Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Bush Attempts to Justify Continued Slaughter in Iraq

Bush Releases Detailed Strategy Plan
Bush said the U.S. goal is for Iraqi forces to take the lead without “major foreign assistance” and he chronicled how Iraqi forces were fighting better and gaining more control of their embattled country.

And exactly which “Iraqi forces” would that be???

Why, the ones who will sell us oil at a really cheap price, of course! All other Iraqis are evil and… uh… probably terrorists. Yeah! That’s it! Any Iraqi who doesn’t recognize the United States’ divine right to unlimited cheap oil is an agent of Satan and a terrorist AND deserves to be killed. Killed dead.

“America will not abandon Iraq so long as I am commander in chief.”

Bush said that setting an artificial deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal sends a message that “America is weak and an unreliable ally” and vindicates “terrorist tactics of beheadings, suicide bombings and mass murder,” inviting new terrorist attacks on the United States.

Oh puh-leeze. I think by now the majority of people in this country understand that the people who orchestrated and carried out the 9/11 attack were NOT from Iraq and were not receiving any significant support from Iraq. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism in general — despite the spin the White House has attempted to put on it. There were no “weapons of mass destruction”. Saddam wasn’t building nuclear bombs.

Honestly people, aren’t you tired of this president who insists on treating us as though we were all complete idiots? I sure am.

As for his “weak and unreliable ally” comment: Just insert the sound of me snickering in a cynical manner right here _____ . We’ve already demonstrated our weakness and unreliability to our oldest and best allies in Europe and Asia by ignoring their advice to stay out of Iraq, by denying our role in the growing global warming crisis, and by betraying their friendship in innumerable other ways.

“Failure is not an option,” the document said, citing three principal reasons: Iraq would become a safe haven for terrorists, Middle East reformers would never trust U.S. resolve again, and the ensuing tribal and sectarian chaos in Iraq would have major consequences for U.S. interests in the region.

Heh, yeah… the three principal reasons really being:

And terrorists hardly need Iraq as a safe haven. Hell, they’ve got Saudi Arabia! They’ve got Pakistan! They don’t need Iraq! Terrorists and those who fund them are already comfortably nestled into their little bungalows and big mansions in the lands of our allies in the Middle East. If we really wanted to get rid of terrorists, we’d be going door to door in Saudi Arabia. Let’s get real here, people. That IS, after all, where most of the 9/11 bombers came from.

Finally, here’s another big problem I’ve got with this whole “let’s bring democracy to Iraq” program. Democracy — while a fine form of government — is NOT the right form of government for everyone everywhere. (Again, consider our friends in Saudi Arabia. We don’t seem to be in any big rush to force them to embrace democracy.) Democracy works for us because of the ways in which our cultural and intellectual history have formed us. People in the Middle East have a different history. Not inferior. Just different. Democracy is not a one-size-fits-all product. It’s not for everyone.

This war in Iraq is a mistake. The best thing for everyone would be for us to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Spam Karma

Lately I’ve been getting comment spam on a post from a couple months ago (this one, if you’re interested — God knows why the spammer chose this particular post to hit). I finally got tired of deleting 3 or 4 spam comments from that post every day — so I have installed Spam Karma 2.0! It’s got all sorts of fancy algorithms and filters that are supposed to foil the efforts of all but the most sophisticated spammers — and, supposedly, there aren’t very many of them. Anyway, Spam Karma is advertised as working entirely behind the scenes, invisible to legitimate commenters. Just in case, though, let me know if you run into any difficulty leaving a comment.

Fundamentalist Christians No Friends to Jews

Salon.com News | Jews and the Christian right: Is the honeymoon over?
On Nov. 3, Abraham Foxman gave a speech to an ADL meeting, calling attacks on church-state separation the “key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community and to our democratic values.” “[T]oday we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized, and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before,” he said. “Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!” Among the major players in this campaign, Foxman listed Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council.

Well, it’s about time the Jews in this country figured out that the religious right is not their friend! Sure, fundamentalist Christians are big fans of Israel — but not because it’s a “homeland for the Jews”. They like Israel because of its supposed future history importance in the “final days” and because it’s where Jesus spent a lot of time. As for the Jews who happen to live there — the fundamentalist Christians I’ve met pretty much think they’re going to hell.

There’s a big “mega church” here in northern Virginia that’s headed up by a guy who converted from Judaism to Christianity and he’s made no secret of his belief that the Jews have got it all wrong. He and his “mega church” are formally connected with the Jews for Jesus organization and have earned some criticism locally for their proselytizing. (The church’s motto, by the way, is “Impacting Secular Washington for Christ”… Eeeeeew! Doesn’t that just send chills up your spine?)

