Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Rep. Adolf Gump

I can't be sure, but a fat legislative Bubba from Georgia throwing it in reverse with his britches around his feet and trying to use his ass as a battering ram while screaming "AMERICA! AMERICA!" could be one of the signs and wonders Jesus told us would herald the Apocalypse.

It's in the Bible. Somewhere in the back.
THIS HERE? Also from Georgia. This fool is running for governor.

Oh . . . we sooooo doomed.

Saturday, June 08, 2013

The Weather With Cap'n Sandy

Yo ho! Yo ho!
What's the weather going to be?
Here's the man who knows,
Let's take a look and see.
Here is Cap'n Sandy with the weather he has found
For Savannah and for Chatham and the counties all around!
 
I'm of two minds on this, which means I may have lost mine completely and you might want to pay me no mind at all.

My one mind thinks that "Savannah Sunshine" may not just have been a weather forecast . . . if you get my smoke signals, kemo sabe. Then again, my other mind thinks, "This is freakin' great! What boring people we have become in the last 50 years."

If I were you, I'd listen to my other mind. It's less of an a-hole.

It laments the loss of eccentric hometown treasures like The Weather With Cap'n Sandy, and it mourns the passing of the men and women who became local legends. Theirs may not have been a better culture than the postmodern one we've created, but both of my minds say it certainly was a richer and more humane one.

Und I vood haff veys uff dealink vith ziss Calamity Clam, ya!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

King of all he surveys


Michael Holton is a popular guy. So it's no surprise that he's homecoming king at his Georgia high school.

Not only that, but by all accounts, Mikey has been both a blessing and an inspiration to his classmates, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single one of them with a bad word to say about their new king. He did win with 97 percent of the vote, after all.

Michael Holton has Down syndrome. That he became homecoming king, has earned scores of friends and been an inspiration and a blessing to modern-day American -- teens desperate for both inspiration and blessing -- is because his mom, Amy, was among the 8 percent of women who don't abort their unborn child after receiving a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis.

Think about that for a minute.

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

I'll bet they stomp puppies, too


I don't believe in torture. I am willing, however, to consider an exception to this for certain multinational bankers after watching the above WSB-TV report.

Others well to my right, though, might think the real problem down in Georgia is that Fulton County sheriff's deputies are a bunch of squishy-soft socialists. For refusing to throw a 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter out of their house and onto the street after Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on them, with the blessing of a local judge.

Chase, which services the loan for Deutsche Bank, took $25 billion in TARP money from the American taxpayer after investment bankers blew up the U.S. economy. And those who received much financial mercy from the American government and people showed none to two little old ladies in the dead of winter.

That is, until the TV cameras showed up, and the cops discovered that sometimes the law is no fit thing for a just man to enforce.



THERE'S EVEN a scripture for this. Let us turn to Matthew, Chapter 18:
21 Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

22
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

23
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.

24
When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.

25
Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.


26
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’

27
Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.

28
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’

29 Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

30
But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.

31
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair.

32
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.


33
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’

34 Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.

35 So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
WATERBOARDING: It's not just for Muslim "enemy combatants."

I wonder whether the present crop of publicly God-fearing Republican presidential candidates -- some of whom are chomping at the bit to torture somebody . . .
anybody -- are willing to go there with the very folks the Bible says have it coming. Their pals the bankers.


Something tells me the answer is no.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Marching through Georgia

"I can make this march, and I will make Georgia howl!"

-- William Tecumseh Sherman,
founding superintendent,
Louisiana State Seminary
of Learning (now LSU)

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Who needs killin'?


When you get right down to it, the United States is really just a great big Texas. We're pretty sure that some people just need killin'.

Cop killers need killin'. They're at the top of the killin' list. They need killin' even if we're only pretty sure they actually killed a cop.

Troy Davis, down in Georgia, needs killin' bad. The convicted cop killer needs killin' so bad that the state parole board looked past seven of nine original witnesses recanting all or a portion of their testimony, as well as a dearth of physical evidence, to make it so come Wednesday night.


HERE IS the latest from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
A landmark Georgia case brought about the abolition of capital punishment in the United States, and another landmark Georgia case reinstated it. But even with those monumental precedents on the books, no Georgia death sentence has drawn as much international attention and controversy as the one scheduled Wednesday night for Troy Anthony Davis.

