"One aspect of making sure we have an immigration system that works, that's orderly and fair, is to actively reach out and help people assimilate into our country," Bush said in a speech at a local community college. "That means to learn the values and history and language of America."

The president may have undermined that message somewhat while at the Juan Diego Center, as he joined in a class preparing students for their U.S. citizenship tests. Though the instructor addressed students in English, Bush mostly chose their native Spanish to greet and quiz them. When the students couldn't answer his question how many father-son duos have served as president Bush explained in Spanish that there have been two, the Bushes and "Juan Adams y su hijo Juan Q."

Not only is this moron's English horrible, but his Spanish is just as bad as well.

To round out how stupid and moronic this guy is, have a look at yesterday's quote highlighting his own mastery of our language:

''There are those here in Washington who say, `Why don't we just find the folks and send them home,''' Bush said. ''That ain't gonna work.''

Nicely said.

Darth Sidious

The Vatican today created a laundry list of things that threaten 'the family":

contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage

Hmmm.. what else could we add??? How about pedophile Catholic priests? They threaten the family, don't they?

Grand Junction has become the first small community in the United States to offer a work force housing program, an initiative in which a housing provider and local employers will help employees become first-time homebuyers in a booming market where affordable housing is growing scarce.

The Grand Junction Housing Authority rolled out the Calling Mesa County Home program this spring, targeting both private- and public-sector workers who hold steady jobs but don’t quite make enough money to be able to buy a home on their own.

Under the program, employers will offer employees financial assistance with their down payments and closing costs, and employees can take advantage of flexible mortgage products, homebuyer education and credit counseling offered through the Housing Authority.

Companies need to do more to help with the worker wage as well. Its a good start to help a family with down payments, but you gotta raise the wage so they can actually sustain the mortgage cost as well, otherwise you're really only helping lenders, not individuals.

We see it here locally in the Catskills where there is a grassroots campaign underway called "Save the Locals" where people who have grown up in this area can no longer afford to live here thanks to rich New Yorkers who buy up properties and use them as luxury second homes. The little guy can no longer compete with the big real estate money out there. Plumbers, gardeners, and contractors all need homes to live in too. Isn't that the American dream?

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

I dunno, this sounds like something right out of The Simpsons.

Police said gunmen manning a makeshift checkpoint near Udhaim stopped cars approaching the small town 120 km (80 miles) north of Baghdad and killed passengers.

The victims included youths of around 15-16 years who were on their way to the bigger regional town of Baquba to write end of term exams, but also elderly men, they said.

"(The attackers) dragged them one by one from their cars and executed them," said a police official.

What a shame. And all this in an election year!

Overheard in the White House:

Chimp: "Hey Turd Blossom, says here in the New York Slimes that the economy is startin' to tank. What do we do?"
Rove: "Well, Mister President, it's time to ban gay marriage."

-Gay man talking to lesbian in front of Commercial Cafe:
Woman: So what's the latest with your new house?
Man: Ugh, that Queen of the Nile motif has just got to go.

-Two gay men talking to woman who was handing out passes for a lesbian dance:
Woman: Come on ladies! Come in for the afternoon T-dance!
Man: Can I get into the club?
Woman: Sure, if you strap on a pussy.
Man: I spend most of my time bent over, does that count?
Woman: OK, you're in.

We saw three very large drag queens hanging out in front of the Lobster Pot, an awesome seafood place on Commercial Street. We noticed my four year old son staring at them as we walked by. I asked him, "What do you think is going on with those women, Jack?" He looked at both of us with a very confused look and said "I don't know."

I love that town.

Ted Kennedy had been opposed to these projects, but he gave in a little bit under political pressure while we were in the Cape, and wisely so. You can't be the people and the party of greens and be opposed to wind turbines. Its pure liberal hypocrisy. We had a similar situation here in the Catskills recently when proposals for wind turbines on a couple of mountain tops were viciously rejected.

We have to sacrifice a nice view here and there for the sake of future energy independence. Its that simple. We can't keep going around yelling about our over-dependence on foreign oil, our love with ExxonMobil, and our addiction to oil all the while rejecting alternative energy projects that will help all of us out in the long run.

When liberals reject turbines and other green fuel generators, all it does is give fodder to moron right wing pundits and politicians.

I didn't open up my laptop, I didn't read the news, I spent time with the family hiking, biking, beach-sitting, and staring like a zombie out into the Atlantic Ocean. Highly recommended.

Now, back to the usual bullshit. Sigh.

