Patrick’s Rants

Freedom is on the (Death) March. Remember how Dubya praised the elections in Iran? Remember how he said it was because we were in Iraq and losing brave soldiers on a daily basis?
Well now several people held as hostages in the infamous Iran Hostage Crisis are saying the man elected President in Iran was one of their hostage takers.
Now I won’t say that Dubya could have known that this man would be elected, but let’s look at this for a moment. Freedom is on the March. Democracy is spreading. And all the people being elected hate us. Could that have anything to do with us lying to the UN about Saddam and attacking a country that had nothing to do with terrorism, the attacks on 9/11 and recent memos stating that war was predecided? (Excerpts from the Downing Street Memo on CNN.com)
Freedom is on the (Death) March.

is the Life Aquatic. Where do I start? The basic premise of the movie, Scientist loses best life-long friend to never before seen and endangered sea creature and vows revenge, is pretty funny. The plot is somewhat slow going, especially for someone addicted to car chases and body parts blown to bits. The movie probably would do better as a play – I think it was actually based on a play. There are some funny scenes, but not nearly as many as I would expect from a Bill Murray film.
It did contain a fair amount of death, destruction, piracy on the high seas (not to be confused with making illegal copies of the DVD), a three legged dog and a wealthy nemesis who dogs Zizou (Murray) throughout the film. Of course, since it’s filmed in a documentary type format the drama surrounding death is minimalized and the gun fight scenes are characaturized. Too much of the film will be missed if you only watch it once – this one requires at least two sittings – as much of the really interesting plots run just under the surface and are referenced so quietly or as an aside that the real meat of the movie is missed.
If you do manage to watch it through once, pop it back in to catch all the subtleties that you surely missed the first time crunching the popcorn too loudly in your mouth.

Last spring I posted a couple of pages regarding my missing brother Charley. About a month later he came back home driving non-stop for over 3000 miles (did it in around 40 something hours too). Recently he sent me a link to a web site that is totally unrelated to him or I. I was reminded to post link by a site that I visit frequently.
For all those missing children, adults and family members trying to cope, the Charley Project brings a little hope and one more way to get the message out about missing people.

The second confirmed case of Mad Cow disease and the second George Bush both hail from Texas.

Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. And he supplied support to Osama Bin Ladin for the attacks against the United States on 9/11/01. Freedom is on the march and the Iraqi people are better off with Saddam out of power.
Saddam Hussein helped to fund the worst terror attacks on this country… oh. He had nothing to do with 9/11¹. But he did have Weapons of Mass Destruction that he was ready to use on us… oh wait he didn’t². Well at least Freedom is on the march… after all look at Iran’s recent free elections³.
In response to whether we should have a time table for moving out of Iraq our “President” said that would give the terrorists “hope” that all they would have to do is wait us out. I mean, we never give up. Just ask the Koreans, Vietnamese and Somalians whether we pull out of unpopular wars that send American soldiers home in body bags. So answer the question Dubya, how do you measure when we can start bringing our troops home? When the Iraqi’s can “stand up” for themselves then we can “stand down”?
From Meet the Press, June 12th:

MR. RUSSERT: Realistically, Congressman Weldon and Senator Biden, how long in your estimation will it take for the Iraqis to have, say, 150,000 level-one troops so the Americans can come home?

REP. WELDON: I would say a minimum of eight to 10 months, maximum probably two years, and that’s assuming everything goes well.

After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy.

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.

Um… did you read the 9/11 Commission Report? Didn’t think so. Too busy trying to read “My Pet Goat” or some “Dick and Jane” book. Repeat after me, “Neither Iraq nor Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks”, or for that matter did any country or leader of any country¹.
From the speech:

Today, Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions.

From Meet the Press, June 12th – both Repuplicans and Democrats agree:

SEN. BIDEN: Three battalions. You’re talking about thousands, Tim. Not tens of thousands.⁴

Come on Dubya! This isn’t a blow job that you are lying to us about. In fact, if you had gotten your knob polished once in a while you probably wouldn’t be going off half-cocked on your “Freedom Death March”.

