BlameBush!

Movie Review; An Inconvenient Truth

Automobiles. Electricity. Indoor plumbing. Private ownership of property. Steady employment. Food. Americans have selfishly enjoyed such extravagances for decades, and the environment has suffered for it. Now, Mother Nature is beginning to strike back. Powerful hurricanes descend on the tranquil Gulf Coast region every year, so numerous that we have run out of names for them. The glaciers have retreated from Mount Kilauea, backing over scores of poor, inner city Blacks on the way out. Drought sweep across the land, and entire crops of glaucoma medication vanish from my porch overnight. We are facing what could very well be the end of civilization in our lifetime, and the blame belongs to America’s selfish insistence on remaining an industrialized nation.

That’s the “inconvenient truth” that Al Gore tries to awaken us to in his monumental new film. A triumph at Cannes even without any gay sex scenes, An Inconvenient Truth features a colorful ensemble of A-list climatologists and environmental experts, their weighty words and elaborate costumes lending credibility to what would otherwise be blown off as just another bearded lady in the circus sideshow of Al Gore’s mind. However, it is Al Gore himself who steals the show as the reluctant hero who would save humanity from its own greedy excesses, even as he fights his own personal demons. Fitted with a pair of recycled aluminum claws, Gore slashes his way through the veil of right-wing lies and exposes the world to the hard, inconvenient truth they’ve ignored for far too long. Where was this Al Gore during the 2000 presidential debates? Where was he during the entire election? No matter. The same Al Gore whose rugged outdoorsy machismo and pressed flannel shirts won the hearts of butch lesbians everywhere has returned…and with a vengeance.

The inconvenient truth of Gore’s film is also an undeniable one. If we are to save the planet for future generations, we must sacrifice a few of the guilty pleasures we’ve grown so accustomed to over the years - such as eating regularly and crapping indoors. Most importantly, we must end once and for all our unhealthy obsession with the internal combustion engine. It’s high time for we as a society to squeeze our obese behinds out of our gas-guzzling, smog-belching SUVs and learn to use other alternatives, such as those funny things on the ends of our legs. By “we”, Gore of course means “YOU”, for we simply can’t have the once and future President walking around to all his lucrative speaking engagements like a common peasant.

Enlightened nations like China and France have already become signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, but the United States has yet to answer to the UN for the unforgivable sin of prosperity. To prevent an environmental apocalypse, Al Gore inists that we must. But it won’t happen as long as there is a Republican in the White House, waging endless wars and handing out tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Unless we surrender ourselves completely to our benevolent progressive leaders and reject the right-wing's use of fear as a means to control us, civilization as we know it will cease to exist.

9/11 Video Doesn't Hold Water

The U.S. Justice Department released a video last week of what appears to be American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Bush must take Charlie Sheen for an idiot.

The right-wing mind control machine may have pulled the wool over the eyes of the ignorant red state masses, but when it comes to the finer intricacies of aeronautical engineering and aviation crash physics, they’re on Big Chuck’s turf.

If there are two things Charlie Sheen knows, they are: 1) It’s not “kiddie porn” if the website says the babes are “barely legal”, and 2) a Boeing 757 doesn’t simply zip to the ground like a bullet and disintegrate on impact as if it had slammed into a reinforced concrete fortress at 400 mph. Anyone in the movie business will tell you that when a commercial aircraft crashes, it sort of glides down in slow motion, clips the guitar off the top of the Hard Rock Café, and then skids on its belly for about 13 blocks before screeching to a halt mere inches away from the edge of a cliff. Yet to this day, any photographs taken of the Pentagon crash site show very little debris, if any at all.

You’d think that if Bush was going to stage a phony plane crash convincing enough to fool everyone but our most brightest Hollywood stars, he’d at least toss a landing gear or a section of the fuselage out onto the lawn. But the Shrub got cocky and slipped up, and Charlie Sheen was all over him like Charlie Sheen on a barely legal call girl. Now, when a majority of celebrities believe Bush personally flew into the Pentagon with a pair of ACME bat wings and a giant firecracker strapped to his back, out comes this convenient video. But nobody’s buying it, least of all Charlie Sheen.

The video itself is of such poor quality that it wouldn’t even fool Emilio Estevez. The Pentagon can photograph me from outer space, yet they can’t put a camera in their parking lot capable of producing an image larger than three inches wide?

I’m afraid that until Bush provides Sheen with some better footage, or finally allows Molly Ringwald to analyze metallurgical data from all the supposed “debris” recovered at the “crash site”, the jury is still out on Bush's innocence, as well as the fate of Flight 77.