If Davis is put to death as scheduled, the legacy of this bitterly fought case could be the persistence of unyielding prosecutors -- and the victim's family -- who stared down worldwide criticism and innocence claims to see his execution carried out. It will also leave many wondering if the state executed an innocent man.

"Justice will be done and that's what we were fighting for," said Anneliese MacPhail, whose son was a 27-year-old Savannah police officer when he was gunned down 22 years ago. When asked if she thinks Davis killed her son, she answered, "There is no doubt in my mind."

Davis sits on death row for the 1989 killing of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, a former Army Ranger who was moonlighting on a security detail when he was shot three times before he could draw his handgun. Today marks the fourth execution date for Davis; on the three prior occasions, he was granted a stay.

A decision early Tuesday by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles rejecting pleas to halt Davis' execution appears to have all but sealed his fate. The board has the sole authority in Georgia to grant clemency to a condemned inmate.

Still, Davis' lawyers said they plan to file last-ditch appeals today claiming there remains new evidence that shows Davis was convicted and sentenced to death based on misleading evidence and testimony. "I am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice," Brian Kammer, one of Davis' attorneys, said.

Davis' supporters said they would ask Chatham County prosecutors to void the execution warrant. "This is a civil rights violation, a human rights violation in the worst way," the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, said at a Tuesday press conference.

The five-member parole board did not disclose the breakdown of its vote. It also did not address questions involving Davis' innocence claims or say it was convinced beyond any doubt he is guilty.

Instead, in a statement, the board said its members "have not taken their responsibility lightly and certainly understand the emotions attached to a death-penalty case." The board said it considered all the information and "deliberated thoroughly" before reaching its decision.

I DON'T KNOW that anything will change how in love with death -- and the death penalty -- we Americans are. Some people just need killin'. That's it. Period. End of discussion.

We kill crooks because they done killed somebody. We kill fetuses because they done inconvenienced somebody -- or their presence done scared somebody to death . . . or they might be born deformed . . . or Mama and Daddy are dead broke . . . or something.


In foreign lands, we kill foreigners -- with bombs and tanks and assault rifles. We get pissed off, and they get in the way.

That's just the way we are. There is no problem so daunting that we can't fix it with somebody's premature demise.

What part of "end of discussion" do you not understand?

Then again, since we're stuck with our penchant for "the final solution," it seems to me that we can at least be sporting about it. Take executions, for example. The Georgia parole board is dead-set (pun intended) on executing Troy Davis no matter the doubts, no matter the protests . . . and no matter getting seriously on the wrong side of the pope.

Fine. Obviously the members are sure enough to stake a man's life on their findings.

But are they sure enough to stake their own lives on it? It would only be sporting if they weren't as sure as they ought to have been -- screw up and kill an innocent man, give up your own lives as retribution. It's the American Way, and we Americans are about nothing if not retribution.

If we are to have the death penalty, that is the only fair way to implement it . . . and to make sure we're not killing innocent people for others' sins. If a parole board orders an unjust execution, and it's carried out, and the error is uncovered, the members should be given just enough time to get their affairs in order before their case is forwarded to the Court of Heavenly Appeals.

The same should apply to sentencing judges, condemning jurors and clemency-denying governors. After all, fair is fair.

And we Americans are about nothing if not fairness, right?

Right?

Friday, July 15, 2011

That coulda been AL-QAIDA lemonade!


In Georgia, the law's the law. And you have to be "consecutive" in enforcing the law.

If you're one of Midway's finest, that means you have to consecutively work the steps of policing an unheard-of burg in the wilds of Carter Country.

First . . . be an idiot.


Being a bully, you can work on when you run across a lemonade stand run by three little "girlses."


UNFORTUNATELY, a Savannah TV station thought it was sufficient to do only a news story on Barney Fife Gone Wild (and in drag):
The girls had only been opened [sic] for one day before Midway’s police chief and another officer cruised by and saw the stand.

“They told us to shut it down [and we didn't know why],” 10-year-old Skylar Roberts said.

“We had told them, we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore. The law is the law, and we have to be consistent with how we enforce the laws,” Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar said.

By a city ordinance, the girls must have a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up shop, even on residential property. The permits cost $50 a day and a total of $180 per year. City officials said it’s their job to keep everyone safe and healthy, and there can be no exceptions to the rules.

“We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with, so we acted accordingly by city ordinance,” Chief Morningstar said.

