And I’m Proud to be an Tuvalan, Where at Least I (blub)...

Shooting a lawyer was the best thing Cheney could have done for his career last week. It distracted the country from the Pillar accusations about Cheney and the Irag invasion, and the Libby accusations about Cheney and the Plame affair.

So I now live in a country that almost brought down a president for lying about sex, but won't impeach an administration guilty of subverting the constitution, leaking intelligence for political advantage, and sacrificing more than 2,000 soldiers in a vanity war because monstrous egos ignored expert advice.

Maybe this isn't America. Maybe I'm a Tuvalan . I live in a country that's sinking into the ocean, and the United States Congress isn't doing a damn thing about it.

Who said: "I'm a thief, and I'm a shitkicker, and I want to be famous!" Was it (a) Divine, or (b) G.W. Bush?

I thought I was on to something with my Dick Cheney/Red Skull/ Ming the Merciless/Patsy degenerating clone theory, or the Kirilian photographs that prove Tom Delay is demonically possesed. Now the once and future Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox, proves that Michael Chertoff is looking more and more like John Waters. How could I not have seen it before? You can tell them apart because John Waters is the funny and more humane of the two.

NO NEWS FLASH HERE, NIMROD


From the AP: "Vice President Dick Cheney apparently broke the No. 1 rule of hunting: be sure of what you're shooting at... Hunting safety experts interviewed Monday agreed it would have been a good idea for Whittington to announce himself � something he apparently didn't do, according to a witness. But they stressed that the shooter is responsible for knowing his surroundings and avoiding hitting other people."

Since when has ANYONE in this administration EVER been sure of what they were shooting at?

UPDATE: Best Headlines, So Far: Wonkette's "Dick Cheney Finally Takes a Stand Against Trial Lawyers", the New York Post's "Duck, It's Dick" and the Daily Show's "Cheney's Got a Gun".

Boethius, THE CONSOLATIONS of PHILOSOPHY

Written by Boethius while in prison, translation by W.V. Cooper:

'To pleasant songs my work was erstwhile given, and bright were all my labours then; but now in tears to sad refrains am I compelled to turn. Thus my maimed Muses guide my pen, and gloomy songs make no feigned tears bedew my face. Then could no fear so overcome to leave me companionless upon my way. They were the pride of my earlier bright-lived days: in my later gloomy days they are the comfort of my fate; for hastened by unhappiness has age come upon me without warning, and grief hath set within me the old age of her gloom. White hairs are scattered untimely on my head, and the skin hangs loosely from my worn-out limbs.

'Happy is that death which thrusts not itself upon men in their pleasant years, yet comes to them at the oft-repeated cry of their sorrow. Sad is it how death turns away from the unhappy with so deaf an ear, and will not close, cruel, the eyes that weep. Ill is it to trust to Fortune's fickle bounty, and while yet she smiled upon me, the hour of gloom had well-nigh overwhelmed my head. Now has the cloud put off its alluring face, wherefore without scruple my life drags out its wearying delays.
'Why, O my friends, did ye so often puff me up, telling me that I was fortunate? For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand.'

While I was pondering thus in silence, and using my pen to set down so tearful a complaint, there appeared standing over my head a woman's form, whose countenance was full of majesty, whose eyes shone as with fire and in power of insight surpassed the eyes of men, whose colour was full of life, whose strength was yet intact though she was so full of years that none would ever think that she was subject to such age as ours. One could but doubt her varying stature, for at one moment she repressed it to the common measure of a man, at another she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens: and when she had raised higher her head, it pierced even the sky and baffled the sight of those who would look upon it. Her clothing was wrought of the finest thread by subtle workmanship brought to an indivisible piece. This had she woven with her own hands, as I afterwards did learn by her own shewing. Their beauty was somewhat dimmed by the dulness of long neglect, as is seen in the smoke-grimed masks of our ancestors. On the border below was inwoven the symbol II, on that above was to be read a theta. And between the two letters there could be marked degrees, by which, as by the rungs of a ladder, ascent might be made from the lower principle to the higher. Yet the hands of rough men had torn this garment and snatched such morsels as they could therefrom. In her right hand she carried books, in her left was a sceptre brandished.