The thing that wouldn't leave

Used ta be that idiot America voted for the chimp because he seems like that kinda guy you wanna invite over for dinner. As Bill Maher said, the president came for dinner, ate all our food and drank all our beer, and its now time for him to leave. And it seems that the same idiot America that voted for this asshole, feels the same way we blue staters do:

"The president's public perception problem is not only about his dismal job performance, but also his striking lack of personal favorability," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

Personal favorability can encompass many things in the minds of voters: character, respect, warmth, kinship, even whether a voter would want to have a beer with a politician. Or in the case of the teetotaling Bush, a soda.

Bush has lost ground on most of those measures.

Gallup, for example, found drops in the number of people who think that Bush is honest and trustworthy, that he shares their values and that he cares about people like them.

I'd like to have a beer with a real red stater, one who voted for this criminal twice and try to get to know why that happened. I try to find diehard GOPers here where I live but they seem to be in hiding. Classic northeast Republicans ran from this guy in March of 2003, so I'd like to find a real redneck who supported the chimp till very recently and find out why.

I imagine the redneck apologizing for voting for him, we have a can of Schlitz together, talk about Eugene Debs, and leave with me feeling great about being right. Ahh dreams.

And finally, in order to prevent
more 9/11's from happening,
I am allowing corporations the right
to cook their books and
the right to their privacy.

Our wonderful chimp just gave John Negroponte the right to excuse publicly-traded companies from their usual accounting and disclosure of financial records. All of this in the name of national security in the post 9/11 world!

Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision.

The timing of Bush's move is intriguing. On the same day the President signed the memo, Porter Goss resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency amid criticism of ineffectiveness and poor morale at the agency. Only six days later, on May 11, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had obtained millions of calling records of ordinary citizens provided by three major U.S. phone companies. Negroponte oversees both the CIA and NSA in his role as the administration's top intelligence official.

The chimp isn't totally to blame for this corruption-laced fiasco. You can see the 'national security' language in the 1934 act:

A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."

Maybe the chimp thinks that the Nazis will invade America and he wants corporations to be able to hide some money away for a rainy day? After all, the Securities Act was passed in 1934 and maybe our president doesn't know that the Nazis were defeated?

Why do we take this? Why do we sit by and let robber barons buy our government? Why do we allow our government to sell us out like this in the false name of national security? I guess that the chimp somehow believes that the corporate sociopath deserves more rights and freedoms than you and I do, all in the name of national security.

Sparing Moussaoui empowers 9/11 survivors

By ANTONIO AVERSANO
First published: Sunday, May 21, 2006

Since the loss of my dear father on Sept. 11, there have been many situations in which people I met as well as the news media were interested in hearing my story and my opinion -- my opinion on invading Afghanistan and Iraq, on terrorism, on life in general and on how someone copes with a loss like this.

But as time passed and my process of healing enabled me to turn my grief into positive actions, my story seemed less interesting to the media and was actually met with some resistance by others.

It felt like it was not OK for me to have healed some of my wounds. It felt like the responses I was getting were telling me that in situations like mine, people are supposed to stay angry, never stop in our pursuit of vengeance and harbor these emotions for the rest of our lives.

It puzzled me that this path of hatred seemed to be considered "normal" to some Americans and that actually working through your emotional distress, and possibly even shedding a tear, is seen as being weak and not well.

I am proud to say that there is a way to honor the life of your passed loved one without sacrificing your well-being and happiness. I've discovered that it is very healthy and can change your life for the better to choose a path of healing, to let yourself get emotionally messy when you need to and to not be afraid to cry or reveal your emotions.

Through a lot of tears, and some great support, my heart is alive and stronger than ever. I am not angry, I do not seek vengeance and I am living a joyous fulfilling life, even in the face of the constant reminders of 9/11 and the loss of my Dad.

It seems many stories and many perspectives similar to mine (which are what I would consider "real news") never make it to the eyes and ears of the rest of us. I hope that someday, positive life-affirming stories and perspectives will not have to appear in opinion columns like this, but may actually make headlines around the world.

Imagine if after the sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, instead of what we heard and saw, the headlines read, "The Power of Love and Compassion Prevails in Death Penalty Trial -- Hearts Are Touched Around the World!" I know from sitting on that witness stand and looking into the eyes of Moussaoui, the jury and the other people in that courtroom, that indeed there was and still is a deeper lesson for all of us in that experience.

So to answer that question for you, I did not testify at this trial to determine the fate of one man. I expressed my voice and my heart because I believe in restorative justice and that killing someone to teach people that killing is wrong is a very poor lesson that even a child would recognize doesn't make sense.

Acting out of fear and anger with hatred and vengeance does not serve to end the path of terror, but instead propagates terror and continues the destructive cycles of violence and hatred in our world. This is what terrorism wants to achieve.

As a proud American and world citizen, it was important for me to speak my personal triumph over terror and declare through my testimony that terrorism has failed in hijacking my life too.

