The 935 lies of BushCo

We forget things so easily. I forget my BART ticket sometimes and have to buy one at the station.

Forgetting about why we went to war under *suspect* pretenses is a slightly larger issue. Do you remember why we went to war? It's all seen through spin-doctor induced haze...but I think I see something.

The Center for Public Integrity recently released a searchable database that details 935 'false public statements' perpetrated by the Bush administration: mainly seven individuals (George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Ari Fleischer, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, and Scott McClellan)

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

It's not that an administration hasn't lied before, however, when I think back to the furor over impeaching President Clinton because he lied about getting a blowjob (and his definition of sexual relations) and I compare it to the lies spouted by the current administration...well there's no comparison.
What's really illustrative to me is how the number of lies told really peaks just prior to the invasion of Iraq. It's like they knew they had to lay it on thick to get the support needed to mobilize when the rest of the world (please spare me the laughable justification of the 'Coalition of the Willing') favored other means of resolving the conflict.

We became so polarized by 9/11 and the administration used the tragedy to pounce on Iraq because it could 'legitimately' establish a prolonged presence in an Middle Eastern, oil-producing country: an act the Administration deemed necessary for America, regardless if the tactic smacked of the deprecated model of the military-industrial complex.

We'll be in Iraq for decades to come. This was the plan. 9/11 just helped make it easier to execute because we were raw with frustration, anger, and sadness. We let it happen.

So I'm supporting my troops, and not the government that tosses them upon a sacrificial pyre in the name of democracy. Let's not forget our mistakes of voting this chimp and his circus trainers into office when we're at the polls on Feb 5...ok...I didn't vote for this guy, but at least two people did.

Or, you can vote for Romney and let him build more Guantanamos.

The ship does not go down with its captain

Let's say I'm the head of a major institution, and as such, I'm ultimately responsible for the actions of my staff/supporters/minions (think Enron's Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling). Let's further hypothesize that I was being tried for destroying electronic records...in fact...let me restate that...let's say there were rumblings of a suit being brought against me, so in anticipation of such action I went ahead and destroyed the files. Of course, I probably had some kind of 'legitimate' reason to excuse the destruction of these files - whoops! Sorry! I was just following industry best practices...what's that over there? LOOK OUT! Killer terrorists! Threat level omega-seven-polka-dot-bravo!

I'm getting ahead of myself...

You'd think I was reprehensible, correct? You'd think I was sneaky and conniving, right? You'd think that I thought I was above the law by doing such a thing. You'd think that I should be brought to justice and made accountable for my actions, even though I might not have personally put the papers into the shredders, right? After all, even though I might possess 'plausible deniability', the fact that I run the ship should make me responsible, or are we saying that the laws in the country don't apply to me. Yes, I think that's what we're saying.
At least that seems to be the reasoning behind the latest American freedom-'n-democracy ass-raping fiasco perpetrated by the White House. WTF!?

WASHINGTON -- The White House acknowledges recycling backup computer tapes of e-mail, a practice that may have wiped out many electronic messages from the early years of the Bush administration, including some pertaining to the CIA leak case.

The disclosure about recycled backup tapes came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it previously had refused to provide.

Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide. The White House started preserving backup tapes in October 2003, which would have been shortly after the start of the probe into who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in July of that year.

The backup tapes, which also contain electronic documents in addition to e-mail, are the last line of defense for saving electronic records.
...
Mr. Fratto, the White House spokesman, said that "there is no basis to say that the White House has destroyed any evidence or engaged in any misconduct."

No basis...hmm...I'm reasoning those words were used because it hasn't been proven that anything was 'destroyed', at least in the linguistically accurate perception of the word. I imagine it was just serendipitous that the 'recycling' of the tapes occurred just before a court-order demanding said 'recycled' tapes be turned over.

You know what? I am sick to death of this administration. It's not that it's Republican. There are plenty of great Republicans out there. I heart Republicans. I'm sick of this administration's stomping on the vestiges of our integrity. I'm tired of blowing taxpayer dollars on issues that don't benefit the nation, when we're in the middle of a mortgage collapse and financial institutions are recording record losses (from over a 100 year period) and when our educational system is stuck in the 1950s and when we can't seem to produce enough effective domestic college graduates. I'm sick of the lies and false-truths and truthery and strategery and the fact that the President of the effing United States of America sounds like a g-d idiot when he opens that effing hole in his face. STFU Dubya.
While the bar for Presidential approval has been lowered tremendously, and we're on the brink of electing a new President, and although I'm optimistic about the future, I think we need to expect more from our elected officials, and insist on running a government that's less focused on infiltrating and more cognizant about stabilizing and scaling global socio-economic growth. Just a thought. Just throwing it out there, cuz, y'know...things are pretty crappy right now. Never hurts to dream, right? Obama anyone? The whole 'audacity of hope' notion is very appealing compared to the scary faith infused dogmas of Huck or baseball Mitt. It's like the GOP reasoned with all the instability in the Middle East, which this administration helped fuel (btw), the U.S. needs to further polarize itself and become more militaristic and ethno/faith-centric, so they unleash Huckabee and Romney.

