Howdy Pardner!

Thanks for the comments gang . . . I've been roving all over these United States of America . . .Miami, San Francisco, Missoula, and now I'm on to Eastern Montana.

I'm not doing anything political . . .although it's tempting. The Progeny is doing a good job of carrying on the American revolution.

He and his friends organized an anti-war rally, for the third-anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. I was worried that no one would be in attendance . . . the weather was cold, and after all, there seems to be an anti-war malaise here in the States . . .but they had a good turnout and really intelligent, passionate speakers. I was proud of him. He'll probably never be able to find a job in the U.S., philosopher and revolutionary seem to be out of favor these days.

I've had the pleasure of watching FOX NEWS while in the hotel room. It's so funny! I can't believe Brit Hume et al, can read their teleprompters with a straight face. You don't know how lucky you are to have this form of comedy available to you.

On the flight from Seattle to Missoula I had the pleasure of sitting next to a twenty-year-old Montana army vet, home on leave from Iraq. We had a good time looking at his photos from Tal Afar along with a lot of video.

He spent his time in Iraq riding in a Bradley tank. Making lots of raids on Iraqi homes, looking for insurgents. He told me that they pretty much leveled the quarter of Tal Afar for which they were responsibile. They gave the citizens a warning to leave, and then they leveled it.

You'll all be happy to know that your taxes pay the Iraqis a small amount of money to compensate them for the destruction of their homes and possessions! See, we aren't evil . . .we're just capitalists . . .everything can be solved with money.

The day after my long tutorial on Tal Afar, our Dear Leader was on the stump, trumpeting the war and the ONE example of success he kept bringing up was Tal Afar!!!!

Yes, there are no more insurgents in that town . . .but there aren't any families left either. That's how our army measures success.

Back at the farm, the Husband is watching the menagerie.

He cleaned out the flock's winter quarters . . . took him seven days, over thirty large wheelbarrow loads a day. He's playing warden to our quarantined chickens. He'ss doing his best to keep from murdering MY DOG, Antoinette.

A few days ago, Antoinette went out to the sheep pasture and decided to round up the flock. Six sheep pushed through the fence. Luckily, no one drowned int he canal, but the Husband had to make his way through the woods righting the sheep that had fallen down. (If all four feet leave the ground, a sheep cannot right itself.)

So far, I've been in "blue country" but I'll soon be venturing into the red zone . . . hopefully I'll survive the next couple of weeks.

Posting Will Be Erratic

I'm going to be on the road for the next few months, staying in a few places that don't have computer access so my posting will be sporadic. Don't give up on me!

Read this brilliant analysis by Digby regarding what the future portends for women's reproductive rights in the U.S.

Lady Marmalade

Yesterday, the irresitably cute Marmalade was delivered in her cage. She even came with a toy. I didn't see her up close. Like the Faulkner novel character I'm becoming, I just gazed at her through my upstairs bedroom window. I let the Husband deal with the uber-friendly Amie who was making the delivery.

About an hour after Marmalade's arrival, the Husband tracked me down to sheepishly inform me that he had fallen under the spell of Marmalade's charms He had taken her out of her cage to pet. He reported that she was a very beautiful and affectionate cat.

Great! I replied.

But, the Husband continued, when he had tried to put her back in the cage, Marmalade bolted away.

Bummer, I consoled.

A few hours later, I received an e-mail from Marmalade's Amie. It was a very emotionally effusive letter telling me what a wonderful beautiful cat Marmalade is, and that if we didn't want Marmalade, or if we had any problems, the Amie would be more than willing to take her back. I didn't have the heart to tell the woman that Marmalade had already split.

A few more hours passed and the Amie telephoned while I was in the village. The Amie told the Husband that she had someone who wanted to take Marmalade in as a house cat. The Husband scoffed at this ridiculous idea pointing out that Marmalade had already failed her trial run as a house cat, and that Marmalade's current situation gave her all the companionship she could desire . . .two other cats, two friendly dogs, nine playful sheep, and plenty of mice and rats. Cat Valhalla.

Thwarted in her attempt to repossess Marmalade, the Amie resignedly hung up.

It's been twenty-four hours since Marmalade took off, and we haven't seen any sign of her. I assume she's out back, at the edge of the mill pond, eating baby ducks that are infected with the avian flu virus.

France's Avian Flu Psychosis

All French cats are now viewed with suspicion.


While Americans imagine a terrorist hiding behind every bush, the French are driving themselves insane imagining that every bird, cat, and dog is about to infect them with a deadly virus.

