Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The Final Enumclaw Horse/Beastiality Update


An Enumclaw-area man has pleaded guilty to criminal trespass Tuesday in a case in which a Seattle man died having sex with a horse.

James Tait and a 45-year-old Seattle man went onto a neighbor's property last summer to have sex with a horse, prosecutors say. The Seattle man sustained a perforated colon and died from his injuries after being dumped at an emergency room.

Tait was essentially the pimp for a nearby farm where people had sex with animals. . .unbeknownst to the horse owners.

Pathetically, Tait, 54, was given a one-year suspended sentence on condition he pay a $300 fine, perform eight hours of community service and have no contact with the horse owners. I don't understand why he wasn't charged with negligent homicide. The horse owners told a reporter last summer that police showed them a home video of the July 2 incident that investigators seized from Tait's home. That videotape, or a similar one, has turned up on the internet.
---o0o---

President Bush Discloses His Exit Strategy: Victory

For the first time since the war began, The President today disclosed his strategy for winning the war in Iraq. The White House also released a slick 40 page PDF detailing that strategy.

President Bush at Anapolis today: "So today we're releasing a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." This is an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing in Iraq, and it is posted on the White House Web site, whitehouse.gov."
---o0o---

Redux: President George Bush's Note to Jack Brummet & Speculations On Strange Goings On At The White House And In The Oval Office

Click letter to enlarge...

I need to write him again. I'm not sure I really drove the right message home the last time we communicated. I want to stay friends and maintain a certain level of plausible civility. Doing some research last night, I stumbled on this note on the 'net (leading back here, to All This Is That). It's been a bumpy ride all year for the big fella.

You hear things...stories of him reeling around the White House like Nixon. . .babbling to the oil portraits of his fellow Presidents; drinking Knob Creek Bourbon from dawn to midnight; stories of bizarre threesomes with Laura, and Condy, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ann Coulter, Scooter Libby, Karen Hughes, and even Speaker Dennis Hastert; cocaine-fueled strategy sessions about how to exit Iraq with a "win"; romps with nubile Mexican housekeepers and perky senior staff interns while Laura is on goodwill tours in Africa; an atmosphere of treachery and betrayal permeating and befouling the White House; the staff so petrified they're gobbling pills around the clock: vicoden, vallium, librium, seconal, prozac, codeine, thorazine, opium, even black tar. . .anything to ease the tension. The atmosphere can only be compared to Hitler's Bunker the weeks before the Russians and Patton's Army arrived in Berlin. And here we are, watching the tawdry operation--the entire executive branch--disintegrate into a steaming pile!

The Democrats have to get to work now. Don't be lulled by the G.O.P. self-destruction. That can change at any minute. We need to make hay while the making hay is good. Kick 'em while they're down!
---o0o---

Free WiFi In New Orleans

People still wait for water and electricity, tens of thousand of buildings are uninhabitable, and 1,000 restaurants will not reopen, but Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a news conference today that New Orleans will deploy a free wireless internet network throughout town. The system will also will be used by law enforcement and for an array of city government functions, such as speeding approval of building permits. But, the main idea is to jump start the recovery by making living and doing business a little hospitable. It seems a little crazy, but it makes a sort of twisted sense.

Just this morning, the New York Times reported that "barely one-quarter" of the houses in New Orleans have electricity...
---o0o---

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Ronald Reagan's Greatest Laughs On Sale Now


He did get some laughs. A few of which have appeared right here. Here. And here. Now, you can buy them for your very own:

__________________________________________________
Available in audio tape or CD - Ronald Reagan's Greatest Laughs
FREE OFFER – Get "Ronald Reagan's Greatest Laughs" FREE,
Click Here

If you love Ronald Reagan – or just enjoy laughing – you need to get NewsMax.com’s special audio program "Ronald Reagan’s Greatest Laughs."

This unique program brings together Ronald Reagan's best jokes, one-liners and funny stories.
__________________________________________________
---o0o---

all this is that - t-shirt candidate two


...click to blow up...
---o0o---

all this is that - t-shirt candidate one

click to blow up!
---o0o---

Monday, November 28, 2005

Another Republican Pleads Guilty To Putting His Hand In The Till

An eight-term California Congressman has admitted taking bribes in a sleazy kickback scheme with a defense contractor. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty today to conspiracy, tax evasion charges, and mail and wire fraud. He's a Republican. Did you even need to ask?

