KicK! Making Politics Fun

I am sure I was not alone in early 2003 saying this idiot in the White House had no idea what he was getting us into with his war in Iraq. A parochial stay at home dad whose world view extends little past the brush line of his Texas ranch who has no concept of THE OTHER. These specific OTHERS are much like George W. Bush in that their religion comes first which there is no chance of changing. Whether it's executing a teacher in Sudan, beheading 15 year olds in Afghanistan, beating and jailing rape victims in Saudi Arabia, or shooting your neighbors in the head in Iraq, we are not going to change them by hook, crook or war (which only incites them further).

This one picture of the march in Khartoum to force the government to execute a woman whose grade school students named a teddy bear "Mohammad" says it better than any graphic I have ever seen. Look down that street into infinity going far beyond what you can see - from North Africa to Indonesia. Hundreds of millions of people who think the same way. It is a different world we have no business being in. Osama bin Laden is right on at least that. Calls in sudan for Execution of Briton (NYT)

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MENDING WALL
Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." Facebook | Digg | Reddit | Stumble | Buzz it! | Email Article |

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Henry Hyde, congressmen from Illinois dead at 83. Henry Hyde is most remembered as the loudest voice in congress denying women their right to choose an abortion and as the leading House Manager in 1998 to impeach President Bill Clinton. Though it was Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay who decided to have an impeachment, it was the once respected Henry Hyde who gave it the gravitas needed for it to proceed.

While Hyde and the rest of the other reactionary Republican House Managers fell over themselves talking the high moral ground over sexual matters, what went around finally came around to bite him on the ass, latch on, and follow him to the grave. His past long term adultery, unlike Bill Clinton's, ruined a marriage. As was the case with Impeachment House Manager Bob Barr who was photographed licking whipped cream off of women's breasts and paid for an abortion, as was the case with House Manager Bob Livingston who was found to frequent prostitutes, Henry Hyde also never recovered from the hypocrisy and the shame.

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General, thanks for your service, but I believe in what Colin Powell said when he said that having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion.

The reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives.

They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them. I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion. Duncan Hunter

Some issues like this one get to the very core of our differences. All Republican candidates agreed with Duncan Hunter in celebration of America's pride for religious intolerance and bigotry, while the rest of us are shamed by it. Unlike other Western Democracies where gay and straight soldiers fight side by side without controversy, Republicans tell us most of our troops are bigoted Christian conservatives who will not tolerate gays in their units. As is the case in the militaries in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc... It is why we fight, to substitute their BAD religious intolerance with our GOOD religious intolerance.

Though there were nine official Crusades, in truth it was one war in one place, Christians versus Islam in the Middle East. After 200 years of the bloodiest warfare in history - even considering a few Papal Surges to make it seem to go well - it was all for naught. We have five years into this one with only 195 to go before our final loss. Time, time, time is on their side... yes it is...

If you missed the debate CNN has the complete video and transcript that is very easy to naviagate at Republican Debate: Analyzing the Details

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Need anything more to tell you the US economy is down the pooper?

Rappers, led by internationally recognized economist Jay Z, are now requesting to be paid in Euros, rather than US Dollars. You can't really blame them. The euro bought an all-time record $1.4752 on Friday, and the British pound also has been trading at its highest levels against the dollar since the early 1980s. The Canadian dollar, often called the "Loonie," reached parity with the dollar in September for the first time since 1976, and has climbed steadily since. The euro bought $1.4655 yesterday, while the Loonie bought $1.0373.

With the Euro you can get almost half-again more bling, blow, and ho's. Plus, name one international drug figure that has been busted for laundering his Euros. Of course, President Bush and VP Cheney are probably paid in gold, right into their Swiss accounts, but watch them withdraw it in Euros. If they ever do. The lesson here? Buy American, but spend Euros. Facebook | Digg | Reddit | Stumble | Buzz it! | Email Article |

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November 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Jump on the Peace Train
By MAUREEN DOWD

Condi doesn’t want to be Iraq.

She wants to be a Palestinian state. It has a far more hopeful ring to it, legacy-wise.
The Most Powerful Woman in the History of the World, as President Bush calls her, is a very orderly person.
Like her boss, she loves schedules and routines and hates disruptions. As a child, she was elected “president” of her family, a position that allowed her to dictate the organizational details of family trips, according to “Condoleezza Rice: An American Life,” a new biography by The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller.

