Well, Bushie just had to didn't he?

Get up on National TV and declare war on six percent of our population. A constitutional amendment to limit rights! Rudy Juliani said in a speech this year in Oakland, that we were lucky to have someone like George Bush at the helm. (I developed an opinion of Rudy that night.) All the Republicans keep telling us how lucky we are to have George. I guess they are right if you are into international nose snubbing, wars, and singling out minorities to pick on. Why is it always hetrosexual born again Christian white males from the South that want to protect institutions. (Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation.) Who are we going after next George? Jewish people are only six percent of the population why don't we write a constitutional amendment to ban any form of religion other than Christianity? I mean it would be protecting the institution of Christianity. It’s been under attack a lot lately too. God knows, “This country was founded by Christians, no the Jews. Let's ban Muslims too. They don't even eat Bar-B-Que pork.” Bar-B-Que is a institution that needs protecting. The damn health food nuts are after it. Maybe we should add a few other amendments while we are at it:

A ban on religions that have various levels of heaven. Heavens been under attack, and God can’t figure out where he is or where he stands. The federal government could define it for him.

How about a ban on religions that believe in reincarnation? God doesn’t like it, if you never worry about getting into heaven. What would he have to do if everyone just gets to come back and try over and over again. The federal government should let people know. They only get one chance. They should keep their place and do as they are told. God likes it that way. George likes it that way. He likes so much, he wants to write it into law. That way he can bomb us like he’d like to do with everyone else that doesn’t see things his way. George thinks he is God. (You think I’m kidding? Look at the smug look he keeps on his face when he talks to the press. It’s a “Hmmph, I’m God, why do I have to answer to you look.”) Half of America thinks George is stupid and George thinks he’s God. He believes in the Bible. The Bible is series stories about tests of faith telling everyone to know their place. George wants everyone to know their place. Especially if they are of middle eastern or gay decent.

What we really need a constitutional amendment that bans Presidential stupidity. Thank God, that was provided for by the founding fathers who limited the Presidents power and made amending the constitution nearly impossible. They also provided a nice peaceful way to overthrow our government on a regular basis without bombs and guns. I hope everyone drops a bomb on George W. Bush in November. He is someone that does not deserve reincarnation. If there is anyone that needs to be put in his place, its him. I hope he finds a ranch in Texas a level of heaven he can deal with.

Let's all get married.

So my brother asked how come I hadn’t mused anything on what was going on in SF He said I could guess what the consensus on gay marriage was in his state. --A state where annually snuffing out the life of a deer with a high caliber rifle is considered a human right, a God given right, and a right of passage. They believe in a lot of rights up there in Montana. Mostly they believe in the right to be left alone to be able to shoot things. Probably if you are gay up there, you considered okay as long as you fish and shoot things and don’t get no fancy ideas about taxing property or stuff you buy at stores.

So, anyway, I'll weigh in, sort of. Gay marriages are kind of a silly thing to be having a national debate about. We are going bankrupt, our President is the laughing stock of the world, we loose soldiers in Iraq on a regular basis, and everyone wants to quibble about the definition of a word. Why do Presidents always want ot argue about the meaning of words, we all know the defintion of? So I deferred on an opinion to my brother. But I did confess I was in SF last Friday, and a friend and I did hear that was big gay wedding reception in the city. We decided to go find and crash it. But we only found a bunch of TV reporters camped outside city hall by themselves. . They all seemed in poor humor, probably because it was 10:30 and a Friday night and they were filming an empty city hall. I figured they'd be happy not having to camp outside of Scott Petersen's empty house in Modesto, but I guess not. They seemed in poorer humor when Chris and I asked where the big gay wedding reception was. They almost got a look like we were going to attack them or something. I never thought I looked that crazy. Anyway they gave us really bad directions, which were totally wrong. Proof I guess that TV types are all fluff. So we went to a Crepe place and talked about investment strategies for him and his wife to save for a down payment on a house. His wife is a lesbian by the way. They are thinking of getting remarried as gay couple now. Yeah he’s gay too. Its very San Francisco, but I covered that in my New Years entry. Neither of them hunt deer by the way.

It has occurred to me that the certain types of people are against gay marriage. We’ll call them Republicans. Now, they have all kinds of reasons. I don’t want to argue with. I suppose they are valid. But I think Republicans are missing an opportunity here. I mean the Republican Party is all about stimulating business right? --And the real business of America is business right? Gay weddings could be a big thing for business. I mean everyone knows gay people have fabulous tastes. Republicans you don’t think a couple of gay people planning a wedding wouldn’t be tempted to go over the top and spend a lot of money on them. George, you should come out in support of this. It could be your “I’ll cut your taxes more, but don’t worry about it, gay people getting married will stimulate the economy and fill government coffers plan.”