At his tearful resignation press conference, he said, "I can't undo what I have done but I can atone," he said.

Under Republican caucus rules, Cunningham would have lost his chairmanship of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and human intelligence. "House Intelligence" seems more and more like an oxymoron every day.

The former Vietnam War flying hero was known as a hawk, often given to cranky outbursts.

Cunningham was fingerprinted and released on his own recognizance until a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing, where he could get 10 years in prison. He agreed to forfeit to the government his Rancho Santa Fe home, more than $1.8 million in cash, antiques, and rugs.

In a statement, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations.

Cunningham joins the ever-growing list of G.O.P. leaders either in the hoosegow, or headed there: Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and Scooter Libby.
---o0o---

Separated At Birth? Mariah Carey's Siblings

click image to enlarge

Seeing Mariah Carey's photos this weekend in cheerleader outfits and spooky looking baby dolls, I realized she has a couple of brothers out there. Bert Lahr, David Crosby, and Mariah may well have been separated at birth.
---o0o---

Alien Lore No. 45 - Dreamland/Area 51, With Its Pants Down

Area 51 also known as 'Dreamland' is located at Groom Lake, just outside the desert town of Rachel, Nevada. Of the Area 51 story, that much that is not in dispute. After that, it becomes extremely complicated. There are charges and countercharges, and thousands of pages have been written, from tales of thousands of alien cannibals living underground (Dulce and other places), down to hard-core skeptics, and the true believers who believe just about everything is a conspiracy.

Like Roswell, Area 51 is a mecca for UFOlogists, nutjobs, and tourists. Over the years the U.S government has allegedly bought up the surrounding area to stop the curious from seeing just what goes on there. It has become the subject of many pop-culture references. Area 51 has become accepted as a sort of folklore--whether anything happened there or not. Glenn Campbell wrote an Area 51 Viewer's Guide in the 90's, that is no longer available. I actually bought a copy. . .at this point, he is offering it for sale for $1,500. Glenn--I'll send you my copy and you can reproduce it via OCR...

Many have claimed that bizarre lights in the night sky can be seen near Area 51 and that flying vehicles buzz around performing impossible maneuvers, like figure eights and stopping dead in the air. The "strange lights" have been thought to change in size and brightness, sometimes disappearing completely, and reappearing in an entirely different place.

Area 51 is said to be surrounded by state of the art surveillance equipment, motion sensors, and is patrolled by security guards in unmarked jeeps. The border perimeter signs which state 'use of deadly force authorized'. If you passed these signs you would be arrested and fined up to a $1,000 and spend the night in jail. If you were to continue any further you would be legally shot and killed. This does not seem to have ever actually happened.

A lot of people believe this is the site where the crashed saucers from the Roswell Incident are kept for study and engineering. Scientists study crashed flying saucers and try and work out how the craft was built and powered. Then once this has been accomplished they try and incorporate it into their own designs. And then maybe fly the alien craft, or incredible facsimiles, around.

Bob Lazar says he worked at Area 51 in a section of the base called S-4 from 1988-1990 and has published a lot of material that has become the core of modern Ufology. He says he worked on nine different saucers while at the base. These flying disks were housed in hangers carved into the mountain side. Lazar also stated that his life was threatened after he allowed friends to watch test flights of the saucers. On one trip, he was arrested by security and threatened. He spoke out about his experiences, thinking that the government would never have the nerve to kill him if he went public. Any mysterious accidents he might have would only validate his claims.

Glenn Campbell for many years (until 1999) maintained the excellent UFOmind website and attempted to research and debunk or verify the many facts. Here is his final word (presumably) on Bob Lazar (if you treat this UFOlogy thing like a spectator sport, you might want to quit reading now, or you'll find out the ending. Glenn Campbell wrote in 2002:

"Lazar did not work with flying saucers in an underground hangar near Papoose Lake. He made the story up. Furthermore, he made it up by himself, without the help of any nefarious agency and probably without any deep motivation other than the pleasure of attracting attention and putting people on."