When she saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, ' Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto. I would think it less grievous if your allurements drew away from me some uninitiated man, as happens in the vulgar herd. In such an one my labours would be naught harmed, but this man has been nourished in the lore of Eleatics and Academics; and to him have ye reached? Away with you, Sirens, seductive unto destruction! leave him to my Muses to be cared for and to be healed.'

Their band thus rated cast a saddened glance upon the ground, confessing their shame in blushes, and passed forth dismally over the threshold. For my part, my eyes were dimmed with tears, and I could not discern who was this woman of such commanding power. I was amazed, and turning my eyes to the ground I began in silence to await what she should do.

Then she approached nearer and sat down upon the end of my couch: she looked into my face heavy with grief and cast down by sorrow to the ground, and then she raised her complaint over the trouble of my mind in these words.
'Ah me! how blunted grows the mind when sunk below the o'erwhelming flood! Its own true light no longer burns within, and it would break forth to outer darknesses. How often care, when fanned by earthly winds, grows to a larger and unmeasured bane. This man has been free to the open heaven: his habit has it been to wander into the paths of the sky: his to watch the light of the bright sun, his to inquire into the brightness of the chilly moon; he, like a conqueror, held fast bound in its order every star that makes its wandering circle, turning its peculiar course. Nay, more, deeply has he searched into the springs of nature, whence came the roaring blasts that ruffle the ocean's bosom calm: what is the spirit that makes the firmament revolve; wherefore does the evening star sink into the western wave but to rise from the radiant East; what is the cause which so tempers the season of Spring that it decks the earth with rose-blossoms; whence comes it to pass that Autumn is prolific in the years of plenty and overflows with teeming vines: deeply to search these causes was his wont, and to bring forth secrets deep in Nature hid.
'Now he lies there; extinct his reason's light, his neck in heavy chains thrust down, his countenance with grievous weight downcast; ah! the brute earth is all he can behold.

'But now,' said she,' is the time for the physician's art, rather than for complaining.' Then fixing her eyes wholly on me, she said, ' Are you the man who was nourished upon the milk of my learning, brought up with my food until you had won your way to the power of a manly soul? Surely I had given you such weapons as would keep you safe, and your strength unconquered; if you had not thrown them away. Do you know me? Why do you keep silence? Are you dumb from shame or from dull amazement? I would it were from shame, but I see that amazement has overwhelmed you.'

When she saw that I was not only silent, but utter]y tongue-tied and dumb, she put her hand gently upon my breast, and said,' There is no danger: he is suffering from drowsiness, that disease which attacks so many minds which have been deceived. He has forgotten himself for a moment and will quickly remember, as soon as he recognises me. That he may do so, let me brush away from his eyes the darkening cloud of thoughts of matters perishable.' So saying, she gathered her robe into a fold and dried my swimming eyes.

Then was dark night dispelled, the shadows fled away, and my eyes received returning power as before. 'Twas just as when the heavenly bodies are enveloped by the west wind's rush, and the sky stands thick with watery clouds; the sun is hidden and the stars are not yet come into the sky, and night descending from above o'erspreads the earth: but if the north wind smites this scene, launched forth from the Thracian cave, it unlocks the imprisoned daylight; the sun shines forth, and thus sparkling Phoebus smites with his rays our wondering eyes.

In such a manner were the clouds of grief scattered. Then I drew breath again and engaged my mind in taking knowledge of my physician's countenance. So when I turned my eyes towards her and fixed my gaze upon her, I recognised my nurse, Philosophy, in whose chambers I had spent my life from earliest manhood. And I asked her,' Wherefore have you, mistress of all virtues, come down from heaven above to visit my lonely place of banishment? Is it that you, as well as I, may be harried, the victim of false charges? ' 'Should I,' said she,' desert you, my nursling?

Should I not share and bear my part of the burden which has been laid upon you from spite against my name? Surely Philosophy never allowed herself to let the innocent go upon their journey unbefriended. Think you I would fear calumnies? that I would be terrified as though they were a new misfortune? Think you that this is the first time that wisdom has been harassed by dangers among men of shameless ways?

