Chile, ¡te felicito! ¡Brava Michelle!

Chile, tienes una presidenta que es mujer; que además de mujer, socialista; además de socialista, divorciada; además de divorciada, agnóstica. ¿Cómo te atreves? ¿Qué te crees, Finlandia?

En serio, me parece fenomenal que en tantos países latinoamericanos le estén diciendo un rotundo no al neoliberalismo y desafiando a la oligarquía.

¿Por qué los gringos no podemos hacer lo mismo? ¿Y por qué será que en paises supuestamente menos avanzados y desarrollados, son capaces de sacar del poder y meter en la cárcel a sus jefes de estado corruptos, y aquí no? Debe ser que aquí en EE.UU. no hay una democracia auténtica. Parece que las masas, en general, tienen el cerebro lavado por los medios masivos que sirven al poder, o tienen una actitud derrotista que les impide actuar para defender sus propios intereses. Qué pena.

Open letter to my Congressman Bob Menéndez

Yesterday I ordered fifty bucks worth of impeach bush gear from impeachbush.org, but I still felt that I hadn’t done my civic duty. So today I fired up OpenOffice Writer and got busy on a letter to my Congressperson. Thought I’d open-source it; please feel free to borrow, modify, and follow suit.


December 5, 2005
Hon. Robert Menéndez
2238 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Menéndez:

I write as your constituent, and as a citizen of these United States, to implore you to take immediate action to commence impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld so that they are removed from office and held accountable for their crimes. The evidence of criminal incompetence, greed, corruption, torture, and unnecessary wars of conquest based on lies is more than sufficient to warrant this drastic action. Indeed, it is nothing less than the patriotic duty of everyone who cares about this country’s future — both citizens and elected officials —  to act now to remove the Bush administration if we are to avert further murderous misadventures like the Iraq war. Bush and his cronies are undermining the security of this country on every level — economic, social, environmental, and military. They have also done immeasurable damage to the United States’ relationships abroad, having earned the well-deserved fear and hatred of much of the rest of the world.

Bush has got to go.

For a legal case in favor of impeachment I refer you to http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=32550 and to http://pepib.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5054

I very much look forward to your response on this vitally important issue.

Very truly yours,

Professor B

Donate to Iraq reconstruction?

I hear that USAID is asking private citizens to pony up donations for Iraq reconstruction in addition to all the tax dollars we are spending on trying to rebuild it in addition to all the tax dollars we spent destroying it. Can you believe the chutzpah? Jeez, suppose we had simply not destroyed the place in a criminal war of invasion and occupation in the first place — think of the savings!

I am glad I bought my bus ticket to the anti-Bush demo in D.C. on Saturday.

Want to stop Judge Roberts?

I have two really great suggestions for stopping Bush’s Supreme Court Nominee:

  1. Impeach Bush.
  2. If that doesn’t work, hire Karl Rove to set Roberts up with a thirteen-year-old boy! That is, if a public servant of Mr. Rove’s ethical stature and integrity can be persuaded to stoop so low, and if he moonlights. Hell, if he gets fired he won’t have to moonlight and can work on our project full time. How will we raise the money for Karl’s fee, you ask? Easy. Get those MoveOn.org boys and girls on the job and have them send ten emails a day to their loyal base.

Bush/Cheney Impeachment unimaginable? Not for me

In a recent Nation editorial they say something like, whereas a few months ago it was “unimaginable,” a successful impeachment movement is now merely “improbable.” Dudes:  improbable shit happens! Don’t be defeatist.

From the Downing Street memo and WMD lies to Abu Ghraib to Guantánamo, the justification for impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld is now more than sufficiently documented. And knowingly leading your country into an illegal war based on lies has got to be more serious than lying about what you did with your dick, don’t you think? They need to be impeached, removed from office, and tried for war crimes. Why is this so unthinkable? How can we not think it and still pretend to care about democracy?

So let’s all pony up our dollars and contribute to http://www.votetoimpeach.org/ (as I just did) and start thinking ahead to September 24, when there is going to be one kick-ass demonstration in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Let’s not just be pissed as hell. Let’s do something about it.

Flushing the Koran

The recent flap about alleged Koran-flushing is such a load of crap, no double-entendre intended. Everyone knows that our noble fighting forces would never be so irresponsible as to flush a book down a toilet, because doing so would surely choke the toilet.

Open letter to Bill Maher

Hey Bill. Bill! You listening? Good. Just a few seconds of your time, please.

The show is great and I love it. Now, here’s my suggestion. If you want some other smart witty progressive women on your show, I would suggest:

  • Katha Pollitt
  • Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Naomi Klein

Imagine how they would crush that mendacious, venomous facsist friend of yours Ann Coulter. Bwa ha ha ha!

OK that’s it bro. Didn’t I promise I’d keep it short?

Grasping the full meaning of cards


You had to be there. But you would never be, unless you were a member of small elite that has been playing cards together for some 25 years. In our world, Cards is more than just cards. It is the rarest of delicacies; a fine wine that keeps improving with age; a profoundly gratifying, almost ritualistic event. We are a group of 40-something middle class white males that likes to get together once or twice a year and stay up late talking shit, getting fucked up, and… yes, playing some cards. Anybody who has a problem with that can kiss our ass.

Pope Shmope

I can’t see why so many people are falling all over themselves to praise the Pope. So he preached love and peace — so what? He was the Pope, right? Espousing basic Christian values is his job; doing his job is hardly above and beyond the call.
Let’s see, what else? Lacking the balls and/or the wisdom to break with centuries of fucked up dogma and continuing to discourage condom use among tens of millions of people in impoverished, AIDs-ravaged regions like Africa. Way to go fuckhead.
I say good riddance.