“It’s almost like they don’t have anything better to do. I’m going to let it go. I’m trying to teach them good. I don’t think if I keep on, it’ll teach them a good thing,” Amy Roberts said.
NO, DOING a story on this and letting it go is neither good television nor good citizenship. What's required here is the Full Gomer.
STEP 1: Get copies of the municipal code and the state criminal code. And a lawyer.

STEP 2: You, the lawyer, your cameraman and the assembled volumes of The Law
(which is The Law, you know) stake out Chief Ditzo and her Keystone Crusaders.

STEP 3: Wait for them to violate something. Keep the camera running.

STEP 4: Once the violation has occurred and been duly videotaped, you, the lawyer, the assembled volumes of the state and municipal codes and the cameraman pile out of your stakeout location --
camera running -- yelling "Citizen's arrest! Citizen's arrest!"
MAKE SURE you go step-by-step in this, and don't try to do all this stuff concurrently. That wouldn't work.

Because you have to be consecutive in enforcing the law.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Mayor takes up cross, fights for Them


Repeat after me: Justice without mercy is no justice at all.

During this sad season of empty wallets and cold hearts in America, one small-town Georgia mayor understands this. It probably will end up costing him dearly.

Acting like a true Christian usually does. It was for no small reason that Jesus told His disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."

Today, in state after state across this country, the cross we take up will look something like what
Cable News Network illuminates here:

Paul Bridges leans toward his desk, picks up the phone and punches in a number with the fast, laser focus of a man on a mission. The mayor of this tiny town in South Georgia is ready for battle -- and looking for a new weapon.

"I need some help getting a website," he said, spelling out the words of the domain name he wants for a site promoting immigration reform.

The man on the other end says he'll try to help. But that isn't enough for Bridges.

"I really don't know what your beliefs are on this issue," he said, "but I'm going to persuade you."

Bridges wants the federal government to come up with a solution that gives the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States a chance to work here legally.

"You get me an invite to that Tea Party meeting and I'm going ... I'd like to give the contrary viewpoints. Surely one person in the audience is going to be sympathetic."

(snip)

Bridges is one of more than a dozen plaintiffs suing Georgia and its governor, trying to stop the state's new immigration law. They won a reprieve Monday when a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of the law scheduled to go into effect July 1.

One of those sections would criminalize exactly what the mayor of Uvalda does almost every day: knowingly driving a car with illegal immigrants as passengers. The judge also put on hold parts of the law that allow police to ask about immigration status during investigations of criminal violations.

But the legal fight is far from over. It could drag on for months and reach the chambers of the nation's highest court. It's a struggle that pits Bridges against many members of his own party and could hurt his political future. But that doesn't stop the mayor.

THE HEART of Georgia's law -- like so many others that have been, or will be, passed across the United States in these times -- is a basic indifference to the humanity of its targets. Justice is one thing, as is upholding the law. Intentional cruelty and a one-size-fits-all approach to a vast array of humanity and motivations is entirely another.

It is here that American "respect for the law" begins to ape that championed by monstrous regimes we once fought to the death.
Bridges sits on a wood bench in the front row of a courtroom in Atlanta, clutching a notebook. The atmosphere is tense, quiet. He is nauseous and alone.

Friends are waiting in a van in a nearby parking deck. The family has lived in Georgia for more than a decade, but now they are afraid to walk outside.

Bridges is fighting for them, and for countless other friends and former students. His decision to be "the mayor for everybody" led him here.

The family is willing to sit for hours in the heat so he can drive them to a shopping mall after the hearing. Uncertain how the law will affect them, they have canceled plans for the 14-year-old's coming-of-age quinceañera party in case they have to leave the country. They hope to get their deposit back on a dress.

"All rise. Court is now in session," the bailiff said.

Omar Jadwat, an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, mentions Bridges in his opening argument, describing him as "Mayor Bridges, who on occasion helps undocumented friends come from Florida to Georgia."

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. grills the attorney representing the state.

He asks what would happen if police pulled over an 18-year-old citizen for speeding while he was on the way to the grocery store with his illegal immigrant mother.

As the judge speaks, Bridges nods so intensely that his whole body rocks back and forth. He is encouraged by the questioning. The judge seems to see what he does: a law that makes criminals out of good citizens and tears families apart.