Oh What a Night!

Saturday marked the 30-ish year since my teenaged mother was forced by her right-wing fascist parents to carry her unwanted pregnancy to term. What better way to forget my shame for being born than to enjoy a night of good food and good music with some good company?

So after a nice vegetarian dinner at Applebee’s, Myranda and I went over to the Stillakoomish Riverboat Bingo Palace for the much-anticipated Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons concert. It was only six o’clock when we arrived at the venue, but the place was already SRO with geriatric, blue-haired groupies trying to relive their glory days. From wall to wall, the dance floor was a polychromatic sea of open-seated sweat pants, polyester leisure suits, and faded poodle skirts hiked up to reveal pasty white thighs covered with roadmaps of varicose veins.

“Woo Nellie!” I bubbled, rubbing my hands together with anticipation. “We’re in for one wild show! Ol’ Frankie V. never disappoints!”

“Aren’t these guys a little old?” Myranda asked. “I mean, my gramma listens to their music.”

“Music?" I replied with a snort of derision. “Who cares about the music? It’s all about the message, baby! If you want candy-ass, bubblegum pop tunes, go to a Neil Young show. People come to see Frankie V. for his biting political commentary and knock-your-socks off stage act!”

“I think I just got felt up by Larry Linville,” she said dryly.

I brushed aside her negativity and lead her to our seats. “Just relax. Sit down. Ignore the old people smell and fasten your seatbelt, Dorothy, because you aren’t in Kansas anymore and this ain’t your father’s Oldsmobile!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

But before I could explain, The Jersey Boy himself took the stage to a standing ovation. A ray of pink light glanced off his sequined tuxedo and shot straight into my eyes, and for a moment I existed on several planes of both space and time simultaneously. Frankie’s trademark falsetto rang out the familiar words from Dawn, a Sting-esque ballad railing against Bush’s reckless environmental policies that snapped me out of my euphoric trance. Next came Rag Doll, a touching tribute to all the innocent children murdered in Bush’s illegal and immoral war for oil, followed by Sherry, an obvious jab at Bush’s drinking problem. They finished the set with an up-tempo version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You that brought that house down.

I glanced over to catch Myranda suppressing a yawn.

“Don’t you GET it?” I snapped at her. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You? He’s talking about Bush’s domestic spying program!”

She shrugged. “Can we go now?”

Not a chance, toots. I stood in line for nine hours buy these tickets before realizing I was actually at a Marlo Thomas book signing. Nobody, not even an androgynous, hatchet-faced wannabeatnik with a goofy beret and lensless glasses was going to ruin my special day. But before I could tell her to go catch herself a cab, a hush swept across the crowd as Frankie called for the stage lights to be dimmed.

“I’d like to dedicate the next one to the peeResident SElect and Commander in Thief,” he announced, his dentures punctuating each word with a profound clack, like a judge's gavel pronouncing Bush guilty as charged for all his crimes against humanity.

Suddenly, the stage erupted in an explosion of smoke, and a giant image of Bush’s face with a little Hitler mustache materialized overhead, seemingly floating above the astonished crowd as the familiar opening chords of Walk Like a Man blasted out the speakers.

Myranda sprang from her seat with excitement. “OmiGoddess! It’s so true! Bush IS Hitler! Why didn’t I think of that?”

The crowd erupted with wild applause as Frankie donned a rubber Bush mask and performed simulated oral sex on a crucifix while riding a donkey draped with the American flag. Behind him, a procession of shaved monkeys wearing Pope hats threw feces-smeared Bibles and used prophylactics at the audience while all four of the Seasons ignited their farts to the tune of the National Anthem.

And after all these years, it was good to see that age hasn’t dulled Frankie’s edge one iota. Way past their music prime, many artists feel the need to perform increasingly obscene acts on stage in order to maintain their fan base. Others slam the peeResident just to sell records. Not ol' Frankie V. he's still the same rock n' roll rebel he was late December back in '63. In these American Dark Ages of fascist oppression and squashed dissent, Valli is a modern day Paul Revere, riding roughshod through the streets of conformity, unafraid to yank our collective doodle dandy to make his point.

After the concert, Myranda and I stood in the parking lot, soaking in the afterglow.

“Oh Larry, you were so right!” she breathlessly confessed. “Everything he said is exactly what I as a progressive have known deep down for years, but have never had the musical talent nor the flatulence to properly express! I haven’t seen anything so politically relevant since Bob Goulet sodomized Bush in effigy at the Evergreen State Fair. Frankie Valli is a God amongst mere mortals! Thank you, Larry! And Happy I-Ruined-A-Womyn’s-Life Day!”

