The Garlic: 02/15/2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Maybe If They Exorcise The Money, First ....

Or, maybe he can get around it and direct the Stimulus funds to go towards teaching Intelligent Design.

I would hope somebody will walk up to Louisianna Governor Bobby Jindal and start knocking on his head.

Give it a few good raps, like your were knocking on a door, to wake someone up, just to see if Jindal's head gives a hollow, echoing sound.

It's enough that the Republicans, like swollen, proud pigs after a mud bath, are going around boasting to their constituents, the great windfall the Stimulus Package will be delivering to them, all the while, leaving out how they voted against it.

But wait, it gets better.

Jindal has indicated he will give a Palinesque "Thanks, but no thanks" to Stimulus moohla

Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents. Further, as the National Employment Law Project projected on Febuary 13, EUC extension alone would have benefited 24,981 Louisiana residents. Jindal justified his decision by claiming that expanding unemployment benefits would result in tax increases for businesses. In a press release, the governor’s office explained:

"The Governor said the state will not use a portion of the stimulus package that requires the state to change its law to expand unemployment insurance (UI) coverage to qualify for up to $32.8 million of the federal stimulus funding because it ultimately would result in a tax increase on Louisiana businesses."

That's going to make a great campaign speech for his 2012 ambitions;
I want to do for the country, what I did for my state ... I want to screw over as many of our unemployed citizens as I can ... Just give them a kick in the ass ... I won't lift a finger for a single one of them ..."

Maybe he can get the old gang together, and exorcise the money, you know, take that Satan spirit right out of it, wipe it clean, tell old Lucifer "Thanks, but no thanks" and then for God and Country, slide that Stimulus stash into the state coffers.

I mean, Jesus, if he is going for it in 2012, he, in all likelihood, will be going into battle against Mommy Moose, he's gotta start learning how to suck in as much of that Washington money to his state as she has... She'll clobber him, and laugh at him and,.probably, looking at his turning down the money, start taunting him as "The Governor to Nowhere".

Way to go there, Bobby ...

The RWFS Flying Monkeys and Dittoheads are gonna love ya!

Bonus The Governor To Nowhere Riffs

Nelson: Like A True Conservative

Christopher Beam: Take the Money and Run ... Republican governors don't really want to reject stimulus money—they just want to complain about it

Sam Stein - Nagin On Jindal: Presidential Ambitions Clouding His Stimulus Judgment

Paging Linda Blair ...

Top Ten Cloves: Ways President Obama Can Better Sell His Stimulus Package

"Okay ... All the brainless people who don't want any Stimulus money, raise your hands ..."

Happy Birthday Nina Simone!

Today would have been the 76th birthday of "The High Priestess of Soul", Ms, Nina Simone.

We certainly couldn't let that go by without a nod.

The Official Nina Simone Website

Nina Simone on MySpace

Nina Simone on Wikipedia

L'hommage: Nina Simone

And here is one my favorites ...If this isn't a classic, late Saturday night riff ...

Oh, the heartbreak ...

You Can Have Him By Nina Simone

This Date ... On The Garlic

21 February 2008... On The Garlic

Power To The People! ... Howard Zinn's "Election Madness"

Hillary Clinton's Great Day!

21 February 2007... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard In The Scooter Libby Jury Room

21 February 2006... On The Garlic

Bush, To Stymie Port Critics, May Send Cheney Out For Second Shooting Admission

Top Ten Cloves: Ways U.S. Winter Olympic Team Can Win More Gold Medals

21 February 2005... On The Garlic

Israel To Take New Steps In End To Destroying Palestinian Homes

NASA Dismisses Life On Mars Despite Strong Evidence

Mall of America To Expand, Take Twin Cities by Eminent Domain

ADA Survey Shows 4 Out of 5 Dentists Recommend Not Trusting 4 Out of 5 Dentists

Top Ten Cloves On How Bush Will Screw Up In Europe

Friday, February 20, 2009

First Rule of Neocon Club ... You Do Not Talk About Neocon Club!

The second rule of Neocon Club?

You don't talk about Neocon Club ...

And, that apparently is Richard Perle's story, and he's sticking to it.

Dana Milbank, in the WAPO today, has a fascinating, and hilarious, piece, on one of the Grand Poohbars on the Neocon Society, one of the architects and vociferious advocates of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, dutifully carried out by the Bush Grindhouse.