But he grimaces at the attorney's answer.

"It would be no different than if his mother had pockets full of cocaine, and he was knowingly transporting her to go sell it," said Devon Orland, senior assistant attorney general for the state.

THINK about that for a minute.

Repite conmigo: La justicia sin la misericordia no es justicia en absoluto.

It is a finer line than we think between "truth, justice and the American Way" and "ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer." That line usually is crossed when scared people blame THEM! -- and then do evil, calling it good.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Unction Junction, what's your function?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


The Good Book says there is a time for everything:

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. . . ."

When Rachel Maddow was laying into Birther Nation, a doctor in Tuscaloosa, Ala., rightly had other things on his mind.

Dr. David Hinson was working at the hospital when the tornado hit. He and his wife had to walk several blocks to get to their house, which was destroyed. Several houses down, he helped pull three students from the rubble. One was dead and two were badly injured. He and others used pieces of debris as makeshift stretchers to carry them to an ambulance.

"We just did the best we could to get them out and get them stabilized and get them to help," he said. "I don't know what happened to them."

WHEN the Rachel Maddow Show took to the air Wednesday night, scenes like this were playing out all over Alabama and Mississippi. They would be playing out shortly in Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky.

None of this registers, however, in a special place where politicos and ideologues can rage against the machine unmolested by real life or real people. I call it Unction Junction.

Yes, we need to speak out against the birthers, not that anyone's mind will be changed at this point. But "there is a season and a time unto every purpose under the heaven," and last night wasn't the time for that.

Another thing we need to worry about --
and this might be as good a time as any to do it -- is an ideologically obsessed and hyperventilating media culture that doesn't know its Ecclesiastes.

While we were otherwise occupied. . . .


Wednesday evening, all the cable-news chatterers were chattering away about President Obama, birthers, evil Republicans and evil Democrats.

They were losing their minds over Donald Trump losing his mind.

Well, not Piers Morgan, it must be said.
Cable News Network's resident Brit was giddy over the someday-heir to the throne's impending marriage to a commoner way too good looking for Himself.

As far as we know (and the ranks are growing by the minute), 269 would-be viewers in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky were otherwise occupied. They were dying -- being bludgeoned, sliced, impaled or crushed as massive tornadoes turned the world around them into rubble.

Of course, you would have been hard pressed to notice if you were watching CNN, MSNBC or the Fox News Channel. Lawrence, Rachel, Eliot, Ed, Bill and Sean had bigger fish to fry, better "Others" to hate on than to focus on a bunch of Bubbas being ground up in the worst tornado outbreak since 1974.

SEE, to the media elite -- and to Washington . . . and to the think tanks . . . and to the entertainment industry . . . and to the eternally outraged activists whose continued existence depends upon staying eternally outraged (and making sure Lawrence, Rachel, Eliot, Ed, Bill and Sean do, too) -- we're all The Other, pretty much.

We don't matter, just our money or our votes. And if we're dead, there's no percentage in noticing that 269 of us just got bludgeoned, sliced, impaled or crushed to Kingdom Come.


ON THE other hand, video like this is da bomb. Pretty dramatic stuff here. Stuff's getting blowed up good, and you can cut the dramatic tension with a knife as the meteorologists' voices grow ever more urgent as the milewide Swirling Wall of Death (TM) approaches.

Yeah, with video like this, and with daylight views of all this rubble, 269 dead Bubbas might be worth a second look. Cable "news" might have an opening between the more urgent political contretemps Wednesday and the more pressing royal wedding Friday. Let's see whether CNN, MSNBC and Fox can shoehorn it in.

Rachel can blame it on global warming and the GOP. Sean can blame it on an angry God who's had it with the godless Democrats.

And Anderson can keep the tornadic supercells honest. Might work.


Videotape at 5:30, analysis at 8.

Friday, September 17, 2010

1959: TV 's marching through Georgia

They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues

-- Steely Dan


From the June 29, 1959, edition of Broadcasting magazine, we have printed evidence that the 1950s were a strange era, and stranger yet south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

I can understand mythologizing a lost rebellion in defense of a discredited institution and exploitation as a way of life -- I am from the Deep South, after all. I suspect people in the Balkans understand this primal impulse as well.


WHAT I'M more loathe to understand is the use of the Lost Cause and a catastrophically failed military adventure as fodder for an advertising campaign . . . one ostensibly intended to convey the notion that you're conquering a market and winning sales for your advertisers. I mean, really?

