Arafat is dead.

Consummatum est.

Aujourd-hui, Yasser est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

Democrats: "We don't need no stinking election"

A few weeks ago, I was talking to some fellow Democratic bloggers, and we were discussing what to do if Kerry became the president. The consensus was this:

Hit the ground, running.

In other words...get to work making the world a better place. It's what Democrats do best. Republicans are the ones who are good at destroying the world...being, basically, agents of Satan. As agents of God, Democrats create Heaven on Earth. Not Hell on Earth...which, again, is Satan's work. War is Hell. Bush is the War President. The Satan President. Not the Great Satan. The Mediocre Satan.

But Kerry didn't win. What do Democrats do now?

Here's what Democrats do:

We live, act and work as if Kerry DID win. In other words, we do not become what they are; reactionaries. We proact. We go ahead and create a better world. We don't just talk about how we would create a better world...but only if you elect us. We don't need no stinking election in order to do our good works.

Some people think that we ought to immediately work toward impeaching Mister Bush. They think that we ought to react to every stupid proposal they put before us.
I say that sure, these things ought to be batted down. But we mustn't hide our light under a Bush. Make THEM play keep-up!

Four years from now, the Democrats should have already proven their mettle, and we should have a host of wondrous accomplishments to point at and brag about. Because you know what? The incompetent Bush administration will fall from the weight of its own lies and deceptions. LET THE POWER FALL. Simply step aside, and get to work creating a better tomorrow. People will be begging us to take the reins. And at that point we can tell them to go fuck themselves.

Just kidding.

Let the power fall. Don't be mere reactionaries.

No need to listen to Rush Limbaugh. No need to watch FOX News. No need to visit the Drudge Report.

Where we are going, we don't need roads. Not the kind of roads they offer.
Let the power fall. Divest. Change the channel.

Let the Republicans impeach Bush. They will get sick of him eventually. If Democrats do it, it will only ensure that the next Democrat in the White House is also foisted up the same tree.

Break the chain of reaction. Move forward. It's what we do best.

Be fearless as you create the future. Fear is a staple food of reactionary people. We are proactionary and conscious. Time we acted like it. Time we acted on it...

CNN, Networks do their dirty work after midnight

Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?

They feel less guilty telling lies to less people...being moral and all.

Anonymoses found to be reincarnation of Mohandas K. Gandhi

You were Gandhi!

You led a life of non-violent and
highly effective protest. People were in awe
of your example and followed it. Because of
your actions, the nation of India won its
independence from the mighty British Empire
without ever firing a single shot.
Unfortunately, your life came to a sudden and
violent end when an assassin shot you in 1948.
The nation, indeed the world, mourned your
passing.


Which Leader Were You in a Past Life?
brought to you by Quizilla


Interesting that he has that K in the middle of his name, as I too have that in mine own. Who else? Howard K. Smith comes to mind. But what do it mean? Hmm...

Using the K is conundral though, since my first name is an 11 and my last name a 22. Very symetrical, numerologically, and also considered special in some way. I forget exactly. But the point is that the K would throw off the symmetry, but not using it puts me in a pool with more than a few others who also share my agnomen and cognomen. Or is agnomen a middle name? Sheesh, wherefore art mine cellbranes?

But yes, I do identify with Gandhi, and love his book, "All Men are Brothers", whose point I also share. As do you probably. And "all women our lovers and sisters", as Mister Whitman reminds us.

Of the possible choices, I could have also been Kung Fu Tse (Confucius), but not really the others. Certainly not Hitler or Napoleon. Floyd the Barber maybe.

Who knows? Indeed, who cares?

Here it is, Halloween night, and I'm worn to the gills, yet psyching for to write me a goldern novel thang, beginning at minuit, topnoir, twelfths. I just threw in twelfths because it is fun yet challenging to pronounce correctly. And topnoir, I made up to represent midnight...assuming, my dear reader, that you have the linguistic wherewithal to decipher such an easy neologism. Not that more challenging ones would tax you, headwise.

So yes, sitting here. Halloweeee...

What the...!

Did you hear that?

Shhhhh!

Shhhhhhhhh!

