A Bombshell is coming - Be Prepared

Word is starting to leak out what is on those 84 still photos and 4 videotapes that Donald Rumsfeld does not want the American pubic, or any of the rest of the world for that matter, to see.

If you thought that a hillbilly pitchfork-pusher, doing the Lyndie, with American controlled prisoners, was vile, wait until you see what is thought to be on these.

The torture and rape of children as interogation techniques against their parents.

The rape and/or murder of adult prisoners.

It might be true that the Bush administration doesn't want us, or the world, to know the horrors they so thoughtlessly and untruthfully unleashed, but it will come out. And the only honorable part of it is that it may be the vets of Operation Fucking Disaster that will be the ones , like in Vietnam, who realise that is is their honor that has been sullied and dirtied, along with the rest of us.

A first rate military has been wasted for many years to come over what? WMD's? Oil? Power? "He tried to kill m'daddy?"

It will be very ugly and it will make us all think twice about who we are. A bright and shining light in the world? Or a bunch of powerful street thugs who are willing to do anything simply because we can.

Religions of the World. Unite!!!

Not a fan, I presume?

Below you can find a comment from "anomyous" about the Biblical content of my commencement address to Baptist Bible College. "Anonymous" says I make him/her very sad.

Well, I don't want to bring additional sadness into the life of my fundie friends, at least not more than they experience every week at church, so perhaps I can give "anonymous" a thought that will cheer him/her up.

I have sitting here in front of me the Student Handbook of Baptist Bible College -- circa 1970. I am getting ready to devote the next blog to it. I promise that the quotes from it will have "anonymous" rolling on the floor -- although he/she will probably get in trouble for laughing at it, since Xtians was suppose to have "pious mein". I admit I don't know exactly what that means, but I think that after he/she spends all the day condemning the souls of her/his fellow men to everlasting torment, he/she is supposed to be saddened by the whole thing. Oddly, I have never met the fundie who seemed anything but happy to condemn my soul to everlasting torment.

And also one wonders about the courage of folks like "anomyous". (BTW, I hope you don't mind if I just call you "Anon".) I use my real name. All my friends use their real names on their blogs too, I don't have a hidden email account, and I don't worry about anyone knowing what I think or who I am. But then again, athiests are much more honest than Xtian fundies.

PS ... What is that thing on your lip??? Better put some ice on it.

Sex in the MRI

Tonight we have a bloggers meeting -- read that as an excuse to get out, have a few brews and tell lots of lies ....

Knowing that Andy Klein will be doing a podcast, and he will look at our latest blog entries, I thought I might give him an "X" rated one. But unlike male pronstars of today I refuse to bikini wax my entire body -- ouch. (At my age, and after reflection, I may reconsider that, and get one on my ears and back.)

This is about sex inside an MRI machine.

Yep ... that claustrophobic little space inside the tube. And how the Kibbles and Bits actually fit together. ...in action ... real life ... none of O'Reilly's glass vibrators involved in this ....er...ahem .... scientific ... study.

Read about it HERE. I know nobody will be interested ... but there are pictures.

A weird random thought

Tonight on my old friend Jim Bohannon's radio show he went into a full-bore rant about the evils of programmers who design programs with the arrogance of thinking they know what you want to do. Dammit guys, put the thing together where I can do what I want to do.

But since I was chuckling at Jim, and sitting in a room only lit by a CRT I decided it was time to take inventory of pretty much useless techno stuff surrounding me.

I counted no fewer than 22 of those little diode lights adorning my night. And Christmas is six months away. Computers, speakers, printer, photo scanner, TV, radio, and a few that I have forgotten what they are suppose to do.

There are blue ones, green ones and red ones too. Color doesn't seem to have any importance, since if the red light on my power distribution box goes out, so will the only light I have ... this silly screen. Then I will look for a flashlight, or if I remembered to pay the utility bill, the wall switch, to find out if the cat finally managed to electrocute herself.

Ah ... the joys of modern miracles.

Freeps = Vile

Of all the scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, low-life, miserable sons-of-bitches on the face of the planet are the Freeps -- the spiders and snakes that hide under the rock called the Free Republic.

If you think Rush is a pig, or that O'Reilly is a lying lard-ass with a loofa sponge in one hand and a vibrator up his butt, they look clean compared to the freeps.

Want an example? Read THIS

What horrid lives right-wingers live.

My new favorite Bible Verse

From the New International Reader's Version

Ezekiel 23:20 (New International Reader's Version)
New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
Copyright © 1996, 1998 by International Bible Society


20: There she had longed for her lovers. Their private parts seemed as big as those of donkeys. And their flow of semen appeared to be as much as that of horses.

This is the verse I plan to use for the basis of my commencement address at Baptist Bible College.

