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June 29, 2007

 

Iraq, Stay or Leave?

If the Iraqi's stopped all fighting, formed an exemplary democratic national government and bid all American troops to leave Iraq this would be a great victory to 'progressives' and liberals. They would offer money and services to restore Iraq to health while all the while grinning madly that peace and prosperity had been the result of America's intervention in Iraq.
Meanwhile Bush, Cheney, the neocons and their oil company allies would have a fit. As I have previously written, I have seen Dick Cheney smile that Al Qaida is now in Iraq. It suits his interests to a tee. Instability in the Midddle East is a power goal and an economic goal for those in office today. A rush to bomb Iran before leaving office is cogent policy and tactically urgent for this group.
The Democrats should take their case directly to the American voters with a bi-partisan touring panel. The message would be that the Iraqi's are not our enemy. The message should include the Iraq Parliment's agreement and blessing that withdrawal is the mutually sanest course to reduce violence.
Retired Generals who know full well that there is nothing to win in Iraq should join the touring panel to explain to the voters that a policy of leaving is more likely to be a policy of winning than what is constituted by a policy of staying.
Both serving and retired Generals know that there is nothing to "win" in Iraq except for our departure sooner or later. The military brass know that attacking Iran will cripple the military and to some degree leave America defenseless. It's time that the armed forces stop serving as mercenaries for a Cheney led economic policy which actively promotes Mid East instability as its corner stone.
Leaving Iraq is the natural and ultimate goal.
Our staying provides political ammo for the Al Qaida misfits we led into the country. Our leaving cripples these thugs' political message and motivation.
Eighty plus per cent of the Iraqis want the U.S. to leave.
And we stay why?
Cheney and his cohorts lie when they say we stay to win. They lie when they say the Jihadis will any more follow us home than they attempt to do so at present. They lie that our nationalism should want us to stay when leaving is the only defensible long term plan. They entice and invoke a following by propaganda calls to follow the Red, White and Blue while corruptly wishing our occupation and control to continue ad infinitum.
America's best interest are served by leaving.
Get er done, Congress.
Get er done, voters!

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June 27, 2007

 

Cheney Moves His Office to Dubai

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Dick Cheney regularly forgoes niceties such as treaties, laws, our constitution and avoiding conflicts of interest with his oil brethren. This we know.
One example among oh so many is the multiple billion dollar no-bid contracts awarded to his last employer and present benefactor, Halliburton.
Recently, Halliburton, in what can only be described as a Cheney-esque maneuver, devoid of patriotism and morality, is moving its headquarters to foreign soil. That the chosen country Dubai, an Arab land of Sheiks and Sultans, is a physical presence in our 'oil' wars and the WWIII Islamo Fascist crusade against Islam that Cheney et al say we will be fighting for decades is a chilling example of how Cheney's non-legal non-moral mind can discard America's interests with cognitive impunity.
I would like to also point out that to some degree Halliburton knows the United States' Military's Order of Battle in the Middle East.
To supply services to our troops they have to know of and plan for the logistics of troop movements; short term and long term.
Halliburton is in essence a division of our armed forces, paid differently but no less integral than communications, the motor pool, medical services and our lives'-at-risk warriors. Halliburton was an American entity but will not be as they leave America to avoid legal scrutiny and presumably to avoid paying U.S. taxes on what you and I pay them in those contracts.
If Dick Cheney saw personal gain for himself and his 'oil' brethren he would move the Pentagon offshore. He peddles nationalism and the 'Red, White and Blue' to the well meaning but susceptible GOP faithful but when it comes to his own interests it is not Red, White and Blue, it's "screw you."
--craig johnson--

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Cheney's Leer & the Glint on the Cross

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Among all of Dick Cheney's distasteful contorted facial expressions the one that was most chilling and evil, which I wish that I had not seen, was the leer he transmitted to a GOP faithful audience when he disclosed that AQ in Iraq now numbers fifteen thousand.
His leer fully transmitted that he used the propaganda lies, that AQ was connected to Iraq, to get our guns and oil companies into Iraq. It also transmitted the, to him, deliciously evil twist that the lie has now morphed into the truth.
That AQ is now several thousand strong in Iraq is a grotesque result of the pathetically naive Neocon misadventure. It's also a plank in their arguments that we need to stay.
"The dolts, (meaning the American public and the MSM), don't have a clue as to what evil we will employ to accomplish our goals," is what the leer beams to the mightiest of the Bush base.
...as the sunlight flickered on the cross in his lapel...