1 – Chapter 10 9/11 Commission Report Full 9/11 Commission Report (thanks Steve)
2 – CIA reports Iraq had no WMD
3 – Iran elects hard liner extremist Islamic president
4 – MTP – June 12th

In a tremendous blow to private property rights for individuals, the US Supreme Court ruled that land could be taken from private owners and given to other private owners to be turned into an office complex. Essentially this means that we are now (if we ever weren’t) ruled by money. If you are a home owner and you want just to mind your own business you might find that condos, a sports arena or even a mall benefit the public more than your simple home. Pack it up… you have very little chance of winning. The ruling is covered in more detail over at cnn.com.

In related news The Hotel Lost Liberty is looking to build a hotel in Weare, New Hampshire.

Suppose that Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter gets this eminent domain case fast tracked to the Supreme Court? He would have to recuse hisself from the case and assuming that nothing else changes the ruling would be deadlocked at 4-4? This would be interesting one to watch. Unfortunately the petition – if it’s even real – will be struck down at the local level.

In recent publicly aired Senate hearings, Donald Rumsfeld told Senator Ted Kennedy that he has tried to resign twice but that Bush would not accept his resignation. Apparently Rummy is smart enough to realize that he should resign but he keeps getting rejected by Bush. What about just not showing up to work? I mean, if he just stopped going into the office Bush (when he returned from vacation) would eventually notice and hire a replacement.
Without trivializing the very dangerous situation that many women find themseleves in I have to say this sounds like battered woman syndrome. Rummy tries to leave but Bush keeps telling him he loves him and that he can’t leave.

Ever notice how some of the more “popular” artists sing their name over and over in their songs? Yeah Run DMC did it, MC Hammer did it, Vanilla Ice (Ice baby) did it, the Fat Boys it… but these days it’s almost like a subliminal _{usher… usher} constant reminder of the “artist’s” name. Ludicris, or however he paints it, Little John… it’s not really the good singers who sing their own name over and over, it’s the hacks. If they were good artists we would seek them out. These guys just try to make it so you don’t remember anyone else’s name.
I think I’ll start a band called Patrick _patrick ^patrick look for my new cd in a storage bin near you _patrick ^patrick

Tom is out of control. He recently fired his long time agent who used to keep him in check, to hire his sister. He is spewing the party line from the “Church” of Scientology as – well – gospel. He jumps around, screaming on furniture proclaiming his “love” for soon to be indoctrinated Katie Holms. He is almost violent in his interview with Billy Bush in his attacks on Brooke Shields regarding her revelations that she had Post Partum Depression which were treated with medication.
I applaud Brooke for handling her PPD in a responsible manner. She sought help. She did not drown her children nor drag them into the back yard and bash their heads in with rocks – she took medically prescribed drugs. Then she wrote a book. Tom, who will never understand PPD – which affects women from all walks of life – bashes her for promoting psychiatry and medically prescribed drugs.
You see Tom doesn’t believe in psychiatry or psychology. Nor does he believe that anyone should be prescribed medications for any mental imbalance or disorder. He said as much to Billy. Tom apparently believes that he is the new mouthpiece for the CoS, and maybe he is.
If he were not a celebrity I would expect that the restraining order would have been in place before the end of his “performance” on Oprah. No normal human behaves that way, unless you count the Jerry Springer show.
If that weren’t bad enough Tom and Katie are now engaged. I don’t know who barfingly came up with the cutsie name of TomKat but I can’t help but think it fits. A tomcat is a nasty, unneutered male cat typically found wandering in alleys trying to get over on all the female kitties. It’s also an adult link site: tomkat.com. I can only carry that to the conclusion that this relationship is seen as perverse to many observers, that Tom appears to be under the influence of his hormones and really should be dosed up with some of the very drugs he claims to be on a crusade against.
For a look at the other, darker, more sinister side of the CoS visit Operation Clambake.

Ever laugh so hard your sides ache?
Microsoft is changing the name of its Windows^TM update tool.
Let’s see if we can follow along:

• MS has a tool called Software Update Services (SUS)
• MS decides to change the name to Windows Update Services (WUS)
• WUS just sounds bad so they change the name to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)

And here’s the FAQs with the FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions) interspersed (more…)