George Bush's Scary Farewell Address

I watched George Bush's farewell address tonight on my new 46-inch HD TV and boy was that a SCARY experience.

The speech itself was frightening enough...so full of shite and self delusion.

"You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions."

I couldn't decide whether he was completely mad or just roaring drunk.

But the absolutely horrifying part was the way the Chimp loomed so large it was like he was in my bedroom, the fleshy parts under his neck wiggling like a buzzard in heat, and the booger in his left nostril looking as big as a boulder. Just click on the photo and you'll see what I mean.

And I wasn't the only one who noticed.

8:01 — Here he is, in the Hall of Flags or something! The 50 people who care about him are there clapping. There is some crazy woman next to Cheney, who is not smiling.

8:02 — We made the mistake of watching him on HD. Never do this. He looks… gritty. OMG he looks insaner as they zoom in.

8:03 — He congratulates the Negroids and their children for taking over America.

8:05 — “There has been much debate” about the War on Terror, but “no one can question the results.” O?

8:07 — His neck looks like a turkey gizzard on HD. This is completely terrifying.

Yikes. I almost wished I had live-blogged it myself. But I did drink HEAVILY.

Not just because I want to forget the last eight years. And what this ignorant, incompetent war criminal did to the world.

But because with the countdown clock ticking down.



I'm starting my musical countdown down bad memory lane.


Three days to go before the foul booger chimp is buried in the stinking garbage can of history. Along with the carcass of the Republican Party.

Three days before we're rocking in the free world again. Three days before the whole world shouts PAR--TY !!!

And the nightmare is finally over....

Gaza: A Small Light in the Darkness

A group of Israeli soldiers look on as one of their jets takes out a house.



A young Palestinian teenager wonders why.

Noor asked me why Israel would destroy her school. She asked why Palestinians don't have air defenses and why the good Americans are not fair.

Her uncle wonders what is going to happen to her and the other traumatized children of Gaza.

Noor is not alone in her pain. Many children in Gaza are wetting their beds, unable to sleep, clinging to their mothers. Worse are the long-term consequences of this severe trauma. Palestinian children in the first intifada 20 years ago threw stones at Israeli tanks trying to wrest freedom from Israeli military occupation. Some of those children grew up to become suicide bombers in the second intifada 10 years later

An Israeli wonders what it's doing to his country's soul.













The level of pressure the Israel Defense Forces has been exerting on Gaza may be squeezing Hamas, but it is destroying Israel. Destroying its soul and its image.

In a few days the fire will cease and the fog will disperse, revealing the horror. Hamas will be crushed, but pictures of outrageous destruction and killing will flood the world. Beirut's "Waltz with Bashir" will pale by comparison to Gaza's waltz with Olmert.

And in the midst of this horror..... a small light in the darkness. A baby is born.

It has been the bloodiest, most violent day yet here in Gaza City. Israeli tanks came in from the south, shelling and bombing in the residential areas. But even with this death, bloodshed and chaos all around us, we are filled with joy. Twelve days after my father was killed by an Israeli airstrike, our first baby has been born, healthy at 3.8 kilos, with dark hair, just exactly as her mother wanted.

Thank goodness for small miracles. Welcome to hell Somaya.

End the madness NOW...

Gaza: The War Criminals Strike Again

When I saw the ugly plume of black smoke coming from the U.N. compound in Gaza City at first I was horrified.

Israeli forces opened fire on the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City Thursday, setting the compound ablaze and destroying tonnes of humanitarian aid meant for victims of the 20-day conflict.

The final strike sent thousands of tonnes of food aid up in flames, Ging said. Fuel supplies were later ignited by the blaze, unleashing giant plumes of black smoke into the air.

And then I was angry. How low can these war criminals go? In a city so full of dead, wounded, and suffering people, how could they attack the food supply or the precious fuel that keeps the generators, the X-Ray machines, and the incubators running?

How could they attack a hospital?

About 500 people including patients were huddled in a Gaza City hospital that suffered a "direct hit" in an Israeli air strike Thursday, the international Red Cross said, condemning the incident as unacceptable.

And I don't care what the Israeli hawks have to say about these latest atrocities. By now it must be clear to everyone...except their fanatical supporters...that these war criminals will lie about anything and everything to justify their genocidal mission.

By now it must be clear that Israel is a rogue state hanging only by a few threads of human decency from Israelis like Gideon Levy.




















