George W. Bush, a brief retrospective.

So as we are two days away from having Barack Hussein Obama being sworn in as our 44th President of the United States, let us have a Fair and Balanced my opinion of the man who still has power until Jan 20th at 12noon Eastern Standard Time, the current occupant of the White House, George W. Bush.

In Novemeber 26 2000, Katherine Harris dismissed recounts filed late in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties stating the lateness of the submission was not justifiable, and declared Georgie the certifiable winner of Florida's election despite manual recounts showing Gore gaining on Bush's small lead. Katherine Harris, should be noted to be have been playing partasin politics, only being elected in 1999 under the Republican party banner. Oh and Jeb Bush, brother of George, son of George H. W. Bush (the 41st President) was the Govener of Florida from Jan 1999-Jan 2007.

December 8, 2000 after many lower court decisions, the Florida Supreme Court decided on a 4-3 vote to have a state wide manual recount. The Florida votes were showing Gore's votes growing and Bush's lead dwindling. On December 12th the United States Supreme Court effectively handed the presidency to Georgeie voted on party lines (or at least the party of those who appointed them) in a 5-4 decision to stop the Florida recounts. George W. Bush's lead had dwindled to a 154 votes over Gore. However, that number is not on the record books, as the Supreme Court said that Katherine Harris' certification of 537 votes stands. Bush still lost the popular vote overall (since when do the people know best anyway!) but due to having a Representative democracy, Bush still won the presidency by electoral vote of 271-266.


Members of the House objected to the appointment of Mr. Bush, but had no Senator to back them. (Yes, the video is narrated by Michael Moore; there are no others that I could find on teh YouTubes without him in it).

George was sworn in in front of the nations capitol with around 10,000 protesters in attendance. In his first couple of months in office George talked about stem cells research, and while he'd allow funding for it, the use of valuable embryonic stem cells that could potentially cure alzheimers, cancer, parkinsons and used to regrow lost tissue was not to be funded nor researched in the United States. During this period of time, Georgie offered major tax refunds ( a measely $300 for people like me and millions of dollars for CEOs) and cut taxes for the upper 20% (about $750,000/year or more)

September 11th 2001: "BinLaden Determined to Attack Inside U.S." was delivered as a Presidential Briefing on August 6th 2001. A full month and 5 days before the attack was to be carried out. Supposidly, dates were not known, nor were specific buildings, but Washington DC centers for government, millitary, and NYC and WTC were mentioned.

We invade Afghanistan October 7th 2001, for harboring known Terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. I'm not going to shed much light here, I am not sure of the authenticity of *some* of the videos/messages from OBL, and my government has lied to me before. That being said, I feel OBL was behind 9/11, and I feel that George W./his cabnet simply allowed it to happen. Not caused it to happen, but allowed it to happen to make their friends and famlies richer.

After September 11th the president and congress enacted the USA PATRIOT Act (October) which provided a lot of benifits to larger government involvment in everyday life, and struck major blows to our civil liberites.

More disturbing, to me at least is Executive Order 13233 which effectivly bars the Freedom of Information Act from applying to George W. Bush and his Cabnet during term; this has also been used to block records of Ronal Regan and Richard Nixon.

Georgie proposed reform to Social Security that effectivly would rape and pillage the remaining funds by puting it into stock market for business. And due to the recent economic recession, I'm sure we can imagine what would happen to Grandma's and Grandpa's Social Security checks. Social Security is in danger, at the current burden of taxation on the young and not well off. Those who make over $102,000/year are not taxed on any income over that $102,000. If they were taxed at full ammount, for all income, we'd have Social Security sustanable for the next 75 years.

George also tried to reform education with standardized testing and attempting to weaken teacher's unions.

In late 2002, a new office that reported directly to the President was created, the office of Homeland Security (George couldn't call it Motherland, because that made Ex-Russians nervous, and he couldn't call it Fatherland because it made ex-nazi's happy). headed by Tom Ridge (former Govenor of Pennsylvania) who now is on the Board of Directors for Home Depot.

In 2003, Bush gave me another $300 bucks to remind me that he's up for re-election while letting his corperate buddies continue to pay less than their fair share, Invaded Iraq, banned abortions in the 18-26 week catagories (how that is defined as 'partial-birth' is beyond me), made telemarketers stop calling me, Declared that major combat operations in Iraq were at a close, allowed companies to ship more jobs overseas. Oh, and as a political manuver, he or Mr Cheney (again, we're not allowed to look at inside memos!) leaked the name of Valerie Plame an undercover agent for the U.S.A. to the Washington Post after her husband, Joseph Wilson(an Ambassador to Africa) wrote that Georgie fibbed about Iraq looking to buy uranium from Niger and that Niger had no Yellow-Cake Uranium (delicious!) that George claimed Saddam bought.

2004 George spent time trying to Overturn Roe V. Wayde by giving fetuses more rights, and allowing more and more countries to take our jobs.



Also in 2004, a draft dodger called a military hero a coward. Now I didn't care much for Kerry, but come the fuck on. Oh, and This Man's daughter is a lesbian. After Kerry lost the election, Bush said he had a "historic victory" and "political capitol" to spend. He won by 50.07%. In his second term, Bush attempted to repair relations with Europe- after he disastrously pissed off just about all of our allies.

August 29th 2004, Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, Bush encouraged the Governor to evacuate New Orleans, but with under 24 hours to do so, this proved impossible. FEMA, the state government and the Federal government failed in preperations, failed in providing aid and failed the people of Louisiana. People, normal citizens had more of an effective hand in aid than the government. People left my College to donate time and effort and money to help New Orleans and southern Louisiana.