The God of War

by Bertold Brecht

I saw the old god of war stand in a bog between chasm and rockface.
He smelled of free beer and carbolic and showed his testicles to adolescents, for he had been rejuvenated by several professors. In a hoarse wolfish voice he declared his love for everything young. Nearby stood a pregnant woman, trembling.
And without shame he talked on and presented himself as a great one for order. And he described how everywhere he put barns in order, by emptying them.
And as one throws crumbs to sparrows, he fed poor people with crusts of bread which he had taken away from poor people.
His voice was now loud, now soft, but always hoarse.
In a loud voice he spoke of great times to come, and in a soft voice he taught the women to cook crows and seagulls. Meanwhile his back was unquiet, and he kept looking round, as though afraid of being stabbed.
And every five minutes he assured his public that he would take up very little of their time.

Blogosphere Radio: The Voice of the Blogosphere

BlogosphereRadio.com is a website devoted to the intersection of blogs and Internet radio. We strive to live up to our tagline as the voice of the blogosphere. BlogosphereRadio.com is run by university students in Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Let's finally write that novel, starting Nov 1

November is National Novel Writing Month. And since it's not too late...yet...you and I can finally get that first novel out of our systems. What better time than during the most important election of our lifetime? It should write itself! Just nudge it every so often...

NaNoWriMo

Entrepreneur: "Will Undertake for Food"

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, author of "Going Nucular", talked about the word, "entrepreneur" today on NPR, and said that today it really just means: "Will undertake for food". An interesting choice of words, as the original meaning of the French word is "to undertake something". Nunberg talks about how "entrepreneurship" grows when jobs decline. An entrepreneur being basically a self-employed person. And he talks about how Bush trumpets the word at every opportunity, as if were some sort of high-fallujan term (oops, did I say Fallujan?) that we all should aspire to embody. In other words, you're gonna lose your job. Suck it up.

Meanwhile over on Rush, there is shuffling of paper, pounding of fists, blovation.

Curse of the Bambino...Eclipsed

Thanks to Tom Priest who would rather I have posted on Salon, but was unable.

Check out Tom's other great work!

The celebration continues here.

A personal note: Did anyone else think that last StLouis pitcher looked like John Malkovich?

Creative Loafing Carolina Writers Night celebrates winners, local talent

CHARLOTTE--Doris Iarovici, A Duke University psychiatrist won the 2005 Novello Literary Award last night for a book called "American Dreaming and Other Stories." She will receive a $1,000 prize and her short story collection will be published next fall by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, through its nonprofit Novello Festival Press.

Iarovici (pronounced YAHR-o-vich) came to New York City from Romania at age 5. She began to publish poetry and essays in Seventeen Magazine at age 15, and she won a fiction-writing prize while an undergraduate at Yale.She attended Yale's medical school and moved to Durham to do her residency training in psychiatry at Duke Medical Center.

The Creative Loafing Carolina Writers Night, part of the Novello Festival of Reading, showcases Carolinian wordsmiths and wordjoneses, of which, according to Bland Simpson, there are many.

Steve Cushman, author of "Portisville" was the first speaker last night, but I sadly missed that part. But I did get to see and hear Judy Goldman, Sharyn McCrumb and Bland Simpson, who not only read marvelously from his works but also entertained us with sung songs and an electric keyboard. A real bundle of disciplined energy!

Sharyn McCrumb, before him, read a section from her soon to be published novel, "St. Dale," . . . a rousing tale of NASCAR fans on a Chaucerian pilgrimage.

Judy Goldman delighted the crowd with visual aids and anecdotes about how and why she wrote her novel, Early Leaving.

Finalists:
Sandra Cimadori of Lincolnton
Julia Nunnally Duncan of Marion, N.C.
Mark Ethridge of Charlotte
Dot Jackson of Pickens, S.C.
Kay McSpadden of Rock Hill.

Read and join the Progressive Blog Alliance

Some interesting work pullulating over at the Progressive Blog Alliance.

Tragedy strikes NASCAR, Charlotte and the Hendrick family

Prayers go out to Rick Hendrick and family, as well as the families of the other victims of the plane crash which took their lives yesterday. Mister Hendrick has already suffered more than most people, but to lose a brother and three children in one day is more than most people could bear. He will need our help and prayers...

North Carolina's New Breed

I tend to get all wrapped up in National politics, and forget to consider what is going on locally.
And with people like Jesse Helms representing the history of NC politics, it is not hard to see why I might want to dissociate from the local scene.