BETTER MOVE QUICK IF YOU WANT TO CATCH OL' HITCH WHILE HE'S SOBER

An anonymous comment at Filing Cabinet of the Damned has this to say about the cartoon riots:
"I see two sides:
1) the drawing of Mohamed is against their religion and we should respect that.
2) any cartoon with a bomb in it is at least a little funny."

Just as Lennon needed McCartney, Christopher Hitchens needed Alexander Cockburn nearby in the pages of The Nation to keep him honest. His support for the Iraq invasion, leaving the Nation in a snit, the apparent breakdown of his Built-in Bullshit Detector, the booze, cigarettes and Vanity Fair were starting to wear Hitchens down. The Onion summed it up in their 2003 story "Christopher Hitchens Forcibly Removed From Trailer Park After Drunken Confrontation With Common-Law Wife" : "We're down at the old Hitchens place probably twice a month at least," said Sgt. Wilson Vernon, the first of three officers to arrive at the scene. "Once his blood's up, old Hitch can get meaner than a three-legged coon hound. From what the neighbors told us about this latest incident, Noreen was all worked up, accusing him of drinking and womanizing. He was angry with her refusal to acknowledge that there is ample evidence to make a case for prosecuting Henry Kissinger as a war criminal. She just kept shouting, 'No, there ain't!'"

It looks to me like Ol' Hitch took a nap, showered, shaved, and found his voice again with his take on the cartoon riots, "The Case for Mocking Religion" :
"How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he [the White House spokesman] mean 'unacceptable'? That it should be forbidden? ...."
***
"Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death...."
***
"The question of "offensiveness" is easy to decide. First: Suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves in order to avoid offending the believers? How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? ... We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt."
***
".... Second (and important enough to be insisted upon): Can the discussion be carried on without the threat of violence, or the automatic resort to it? ... I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.)"
***
"... civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight." -- from Slate magazine

See also: Secrets of the Cartoon War, The Cartoon War Begins , Eek! A T-Shirt Slogan! My Eyes! My Eyes!

WHO WE WERE, WHERE WE'VE FALLEN FROM #2

from MarvelDirectory.com:
"At a rally in New York City's Central Park, the Super-Patriot publicly criticized Captain America, the hero who was generally held to embody American ideals, as being out of touch with contemporary America. ...
"The federal Commission for Superhuman Activities demanded that Captain America stop acting as a free agent and begin working directly under government supervision, inasmuch as the identity, costume, and shield of Captain America had all been originally created by the federal government. Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, declined, and gave up the Captain America identity. Dr. Valerie Cooper, a member of the Commission, suggested that the Super-Patriot become the next Captain America. ...
"In reality, the Commission's chairman, Douglas Rockwell, was secretly an operative of the original Captain America's archenemy the Red Skull. The Skull's intention had been to force Steve Rogers into giving up the role of Captain America and then making certain that his replacement dishonored, the image of Captain America that Rogers had maintained over the years." -- presented without comment

B.B., LUCILLE, ISSA, BUTTON, JOHN, SCOUT and JUDY

Riley "Blues Boy" King was away from home when his 2-year-old Maltese, Lucille, vanished from the back yard. He has posted 500 flyers, checked with all the local shelters, and offered one of his autographed guitars as a reward. I was blessed with the friendship of a Maltese for 16 years, and will testify that the comic-book cuteness hides the heart of a lion. They are one of the oldest breeds in the world, with dogs like "Issa" memorialized by Roman generals and poets:
“Issa is as sweet as a maiden’s kiss,
As frolicksome as Catullus’ sparrow.
Before she went down into the dark forever,
Her master ordered that her likeness be painted...”

They are known for their remarkable empathy towards changes in mood. Mine could shift in an instant from the perfect writer's dog, a patient silky presence stretched tight against one leg for hours at a time, then a clown in moments of despair, then bossing the bigger dogs by climbing onto something until her chin was taller than their neck, then running alongside me for an hour on the beach, five times a week, traveling twice as far because of her doggy side excursions on very short legs. She kept this up until her very last year, when she would sit down on the way home and be carried the rest of the way on my shoulders.