During the War On Terrorism, with the authorization and encouragement of George W. Bush, the United States has contoned torture to be used at Gitmo, and other US Prisons in other countries(Abu Graib comes to mind).

Bush also tried to have it be a constitutional amendment to define marraige to a man and a woman, thus preventing an entire section of our population the right to marry someone of their choosing. Granted, it'd also prevent pologamy, but having partners outside of marragie, brought into your marragie to spice up you sex life is just peachy! As long as it's not two dudes wanting to vow to spend the rest of their lives together, than you can do whatever you want!

During this time Georgie has made it harder for a person to file for bankrupcy, gave us more tax-cuts even through our economy is strong.

I think I've expressed my opinion of Mr. Bush through out this piece very well. I voted against him when he was running against Kerry, although I voted for David Cobb who was running on the Green Party ticket. I voted against John McCain, because he shared a lot of similar policies as Mr. Bush.

I think you'll notice that I never called George W. Bush "President"; he took this oath, when sworn in.

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Bush has not faithfully executed the office of PotUS. If anything he's abused the privileges there in, even if it's legal, does not make it right by pardoning people who have yet to be charged with a crime. Georgie has eroded parts of the Constitution by granting the executive branch with powers that are not defined within that document, he has not defended it, he's attaked it; he's eroded many liberties and his policies are detrimental to our society.

Bush said of himself that his greatest achievement as President was catching a fish. Mr. Bush, I'd have to say I agree with you on that.

History will judge G.W.B., and I for one, hope for a full investigation into him for war crimes and negligence. Since we LET him into office and didn't impeach him while in office, I think there should be an arrest of him, Cheney, Rice, Paulson, Rumsfeld/Gates, Ashcroft/Gonzales/Mukasey, Ridge/Chertoff, Abraham?Bodman and Zoellick/Portman/Schwab on Jan 20th 12:01 EST.

At the very least, we need to set an example that one CANNOT abuse the power with which we have trusted them.

To end on a happier note, Georgie is a goldmine of unintentional comedy. So I leave with two things.
The first is Slate.com's list of Bushisms.
The last can be found here at snopes.com and reprinted below.

Make the Pie Higher
By George W. Bush
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Music, Torture and my Opinions

This story that ran on MSNBC is really disgusting. (2 pages)

As someone who is both an avid fan of music and being someone who contributes to an artistic craft (writing), I am offended by this on many levels. I am on a personal level, because as a writer, I would not want any of my works to be used to inflict harm on another person. Including papercuts, or pummeling someone to death with my forthcoming short story collection.

However, I expect nothing less from this administration. Our current resident in the Office of President and his cabinet have no respect for human or civil rights. We have allowed this administration to hijack basic human decency. We let them, through our military branches to kidnap people that we think are 'terrorists', including children.

What drives me crazy is none of this was done with Artist's consent. They used songs that are for Children's shows (I Love You, from TV's Barney), played at ear splitting volumes while shackled in uncomfortable positions. Yes, they've used Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine, both of whom have been vocal critics of this current administration.

Some musicians see the situation rather differently.

Some musicians, however, say they’re proud that their music is used in interrogations. Those include bassist Stevie Benton, whose group Drowning Pool has performed in Iraq and recorded one of the interrogators’ favorites, “Bodies.”

“People assume we should be offended that somebody in the military thinks our song is annoying enough that played over and over it can psychologically break someone down,” he told Spin magazine. “I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that."

Okay... so when John McCain was tortured, it would have been okay to play "Born in the USA" at top volume outside of his cell in addition to stabbing him in the groin? I mean, I can have been tortured by music at times, but usually, I can leave.

The point I think Benton is missing is that this will not really stop another 9/11. If you think that the people being held against all international laws are not going to be pissed at the people/country/government that just decided to torture them... let's look at John McCain again.

John McCain recently (Campaign 2008) told reporters that he hated [racial Asian slur here]s. Now, I feel for Mr. McCain. No, really, stop laughing. I do, if he was tortured, I do feel pity for the man that he cannot forgive a race of people. Do I take John McCain at his word that he uses that word only for those who tortured him? No. I do not. Because you're just as racist by saying ' I only use the term N---er for those who act like N---ers.' You're still marginalizing people by the color of their skin, or their heritage. Or any other racist term you may want to sling out there.

If John McCain a war hero cannot let go of his hatred after being tortured (while not legal to torture, it was legal to detain Mr. McCain as he was a uniformed enemy combatant; most of the detainees at GTMO or the other black operations prisons we have set up are not recognized by any international body), who's to say that anyone in our illegal prison camps will let go of theirs?

Torturing people will not stop crazy idiots from bombing something that they want to bomb. Maybe our actions towards those less fortunate than us might stop some of the psychopaths from recruiting people.

And if you morons in the DoD are going to condone music as a form of torture... at least pick something that doesn't make you look like idiots, like Rage, or Nine Inch Nails.

Please, use Springsteen, or Nugent, or some other idiot that has blind patriotism.

It's Been Cold

So, it gets cold up here in Maine.

I really wish we had lightsabers.

It'd make the process of staying warm much easier.










Please note: This is a moose.










And this is me inside of a moose.



Now moose don't like it when you just try to crawl into their mouths, or more unhygienically, up their butts.










So I have to stay warm by killing moose and crawling inside.
They are quite spacious and have windows.

Without a lightsaber, the best way of killing a moose is with a spork, preferably made of titanium.

So you physicists working on lightsaber technology, please hurry. I'm cold.

(Note: I have never killed a moose, and certainly not with a spork. This was just my lame-ass attempt to say I'm trying to keep warm up here.)