---Craig Johnson---
(photo source: The Future of Television)

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DICK CHENEY and MIKE TYSON

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What do these two fine gentlemen have in common?

They both exhibit psychopathic tendencies. And:

In would behoove you to cover your ears when in their presence.

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June 21, 2007

 

Taps oer' U.S. Embassy in Iraq

As the fat lady sings;
in the rockets' red glare;
who sucks up the blame;
that the flag pole's gone bare?

Somebody has to give the order to abandon Emerald City.
Some Iraqi group is going to be video'd celebrating, flag raising, flag burning and effigy burning as they enter the Palais de Bush hubris. Will it be Sunnis or Shiite Sadrists? God forbid al Quaeda will even have a cameo appearance.
Bush, on his watch, will never withdraw the troops needed to keep our Embassy operating.
He will let this political conflagration happen on the next, presumably Democrat', President's watch.
The world will not soon forget this spectacle when it happens.
It is a political fireball that may sear and burn for decades.
______________
Just something to think about!

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June 12, 2007

 

Arlen Specter Votes 'No Confidence'

Seven Republican Senators voted that the No Confidence in Gonzales bill should proceed.

Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee voted with the majority on this issue and against Mr. Bush's wishes.

Hat's off to each of these men and women and their resolve to put America's juridical values above political considerations.

Thank you Mr. Specter, thank you all.

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From Apples to Apples: Adam's now dust!

The man who plays Adam in a video aired at the Creationist Museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

He owns a graphic Web site called Bedroom Acrobat, where he has been pictured, smiling alongside a drag queen brandishing the site's sexually suggestive logo. The Web site (how yummy is this?) allows users to post explicit stories and photos.

""The wages of sin, brothers. The wages of sin.!""

The museum yanked his video Thursday.

May God help us all.

--craig johnson--

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June 11, 2007

 

My Mother Gets a Bathing Suit

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......................(photo by ex')

FOUR GENERATIONS
(Craig Christina Chloe Mother)

In the weeks prior to Christmas, my Mother, at 85, after a lifetime of no illnesses, had been feeling more and more tired and her positive outlook on life was waning. My niece, who is local, a nurse, had been doing the heavy lifting; the groceries and the emergency room and doctor's visits. I arrived home and out of tearful necessity our roles reversed and I began for the first time in our lives to cook and do for her.
At 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning she was in pain and with my niece we went again to the emergency room. She was having congestive heart failure.
She was admitted, due care was taken, she improved. In the night her heart stopped and she was resuscitated, which was as about as ironical as life can get. It turned out that the paperwork testifying to her wishes that she not be resuscitated had not made it into her chart.
Several touch and go days ensued at an excellent full coronary care hospital and she then spent three weeks rehabbing in a nursing home.
What you might ask does this have to do with my Mother getting a bathing suit. Well, she very slowly began to be able to eat solids and normal portions. Her outlook improved and as a testament to wellness and recovery she set us to making plans to travel the four hours to Cape Cod to see her Granddaughter and Great Granddaughter (Miss Chloe).
The timing of the visit was predicated to coincide with the visit from London of my ex wife, who my Mother adores. Yes, we were going to travel 400 miles to see my ex wife. (I am not at all sure whether we are a socially generous and classy family or lopsidedly dysfunctional but let's for now continue the story.)
With purpose a forethought I booked us into the Sheraton in Eastham which has a very attractive atrium ceiling covered indoor pool.
Plans were made for Chloe et al to come for a swim and I took my Mother to a department store to look at swim gear. I'm not sure she was ready but I gave her little choice and foregoing logic, it was after all a shopping trip.
Modestly miraculous in this day and age a salesperson appeared and helped her.
I next met her on the other side of the store as she came out of the dressing room area, holding on to her carriage for walking assistance, with a blue bathing suit held up to show me.
She smiled. It was the breathtaking smile of unfiltered childish rapture combined with the smile of a heretofore heavy woman (now 35 pounds lighter) who found in the mirror a long lost physically attractive self.
With no exaggeration or hyperbole I can honestly say that her smile was so not an ordinary smile that I was for a moment confused and had to look with my mind as well as my eyes to understand what joy she was transmitting.
My sense is that a number of distant Buddhas paused to see this smile.
As we traveled away from the store she said, more than once, "I should have bought both suits."
Craig Johnson