Bush Uninterested in Ordinary Americans

Bush used the stolen platform of his politically-biased weekly radio address to lash out at critics of his Domestic Spying Program on Saturday, strongly insisting that he is NOT listening in on the phone conversations of ordinary Americans.

Gosh. I guess we're just not interesting enough for you, Shrub. I guess the lives of ordinary Americans are far too boring for an important man such as yourself to even be bothered with. Obviously, you’d rather listen to what Osama Bin Laden has to say than the wants and needs that millions of average and below-average Americans express through their telephones every day. You're outta here in a couple years anyway, right? It's best to just ignore us and go right on catering to your Big Oil Buddies.

I haven’t been this ticked off since the FBI admitted they don’t really give a damn that I read an unusual amount of Judith Krantz. But I shouldn’t be surprised by Bush’s indifference, I guess. After all, this is the same man who slammed the White House door in Mother Sheehan’s face, and publicly confessed that he had no intention of ever seeing Brokeback Mountain. What does he care about the lives of ordinary Americans? Why would he want to waste his time listening to us? He’s far too busy waging his illegal and immoral War on Terror to be concerned with Aunt Gertrude’s recipe for crab bisque.

Bush Opens New Torture Frontier

This week, Bush announced plans to send 10,000 National Guardspersyns to our southern border to help stem the tide of what some call “illegal immigration”. He assured us that their role would be a purely supportive one, their activities restricted to carrying the Border Patrol's softball gear and handing out Gatorade between innings. But let's not fool ourselves. The troops are headed to Mexico for one reason and one reason only: to torture people.

Torturing people is, after all, what our troops do best. And if there's one thing Mexico has plenty of, it's people. Every year hundreds of innocent men, women, and teddy bear-clutching children with big puppy dog eyes like that velvet painting I picked up in Tijuana pour across our border in search of the American Dream, but now they will find only the stinging humiliation of mishandled Qurans, forced lap dances, and pig-piles of naked Chicanos three miles high. To our murderous troops, these helpless innocents are not human beings who deserve compassion and respect, but merely nameless Latino gonads ready to be hooked up to portable telephones in a fashion reminiscent of Jingus Khan.

Democrats on The Hill are concerned. With most of our troops already torturing people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thousands more watching Blacks drown in New Orleans, they worry that a prolonged deployment to Albuquerque might be stretching our military too thin - like beef in a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme. But their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Obviously, Bush doesn't give a damn about our troops. Vicente Fox's torture chambers will remain open, under new management, and an American Flag.

Thursday night is Ladies Night and Well drinks are always $2 on Wednesdays.

Below-Average Americans Being Spied On, Too

At a small, private learning center in Tacoma, Washington, little Jeremy Washburn, 23, fumbles with the buttons on his Fisher Price Fun Phone. As a special needs child, he’s unaware that his magical calls to the Marshmallow Man may no longer be between just the two of them. Sadly, neither his childlike innocence nor the jar of paste he just ate are protection against an administartion determined to pry into his personal life.

In addition to millions of average Americans who are currently being spied on by the fascist Bush junta, thousands of below-average Americans are targeted as well. People like Ashley West, 38, a mentally challenged Seattle resident with an I.Q. of 13. From her desk at the King County Elections Office, she fields several thousand angry phone calls a day. Now, thanks to an administration hell bent on invading her privacy, she’s afraid to even pick up the receiver and blubber incoherently for ten minutes, let alone fill out the thousands of unmarked ballots the Marshmallow Man brings her.

The sting of fascism never hurts more than when our most helpless Americans fall victim to its iron grasp.

Is Your TV Watching YOU?

An interesting footnote to my previous post: the data I cited regarding the total number of telephones and cell phones nationwide was taken from the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK.

If you’re feeling a little like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, get a load of this website, which somehow knows exactly how many televisions sets we own!

But don’t click your ruby heels together just yet, Dorothy! They also know how many of us own personal computers, have access to the internet, and even how many miles we travel to work each day. Further investigation reveals that Big Brother has been collecting private and personal data on average Americans for years. In fact, they actually have an entire BUREAU whose sole function is to do just that.

If the founding fathers were alive today, they’d be pretty damn old. And they’d also be appalled by this administration’s flagrant abuses of power. George Jefferson didn’t include a Right to Privacy in the Constitution just to have it whittled away by fascists.