Here's one, of many, stories, putting Perle at Ground Zero Neoconland, where he infers that Iraq was behind Sept 11th;

Manning already understood that people close to President Bush wanted to go after Iraq, and Tenet of course knew it too. Conspicuous among them, in his mind that night, was the neoconservative agitator and polemicist Richard Perle, an outspoken advocate of removing Saddam Hussein by military force. On the very first page of Tenet's memoir, he tells us that he had run into Perle that very morning -- Sept. 12 -- as Perle was leaving the West Wing of the White House. They knew each other in a passing way, as figures of note on the Washington scene. As Tenet reached the door, Perle turned to him and said, "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."

Ahh, but on to the hijinks.

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence

No, not that "Prince of Darkness", the one that runs over homeless people in his Corvette.
The Prince of Darkness -- so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon -- was not about to let details get in the way of his argument that "50 million conspiracy theorists have it wrong," as the subtitle of his article for National Interest put it. "I see a number of people here who believe and have expressed themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility for the deplorable state of the world," Perle told the foreign policy luminaries at yesterday's lunch. "None of that is true, of course."

As you can see, Perle is adhering, not to the letter, the rules of Neocon Club.
In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."
Even when he was pressed;
Richard Burt, who clashed with Perle in the Reagan administration, took issue with "this argument that neoconservatism maybe actually doesn't exist." He reminded Perle of the longtime rift between foreign policy realists and neoconservative interventionists. "You've got to kind of acknowledge there is a neoconservative school of thought," Burt challenged.

"I don't accept the approach, not at all," the Prince of Darkness replied.

As Milbank aptly notes, "there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole", but this wasn't merely a stumble, this was a head-first, deep-as-the-core-of-the-earth, plunge down that rabbit hole.

The Bush Grindhouse, in a equally-bald-face, twisted employment of the lexicon, gave us the "Clear Skies Act".

Perle, taking his cue, is trying to sell his "Clear Conscious" act.

Which is as about as credible as the mushroom clouds and WMD's Perle and his Neocon Nitwits tried to palm off on us.

And, when you look at where we are now, after eight-years of this kind of horseshit, Perle and Co. followed the script perfectly.

After establishing the Neocon Club, they immediately put into action Project Mayhem.

Bonus Neocon Club Riffs

Washington Sketch: Richard Perle in Wonderland (Video)

Christy Hardin Smith - Richard Perle: Rebranding Himself, The Neocons And Other Con Jobs

Steve Benen: RICHARD PERLE PLAYS MAKE-BELIEVE...

Spencer Ackerman: Just Ignore Everything Richard Perle Says for the Rest of His Life

Alan Colmes: Neocon Says There’s No Such Thing As A Neocon

Think Progress: THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Garlic Poll Results ...Most People Think The PNAC Is ...

Where's Ernest Borgnine when you need him?

Neocon Dolphins? ... Say It Ain't So, Flipper!

That Thievin' Bush Family

Hmmm ... It's in the genes, perhaps ...

The grandfather steals the skull of a great Indian leader ...

The grandson steals an election (well, two elections) ...

Both, it can be said, robbed the country.

Geronimo’s Heirs Sue Secret Yale Society Over His Skull

Geronimo died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1909. A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush — father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush — broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.

The story gained some validity in 2005, when a historian discovered a letter written in 1918 from one Skull and Bones member to another saying the skull had been taken from a grave at Fort Sill along with several pieces of tack for a horse.

Ramsey Clark, a former United States attorney general who is representing Geronimo’s family, acknowledged he had no hard proof that the story was true. Yet he said he hoped the court would clear up the matter.

Tom Conroy, a spokesman for Yale, declined to comment on the lawsuit but was quick to note that the Tomb was not on university property.

[Snip]

“Of all the items rumored to be in the Skull and Bones’s possession, Geronimo’s skull is one of the more plausible ones,” said Alexandra Robbins, the author of “Secrets of the Tomb” (Little Brown 2002), a book about the society. “There is a skull encased in a glass display when you walk in the door of the Tomb, and they call it Geronimo.”

Prairie Weather beat me to the punch, as to titles - "Bush family implicated in robbery"

And that Prescott Bush, he was quite the busy subversive, wasn't he;

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The grandson helped Al Qaeda to power

Biden Says Bush Gave Al Qaeda Recruiting Tool

Visiting the Central Intelligence Agency to swear in Leon E. Panetta as the agency’s 19th director, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday that the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation policies “gave Al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool.”