On such a week as this there can be no doubt that any one animal is more “humane” than any five humans, and an 80 year old man who has done nothing but bring pleasure at midnight and solace in sorrow to millions of people certainly deserves to have his dog back. Please keep your eyes and hearts open and remember to include a prayer to bring Lucille back home to B.B. King.

These thoughts take on new urgency with this news of Army Captain John Smathers, an attorney from Maryland, who adopted an Iraqui dog he named "Scout", and then struggled for a year to bring him home to the states:
"He was very vulnerable but he put on a front like he was a tough guy, which is probably how a lot of soldiers feel. I was about to go out on a mission and I was saying goodbye to him there." When Smathers was badly injured and flown home for medical care, Scout was left behind. "He was probably very confused and I knew I had to get him back. There's a bond with he and I, and as long as he was alive and it was within my power to get him here, I was gonna try. I owe him that. It was frustrating. Every door I tried was getting slammed in my face. I just kept knocking. As long as Scout was alive, I’d keep trying. And when I saw him laying at my feet, I was just smiling. I lay down with him and I felt like … John, you're done."

This week Captain Smathers was out walking with Scout and Judy, a new dog he rescued as a buddy for Scout, when the captain's heart suddenly gave out, and he died.

This from the Judge Advocate General's website, February 7, 2006:
"The Smathers family will receive friends Wednesday, 1600-2000 at Harry H. Witzke’s Family Funeral Home, Inc., 4112 Old Columbia Pike., Ellicott City, MD. A Mass of Christian Burial will be said Thursday, 1100 at St. Louis Catholic Church, Clarksville, MD. Interment will be at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Captain Smathers’ name to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, 1 Intrepid Square, New York, NY 10036 or call 1-800-340-HERO.
"Captain Smathers is survived by his mother, Carmella Smathers; his sisters Theresa Hoffmann, Frances Hudson, Mary Olson, Patricia Reeves, Luanne Tano and Christine Laubach, and many nieces and nephews.
"Further information, including details of the interment, will follow as soon as they become available. I ask that you remember the Smathers family in your prayers at this most difficult of times."

SOME DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS BEHIND THE CARTOON WAR

So far, only the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and some French smartasses have gotten the Danish cartoon story right: It seems that the cleric who first protested the cartoons in Denmark then reprinted them in a flyer that was distributed throughout the Muslim world... and he sort of, um, added a few even MORE offensive cartoons to juice up his case against the Danish newspaper.



The Americans, from Bill Clinton to Bush, have gone all mealy-mouthed and scold the newspapers to be more responsible. Coming from those two, "responsibility" is like Messalina calling for chastity. Apparently it's okay to order an air strike that kills hundreds of innocents in order to miss one terrorist target, but if your little ink spills piss somebody off, we never heard of you. Thanks for your strong defense of the Four Freedoms, guys. Vladimir Putin, known affectionately to the Russian mobsters as "KGB Lite", a man whose soul President Bush has gazed into, is first and always a true friend of censorship: "Any provocation in this area is absolutely unacceptable. One should think 100 times before publishing anything, doing anything or drawing anything." Shit, I'd never get ANYTHING done.

But Lor' bless 'em, the French satiric weekly 'Charlie Hebdo' reprinted all 12, along with a new cartoon on the cover entitled "Mohammed stressed out by the fundamentalists" showing the prophet holding his head in his hands uttering the words "It's hard to be loved by fools."

Phillipe Val, the editor of 'Charlie Hebdo', told the BBC: "Of course there has to be tolerance, there has to be respect to any community and any religious believers. But it is very much important for our whole society to show that we have firm principles on which democracy stands. This is an inviolable question of principle here in the land of Voltaire and Zola. We are willing to appear before the courts if some think the drawings go too far, but we are certainly not willing to give way to the desires of religious extremists."

Push comes to shove, these little cartoons are drawing fire in a just cause. Muslim mobs are using violence and intimidation against anyone who criticizes Islam, especially those who suggest that Islam embraces violence and intimidation. It took a couple hundred years for Christians to stop burning anyone who suggested that the Pope wasn't perfect. This may take a while longer; so long as Muslims view themselves as victims, they will feel justified in whatever atrocities they commit.

