Working

Another long and tiring day today and I am totally hosed. "Beddy Bye" is the only answer. I honestly tried to do a diligent search of the news and blogosphere and just woke up sitting in front of the computer with another hour missing. I am now at the point where I can't get a single image cleary focused and see two of everything. I give up!
Updated: fixed all my sleepy typos.

Shame,Shame

I have to admit I am ashamed of ExxonMobil. Yeah, I know I am a slow learner. I bought shares of the company in my small self directed 401K back when it was just Exxon and I have held on to them for over 10 years. I am now fully convinced that I need to dump them even though they are making me money and are one of the few investments outside of Starbucks to do so.

The parade of slime financed by ExxonMobil continuing to attack Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" hit another new low today with an attack from Sterling Burnett on Faux. Burnett is a whore from the National Center for Policy Analysis, an organization that has received over $390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Here are a few sentences from the attack...

That’s the problem. If I thought Al Gore’s movie was as you like to say, fair
and balanced, I’d say, everyone should go see it. But why go see propaganda? You
don’t go see Joseph Goebbels’ films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You
don’t go see Al Gore’s films to see the truth about global warming.

Burnett has the gall to compare watching Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to watching a movie by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to learn about Nazi Germany. This is really too much. The whole ugly thing can be seen on Think Progress' website. These guys really have no shame. I really hate to be forced into shooting myself in the foot on this but Jeebus you can only ignore so much.

Not Missing

I am here in Phoenix but very limited access and absolutely no time to blog. My best intentions to spend some time here last night was thwarted by some very necessary sleep.

Don't miss the long list of GOP lies that John has posted over at AmericaBlog. Truly amazing!

Travel Day tomorrow

Off to the wilds of Arizona early tomorrow morning. Will be in Phoenix for the next four weeks with a client. Home on the weekends though. Not looking forward to it. I used to work for a company headquartered in Phoenix and this time of year is when it is starting to get really, really hot. Triple digits hot. The only positive thing about flying this week is that it will put me over the top on the miles needed to maintain Platinum status on Delta. I am not sure but this may be the earliest in a year I have hit the 75K mile mark...before the end of May no less. How do you say traveling too much?

Spent another weekend trying to get the old homestead back in shape. This weekend was trying to so something about all the damage done when the septic tank had to be dug up along with all the piping going into it. Didn't look so hard but it took all weekend and required moving quite a bit of dirt one shovel full at a time. Excercised some muscles I had forgotten about. Anyway looks good and now all we need is a truckload of gravel to repair the path that goes back to the garden.

This task did force me to drag out my old Troy-Bilt Horse and get it running. Required a complete dis-assembly of the carb to clean out the varnish from letting gas sit in it for a couple of years. I have had this tiller since the late seventies and it is still going strong (when I do my part). Now that I have it running I am sorely tempted to till up the old garden which I haven't done in 6 or so years. Traveling so much makes keeping a garden impossible but I sure do enjoy it and nothing will ever replace your first homegrown tomato or ear of corn. I am now reduced to having someone mow my lawn to the tune of $40 a week...oh the shame of it. I might just till up the garden and plant something for the wildlife or just wildflowers.

So anyway... traveling tomorrow and no guarantees as to posts here. Just because I don't have time to post doesn't mean I don't appreciate the folks who stop by here and especially those that step in an comment.

Not Bad Science

I toook this post "lock, stock and barrel" from Steve Bates over at Yellow Doggerel Democrat. No sense in me retyping it.

While you're waiting for Al Gore's movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, you should take a look at Bill Maher's segment on the same subject, War on Terra. Here's added incentive to watch Maher: he accuses Bush of treason. And his reason for doing so is valid.

Anyone that thinks Global Warming is "bad science" is full of shit. While I was in Gothenburg, Sweden week before last one of my clients noted that the harbor used to freeze over in winter when he was younger but it hasn't done so in the last few years.

Cowards Every One

Matthew Yglesias covering for Josh at TPM points out something we should note. Numerous GOP Senators such as Pat Roberts of Kansas seem to have some aversion to the concept of dying to preserve our liberties. Yesterday during the confirmation hearings for Hayden he said "but you have no civil liberties if you are dead." If I may, let me translate that into plain English (the "National language") "Here, take my liberties they aren't worth dying for." This is one of the same men that have sent 3000 of our men and women to die on the sands of Iraq to preserve liberty. WTF.One of Matt's commenters pointed us to the immortal words of Patrick Henry.

Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

UPDATE: John at AmericaBlog has more examples of cowardice among the GOP.