Course, while we are at it. I think Berkeley not wanting to be out done by SF gay weddings should say they are for inter-species marriage. If I could marry my dog it would be totally cool. When she had an average litter I could claim them as dependents and get a lot of tax deductions. Course, as cross species sex is not something I’m into, I have to let the wife cheat on me a bit. I suppose the same people who don’t want gays to get married would be upset that I let my bitch wife have sex outside of our relationship. You know that kind of stuff really undermines the institution of marriage. But its okay, she wouldn’t have a soul that could be saved anyway.

As a side note, deep down in my heart. I think the Gay community should be focusing on the fact that the Federal Government regulaly fires people from there jobs in the military service for being gay. That seems a worse human rights crime to me. But I'm just a dumb poet.

Lenscrafters

So,

Lenscrafters called yesterday. Said they wanted to talk to Ian Clunies Ross. (My ex-roomate who is in Iraq, whose stuff is still in my house, and whose wife in Seattle waiting patiently for his return.)

I said, "Well he's kind of in Iraq right now."

The nice lady on the other end of the phone said, "Could you give him a message that we called. Its time for his checkup."

I said, "Well he's kind of in Iraq right now."

She said, "Is their a way we can contact him?"

I said, "He's kind of in Iraq right now."

She said, "He didn't leave a contact number or anything?"

I said, "In Iraq?"

She said, "Oh, Iraq, could you tell him we called."

Just letting you know Ian.

A freinds response to my blog of 11 Feb.

One of my freinds read my blog about Karen Hughes saying old GW Bushie was teasing the reporters
into thinking he was an idiot, when he said he didn't read the newspapers. He ammonished me for being
gentle. Below is his comment. Course, I like to be nice if I can. --And I did call GW a lot of explicatives
I'm not going to repeat now, the week afer the State of the Union speech.



"Not harsh enough. It puts me in mind of the Emperor Claudius who was
thought to be defective, idiotic, simple-minded for the first 40 years of
his life. He was made Emperor through lack of something better. When they
chose him he said he had only been pretending to be stupid all those years.
A wag questioned if anyone but a stupid man would pretend to be stupid all
those years. Nothing changes, just some of us know there is a past."

Karen Hughes in defense of Bushie....

I went and saw GW's speech writer, Karen Hughes, speak tonight. She's the woman that moved to Texas but still works 1 week a month at the White House. Has she figured out how to work in Government and still get away with making a pile of dough. But anyway, one of the questions she was asked was: "What did you think of George Bush's answer that he didn't read newspapers or magazines when asked."

Mind you, she's a Bushi, --and well the audience was packed with about 5000 of us left coast Democrats and 2000 Republicans that think gay people can get married as long as they register Democratic. So, only like 18 people clapped when she quoted positions out of the state of the union speech. But she's kind of campaigning for him right now, so when asked that question, she looked at us, chuckled a bit and said:

"I was talking to Laura Bush about that statement the other day. She laughed too. George Bush likes to tease reporters. So he just made that up. I mean I've seen the President read papers lots. --And Laura and he have started every morning in bed for the last 20 years sharing the newspaper. People like to think George Bush is stupid. Though the press likes to forget he has a MBA from Harvard."

We (the audience) kind of chuckled at the President playing around with the press. Course, aftewards it occurred to me. As, the President already has a reputation for being kind of stupid guy, isn't teasing the press to make them think he is stupid, kind of stupid?

Who is in the Army now?

So,
(So, I seem to be starting a lot of my blog entries with ‘So’ lately. My friend Ian says that word a lot. Maybe I use ‘So” so much now, cause I miss him. Maybe it’s my way of paying homage to a yearlong sacrifice he’s made. Yeah, sacrifice. He should be home from Iraq in six or seven weeks. He gave up a year of this life to --well, bring democracy (we hope) and freedom to a land that probably will be better with it eventually. He’s in the Army Reserves, so this isn’t the first time he’s done this sort of thing. He spent a stint in Kosovo doing the same thing for them. Wherever nut case foreign leaders like to kill their citizens and neighbors, both Democratic and Republican Administrations send Ian.