About a third of those killed in Gaza have been children - 311, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 270 according to the B'Tselem human rights group - out of the 1,000 total killed as of Wednesday. Around 1,550 of the 4,500 wounded have also been children according to figures from the UN, which says the number of children killed has tripled since the ground operation began.

No pilot or soldier went to war to kill children. Not one among them intended to kill children, but it also seems neither did they intend not to kill them. They went to war after the IDF had already killed 952 Palestinian children and adolescents since May 2000.

The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing. One can blame Hamas for the death of children, but no reasonable person in the world will buy these ludicrous, flawed propagandistic goods in light of the pictures and statistics coming from Gaza.

If good brave Israelis like Gideon Levy can stand up to the blood soaked hawks that run his country so can we.

We must publish the stories and the pictures those hawks don't want us to see. We must write to our MPs and demand that Canada raise its voice in protest no matter what the foul Harper government says or does. We must support the heroic doctors and relief workers who are trying to ease the misery and the pain.

To be silent at a time like this is a crime against humanity. Shout it out from the rooftops.

For the sake of human decency stop this genocidal war against the helpless people of Gaza.

Stop the cowardly war criminals and their Death Machine before more innocent children are murdered or maimed.

Enough is enough is ENOUGH....

The Afghan Snowman and the Dirty Dancers

Because it was a long and bloody day at work. Because the news is so bad. And it's so damn cold.

And this picture of kids in Afghanistan making a snowman today...















Didn't exactly fill me with hope for the future of that country. Or the safety of my friends.

And I REALLY need a laugh.

How about this?

Two straight boys in a new reality TV show get hauled into the Principal's Office for dirty dancing...



And how do I sum all of this up?

Isn't it a good idea to encourage teenagers to make love with their clothes on? Eh?

The Principal is a prig.

Those straight boys are really cool.

And that snowman is really SCARY....

Gaza: Why it Didn't Begin With the Rockets

As Israel continues its brutal assault on Gaza, even though more than 1,000 Palestinians are dead, including more than 300 children and teenagers. And 4,500 have been wounded, and even the dead are getting hammered.

Israel showed no signs of slowing its bruising offensive, striking some 60 targets. One air strike hit an overcrowded cemetery, spreading human remains over a wide area. The army said the air strike targeted a weapons cache hidden near the graveyard.

And clinics are targets.

The clinic was completely destroyed in the attack, along with valuable medical equipment, including ultrasound machines, laboratory apparatus, and computers, which are not freely available in Gaza.

As the situation in the hospitals grows even more desperate and heartbreaking.

Amira Hass reminds us that the horror in Gaza didn't begin with the rockets.














Ever since the Palestinian Authority was established, the Israeli public relations machinery has exaggerated the danger of the military threat that the Palestinians pose to us. When they moved from stones to rifles and from Molotov cocktails to suicide bombings, from roadside bombs to Qassams and from Qassams to Grads, and from the PLO to Hamas, we said with a whoop of victory, "We told you. They're anti-Semites." And therefore, we have the right to go on a rampage.

What enabled Israel's military rampage - the proper words to describe it cannot be found in my dictionary - was the step-by-step isolation of the Gaza Strip. The isolation turned Gaza's residents into abstract objects, with no names and addresses, except the addresses of the armed men, and no history, aside from the dates determined by the Shin Bet security service.

Meanwhile somewhere in that battered little enclave, The Independent's reporter in Gaza struggles to survive. Ten days ago the Israelis blew his elderly father to bits just because his little farmhouse was in the way. Yesterday his home was badly damaged. Today his wife is scheduled to give birth to their first child.

Happy birthday poor little Palestinian baby. Long live life.

Down with the bastard war criminals.

Enough is enough...

















Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Omar Khadr: Now he's Obama's Problem

I always knew that the Canadian government's shameful treatment of Omar Khadr would come back to haunt us one day.

But who knew it would rise up out of the unspeakable darkness of Guantanamo and haunt Obama?

Right groups challenged president-elect Barack Obama Monday to stop the war crimes trial of Canadian Omar Khadr, the first terrorist suspect scheduled go on trial at Guantanamo only six days after the inauguration.

“Obama is at risk of becoming the first president in U.S. history to prosecute a child soldier for war crimes...”

Which would force him to take action sooner than he wants to:

Last weekend, he seemed to hedge even on closing the notorious Caribbean prison, saying “it is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.” He admitted it would be “a challenge” to get Guantanamo closed during his first 100 days in office.

Or risk damaging his reputation. And all because Stephen Harper didn't do the right thing and bring Omar home.

