sex who just replaced a governor who confessed to sex, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is indicted on twelve counts of legal stuff, but it’s all about him having sex with his chief of staff in the mayor’s mansion – and, one would guess, anywhere else. Kilpatrick is denying something or other, but it didn’t sound like he’s denying the sex.

So, before the next randy office holder confesses or gets caught, I give you the Costanza Defense, as first presented by George Costanza of Seinfeld:

Mr. Lippman: It’s come to my attention that you and the cleaning woman have engaged in sexual intercourse on the desk in your office. Is that correct?

George Costanza: Who said that?

Mr. Lippman: She did.

George Costanza: [pause] Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon… you know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.

And there it is – simple ignorance of the facts works everytime…hell, it’s got Bush eight years in the White House.

“Hey, Bill, you’re on in five.”

Another Tuesday and the surplus of stupidity is…let me put it this way; if stupidity was money, the country would have enough cash to let everyone retire at 50 and give them the keys to a new Cadillac along with their first Social Security check.

This week’s moron is Fox New’s condescending half-wit and habitual liar, Bill O’Reilly. Last week he said, “If the Democrats are elected, the nation will be bankrupt in two years.”

As we all know, the empty-headed bully boy is notorious for making up facts. With that in mind, I found a bunch of facts about the economy and the swell job Bush, and frankly, the Republican Party has done managing our money. Each fact has a site you can go to see for yourself. Granted, they’re websites so their accuracy is questionable (welcome to the postmodern condition), but at least I’m trying to be factual - something bonehead Bill never does.

(My comments are in red…like the ink.)

From: www.deficitsdomatter.org/

U.S. Deficits / U.S. Debt / U.S. Budgets
Congressional Budget Office
2000 FED SURPLUS:
$236.2 BILLION
2007 U.S. FEDERAL DEFICIT
$339.2 BILLION

U.S. FEDERAL DEBT
JAN 24, 2008 9,401,240,000,000…

(By the time you read this it’ll be several hundred million – maybe a billion – higher. That’s about $100,000 per married couple, half that if you’re single and living the high life.)

From: www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation (From a piece from 2005.)

According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion.

From: www.cedarcomm.com

In the past 60 years when Republicans were in control of the presidency and both Houses of Congress, government spending was never reduced. The last time a Republican Congress reduced the national debt was in 1947, under Truman’s leadership.

The only time we have seen national debt reduction in the past 60 years was when Democrats were totally in charge of our government or when one party was in the White House and another ran Congress.

So there you have just a bit of it, and coupled with an economy about to reach terminal velocity in the wrong direction, you have to wonder how morons like O’Reilly think…oh, right - MORONS!

Easter weekend (Americans don’t just do days, we do weekends) brings not only pork and chocolate, but classic films, the cornerstone of which is C.B. DeMille’s, The Ten Commandments. (The ’56 iteration, starring the past president of the NRA; and Chuck Heston would be the first to tell you if it wasn’t for Pharaoh’s pantywaist gun control laws, the Israelites could’ve busted out of Egypt without divine intervention.)

The movie is way over the top, far too long, and historically inaccurate, but it did bring to mind George Santayana’s much abused sentiments about not learning from history, and how it bites you in the ass because you didn’t pay attention. It’s fairly obvious the current Administration falls into the latter category.

If only Dubya had popped the cap on one of his ‘fake’ beers and watched…

Pharaoh Rameses II finally gets his shot at running the empire, and even though he’s not the favorite son, he’s going to show the people he’s a better Pharaoh then his daddy ever was. Things go smoothly at first, lots of civic improvements, there’s a good tax base…then, trouble.

Rameses II has a bit of an insurgency problem.

Terrorist Moses tries to negotiate. He doesn’t want much. Doesn’t want his IMF debt forgiven, isn’t interested in future foreign aid, doesn’t even want his bread to rise. He just wants Rameses to let his people go.

But Rameses has a vision of the way the world should look, and he’s not interested in negotiation.