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it ...

Like we said at the top, it's in the genes ...

This Date ... On The Garlic

20 February 2008... On The Garlic

Retro Garlic: Mirror, Mirror On The Wall ... Who's The Prettiest Alphonso Jackson of Them All?

Hats Off To Josh Marshall, and The Entire TPM Crew ... First Blog To Win Polk Award!

20 February 2007... On The Garlic

"Unexplained Incident" Shuts Down Mount Vernon After Bush Speech; DHS, Geologists Stumped; Theories Include First President Spinning In Grave Cautiously Viewed

20 February 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things President Bush Is Daydreaming About On President's Day Holiday

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Santorum, Speaking in United Statesism, Explains Islam

Leave to our favorite "Man-on-Dog" sex activist

Since being run out-of-office, he's roaming the land, picking up day work, like for the Faux News Network, or putting his chips on Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, and, of course, cramming into his spare time, hunting for those darn WMD's.

Well, now we can add Islamic Scholar to his anemic list of accomplishments

Santorum ignorantly refers to language of Qur’an as ‘Islamic.’

Santorum said he believes Muslims’ religious views cannot be changed or altered, so Middle Easterners reject American, democratic ideals.

“A democracy could not exist because Mohammed already made the perfect law,” Santorum said. “The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic.”

As a self-anointed scholar of Islam, it’s surprising that Santorum would assert that the Qur’an is “written in Islamic.” It is, of course, originally written in Arabic. Islam is not a language, but rather a religion Santorum concluded, “I think that if every citizen was fully informed about the war, it would create a commonality between faiths.” Indeed, much work remains to be done.

How to hit that one out-of-the-park, there, Rick.

Santorum was speaking at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, when he illuminated his knowledge, "as a part of his college campus tour on which he describes to students what he believes are the dangers in not knowing what is going on in the Middle East."
“I talk to college students because I can have an intellectual conversation, and they usually don’t agree with me,” Santorum said. “I like to state my case (to students) and let them decide who to believe.”

I gotta think, that probably, half the crowds he may gather up, are showing up, like, to see the car crash, or, a modern day Elephant Man.

Unless he's hitting the Pat Robertson-Jerry Fallwell circuit of colleges, I would suspect that the students "don't usually agree" with him.

Keep punching away there Rick, something's bound to come along.

In fact, Michael Steele is going to go about remaking the RNC into, well, something, so maybe you can reinvent yourself, with whatever it is that Steele comes up with.

He's talking about something "Off-the-hook" ... "Off-the-hinges", or "Off-his-rocker", so, it sounds like something you could fit into.

Bonus Santorum

Wonkette: Rick Santorum Giving ‘Islamic’ Language Lessons

Dr. Steven Taylor: Santorum sets us Straight on Islam (or, not)

Jeffrey St. Clair: Meet The Mullah Omar of Pennsylvania ... Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole

Developing Story – Santorum Channeling Dead Pols ... Santorum: “I See Dead Politicians!” ...Aides Talk Of “Wild Ranting”; Fear Strain Of Up-Hill Campaign Taking Toll On Embattled Senator

Santorum Backs Vatican On Hunt For Gay Priests ... Says Church Can Lead Return To Family Values; Suggests Boston As First To Be Cleaned Up

Retro Garlic: J. Edgars Gay Dating Service?

Maybe he wasn't building dossiers for the purpose of being evil and nefarious, to blackmail and embarrass people, ruin their careers.

Perhaps J. Edgar Hoover was a pioneer, wanting to get out of the FBI, and his own closet, and was setting about to launch the first Gay Dating Service.

Naw!

He was just a first-class prick.

From today's Washington Post;

Valenti's Sexuality Was Topic For FBI ... Under Pressure, LBJ Let Hoover's Agents Investigate Top Aide

Valenti was a successful Texas businessman before joining Johnson in the White House in the hours after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. After three years in Washington, Valenti was named head of the Motion Picture Association, where he served as Hollywood's chief lobbyist from 1966 to 2004. His tanned face became a fixture on the annual Academy Awards broadcast.