[ending soapbox transmission now]

Even though I'm under water, I need more fans

I haven't been able to commit to getting much new content up lately. Why?

I've been playing Bioshock, the game developed by Irrational Games, which was scooped up by Take Two Interactive shortly before the game was released. I've other posts on the game, but don't take my action nerd perspective for gospel: sales of this game have been phenomenal. It's a good thing that they released this sucker prior to the Halo 3 launch, as this final chapter in the Master Chief's saga is the reason why you should own the Xbox360. I don't have one, but I'm fortunate enough to work at a place where they have gaming rooms with the consoles with visuals served upon on sexy 60" LCDs. My lunch hours are consumed with battle royales and perfecting my head shot. Once we get Halo 3 I don't know what I'll do with the mid-day meeting...prepare for meeting or let Master Chief wreak havoc on the Covenant and Flood...hmmm...

I digress...Bioshock. It's...it's a game where...I'm at a loss for words. It's unbelievable. I read an article saying that it's a 20 hour game, meaning that if you sat down and didn't poo or pee (or just sat in your own filth) or eat or interact with outside world and forgot to eat or sleep you could finish the game. I don't see how it's possible. It's one of the first games in a long time in which your choices determine serious alterations in how non-playable characters (NPCs, as they say) interface with you and how game elements reveal themselves. Exploration is a must and there doesn't appear to be a time limit associated with a player's level of effectiveness in negotiating the obstacles. Oh. Did I mention that the visuals are astounding?

Astounding. The environment, which is an underwater city called Rapture, is a character in the game. The pressure of the fathoms presses on the decaying city and the relentless fingers of the deep are winning the battle to elicit implosion in the various structures. Throw waves of fire from your hand (the wonders of genetic manipulation) at an opponent, and he or she will run to water to put out the flames. Send bolts of electricity into water when an opponent is standing in it, and put them out of commission.

All these graphics come at a cost. My machine's graphic card heats up, and even with 3 fans, this sucker would cook an egg. The resolution? Why the Asymmetrical Cooling System on the EVGA 8800GTX 768MB KO ACS3, of course!

It's only about $745. From the picture above, it seems that some bloke spent that amount twice to sport these cards in SLI (Scalable Link Interface) mode, which effectively doubles the computing power done in high-end graphics processing, which allows graphics to be rendered at a better performance rate, AND it's geared for optimal heat dissipation.

I'm weighing the pros and cons of selling a kidney to get one.

As for politics, I've reached a point where I'm going to need less partisan bickering from the candidates, and more focus on rejuvenating American patriotism...and I don't mean more stickers of yellow ribbons on SUVs driven in communities where less than 1% of the populace enlist...and constructing an economic playing field that will allow this great country to utilize its passion and brains by getting all its citizens involved and participating in their democracy and the global community. It's a tall order, but things of value are seldom easily achieved.

At last - everything is done for me!

This is great news! I'm so looking forward to the next round of freedom laws that further chip away at civil liberties! It's great to be in a free society, because it's so easy to give away your freedom!

I'm glad my phone conversations and emails can be monitored by the NSA, if I happen to contact someone outside of the U.S. I can completely see the rationale in needing to see if my email to London is going to a terrorist. I'm not worried that this violation of privacy will ever impact me personally because how could a government with a completely endless and rich source of information on every single person's digital behavior that rivals those of Google's, Visa's, and Amazon's be a threat to me? It's not like they can build a profile of every single person in the U.S. then cross-reference that instance with a previously created index of terrorists (culled from Cheney's secret torture chamber diary), then pre-emptively detain you for questioning. That's preposterous.

Who needs checks and balances? Why should we care if Cheney claims he's neither part of the Executive or Legislative branch so he can't be held accountable in either? I think it's totally acceptable that Dubya extends executive privilege to Karl "Turdblossom" Rove. Why are so many people upset about the fact that Rove isn't an elected executive official, yet entitled to be above the law? Makes total sense to me because he's smart enough to fool the entire nation to put Dubya in office for a second term, then he's good enough to not have to explain his role in outing an undercover CIA operative because her husband foolishly made critical remarks about ol' monkeyface.

We don't need governmental transparency...I prefer opaque and nebulous and muddy to clear and pure. It's a good thing we hazy logistics personnel in place in the Pentagon, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to lose 192,000 U.S.-taxpayer supplied weapons in Iraq? I'd rather lose money on guns than on Jim Bakker's PTL corrupt faith-based ministry, which was taken over by the even more diabolical Jerry Falwell.

