"One can be sorry that Hunter Thompson died as he did, but not sorry, surely, that he stopped writing." William F. Buckley, 3/01/05, National Review

Ponder, for a moment, what the "F." in William F. Buckley stands for...Good. For those who have run out of expletives and pejoratives, please continue. Anyone who may still be contemplating "Francis", and such, "F"uck Off.

"I see nothzing, NOTHZING!"- Sgt. Shultz. Today's Birthdays; Patrick Stewart, Cheech Marin, Bob Crane, among others. Celebrate the 3rd Geneva Convention and the 1923 dedication of the Hollywoodland sign by watching Nick At Night; or do what Bob would do and check out Meatholes @ http://meatholes2.com/. Might be kind of tame by Abu Klink standards, but this is a famiy website, for gosh sakes!

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
Henry David Thoreau
While gagging down the nightly pablum of cable news story round-ups, I noticed a subtle yet disturbing shift in info concerning the case of 5 U.S. Marines being held on rape, murder, and conspiracy charges. The primary target of the crime, Abeer Qassim Hamza ( photo i.d. at left), was repeatedly referred to as a "young woman". This was especially true on CNN. The original/ official U.S. investigation stated that she was around 25 yrs. old. Bullshit. The only dispute about her age has been between family members, neighbors, and a doctor (who is afraid to reveal his identity). And that argument, if you can call it that, is whether she was 14 or 15 when she was raped, shot, and burned, along with her 6 (or 7) year old sister, and parents. Her sister, by the way, had 6 or 7 bullets to the head. Maybe it was just one or two; perhaps the rounds fragmented or re-entered after ricocheting off a wall, or the ground, or wherever she was positioned when shot. Best case scenario would be Mommy holding her, Ruby Ridge style. But what do I know? It's not like I'm a writer for C.S.I., or even watch it or anything. "Young woman"? Lindsay Lohan is a young woman. Jenna Bush is a young woman. Collectively, the Olson Twins are a young woman. And let's not forget 'merica's favorite raped and dead girl, Natalee Holaway. C'mon Rita Cosby, why doesn't 'merica hear your plaintive mooing for the truth in Mahmoudiya? And what about you, Nancy Grace? Isn't this case worth hearing that endearing southern drawl of yours "cry out for justice for this beautiful child"? No, let's lump her in to the same general age group as drunken 'merican teenagers who take advantage of third world trust territories lax drinking age, and even worse enforcement of same. I can't wait to hear the inevitable defense argument that this "young woman" was asking for it. After all, if she was "good" she would've stayed home like a good Sharia abiding muslamist girl should've. Instead, she just had to tempt the infidels by walking , unaccompanied by male folk, clothed head to toe, to SCHOOL! What good would school have done 'ya? Don't they get the nightly musings of Glen Beck or Michael Savage down there? What more do you need to hear about how great you un-grateful Iraqi have it? I'm sure that,in time, Ann Coulter or William Bennet would have c'mon down for a book reading. It's not like their works are going to get translated into Arabic any time soon. Maybe that's the real reason for all these "surprise' visits by Rummy down there. Pocket full of Rush's secret stash? Let's check the flight manifest for Jeff Gannon or Sgt. Sodomy. That's probably the only way any of these guy's can "keep the morale up". Keith Olbermann did try to flesh out the big picture by interviewing a genuine medal of honor winner, Retired Colonel Jack Jacobs. The topic was the Army's slackening enlistment standards and the fear of an eventual "skinhead army', the best example being Timothy McVay. Jacobs did a fairly convincing job of bullshitting his way out it by saying that he never saw anything that would indicate white supremacy among the ranks, even saying that the Army didn't teach McVay how to be "crazy". All due respect to the Ret.Col., but what Army was he in? The one where Pvt. Steven Green saddles up to bar at the officer's club for a well deserved martini after a hard day of raping and pillaging? "How's it hangin', Col. Jacobs..hey, that 'aint a Jew name, issit?" I remember when the first pictures of Timothy McVay went public as a suspect in Oklahoma City, my brothers and I ( all Army vets.) all called each other across the counrty with the same reaction: We knew McVay! Well, not personally, but dozens of guys just like him. The kinda guy you found in the barracks most nights watching "Dukes of Hazard" and swilling 'Ol Milwaukee ( unless it was payday Bud!) bitching about "women are all bitches, fuckin' niggers, womans is all lesbians, fuckin' jews an' homos" etc.. In other words, the kind of guy that never got laid. The kind of guy's that thought that if you might be gettin some would ask things like "You eat that Pussy?" or "Do Oriental girl snatches go sideways?" And this was before they dropped enlistment standards! Well, Pvt. Steven Green sure got laid. And he didn't have to wait to go to Paradise for his virgin, either. Do you think think this kind of shit is isolated? Because these guys weren't caught. Another soldier in their unit-who knew about or participated in it-snapped and confessed during an outproccesing psychological evaluation,the same day 3 other Marines in the same unit back in country were killed. In revenge. What's the point of this rant? There are several- It's easier to stay up at night trying to be sarcastic about this kind of shit than it is trying to sleep soundly knowing that this is all committed IN OUR NAME! Our press, for the most part, won't tell the truth (try embedding me in Fallujah!). And my 18 year old nephew is currently in San Diego training go to war with the Marine Corp.; Force Recon., nonetheless. What will keep him safe? What will keep him from turning into a monster? All of the "moral" pillars and cores that every murdering, lying, Lindsay England Poster Child Wannabe purported to uphold, failed. Now what? To hope that I never hear my dear nephews name ever spoken by Wolf Blitzer, for any reason what so ever!? If there is a god, I will find a way to pray that he comes home safe, and a better man than when he left. And I hope it's the god that frequent's SuperBowl winners and Stock Car heroes, not the god that was in Mahmoudiya. I'm sure no one prayed to god for mercy more than Abeer and her family prayed that day. Let's bring the heroes home. And give the guilty ones as much as they gave. Happy Birthday Henry Thoreau and Pablo Neruda. When it's so hard to see the beauty of the world, your words clear the mind, the heart, and the eyes again.