Hellbenders endangered??

While searching around for info on a tip from Ron Davis about a really weird story from California (I'll let him tell you about it -- or Art Bell) -- OK, a little more weird than most stories from California -- I ran across this.


It caught my eye because the Eastern Hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, the second-largest salamander in the world, was my study animal about a million years ago when I was working on a Master's Thesis. In fact, I found the world's only known adult albino hellbender (I think) ... but the white son-of-a-bitch wasn't too hard to spot on the bottom of the river.

I collected mine out of the Niangua River, just below Bennett Springs. They were there in really incredible numbers for so large an animal. Most were about 18 inches in length and weighed up to two kilograms. And they are ugly, oh, Gawd, are they ever ugly. The locals think they are deadly poisonous. If looks could kill, we should ship some over to Assama.

They also have the disgusting habit of when annoyed or agitated, (and who knows what might agitate a salamander with a brain the size of grain of rice), of rolling over and over and exuding a slimy sticky mucous mess from its more than abundant skin. Take my word for it, you can scrub for an hour and it still is there.

The numbers are declining, and like many ambhibian species in the world show a number of deformities. The reason is unknown but since it's happening in a lot of places one suspects global influences, such as global warming, leading to parasites, or developmental mistakes.

One thing I disagree with in this article is the presence of "skin lesions on the head" part. Probably ninety percent of the ones I saw had missing skin on the head. I think the explanation is far more simple that some environmental disaster. The live under big rocks, where they wait with gaping mouths open, for a crawfish, or a sculpin, to wander in. They simply scrape their head against the rocks. Or -- since the natives think they are deadly poisonous, they are fond of gigging them at night when they are out on the river .... those are simply gig marks from misses.

Reporters going to jail

I have held off on this one because I am conflicted about what I think. If Judith Miller spends some time in the slammer because of her conscious, I might even be able to admire her -- lots of people have goine to jail for matters of conviction - (of beliefs). On the other hand I think she got what she deserved. She stopped being a reporter of news and became a participent in a crime.

Something we will probably never know is what the "outing" of Valerie Plame actually did. It is not entirely inconcievable that one or a bunch of people got very dead. This was not a political gottcha' -- it was very serious, and there are very serious laws to protect people from getting very dead.

So the question boils down to, "Are reporters responsible to the law, or to those who they may give their word not to reveal their identities?" After some agonizing I have come down on the side that in some cases the reporters are derelict in their responsibilities to the laws which govern us.

Some cases ... not all.

The Valerie Plame case is an example and Judith Miller should go to jail for contempt. This statement is not out of anger toward Miller, even though she has been a toad for the Bush administration, there are more important matters at stake.

The question is: first, for the source, when should you expect the information you give to a reporter and your identity to be protected? This seems to be the simpler of the questions. If you have committed a crime or have knowledge of a crime, you have no reason not to do what every citizen should do -- be a witness, under oath, submit to cross examination, and tell an open and fair system what knowledge you have. You are not entitled to decide what information is important and to who you will give it to. To be able to do so would open wide the door to every evil known that one person can inflict on another -- revenge, or grudges, for instance.

In this instance, there should be no protection for either the reporter or the leaker.

The second case is more difficult. When a company, or government commits a wrongdoing, or even a mistake, the tendency is to cover it up, spin it away, or just ignore it. Enter, stage right, the reporter, who not only is working for his organization, but for you and me, and we do have a right to know if there is wrongdoing afoot. Sometimes it is possible that the only way for a reporter to know of the wrongdoing is by protecting the person who speaks to him.

Then too, one has to be honest and say that the professional reputation of reporters has never been lower -- and with good reason. Some, like on your local TV news are just pretty bobbleheads. And far worse, many - not all - but a great many, sell out to the corporate interests they work for, or to partisan views, on any side. And then just to put a nail in their coffin of reputation, they try to treat issues as he-said, she-said, equal validity views. This is most angering to a scientist who sees stories about things such as creationism treated with equal validity as organic evolution. Such "reporting" is just plain laziness at best.

Reporters are failing to serve the public interest and therefore should get no break from the public when one of these grey areas pops up.

Remember, Deep Throat did not give Woodward information which may have led to the deaths of others, he just gave him hints about where he should look to find the truth -- and then left it to Woodward and Bernstein and Ben Bradley to use thier skill and resources. And then Katherine Graham had the courage to back them up. How many today will back up a critical story of the war in Iraq (a. k. a. Operation Fucking Disaster)?

Dan Rather used to end his broadcasts with the word, "courage". There is no courage left in journalism now. Only a profit motive, or even worse a power motive. And none of it is in the interests of the public.

New photos up on Photo page

Just FYI ... I have added a lot of new photos (and renamed the photo page)...

Go here to see them ....