People need to stop worrying so much about the war and governmental accountability and personal liberty and national priorities and just get back to focusing on what's real important...like having your 17th baby (praise the Lord!) or whether or not Branjolina will break up...or if Lindsey Lohan's SCRAM until was foiled by ice cubes.

To the dictator go the spoils...

I'm going out on a limb here, but I see some strange similarities between the Bush administration and an evil dictatorship...or at least the now defunct Soviet Union.

I keep thinking of the Mikhail Baryshnikov/Gregory Hines (RIP) vehicle, "White Nights", for some reason...did you ever see that one? It's a classic. Male dancers, one American (an expatriate living in the C.C.C.P.) and a Russian (looking to flee Communist rule) who get tangled in a web of U.S vs. U.S.S.R. intrigue: all of this set upon Phil Collins and Lionel Richie theme songs. The movie basically depicted how the Cold War impacted these two people, with a common passion, but with divergent political views. The movie illustrated how wonderful the U.S. was, and how evil and oppressive the Soviet Union was. You felt good at the end when one of the dancers, who was held captive by the Soviets after the other successfully escaped, was eventually traded back to the U.S. in exchange for some KGB-type. You felt good about it: the U.S. seemed like a moral, thoughtful, courageous, and responsible nation.

Fast forward to the the 21st century and smell the stink rising from the swamp in D.C. The Rove-Cheney Death Star duo out undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame because her husband, a U.S. Ambassador, makes critical [and valid] remarks of the Bush administration, and eventually the heat falls on Scooter Libby, who takes the fall, who gets sentenced, then gets his sentenced commuted by Dubya because he feels that the punishment was excessive...

(note that during this process Dubya is a complete tofu-brained, spineless puppet with two pairs of hands up his ass moving his mouth and helping sound out those big two-syllable words)

Excessive? Didn't anyone see "Mission Impossible" with my most favorite actor Tom Cruise, whom I totally heart in all his Scientologist goodness? Remember the severity of having the potential sale of a list of all undercover agents fall to the highest bidder? Wasn't that threatening to think that all these faceless people doing black-ops, off-the-books, counter-intel, mole-type activities on the behalf of the United States government were about to have their covert and given names made available to folks like Al-Queda? Hyperbole aside, well...there's really not much to hyperbolize when you see this administration's track record. Didn't Bush once pride himself in being a believer in rough justice? I guess it only counts if you're poor or otherwise marginalized.

Apparently if you're part of the internal U.S. power structure, you're exempt from such phony-baloney nonsense, and can out a CIA operative who's married to someone who says something portraying the government in a less than popular light and who's invested more in this country's security than some spoiled, brainless, tool. Honestly, I could care less about Libby...I'd like to see Turd-Blossom, ol' no-soul Cheney, and tool shed extraordinaire Dubya: the Unholy Trinity: see some justice for this act.

I'm rendered utterly flabbergasted and discombobulated. The sheer hypocrisy and evil empire undertones permeate every statement I could contemplate. Is this "justice" or "just us": meaning, if you're not of the inner circle, then you're common cannon fodder?

I'm astounded when I think of the energy and time it will take us as a nation to mend the wounds this single administration has inflicted upon the world, and as an American, upon my country. They're making the American soldier and civilian look like a bunch of worthless blood-soaked tools eternally stained with their lies and insanity.

If you're a devout conservative and could give a isht about my "liberal" ramblings, just think about how many taxpayers dollars went into the toilet so that this scapegoat could be exonerated, when the real evil-doers go free. For all we know, maybe the cost of this nonsense could've translated into a few thousand more Kevlar vests or adequate armor, or ammunition, or food and medical supplies...but I guess it's more important to have lying, killing, and general evil dictatorship-type behavior cemented into the American fabric because it's this administration's final legacy laid upon the altar of time. Amen.

And none of the irony of this farce falling so close to our Independence Day is lost on me. Not even Roland Emmerich could make this administration look good. I'd be completely happy with Bill Pullman for President, though.

It's official...this is as bad as it's ever been

Did you hear that Cheney made the claim that he's not a member of the Executive Branch, so he doesn't need to abide by the rules that the Founding Fathers stipulated.

...

What? Am I taking crazy pills? Why is this okay and is it election time yet? If he's not quite Executive and not quite Legislative, does that mean we can expel for being a deliberate lame-tard poo-puppet bass-turd? Doesn't this set off a big blip on your basic right/wrong radar that we had instilled at birth? Is Cheney's not working properly? Oh wait...that's right...he's an evil soulless robot constructed for the sole purpose to drag this great nation into the dirt! Ha! I feel sooo much better now!

Hopefully the next President to take office makes an effort to show the American people what kind of dastardly deeds this evil toolshed purported while in office as Vice President.

This guy's sense of entitlement at the expense of others is astounding. Can he and I go duck hunting soon?