The FBI file shows that a routine background check performed when Valenti joined the Johnson administration in 1963 turned up a series of picayune concerns. The file noted that Valenti's father and father-in-law had spent time in prison for embezzlement, and that his father-in-law had an "undesirable credit record" and had once been arrested for "being drunk."

[Snip]

One informant told agents that when Valenti was a bachelor, "he always dated extremely attractive women" and that "his only trouble with his female acquaintances was 'they all wanted to marry him.' "

[Snip]

Nothing discovered during the background check was solid enough to endanger Valenti's position as a special assistant to the president.

Then, in October 1964, a man whose name has been redacted from the records called an FBI official in New York. The caller encouraged the FBI to investigate Valenti "as a sex pervert," files show. "He based this request on the fact that he had read in the newspapers that Valenti swims in the nude in the White House pool."

[Snip]

The agents learned that Valenti was a frequent party host in Houston, and the photographer often attended. An FBI memo dated Nov. 12, 1964, stated that the photographer "has the reputation of being a homosexual." The photographer and "Valenti have allegedly been having an affair for a number of years," the memo said.

Six days later, Hoover reported the allegations to the president. Johnson spoke to Hoover lieutenant Cartha D. DeLoach and asserted that "Valenti was all right; however, his judgment was faulty inasmuch as he felt Jenkins had been all right," files show.

DeLoach advised Johnson to have Valenti submit a sworn affidavit regarding his association with "this homosexual." Johnson demurred, saying Valenti had no need to defend himself.

The Retro Part;

Movie Industry Titan, and LBJ Lackey, Rolls His Final Credits - Jack Valenti Obit

Too bad Valenti wasn't around.

I would love to see him on, say, The Situation Room, with Wolf Blitzer grilling him, watching that tanned face become Day-Glo red, as he harumphed around the questions, or, perhaps more to Valenti's style, he, more likely, would have thrown Gay Hollywood under the bus.

Valenti wouldn't have been able to run fast enough to all the cable shows, shouting how "Jack Valenti es muy macho!"

After all, as Wikipedia noted, "Valenti was so loyal to Johnson that it was once said of him "If LBJ dropped the H-bomb, Valenti would call it an urban renewal project."

The article also "outted" (pun intended) legendary journalist Bill Moyers, as, perhaps, an LBJ gay hunter?
Even Bill Moyers, a White House aide now best known as a liberal television commentator, is described in the records as seeking information on the sexual preferences of White House staff members. Moyers said by e-mail yesterday that his memory is unclear after so many years but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover.
Hmmm ...

To bad Hoover didn't wait a few years.

He could have held off, for when Valenti went out to Hollywood, before springing the file on him.

The cost to keep it on the QT?

Just give Hoover an armful of all those delicious dresses worn by those big screen starlets, for the FBI director to prance around in.

And, just what was the point of the Washington Post coming out with this article now, nearly 50-years after-the-fact?

Seems a bit conspicuous, a few days before the big Academy Awards Oscar bash, no?

Maybe throwing a bone (boner?) to the pro-Prop 8 crowd, a reminder how sinful Hollywood, California is?

Bonus "Mary Hoover" Riffs

Jesse Walker: Jack Valenti's R-Rated White House Waterplay: A Sign of Secret Gay Hi-Jinks? Your FBI Is On the Case!

TowleRoad: PAPER: FBI Targeted Former MPAA Pres Valenti in Gay Witch Hunt

Ryan Tate: Is PBS Harboring the Man Who Led the Jack Valenti Homo Hunt?

Andrew Sullivan: Quote For The Day

Robert Stein: A Dip in 50-Year-Old Dung

History of Gay Bars in New York City: Our Sister J. Edgar Hoover

A Good Fox Slapdown!

Oh, this one is just pure fun.

With the Republicans in meltdown, not knowing whether to piss, or wind their watches, it will be, for the next few years, such a joy to see the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds over there on Faux News, sitting there, their heads exploding from the build-up of methane gas.

We agree with Glen Greenwald, that this is "really worth watching";

Even more notable is the dripping condescension directed at him by the Fox personality at the end of the interview for having committed the sin of exhibiting genuine passion and anger over something as trivial as the disappearing middle class and the massive and growing rich-poor gap. That's the crime of Shrillness, one of the prime hallmarks of Unseriousness -- failing/refusing to suppress one's anger towards our political and financial establishment ...