DISNEYLAND PARIS was accused yesterday of hiding a dead swan as panic over bird flu spread across Europe. The allegations, angrily denied by the resort, were made by trade unions who said managers had hushed up the discovery to avoid scaring off visitors. The row came amid what experts are describing as an avian flu psychosis after the arrival of the H5N1 virus.
In France, police officers have been sent to shoot wild ducks, the fire service has been inundated with requests to pick up dead pigeons, and cockerels banned from fighting are allegedly expiring from apoplexy.

I guess the sweet British ladies from Les Amis des Chats will now be showing up every day with a new delivery:

Hundreds of cats have been abandoned in France and Germany over the past two weeks. “A lot of owners pretend they have suddenly developed an allergy to cat fur,” a worker at the French Society for the Protection of Animals said.

Ooops, bad timing . . .

Oh my, this is so embarrassing. To find this article on the front page of the New York Times, just when the Chinese government is alleging that America has a police state:

The Republicans have finished outlining a plan that would allow warrantless spying on Americans.

WASHINGTON, March 8 — The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.

Ouch, That Hurts

What are these Chinese government officials smoking?

Feel free to rebutt their delusional accusations about the American political and social system:

The Chinese report, issued by the State Council, or Cabinet, takes aim at U.S. democracy -- calling it "a game for the rich" -- the high murder rate, domestic wire tapping and detention of Iraqi reporters by U.S. forces in Iraq.
(snip)
Other abuses involved "secret snooping, police abuse, wrong convictions and the highest ratio of people behind bars," it said.
(emphasis mine)

The Inconvience of Being Pro-Life . . .

[Senator] Burns told a Montana television station he wished Abramoff had "never been born." Earlier this year, he ran television spots throughout the state saying Abramoff "ripped off" his American Indian clients and "lied to anybody and everybody," but never influenced Burns.

Regarding Burns' statement that he wished Abramoff had "never been born," the lobbyist said, "That's quite a statement coming from a pro-life Republican."

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." John Stuart Mill

Snip, Snip, Oh What A Relief It Is

Two years ago, we had a cat infestation on our farm.
And I'm shamed to admit that we took care of the problem in a most hideous way.

Suffice it to say, we're Americans and our technique naturally had something to do with our obsessive, inaliable right to carry a firearm wherever we tread.

For those of you who were disgusted with our population control methods, you'll be filled with schauenfraude to know that Karma has arrived and we are humbly paying our debt to feline society.

Last year, the Husband and I were eating in a little village not too far away, when Karma appeared to us in the form of a British waitress. She was a member of "Amis des Chats" which roughly translates into "Single British Women who Have Moved to France in order to Neuter the Cat Population."

The French, passionate fools that they are, do not believe in sterilizing their domestic pets. Hence, the reason 36 cats appeared at our place that fateful, deadly summer. The French, romantics that they are, believe that sterilizing an animal "alters their true personality." And the French, not feeling it's right to thwart a mammal's inaliable right to sexual expression, think it is perfectly natural for their animals to breed like Mormons. In fact they encourage their pets to express themselves in this manner by letting them roam freely and by having outlawed the proud profession of dog catcher during the Revolution.

Oh, some French progressives, like Roger, have their cats and dogs on the birth control pill. But out here in the country, many, many people put the puppies or kitties in a sack. Tie it up, and throw it in the river. Works every time. And I have to admit that it's a lot less bloody than the Dick Cheney patented method which we employed.

Karma, our waitress, warming to us once she heard that we had a farm, asked if we would be interested in taking any saved cats from her group. The Husband and I looked at each other, and probably because the waitress was so cute, the Husband smiled and replied, why yes, we would be interested.

Great, Karma replied. She would have someone contact us.

Much to the Husband's disappointment, we have never seen the nubile Karma again, and the Amis that contact us appear to be the age of Karma's grandmother.

Seems no one around here has an honest to goodness dilapidated, mouse-infested barn any more. They've all been purchased by British ex-pats who convert them into gites or storage sheds for their massive collections of gin and scotch, and so our hovel has become the place of last resort for wild, sterilized cats who refuse to reform and become the fat, lazy house cat that single British women fantasize about.

We've been averaging a new, freshly sterilized cat-a-month since we met Karma. The cat arrives in a cage. I'm instructed by the Amis that I'm to keep the cat in the cage for three days; but the feces situation quickly becomes quite sticky because the cats don't have a big enough litter area in the cage. I clean the little litter ice cream container lid the Amis provide, but the feces encrusted cage is a bit more difficult to master. And cats go crazy when they have their own feces sticking to them, so I feel obliged to let the suffering cat out after a mere day in captivity.

