Quote of the Day in Consideration of Our Current World Actions

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

...all in the name of fighting Al Qaeda...

“ . . . what is far more fundamental is the defining American precept that a strong nation affirms its core principles most vigorously precisely when it faces external threats. We are a strong nation because we have adhered to the rule of law and our founding principles even as we defeated enemies far more formidable and threatening than a ragtag group of Islamic fanatics. Of all the radical changes which this Administration is attempting to bring about, the most threatening and corrupt is the notion that we need to fundamentally transform not just our system of government, but also our national character, all in the name of fighting Al Qaeda.”

Read the rest here: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/erasing-cold-war-from-history.html

Courtesy of my wonderful hubby...thanks, babe.

Cheney's Bad Day

Too much has been made of the Cheney story. But his statement to Brit Hume that Saturday was one of the worst days in his life--which he said with real feeling--is disturbing. Cheney has never made a similar statement about the war in Iraq, which he helped bring about. Did he not have sleepless nights after advising President Bush to go to war?

Perhaps he did and he has chosen not to talk about it on the assumption that it would be unmanly or a sign of weakness. But I suspect he did not have sleepless nights over Iraq. Like many policymakers he probably has trouble imagining the impact of his policies on real human beings. He has to physically pull the trigger on a gun and see someone fall for him to feel that he is responsible for an injury...

Rick Shenkman
POTUS from History News Network

Tuesday's sweet Valentine story

Couples really do look like each other:

Researchers set out to investigate why couples often tend to resemble one another. They asked 11 male and 11 female participants to judge the age, attractiveness and personality traits of 160 real-life married couples. Photographs of husbands and wives were viewed separately, so the participants didn't know who was married to whom.

The test participants rated men and woman who were actual couples as looking alike and having similar personalities. Also, the longer the couples had been together, the greater the perceived similarities.

The article attributes the similarity to similar experiences, facial expressions, and testosterone.
OK, that's not so romantic. Personally, I think it's 50 percent assortative mating, and 50 percent fat.

Posted at 14:16 on 02/14/2006 permanent link

does this mean I look like Art in drag??!!! Not good!

Cheney's idea of a sporting chance...

courtesy of Wilson's Almanac

Cheney's Canned Kill, and Other Hunting Excesses of the Bush Administration

Vice President Dick Cheney went pheasant shooting in Pennsylvania in December 2003, but unlike most of his fellow hunters across America, he didn't have to spend hours or even days tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of bagging a brace of birds for the dinner table.
Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds.

According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl.
After lunch, the group shot flocks of mallard ducks, also reared in pens and shot like so many live skeet. There's been no report on the number of mallards the hunting party killed, but it's likely that hundreds fell.

Rolling Rock is an exclusive private club for the wealthy with a world-class golf course and a closed membership list. It is also a "canned hunting" operation—a place where fee-paying hunters blast away at released animals, whether birds or mammals, who often have no reasonable chance to escape. Most are "no kill, no pay" operations where patrons only shells out funds for the animals they kill.

Bird-shooting operations offer pheasants, quail, partridges, and mallard ducks, often dizzying the birds and planting them in front of hunters or tossing them from towers toward waiting shotguns. There are, perhaps, more than 3,000 such operations in the United States, according to outdoor writer Ted Williams.

For canned hunts involving mammals, hunters can shoot animals native to given continents—everything from Addax to Zebra—within the confines of a fenced area, assuring the animals have no opportunity to escape. Time magazine estimates that 2,000 facilities offer native or exotic mammals for shooting within fenced enclosures.

The HSUS worked hard to expose Cheney's shooting spree, and we were fortunate in persuading The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and other media outlets to cover the events of that day and our subsequent criticism.

Our criticism is simple to understand: Farm-raised pheasants are about as wary as urban pigeons and shooting them is nothing more than live target practice, especially when they are released from a hill in front of 10 gunners hidden below in blinds—as Cheney and his party were. Such hunting makes a mockery of basic principles of fair play and humane treatment, and the vice president should not associate himself with such conduct.