If I were Jewish, I’d feel threatened by an organization like that. I’m surprised there haven’t been more Jewish groups speaking out against this sort of thing. As chummy as these people might be with individual Jews, make no mistake: They have no respect for Jewish religious beliefs. In the eyes of a fundamentalist Christian, the Jews are just “occupying” Israel until Jesus returns and either converts their sorry asses over to Christianity or sends them straight on down to hell.

Dragging the People to War

Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
— Hermann Goering

The Forum

Perhaps you’ve noticed the new tab at the top of the page for “Forum”. Feel free to explore and mess around with it, if you want. I’m not planning on leaving it up on this site — really I’m just testing the software for possible use on another site I may be setting up.

It’s still pretty rough. I haven’t yet got the header from my blog set up to properly appear at the top of each forum page… Oh well.

My PHP skills are pretty much limited to looking at the code and trying to figure out what seems like the right thing to do to make “X” happen.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a weird holiday for us. I’m programmed to cook this enormous meal — most of it totally “from scratch”, because that’s just the sort of gal I am — and, within a half an hour, we eat whatever we’re going to eat and it’s over. Hours and hours of work, for what? It’s just the two of us. I don’t know why I bother. Like I said: I’m programmed.

Here’s what we had:

Pumpkin pie, made from real pumpkins that I’d been keeping out on the front steps since Halloween. I got the smaller pumpkins that are supposed to be better for cooking but, I have to admit, butternut squash makes a better pie. More flavorful. I read somewhere that the canned pumpkin you buy at the grocery store is mostly butternut squash and not pumpkin at all. Anyway, I whacked open the pumpkins, cleaned out the goo, and saved the seeds for roasting. (I love roasted pumpkin seeds!) I’ve got a mess of pumpkin left over that I’ll probably use for muffins or something.

Cranberry sauce. I truly cannot comprehend why anyone would buy canned cranberries. It’s so easy to make it yourself! One cup of water and one cup of sugar, bring it to a boil. Add a bag of whole cranberries. Boil gently for 10 minutes. Done. Duh? Could it get simpler?

Veggie stuffing, which actually is a misnomer because mine doesn’t get “stuffed” into anything. I made it this time with onions, celery, carrots, toasted hazelnuts, veggie broth, pre-packaged bread cubes, “poultry seasoning”, salt and pepper. I’ve made it in the past with good quality bread that I’ve ripped up into chunks and it really is better with fresher bread. I just didn’t have any on hand this time.

Mashed potatoes. I’ve been making these with veggie broth lately instead of with milk and I think I really prefer them with the broth. They’re more flavorful — which is nice because I don’t put butter on them anymore.

Corn, the usual frozen stuff that I just nuked. It was surprisingly tough. (Hanover brand, white sweet corn.)

Baked sweet potatoes. Just a couple small whole sweet potatoes that I baked in the oven. I can’t stand sweet potatoes with all that sweet crap all over them. Blech.

Rolls. Just some whole grain rolls I bought and heated up in the oven.

Mushroom gravy, made from this mix I bought from the Dixie Diner. I just discovered these folks and this is the first of their products I’ve tried. It was pretty good! Even Mark liked it — and he doesn’t usually like vegetarian gravies.

Oh… and Mark insisted on having some dead bird, so he bought this really gross looking “turkey breast” thing and cooked it up and HA HA he hated it. Luckily, the cats seem to like it alright.

I think that was everything. A whole bunch of food, to be sure. And now it’s a whole bunch of left-overs in the refrigerator.

Sigh…

I think I’ll eat some pumpkin seeds.

Gay Priests

Vatican Document Sets New Rules on Gays in Seminaries
“There are people on the right wing who from the beginning saw this document as a kind of magic wand that would remove the taint of the sex abuse scandal,” said the Rev. John A. Coleman, a Jesuit sociologist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “I think that’s wishful thinking — and pretty stupid.”

Amen, brother. Errr…. Father.

To begin with, the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is about pedophilia — not about homosexuality. True, some pedophiles have sexual feelings towards children of their own gender, but contrary to what some ignorant people believe, pedophilia is NOT an intrinsic component of homosexuality. Normal people seek intimate relationships with people who are their equals. There’s no equality in a relationship between an adult and a child. Pedophilia’s abnormal — inherently abusive. Not so, homosexual relationships between adults. Anyway, so people who think prohibiting gay men from entering the priesthood is going to solve the problem of priests abusing children are just plain ignorant.