GOP Senator Jeff Sessions referring to the rightness of Bush's domestic spying after 9/11 declared melodramatically:

"Over 3,000 Americans have no civil rights because they are no longer with us."

On February 3rd, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts similarly claimed:

"You really don't have any civil liberties if you're dead."

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said on December 20, 2005:

"None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

This kind of attitude will get us exactly what we are getting. These cowards have so little respect for the liberties our fathers and forefathers fought and died for. No reverence for the lives wasted in Iraq and no courage to make the hard choices necessary to lead a country like the U.S. They all need to be turned out in shame.

A Big Mouth Jumps Ship

Here is a snippet from Doug McIntyre's apology. Doug is a very conservative talk radio host in the mornings on KABC in the LA market. Doug has historically been an avid supporter of Bush and has a big West Coast following. This guy has jumped ship in a big way.

So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.

Read the whole thing it is a memorable piece. You might even call it refreshing.

tip to Armando

Who Are You Gonna Believe?

You just knew this would happen sooner or later with the impending release of Al Gore's movie on global warming "An Inconvenient Truth" on May 24. According to Think Progress

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” The ad, which will be aired in more than a dozen cities across the country, is being released just a week before the May 24th opening (in LA and NYC) of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.

Here is a big surprise...

Exxon documents reveal the company gave $270,000 to CEI in 2004 alone. $180,000 of that was earmarked for “global climate change and global climate change outreach.” Exxon has contributed over $1.6 million to CEI since 1998.

CEI’s general counsel Sam Kazman said, “I think what attracted [Exxon] to us was our position on global warming.” CEI’s position? The Institute believes the dangers of global warming are akin “to that of ‘an alien invasion.’”

Let's hope the American people realize that the oil companies that are funding this organization know that doing something about global warming means doing something about oil and using less of it. The oil companies are only concerned with profit in the short term and give a rip about the long term effects of their business on the planet. This has to change.

Thanks to Matt Stoller at MyDD for the heads up.

This Month's Crisis

Leveraging off a couple of posts by John at AmericaBlog...here and here

I have hesitated to post about the immigration debate because I really can't offer what I consider a reasonable solution. This is a country of immigrants and to dismiss out of hand the right for anyone to search out a better life in the U.S. runs against the grain. On the other hand, we have a responsibility to those already citizens, whether natural or not, to protect their hard won gains in wages, benefits, job security and workplace safety from being diluted by a huge influx of labor willing to work at virtually slave wages. It's a tough problem and there is not a simple solution.

Regardless of all of the above however, the reality is that the current brouhaha over immigration is just another GOP gambit to distract the voting public with some manufactured issue and inflame passions. Bush and company want so much to appear as if they can lead this country and they can point to nothing they have done so far that demonstrates competence or leadership. The last couple of months it was Iran but that now seems on the back burner. Before that it was abortion, gay rights/marriage, obscenity and whatever other issue that they could grab and wave before their slobbering crowds. They do so want to distract us from the debacle in Iraq and the failure to effectively secure our country or provide us with security from such things as hurricanes and such. Now they are facing a losing proposition in the midterm elections and are desperate for the appearance of leadership.

Face it. If Bush and the GOP were serious about border security after 9/11 they would have done something 5 and a half years ago. Instead they cut the budget for border patrol to the tune of 10,000 agents over 5 years and are hoping no one brings up that little piece of work. If they were serious about terrorists coming into the country over unsecured borders they would have done something about the much larger and unpatrolled border with Canada. If you remember that is the border over which the one terrorist with bomb materials was captured.

So what we have here is just a political stunt that is going to cost us hundreds of millions of dollars and hassle some quarter of a million National Guard men and women for political gain. The heartwarming thing is that it is probably too late for them to recover from the screwups and failure to enact the agenda their ravenous, far right, christian base expected of them. Over and over again you are seeing the radical christian bunch throwing up their hands in disgust over the failure of this administration to follow through on their campaign promises to deal with abortion, gay rights, prayer in schools, obscenity and immigration. The good christian soldiers that turned out in such force to keep Bush and Cheney and the rest of the cabal in office in 2004 are pissed and threatening to withhold their vote in 2006 and 2008.

Therefore, one obvious key for Democratic success in '06 and '08 is to do everything we can to see that the GOP and Bush have no success in the key areas the Bible thumping, jumped by Jesus crowd are so desperate for. We need to prevent any GOP successes in all the key issues...