I am pleased to report that North Carolina is on the move. And John Edwards is just the tip of the iceberg. And good people are popping up in both parties. Jim Snyder pops to mind. A gentleman and a scholar, Mr. Snyder is a living legacy of what has long been good about North Carolina. He actually would do better on the stage, as he has a classic look, and classic style.
And why he is running as Republican for Lt. Governor, while Jim Ballentine is at the head of the ticket...is beyond me. It's like Laurence Olivier as understudy to Sean Hannity. Totally ass-backwards.

Also ass-backwards is that Bev Perdue is running for Lt. Governor while Mike Easley is running for Governor. Granted, Easley is already Governor. I'd frankly prefer a Snyder/Perdue joint Governorship.

Beth Troutman, like Bev Perdue, is also a bright new voice for North Carolina. Erskine Bowles is yet another shining light, who not only has White House experience and prowess, he also has the help of the great blogger and human being, Matt Gross. And reality-based Jack Flynn will be a nice addition to the congress after he unseats the rubber stamping Sue Myrick, who has exceeded her usefulness. We need to send Richard Moore back as State Treasurer, who has run the best performing pension fund in the country, and has left NC with the best credit rating in the nation.

These good people join other good folks who are doing right by North Carolinians, like Mel Watt, who has begun his "Trading Places" tour, where he works alongside his constituency, and presumably let's others wear his Hahvard tie.

This is a good time to be a Carolinian. We are finally returning to a sort of Mayberry purity.
Y'all come back now! Heah?

"FOX News: Almost Bad. Far from Outstanding."

Outstanding>Excellent>Great>Good>Fair>Bad "FOX News: Almost Bad. Far from Outstanding."

Fox is fair. Not really good. Certainly not great, excellent or outstanding. Just fair. Practically bad.

Change the channel.

The War Song of G. Dubya Bushrock

by Anonymoses Hyperlincoln
(reprinted for the good folks at the Progressive Blog Alliance, and Blogexplosion.)

LET us vote then, you and I,
When the evening news is spreading lies
to the patients etherised upon a fable;
Let us go, through a certain half-deserted mind,
The muttering unkind
A mindless knight in one-night crack-ho tails
And cornpone restaurants with taco-shells:
Sheep that follow like a tedious dittohead
Of insidious portent
To feed you all a dose of healthy koolaid...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and drink this sh*t...
From the boom we men come aglow
Walking from Los Alamo.

The yellow blog that wipes its back upon our window pains,
The yellow news that rubs our nose in blue dress stains,
Licked its lips upon the money of the evening news,
Lingered upon the fools that stand to gain,
Let fall upon his face the pretzel that falls from skies,
Slipped by the congress, made of sullen lies,
And seeing that it was a soft September morn,
Turned around the plane, and fell to Sleep...

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow dust that billows down the street,
Wiping its ass upon the window-panes;
There will be Time, there will be War-
ner,
To prepare a place to meet the presses that you meet;
There will be time for Russ and Rush to bloviate,
And time for all the worthless ways of glands
That lift and drop a dollop on your fate;
Time for Dick and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred distortions and revisions,
Before making toast of Cheney.

In the gloom the warmen come aglow
Talking of Guantanamo

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I care?"
Time to turn my back and nude-descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my chair--
[They will say: "How his chair is growing thin!"]
My morning coke, my dollar mounting firmly to boy Ken,
My bolo is immodest, but inserted by a marking pen--
[They will say: "But how his arms of war are sin!"]

Do I dare
Destroy the universe?

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minuteman will reverse.

For I have blown them all already, blown them up:--
Have known the evening, mourning, darkest noons,
I have mangled up my life with cocaine spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying thup!
Beneath the building from a farther plume.
So what should I consume?

And I have known the ayes already, known them all--
The ayes that fix you in a formulaic phase,
And when I am formulaic, scrawling with a pen,
When I am penned and scribbling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit on all the but wholes of my days and ways?
And who should I consume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are daisy-cut and grossly unfair,
[Caught in the gunlight, downed without a care!]
Is it blue stains on a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie are sold at table, with talk of shock and awe.
And should I then consume?
And when should I begin?
. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gunned at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the ruins
Of lonely kids in tatters, pouring out of windows...