Moses, who’s got way more going for him than Rameses wants to admit, (or has been told - Sethi massaging intel), turns a stick into a snake. Rameses is unimpressed. Water turns to blood…still no negotiation. Rameses gets visits from frogs, flies, boils, fire from the sky, darkness, massive trade imbalance - Rameses still ain’t budging.

Finally, when Rameses own children die, he gets the message, and lets Moses’ people go.

But his trusted inner circle whispers in his ear, “You don’t want to be a wimp like your dad.” So he sends his army into the desert after the insurgents…and we all know how that went.

Rameses goes home looking like a schmuck, and the history he depended on to reward his genius for eternity, ends up painting him as a petulant bully who wasn’t all that bright.

No wonder it’s a classic…

Russia gave Communism the heave-ho during Daddy Bush’s regime (also known as Cheney I). But that doesn’t mean the Communist menace is gone. Those red devils didn’t just pack up the Volga, take a chunk of The Berlin Wall for a souvenir, and get teaching jobs at the Kennedy School of Government.

They went underground, read “People”, watched “Oprah”, drank half-caf, skim-milk mocha lattes and realized there was no future in bad suits and long lines for potatoes and toilet paper. Then, when the time was right at the close of the millennium, when the world was worried about Y2K and the rise of the Terminators, the Commies came back—with a brand neo-look.

They called themselves the new Conservatives, the Neo-Cons, but over the past seven years they look about as conservative as Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table.

How’s this for commie-servative:

Our Fearless Leader wants surveillance laws the K.G.B. would have loved—it’s called Bug ‘Em All and Let Dick Sort It Out. Just like the old Politburo, they were doing it any way and decided to pass the law after the fact.

If that doesn’t make you feel like you’re back in Red Square; we’re in a protracted war in the very same region, in the very same country where the old Soviet Union was in a protracted war (which they lost). In fact, we’re making Afghanistan look just like it did when it was at war with the Commies—smells like a do over to me.

Our army is underfunded and so underecruited it’s accepting less than ‘the best’ - something the Soviets did with a great deal of relish.

Wait, there’s more.

This Commservative government is so corrupt and so invasive it makes Roosevelt’s New Deal look Liberatarian. The only limits it has are on health care, FEMA, and competence. The latest Five Year economic plan has us in red ink again.

They dump habeas corpus, ignore the Constitution, chuck the Geneva Conventions, build secret prisons, lie about pretty much everything, and have next to nothing in common with the people they rule—note I did not say the people who elected them.

And if that’s not enough proof of evil and dictatorial old schoolski ‘Ruskie’ thinking; just the other day, when Commissar Cheney was asked what he thought about 3/4 of the nation being against the war in Iraq, he answered, “So.”

What he didn’t allow to be aired was what happened next. He looked into the camera and said: “We will bury you.”

I’m talking about one of those head-over-heels, butterflies in the stomach, getting that glassy eyed look every time you stare across the table at your one true love. It’s even more confusing when it’s a forbidden love, one you knew you shouldn’t have gotten involved in to begin with, but all along you kept finding ways to make it work because it feels so good even though it’s oh, so wrong.

Sorry Barack, you’re going to have to find a new date for the prom.

Frankly I’m surprised it lasted this long. To be honest, I’m surprised it started at all. America will flirt with people of color every now and then, but any serious relationship usually goes on behind closed doors and is most often non-consensual. (You can ask Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the daughter of dead cracker race-baiter Strom Thurmond and his 15 – yes fifteen – year old maid. In Thurmond’s defense, he was 22 and not a senator yet.)

You could tell from the beginning this wouldn’t last. Of course you expected the right-wing to use all it’s secret code for “No Coloreds Allowed.” They played the Arab card early on, explaining it’s not that Obama’s black, it’s that he has the middle name of the darker skinned folks of the Middle East. Not darker than Obama, but darker than us, and that’s plenty dark.

Of course, the left-wing did everything possible to embrace the man, while at the same time keeping just enough distance so they wouldn’t be hit when the shoe they were all waiting for dropped.

