Flushed

I charge contempt with the Government
of the United States of America
and to the Fascist State for which it has become
one Nation under Siege,
no Liberty, nor Justice at all

Arrgh

I don't even know what to write. Woman practices safe sex. Method fails. Tries to get EC. Entire state of Ohio treats her like a criminal with a contagious disease, but would welcome her with open arms if she was married. Or raped. Or married and raped. And it's all just so mind-blowingly assinine, this rabid judgemental hatred of women through denial of basic health care.

Stephen, I love you

The Word: Stephen Colbert needed a podium at the White House Correspondents Dinner beacause without it, the sheer weight of his Big Brass Truthiness Kahunas would have caused him to topple over.

P.S. Thank you

All Your Uteri Are Belong to South Dakota

Governor Mike Rounds sits very still for the camera as he prepares to sign legislation March 6, 2006, in Pierre, S.D.. (AP Photo/Joe Kafka)

PIERRE, SNARK DAKOTA - Gov. Mike Rounds signed a contract Monday that would transfer ownership of nearly all 390,000 uteri in South Dakota to the state. "We have until July 1 to raise funds for the purchase," he kind of said. The bidding started with an anonymous donor's pledge of $1 million, setting the initial uterine value at 39 cents per unit; the same as a first class postage stamp (handling is extra). State Senator Bill Napoli said that while they could probably get a good bulk rate on postage, "I really think we're pushing the envelope on that." The legislature concurred, determining that uteri probably do not fit into a standard mailing envelope. A special account has been set up to accept donations to cover the extra postage and shackles necessary for forced births.

Are there any uteri the state does not want? Napoli, dressed in his favorite wild west outfit, really said that the state does not value uteri that come from brutally raped, savaged, suicidal unmarried religious virgins who are "sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it." They get to keep theirs, he said, as long as the state gets to hear all the details. "It would probably help if we could get a copy on tape," he may have added.

While my liberty gently weeps

Two polls today illustrate just how the dumb-downed America has become. A recent Zogby poll of U.S. troops in Iraq finds that

"85 percent-- said the U.S. mission is 'to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks.'"

Back home, a recent Synovate survey not only found that

"only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment", but that

"about one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected".

Wanker QOTD

"This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America"

George Bush, on US ports controlled by UAE, via the Plaid Adder

Because getting fucked once is just not enough

Via Shakes, a rant about the South Dakota abortion ban that nails it on the head:

It’s insulting. It’s belittling. It’s unfair. It’s infuriating. And none of that matters to the people who would seek to protect a life that doesn’t exist at the expense of mine, which does.

The whole spiel gets one big "ditto" from me. This crap burns me up every time, and it is precisely because what Shakes says is true: it seeks to ensure that women "have fewer rights and less value under the law than an unwanted fetus," and strip away the autonomy of all women. All women.

It's not as women aren't already devalued. It is that we have not been devalued enough to have been acceptably proclaimed defeated.

-

My own rant comes from a quote in the story from Republican Sen. Lee Schoenbeck of Watertown:

Rape should be punished severely, he said, but the amendment is unfair to “some equally innocent souls who have no chance to stand and defend themselves.”

Lee, fuck the hell off. If I get to be an "innocent soul" who deserves a chance to "stand and defend" myself in your righteous scenario, then why the hell are you for taking that right away? Where was the support that would have allowed me to effectively "stand and defend" when, against my will, my virginal, "innocent soul" was put in the back of some guy's car and raped in the first place? The kind of support where someone like you and millions of other men step up and take to task others for their sexist entitlement behavior, instead of legislating "severe punishment" against the female victims of said shits?

Why, oh why, the fuck am I having to defend myself, against impossible odds, against some rapist shit at all? Why is it left to be my own damn fault if I chose not to risk further violence against me, in order to try to gather evidence to provide you with someone to severly punish? What value are words that say "rape should be punished severly" when it's not? When it really should be prevented severely? Why do I get the feeling this is about "standing" for and "defending" male privilege?

Lee, and the rest of you sick shits, the first and only chance I had to "stand" and "defend" my very self was the day I got an abortion. Obviously that was one chance too many in your mind. I, on the other hand, am
not.
letting.
that.
happen.