"A greedy man will always find himself in the shackles of humility."
Imam Ali, Peak of Eloquence.
Is Kenneth Lay sucking cocks in hell yet? Of course not. That would mean you would believe in hell. Or heaven. How does one determine where you end up? Lay must obviously have not been too worried about going to hell. Or he looked forward to fiery oral copulation. Or maybe he wasn't afraid to go to hell; he wasn't afraid to rip off thousands, if not millions, of people. I'm not sure about hell, but I have been to Bayonne. If people come to 'merica for a better life, I'd hate to see what it's like in Puerto Rico or Sicily. But I digress. Speaking of cocksuckers, Larry King- wearing very natty cowboy boots- interviewed the President and Firsterest Lady this weekend.They both knew the Lays (who supported Ann Richards for Gov'nr of Texas), and felt bad for Ken's widow. You know, the one who gets to keep everything that wasn't already hidden under her name to begin with? Boo-Hoo. Hope she doesn't have to give up her toned down socialite schedule and move to Florida in shame like Jon Benet Ramsey's family did. After all, the guilty verdict gets buried with him, and so does the chance of any kind of restitution the hard working, honest workers (i.e.-suckers) might have had. Sure, they and the shareholders might be able to start a civil lawsuit despite the attempts of Bush's DOJ to limit class action litigations, and such. But His Bushness has done a mighty fine job of filling the courts with out of session and vacation court appointments. Even the congressionally approved ones (Alito) have ruled in favor of corporations that they own interest in. So, how much more can you bend over, 'merica? Hopefully you folks in Houston didn't squander too much buying above ground swimming holes or increasing tithe's towards the Megachurch of choice. Hopefully you've got enough to pool your change together for a retainer on a lawyer desperate or ideological enough to go after the bastards. I would recommend hanging out at law school commencements or bar exam test sites. Just not in Brownsville. All in all, it's probably not that important that Ken Lay was caught, or that he was found guilty. It's probably even not that important that he wasn't sentenced. The important thing, in the end, is that Ken Lay is Dead. Isn't that kind of harsh, Chris? Maybe. But is it any worse than what that cocksucker did in real life? No. And when I say cocksucker, I can only hope that description also relates to the afterlife, if there is one. Too bad he wasn't buddhist.

"But any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood, and that is what happened to those of Jesus."- H.L.Mencken. So, why am I writing this blog? I think the picture , at left, represents why, in a nutshell. And the sweatmeats are abandoning their confines like maggots oozing from sun swollen roadkill. The same document that allows megachurch World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church to such public displays of shibboleth (false idol, anyone?), also allows me to quietly tell them to Bend Over And Shove It Back Up Their Collective Asses. Thankfully, that document is not the one alluded to on the new statue- "You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." If this were the case, I would have cashed in all those empty beer cans I have out back and bought Peggy Noonan, or Ann Coulter, to write this. Yes, bought, not married. I can't remember anything in any of the "Good Books" about being able to beat insubordinate wives to death with a baseball bat. I'm sure it's there, somewhere. I just don't have the attention span to Google it. I'll just wait 'till the video game version of the bible comes out, just like the "Left Behind" books are! I wonder if you make Kirk Cameron shoot Abortionist Doctors or Activist Judges? Headshots for Jeseus! The best part of this statue? IT COST $260,00.00!!! How many people could they have fed (unless the pastor secretly has one of those all-you-can-eat Jeseus fishes)? Maybe the carpenter has returned and his prefered medium is now foam and fiberglass. Or maybe I've missed my calling. If that's the case, I'll get cracking on my own version (photo at right). Wretched refuse, indeed.

Why Blog? Incessant nagging by friends and loved ones. I will try not to embarass them. Too much. I thought of my father the other day. I was working on the car and it was hot, in the 80's. I was sweating. It was my stink that made me think of him. We have the same stink, Chuck and I. Flashbacks of adolescence: yard work, moving furniture, and working on the family microbus; nostalgia never smelled so bad. Despite sometimes drastic attempts to be unique, I've turned out to be my father's son. What was stranger, the similarities, or differences? I suppose I use the past tense because I've noticed the latter of the two, recently. At our respective ages, I have yet to start a family. My career has been not having a career (or any of it's attendant aspirations). Ditto any formal education attempts. And I don't have the luxury of having at arm's reach the useful diagrams and advice of the Idiots Guide to Volkswagen Repair to ignore. And yet despite the slight shift away from a slightly metallic tinge that has faded from this olafactory sheen we share, here I am, wrenching away at another aging V.W.; chain smoking, cursing out loud, looking for a non-nonexistant wrench... Sometimes, looking back, life gone by seems less linear and cinematic as flashbacks or the near death flash-by may seem. At times like yesterday, it looked more like a map of some kind. And in it I saw not an answer, but another clue. Thanks Dad. Even though I turned out to be an Asshole, thank you for making me NOT want to grow up to be an Idiot. Sometimes the questions are better than the answers.