The private excesses of Cheney are bad enough, and worthy of The HSUS's rebuke. But it's the public policy excesses that are of even greater concern to me. Cheney's hunting trip strikes me as emblematic of the Bush Administration's callousness towards the earth's animals.

The administration's most outrageous proposal is its plan to allow trophy hunters to shoot endangered species in other countries and import the trophies and hides into the United States. The administration first floated the proposal a few months ago, with formal proposals subsequently published in the Federal Register, and President Bush is expected to make a final decision soon on the plan, which originated with his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has provided critical protections for species near extinction in the United States. The act also protects species in foreign nations, by barring pet traders, circuses, trophy hunters, and others from importing live or dead endangered species. While we can't prevent the shooting or capture of endangered species overseas, we can prevent imports—thus eliminating the incentive for American hunters and others to shoot or trap the animals in the first place.

But with this plan the administration is seeking to punch gaping holes in the prohibitions, under the assumption that generating revenue through the sale of hunting licenses will aid on-the-ground conservation in foreign lands.
The plan is transparent on its face. It's not aimed to help species, but to aid special interests who want to profit from the exploitation of wildlife. No group is more centrally involved in this miserable plan than Safari Club International, the world's leading trophy hunting organization and an entity with close ties to the Bush Administration.

The 40,000 member organization of rich trophy collectors has doled out close to $600,000 in campaign contributions among GOP candidates in the past six years. President Bush appointed a former top lobbyist of the Safari Club to be the deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—again, the very agency promoting the plan to allow the selling off of endangered species to private interests.

The HSUS is not a pro-hunting organization. That said, we view certain types of hunting as worse than others. It crosses any reasonable line to support the shooting of some of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world. And it is beyond the pale to advocate for or participate in the shooting of animals in canned hunts—for birds or mammals.

President Bush met with leaders of 19 hunting organizations on December 12. While we expect him to endorse certain forms of hunting, he should in no way countenance the shooting of endangered species or the hunting of captive or pen-reared animals. If that's where these hunting groups want to lead him, he needs to resist their entreaties. He needs to stand up to these special interest groups and draw a bright line between certain types of hunting conduct.

Americans don't support this nonsense, and the president shouldn't either.

from an HSUS article
By Wayne Pacelle

New species found in Papua 'Eden'

The research group - from the US, Indonesia and Australia - trekked through an area in the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains, located just north of the vast Mamberamo Basin of north-western (Indonesian) New Guinea.
The team gathered the first photographic record of the Berlepsch's six-wired "lost" bird of paradise (Image: Bruce Beehler)

The researchers spent nearly a month in the locality, detailing the wildlife and plantlife from the lower hills to near the summit of the Foja range, which reaches more than 2,000m in elevation.

"It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence up in these mountains," Dr Beehler told the BBC News website.

One of the team's most remarkable discoveries was a honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face - the first new bird species to be sighted on the island of New Guinea in more than 60 years.

The researchers also solved a major ornithological mystery - the location of the homeland of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise.

First described in the late 19th century through specimens collected by indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea, the species had been the focus of several subsequent expeditions that failed to find it.

On only the second day of the team's expedition, the amazed scientists watched as a male Berlepsch's bird of paradise performed a mating dance for an attending female in the field camp.
It was the first time a live male of the species had been observed by Western scientists, and proved that the Foja Mountains was the species' true home.

"This bird had been filed away and forgotten; it had been lost. To rediscover it was, for me, in some ways, more exciting than finding the honeyeater. I spent 20 years working on birds of paradise; they're pretty darn sexy beasts," Dr Beehler enthused.

The team also recorded a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, which was previously thought to have been hunted to near-extinction.

Some of the creatures the scientists came into contact with were remarkably unafraid of humans. Long-beaked echidnas, primitive egg-laying mammals, were happy to be picked up. (Image: Stephen Richards)

from a BBC News article

Levity, Levity

Maybe I should start focusing on being decorative. Useful isn’t working out for me.
~Whoopla

http://whoopingchickens.blogspot.com/

A Woman from the Inside Out

Amazing!

http://www.pelourinho.com/movies/c003702/

Don'tcha just hate talented people!?