I am just a pair of ragged shoes
Scuttling across the floors of silent news.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, creeps so peacelessly!
Scorched by hot zingers,
Asleep ... wired ... or country singers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you Cheney.
Should I, after koolade, coke and icees,
Have the strength to force the world to its crises?
But though I'm inept and blasted, inept and crazed,
Though I have seen many heads [grown slightly shorn] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and I'm no mad hatter;
I have seen the speeches of that city slicker,
And I have seen the eternal Bushman hold my coat, and Snicker,
And in shorts, I was DeLayed.

And would it have been worth it, after Oil,
After the kegs, the candy bar, the T,
Hugging the porcelain, a lonesome walk with you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have snapped at the batter with a towel,
To have squeezed the universe into a booger
To roll it toward some overstating question,
To say: "I am Nazareth, book of the dead,
Come back to sell you all, I shall smell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not how I vote at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the fun set and the shipyards and the wrinkled sheets,
After the novel, after the hiccups, after the nose that trails along the floors--
And Kos, and Media Whores--
It is impossible to know just why I'm mean!
But as if a manic slattern slew the pervs on ladders in a screed:
Would it have been with child
If one, settling a pillow or throwing up on call,
And turning toward the window, should spew:
"That is not it at all,
That is not how I vote, at all."
. . . . .
No! I am no ham omelette, nor was meant to be;
Petrol attendant, bored, one that will screw
To stifle progress, start a war or two,
Advise the Dick; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to disabuse,
Lunatic, caustic, and supercilious;
Full of false sentence, can't define "obtuse";
The times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
I am, for you, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I prefer my money rolled.

Shall I kiss your left behind? Do I dare to be impeached?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and strut upon the stage.
I have heard Travolta singing, to my age.

I do not think that he will sing of me.

I have seen them hiding leeward in the caves
Bombing the dark hair of the slaves blown back
With my thoughts forever white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the star
By star-whores wreathed with seafoam green and crown
Till human votes awake them, and we drown.

MESSY ANTICS

Preying or begging? These Messianics prey on youthful ignorance, and then beg forgiveness after their sins. What should be done about these cult leaders?

- Pat Robertson says Bush told him there would be no casualties in Iraq war
- Why Pat Robertson said what he did
- No casualties? White House disputes Robertson comment
- Phat Robertson pictorially

Genius vs Groupthink: Dittoholes, Freepers and Bushies

DULL MINDS THINK ALIKE

All the wit in the world is lost upon him who has none.
- La Bruyère


America is eaten up with groupthink. But those who most suffer are those who are merely echo chambers of talking points. And while Progressive bloggers may link and direct readers to other sources, they also tend to offer their own original observations, and on a wider range of topics. When have you heard a Conservative blogger talk about Sufism, Taoism, Kama Sutra, the law of Reciprocal Maintenence, Tantrism, or the Categorical Imperative? And the pundits, anchors, and talkingheads are even worse, since they should be counted up to have either done their homework, or have something original to say. But it never turns out that way. All they ever do is say what has already been said a hundred times. And these folks make good money. They have, as Schopenhauer says, chosen Champaign over freedom.

Schopenhauer on Genius
[from "Parerga"]

EXCERPTS & COMMENTARY

ART, LITERATURE & NOBLESSE OBLIGE
No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! it is too good for that; my head shall be active only in its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world, and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an individual. These are the truly noble, the real noblesse of the world.

Bloggers are the noblesse of the world, unlike your George Stephanopoulises and your Bill O'Reillys and your Claire Shipmans...who have sold out their brains to Daddy Warbucks. Here we are, two weeks before the election, and even the Sunday shows that you might think would have some diversity of opinion...are a pompom fest for Bush, replete with RNC talking points and lies about Bush actually "tieing or winning" the last debate...even though Bush was a frothing Goofus acting like Butthead, and receiving signals from Rove and Metatron.

Do the math. These people are even less intelligent than Bush. Write that down and never forget it. The respect is out the window. May they finally be compensated what little they are worth.
. . .

DULL MINDS THINK ALIKE
The difference between the genius and the ordinary man [dittohole] is, no doubt, a quantitative one, in so far as it is a difference of degree; but I am tempted to regard it also as qualitative, in view of the fact that ordinary minds, notwithstanding individual variation, have a certain tendency to think alike. Thus on similar occasions their thoughts at once all take a similar direction, and run on the same lines; and this explains why their judgments constantly agree—not, however, because they are based on truth. To such lengths does this go that certain fundamental views obtain amongst mankind at all times, and are always being repeated and brought forward anew, whilst the great minds of all ages are in open or secret opposition to them.