It shouldn’t make any difference whether a man who wants to become a Roman Catholic priest is straight or gay. Either way, they’re supposed to be practicing celibacy. It’s not like gay men are somehow less able to control their sexual urges than straight men.

“The Vatican has made a wise decision to come down in the middle of the road on this dispute. This new document acknowledges the incompatibility of active homosexuality with the priesthood but does leave the door open to men who have been able to live chastely with their same-sex attraction,” said Brian Saint-Paul, editor of Crisis, a Washington-based Catholic journal.

The thing is, that’s not what the document says. It says “[The Church] cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture…”. So, a person can have been a completely chaste and celibate gay person and STILL not be admitted to the seminary if he identifies as a gay person. I’m sorry to say it, because there’s much I love about the Catholic Church, but that’s just wrong. And cruel. There are good, caring, deeply devout men — who happen to be gay — who would be wonderful priests.

“There are many wonderful and excellent priests in the Church who have a gay orientation, are chaste and celibate, and are very effective ministers of the Gospel,” Spokane Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, wrote in his diocesan newspaper on Oct. 28. “Witchhunts and gay bashing have no place in the Church.”

Cool.

My Friends, the Crows

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT CROWS
Crows do have one endearing characteristic that is apparently not shared by other birds. They will get to know people as individuals. While you can get chickadees to eat out of your hand, any old hand will do, and I suspect that the chickadees do not know you as an individual. Crows will! If you toss them peanuts (I recommend unsalted, in the shell) on a regular basis, they will wait and watch for you. Not just any person, but you. If you do this often enough, they will follow you down the street to get more.

My local crows are too shy to come in for peanuts if I’m outside. I’ve put some roasted (unsalted) in-the-shell peanuts out on my deck rail this morning, though, and 3 or 4 crows have been enjoying them for the past half hour or so.

It’s interesting to see how the different crows approach the whole peanut thing. They all seem to prefer grabbing some peanuts and flying off to a “safer” place to eat them. Some of the crows — the older and smarter ones, I presume — will swallow a couple peanuts down into their craw and carry a third peanut in their beak as they fly off, thus maximizing their peanut grab. Other crows haven’t quite figured out this technique. They’ll try to pick up a couple peanuts in an open beak and fly with them like that. I’m sure these crows are dropping a lot of peanuts that way. (More for the squirrels on the ground, I guess.)

The crows look really healthy now — beautiful glossy black feathers, so black they look dark blue, big and strong-looking. For a couple of years, we hardly saw any of them — apparently a lot of crows died from West Nile Virus. They’re making a rebound, though, it seems. Hurray! I love crows.

I’m conflicted about trying to get them to catch peanuts that I might toss to them. On the one hand, it would be really neat! On the other hand, I’m concerned the crows might hang around people who don’t like crows and they could be hurt by these evil people. (Although the writer of this crow FAQ on the Cornell site says the crows know the difference between one person and another. So… maybe that wouldn’t really be a worry.)

Anyway. Buy some unsalted peanuts and feed some crows. And, if you’ve never been to the Cornell bird site, you really should check it out. It’s wonderful.

Bush Countdown Redux

No Way Out for Bush and Co.
Of course, George Bush will inevitably get out of the mess he has made — he leaves office in three years and two months, not that anyone’s counting.

Oh yeah??

If you don’t read Eugene Robinson’s editorials in the Washington Post, you should start right now.

Idiots Burn Down Ugly Townhouses

Arsons May Be Work of Activists
An early morning arson fire that damaged four unoccupied townhouses could be the work of a group of radical environmentalists, the FBI and the city’s fire chief said Monday.

If so, then they (the Earth Liberation Front) are truly idiots. I, too, hate seeing the forests of northern Virginia and Maryland being torn down in order to put up yet more townhouses. The number of animals killed in these “projects”, either outright or through loss of habitat, is truly monstrous. Add to that the increase in human population, with its accompanying garbage and mini-vans and SUVs, and you’ve got yourself a full-fledged environmental threat. Burning down townhouses isn’t going to change things, though. All that’s going to do is land a person in jail and persuade the majority of the public that you’re nothing more than a dangerous kook. If you want to really change things, you’ve got to work on how people think about the issue. You’ve got to change minds and that only happens slowly through a considered campaign of public awareness.

That’s why I’m a member of the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund, AND the Nature Conservancy. You, too, can be a member of one or all of these fine organizations. Just click on the links to go to their web sites.