Laura Bush's Talking Head

Bush Rules Out Senate Run for First Lady

STERLING, Va. - The Senate may be the place for some former first ladies, but President Bush on Thursday categorically ruled out a run for office by his wife, Laura Bush.

"She's not interested in running for office. She's interested in literacy," Bush said during an appearance at JK Moving & Storage.

The topic came up as the president took questions from his audience after a speech on the economy. A woman asked if Mrs. Bush would ever run for Senate from the first couple's home state of Texas, and Bush responded "never" — twice.

He also declined the woman's plea that he at least ask Mrs. Bush if she might be willing.

She's a great lady," the president said. "She's not interested in running for office."

Mrs. Bush's popularity well exceeds her husband's, leading some to speculate that she might follow in the footsteps of her predecessor as first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Rodham, D-N.Y., and seek elected office. But, as the president dryly pointed out, his intensely private wife has never shown any interest in running for office.

"I'm pretty certain, when I married her she didn't like politics or politicians," Bush said.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

from Yahoo News

Amazing!

Endangered Rabbit Reintroduced on Gallo Farm

Something nice and positive to share from California...

** Endangered Rabbit Reintroduced on Gallo Farm**

In early December, 30 one-pound brush rabbits were released in California's Central Valley on Faith Ranch, a property owned by the Gallo Family. The species is on both the Federal and State endangered list. The release is part of the Endangered Species Recovery Program which,according to experts, can only succeed with the cooperation of private landowners. To read the full story,please go to: http://tinyurl.com/aomrg

If you would like to send a note of thanks to the Gallo Family, please go to:http://www.ejgtwinvalley.com/contact.asp

Al Gore: On the Limits of Executive Power

"Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws."

Presentation to The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition
By: Former Vice President Al Gore
excerpt from Yubanet.com

World War IV

If the "Great War" is coming, then it's because we have been set up for it.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8394
by Justin Raimondo

A worthy and dreadful read. I concur.

Katrina Rabbits

Here are pictures of 11 bunnies that lived through Katrina. They now need homes. Four of them are heading, a little at a time, from Baton Rouge, LA to Roseville, CA. But the others can come along and be adopted anywhere along the way. The Bunderground Railroad is providing volunteer transport through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California in early February. Really good indoor homes only. Thanks!

Contact: Melanie at Our House

oh, please, check it out...

2005 in Review
by the Vestal Vespa
http://vestalvespa.blogspot.com/2005/12/2005-in-review.html

Kudos.

So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion

The Dream is Over: The Jaws of Darkness Do Devour It Up
by Steven Laffoley
Published on Saturday, December 31, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

"The dream," John Lennon once said of 60s idealism, "is over." These were the words that came to me late one evening, sitting at my desk, in the glow of a computer screen, a glass of red wine at one hand, a spiral ringed notebook and pen at the other.

I had been searching the web for more than an hour, looking through mainstream newspapers for a chorus of principled complaint against the presidential breach of constitutional rights. But, depressingly, I found little. And after a while, when it was clear my search was in vain, I thought for a long time about Lennon's words.

Of course, I wasn't thinking of the idealists' dreams of 60s peace and love (though those were nice dreams, too). No, I was thinking of a far older, far more noble, far more meaningful dream - the great American Dream: the truly enlightened dream of a nation of the people, for the people, and by the people; the Jeffersonian dream of a nation ruled by laws and not by men.

But sitting there, looking for hope against hope in the cold silence following the president's defiant admission of warrantless, unconstitutional wiretappings, I was more certain than I had been in five years: the dream was indeed over.

I considered that, perhaps, it was like that with such dreams, dreams born of wild idealism, dreamy experiments in the angels of our better nature. In the history of civilization, such dreams are brief, perhaps necessarily brief, and rounded on both sides by dark ages and nightmarish sleep.

Of such idealistic dreams, Shakespeare wrote: "Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion."

I then thought for a long while of Thomas Jefferson's dream that spoke of liberty, and of justice, and of domestic tranquility - his "quick bright things" - and how they had all now "come to confusion" in this Age of Unreason, where American democracy was just sideshow entertainment, an outrageous mockery of true public will.