- gay marriage
- immigration
- pray in school
- obscenity/porn
- abortion

If we can stop them here and further frustrate the religious right and thereby suppress their influence in the coming elections we will have come a long way into putting the GOP were they so richly deserve to be.

Hope Springs Eternal

There appears to be some wiggle room in Al Gore's insistence that he will not be a candidate for President in 2008. Yesterday, at a screening of his new film “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Tennessee Democrat's new global warming film the following was overheard...

Former Vice President Al Gore gave yet another vague hint yesterday in Atlanta that he might be open to a run for the presidency in 2008, RAW STORY has found.

Gore told a reporter for the Atlanta Progressive News, a nascent politics site, that he was a "recovering politican," but added, "You always have to worry about a relapse."

[snip]

After the crowd cheered Gore in encouragement, the Progressive News' Matthew Cardinale reports, the former Vice President told the audience, “I’m a recovering politician, on Step Nine. Thank you for your sentiment.”

"Later, after the larger crowd left the theater, APN Staff Writer Susan Keith brought the issue up again in a more private, yet informal gathering in the theater after the show," Cardinale adds. "'It’s not a sentiment!' she said, while others in attendance offered their campaign support and said, stop listening to those consultants."

One can only hope he is wavering in his resolve and does, in fact, relapse.

Good Idea at Firedoglake

The folks over at firedoglake have another great action project. They are asking folks to buy the Book "Crashing the Gate" by Kos and Jerome at a bookstore(Politics & Prose) in Washington and have volunteers them hand deliver the books to each Democratic Congressman. That is just 250 books and you will get a 37% dicount off the regular $25 price. This is all sponsored by The Citizen Action & Open Source Lobbying project a part of The Roots Project
use previous link to order your book.

I just did so they only need 249 at most.

Circus In Town

DarkSyde has a must read post this morning over at Kos. He creates a beautiful analogy of the MSM's relationship with the Bush administration and the circus it truly is. Here is a teaser.

Straight talking Johnny McCain will flash a valium-esque smile at the clown and hug the monkey warmly while it takes a dump on his lap and smears shit all over his face. And an editorial written by a belt way democratic insider will warn us all that if we don't clap real loud and pretend it was a terrific show, the performer will turn into the Killer Klown From Outer Space and the monkey will prance around the stage menacingly in a parody of King Kong.

Here is the clincher.

Here's an intervention shout-out to our esteemed media pundits and their handlers: You Don't Have To Cover for this Crappy Clown Show Any More. A White House with an 80% approval rating and a jazzy video-war in the works can play games with access and deal you out of the family Nielson if you don't play ball. But a beleaguered administration less popular than Tricky Dick, with shall we say a shrinking market share, and under assault from all sides, will eagerly wag their PR tail to the cadence of your agenda, because they desperately need to get their respective clowns on every dang channel juggling those talking points and riding that unicycle. If they don't get that organ grinder cranked up to deafening levels and put on a hell of a clown show, they know they don't have a chance of holding what's left of their admiring fans attention, let alone reversing the public's general malaise with clown shows and musical monkeys.

This isn't the greatest show on earth any longer. It really never was, that was just promotional hype anyway. And, unlike the old cliche, this show doesn't have to go on at all.

This is the writing that makes the blogoshere addicting.

Disaster in the Making

Updated Below:

If this turns out to be true...that Bush will position several thousand National Guard troops along the U.S. and Mexico borders then we have the makings of a disaster. According to Reuters Bush will announce the measure tomorrow night to coincide with the resuming of debate in Congress on immigration reform.

George Bush and his henchmen are insane. In their desperation to do anything that will make them not appear incompetent they are going to ignore the fact that the military and especially the National Guard is already overstretched and use them for a strictly political stunt. Does anyone want to guess how much this little debacle going to cost us?

What is even more insane is that this is the same administration that just two years ago took a huge knife to the border patrol budget and cut some 10,000 agents from the force.

The National Guard is a military force and one of their jobs is to shoot people who are breaking the law. Remember Kent State? How long do you think it will be until a well intentioned National Guardsman shoots a Mexican man as he crosses the border or God forbids a woman or child? What do you think will happen when this occurs and occur it will? I don't want to even imagine the uproar and chaos in the streets of American cities and towns.

This plan, if true, is nothing but a publicity stunt. These proven idiots in Washington have not thought this through just like they didn't think through Iraq, Katrina and everything else they have touched.

As I have said so many times...we know Bush is going to shoot himself in the foot. What is amazing is how fast he can reload. The real tragedy is that it always someone else that takes the bullet in these disasters.

Imagine a bunch of ducks trying to gang rape a football.