This partly explains why so many bloggers are so pissed at the mainstream media. They all think alike! Their minds are dull. They systematically lower the standards of the viewing public. And dittoheads even trumpet their fascism by announcing their compliance unon entering the public arena, apparently unaware of just how pornofornocacophagomaniacal they appear to the entirely decentralized International League of Genius. Wipe that booger from your nose, boy! Lest I remove it with my big toe.
. . .

DETACH AND DISCOVER THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS
In order to have original, uncommon, and perhaps even immortal thoughts, it is enough to estrange oneself so fully from the world of things for a few moments, that the most ordinary objects and events appear quite new and unfamiliar. In this way their true nature is disclosed. What is here demanded cannot, perhaps, be said to be difficult; it is not in our power at all, but is just the province of genius.
. . .

LIGHTHOUSES OF HUMANITY

The mind of genius. . . sends forth light of its own, while the others reflect only that which they have received.

The mere man of learning, who spends his life in teaching what he has learned, is not strictly to be called a man of genius; just as idio-electrical bodies are not conductors. Nay, genius stands to mere learning as the words to the music in a song. A man of learning is a man who has learned a great deal; a man of genius, one from whom we learn something which the genius has learned from nobody. Great minds, of which there is scarcely one in a hundred millions, are thus the lighthouses of humanity; and without them mankind would lose itself in the boundless sea of monstrous error and bewilderment.
And so the simple man of learning, in the strict sense of the word—the ordinary professor, for instance—looks upon the genius much as we look upon a hare, which is good to eat after it has been killed and dressed up. So long as it is alive, it is only good to shoot at.

Consider, if you will, the treatment of bloggers by many paid "real" journalists...

He continues...

He who wishes to experience gratitude from his contemporaries, must adjust his pace to theirs. But great things are never produced in this way. And he who wants to do great things must direct his gaze to posterity, and in firm confidence elaborate his work for coming generations. No doubt, the result may be that he will remain quite unknown to his contemporaries, and comparable to a man who, compelled to spend his life upon a lonely island, with great effort sets up a monument there, to transmit to future sea-farers the knowledge of his existence. If he thinks it a hard fate, let him console himself with the reflection that the ordinary man who lives for practical aims only, often suffers a like fate, without having any compensation to hope for; inasmuch as he may, under favorable conditions, spend a life of material production, earning, buying, building, fertilizing, laying out, founding, establishing, beautifying with daily effort and unflagging zeal, and all the time think that he is working for himself; and yet in the end it is his descendants who reap the benefit of it all, and sometimes not even his descendants. It is the same with the man of genius; he, too, hopes for his reward and for honor at least; and at last finds that he has worked for posterity alone. Both, to be sure, have inherited a great deal from their ancestors.

So worry ye not, fellow bloggers, about whether or not you are "discovered" or "strike it rich". You would not be a blogger if all you wanted was wealth or fame. At least you would not spend much time on it, which is, after what one does...since most do it for free, or very little. Your blog is a record that surely exceeds space, and hopefully exceeds time.
. . .
It is not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple and agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even with comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others can also perform, and even in ordinary walking.

I am somehow reminded here of Herr Bush's performance during the the debates. Supple and agile hardly describe it...