And it struck me as a sad irony that Jefferson's America overthrew the tyranny of King George III, overthrew his oppressive society ruled by men and not by laws. But then, just 230 years later, another tyranny imperceptibly returns as another George dismisses Jefferson's grand Constitutional dream with a simple smirk - and in doing so declares himself King.

Certainly, I know that other presidents have tried and failed to kill the dream before. Just a generation earlier, Tricky Dick Nixon similarly wiretapped Americans without constitutionally required warrants. But back then the American press and Congress steadfastly believed in a nation of laws and moved to protect the American Dream, vigorously reporting on the president's treason and actively preparing articles of impeachment.

But that was then. And this is now. Tricky Dick was just a paranoid politician with a dark willingness to crush others for political gain. George W. is far more dangerous. He claims to be a savior, sent by God.

Throughout history, tyrants often claim to be saviors - and are well rewarded for their claims. Caesar was granted dictatorship over the Roman Republic for "saving" Rome from the democratic mob. And Napoleon was crowned Emperor for "saving" France from the republican rabble. They each claimed to save the ideal of their respective nations by becoming the ideal. They each claimed to save the law of their respective nations by becoming the law. And so it is with George W. Bush: he claims to be saving America and thus doesn't need constitutional approval for his actions. That is, he need not heed the constitution because he has become the constitution.

"The tree of liberty," insisted Thomas Jefferson, "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." But, clearly, Americans have lost their ability to discern tyrants from patriots. Ironically, we hear the loudest support of the president's unconstitutional actions from those who passionately defend their constitutional right to own guns ("from my dead hand").

I would laugh, if I didn't feel like crying. So, I shut off my computer, raise my glass, and lament the death of a great and noble dream - the American Dream.

"And so dear friends," as John Lennon also said, "you'll just have to carry on. The Dream is over."

Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason. E-mail: stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca or steven_laffoley@yahoo.com.
__________________

What is left to say?

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people,to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians.

~ Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Source: Information Clearing House

High Crimes & Misdemeanors

The I-Word is Gaining Ground
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
Published on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 by The Nation

…For those interested in some of the most compelling charges against the president, I offer a brief summary:

Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean argued in his aptly-named book Worse than Watergate that Bush's false statements about WMDs in Iraq--used to drum up support for an invasion--deceived the American people and Congress. This constituted "an impeachable offense," Dean told PBS' Bill Moyers in 2004. "I think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to the Congress and to the American people." Bush's actions were actually far worse than Watergate, Dean contends, because "no one died for Nixon's so-called Watergate abuses."

Lending credence to Dean's arguments, the Downing Street Memo revealed that Britain's MI-6 Director Richard Dearlove had told Tony Blair that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush Administration. John Bonifaz, a Boston-based attorney and constitutional law expert, said that Bush seemingly "concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated," and "must certainly be punished for giving false information to the Senate." Bush deceived "the American people as to the basis for taking the nation into war against Iraq," Bonifaz argued--an impeachable offense.

Rep. John Conyers argued as well that the president committed impeachable offenses" because he and senior administration officials "countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq" at Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, including Guantanamo Bay and the now-notorious "black sites" around the world.

The most compelling evidence of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors is the revelation that he repeatedly authorized NSA spying on US citizens without obtaining the required warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. Constitutional experts, politicians and ex-intelligence experts agree that Bush "committed a federal crime by wiretapping Americans." Rep. John Lewis--"the first major House figure to suggest impeaching Bush," said the AP--argued that the president "deliberately, systematically violated the law" in authorizing the wiretapping. Lewis added: "He is not King, he is president."

Meanwhile, Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University School of Law--a specialist in surveillance law--told Knight Ridder that Bush's actions "violated federal law" and raised "serious constitutional questions of high crimes and misdemeanors." It is worth remembering that an abuse of power similar to Bush's NSA wiretapping decision was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974. [This comparison was brought home in the ACLU's powerful full page ad in the NYT of December 22nd.]

There are many reasons why it is crucial that the Democrats regain control of Congress in '06, but consider this one: If they do, there may be articles of impeachment introduced and the estimable John Conyers, who has led the fight to defend our constitution, would become Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Wouldn't that be a truly just response to the real high crimes and misdemeanors that this lawbreaking president has so clearly committed?

Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editor of The Nation. © 2005 The Nation

Little Red Hen Meets a Really Stupid Cock

The following is a 'story' that was emailed to me. My heart hurt to think that people could be so judgmental and mean-spirited. They paint with an awfully broad brush. So, here is the story and below it, I have re-written it to reflect my particular judgmental and mean-spirited attitude. Here goes...

The Little Red Hen

Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"
"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. And so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.

"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did unitl at last it came time to bake the bread.

"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow.
"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.
"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain.
And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched shouting obscenities around the little red hen.

Then Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and other liberal government agents came, and they said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy." "But I earned the bread," said the little red hen. "Exactly," said the agents. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."

And they all lived happily ever after including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand," But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the "party" and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled.

'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; and no one cared.....as long as there was free bread that "the rich" were paying for.
___________________________

And so Bill Clinton got $12 million for his memoirs. Hillary got $8 million for hers. That's $20 million for the memories of two people who for eight years repeatedly testified under oath that they couldn't remember anything.

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY OR WHAT?

Next! The rewrite!

The Really Stupid Cock

Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a Really Stupid Cock who crowed about the barnyard until his pals found a way to use him.

He called all of his neighbors together and said, "If we invade Iraq, we shall be doing the Iraqis a big favor because they’re too stupid to figure out what they want on their own. Who will help me kill the sons-a-bitches?"

"I will," said the rich.
"I will," said the oil corporations.
"I will," said the religious bigots.
"I will," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock. And so they did. The war on terror grew very deadly, all personal rights were vanquished and our constitution ripened into a piece of paper with no point.

"Who will help me reap more power?" asked the Really Stupid Cock.
"I will," smiled the rich.
"I must impose correct beliefs." said the religious bigots.
"I could make more profits," thought the oil corporations.
"I’d know who didn’t like me and I could kill the sons-a-bitches," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock, and so at last it came time to rewrite the Bill of Rights.

"Who will help me give the world to big oil?" asked the Really Stupid Cock.
"That would mean a big raise for me," said the rich.
"I'd give lots of contracts to all my pals," said the oil corporations.
"I could impose my beliefs on everyone!" said the religious bigots.
"I’d be able to kill all the sons-a-bitches," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock. He made our civil liberties a mockery and held them up for all of his cronies to ridicule in the name of national security. They clamored for more corporate control and, in fact, demanded that citizens believe they were right! And the Really Stupid Cock said, "Yes, we shall eat from the table of the little guy and kill the sons-a-bitches."

"More profits!" cried the rich.
"Bleeding hearts!" screamed the fascists in training.
"I demand that people follow my beliefs!" yelled the religious bigots.
The oil corporations just grunted and burped insider trading tips.
And they all painted "We love fascism!" picket signs and marched shouting, “Conservative values or kill the sons-a-bitches!” with the Really Stupid Cock.

Then Dick Cheney, Tom Delay and the other Real Americans came to the barnyard and said to the Really Stupid Cock, "You must be careful to instill more fear." "But I already got them to agree to give up their rights," said the Really Stupid Cock. "But we need more," said the agents. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can get �cocked’ as much as he wants. And under our current American Dream, all those productive workers give up their unique intelligence to the corporate good and, of course, to those who control the Really Stupid Cock. And we can do whatever we want."

And they all lived happily ever after including the Really Stupid Cock, who smiled and crowed, "I am really special, for I truly am king," And his corporate cronies became quite gleeful. He crowed his corporate party line and because he supported the party he got to make war anywhere he wanted. And all the Republicans smiled. 'Family values' had been established. Individual expression and thought had died, and nobody noticed, and no one cared.....as long as there were profits the oil corporations could harvest and everybody said exactly the same prayer to exactly the same god.

___________________________

And so, Dick Cheney fulfilled all of Halliburton’s dreams. Tom Delay and Bill Frist made freedom of religious belief against the law. That's 2,000 plus American dead (and countless Iraqis) for Real Americans who decided they could do anything and get away with it.

IS THIS A GREAT ADMINISTRATION OR WHAT?