Update: Georgia10 at Kos has more.

Update Number Two
Holden at First-Draft brings us non-Texans up-to-date on what happens when the military patrol the border. He reminds of this incident in 1997. This is the type of tragedy we will be facing if Bush posts the military on the border.

From the Drug Policy Forum of Texas memorial page: On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. was herding his family's goats 100 yards from his home on the US-Mexican border in Redford, Texas, as he did every day. Six days before, he had turned 18 years old.

Unknown to Esequiel or any of the other residents of Redford, a group of four Marines led by 22-year old Corporal Clemente Banuelos had been encamped just outside the small village along the Rio Grande River for three days. After watering his small flock of goats in the river, Esequiel started on his way back home when the Marines began stalking him from a distance of 200 yards.

The four camouflaged Marines were outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and weapons. Esequiel carried an antique .22 caliber rifle -- a pre-World War I, single shot rifle to keep wild dogs and rattlesnakes away from his goats. The autopsy showed that Esequiel was facing away from the Marines when he was shot. He probably never knew the Marines were watching him from 200 yards away.

Thus it was that a 22 year-old United States Marine shot and killed an innocent 18 year-old boy tending his family's goats. This outrageous act was the inevitable consequence of a drug prohibition policy gone mad. Esequiel Hernandez was killed not by drugs but by military officers of the United States government.

Brazen Visitor

I looked up while preparing dinner and what do you know... in broad daylight no less. Usually these quys wait until dark to raid the bird feeders but maybe there was something on TV tonight that he/she didn't want to miss.

Obama "Kicks It Up A Notch"

Two great quotes from Barack in the LA Times.

This idea that somehow if you say the words 'plan for victory' and 'stay the course' over and over and over and over again and you put these subliminal messages behind you that say 'victory' and 'victory' and 'victory,' that somehow people are not going to notice the 2,400 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at the Dover Air Force Base.

[snip]

I don't know about you, but when George Bush said he did not believe in nation building, I did not know he was talking about this nation.

thanks to Kos

Yard Man Survives

Ok, Yard Man has survived the weekend and the sun is over the yardarm on Sunday night. I am suitably equipped with a cocktail and ready for the evening. The honey do list is a little shorter but there are still some major projects remaining. To be fair Madam works right along side when we are gardening and landscaping and it helps make the projects a little quicker ( it also allows for close supervision of you know who). I don't have to travel next week (that I know of) and should have a chance to recover from the weekend soreness. Now it is time to check on what is going on in the world and see what dastardly deeds and monumental fuckups the Bush misadminsitration has managed while I had my back turned. I did skim the AJC this morning so I am not totally clueless but it will interesting to see what the blogroll has been up to.

Honey Do

Madam Monk has a honey do list for yours truly which I am about to engage. Already been to Home Despot and gotten mini-bark, compost, plants (lantana and Mexican heather) to redo the beds at the end of the driveway and by the garage. Unfortuneately, the monkey grass edging has encroached a foot or two into the beds and needs to be trimmed back which is a mighty job and will take a couple of hours. This is just the first item on the list and will take the better part of Saturday to complete.

If any of you decide to change jobs into one in which you travel heavily just remember that household chores don't go away but rather bunch up and actually get more difficult since you don't do them when you should.

Gloves Off

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson doesn't seem to believe Bush and doesn't beat around the bush (sorry) about saying so.

At least now we know that the Bush administration's name for spying on Americans without first seeking court approval -- the "terrorist surveillance program" -- isn't an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak after all. It's just a bald-faced lie....

You'll recall that when it was revealed last year that the NSA was eavesdropping on phone calls and reading e-mails without first going to court for a warrant, the president said his "terrorist surveillance program" targeted international communications in which at least one party was overseas, and then only when at least one party was suspected of some terrorist involvement. Thus no one but terrorists had anything to worry about.

Not remotely true, it turns out...

Bolding added
Why did this sudden realization about the Bush Administration take 6 plus years?

While You're Under There, Check the Oil

WHAT A NICE COMING HOME PRESENT!!!!

Agitprop went way, way out on a limb last week sometime in the comments here and predicted Bush would hit 29% approval soon. Major risk taker. Since he said it first he gets credit for being all knowing and psychic.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January. Approval ratings for Congress overall also sank, and now stand at 18%.

TravelTomorrowow

Flying all day tomorow so it will be silent here until later tomorrow. Long dy of meetings today and I am toast. Up at 0330 or so for a 0630 flight to Paris and then across the pond. Time to pack the bag and hit the sack. After the jump.