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June 08, 2007

 

Bush is welcomed to Hel(l): "Lucky we"


Below is a slice of an email from a two-time Polish student summer worker to Cape Cod. It references her Master's Thesis on Baltic Sea oil spill modeling (so much math) that I check for her English usage. For opinions on Bush I find her to be representative of all my European friends. They all know his behavior is the same as a thug; same as Putin; same as they have know in Europe as it has been carved up and carved up again by aggression over centuries. They are realists.
My Polish friends want favored status visa relationship with U.S. so they don't have to put up big bucks, big application and then in trepidation wait and wait. They might hate Bush and demonstrate openly for democratic causes but you know what?
If our thug administration will relax visa requirements, these Eastern Europeans will vote to send a few thousand troops to Iraq. (And turn a blind eye to rendition in their country.....?) This is realpolitik.
Meanwhile our "What can I do to trash Democracy and embarrass America today President" will annoyingly create congestion in downtown Gdansk.....and irritate the residents.
This is the realpolitik of city traffic and a most unpopular President.

"Quote: Oops, you president, Georgi the Great, is coming today and everybody are irritated because of the blockade on the most important streets of Trojmiasto city. And then he is going to Hel Peninsula, to the presidential residence....Lucky we ;)
B'

From the Press: Antiglobalists announced they will protest during the president’s visit near the residence. They plan to bring signs saying “Welcome to hell” in English. ( Source: Tricity Gazette Poland)

The tri-city police in the metropolis are advising drivers not to use their cars on Friday after midday. Privileged vehicles columns driving through the city, will cause many road closures.

Drivers in Hel (...) will be most affected.

""Give the Devil his due"" I say.

--Craig Johnson--

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June 07, 2007

 

Bush's Soviet Style America

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Put Bushie Commissars in charge of science. Put them in charge of our Justice Department and substitute propaganda slogans for reasoned debate (or truth); this is the "New Way Forward" for Soviet style America.

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Griffin NSA NPR "What's Hot and What's Not"

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Michael Griffin, NSA Director and Bush apologist, in his statement to NPR on the subject of global warming said,"Who are we to opine on what the correct temperature for earth should be?"
Look for this tag line to become the GOP' corporatism' enablers next argument for doing nothing.
Gee whiz, our life is the result of an "Intelligent Design", so who are we to meddle as seas rise, deserts form, water becomes scarce, thousands of earth's species disappear and millions die?

--craig johnson--

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Bush's Love of Torture: Ethical Equivalents

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In the movies we see the German Commandant line up the town villagers. He asks for specific intelligence regarding the commission of a crime. When he does not receive the intel he requires, he then lines up a dozen citizens and shoots them.

Torturing people to the point of psychological collapse is almost an ethical equivalent to the brutality handed out by the Commandant.

If the interrogators, when causing permanent systemic damage to their subjects through sensory deprivation, are fully aware that some or most of these subjects have no actionable intelligence then they are deliberately destroying innocent lives as an official process.

It is at this point that the ethics of the Commandant's decision and Bush's mind set, to employ torture, become one and the same.

A question also arises as to upon who does America employ life destroying torture. Apparently, sub rosa, torturing Arabs and followers of Islam is today acceptable. Perhaps torturing foreign born prison gang leaders might be the next acceptable venue for torture. And next?

