HAIL DUBYUS!

An Illustrated Guide to Mendacity and Folly in the Imperium Americanum

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going: BYE BYE DONALD!

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Wanna Talk Mandate NOW, Georgie?

Well, the good news is that my natural paranoia about stealing elections turned out to be false and after 6 years of single-party government, the USA returns to a democratic system of government. The Democrats won the House by a huge margin, the Senate is JUST in Democratic hands, and George Bush has either got to learn humility and compromise or accomplish nothing in his last two years. I wish Nancy Pelosi had not promised not to seek impeachment for him, because if there’s any president who deserved it, it’s him. Perhaps, the grass roots will take it out of her hands 🙂

And the latest good news is that Don Rumsfeld has decided to scoot (or has been told to scoot) after four years of uncomprehending and uncompromising incompetence. I’m told there were cheers you could hear from the Pentagon all the way in Nordstrom’s in the mall across the street–the street being I-395! We’ll miss you Don, but hey, stuff happens …

The fun news of course is one of the election glitches that happened in Colorado. I haven’t been able to find out much more, but 41 out of 50 laptops seem to have been disabled by a squirrel at some point in time yesterday. Probably the squirrel ate through a cable connecting the laptops to the net (the best I can figure) but the only link to it I can find is through Wonkette, so click here for the link (Wonkette) Terrorist Squirrel Causes Chaos in Colorado

Now the bad news. I got an answer from Google–NOT by mail or email, of course, but by action. Remember how there were only 42 cartoons (out of an already reduced 386) left on Google Image Search because they’d subjected it to the Chinese censorship criteria and left China UNcensored? and how after I alerted them, they fixed China but left the US results censored? And how I wrote them again? WELL, guess what? There are only TEN (10) images now for my image search results! And two of those are my header and sidebar images! I’ve decided I’m NOT paranoid, someone IS out to get this page at Google. Yup folks, THIS PAGE IS TOO POLITICALLY DANGEROUS FOR GOOGLE. Or at least for someone who can alter search results who works there. I’m not sure of my next step, but believe me, it’s time to escalate. I’ll let you know if there’s anything YOU can do 🙂

This Friday, being Veteran’s Day, we’ll be taking the day off, so we’ll be back on Monday with more HAIL DUBYUS!

Filibuster? Heck, No, I’d Prefer A Meaningless NO Vote…

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I’m a Libra and it takes me a long time to make up my mind–some people say I never do 🙂 Nevertheless, I am convinced that Judge Sam Alito would be a detrimental addition to our Supreme Court. Save The Court has a pretty good rundown of the reasons why his confirmation would be a bad bad thing. Alito’s 1985 Job Application: A Blueprint for His Troubling Judicial Record.

Now, it is a matter of public record that Alito argued as a judge for the legality of a strip search of a 10-year old girl and he also voted for “spousal notification” w/r/t abortions (the problem with that is what if a woman is married to an abuser–the need to notify him would be tantamount to requiring his permission AND opening the woman to the possibility of further abuse). But I think the most telling problem is the issue of his honesty. There was a great hubbub made about his membership in an organization called the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an extreme rightwing organization that was founded for the purpose of limiting or overthrowing the admission of women and minorities to the Ivy League campus. Alito claimed he did not remember the details of his membership, despite the fact that he’d noted it in his CV when applying for a post in the Reagan administration. AFTER the hubbub went into full swing, the following article appeared via the Bloomberg organization: Alito’s Name Does Not Appear in Princeton Alumni Group Records. So it seems as if Judge Sam WASN’T a member, didn’t pay dues, attend meetings, subscribe to the magazine. Alito had merely written it into his CV to make it look good to the right wing side of Reagan’s staff. So, What’s The Problem, Teddy?

The problem of course is the same problem with James Frey’s “embellishment” of his memoirs. Alito didn’t tell the truth. Think about it–did YOU embellish your credentials on your resume? Most of us, I think would say no–we didn’t even consider it. Chances are, no one would have checked out the more obscure pieces of information on it, but if they did, we didn’t want to be caught in a lie. Sam Alito didn’t have that kind of qualm. I don’t like liars. And I don’t like judges who are liars. And right now, to parallel Dashiell Hammett, even if I liked judges who lied their asses off, I still wouldn’t like Sam Alito. I urge everyone who is concerned about the direction of our nation, everyone who truly loves the United States, to write their senators to support a filibuster of his nomination.

Several senators have stated that they would not support a filibuster, but would vote no. Well, hell, that’s kinda senseless, isn’t it, given the odds on an up-down vote confirming the nomination? You may say, well, Bush will only try to appoint an even MORE radical rightwinger. Well, if he does, he’ll show his true colors and perhaps THAT nominee will not even make it out of the committee. The following orgs (among others) support the filibuster:
Save The Court, Act Speak, No Crony.
Please excuse my going on at length about this but it’s important if we are to turn the tide against the tyrannization of the American presidency.