The cats hang around the periphery of our woods for a while, eating baby ducks, and then take off.

We have a cute black and white cat in our barn who sleeps with the sheep and plays with the dogs. He often approaches me, but won't let me pet him.

Last night I recieved a call from one of the Amis that another cat will arrive this morning. This one likes to be petted . . .but failed miserably during her trial period as a house cat.

Thanks to the teachings of the Amis, (Especially noteworthy: Willie, Fifth Chapter, Verse Twenty) I've learned that I can live in harmony with sterilized cats.

This revelation got me to thinking, which as the Husband can attest, is a very dangerous thing.

But in this case, I am certain to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

To solve the abortion conundrum once and for all, the United States must enact a law that requires all young men to report to a local sperm depot upon the first sproutings of pubic hair. These young men would be required to jack-off to videos of Britney Spears concert videos. The resulting ejaculate would be put in the deep freeze for their future bride(s).

Then, snip, snip, the young men would be sterilized.

The idea is so brilliant in its simplicity! It worked beautifully for Lance Armstrong. There's no reason it can't be applied to all the young men of this great nation.

This solution would give the young men absolute control over their reproductive rights . . .they would no longer be at the mercy of treacherous teen-age girls who refuse to keep their knees crossed, or those middle-aged NEA members whose taxpayer-funded, union contracts require that they seduce our young males during school hours.

American men would finally have FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

By golly, we're living in the twenty-first century and with the miracle of IVF it's about time we took the bold step of liberating all men: by giving them the freedom to express themselves sexually without the fear of marriage or decades of onerous, unwarranted, state mandated child support.

I urge all of you to join me in writing our elected officials and in the strongest words possible, urge them to vote for the "Young American Men's Health and Freedom Act of 2006."

Life in a One-Party State

Over the past few weeks, the Bush Administration has appeared to be imploding.

Approval ratings at an all time low. (But don't trust Fox News' polls.)

Dick Cheney shot a man.

The Dubai government is about to take over America's ports with Bush's hearty approval.

George angered our Pakistani allies in the W.O.T. by giving India the green light to make nuclear bombs to her heart's content.

The Katrina tapes show that Bush lied to the American people . . .yawn.

New polls show that the majority of Americans and soldiers want us out of Iraq.

Military and conservative politicians started calling the Iraq War a civil war. (Liberals continue sucking their thumbs.)


But despite the fact that this Administration no longer has the support of the majority of Americans, the Republican Congress gives this unpopular President everything he wants.

This morning I woke up to discover that
The Patriot Act was renewed.
and
The Republicans will not allow Congressional hearings to be held on the wiretapping of American citizens, over the muted objections of thumb-sucking Democrats.


Then there was this laughable gem:
Indicted Texas Congressman Tom Delay handily defeated his three G.O.P. rivals in the primary. As my father once said about one of his state's Senators, "He's a crook, but he's our crook."

But the most intriguing article in the New York Times was this article:
The U.S. has quietly installed Special Operations personnel in American embassies around the world.
Officials said small groups of Special Operations personnel, sometimes just one or two at a time, have been sent to more than a dozen embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. These are regions where terrorists are thought to be operating, planning attacks, raising money or seeking safe haven.
Their assignment is to gather information to assist in planning counterterrorism missions, and to help local militaries conduct counterterrorism missions of their own, officials said.

From my negligible understanding of history, the CIA interrogates and precision kills with poisoned umbrella tips and exploding cigars; while the Special Operations people organize the death squads.

The Special Operations command reports to Mr. Rumsfeld, and falls outside the orbit controlled by John D. Negroponte, the newly established director of national intelligence, who oversees all the nation's intelligence agencies. An episode that took place early in the effort underscored the danger and sensitivity of the work, even for soldiers trained for secret combat missions.
In Paraguay a year and a half ago, members of one of the first of these "Military Liaison Elements" to be deployed were pulled out of the country after killing a robber armed with a pistol and a club who attacked them as they stepped out of a taxi, officials said. Though the shooting had nothing to do with their mission, the episode embarrassed senior embassy officials, who had not been told the team was operating in the country.
One official who was briefed on the events, but was not authorized to discuss them, said the soldiers were not operating out of the embassy, but out of a hotel.