As an adult, Condi was worried about taking the job of top diplomat because it would mean traveling and being away from her things and habits.

So it is telling that in Annapolis she is running such a seat-of-the-pants operation, which seems designed to rescue the images of a secretary of state and president who have spent more time working out in the gym than working on the peace process.

W. couldn’t be bothered to stay in Annapolis and try to belatedly push things along and guide Israel with a firmer hand.

After subverting diplomacy in his first term, now W. does drive-by diplomacy, taking a playboy approach to peace. He wants to look like he’s taking the problem of an Israeli-Palestinian treaty seriously when his true motivation is more cynical: pacifying the Arab coalition and holding it together so that he can blunt Iran’s sway.
When they invaded Iraq rather than working on the Palestine problem, W. and Condi helped spur the greater Iranian influence, Islamic extremism and anti-American sentiment that they are now desperately trying to quell.
Condi has compared trying to broker deals in the Middle East to “Groundhog Day.” An Annapolis-inspired breakthrough would be thrilling, but it will be tough for Madame Secretary to turn around her reputation after so many instances of Mideast malpractice.

The tight-as-a-tick team of W. and Condi have been consistently culturally obtuse on the Middle East, even with a pricey worldwide operation designed to keep them in the loop.

First, Condi missed the scorching significance of the August 2001 presidential daily brief headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” “An explosive title on a nonexplosive piece,” as she later dismissively described it.
Then she and W. failed to fathom that if Iraq went wrong, Iran would benefit.

When Brent Scowcroft, who lured the young Soviet expert from Stanford to the Bush 1 national security staff, wrote a Wall Street Journal piece before the Iraq war titled “Don’t Attack Saddam,” she didn’t call him to explore his reasoning. She scolded him for publicly disagreeing with W. Scowcroft confided to friends that he was mystified by Rice. She enabled Bush’s bellicosity rather than putting a brake on it.

“He told me several times, ‘I don’t understand how my lady, my baby, my disciple, has changed so much,’ ” a senior European diplomat told Bumiller. Continue reading "Condi Rice Bad as Bush - Maureen Dowd"

Beauty queen Ingrid Marie Rivera beat 29 rivals, all beautiful in appearance, to become Puerto Rico’s 2008 Miss Universe contestant, but this writer believes she deserves another crown for sheer stoicism. Those chicas are serious about their tiara collecting down there!

Rivera was composed while appearing before cameras and judges throughout the competition. But once backstage, she had to strip off her clothes and apply ice bags to her face and body, which swelled and broke out in hives twice.” We thought at first it was an allergic reaction, or maybe nerves, "Riviera said. ”But the second time, we knew it couldn't have been a coincidence.”

Rivera's clothing and makeup later tested positive for pepper spray. Yes, the very same stuff which often makes grown men cry, all over her body, and on her eyes, in her eye make-up! In another “prank”, someone also stole Rivera's bag containing her gowns, makeup and credit cards. A bomb threat forced pageant officials to postpone the last day of competition on Thursday, said Magali Febles, director of the Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant, who obviously views bomb threats as “pranks” as well, since pageant organizers hope to catch and expose the responsible party or parties without police involvement. Obviously their idea of “pranks” varies widely from our own.

Beauty competitions in the U.S. Caribbean territory -- which boasts five Miss Universe titles, second only to the U.S. -- are fierce, drawing boisterous audiences and accusations of rigged results, making it sound a bit like ‘Merican Big Time Wrestlin’ Even so, these “pranks” are said to be a first. Riviera, who won Miss World Caribbean in 2005, has been the center of controversy from the start. Rivals complained she was too experienced and should be disqualified.

Local media may unwittingly have contributed to her misfortunes, touting her as the likely winner, and causing jealousy among contestants. When she won, she was accused of buying the crown, reported Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Dia newspaper.

At a news conference Sunday, Rivera was at last able to unleash the tears, recounting her ordeal, and acknowledging she’d wavered about staying in the contest. “At one point I said. “Am I a masochist?” she recalled, her voice breaking, “but I said, “I am with God and this is my goal, regardless of the results.” Whatever she chooses to do in her life, I have a feeling little can stop her! SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Ingrid MarieRivera, Miss Universe (AP) Facebook | Digg | Reddit | Stumble | Buzz it! | Email Article |

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