Bush has a lot of explaining to do. So keep your eyes on the news for a convenient natural disaster or an Osama video within the next few days.

I’d watch the TV if I didn’t think Bush was watching me back.

Americans Just 462,479,364 Phone Calls Away from Gitmo

The call came at 3 pm yesterday afternoon, brutally shattering the calm serenity of my daily yoga regimen. I glared suspiciously at the phone, letting it ring five times before cautiously picking it up.

“Allo, Senor peeResident!” I warmly greeted the caller. “This is Sven! Sven Svenson, by yiminy! Bork bork bork!”

“Larry?” came the hesitant reply. “This is your mother. Are you coming up to visit me this Mother’s Day? I haven’t heard from you in weeks and I was kind of worried ab – “

I hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe, for now. But odds are that the dreaded call will come eventually, invading my privacy and the sanctity of my humble home like a 450 pound Samoan with problem flatulence.

Bush, it seems, has been a busy little Nazi beaver. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, he secretly began compiling a vast database of phone numbers from ordinary, nameless Americans. Now it’s only a matter of calling each and every number until he finds one that I answer. Then he’ll know exactly who I am, where I live, and all my most intimate secrets. With over 268 million telephones in this country, and over 194,479,364 cell phones, it’s only a matter of time before your number comes up, too. About 14.7 years, if Bush really applies himself and calls one number per second, 24 hours a day.

Never before has there been such a serious threat to our most precious civil liberties. Those who have called us paranoid moonbats and buried their heads in the sand while the Commander in Thief slowly chipped away at the Bill of Rights will find it hard to do so when they pick up that phone and hear Bush’s heavy breathing on the other end of the line. The call may come today, it may come tomorrow, or it may come 14.7 years from now. But it will come, and unless we take steps to protect ourselves there’s little we can do to prevent it. The obvious solution is to simply not answer the phone ever again. Personally, I prefer to answer with a bogus name and accent to throw Bush off my trail.

The downside is that somewhere out there, an innocent Swede will be dragged off to Gitmo.

Sorry, Sven. But I have to look out for Numero Uno.

Bush Slaps Away the Hand of Peace

Future Nobel Laureate and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took time out from his busy schedule of hanging kids from construction cranes to sit down and personally pen a letter criticizing Bush for his un-Christianlike human rights abuses, and to assure the American leader that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful.

Islam, he explained, strictly forbids acts of violence against innocent human beings and, in some circumstances, against Jews as well. He was certain that if both nations put aside their differences, they could work together towards a common goal of peace, friendship, and the eradication of the Jewish menace.

Mahmoud paused for a moment, then hastily scribbled out the part about the eradication of the Jews. No point in putting all his roses into one bouquet. He’ll save that one for the Christmas card.

Suddenly, his secretary burst into the room, visibly upset. Unlike many Western nations, Iran actually welcomed women into the workplace and treated them as equals.

“What is it, you husbandless whore?” the concerned Mahmoud gently soothed her.

“It’s that American actor again, sir,” she wheezed, her ragged breath making that annoying whistling sound as it passed through the scabrous cavity where her disobedient nose had once been. “The one from Fast Times at Ridgemont High? He’s in the lobby with a box of Chapstick and this time he won’t take ‘no’ for answer!”

“Very well,” Mahmoud replied with a sigh, stuffing his letter into a manila envelope and sealing it with a kiss. “Take this message to the unelected infidel leader of the Great Satan, and do not delay! Our dreams of world peace, international harmony, and the eradication of the Jews depends on it!”

Thousands of miles away, Mahmoud’s faintly perfumed letter sat buried under a pile of Big Oil bribes, unpaid bar tabs, and unopened letters on Bush’s ill-gotten desk for three weeks. When he finally got around to reading it, he was dismayed by what he saw.

Words. BIG words. Some more than two sillybabbles long. Disgusted, he forwarded the letter to the CIA for analysis and went back to practicing his yo-yo tricks.

One month later, members of Bush’s cabinet, several top intelligence officials, and representatives from Skull & Bones assembled in a dark, smoke-filled room to discuss the contents of Mahmoud’s letter. Bush knew that room well. It was the same room where they secretly planned the 9/11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the outing of Valerie Plame. Now, the topic at hand was the president of Iran, and what to do about him.

“Abooji-who?” Bush said.

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” NSA director John Negroponte – who is no Negro, by the way – corrected him. “Apparently, he wants a ‘peaceful solution’ to the current crisis.”

“Oh,” Bush sighed with relief. “That’s good...isn’t it?”

