BUSH'S ANNUS HORRIBILIS

Bush began 2005 celebrating his electoral victory and proclaiming a "turning point" in Iraq. But in every crisis he faced this year - from Terri Schiavo to Hurricane Katrina to Iraq - the tide turned against him.

In his second inaugural address, George W. Bush four times summoned the image of fire - "a day of fire," "we have lit a fire," "fire in the minds of men," and "untamed fire."

Over the course of the first year of his second term, all four of the ancient Greek elements have wreaked havoc: the fire of war and "fire in the minds of men" of culture war, the air and water of Hurricane Katrina, whirlwinds raging across the earth from Iraq to Florida, from Louisiana to Washington.

Through obsession or obliviousness, rigidity or laziness, Bush got himself singed, tossed about, engulfed, and nearly buried.

He began the year proclaiming "a turning point" in Iraq. In every crisis he faced, he assumed that everything would turn his way as it always had in the past. He ended the year declaring "victory" within reach.   more »

It was awful. I couldn't stop pawing the keyboard, looking for one more thrill, clicking that depraved trackpad of titillation over and over again.

But I made it out, barely intact, to warn you of the perils of the Number #1 Christian Porn Site - XXXChurch— Satan help me if I ever fall into their clutches again.

I feel guilty giving you the link to this most peculiar ministry, the Triple-X Church, which preaches against porn by copping as "Porno" an attitude as possible. God knows they don't need the traffic; they've been terribly successful wooing young men to purge themselves of their guilty obsessions.

By using sexy graphics, humor, lots of baby curse epithets ("get your crap together!") and avoiding boring Bible rants, the two "pastors" who run this site convince men to pledge that they won't look at sexy pictures of women anymore, even though they are the first to admit that the habit of looking sure does give you a hard boner in your pants.

Take a peek at for their radio show that I've posted: a hot babe, just waiting to embrace your manhood! This is conservative, puritanical subversion at its most Machiavellian.   more »

Despite enjoying far better living standards and more avenues for pleasure than before, human beings are arguably no happier now than they've ever been.

Sociologists like to point out that the percentage of those describing themselves as "happy" or "very happy" has remained virtually unchanged in Europe and the United States since such surveys were first conducted in the 1950's.

And yet, this January, like last year and next, the self-help industry will pour forth books promising to make us happier than we are today. The very demand for such books is a strong indication that they aren't working.

Should that be a cause for concern? Some critics say it is. For example, economists like Lord Richard Layard and Daniel Kahneman have argued that the apparent stagnancy of happiness in modern societies should prompt policymakers to shift their priorities from the creation of wealth to the creation of good feelings, from boosting gross national product to increasing gross national happiness.

But before we take such steps, we might do well to reflect on the darker side of holiday cheer: those mysterious blues that are apt to set in while the streamers stream and the corks pop.   more »

Before the article on George Bush, A Lot Can Happen in Four Years: The Rise & Fall of America's First Emperor, here's a little appetizer from the most respectable housewife in America.

"LAURA'S WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK": HOLIDAY RECIPE FOR LAME DUCK

Choose from the following foul:

Dead or sitting duck, big turkey, or chicken-hawk

(Guts will already have been removed from chicken-hawk, so stuffing may proceed immediately).

Remove backbone, but bind the bird with Duck Tape in hostage posture to give structure and an impression of unity.   more »

Six of the scandals about the US government that are currently making the rounds of the Internet are simply breathtaking. No one has ever heard of a democratic government being so bold in harming its own people, and thus there is an automatic reluctance (or refusal) to accept these.

Here's a list of horrible things that 'they' are doing to us:

1. They damage the environment, virtually for the fun of it, by causing earthquakes, hurricanes, and forest fires.

2. They instill fear and panic by actually carrying out a terrorist incident, such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks.

3. They kill off potential leaders such as Sen. Paul Wellstone who died in a plane crash (Note: bumping someone off used to mean shooting them or arranging a car accident, nowadays it can include giving them cancer, heart attack, or infections).

4. They deliberately destabilize society, both by planting drugs among young people and by imprisoning millions, which breaks up families.

5. They outright attack us with biological or chemical weapons for example, it is said that about 50 percent of the American soldiers who went to the Gulf in 1991 are very ill from an intentionally harmful vaccination that was supposedly to protect them against anthrax.

6. They disrupt normal communication and thought via a barrage of lies, hoaxes, and disinformation.   more »

Finally we come to the Apocalypse Now! Award for Redefining the World, which this year goes to the president of the United States, George Bush.

The judges were unanimous. The president claimed that in the second world war, the forces of freedom defeated the ideology of fascism. In the cold war, those same forces defeated communism.

"Today, in the Middle East, freedom is contending with ... terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al-Qaida," whose ultimate aim is to "establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain".

With a simple piece of unnoticed elision, George Bush has recreated the crusades. Rumsfeld and Cheney can rest assured that the arms industry will flourish for years to come. The west has a new enemy: Islam.

Poor Islam. Poor Christianity. Poor us.

George Bush, the Apocalypse Now! award is yours.   more »

29 DECEMBER

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Sex Lives of US Soldiers in Iraq

Brits Copycat CIA: Rendition & Torture

Whatever Happened to Liberal Jews? Gone to Neoconservative Heaven

Is Bush an Al Qaeda Agent? He's Doing a Great Job of Destroying America

Orwell's Amerika: Not '1984' but '2006'

Bush Signs Up for "Impeachment: High Crimes & Misdemeanors"

The Obscenity of Obesity: We Grow Fat on Third-World Slave Labor