"The story evolved out of a long heritage of pre-existing underground alien base claims, which eventually infected the pilot and conspiracy theorist John Lear. Lear announced, in electronic bulletin board posts in the 1980s, that gray aliens were eating humans in deep underground facilities at Area 51. Lazar met Lear, heard his ramblings, and decided to give Lear what he wanted. Lazar took Lear's paranoid delusions and repackaged them in a much more intelligent and internally consistent rendition. Initially, Lear was the only audience, but he tipped off a Las Vegas TV station, and the frenzy began. The story soon spun out of Lazar's control, and, at least until the recent Art Bell appearance, Lazar seemed to sincerely want it to go away. "

"Lazar's limited knowledge of Area 51 came from secondhand sources, which are plentiful in Las Vegas. Lazar has never been to Area 51. His "S-4" is a relocated and reconfigured version of "Site 4", a real Top Secret radar testing facility west of Area 51. Lazar's saucers and their propulsion system seem plausible to anyone without a physics degree. They were constructed, in Lazar's head, with the same fastidious care that he has lavished on his real-life fireworks, jet cars and other mechanical projects. "Element 115" and its peculiar periodic neighbors were discussed in an article in Scientific American just before Lazar used it to fuel his craft. Lazar has always displayed an exceptional respect for detail and consistency, and he has an extraordinary ability to focus his attention on whatever his current project is, to the exclusion of everything else. His only deficiencies are moral (that is, if you consider lies and the exploitation of others to be somehow 'wrong')."

In the end, Campbell sums it up better than anyone else I have read:

"Those who believe in Lazar are going to continue believing, and those who don't will only say, "I told you so." The funny thing about oral traditions like this is that they continue to live and propagate regardless of the evidence and far beyond their original source. They spawn new stories, like the similar UFO claims of Bill house, aka "Jarod 2" (which is another fascinating personal journey). Lazar's story has grown much bigger than Lazar himself, and no one will ever be able to follow all of its threads. "

---o0o---

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Photograph Of Mimas, A Moon Of Saturn

Image by: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute - Click photograph to enlarge

A moon of Saturn, the Meteor-hammered Mimas, has been photographed by the Cassini spacecraft, now in the vicinity of Saturn. The heavily pockmarked moon is seen in front of Saturn's rings (the scale of the photo is roughly three miles per pixel).

Mimas is mainly ice. The 80 mile wide crater you see is called Herschel and covers nearly one-third the moon's diameter (yeah, it doesn't look like one-third to me either. But what am I going to do?, have someone else measure it?).

Herschel is six miles deep, with a central mountain rising three and a half miles above the crater floor (presumably the nipple-like protrusion, dead center, in the crater). Fracture marks from the impact can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas.

This image, from the Cassini narrow-angle camera, was taken on Oct. 13, 2005, about 442,000 miles from Mimas.

The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Cassini imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
---o0o---

Painting: The Makeup Of President Bush's Operation Enduring Freedom Coalition



Click the painting to enlarge!
---o0o---

SETI Shuts Down

Click image to enlarge


SETI@Home, a hugely popular distributed computing project, is being switched off on December 15. What is distributed computing? You take a problem, break it up (or, "chunk" it) into thousands of pieces, and then distribute and solve the pieces on individual computers...in this case hundreds of thousands of PCs.

The SETI project searches for signals from other civilizations. I have run it for years now. Anytime your computer is idle, Seti@home begins processing data from the SETI project. When the problem is finished computing, your PC uploads the results and downloads the next problem. What makes it so popular is the included screen saver that showed your PC's progress in solving the problem. It is compelling and well-done. The problems themselves are data from outer space, captured at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Your computer analyzes radio signals (e.g., noise from outer space), looking for patterns and regular occurrences. . .looking for our cousins out there in space. They built this screensaver to be a graphic indicator of the problem you are solving. Watching it makes you feel like you're contributing! It is fun to watch, and fun to be part of a global project. This was not some nut-job deal, but a legitimate scientific endeavor...even if some of us in the field tilt toward the wack-job end of things.

The SETI team is merging with the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. According to The Inquirer: "The workunit totals of users and teams will be frozen at that point, and the final totals will be available on the web."

A SETI spokesman said that "those who want to keep looking for aliens can do so, but they will also be able to donate computer time studying climate change or other BOINC projects." As if!