Why does the article bother to say that the operations falls "outside the orbit" of John Negroponte? I'm wondering if that is a typo. Did they mean to say "inside?" For this certainly sounds as if this was an idea dreamt up by John "Honduran Death Squad" Negroponte. (Check out Billmon for more on Negroponte.)

Call me a sceptic, but that story about the man with a pistol and club being killed . . .why does that seem like it has been given the Tillman press release treatment? My guess is that the story probably should have read, "after killing a prostitute's john who was demanding payment from them." Or, "drunk and frustrated from waiting in the rain for a taxi, they shot dead the man at the front of the taxi stand line."

Sexism in Advertising Appeals to Knuckleheads

Miller Beer CEO admits that using bikinis to sell beer has hurt company's sales.

But as consumers began to look for more personalization and sophistication, Adami noted, the business failed to catch on quickly enough. Brewers stuck to the formulas that had worked before: mass-advertising campaigns with lots of bikinis and bad jokes.

"We were promoting sameness and increasingly going lowbrow. It is as if we were promoting beer as the official beverage of the knuckleheads," the executive said. Yet the consumer "was looking for more diversity and style."

The Cult of the Fetus

Someone I know, had a miscarriage within the first twelve weeks of gestation. So aggrieved was she, that she forced her husband and three other children to attend a burial service for the fetus on their ranch.

(Not that it matters, but each of her three children has a different father.)

Then the grieving woman went into a mental tailspin for several weeks, refusing to do anything, because she was too "depressed."

This woman's mother-in-law, having to tend to the three children while the mother mourned the fetus, and thinking her daughter-in-law was a great actress, commented, "Hell, when I had a miscarriage I was out working in the fields the next day."

It's been over two years, and the sonogram of the failed fetus still retains its revered spot, hanging on the family refrigerator. The three kids pretty much have to fend for themselves when it comes to feeding themselves, so their little fetus sibling is a daily presence.

On the "birthday" that never was to be, the thwarted mother insisted that the family have a memorial service for Freddy the Fetus. The living children that were subjected to this nonsense were 3, 10, and 12 years of age at the time.

It would be one thing if the mother wanted to deal with her grief privately, or joining with her husband to mourn their dead fetus, but it is irresponsible to subject young children to this farce.

This woman is not religious, but obviously has been caught up in the Cult of the Fetus that has swept our country.

Like so many people in the anti-abortion crowd, it's far easier for her to obsess about her dead fetus that requires no care or feeding, than it is to lovingly do the work required to pay attention and properly care for the living, breathing children that already populate our strained planet.

Searching the web for "fetus funeral" I found a long essay about several priests and MEN who collected the fetuses from abortion clinics, stored them for several years in their apartments, and then arranged to have them buried:

"Brian stockpiled boxes of fetal remains in his garage. I piled dozens of boxes containing the tiny broken bodies in the spare bedroom that I used as a study. The house where Edmund had his apartment had a nearly-empty basement rarely visited by the two other tenants. It was here that the largest share of the boxes were piled five feet high, twelve feet across and three feet wide Edmund covered the little mountain of boxes, which grew larger every week, with blankets and a tarpaulin. I bought several air fresheners to mask the formalin odor emitted by the boxes in my apartment. If I kept the door to my spare bedroom closed, the odor was barely noticeable. Of course, after several weeks I probably had become used to the smell. "

Now I ask, if they cared so much about children, why weren't these two spending all their time and energy trying to prevent or assuage the pedophilia epidemic that is rampant in the Catholic Church?

Perhaps it's because stopping pedophilia in the Catholic Church is infringing on the the sexual rights of MEN. Stopping abortion is only infringing on the sexual and reproductive rights of WOMEN. See the difference?

WOMEN SEX=BAD
MEN SEX=GOOD

At least Edmund and his crusading buddy aren't in a position to craft federal laws out of their fetus obsession. However, Rick Santorum is:

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass."That's my little guy," Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father's hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.He and Karen brought Gabriel's body home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother," Santorum says. "We wanted them to see that he was real," not an abstraction, he says. Not a "fetus," either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

WalMart is notorious for the fact that the majority of its workers are strains on social service systems because the company doesn't pay them an adequate wage and/or they won't offer them an adequate insurance plan.

Pretty immoral of one of the world's wealthiest corporations and families.

Yet they consider themselves righteous when they refuse to stock the morning after pill in their pharmacies.

See the hyprocricy with the Cult of the Fetus?
Take care of a non-viable fetus, but ignore the living, suffering humans.

Do everything in your power to make unwanted pregnancies viable, but don't do anything to halt the overpopulation and the global warming that imperils the lives of everyone on the planet.