Course, Ian’s not like sending the Secretary of State to Israel with a message of “Hey, can’t you guys be nice to the Palestinians. –And if they do that, will you Palestinians stop trying to blow everyone up?” Instead they send him, a Captain in an Army Reserves Psychological Operations unit, to pass out literature, run newspapers, and the occasional radio station. With those tools his unit broadcasts messages like: “Hey, you Iraqis. Could you stop trying to blow each other and us, for that matter, up?” Well those are his primary duties. Secondary duties include trying to keep from getting shot or blown up. Then there is the issue of finding decent food, water to bathe in, and a hoard of other things. Items that would cause the average suburban voter to demand “Throw the bastards out of office!” if they had to survive without. But Ian signed up for the Army right? So, he can't demand that. He has to just put up with being dirty and find some one to translate ألق أمريريكانز الجدًّا خارج العراق into English. He speaks Russian, so he could translate this: Бросьте damn американцов из Ирака into English, but not the Arabic.

Now I bring this up, because, I was on the phone with his wife last night. She’s kind of looking forward to seeing him again. As I’ve mentioned before they got married last year. A few weeks later: Ian was in Iraq.
I won’t go into the details of her and my conversation about the meaning of Ian’s return. But it did occur to me, talking to her, that Ian is doing quite a bit of work for a part time job. --A job that supposes to be two weeks in the summer and one weekend a month. In the last four years Ian’s spent 21 months on active duty. (Nine months in Kosovo and now a year in Iraq.) He also spent nine months at the Defense Language institute in Monterey to learn Russian, which is real handy in Iraq at times. They have Russian weapons around. If we ever let the UN in full time, the Russians could send a large contingent and Ian could discuss where to find clean bath water and electricity with them. But anyway, the point is, he’s really done 30 months out of 48 on active duty. But guess what? He’s still a reservist. As soon as we are done with him and we think the need for production in our war factory is dropping off, we’ll cut his hours. He’ll be back to part time on less than subsistence wages. Kind of laid off. If he were a factory worker, there would at least be a new story about it, maybe a 60 Minutes special.

This situation is somewhat peculiar I think. Ian was a ROTC student in college with full intent on being a career army officer. But Bush 1 decided the army needed to be smaller. So he was rifted out of the Army into the Reserves with the promise he’d spend eight years there doing reserve time. You know, the time where you get to have a career outside the military, cause you are only giving up like 36 days a year, 22 of which are weekends. But since 1990 or so the U.S. seems to be giving our part time army workers a lot of overtime. We’ve sent troops to five battle zones. (Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq again.) It makes being married, raising a family, and maintaining a home a little difficult. People don’t like to hire you if there is an imminent chance of you being asked to defend and promote democracy. The Presidential campaign is on, so in this really weird set of wars we are in, everyone is talking about commitment to the troops. But I don’t think we are so committed to our Army if we can’t even hire enough full time soldiers to do the stuff we want. In occurs to me in my liberal left wing social thinking way, that defending and promoting democracy is not something we want hire part timers to do. We should commit to them, as much as they commit to us, and stop asking them for full time sacrifice while employing them when its convenient to our needs like occasional cleaning lady or gardener.

A poem... Haven't had many lately. What kind of poet am I anyway.

After beer,
I’m up late
in my Berkeley kitchen .

Hungry, I can’t decide what’s the itch.
I scratch the fridge,
find old green and democratic veggies,
decide: “No.”
Then I guess at the cupboard and notice corn oil.
--And then I know what I want,
deep fat fried Republicans.
The kind that crunch when I bite them.
Lightly salted, so as not to raise my blood pressure.

Bush Interview on Meet the Press.

So,
The pulled out an interesting chart this morning that showed the Federal Budget the year Bush took office was in surplus $281 Billion. This year the budget is in deficit $500 billion. (This doesn't take into account the $150 billion he's borrowing from the Social Security System.) So in three years we have essentially lost almost $950 billion in revenue in the federal government. We are now borrowing more money every year, than Bush's Dad did in four years, Ronald Regan did in eight years. I think we need Ross Perot back with his charts.
I wonder how long we can borrow a third of the budget of the U.S. and stay in business. Oh by they way if you guys vote for him again. We have to pay that back. Its ok though, the 2 Trillion GW has run up in debt during his first adminstration will only cost us 4.6 trillion.

As I only got about six hundred dollars out of this deal, I'd be willing to tighten my belt again and save a few trillion.

Vehicle License Fee

So,
With the election of Are Nold to the governship of Cali forn i ya we were promised a cut in our vehicle license fee. He even signed an executive order. (S-1-03 if you were wondering) I just want to announce that this act has born fruit in my direction. I recieved by VLF refund yesterday in the mail. It was $3.01. Mind you that included interest the money earned while Gray Davis had "my" VLF in the state money prison. I glad that after spending $60 million on a recall that I get something out of the deal. God knows if any other governor ever tries to screw me out of three bucks I'll mount a recall election.