And, we also have to hip you to John Cole's suggestion, over on Balloon Juice;
If you really want to get the full flavor of what a jerk this interviewer comes across as, watch this video without any sound. It almost looks like an SNL skit- the guy did everything but stick his tongue out and put his thumb to his nose while waving his fingers.
We give you Lansing, Michigan Mayor Virg Bernero.

MAYOR VIRG BERNERO OF LANSING MICHIGAN TEARS FOX ANCHOR A NEW ONE - HILARIOUS!!!

Mayor Bernerno kicked his ass, and then knocked his teeth out for mumbling about it!

This is right up there with Robert Gibbs tap dancing all over Sean Hannity's head last fall.

I guess the GOP didn't send over all of the talking points this day.

Forget About Tuesday, Cash On The Barrelhead Today, Wimpy!

About the only other characters more associated then Wimpy, with hamburgers (cheeseburgers, in this case) was Aykroyd and Belushi, in the classic SNL Greek Diner skit.

And those may soon be long-gone, fond memories.

Future generations may have to Google (or use whatever will be in vogue for knowledge searches) "hamburger" and "cheeseburger" to get hip to the pre-Global Warming crowd, as they sit around the futuristic retro soda shop, wolfing down their soy burgers and non-dairy, highly-concentrated protein shakes.

Hamburgers are the Hummers of food in global warming

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That's because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said.

[Snip]

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90 kilograms a year to the recommended level of 53 kilograms a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44 percent.

"Given the projected doubling of (global) meat production by 2050, we're going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels," Pelletier said.

"Technical improvements are not going to get us there."

Poor Wimpy, he's gonna starve.

Don't see'em making the switch to chicken.

This Date ... On The Garlic

19 February 2008... On The Garlic

Forget About What Obama Said ... Check Out Wolfson's Defense of Hillary!

Good Thing Barry Crimmins Doesn't Work For MSNBC!

19 February 2007... On The Garlic

"But I Really Did Want To Testify ... Really!" ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Garlic Poll Is Back! ... And, Putting You In The Driver's Seat

Well, in case you skipped over the previous post this evening, you can see we have revived The Garlic Weekly Poll.

And, why not come in, with our sleeves rolled up, at the ready to pitch in and do our part.

It hasn't been especially easy for President Obama to fill his cabinet.

Additionally, there were the grand plans to have a "Car Czar", which, to the ear, sounds more like some late night infomercial, perhaps a rival to the blaring heir to "Head On", the "ShamWow".

So, he scrapped the plans this week and will run with a "Run by Committee" thing, or, as they put it, a "Presidential panel on the auto industry", otherwise to be known as "President's Task Force on Autos".

Considering the bleak news today of the Auto Industry, their going to need every Czar, committee, panel, task force and, perhaps, shammies, to pull this one off.

So, we thought we'd help them, let our readers have a voice in the process, and select who else should be joining this team.

In our Poll this week, we ask;

For his "Presidential panel on the auto industry", Obama should include;

Click and Clack

Danica Patrick

Speed Racer

Like Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, keep it Super Secret

Go over to the leftside column and throw in your vote!

Garlic Poll Results - 'Sir, Will That Be A One-Way Ticket To The Hague?"

Our long national nightmare has come to an end.

Well, yes, The Commander Guy, but we refer to we finally got around to closing down this poll.

We put it up last Spring, for the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, and a combination of getting a good response to it, wanting to leave it running while HE was still, even though it was a court-appointed deal, holding the office, and, the ever-present pressing duties on the homefront.

And, The Garlic's Poll isn't off-the-mark.

Just recently, over 40% of Americans polled support bringing Bush, and the rest of the cronies from The Bush Grindhouse, to justice.

Ahhh, but the new President waffles.

Glenn Greenwald pointed out the downside of not pursuing these charges, hightlighting a guy that is going to go hoarse, jumping up-and-down, all but setting his hair on fire, pointing out the painfully obvious, Jonathan Turley;

Jonathan Turley: These are war crimes. These are special categories. . . . The downside to all the [inauguration] pageantry -- and it is certainly well-deserved -- is that it's important for people who lift their hand in front of that building to understand the difference between the man and the mandate.

And the mandate here, as far as I understood it, is that we were going to have a true change, where people would be held accountable. And all this talk about civility makes it sound like it's just simply uncivil to investigate people for war crimes. . . .

All they have to do is say: "we're going to allow the law to be enforced." That's not a very difficult thing to say. But it's going to be inconvenient. But principles are always inconvenient. It's never a good time for principle. . . .

