Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Civil War Brewing in Pakistan

Bhutto Calls on Musharraf to Step Down – washingtonpost.com
In London, meanwhile, the 53-nation Commonwealth, a grouping made up mostly of former British colonies and dependencies, threatened to suspend Pakistan’s membership unless Musharraf repeals the emergency decree, steps down as army chief, releases political detainees, removes media restrictions and acts rapidly to bring about free and fair elections.

Oh, this should be interesting. Like there’s not enough craziness in that part of the world already.

And what do we hear from the Bush administration about this extremely dangerous situation?

….sound of crickets chirping…

Almost nothing.

Musharraf may be a military dictator but he’s our military dictator. Supposedly, Musharraf has been helping us track down and capture Osama bin Laden. Remember that guy? He and his buddies are very likely hiding out somewhere in northern Pakistan. Well, you see how well that’s been going.

The Washington Post reports that on November 5th,

Even as Bush said Musharraf’s actions “would undermine democracy,” he also emphasized that the Pakistani president “has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals.”

You’ll recall that Bush and his pals aren’t above “undermining democracy” themselves when it comes to “fighting extremists and radicals”. Torture? Secret prisons? Due process? Who needs ‘em! We’re protecting all that’s good about America here, folks!

Grrrr.

Don’t Move To Any Of These Places

This map shows the top 101 counties with highest percentage of residents voting for Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election. Pretty clearly these are parts of the country you’d want to avoid, right? (Unless you’re an idiot, I mean. If you’re an idiot and voted for Bush then you’d probably love these places. You and the other idiots could get together every night at the local bar, watch Nascar racing, and bitch about “ragheads” and “queers”. Live it up. Morons.)

This is fascinating stuff. Here’s the top 101 counties voting for Bush with populations over 50,000:

What do you think? It’s probably fair to say that if you’re in a small-ish town somewhere in the middle of the country, chances are good you’re a redneck. If you’re stupid and want to live in a bigger city, though, the mid-south is your place. BUT! If you just can’t stand the heat, you’ll be wanting to head up to Fargo, North Dakota. It was number 1 among the over 50,000 places. Yikes. Like there weren’t already a bunch of good reasons for avoiding Fargo…

Anyway, if you’re thinking of striking out for new territory and you want to be sure you don’t blunder your way into a nest of Republicans or other undesirables, this is the web site for you: Top City Lists. They’ve got all kinds of interesting data from average temperatures and poverty and crime statistics to number of beauty salons. Hey, that could be deeply important to someone. Not me — but I’m just saying. Hm… I wonder whether number of beauty salons correlates with voting Republican? Let’s take a peek:

Nope. Okay… Hm. I’m not sure what this means — if anything. Other than that people in New England are especially concerned about their hair. Maybe.

Whatever. Check out this web site. Prepare to set several hours aside for exploring.

Pessimistic

Poll Finds Americans Pessimistic, Want Change – washingtonpost.com
One year out from the 2008 election, Americans are deeply pessimistic and eager for a change in direction from the agenda and priorities of President Bush, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

I’m not making this up.

A few decades ago, scientists were doing experiments on dogs that involved giving them repeated electric shocks. Horrible, yes. I’ll never understand that sort of thing. Isn’t this one of the reasons we keep murderers alive on death row for years and years instead of just gassing them the day after they’re caught in the act? We should be experimenting on THEM instead of on innocent dogs. Anyway… one of the big brains who was shocking the dogs noticed that after a while the dogs became depressed. Clinically depressed. They hardly even tried to avoid the shocks anymore. This led to the underwhelming “discovery” that ongoing stress leads to depression.

Duh.

I guess in the world on animal experimentation you’ve got to torture dogs for a while before you can claim anything is an obvious-fucking-fact.

Whatever. I think this is some of what’s going on with the American public. We’ve been shocked so many times: the theft of Al Gore’s win, 9/11, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Alberto Gonzales…Dick Cheney…. I could go on an on. I have gone on and on. Several times.

So, I’m depressed — at least as far as the state of the country goes. And pessimistic? Hell yes. None of the presidential candidates excite me too much.

It all sucks and, like any depressed person, I have a hard time believing anyone can make it better.