No, because these Cultists of the Fetus have more important things to do: Must control the wombs of women. Must make sure that every unwanted child comes to term.

Fat Kids -- Worldwide Epidemic

Not a very pretty picture.

Because obese children tend to carry the problem into adulthood, Thomas and other doctors say they will tend to be sicker as they get older, suffering from heart disease, stroke and other ailments stemming from their weight.
"This is going to be the first generation that's going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents," Thomas said. "It's like the plague is in town and no one is interested."

Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

" Jeune femme avec agneau."


My girlfriend told me a funny story about her mother. Last week, it was her mother's birthday.

One of the daughters telephoned the mother to say that she had mailed her a birthday package.

The next day, the mother went to the post office and picked up her package.

When she opened it, there was a smaller box within the larger box, and within the small box was a vial of tablets with the instructions to take two every morning.

The mother took two tablets.

The daughter who had sent the birthday package called up the mother.
"Did you receive my package?"
"Yes. But what are these pills?"
"PILLS?!!? I sent you some pajamas!"

The mother walked back down to the post office and said to the clerk, "You gave me the wrong package." He replied, "Yes, we know. An old man just returned a package with some women's pajamas."

"In South Dakota, I am Disposable"

Wow! SusanG from Daily Kos wrote a powerful essay on what the total bans on abortion in South Dakota and Mississippi really mean to women.

Imagine this: One day you wake up and discover an entire state has passed a law that declares you are worthless.
You are no longer a person. You are a package - a package for another person. Picture the styrofoam Big Mac carton tumbling along the shoulder of the interstate. Remember the discarded, dented Budweiser can you kicked aside at the campground to pitch a tent. Recall the time you scraped a month-old Popsicle wrapper from the side of your garbage can. That's you.
Or rather, that's me. I am a discard. I am debris. I am a useless scrap of life, sacrificed.

Ah, Spring is in the Air, Part Deux

Beware of Stray Bucks:
Dan Huggans has about 300 to 350 bred ewes in his flock on U.S. 93 south of Hamilton. Huggans, who's raised sheep for more than half a century in the Bitterroot, said this season's lambing started early than in years passed, with more than 100 lambs arriving between Christmas and the end of January.“We had a buck get in with the ewes in July, which was kind of a mistake,” he said. “But it turned out to be good on account of the nice weather we've had.”

Ah, Spring is in the Air

Small is Beautiful

Seems like this Katrina disaster has gotten people all over the country to start thinking about getting back to the basics of life . . .like LIVING and not mindlessly consuming.

Until this summer, the Husband and I hadn't owned a car for almost ten years. We lived in the big city and walked everywhere. If we absolutely needed a car, we rented one.

But this summer we bought a car. And really, I don't like it. I have to wash it. Vacumn it. Take it in to be serviced. The dog chewed off the tire valves. My life was much simpler without the car.

It was the Husband's birthday yesterday and we went out to dinner with another couple at my favorite restaurant in the world. A traditional, family-owned restaurant, housed in an old-fashioned hotel. It's so cool, that when the Germans took over the town, the SS chose this hotel as their headquarters.

The Husband was asked how his 92-year-old father was recovering from his stroke. The Husband replied that he was concerned that the end may be near for his father because his father was acting like his mother did just before she died . . .full of new-found energy and very eager to give things away.

That got me to thinking about an eight-year-old girl from my hometown back in Montana that was dying of cancer. A month before she died, she started giving away her coveted Beanie Baby collection.

What these behaviors say to me is that when the end is appoaching, there is an overwhelming, innate desire to strip oneself of the materialism of this world, and take on the mantle of the true spiritual self.

Throughout life, we are taught to sell our souls to the company store in order to have the RIGHT to acquire, acquire, acquire. We forego living the life we really want, because we feel we must be part of the rat race.

But we all end up at the same place . . . the graveyard, without any possessions.

So why do we postpone LIVING until it's too late, wasting our precious limited days with the getting and the maintaining of our possessions?

We do this because our egos have been manipulated by advertisers, by a society built on zealous consumption, to believe that we are worthless without possessions. And brainwashed with this insecurity, we throw away what is truly precious, our ability to think for ourselves, our ability to love unconditionally, our ability to create.

No Wonder Gold's Been on a Tear!

Everyone in the Treasury Department is hoarding it . . .