In the same way a man of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will show his greatness; but as knowledge and thought form a mode of activity natural and easy to him, he will also delight himself in them at all times, and so apprehend small matters which are within the range of other minds, more easily, quickly and correctly than they. Thus he will take a direct and lively pleasure in every increase of Knowledge, every problem solved, every witty thought, whether of his own or another’s; and so his mind will have no further aim than to be constantly active. This will be an inexhaustible spring of delight; and boredom, that spectre which haunts the ordinary man, can never come near him.
. . .
Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world; but, unluckily, it is a contradictio in adjecto. It would compel a genius to give the thoughts and opinions, nay, even the method and style, of the million preference over his own; to set a higher value upon them; and, wide apart as they are, to bring his views into harmony with theirs, or even suppress them altogether, so as to let the others hold the field. In that case, however, he would either produce nothing at all, or else his achievements would be just upon a level with theirs. Great, genuine and extraordinary work can be done only in so far as its author disregards the method, the thoughts, the opinions of his contemporaries, and quietly works on, in spite of their criticism, on his side despising what they praise. No one becomes great without arrogance of this sort. Should his life and work fall upon a time which cannot recognize and appreciate him, he is at any rate true to himself; like some noble traveler forced to pass the night in a miserable inn; when morning comes, he contentedly goes his way.
. . .
...with ordinary people...leisure has no value in itself, nor is it, indeed, without its dangers, as these people seem to know. The technical work of our time, which is done to an unprecedented perfection, has, by increasing and multiplying objects of luxury, given the favorites of fortune a choice between more leisure and culture upon the one side, and additional luxury and good living, but with increased activity, upon the other; and, true to their character, they choose the latter, and prefer champagne to freedom.
. . .
A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name. Wealth is seldom its reward.
. . .
On a closer examination, it seems as though, in the case of a genius, the will to live, which is the spirit of the human species, were conscious of having, by some rare chance, and for a brief period, attained a greater clearness of vision, and were now trying to secure it, or at least the outcome of it, for the whole species, to which the individual genius in his inmost being belongs; so that the light which he sheds about him may pierce the darkness and dullness of ordinary human consciousness and there produce some good effect.
Arising in some such way, this instinct drives the genius to carry his work to completion, without thinking of reward or applause or sympathy; to leave all care for his own personal welfare; to make his life one of industrious solitude, and to strain his faculties to the utmost. He thus comes to think more about posterity than about contemporaries; because, while the latter can only lead him astray, posterity forms the majority of the species, and time will gradually bring the discerning few who can appreciate him. Meanwhile it is with him as with the artist described by Goethe; he has no princely patron to prize his talents, no friend to rejoice with him:

Ein Fürst der die Talente schätzt,
Ein Freund, der sich mit mir ergötzt,
Die haben leider mir gefehlt.

His work is, as it were, a sacred object and the true fruit of his life, and his aim in storing it away for a more discerning posterity will be to make it the property of mankind. An aim like this far surpasses all others, and for it he wears the crown of thorns which is one day to bloom into a wreath of laurel. All his powers are concentrated in the effort to complete and secure his work; just as the insect, in the last stage of its development, uses its whole strength on behalf of a brood it will never live to see; it puts its eggs in some place of safety, where, as it well knows, the young will one day find life and nourishment, and then dies in confidence.

Bush to Privatize Social Security

Bush's January Surprise

Bush & Sharon are preparing for war with Iran

WAR MONKEY


Bush will need a draft after we go to war with Iran and Syria.

With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
In your head, in your head they are cryin'
In your head, in your head, Zombie, Zombie
-Cranberries

FROM SALON'S TABLE TALK. ORIGINAL LINK NOT INCLUDED.

A senior intelligence officer in Tel Aviv revealed that President Bush "is now firmly convinced that Iran poses a greater threat to Israel than Iraq did". And a senior Pentagon official has further confirmed that a number of Department of Defence planners have recently travelled to Tel Aviv to discuss plans to attack Iran.
Meanwhile the Iran regime continues to threaten its own pre-emptive strike against Israel.
A military parade through Tehran has displayed a range of military missiles. On a Shabab-2 missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv or Jerusalem a banner proclaimed: "Israel must be wiped off the map." Another missile carried a banner warning: "We will crush Israel under our might". A third missile boasted: "With this weapon we can hit the American fleet in the Mediterranean and the Gulf".
But any pre-emptive attack by Israel is unlikely to come until the IAEA deadline for Tehran to stop all work on Uranium enrichment. This expires a few days after the US November election. So far Tehran has refused to agree to meat the deadline.

Why Jon Stewart is God

Jon Stewart is God. Jon Stewart is a good steward.
Stewart means steward. And being a good steward is doing God's work on earth.
By standing up to the paymasters, the Mammoniacal, The Overblown, Jon Stewart is David standing up to Goliath, Moses parting the bloody sea. Literally enthused.

Thanks to another David, David Brock, for all his great work, and for providing this wondrous clip of Jon Stewart confronting the Goliath of CNN.


EXCERPTS:

STEWART: Now, this is theater. It's obvious. How old are you?
[CROSSTALK]
CARLSON: Thirty-five. STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.

STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.

CARLSON: What's it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. Do you like lecture people like this or do you come over to their house and sit and lecture them; they're not doing the right thing, that they're missing their opportunities, evading their responsibilities? STEWART: If I think they are.
[LAUGHTER]
CARLSON: I wouldn't want to eat with you, man. That's horrible.
STEWART: I know. And you won't.