With apologies to 'Princess Bride' fans everywhere...

Since the invention of
the kiss, there had been
five kisses that were
rated the most passionate,
the most pure. 

This one left them
all behind....

NOT!

This cartoon amuses me, because I have come across people online who are dim enough to actually do this. Sad, but true. The names 'gfl' or 'B. Lathe' won't be mentioned, however, because it would be bad of me to accuse them of this, no matter how true it may be.

Partly cloudy, with a chance of trolls

The NewsHounds forum has gained a new infestation of trolls, although none as disgusting as the one I wrote about a few days ago. I miss Republicans who actually think for themselves. Ones you can have a conversation with, enjoy a good debate with, and maybe even like. We seems to just get the kind that come to the forum, attack everyone for anything they can come up with, then try to claim some sort of moral victory when someone attacks them back.

I still have hope, though. I have Republican friends, and they are good people (even if a little misguided). I have to hae hope, otherwise I'd give up. I'm frightened for my country and it tears me up inside.

Why *can't* we all just get along?

I lost it last night

I was on the Newshounds forum last night, reading a thread about a comedienne who said that Bush is evil, etc. All was fine until a troll posted, saying that the woman deserved to be 'gang raped by a group of raving republicans'. Normally, I do my best to ignore what trolls write, but that got me. I was crying while i responded to the post. I wrote "Normally, I ignore trolls, but as a gang rape survivor, I find this trolls remarks to be extremely uncalled for. They show a contempt for human life, and should be grounds for banning."

In true troll fashion, it attacks me, calling me a whining liberal who is playing the 'victim card'. I don't feel that I was 'whining'. If I wanted to 'play the victim card', I would have writen about the suicide attempts that followed, the hospitilization, and the medications and therapy I'm using to get on with my life.

I said fuck it, took a Klonopin to fight off the panic attack, and went to bed.

And I didn't wake up screaming at three o'clock in the morning, amazingly enough.

My best friend is being brainwashed

My best friend (I shall go with along with a tradition started on our friend's DeadJournal years ago, and refer to him as 'Mr. User Friendly') started working as a trucker a couple weeks ago. He has the weekend off, so we made plans to go out to supper with his parents. On the way down to the Ryan's in Clarksburg, we had the chance to talk. Normally, we pretty much agree, but not now. He's been getting on the job training with a TE (technical engineer). Said TE only wants to listen to AM talk radio. Mr. User Friendly swears he's tried to tune it out, but it obviously hasn't worked. He was telling me about how "everyone is saying the problems in NOLA were caused by the Mayor and Governor". I told him about the poll that was just released today that says that two-thirds of Americans think Bush failed to do enough in the aftermath of Katrina. He didn't believe me. Here's a link to more info about the poll: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4229238.stm

When I see him tomorrow, I plan on directing him to one webpage I know he will respect. Snopes.com. I checked out the latest stories on there, and found one entitled 'Blame Nagin'.

Claim: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco refused President Bush's pleas to declare an emergency in Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina struck.

Status: False.

You can read it here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

A picture is worth a thousand words

In the post week or two, I've begun reading quite a few blogs. I find myself following links posted therein, and due to this, I came across some photos of people in NOLA. This was posted online at www.stern.de http://www.stern.de/politik/panorama/545498.html?nv=fs&cp=9


All ten of the photos are heartbreaking, but there was one detail about photo 9 that caught my attention. Notice her toenails? Bright red, well cared for. Now, look at her again. She looks frail and ill. I'd bet she didn't look so ill before Katrina. I guess she reminds me of my mother. Thank goodness my mother is fine.

Now for something completely mundane

My son wanted to call his father, so after he got off the school bus this afternoon we walked over to the payphones outside the Dairy Mart. You can make an international call from the at the cost of $1 for three minutes. I dropped four quarters into the slot, dialled the number, and handed the phone over to Xander. His grandmother answered. The Sicilian wasn't home. Cue one very disappointed seven year old. I don't know what to tell him. Daddy doesn't want to talk to us because he's too depressed? Xander wouldn't understand.

(I guess I should explain that the Sicilian is my ex-husband. He lives in London [yes, the one in the UK], and does his best to make our lives hell. His mother is even worse than him. I'll never date outside my species again.)

Xander has been asking me questions about New Orleans and hurricane Katrina. They were learning about hurricanes when Katrina struck. He hasn't been asking any more questions about death and what happens after we die. He went through that stage eighteen months ago. He's a bright, intellegent little boy, and I despair when I think of the world he's growing up in. I've given serious thought about us moving back to the UK. Xander has dual citizenship, and I still have my resident alien status. I have friends who would help us out. Trouble is, Tony Blair is almost as bad as Bush. Maybe when Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister.

A brief lesson on the Department of Homeland Security

Something for the Republicans out there, now trying to lay the blame for NOLA on the (Democrat) Mayor and Governer. It comes from newshounds.us, and was written by Dee.
-------

This one administration sure isn't efficient.

They forgot about pg 43 of the the Department of Homeland Security manual.

http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
-------------------------------------------------
The first paragraph:

In catastrophe situations where state and local resources are overwhelmed, coordination for federal assistance is not to be delayed and the
first priority is immediately deploy federal resources to save lives and protect
infrastructure. And the procedure to coordinate with state and local government should not be an obstacle.
-------------------------------------------------
Read the paragraph - please. Federal assistance is NOT TO BE DELAYED and the FIRST PRIORITY IS IMMEDIATELY DEPLOY FEDERAL RESOURCES TO SAVE LIVES AND PROTECT INFRASTRUCTURE and the procedure to coordinate with state and local government SHOULD NOT BE AN OBSTACLE.

Where is Kingfish when we need him?

Outraged Citizen posted this on the NewsHounds OT forum, and I really liked it.

BUSH STRAFES NEW ORLEANS
WHERE IS OUR HUEY LONG?
by Greg Palast

Friday, September 2, 2005
The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United States had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.

I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet.

There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," promised to rebuild the state. He didn't. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!"

Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.

At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. Governor Long taxed Big Oil to pay for the books. Rockefeller's oil companies refused pay the textbook tax, so Long ordered the National Guard to seize Standard Oil's fields in the Delta.

Huey Long was called a "demagogue" and a "dictator." Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house, and feed them and give every man or woman a job who needs one.

Government, he said, "We The People," not plutocrats nor Halliburtons, must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our heads. All we had to do was share the nation's wealth we created as a nation. But that meant facing down what he called the "concentrations of monopoly power" to finance the needs of the public.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society.

America and the party prospered.

America could use a Democratic Party again and there's a rumor it's alive -- somewhere.

And now is the moment, as it was in '27. As the bodies float in the streets of New Orleans, now is not the time for the Democrats to shirk and slink away, bleating they can't "politicize" this avoidable disaster.

Seventy-six years ago this week, Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his combat remains, from Social Security to veterans' mortgage loans.

There is no such thing as a "natural" disaster. Hurricanes happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that cut the heart out of public protection. The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one side has a general.

Where is our Huey Long? America needs just one Kingfish to stand up and say that our nation must rid itself of the scarecrow with the idiot chuckle, who has left America broken and in danger while he plays tinker-toy Napoleon on other continents.

I realize that the middle of rising flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it's act up now or we all go under.
*****

My Grandpa was taught to swim when Great-Grandpa Swatsenbarg tossed him into a 'bottomless' lake and told him he'd either swim, or he'd drown. He made it back to the dock, and I hope the Democratic party does, as well.

Bush is sinking. We need to swim.