What I think the new Barack Obama -- President Obama -- is going to find it very hard to do is go around the world and say: "we're now again a nation of laws," if the first act he commits as President is to walk away from confirmed war crimes.

Rachel Maddow: If the administration has confirmed that they tortured people -- and they have, they have used the "t" word; they have described what they have done, which is recognized as torture, it is something for which we have prosecuted people -- are we literally looking at the possibility where administration officials from this administration cannot travel abroad to the other 145 countries that have signed the torture treaties because they might get arrested?

Jonathan Turley: Most certainly. The status of George Bush is not that different from Augusto Pinochet. They've both been accused of running a torture program. Outside of this country, there is not this ambiguity about what to do about a war crime. There are four treaties that make this an international violation. So if you go abroad, and try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as "former President George Bush" -- they're going to view you as a current war criminal.

Rachel Maddow: And they're going to view us as an outlaw regime for not arresting him on our own soil.

Jonathan Turley: I think so, unfortunately. A lot is at stake.

Let's just repeat two sentences. Turley: "President Obama is going to find it very hard to go around the world and say: 'we're now again a nation of laws,' if the first act he commits as President is to walk away from a confirmed war crime." Maddow: "And [people around the world] are going to view us as an outlaw regime for not arresting him on our own soil."

So, let’s get it on!

Especially, since no one picked up The Garlic's call for a Citizen's Arrest.

Slap on the cuffs, do the perp walk, and book'em with a one-way ticket to The Hague!

Our Garlic Poll voters concur ...

The Results

For the 5th Anniversary of the Bush Grindhouse invasion and occupation of Iraq, we should give the gift of ...

1. Charges of War Crimes in the World Court Tally 53%

2. Reactivate his military service and ship him to Iraq Tally 26%

3. Impeachment Tally 16%

4. Since Wood is the tradition, a good paddling Tally 5%

This Weeks' Poll: For his "Presidential panel on the auto industry", Obama should include ...

Go over to the leftside column and place your vote!

IDOTW Update ... New Michelle Bachmann Meltdown!

In case you didn't notice, the Idiots are clamoring - big time - over the Stimulus Package.

Last week, it was IDOTW Brad Blakeman, complaining that Obama wasn't speaking "Presidential", that rather then telling us how fucked we are, he should have sugar-coated it, been more optimistic.

And this week, our seminal Ignorant Dolt of the Week, Michelle Bachmann is at it - again, with yet another, Chernobylesque meltdown;

Michele Bachmann: We're Running Out of Rich People"

Steven D, over on Booman Tribune has more;

Ahhh. I guess she had all her investments with Allen Stanford and/or Bernie Madoff. Still, this was a tough choice to make. However, her only competition was -- herself. Take a sample of some of her other comments:

* ACORN is "under federal indictment for voter fraud," but the stimulus bill nevertheless gives ACORN "$5 billion." [Not true, by the way -- ACORN isn't under any federal indictment and doesn't get a dime under the Stimulus bill.]

[M]any members of Congress have "a real aversion to capitalism." [Because the Communist Party controls Congress, naturally.]

It is continually breathtaking, watching the Republican Party become unhinged.

Bonus Bachmann Batshit Riffs

Avidor - Michele Bachmann: "They've Put Duct Tape Over the Mouths of the Republicans"

Steve Benen: IDIOCY WATCH....

Ken: Confidential to Michele B: Maybe we aren't actually "literally losing our country." Maybe it's just literally falling through the hole in your head?

For The Feed Readers ...

There are some changes coming, and not exactly sure what they are.

As some of you may know, a while back, Google purchased Feedburner and this month, they are cloroforming Feedburner, merging it into their own Google Analytics.

We have been badgered, with every visit to Feedburner to "Move your Account!", or "Do you want to move your account now?" and "Click here to move your account", among other messages, and yesterday, we made the move.

It shouldn't effect the Feed that you receive (ours dropped in, as usual, right around 9AM), however, if you do, this is likely the cause.

Hopefully, it will be a seamless as advertised and you will not notice any difference.

Many Thanks, again, for visiting and reading The Garlic.

This Date ... On The Garlic

18 February 2008... On The Garlic

Thank God, We Have So Many Media Options In This Country ... So People Can Be Informed!