Something else is going unreported: someone is profiting from these riots. Can you say 'agent provocateur'? So long as the mobs are busy burning down Danish embassies, they're not thinking about what shitty governments they have in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran... If you don't like that scenario, then consider how much juice the imams are getting out of this: play ball with us, or we'll start a riot. Lastly, these hysterical screams for the blood of cartoonists will make the Americans and Israelis look reasonable by comparison. Thus the rioters and the politicians wash each others' hands. Everyone's a winner.

Except free thought, free speech, Danish tolerance, and a few mostly harmless ink-stained wretches.

UPDATE from the AP: Charlie-Hebdo sold out all 160,000 copies with the cartoons, 60,000 more than usual. France Soir, a daily, ran the drawings and sold 40 percent more-- "leading a battle for freedom of the press", their spokeswoman says, perhaps not cynically. Wouldn't it be funny if this insanity makes some hair sprout on the chest of the media? Wouldn't it be something if cartoonists rediscover their power to afflict the comfortable and ridicule villainy in the spirit of Hogarth and Goya, Daumier, Ben Shawn, George Grosz and Lautrec? Who are these monsters, that would turn cartoonists' ink into blood?

NEW PICTURES FROM JAMES IN IRAQ

Recent pics of James mugging in Iraq, from his friend Sawyer and via his mother LeeAnn. Due back in the U.S. April 7, and here's hoping they won't find a way to send him back for a fourth tour of duty.
See also James update.... Guns-for-Hire: Private Contractors in Iraq .... Capitalism Stole My Virginity .... Third Tour in Iraq.... Scylla and Charybdis....You Break It, You Own It.... Who Killed Colonel Westhusing?.... Rumsfeld and Saddam.... As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum...

Oolong, a Bunny with a Pancake on His Head

"The rabbit of this day was observed this way." "Oolong" the much loved Japanese house rabbit, has gone gentle into the night at the age of 8 years, 5 months and some days, in the arms of his master, Hironori Akutagawa of Hokkaido Japan.

Around 1997, Mr. Akutagawa started recording Oolong's day on his web site for friends and neighbors. When dozing, the patient and trusting Oolong would tolerate small objects being balanced on his head, an idle amusement for many house rabbit owners. The editors at Syberpunk, a collection of Japanese culture, added a caption to Oolong wearing a Japanese dorayaki on his head, and visits to Oolong's site went from a few hundred to millions.


Oolong, "Black Dragon" (I don't know if he was named for the dragon or for the popular tea of the same name), will be remembered by his young house-mate Yuebing ("Mooncake") and friends in 25 countries.

See also Saul Bellow , Fanny Fountain , Ibrahim Ferrar , August Wilson, Col. Ted Westhusing, Richard Pryor, Fayard Nicholas, Yuebing visits the Rabbit Shrine in Urawa

COMMONPLACE BOOK: RECENT ENTRIES

There are some people with a vested interest in keeping the world as it is, because that’s the world they have power over. – Alan Moore

It’s [publishing] not a rational industry either. Things get optioned but not made for reasons that absolutely defy logic and reason. It's like high school cliques crossed with offshore bankers: Who's in, who's out, what's cool, what's not, and the unbearable agony of not wanting to make a mistake, all overlaid with lots of money ...that's the movie industry. –Miss Snark

"Pat Buchanan is not an anti-Semite-- as a matter of fact, his grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp.
-- Well, he fell out of the guard tower...." --old joke, origin unknown

... if we are going to begin engaging in whisper campaigns against writers, thinkers, policy intellectuals, administration officials, Hill staff, and others because of who they are married to or where they were born or other irrelevant, private factors -- rather than make an empirical assessment of their work and thinking -- then we are in real trouble. – Steve Clemons, The Washington Note

"The thing about American intellectuals that so surprises me is the way they always take the entire menu. They endorse the foreign policy so they feel obliged to endorse the attacks against the private life of Bill Clinton, the defense of the death penalty, the sale of firearms, and so on. I had this conversation with Bill Kristol. When I met him I saw the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard in the waiting room and there was a truly disgusting article in there about Clinton and his girlfriends. And I asked Kristol why, of course. Bill Kristol doesn't care about the sexual life of Bill Clinton. But my sense was that he felt that his endorsement of the war in Iraq also obliged him to endorse the attacks on Clinton. This I don't understand. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe Kristol really, deeply thinks that Clinton is a bastard, and that a blow job is a crime. Maybe. But I don't think so. There's this idea that the world is black and white, and if you go with black then everything has to be black — very strange, in a country that is supposed to be so pragmatic. ... American intellectuals have this strange need to ally themselves with a single side. I believe that it is the duty of intellectuals to allow and make room for complexity, to ally with no one, and to move freely across all borders, political or otherwise." – Bernard-Henri Levy

