war. criminals.

In the preface to the Physicians for Human Rights report on torture by the United States, Retired Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba writes the following:

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. . .

The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. . . .

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.

But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.

And so do the American people." (Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba (USA-Ret.)

You can download the entire report on the medical evidence of torture by the U.S. here. Read it and weep, then get on the phone to Nancy Pelosi and demand that impeachment be put ON the fucking table and that these sociopaths in the Bush administration be arrested and imprisoned. There is no other way we can redeem ourselves as a nation.

tick fever

This explains a lot. You know that stuff y'all are always saying about us? All of us down here below the Mason Dixon? Like we're inbred and crazy and just don't act right? Ticks. It's because of ticks. Getting tick bit will make you confuse your mama with your daughter. It will make you think your boy's your wife. It puts you on the front porch playing a banjo. We've all been tick bit and we're all crazy and so is George Bush. It's been apparent ~ oh so apparent ~ that he's crazy as a bed bug and way more dangerous. Now we know why.

here's what i like about george bush . . .

"He doesn't think too much. He just gets up in the morning, puts on his jeans and t-shirt and kicks terrorist ass. That's what I like about Bush. We don't need a president who thinks too much."

That statement courtesy of my new neurologist. We had a rousing political debate lasting about 35 minutes and as we were discussing our opposing views on the relative merits of presidents past and present, congress, bureaucracy, wire tapping, habeas corpus, torture, what is entailed in sound fiscal policy, why the rich need more tax cuts v. why they do not, it dawned on me "this is diagnostic; he's doing this on purpose to see if I can put two thoughts together."

It was interesting, this first step in getting evaluated for early onset of dementia. The next step is an MRI and then a neuropsych exam. The mind I have left makes note of the fact that there are Rethugs everywhere, even masquerading as a friendly doctor freshly missing a ponytail and with a suspicious puncture in the earlobe. It's so disconcerting to come across Rethugs in Dem clothing, but a good reminder to be ever vigilant. I kid. Sort of.

CBS v. whitehouse

CBS reports on the Whitehouse picnic this way:

"You all enjoy yourself," said President Bush, who ambled out on the lawn with first lady Laura Bush to greet his guests, including many of his longtime political adversaries.

"Make sure you pick up all the trash after it's over," he joked just before Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers struck up a rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching in."

The Whitehouse website reports this:

I want to thank our Chef, Paul Prudhomme, from New Orleans, Louisiana -- one of the great chefs in America. Thanks for coming, Paul. (Applause.) I thank Tony Snow and his bunch of, well, mediocre musicians -- (laughter) -- no, great musicians. Beats Workin, thanks for coming. (Applause.) Kermit, come up here. Kermit, we're proud to have you.

MR. RUFFINS: Well, thanks for having us.

THE PRESIDENT: Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers, right out of New Orleans, Louisiana. (Applause.)

MR. RUFFINS: Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're glad to be here.

THE PRESIDENT: Proud you're here. Thanks for coming. You all enjoy yourself. Make sure you pick up all the trash after it's over. (Laughter.)

God bless you, and may God bless America. Thanks for coming. (Applause.)

In the Whitehouse version, George Bush looks like a racist asshole, for telling the African-American musicians to "pick up all the trash after it's over." CBS's version gives it a different spin, one which puts Bush in a better light. Good grief.

bush drops the gay bomb

Right here, and then there's love. Cute.

relapse

Here's a tip from one AA member to another purportedly sober person: beer counts, even for presidents, even for idiots. But wait, he got sober through religious conversion, right? Found the Lord, met with Billy Graham. In 24 years of doing beginners' meetings, I have discovered that really doesn't seem to work. Ergo . . .


This explains a lot. Heaven help us over the next 591 days. It's been bad enough while he's (allegedly) been sober. Now he gets drunk and calls in sick to the G8 conference? Courtesy of Culture Kitchen. Your president, hard at work.


Does this scare the shit out of you? If he's a drunk like I'm a drunk, we're in even bigger trouble.

More from the Times Online:

Yesterday afternoon Mr Bush was photographed sipping something that resembled beer, while sitting around a picnic table in a small group with Ms Merkel, but as the President has not drunk alcohol for more than 20 years it is unlikely that it was anything stronger than a fizzy drink.

Um . . . okay, right. But then he couldn't get up and out of his room the next morning because of a tummy ailment? I've had that very kind of tummy ailment. That head thrown back in the chair posture is one with which I am intimately familiar. My tummy ailment was generally better the morning after, as I always ended up puking by end of evening. But okay, it was a "fizzy drink" and we're not all at the mercy of a drunken madman. I believe it. You?

Update: SK and Ms. Nator report it's a nonalcoholic beer. So we're back to his being just a dry drunk.

Dry Drunk symptomology:
Grandiose behavior
Pomposity
Exaggerated self-importance
A rigidly judgmental outlook
Impatience
Childish behavior
Irresponsible behavior
Irrational rationalization
Projection
Overreaction

can this be true?

Mike Jones voted for that thug George Bush?

torture, refined

Mr. Christian, you know, the born again do-right motherfucker in the oval office, that guy is putting the finishing touches on the United States' new torture plan. Well, that guy, the one who doesn't read, probably actually has no awareness of it beyond the dilute "here's what we're going to do" summary provided by the neocons in charge of what used to be a constitutional form of government. Read, weep, gnash and rend. When I think things can't get any worse under this asshat, they do.

who needs a fat president?

Maybe we do. The WaPo's Richard Cohen writes of the current crop of candidates, their weighty issues, and how fat is increasingly viewed as a moral issue. Who would you prefer: Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt or George Bush? One of two fat boys? Or a trim, athletic monomaniacal conscienceless dictator?

The sum total of pounds lost in the great cause of democracy has now clearly exceeded 150. Mike Huckabee's down about 110, Bill Richardson's down more than 30, Rudy's looking trim and, as pundits galore have told us, if Al Gore sheds more than a pound and a half, it will be universally taken as a declaration of candidacy.

What Winston Churchill would make of this I cannot say. He might reach for yet another drink.The great American pastime is not baseball, but moral crusades. This accounts for why we once made booze illegal, why we continue to make war on all drugs, and why now we have turned to obesity – morbid obesity, as it is sometimes morbidly called. . . .

This explains why a presidential candidate must be trim. To be overweight, even pleasantly so, suggests a lack of self-discipline. That, of course, is utter nonsense, the previous president being an example of all such. Bill Clinton went on his daily jog, more or less maintained his weight, and yet strayed morally in ways that two entire congressional committees and a special prosecutor documented for no really good reason. Maybe Mr. Clinton should have stayed fat. . . .

But the aforementioned Churchill smoked, drank and was overweight. Teddy Roosevelt, a remarkable president, was a wee 5-feet-8 and weighed about 200 pounds. Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor who presided over the peaceful reunification of his country, favored a dish called saumagen – pig's stomach stuffed with lard. His tenure was the longest of any chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, hardly a skinny himself.

I recognize, of course, that for most of us willpower is what we sadly lack, and nothing in our genes commands pasta instead of veggies. But I would still choose a TR or a Churchill over the trim President Bush any day. And I would point out that Mr. Gore, overweight though he may be, was right about Iraq and global warming.

god help us

Read, weep, gnash, rend.

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness. . . .Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."