Yesterday, Treasury officials told Senate aides that without an increase in the nation's $8.18 trillion debt limit, the government "would default on obligations for the first time in history sometime during the week of March 20." The Senate will have to take up the issue soon since "federal default is considered unimaginable because it would rattle bond markets, force interest rates higher and shake the economy." The debt limit increase to around $9 trillion would be the fourth increase in five years. "I don't think the leadership wants to have any debate on this, and I think the reason is pretty clear," Finance Committee ranking member Max Baucus (D-MT) told CongressDaily. "It's embarrassing."

Missouri Jews, Start Packing

The American Taliban strikes again in the Missouri legislature.

"The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."

State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.

KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office to see where he stands on the resolution, but he has yet to respond."

A Clarion Call for the Boycott of South Dakota

Mark Morford, of the San Francisco Chronicle, rips the legislators of South Dakota a new rectum:

See, modern women under 40, they simply don't accept it. They have no conception of a world in which they don't have complete control over their flesh, their reproductive rights, their sexuality. For most women of this generation, reproductive choice is simply a fundamental, incontrovertible human right, obvious and ironclad and indisputable, and so to hear that it's being deeply threatened in this back-ass BushCo world is so foreign, so surreal, it induces an immediate cringing recoil, like watching Tom Cruise stick his tongue in Katie Holmes' face, like watching flies feed, like seeing Dick Cheney naked. It simply does not compute.

No matter. South Dakota's leaders, much like those in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi -- who've all introduced similar hateful, anti-choice measures -- don't care about women. They don't care about rights. But they care a great deal about power, about self-righteous ideology, about the ever-present egomaniacal male need to control, dominate, imprison that which it cannot understand. They care about suppression.

Works of Mercy May Become Federal Crimes.

I often find it maddening that American Christians don't seem to be interested in interpreting the Bible in a way that truly mirrors the teachings of Jesus, if it requires that they do something distasteful, or difficult, like make sure that the poor were cared for adequately with a decent minimum wage and universal healthcare.

It's much easier, and admittedly more fun, to follow the Old Testament and enact laws that prohibit this, punish that and enthusiastically put people to death, than it is to follow the New Testament's message of peace, love, and turning the other cheek. If the truth be told, in the eyes of most fundamentalist American Christians, Jesus was a liberal-Marxist wimp.

But today I have to shout, Hallelujah and salute Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, for interpreting the New Testament with love in his heart.

From the New York Times Editorial Page:

The enormous influx of illegal immigrants and the lack of a coherent federal policy to handle it have prompted a jumble of responses by state and local governments, stirred the passions of the nativist fringe, and reinforced anxieties since 9/11. Cardinal Mahony's defiance adds a moral dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics. "As his disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the church," he said.

The cardinal is right to argue that the government has no place criminalizing the charitable impulses of private institutions like his, whose mission is to help people with no questions asked. The Los Angeles Archdiocese, like other religious organizations across the country, runs a vast network of social service programs offering food and emergency shelter, child care, aid to immigrants and refugees, counseling services, and computer and job training. Through Catholic Charities and local parishes, the church is frequently the help of last resort for illegal immigrants in need. It should not be made an arm of the immigration police as well.

Cardinal Mahony's declaration of solidarity with illegal immigrants, for whom Lent is every day, is a startling call to civil disobedience, as courageous as it is timely. We hope it forestalls the day when works of mercy become a federal crime.

For American right-wing lawmakers, the protection of this 5-day-old blastocyst is of higher priority than the protection of underground coal miners. Sago Mine Disaster information from Wikipedia

Blastocyst Union More Powerful Than Miners' Union

The life of a blastocyst is more important to Republicans than family men who work in coal mines.

Read Cenk Uygur's essay on the Huffington Post.

CBS was fined $550,000 for the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl half-time show, but over half of the safety violation fines levied against mine operators has not been collected during the Bush Administration.

"A nipple is worth nearly 10,000 times more than the life of an American worker."

Thousands gather to welcome President Bush to India. 

American Taliban at Home in Utah

Digby has written an excellent analysis of the Republican bill introduced in the Utah legislature that would require the parental notification of girls raped by their fathers, even if the girl goes to court to ask permission to get an abortion.

Digby goes on to compare what's now happening in the United States to laws that regulate reproduction, female sexuality, and birth control, with the draconian laws controlling women in Afghanistan.

Read it and you'll understand how the American Right truly views women . . . as the reproductive property, of the father, the brother, the unknown rapist, the husband.

In other words, the conservatives believe that whoever has sex with a woman owns her uterus and her destiny.

