BUSH AS A LEADER

Yea, it’s me again. Look I have no problem with all of you good honest Republicans out there. I just believe you lost the way of Goldwater, you know, small government, fiscal and personal responsibility, respect for the law and American interests above party success. If I had been born 10 years earlier, I would have been a republican. I believe I could have worked with liberals, we both would have wanted the same things, nobody is pro abortion, no one wants to restrict the 2^nd amendment, we all want the freedom to participate in religion to whatever degree we want and every one supports our military.

I’ve lived through enough presidents to know that all of them had strengths and weaknesses. None was perfect. After 9-11, I was proud of GW and his response, he actually was a ‘uniter. I, like the rest of America wanted Bin Laden captured and put on display so I could buy a cup of monkey poop and throw it on him. I believed Bush.

My confidence in Bush was short lived I’m sad to say. It was evident early on that Bush was receiving bad counsel. He abandoned and outsourced the capture of Bin Laden to the same warlords we are fighting in Afghanistan now. Worse than that he diverted our resources to an ill-advised invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with 9-11.

Even if you agree with Bush on Iraq, you must admit his occupation strategy has been an absolute failure. Not to mention his domestic policy. Have you ever heard of a ‘unitary executive’ before Bush? Everything seems to be politics with this man. His claims of authority are exactly what the founding fathers were guarding against!

3632 Americans have died in Iraq, never forget!

ALL HAIL BUSH...OR ELSE

I’ve never put a lot of credence in people who espouse extreme positions, either left or right. Both parties have their fair share of wingnuts and each are easily dismissed, usually by their own words their arguments implode on themselves.

Lately, left leaning extremist have argued that GW Bush and his handlers have some sort of grand plan to suspend the constitution in order to establish a fascist state. They point to things GW has said, for example- regarding the 06 elections Bush said,’ at least we allowed the elections to happen’, concerning his difficulties with the congress he said,’ my job would be easier if this were a dictatorship, especially if I were the dictator’.

These are 2 of the many examples of narcissism that are far too common in the Bush administration. I’ve always viewed these statements as incompetence, not evil intentions.

Now we have Reagen Assistant Secretary of State, Paul Roberts saying this, "Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran." This is not a commie, hippie liberal saying that.

Among other things he is referring to is executive order 51 and a new executive order announced 7-19-07 that allows the president to freeze the assets of dissenters. Both accomplish things that terrorists could never do, suspend the bill of rights in the USA. Order 51 allows the president to suspend posse commitatus until he deems order restored after he defines what an emergency is. The new order suspends any property rights that were left unassaulted by any of his previous actions. Both, absolutely unconstitutional.

To all republicans who still support GW, I ask this: What do you think will happen to our precious 2^nd amendment if GW gets his way if there is another “emergency” situation in America?

Young Chickenhawks Hold Convention

Ever wonder why some of the war's most fervent supporters don't enlist?
More about ChickenHawk Rush:

"I like to give charity...."

One day when we had stopped, a workman took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs. The German workmen took a lively interest in this spectacle.




Some years later, I watched the same kind of scene at Aden. The passengers on our boat were amusing themselves by throwing coins to the "natives," who were diving in to get them. An attractive Parisienne was deriving special pleasure from the gram. I suddenly noticed that two children were engaged in a death struggle, trying to strangle each other. I turned to the lady.

"Please," I begged, "don't throw any more money in!"

"Why not?," she said. "I like to give charity...."

from Night
by Elie Wiesel

IRAQ FOR SALE...GUESS WHO PROFITS?

Sand Hill Cranes East Of Star Prairie

So what if gas prices are hitting $3.39 a gallon and global warming is beating down on us. Sometimes a guy has to get in the car, pop in a favorite CD (Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels and a Gravel, I believe) and head east into the countryside. I did just that Friday evening.

The drive from my house takes me up and down the hills east of New Richmond over to Cylon. This was no fact fining mission. I know these roads like the back of my hand. Driven them by car and bicycle year round for the past 20 years. There was no hurry on this drive.

I wind my way over towards Cylon to see if the bar is open. Don't know the name of the bar, but it changes every six months. Looks like it finally gave up the bar ghost and has been turned into a living arrangement of some type. That bar's had many lives. Regardless of the name, the motife has always been redneck. On afternoon biking to the east, the Cylon bar was always a pop stop. I never met anybody there that I knew, but we did have a few good laughs there.

Being that New Richmond's Fun Fest was this weekend, I'll share a Cylon bar memory from 1997. It was a Sunday after a Saturday night of Fun Festing till the bars closed. The temperature at noon was at least 95. The wife, who tends to get cranky the day after her nights on the town, asked me what I was going to do. She assumed I was going to say take a nap, but I send go for a bike ride.

"It's almost 100 degrees out there," she said, "are you frigging nuts!"

Maybe I was "frigging nuts," but the alternative of staying home with a hungover wife would certificate that I was frigging nuts. Whatever my choice, she was going back to the air conditioned darkness of the bedroom and sleep some more. So I go on my bike and headed east.

When I rode into Cyclon, it had to be 100 degrees. So I stopped at the bar and headed in for a couple of cold pops. Keep in mind, I had my spandex biking shorts and a bright orange shirt that had earned me the nickname of "the great pumpkin." Before I grab a seat at the bar, one of the five or so good old boys preached on a stool wheeled around and said, "I can not goddamn believe anyone would be out riding a bicycle on a day like today in this heat! You must be nuts."

After I ordered a Coke and turned and addressed the boys. I said something like this:
"Boys, life is all about choices. Yesterday was Fun Fest in New Richmond. After spending an afternoon in Hudson drinking beers with a couple of old high school buddies, I went home, picked up the wife and went drinking in downtown New Richmond. We proceeded to hit most of the bars and closed the night out a Fast Freddies. I was feeling no pain when I go home and neither was the wife. In fact we sat outside and had a couple more. The sun was starting to come, when we called it a night. And know you ask me how I could be out riding a bike on a day like today? As I said, life is about choices. I could choose to stay home with a severely hungover wife or I could go for a ride in the hot sun."

I took a sip of Coke and asked them, "What would you do?"

"Hell," said the guy who originally asked the question, "I'd be out riding a bike too." Everybody had a big laugh and the big guy bought me another Coke.

(My biking records show that I rode 48 miles that Sunday afternoon. The hangover disappeared some where northeast of Cylon.)


But on Friday evening there was no bar to stop at in Cylon so I headed north and drown east of Hwy 48 and south of Deer Park over towards Star Prairie. Just east and north of Star Prairie I spotted a family of sand hill cranes in the field. I have seen and more likely heard sand hills migrating in the spring and fall, but I had never seen any hanging around and raising their young. I pulled over and watched them for a while.


Then I headed into Star Prairie and parked down by Island Park along the Apple River. I hadn't stopped by this park since they spruced it up. It is a beautiful park now. They installed fishing platforms, a couple of sitting decks with bunches and paved a winding pathway along the river. After sitting on a bench in the shade and listening to the Apple work its way through the rocks and around the island behind the trout farm, I headed into New Richmond to go check out Fun Fest.

Outer Space Bible Lesson

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the law.

But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connect. So it goes.



The visitor from out space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.

So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussion, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.

And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections.


Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five