The Harper government – unlike all other western governments with citizens held in Guantanamo — has steadfastly refused to seek his release, saying Mr. Khadr must answer to the war crimes charges again him and declining to ask for him to be treated as a child soldier.

Uh oh. Something tells me Obama is not going to be too happy with Great Bush Leader. First he tried to sabotage his primary campaign by leaking stuff about NAFTA. Now he's trying to sabotage his inauguration....and RUIN his image.

I think it's going to get ugly...














But of course Harper's not the only one who is going to be embarrassed. We ALL are.

The whole affair is going to put the case of Omar Khadr in the international spotlight. And people are going to ask some embarrassing questions like the ones I asked the other day.

And some will probably remind the world that back in 2002 Canada was the FIRST nation to ratify the so-called Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that requires signatories to give special consideration to child soldiers.

To rehabilitate not punish them. And of course not torture them like Omar was.

Which is sure to have a lot of people all over the world wondering whether Canadians are hypocrites, idiots, Bush stooges, or just racist child hating weirdos. You know the people who let a child be tortured in a place like Guantanamo because they HATED his family.

And all because Great Bush Leader didn't do the right thing and bring Omar home.

I tell you.... the longer Stephen Harper stays in office, the more he degrades this country.

The more he degrades us all....

Gaza and the Songs of Freedom

So I was trying to get away from this story ....at least for a while. Because there is only so much horror and suffering I can take, without needing a break to recharge my faith in humanity.

And I came across this forum on Songs of Freedom.

Which was a welcome distraction. Until I started to think about how long the poor wretched Palestinians have been fighting for their freedom.

And what all those years of war and occupation have done to them.

I used to think, in a rather airy-fairy way, that if someone was brutally treated they would determine, having experienced pain and humiliation, never to inflict it on anyone else. But now I know the opposite is true. If you subjugate and brutalise someone, odds on they will grow up to be brutish and full of hate.

I thought most people now understood that, and that most people knew that the Palestinians have been treated barbarically by Israel, and the rest of the world, since 1948. The big surprise is that it hasn't driven more of them mad. Their land has been stolen and occupied, their leaders manipulated, their people divided and crushed, their homes and land bulldozed and wrecked, their willingness to negotiate ignored; and, since the "withdrawal" of Israel from the Gaza Strip, they have been imprisoned and isolated in that territory in close to unbearable conditions; and now more than 700 of them have been killed and nearly 3,000 injured. Some of them may feel that they can do or say what they like now, because they have hardly anything left to lose.

Just like some Israelis...who have also been driven mad.... appear to believe they can say or do whatever THEY want.

Which was so depressing I took refuge in my video collection.

Only to stumble upon this little Ode to Freedom....



Which finally made me laugh. Isn't freedom wonderful?

Until I remembered how sad it is that some have it.

And some don't....















And was reminded once again that in the midst of the horror.... and the lies..... there is only one blinding truth.

Until the Palestinians get their freedom and their state so they can live in peace with their neighbours.

The violence and the sadness will just go on and on...

------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. As for the songs of freedom....I think I'll choose my favourites and play them in a few days. When hopefully this horror will have ended.

So I can enjoy them even more....

Gaza: The Killers and the Healers

When I watched this raw video taken in a Gaza hospital, and I saw the panic and the confusion, I couldn't help but remember another bloody day. The day when I heard horrible screams coming from the room of a patient with advanced throat cancer.

He had a hole in the side of his neck the size of a grapefruit ....full of bloody muck and mucus. His family was gathered around his bed when suddenly his jugular vein or carotid artery ruptured and sprayed blood all over the room. All over the walls and the curtain. All over his family. And when I ran into the room all over me.

I was stunned. There were no dressings around to try to stop the bleeding. All I could do was crumple up a sheet and press it against the hole in his neck. It didn't do any good of course. Nothing could have saved him. But I'll never forget the panicked screams of his loved ones. And how horribly helpless I felt.

So I can only imagine the horror of the hospitals in Gaza where they don't have enough doctors, medicines, surgical gloves, running water, and other necessities to deal with the flood of wounded people.

Or even help the tiniest Palestinians unlucky enough to be born into this
horror.















According to UNICEF, approximately 320,000 children in Gaza are under 5 years of age, including about 40,000 infants under 6 months of age.

Even before the latest outbreak of violence, 50,000 Gazan children were malnourished, more than two-thirds of all children suffered from vitamin A deficiency and almost half of children under age 2 were anaemic. Lack of access to food, clean water and medical supplies exacerbates threats to children's health and well-being.