From Digby:

Utah girls should realize how lucky they are. They are just as guilty of having sex as their muslim sisters and yet their leaders are generous and only seek to punish them with the forced childbirth of their own siblings and the offspring of their rapists. That's because America is civilized.One of these fine leaders puts it this way:

"There is a life inside of this life. And how that life is taken care of is very important to me," said Sen. Darin Peterson, R-Nephi.

How the life it's inside of is taken care of --- not so much. That life apparently gave up any claim to being cared for when she allowed her father to rape her.

Let me add my two cents to Digby's observation.
So Senator Peterson, for argument's sake, let's say that this college student lived in Utah and hadn't been murdered:

"I saw the girl naked," Jack said. He quoted Pearson as ordering Moore: "Say hi, bitch!"
"She was laying on her side," Jack said. "She was chained up with her hands behind her back.
"She had a cut by her nose, three 'Bloods' [cigarette] burns like an upside down triangle [near] her eyes. Her face was kind of swollen."
Jack said Moore told him the men had raped and sodomized her.
"I asked them, 'What are you all doing this for?'" he said. "They said, 'It's already said and done. Nothing anybody can do about it now.'"

As I understand your position on abortion Senator Peterson, you would insist that Miss Moore give birth to the child of her rapist(s) torturer(s).

With all due respect Senator Peterson, you're one sick, sexually perverted, fucked-up man.

It's a Myth that California is Liberal

63% of Californians approve of Taliban-style punishment


Countries that Have the Death Penalty:
Afghanistan
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
China (People's Republic)
Comoros
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Cuba
Dominica
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Ghana
Guatemala
Guinea
Guyana
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Malawi
Malaysia
Mongolia
Nigeria
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Authority
Philippines
Qatar
Rwanda
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Somalia
Sudan
Swaziland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

American Taliban Strikes in Florida!

Domino's Pizza's multi-millionaire founder is building an "European" styled town based on Catholic principles. Sounds like he's been channelling Mussolini. In Ave Marie, abortion and all forms of birth-control will be outlawed.

Since he wants to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church I'm sure he'll have a super welfare system put in place to take care of all the sick and poor who will flock to Ave Maria to pray at the base of the world's largest crucifix.

Have you heard about the big bank heist in London? One of the suspects is a rich car dealer!

Did you know that the largest robbery of all time was that of the Iraq Central Bank in 2003 . . .now I wonder who got that money? Any guesses?

"The sophisticated robbery is believed to be the largest heist during peacetime. It eclipsed a $70 million theft from the Central Bank in Fortaleza, Brazil in August, a $65 million heist at the Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Center in London in 1987, and a $50 million robbery at the Northern Bank of Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2004.

But all four were dwarfed by the wartime theft of $900 million in U.S. bills and as much as $100 million worth of euros from the Iraq Central Bank in 2003."

Holmes

Here's WhattheH's bittersweet story about her dog Holmes. All I can say is that I hope you and your son are holding up well . . .and that your story proves that dogs are here to teach us what unconditional love is:

When my previous baby, MacTavish, had to be put to sleep - he was 18 and had cancer, I cried for days and vowed I would never have another dog. I was resolute, until six months later when I went into the pet shop to buy food for the cats.

Holmes, and his brother were running around on the floor. Holmes saw me and ran over to jump at my knees. It was love at first sight, for both of us. They assured me he was a cross between a Sheltie and a terrier, and wouldn't get much bigger. I took him home, and the two kids fell in love with him. They argued so much over him, that I went back two days later and picked up his brother, Watson. Why not? Two small dogs are no more bother than one - or so I thought.

Holmes got deathly ill with roundworm. He almost died. I had to nurse him, hand feed him and carry him outside daily, for fresh air and relief. He slept beside me, so I would awaken if he was in distress. We truly bonded.

Holmes and Watson just kept growing and growing, and they were boisterous boys. In the middle of one night, I awoke to the sound of growling and a yipping squeal. At this point, Watson was much larger than Holmes, and had a habit of picking on his brother. I guess Holmes had reached his breaking point, and had taken a bite out of Watson's shoulder, ripping through the muscle almost to the bone.

The other night, my son went to take Holmes out, and couldn't get him to stand up. There had been no prior indication that anything was wrong, and he was fully awake, but he wouldn't move. His abdomen was extended. It was Sunday around 9:30PM, so I called the vet and was referred to an emergency clinic. When we got there, they saw him immediately, gave him a shot for the pain, xrayed him, then gave me the bad news. He had a tumour on his spleen that had been growing for awhile and finally burst. They could remove the spleen, but he would only live for a couple of months because the cancer was the type that spreads rapidly. He had been in so much pain, yet he never whimpered even when we carried him out to the car and into the clinic. He never snapped at anyone in the clinic.