All along everyone in the media was looking hard for something to say that would derail him – and they found it. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t sex, or graft, or sloth, or shady real estate deals, or even kicking a dog. It was a uniquely ‘black thing’. It was Obama’s Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, preaching in a uniquely black settning with a uniquely black message to a uniquely black audience, that made us roll over the morning after and think, “How much did I drink last night?”

Apparently, not enough. So it’s back on the horse America. Let’s hit the bars tonight and see if we can get lucky…again.

This here is the story of a man, a powerful man who run the whole dang country for a while, then, not too long ago, he jus’ up and disappeared; his name was Deadeye Dick Cheney.

He was born on the great plains of the mid-west. Some say his father’s name was Richard, other say it was Lucifer. Ain’t a soul around who knows for sure…’ceptin maybe Lucifer. Soon after bein’ born, Deadeye found hisself in the Wyoming terror-tories. There he grew into a fine young man who flunked out of Yale and had few run-ins with Johnny-law for driving his automobile after taking a nip or two.

He come outta that mess with a clear head and when it came time serve his country and fight the godless commies, he told Uncle Sam he had other priorities…five times.

Eventually he had to serve somewhere (the someone ain’t quite so clear), so got hisself elected to Congress and served there a while. But ol’ Deadeye wasn’t a fella who thought small, and being a congressmen was small potatoes. So he worked his way up.

He got hisself a job with Doubtin, Donnie Rumsfeld. (Donnie was called “Doubtin” ‘cause he doubted anyone but hisself knew anything.) Ya see, Doubtin’ Donnie was already a member of the Fumblin’ Ford Gang, and when the big boss found hisself running the whole dang show, well, there was ol’ Deadeye in the thick of things.

That come to an end, and the next thing ya know, Deadeye is working for Big Daddy H‑Dubya, whose could trace hisself back to the dang Pilgrims or some such thing. These were fellas who knew the business of governin’, and Deadeye was now amongst ‘em.

Deadeye helped ol’ H-Dubya do all sorts of things, like plannin’ wars and such. Even back in the Daddy H-Dubya days, Deadeye had ideas about transmogrifyin’ the desert into somethin’ useful like Texas. But he also knowed when to hold ‘em, so he stopped our boys from marchin’ too far and getting’ all bogged down and the like.

Then, without no one askin’, Deadeye was chucked out on his ear ‘cause a new fella took over and he didn’t have no use for ol’ Deadeye.

Deadeye wandered for a long time, doing little jobs here and there with some new fellas called Hallie and Burton. They robbed a few banks and the like, just doin’ this ‘n that to get by, all the while bidin’ his time.

Then, as these things go, Daddy H-Dubya’s boy, simple ol’ Dubya, (if you was to talk to him just once you’d know why they call him ‘simple’), who couldn’t do mucha anything else, up and decides to be President of the United States. Well, presidents need vice presidents and simple Dubya asks Deadeye to help him find one—and Deadeye does; he finds his own self.

Now Deadeye got the run of the place and ain’t no one can tell him what to do or when to do it. Right off, he gets a buncha money for his friends and right after that he goes and invades that country that he invaded back in Daddy H-Dubya days. But, this time, he don’t take his own counsel and marches them boys right into the middle a things. And man-oh-man did he make a mess. Some folks recon it’ll take years to fix it, others up and say it plain can’t be fixed and we should just get on home. Either way, ol’ Deadeye backed the wrong horse.

For a fella who always seemed to be in the right place at the time, he sure was wrong a lot. Fact is, ol’ Deadeye has been pretty much dead wrong on just about everything he’s done as the #2 man. Not that he cared, I mean to say Deadeye got his and everyone was else was left to suck hind tit. But other folks started to care and real quiet like, Deadeye up and disappears.

Last I hear tell, he’s holed up somewhere in the desert, sneakin’ in and sneakin out so as not to let folks know what he’s up to. I even hear they got him a big new office in one them deserts over there.

Oh, and as for that name, Deadeye; no one knows how he come by it, but I’ll bet that story is a humdinger.