Where, Oh Where, Can Those Missing White House Emails Be ... Oh, Where, Oh Where Can They Be ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

18 February 2007... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

18 February 2006... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

18 February 2005... On The Garlic

Selig Drops Bombshell; Steroids Legal and Mandatory

Prosecution Plays Tape Showing Blake Confused, Confessing To Fictitious Murder

Starbucks Abandons Coffee; Goes For Happy Hour Market

Top Ten Obstacles for New Homeland Security Director John Negroponte

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Fat Lady Is Singing!

Well, we have had quite the day.

As we left off last evening ("Hey! ... Where You Goin' With That Browser!" ...), The Garlic was stuck, with one foot in Computer Hell, the other frantically attempting to get the other one out of it.

Our Firefox Browser was corrupted (either by a visit to YouTube, or The Huffington Post, with that annoying, omnipresent "NetFlix" pop-up ad), with Google searches being directed to sites other than what they should have been (a bevy of sales, marketing, and, in the cretin creator of such malware perversity, malware removal sites).

Running various scans for the malware, or viruses, was proving fruitless.

So, we began the day with unistalling Firefox, then reinstalling it, to see if the problem existed.

It did.

So, uninstall again, but this time, based on various reading yesterday, in our search for a solution, we installed for our browser, the Opera Browser.

And, so far, we are quite impressed.

Pretty slick-looking and, as billed, it is quite fast - faster than FireFox (and infinitely faster than IE).

Our new-found joy last only a few hours, as the dreaded browser-redirection issue soon surfaced on Opera, as well.

We have since run a few more programs, attempting to end this problem and no luck, so far

But we are going to let the Fat Lady sing, and leave Opera as the browser of record for now, as I can get used to the super-speed it is displaying.

Rather than half-ass it, with the handful of back-logged posts, we will (assuming all is working well) come charging out of the gate tomorrow with regular posting.

In the meantime, we'll spoil the announcement, and point you to that we have resumed our Weekly Garlic Poll, so go throw your vote in, and we'll have the official post on it tomorrow.

This Date ... On The Garlic

17 February 2008... On The Garlic

OMG! ... The Country Is Still Safe, and Standing!

The Rightwing Smear Machine, Running As Strong and Smooth as the Edsel!

17 February 2006... On The Garlic

White House Primed To Replace "Miranda" With New, "Cheney Decision"

Top Ten Cloves: White House Reactions To United Nations Call To Close Gitmo

17 February 2005... On The Garlic

Slumping Wrist Band Sales Force Armstrong Into 7th Tour

Pay-Per-View Scores Big; Signs Up Sugar vs. Splenda Bout

Ricky Williams Waived By Marlins - Sort Of

Top Ten Things ESPN Will Replace NHL Hockey With (and get better ratings)

Monday, February 16, 2009

"Hey! ... Where You Goin' With That Browser!" ...

Good Evening Garlic Fans ...

Sorry for the lack of posting today ...

Another term in Computer Hell, as something has hijacked my browser (Firefox), and, when searching Google, sends me to a phony or altered Google page ... The results may look correct, but the URLs are for marketing and shopping sites ...So far, I haven't had any success in correcting it (all scanning has produced no infections, spyware, malware or trojans) ...

If anyone has some pointer on this problem, either leave a comment or email me ...

Hopefully, we'll be back on track tomorrow.

This Date ... On The Garlic

16 February 2008... On The Garlic

Good Post Alert: How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

Obama, The Heart-Breaker

16 February 2007... On The Garlic

Apple Settles With Cisco!; Rolling Dice With New iBeckham Phone; Jobs Promises Aging Soccer Star Can Store "Billions of Photos" of Himself; New "Posh" Command Added

Top Ten Cloves: Things Tim Hardaway Will Do This Weekend Instead of Going To NBA All-Star Game

16 February 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News - Bush Going After Eulogizers!

Cheney Shooting Round-Up; Shooting Incident By VP Is Far From Being In It's "Final Throes"

Top Ten Cloves: Difficulties DC Comics' Batman May Have Fighting Osama bin Laden

16 February 2005... On The Garlic

Google Launches Search for Famed Woman Aviator

NBA, Reebok To Launch New Reality Show: Box & Shoot

Straight Eye for the Queer Guy To Roll Out This Spring

Stockholm Opera Conductor Dies at 86

Top Ten Candidates to Replace Carly Fiorina at Hewlett Packard

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Retro Garlic: Life Imitating The Garlic - U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

Oh boy, do we love when this happens.