Which is why I can't understand why Israel launched suck a brutal assault on such a desperate little enclave like Gaza with so many children, or why I keep hearing reports that some soldiers are targetting medical personnel.

Like these ambulance attendants.



You know all war is barbaric. But there is something particularly horrifying about this one that makes me sick to my stomach.

I have no desire to be caught between the religious thugs from Hamas and Israel's coldblooded generals...and the fanatical supporters from both sides. It would be so much easier to give in to despair and look away like so many others are doing. And I realize that nothing I say will make the slightest bit of difference.

But not to speak out about this horror would betray everything I believe in. So this is my message.

Stop the killers. Spare the healers.

Save the children.












Enough is enough...

Gaza, Israel, and the Verdict of History

The Israeli army releases this video to back up its claims that it is doing all it can not to kill innocent civilians.

Even as it continues to pound Gaza with shells and bombs, and more than 900 are now dead, including 400 women and children. And it prepares to launch an allout assault on Gaza's crowded cities.

Israeli analysts say a ground war fought in the narrow streets and alleys of Gaza City and other urban centres would make the conflict to date seem tame.

“The Israel Defence Forces will enter, with great force, with tens of thousands of soldiers, into the heart of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. There will no longer be strikes at the margins from the ground and destruction from the air. Now we are talking about armoured divisions that will not leave a single stone standing on their way into the refugee camps and into the heart of one of the most crowded cities on Earth.”

Which would kill or hurt even more innocent men, women, and children.

And I wonder how anyone can justify that kind of massacre, in one of the poorest and most miserable places on earth, where hospitals can't cope with the wounded, and there is no place to bury the dead.

To the traumatised Palestinians of the Gaza Strip it is bad enough that their friends and relatives are being killed in such numbers - more than 900 at the last count. What is worse is that they can no longer give them proper funerals. In northern Gaza, because the Eastern cemetery is no longer accessible, the bereaved are having to search for plots between the existing graves in the older, full-up cemeteries to bury their loved ones, or to reopen and reuse the graves of their forebears.

Now I realize that Hamas must also stop firing rockets at Israel. But after killing so many people Israel has a moral obligation to restrain its army and give a ceasefire a chance. Surely the crazy hawks who launched this brutal disproportionate assault must understand that another massacre would hurt Israel more than those rockets do.

And that, as Gideon Levy points out, the verdict of history will be harsh.














When the cannons eventually fall silent, the time for questions and investigations will be upon us. The mushroom clouds of smoke and dust will dissipate in the pitch-black sky; the fervor, desensitization and en masse jump on the bandwagon will be forever forgotten and perhaps we will view a clear picture of Gaza in all its grimness. Then we will see the scope of the killing and destruction, the crammed cemeteries and overflowing hospitals, the thousands of wounded and physically disabled, the destroyed houses that remain after this war.

The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence.

I don't write these words with joy, but with sorrow and deep shame. Despite all the slack the world has cut us since as long as we can remember, despite the leniency shown toward Israel, the world might say otherwise this time. If we continue like this, maybe one day a new, special court will be established in The Hague.

Some in Israel will no doubt call him a traitor.

But those who really love Israel should call him a hero.

Stop this crazy slaughter. Enough innocent blood has been spilled.

End this dirty war NOW !!!

The Big Blue Blob on Polygamy and Gay Marriage

Jesus in a tortilla. It looks as if JJ has caught the Big Blue Blob with her hands in the fetus jar.Talking in tongues about polygamy and gay marriage.

Back during the marriage debate, we kept saying that this is exactly that would happen. Our arguments were ridiculed as "slippery slope alarmism". Now, when everything we were warning about is actually happening, are there many "tolerant" "open-minded" "progressives" out there ready to admit that they were wrong? Or are they already preparing to give in, picturing themselves in the front lines of a battle to "legalize" some other kind of "something-something-marriage"?

You know like marrying your dog.

Now look I just want to say that although I find polygamy demeaning to women, whatever consenting adults do together is fine by me...as long as they keep kids out of it.

But Blobby and her creepy friend Lenny shouldn't get high on those formaldehyde fumes and blame gay marriage, when what usually leads to polygamy is RELIGION.

So if they want to fight polygamy shouldn't they be trying to eliminate religion instead of gay marriage? Just wondering.

Besides if the Big Blue Blob wants to insult us, by blaming gay marriage for EVERYTHING.

Couldn't she be a little more original eh?



See Blobby? What's polygamy compared to a nuclear explosion?

Now go give your pickled fetus a hug.

And don't be so ignorant...