I think he knew he was dying and wanted to spare us. My son and I stayed with him till the end, rubbing his head and telling him how much we loved him. It was heart breaking, but it was the best we could do for him. Funny how they worm their way into your heart and become so beloved. I don't regret going into that pet store, because he brought me so many years of love and companionship. I miss him terribly.

American Taliban Strikes Again!

This time in Mississippi. . .

"A Mississippi House committee voted Tuesday to ban most abortions in the state.
The only exceptions would be if the life of the pregnant woman were in danger," as well as for the wives and daughters of the wealthy. "There would be no abortions allowed in cases of pregnancy caused by rape or incest."

Girls who are raped by their fathers would have to accept that it's God's will that their life be ruined. Mississippi, one of the poorest nations in the country, will proudly continue that legacy by forcing women to bear more children than they are capable of supporting.

House Public Health Chairman Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, says he brought up the proposal because he's tired of piecemeal attempts to add new abortion restrictions year after year."
Holland added that he's really, really tired of uppity women who want to control their sexual destiny!

I think there's a quaint old adage that goes something like, "Don't stick your dick in a hornets' nest."

Hondouran Death Squad Enabler and current National Intelligence Director, John Negropointe, has just admitted that a vast conflict is on the verge of exploding in the Middle East, "pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other."

Soixante-Douze in happier days. 

Amityville Horror

The Husband is jetting in today, so I’ll be pretty busy this morning trying to get the place looking as if I was busy while he was away for six weeks.

Here’s this morning’s To-Do list, and this is not a joke:
1. Pick up dog feces from driveway
2. Wash car and clean interior of residual dog vomit
3. Try to get smell of dog urine out of entry foyer
4. Pick up pieces of plastic potting containers that dogs chewed to bits and threw all over yard
5. Return, or hide embarrassing things like underwear, that Attila stole from Roger and strewed about the property
6. Return books to library.

Last night at midnight, Attila started barking wildly and wouldn’t stop. I finally had to crawl out of my warm bed and trek downstairs to see what was the matter. He was very agitated.

I was very agitated because my arrival inspired Antoinette to get up and urinate in the entryway.

Attila wanted to go outside, but I wasn’t going to let him out to wake up Therese or Roger whose bedroom windows face the direction of our place. And I wasn’t about to open the door so a visiting American mass-murderer could kill me. (France doesn’t really have mass-murderers, it’s sort of an American phenomenon.)

I went back to my bed. Attila barked until 2am.

This morning, finding it difficult to wake up because someone had woken me during my deepest REM sleep period, I plodded downstairs to find Antoinette eager to go outside, but Attila still sleeping! Usually it’s the other way around, but I guess Attila wore himself out last night.

When I went into the bergerie this morning, Soixante-Douze’s bulge around her eye socket was scraped and bloody! She literally had a black-and-blue eye. I can’t tell you how much this bothers me. 1. Soixante-Douze has this incredibly timid personality . . .even for a sheep she’s unusually timid. She doesn’t like to compete with the other sheep, and prefers to eat out of the feed bucket that I hold for her, instead of eating out of the communal feeders. So I felt very badly that someone is attacking her. Blanche, the pig, deserves any thrashing the sheep give her because of her bullying, but Soixante-Douze is the Mother Theresa of the flock. 2. I’m very bothered that I have no way of figuring out what happened, so that I might try to prevent it from happening again. I interrogated the usual suspects, Blanche and Beau, but neither of them are talking.

I can’t believe that Blanche would turn on Soixante-Douze since they have been bosom-buddies long before the other sheep arrived. However, Blanche’s personality has changed of late, and my suspicion is that Blanche punched Soixante-Douze in the eye in a barroom fight over the affections of Beau.

After Blanche, Soixante-Douze would be Beau’s most logical second choice because she’s older than the other sheep, and like Blanche, she also has an un-cut tail that would be very arousing to Beau.

So now I’m thinking that maybe Attila was barking because he heard the violent altercation taking place in the bergerie.

After that shock of the morning, I went out to feed the chickens, and was horrified to see that one of them had a patch on her side that looked as if she had been plucked! I tell you, I feel as if I’m caught in a Stephen King plot. I ran back to the house, racing past the dog turds dotting my course, the same dog turns that I had scheduled to pick up, arrived at the house panting, and quickly locked the door behind me.

Thank god the Husband is showing up today! I’ll feel safer.