For a TV station in . . . Georgia?

Why not just bang out some ad copy along the lines of this?
We're WRBL -- Wee ReBeL in Columbus -- and our half-starved, underequipped (and underage) advertising staff is going to run out of ammunition right when you need it most and let your competition blaze through Georgia just like Sherman's army!
WELL, maybe it sold some fried chicken for Lester Maddox up in Atlanta.

Probably all catering jobs for Klan rallies.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Hey, Boo Boo! Don't mess with the Russians

The Bush Administration ought to have thought about how badly Russia can screw over the United States -- every day in every way -- before America started messing around in the Bear's neck of the woods, trying to humiliate Yogi in front of Boo Boo and everybody.

And George Bush has big trouble now, because Yogi Bear (a.k.a. Vladimir Putin) -- who's "smarter than the average bear" -- is in the process of stealing his "pic-a-nic" basket, as
The Times of London now tells us:
Russia defied the United States yesterday by announcing plans to sell military hardware to Iran and Venezuela.

The head of the state arms exporter said that he was negotiating to sell antiaircraft systems to Iran despite American objections. Russia has already delivered 29 Tor-M1 missile systems under a $700 million (£386 million) deal with Iran in 2005.

“Contacts between our countries are continuing and we do not see any reason to suspend them,” Anatoli Isaikin, the general director of Rosoboronexport, told the RIA-Novosti news agency at an arms fair in South Africa.

Reports have circulated for some time that the Kremlin is preparing to sell its S300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, offering greater protection against a possible US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities. The missiles have a range of more than 90 miles (150km).

Sergei Chemezov, the head of the state-owned Russian Technologies, also disclosed that Venezuela’s leader, Hugo Chávez, wanted to buy antiaircraft systems, armoured personnel carriers, and SU35 fighter jets when they come into production in 2010.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, one of the closest allies of Mr Putin, the Prime Minister, visited Venezuela and Cuba this week. Kommersant, the financial newspaper, said that Russia was forming “alliance relations” with the two antiAmerican regimes as a response to US involvement in former Soviet republics.

The Russian moves mark a serious deterioration in relations between Washington and Moscow. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, threated to block Russia’s membership of key international organisations. She told the Kremlin that its “authoritarian policies” could prevent it from joining the World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which coordinates economic policies among industrialised countries. In an outspoken speech to the German Marshall Fund, an institution promoting greater cooperation between America and Europe, Dr Rice said: “The picture emerging is of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.

“Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation is now in question. And so too is its attempt to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

She added: “Russia’s international standing is worse now than at any time since 1991.”
HEY, CONDI! I don't think Russia really cares. It has the oil . . . and your pic-a-nic basket.

Was Georgia, Kosovo and the Ukraine
really worth riling up Yogi? Not even Ranger Smith can help you now.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Do as we say, not as we do


The Worst President Ever is issuing ultimatums to Russia about how to handle affairs on its own border.

What makes George W. Bush's somber proclamation even worse is the mind-blowing hypocrisy of it all,
as evidenced by this Associated Press dispatch:

The Russian foreign minister said Thursday that Georgia could "forget about" getting back the two separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Medvedev also met with their leaders in Kremlin this past week, raising the prospect that Moscow could absorb the regions even though the territory is internationally recognized as being within Georgia's borders.

Bush disputed the claim that two areas may not be part of Georgia's future. They are of Georgia now, he said at the ranch, and reaffirmed that they are within recognized borders. There is "no room for debate on this," the president said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who briefed Bush after a quick trip to Georgia, said that "when it is resolved, I mean the underlying conflict, it must be resolved on the basis of the territorial integrity of Georgia."
I'M SURE about half of the Serbian population just stroked out. A mind can wrap itself around only just so much.

Seems to me Kosovo used to lay within the internationally recognized borders of Serbia. Until the West decided it didn't. Now it's the world's newest, internationally recognized, independent narco-terrorist state.

Meanwhile, Americans follow the party line, tsk-tsking about the thuggery of Russia and praising our leaders' efforts to stick the American people's noses in everybody else's business. Even in everybody else's own back yards.

And we used to say the Soviets were brainwashed.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

America speaks to the people of Georgia

As Russian bombs leveled their homes and Russian tanks scattered their army, residents of the would-be newest NATO member state wanted to know where their Western friends were.