I believe in the courage and resiliency of Americans to take back our hearts from fear and hatred. Through the healing process after losing my Dad, I realized that terror can only exist and grow if we lose ourselves in hatred and allow blind anger to start making the decisions for us.

I also learned that no matter what circumstance may fall upon us in life, we each have a choice in how we want to respond and continue to live our lives. I found the best choice I could make to counteract this act of terror and to honor the life of my Dad was to dedicate my life to living with an open heart, to embracing understanding and compassion, to living passionately with an appreciation for all things and to living my life well.

My life purpose is to speak out for love and to stand for the awakening of our hearts. With all of my heart, I pray for our continued awakening and that one day we may all return to love.

The Great Panderer faced a tough crowd at Madison Square Garden yesterday:

Arizona Sen. John McCain received a cantankerous reception Friday at the New School's commencement, where dozens of faculty members and students turned their backs and raised protest signs and a student speaker mocked him as he sat silently on stage.

The historically liberal university has been roiled in controversy in recent weeks over the selection of the Republican and likely 2008 presidential candidate to speak to its 2,700 graduates and thousands of family, friends and faculty.

The Madison Square Garden crowd cheered loudly as Jean Sarah Rohe said McCain "does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded."

"He will tell us we are young and too naive to have valid opinions," Rohe said. "I am young and though I don't possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."

McCain's eloquent response?

McCain later thanked Rohe for her "Cliff's notes" version of his speech.

Sticking to the remarks he made in earlier speeches, McCain reaffirmed his support for the
Iraq war but urged debate and dissent. And he repeated the theme that drew Rohe's derision.

"When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed and wiser than anyone else I knew," McCain said.

Way to win over voters, Johnny.

That time of the year.
Gotta don my 'real man' outfits and
start clearing brush for the cameras.

I am so tired of election year bullshit, aren't you? Once again, as November approaches, the Republican-led government is calling for destructive legislation on gay marriage, immigration, abortion, and language. Yes, its time for the 'party of moral values' to break out the summer barbecue and skewer our rights once again.

Frankly, I am tired of election year rhetoric that is full of empty issues, and a three-card-monte approach to what is going on in our country and in the world. We never hear anything on any real issues at hand. Why care about gay marriage when American wages have been stagnant for years. No one should give a shit about a national language measure when American jobs are being bled to India and China at an alarming rate. No one is talking about Iraq, on either side of the aisle.

Here is what I want to hear from viable candidates and a viable party:

1. It's the economy, assholes: The U.S. economy is, and has been stagnant for some time. Defense spending is no way to push up economic indicators in a meaningful way. As the Pentagon spends more and more money on defense measures, the only sector that is experiencing any growth is the defense industry, and that makes for a false sense of economic growth: The government is injecting taxpayer dollars and creating an unnatural growth in this one sector. Reagan did the same thing in the 80s and look what happend at the end of his run.

I want politicians to talk about real measures when discussing the economy. No more of this defense spending reliance. What are you going to do to spur real job growth?

2. Outsourcing: We are bleeding jobs to the third world. Corporations sell us on the worldwide benefits of outsourcing when in reality, all they are doing is serving their investors. So, in order to make more money for a fraction of the populace, businesses sell out American workers at an alarming rate to turn over a short term profit. And by the way, white collar workers, this also means you:

In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services. The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream, the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and social security systems.

We are all vulnerable to this trend. So, let's see someone talk honestly about this issue and what they will do to curtail the loss of jobs and even entire industries.

3. The environment: Again, a non-sexy issue this year. What real measures are we taking to get to Kyoto? Why are we the biggest polluter in the world and yet we are doing nothing to work on this problem? Mmm could it be that corporations own politicians? I don't want to hear anything more on that stupid ethanol measure. Tell me, tell us about real environmental legislation that will put the responsibility not only on me, as you all usually do, but on the real culprits: Big business.

4. Lobbying: This is the biggest thorn in democracy's side. What the corruption and scandals of this government's lobbying scandals has shown us is that our democracy is in danger of being nullified by the bigger corporate voice business has over the average voter. Hillary and the chimp will certainly pay more attention to a corporation that adds to their coffers than they will to me, who only has a few bucks and a vote to offer. I cannot and will not support any politician who is beholden to anybody except for the common voter. Howard Dean's run taught us that voter power goes a long way. I want politicians who reject corporate donations and take money from, and listen to, ordinary Americans. Isn't that what democracy is all about???

5. Iraq: End it and end it now. I cannot and will not support any politician who does not support an immediate withdrawal.

Give me politicians who embody these ideals and who focus on these real issues, and I will get behind them 100%. Till then, I'll be sitting on my porch, watching this country go down the tubes.

I just can't get past Nick Cage. Man, he is an annoying twirp.