Abu Ghraib, redux

Via sfgate:

An Australian television network broadcast photographs and video clips Wednesday that it said were previously unpublished images of the abuse of Iraqis held in U.S. military custody at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. [snip]

"The department believes that a further release of images could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world and would endanger our military men and women that are serving around the world," [Pentagon spokesman Bryan] Whitman said.

Duh, that's been the excuse all along. Common sense, on the other hand, might indicate that if the images were inflammatory, it would have been best to just release them all in the first place and deal with it all at once, instead of fighting FOI requests all this time.

Outrage Overload

It must be something in the in the air. I'm not the only one infuriated beyond comprehension today. While I experience the feeling often, today it came super jumbo sized. Given that, I'm surprised I didn't spontaneously combust. Melissa at Shakespeare's Sister writes:

Every day, there are new stories emerging about which I should feel outraged, and yet five years of no accountability is making me weary. How many hundreds incidents of unethical or flatly illegal behavior am I meant to read without having the slightest bloody ability to do a damn thing about it?

Exactly. What can I possibly do about it, a mere mortal who doesn't even have her own Fortune 500 company? Thankfully, we the people have representation, right?

And while I’m mad at the Dems for being ineffective, and mad at the GOP for being corrupt motherfuckers who don’t give a shit about what’s right as long as they keep winning, ...

Oops. Yeah, just what I was thinking.

I’m mostly mad at the American people who can’t be fucking arsed to pay attention, leaving the rest of us to bear the burden of caring, caring, caring on everyone’s behalf so they can keep on shopping and watching Wife Swap while our democracy slips away.

Argh!

Ignorance really must be friggin’ bliss, because knowing just makes me tired down to my goddamned bones.

You know, it can be cathartic to run across something that looks like it was transcribed right out of your head.

This is not one of those times.

It's fucking depressing. It means that there's less chance that I'm hallucinating, passed into some alternate universe, or am suffering an extremely long bout of PMS. Nope, no need to adjust your dial, this is reality, not TV shows that call themselves reality, or endless celebrity sex life exclusives, or missing white teen macroseries that hypnotize the masses into a trance, performing on cue with every suggestive key word. "Nine eleven!" -bark- "Terrorists!" -sit- "Patriotism!" -heel-

Stop licking your balls, people. We are snapping our fingers, here!

So, it was not quite surprising, but still freaking eerie, that Melissa later followed with her Question of the day:

Given twenty-four hours to spend any way you wanted, with no limit in terms of cost, what would you do? (The only parameter is that you can't magically beam yourself from here to there, so travel time must be a consideration, with your current location at your starting point.)

Damn. I know that one. In a hammock among the palms next to my hotel room, 20 feet from the beach, looking out on the bay in St. Martin. I'm assuming I'd have to come back, though. In the end, nothing would change.

No limit in terms of cost, huh? Since anyone can be bought, perhaps I'd start by chartering a few jets from D.C. to Gitmo. Board some special passengers for the junket. By the time 24 hours are up, I'm sure our guests would be safely tucked away in their cells, wondering what wonderful island activities are in store for them the next day.

America be not proud

What would it take? Will people wake up and give a shit only when some cute blonde christian female teenager disappears into the hell that is gitmo for several years?

That's all I got. Disbelief is on overload today over a buffet of US govt crap. Too fucking furious for words.

Tomorrow is another day, where it can start all over again.

My kid is smarter than your president

See, when I catapulted the propoganda that our goal was "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025," in my STFU speechification yesterday, I really meant... see, the intelligence was misunderestimated, heh. See, imports are good for the economy. It's commerce. [condescending head bob] Commerce... is what makes Merika strong. [smirk] I am all for commerce. And freedom. So our goal is actually to incease oil imports from the Middle East 239% by 2025. Heh.

The latest in fuzzy wuzzy math, brought to you by Knight Ridder, via David Sirota, and the letter G.

Dear Senators,

How come I still haven't heard from you? You promised that you would support me. You promised that you would defend me no matter what. The truth is, we've been separated for a long time now. You brag about about how much you love me, about how I am your foundation, but you never come home. Whenever I try to get through to you, you tell me that now is not a good time, then hang up and go out with your rich friends and get drunk with power.

I am tired of being neglected. I refuse to be associated with you any longer. I am fighting back.

Sincerely,
The Constitution

cc:
Congress
Executive Branch