GEORGIANS, as recounted by Newsweek below, wanted to know where was President George W. Boosh . . . er, Bush.
As civilians and Georgian military personnel fled Russia's expanding offensive, many were asking why the country's allies, including the United States, haven't come to their aid. The head of Georgia's National Security Council, Alexander Lomaia, told NEWSWEEK on Monday, "If all countries together said [to Russia], 'We are not buying your gas and we'll exclude you from all international organizations, you will be an international pariah,' [then] they would stop."

After surviving a bombing, David Tshimashvili, the commander of a military tank base in the capital Tbilisi, said, "We thought Bush was our friend. We supported them in Iraq. Where is Bush? Will he come here now?" Tshimashvili remembered when thousands gathered in Tbilisi's Freedom Square in 2005 to hear the American president, who declared that the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected."

Tshimashvili had his tanks evacuate the base two days ago, but he was still on site when Russian bombs hit, injuring him in his arm, shoulder and chest. From Tbilisi Central University Hospital, where he is recovering, the commander said, "I still believe in Democratic values, but never again in America. We feel very disappointed that there is no real help from the U.S. and Europe."
THESE GEORGIAN PATRIOTS, whose country picked an unwinnable fight with Russia, deserve an answer. Unfortunately, President Boosh . . . er, Bush could not be with us tonight to answer our allies' heartfelt questions. He did, however, leave us the following video -- his personal message of consolation and advice to the Georgian people.

Could somebody get the lights, please?

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and Sen. John Blutarsky:




Note: Contains some profanity.

'We are all Georgians now'


John McCain "knows" wrong. He doesn't "speak for every American," like he told Georgia's nutwagon president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

John McCain doesn't speak for me. Not even close -- at least not how he thinks he speaks for me,
as reported by Agence France Presse:
Republican White House hopeful John McCain Tuesday stepped up a fusillade against Russian "aggression" and declared that today, "we are all Georgians."

Addressing voters in Pennsylvania, McCain said he had spoken by telephone earlier with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who he said wanted to thank the American people for their support.

"I told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him, today, we are all Georgians," said the Republican, a hardliner against Russia who wants the mighty nation expelled from the Group of Eight club.

Both McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have condemned Russia's incursion into Georgia following the Saakashvili government's abortive attempt to rein in the breakaway, pro-Moscow region of South Ossetia.
I'LL GIVE SEN. HOTHEAD this: We are all Georgians now. And how that is isn't anything like McCain thinks it is.

Today, in the United States and across the West -- but especially in America -- we are all Georgians in that we are stupid fools who were insane enough to elect even bigger and stupider fools to lead us. The stupid fools in power have gone on to do staggeringly stupid and foolish things -- like start a foolish war in Iraq when there was no just cause for doing so.

Our stupid and foolish leaders also have spent the 17-plus years since the fall of the Soviet Union poking the Russian bear with a stick and humiliating a proud nation that, increasingly, doesn't need to take that kind of s*** anymore.

Meanwhile, Georgia's stupid and foolish president, Saakashvili, launched a stupid and foolish all-out assualt on South Ossetia, killing Russian soldiers in the process.


Some say he stepped into the bear's trap. Be that as it may, Saakashvili still poked Un-Gentle Ivan in the eye and dared the bear to do something about it.

This did not go well for Georgia. In fact, "Geor" is lying, bloodied, over here. "Gia" is somewhere over yonder. But you really don't want to look.

Yes, "we're all Georgians" now. Rub-a-dub-dub, all dopes in a tub. And how do you think we got there?


This past week, Georgians got theirs. We'll get ours soon enough. From somebody.

Monday, August 11, 2008

What do we do now, Lt. Dan? Lt. Dan? Lt. Dan?


The United States has spent the last 17 years poking a stick into the Russian bear's eye, and now Georgie, and Dickie and Condi are shocked, shocked that it's done gone and ate somebody.

THIS, from an Associated Press think piece by Anne Gearan:
The Russian Bear is back, and the United States doesn't seem to be able to do much about it.

The United States saw trouble coming between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic turned nemesis, but didn't have enough leverage, focus or resolve to intervene. Even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a specialist on the old Soviet Union, may have misjudged the combustible combination of Russian grievance and ambition.