Numerous times, life and The Garlic have merged (you can look HERE and HERE).

Today, we have another Retro Garlic.

Actually, it should be a Retro-Retro Garlic, as we have riffed on this very topic previously.

Last night, we espied this headline;

U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

Stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military will begin recruiting skilled immigrants who are living in this country with temporary visas, offering them the chance to become United States citizens in as little as six months.

We weren't sure if that strange sound we heard, simultaneously, was that of Lou Dobb's head exploding, or the Right Wing Freak Show running for their torches and pitchforks, which will surely be likely to occur.

I mean, what are they going to do with all that pent-up xenophobia and jingoism?

First they take our jobs, our seats in schools and clog up our hospitals, now they want to take over the military?

What will become of the Arizona Minutemen?... The thousands-of-miles wall?

Who wants the American dream, sprinkled with a little picante?

2012 and the Rule of Sarah can't come fast enough, heh?

More from the NYT article;

“The Army will gain in its strength in human capital,” General Freakley said, “and the immigrants will gain their citizenship and get on a ramp to the American dream.”

[Snip]

Pentagon officials expect that the lure of accelerated citizenship will be powerful. Under a statute invoked in 2002 by the Bush administration, immigrants who serve in the military can apply to become citizens on the first day of active service, and they can take the oath in as little as six months.

For foreigners who come to work or study in the United States on temporary visas, the path to citizenship is uncertain and at best agonizingly long, often lasting more than a decade. The military also waives naturalization fees, which are at least $675.

To enlist, temporary immigrants will have to prove that they have lived in the United States for two years and have not been out of the country for longer than 90 days during that time. They will have to pass an English test.

The Retro Part, from April 2006 ...

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ... Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ... Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

In a freewheeling exchange with reporters this afternoon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that “a stint in the Army” would solve the immigration problem facing the country.

[Snip]

Asked a follow-up question, Rumsfeld said flatly, “Conscripts,”

“We simply make it a policy, if you want to enter this country, or, if we find out you’ve entered illegally, you serve a stretch in the Army, or go back to whatever village or bungalow you came from.”

[Snip]

“They’re coming here for the American experience”

‘That’s absurd,” Rumsfeld squinted. ““They’ll get three-squares-a-day and it pays a helluva lot better then picking lettuce, or grapes, or whatever it is they do ...”

“I mean,” added the Secretary, “they’re coming here for the American experience ... the American Dream ... What could possibly embody that more than by serving in your country’s armed forces?”

Asked if he, or the Pentagon, would make special accommodations for such illegal immigrants to enter the military, such as bi-lingual instructions, or the need for interpreters, Rumsfeld glared at the reporter.

“Now think about that for a second,” Rumsfeld shot back, dripping with disdain. “In the heat of battle, you, or some other bleeding-heart liberal, is going to expect the U.S. Army to issue dictionaries, with bullets flying overhead, and bombs bursting in front of you, so the commander of the unit can issue orders in two languages? What planet are you from?”

Rumsfeld said he would expect any such conscript to learn English, before they get to boot camp.

“I suspect a great many of them already speak English. The busboy at the restaurant I like to go to knows all the television shows ... the sports scores. Sure, he has an accent, but he speaks English fine.”

We can't say "we wished we made this stuff up."

We did.

Bonus Immigration Riffs

Bush Immigration Plan Gets "Some Influence" ... White House May Employ Lincoln Group In Border, Immigration Clash ...Unlike Iraqi Program, PR Firm Will Plant Anti-American Stories in Mexican Media

Top Ten Cloves: Problems The Illegal Immigrant Boycott Caused The White House Yesterday

Breaking News - Congress Said Will “Clean President’s Clock” On Immigration ... Bush Adds Color-Coded Border Alert Chart To Immigration Plan ...Neocons Upset With Shift In White House Strategy: Speech Offered No “Ties To Sadam ... Imminent Mushroom Clouds”

Ahmadinejad “Sort Of An Islamic Lyndon LaRouche”; Said To Have Made Offer To Mexico ...Ahmadinejad Claims Letter A Hoax, Cites Propaganda, Prelude To U.S. Invasion ...Other World Leaders Received Similar Tomes; Mexico Offered Iran National Guard Deployed on Their Side of Border