--craig johnson--

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June 06, 2007

 

Libby Pardon and Depraved Indifference

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Not only did this administration cook up propaganda to lead America into war, it deliberately suppressed factual assessments of the dangers that our troops would encounter. The Military, the State Department and the CIA had each clearly warned of the "harm's way" our troops would encounter.
For political purposes these intelligence warnings were not only buried, they were actively shunned and ignored. This is criminal behavior which, with one hundred per cent certainty, led to troop' deaths and maimings.
A Libby pardon would condone this establishment of a propaganda apparatus in the Executive branch. It would condone a conspiracy to provide false information to Congress. It would set free the sole conspirator who, of necessity had to lie, protect his boss and other executive branch participants.
A Libby pardon would condone the criminal opposite of 'supporting the troops' that in fact Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith and others actively participated in making false pronouncements which resulted in American deaths.
--Craig Johnson--

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June 05, 2007

 

Needle Exchange saves lives

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If one of nature's animals, for instance , bears, became addicted to an illegal substance such as garbage from suburban neighborhoods and they started dying in droves because of a chemical element of the garbage pails themselves then, no one would lift an eyebrow if a government taxing entity supplied funds to remove such lethal element from the equation.
The press report would be simple and uncomplicated: that government funds have been offered to remove and replace the toxic garbage pails.
Why then do people calling themselves Conservatives withhold life saving measures from a hapless addicted population who not only die in droves due to their addictive behavior but also in some instances spread a deadly disease in the non-addicted population.
If a son or daughter of a Congress person were to slide into the sad and gruesome life of an addict, such Congress person would go to any lengths to keep their child alive, crying and gnashing their teeth in the hell of addiction while desperately hoping their child might survive.
Who then do they condemn to death? Why are these people not deserving of the same treatment that would be offered to a troubled and dying animal population? What exactly does 'Conservative' mean; let the poor die?
--Craig Johnson--

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June 04, 2007

 

Veteran of Omaha Beach says No to War

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I just spent two days in a Veterans Hospital. For the record, the care was AAA excellent. My roommate, who also has cardiac issues, was an Omaha Beach veteran.

I saw him watching FOX News, and my being of the ilk that I had just marched on the Pentagon, I approached him warily.

Imagine my joy and surprise when he said that the cartoonish GOP bag man Sean Hannity made his blood boil.

His summary of Bush and Iraq was resignedly profound and bespoke his witness of slaughter as a youth..

"I simply do not see how killing other humans ultimately benefits the human race. There has to be a better way", he said

My point here is that we need a peace plan for the Middle East. To match the complexity of the tribal, religious, cultural divide existing between Islam and secular and Christian capitalistic forces extant elsewhere the plan has to be a hundred year plan.

This plan would feature cultural exchanges, guest worker visas (both ways), peace corp initiatives, student exchanges, etc. to accommodate rapprochement. A hundred year plan to accomplish peaceful co-existence should be "the Mission."

Without a clear vision of what the U.S. and others want to accomplish in the Israel-to-Iran region, staying in Iraq and leaving Iraq are equal. Both moves have no merit for the future of global peace and community without such moves being taken in the context of a century's long plan for peace.

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June 02, 2007

 

I Got a New Stent Today

Living, living, living is the thing

Fixed heart, fixed heart really makes me sing

(This is the chorus from "I Got a New Stent Today")


What does blockage of heart arteries, or coronary artery disease mean?

The heart is a strong pump that delivers fresh oxygenated blood to different organs in the body with each heartbeat. The heart muscle itself gets blood through arteries called coronary arteries. These conduits called coronary arteries run on the surface of the heart. The disease of these arteries is called coronary artery disease.




Where the line that points to or indicates the right coronary artery points to the artery, I had 100% blockage and the lower half of this artery showed to be delivering no blood to my heart. The left artery had actually sent out shoots or corollaries as they are called in an attempt to deliver blood to the heart muscle on the right side of my heart, The doctors at VA West Roxbury, Boston placed a stent where the blockage was and the whole right artery system lit up as it again began carrying blood to the heart.

I had what is called stable angina. This caused a modest chest pain when I exercised because the heart received too little oxygen during exertion. I could usually walk for 5 minutes before the heart said ouch, I need more oxygen.
My meds are plavix and aspirin to keep blood thin and resist the bodies' urge to fix, repair or block up the new, foreign stent. Also linsinoprol an ACE inhibitor for blood pressure and increased Lipitor 80mgs to keep cholesterol low.

Seeing the blood return to the blocked artery was a 'huge smile' event.

Smile with me.
Craig Johnson

PS The song, "I Got a New Stent Today" was written for and dedicated to Shannon D/N-P/B and the exceptionally affable and competent cardio team at VA West Roxbury.

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