“No, sir,” answered Karl Rove from his throne of human skulls. “That’s bad. Any talk of peace now will foil all our carefully laid plans to invade Iran and steal their oil.”

Bush placed his yo-yo down on the table and looked around at the grim faces before him. “What are we gonna do about it?”

“Well, sir, we have a plan,“ Vice peeResident Dick Cheney offered. “There’s a line in Mahmoud’s letter about the ‘extermination of the Jews’. It’s kind of crossed out, but it gave me an idea. If we focus all the media attention on this one, itty-bitty little aspect of his whole philosophy, and repeat it over and over in the press until that’s all anyone hears, we can make Mahmoud look like such a complete whack job that the American people won’t take anything he says seriously. Kind of like what we did to Howard Dean.”

Bush slowly rose from his chair. Darkness filled the already darkened room. “Get it done,” he ordered. “And do something about these goddamn rolling blackouts while you’re at it! I can barely see my freaking yo-yo!”

And so it came to pass that Bush slapped away the hand of friendship and sealed Iran’s fate. A year from now, as U.S. tanks are rolling into Tehran and our troops are torturing innocent women and children in brand new Abu Ghraibs, we’ll look back on Mahmoud’s letter and wonder how we could have let one unelected usurper sacrifice the promise of peace for a few million human lives.

I wonder if we as progressives will ever be able to look ourselves in the mirror sixteen or seventeen times an hour again.

Bush's CIA Pick Actually Kept His Service Medals

Proudly displayed in Gen. Michael Hayden’s Pentagon office are a Defense Distinguished Service Medal, a Defense Superior Service Medal with bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, a Meritorious Service Medal with two bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, an Air Force Commendation Medal, an Air Force Achievement Medal, a Joint Meritorious Unit Award, and Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, and Air Force Organizational Excellence Award, a National Defense Service Medal with bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, and Armed Forces Service Medal, an Air Force Overseas Ribbon with bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, and Air Force Overseas Ribbon with two bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, an Air Force Longevity Service Award with one silver and one bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of an additional seven awards, a Presidential Service Badge, an Air Force Intelligence Badge, Master-level, and an Emmy for his role as the dad on That 70’s Show.

Yet, Bush somehow thinks this man is qualified to helm the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA was created by Reichpublican peeResident-SElect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as an instrument to assassinate democratically-elected communist leaders, torture innocent citizens, and listen in on the phone conversations of little old ladies. It wasn't until Watergate that Democrats in Congress took steps to protect American citizens, as well as the Soviet Union, from the Agency's covert operations. After the 9/11 attacks, Bush mysteriously eliminated all of the important measures that had kept the CIA as helpless as a castrated kitten for 30 years. Now, he aims to expand the CIA's power and his entire junta by handing the reigns of the agency over to the military.

In a time of such unprecented threats to our nation, the last person we can trust with our national security is someone who wears a military uniform; least of all, someone who has made an entire career out of it. While a five-month stint on a Navy swift boat would make for an excellent President, a lifetime in the armed forces indicates you’re a fascist and a serious threat to our civil liberties.

That’s because it’s not how long you serve the country that matters, but how long it takes you to realize this country isn’t worth serving. It’s not how hard you fight the enemy that makes you a hero, but how bravely you fight along side him when you come home. This Hayden clown isn’t only proud to wear the uniform, he’s been wearing it for thirty seven years - and not even in a manner that would make George S. Patton spring out of his grave and pistol-whip him right back to boot camp. I bet the guy is just itching to get out to Langley and start eavesdropping on Grandma.

In the future, any former or currently active military personnel appointed to high-level positions by Republican peeResidents should be required to pass a litmus test before being confirmed by Congress. Tough questions would be asked, such as:

1. Are you proud to wear the uniform? If so, do you temper your pride with an undying hatred for the U.S. military and all it stands for?

2. Have you offered Barbara Walters a teary-eyed mea culpa for the My Lai massacre, or any other atrocities your fellow servicemen committed against the peace-loving peoples of Vietnam in a fashion reminiscent of Jingus Khan?

3. Have you ever posed for the cover of a gay magazine, and if not, what exactly is your problem with homosexuals, you right-wing bigot?

4. If confirmed, would you defend Roe v. Wade?

I doubt Hayden would answer any of those questions correctly. He’s the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time, and I’m glad to see key Republicans finally having the courage to jump on board with the Democrats. If Bush’s poll numbers sink any lower, perhaps their testicles will completely wither and fall off, thus encouraging them to switch parties completely.

One can only hope.