The Bush administration's assurances of solidarity with a young democracy also may have given Georgia's silver-tongued, U.S.-educated leader a little too much swagger as he picked a playground fight he never could win on his own.

(snip)

In talking points on the conflict obtained by The Associated Press, the Bush administration claims it had no specific advance warning that Georgia would try to retake control of a breakaway border region largely loyal to Russia.

That doesn't mean diplomats, intelligence analysts and others weren't worried about worsening Russian relations with Georgia over the past two years and in particular about the shoving match over ethnic conflicts left over from the Cold War.

Rice went to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to try to calm things down in July, but infuriated Russia with a public endorsement of Georgia's "territorial integrity." Saakashvili used the visit to display his close relationship with Washington, the organizing principle for an imperfectly democratic government that has collected millions of dollars in U.S. aid.

U.S. officials say they gave Saakashvili a strong warning not to put a match to the ethnic tinderboxes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even as Rice and others took Georgia's side in public. Bush backed the Georgian claim when he visited Tbilisi in 2005.

"The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone," Bush said then.
I THINK THE PART about a secretary of state who goes to the tinder box to "calm things down" but instead starts throwing around lit matches is rich, indeed.

The problem with the neocon cabal in Washington, as it wreaks havoc at home and abroad, is it's the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Without Lieutenant Dan.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

If loving Georgia is wrong,
Bushies don't want to be right

Dick Cheney's mouth is writing checks that America's ass can't cash.

The Associated Press
has the details of exactly how moronically belligerent the Bush Administration is when it comes to sticking the United States' nose into affairs that are none of its business:
The violence appeared to show Russia's determination to subdue diminutive, U.S.-backed Georgia, even at the risk of international reproach. Russia fended off a wave of international calls to observe Georgia's cease-fire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops have indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was said to have told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia's military actions in Georgia "must not go unanswered."

Cheney's press secretary, Lee Ann McBride, said the vice president spoke Sunday afternoon with Saakashvili. "The vice president expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she said.

Cheney told Saakashvili "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community," McBride said.
IT TOOK ONE SEMESTER of getting a handle on "realpolitik" in Ramon Arango's world politics class at Louisiana State for me to know -- in about one second flat -- that foolishness like this from the American government will not turn out well for the United States.

It seems to me there are three things you'd better have a handle on before you screw with Russia:

* Are you right?

* Is it in America's vital interest?

* Is it worth the price you will pay for messing with the Russian bear in an area of its vital interest?

Looking at all three areas, you're left wondering whether President Bush and Cheney are stark, raving mad. Well, actually, I don't much wonder about that anymore. I'm sadly sure of the unfortunate answer.

First, the United States' position on this is dead wrong. I don't care how much of an "ally" Georgia is to the West, Georgians crossed a line and "
have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."

The Georgian government violated its own cease fire to launch an all-out attack on the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Its forces killed hundreds, and probably more than 1,000, civilians . . . plus at least 10 Russian peacekeeping troops.

What the hell was Russia supposed to do? Georgian forces broke a cease fire, killing Russian troops in the process.

Then there is the Kosovo question. In 1999, NATO (meaning primarily the United States) went to war against Serbia -- thousands of miles removed from American shores -- to safeguard Kosovar autonomy and its residents' human rights, which Western nations saw as being encroached upon by Serb authorities.

Yet NATO and the United States now condemn Russia for going to war against Georgia -- on the Russian Federation's southern border -- to safeguard South Ossetian autonomy and its residents' human rights, which Russians saw being molested in a bloody military assault.

The scenarios are identical, yet the American government says it "must not go unanswered" when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev does in 2008 exactly what U.S. President Bill Clinton did March 24, 1999.

Second, does America's outrage at Russia's actions mean, in the name of principled consistency, we now have to
give nearly a third of the United States back to Mexico?

Inquiring minds really would like to know.

THE PROPER RESPONSE by Russia to the neoconservative busybodies in charge of U.S. foreign policy ought to go something like this: "Shut the #$&* up, and mind your own business. If you don't, we'll screw up your oil supply, re-create the Warsaw Pact and grant Mexico membership."

Some things are America's business. Other things aren't. The Bush Administration, of course, doesn't know which is which.

Unfortunately for all of us, the country that put these idiots in charge of its affairs certainly will deserve whatever "just deserts" the Bear serves up.