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. Tell them they are being attacked and denounce pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country. It works every time." - Hermann Goering

"Originally, editors at the paper [Jyllands-Posten. Denmark] asked 12 artists to draw depictions of the prophet after an author complained that no artist was willing, under his own name, to illustrate a book about Mohammed. A controversy then broke out between Danish Muslims and the paper which appeared settled after the paper apologized for causing offense, but defended its right to publish the material. The current crisis started, however, when European papers began reprinting the cartoons in a display of press freedom." -- from Bag News Notes, with links to the other cartoons here.

"You could never have a film called "A Canadian in Paris". Americans have this complete conviction, no matter where they go, they're still American. And they can be any kind of character they want: a shy American; a strong, ruthless American; a literary American; and athletic American. But most countries have a very strong national identity. You see it in Brazil, in people's minds abroad, and in Brazil's own mind. everyone will accept a story about favela violence, and possibly a story set in Carnaval, but they relate to what they know about the place. And that's terribly damaging to Brazilian's imaginations, because they actually find it difficult to tell stories that aren't about futbol, samba, favela violence, Amazonian Indians, the rain forest....It's exactly the same thing in Cambodia, too." --Geoff Ryman in Locus magazine

"As for anyone who doesn't believe in evolution, ask them how they got there-- because they probably came in a car, driven on gasoline, which comes from oil. I was an oil geologist, and I know they couldn't have found that oil without using stratigraphy, which is based on index fossils, which require evolution. So they shouldn't drive cars if they don't belive in evolution, right? If God created everything at once, then God was lying."-- Dave Duncan in Locus magazine

"The U.S. is the planet's sole remaining superpower, unrivaled in military might and reach, and yet our leaders have us leaping at every mouse ...a muscle-bound, world straddling fraidy cat."-- James Wolcott

"WHICH GOD DAMNED IDIOTS CHOSE KAINE TO DO THE REBUTTAL, AND IS ROVE GOING TO PERSONALLY THANK THEM WITH A GOLF VACATION OR A NEW SUV??? -- blogger identified as "Pissed Off American" on http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/


"Never ascribe to malice what could also be ascribed to stupidity."-- Unknown

See also: Commonplace Book:January, Commonplace Book: December

AMERICA THE CHICKENSHIT

“They said I was protesting. I said, ‘Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.’”

Nope, it's not Cindy Sheehan this time. It's Beverly Young, wife of Republican Representative C.W. Bill Young from St. Petersburg. She was ejected from the gallery during the State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt that said, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom".

In case you didn't know, Cindy Sheehan was cuffed and booked the same night for wearing a t-shirt in the gallery that said "2245 Dead. How many more?"

Sheehan was an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Beverly Young's husband is chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee. The Capitol Police have apologized to both.

And who are these craven assbandits, so afraid that someone might be offended by words and ideas? Maybe they were from the same litter that spawned the current Joint Chiefs of Staff who so bravely sent a letter of protest about a cartoon by Tom Toles? They tolerate that MacNamara retread Rumsfeld, but an ink drawing is too much for them?

I hate the kind of cops who jump like trained Alsatians to please their masters by beating down dissent. These are not reluctant cops enforcing ambiguous law. These are the guys who killed Becket because it would please Henry the Second, the crackers who busted black heads for George Wallace, who jumped to cover up Justice's nipple for John Ashcroft, the shitbirds who outed Valerie Plame because of something her husband said. They've probably got a fetish website of their own, where Gareth from "The Office" has masturbation fantasies about handcuffing women in potentially disruptive t-shirts.

See also Murrow on What We Were and Where We've Fallen From, Weimar America

Sometimes It's Just Too Easy...