SETI is the first distributed computing project and has resulted in thousands of idle machines around the world doing something worthwhile and crunching trillions of numbers. It was fun while it lasted. It will be interesting to see the next distributed projects, and if they capture the public's imagination the way SETI has.
---o0o---

Saturday, November 26, 2005

President Ronald Reagan Glances Out The Window

"You glance out the window and the people are walking around Pennsylvania Avenue and you say, 'I could never say I am going to run down to the drugstore and get some magazines.' I can't do that anymore." President Reagan, 8/11/82, to The Time's Hugh Sidey that he sometimes feels trapped in the White House

"Sometimes I look out there at Pennsylvania Avenue and see people bustling along, and it suddenly dawns on me that probably never again can I just say 'Hey, I'm going down to the drugstore to look at the magazines,' " President Reagan, 12/09/82, discussing his feelings of confinement with a People reporter

"Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." President Reagan, 12/16/82, discussing a regret with The Washington Post

"Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." President Reagan, 12/16/82, shares thought with a radio interviewer
.
"You find yourself remembering what it was like when on the spur of the moment you could just yell to your wife that you were going down to the drugstore and get a magazine. You can't do that anymore." President Reagan, 1/27/84 , telling Time magazine about being President
---o0o---

Painting: Cyclops 2



Click image to enlarge. . .
---o0o---

Friday, November 25, 2005

Painting: Five Presidents



click painting to enlarge

---o0o---

Poem: The Variations

This is a repeat. . .The original poem is not showing up, and therefore here it is once again...

1.
I don't know which is better
The thing itself
Or the chicanes


Lacunae
Variations
Selections


Emendations
Redactions
Prevarications


Blurring and
Sharpening
That transmogrify the tale with time

2.
I don't know which is better
To see the baby emerge
Or to see who the baby becomes

3.
I don't know which is better
To ponder the variations
Or to not


4.
These rogue and rococo thoughts
Skitter sideways
Like a sideshuffling crab

Using evasive tactics
In case anyone locks on
And attempts to impose

A framework
Of coherence and congruence
On these fitfully nuanced palabra


5.
If you actually begin to understand
What I am writing
We have all missed the point

Sometimes I don't know
What it means
Until someone else tells me


6.
Sometimes I don't know
If it's better to pull your leg
Or my own


7.
I don't know which is better
The fog and the detours
Or the thing itself.
---o0o---


copyright (c) 2005 by Jack Brummet. 11-13-2005 vancouver, british columbia

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Alien Lore No. 44 - The Extraterrestrial Exposure Law

This doesn't fall into the lore category, but certainly applies to people subscribing to that lore.

In July 1969, the ET Exposure Law was enacted without public debate (well, except some muffled screaming from UFOlogists). The law prohibits anyone from making contact with a UFO or any alien. If a person breaks this law, he or she can be fined up to $5000 and be incarcerated for up to a year. A NASA administrator is empowered to determine, even without a hearing, if a person has been exposed and can have that individual quarantined under armed guard for an indeterminate period of time. That would mean, I take it, up to and including forever...

There was no appeal to this decision. No test case ever came up, of course--somehow we never bagged anyone chatting up an alien. The law was revoked in the early 1990s. What were they thinking in the first place?
---o0o---

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Mencken Scoffs At Poets

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

-H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)



He flings serious mud for someone who seemed pretty miserable most of the time. We don't want to even go into the world of hurt Mencken was in. . .but he was a very funny man nonetheless.

What Was Jack Kennedy Saying To Lyndon Johnson?



What was happening here? I don't think I have ever seen a photo of President Jack Kennedy with that same look:::::::::::::concern and anguish, woe, or the benign public face of his rage at whatever LBJ was shouting. I think we all extrapolate JFK saying "Okay Lyndon," or "that's enough," or something along those lines. Of all the LBJ pictures I have seen over the years, this one remains a mystery.

Someone must know how this photo was taken, and the circumstances that caused Senator Kennedy to reach out to muzzle Senator Johnson. It feels like a campaign appearance (therefore it happened after the Demo convention in July). After taking office, LBJ was presumably more restrained. The picture was likely taken sometime between September 5th and November 9th, 1960, between Labor Day--the 'old school' day to launch campaigns--and Election Day.

If you know anything about this photograph, please write! I have done searches on different portals and engines, and quite a few of the serious reference to the photo lead back to
All This Is That, which has no information at all! I can find the picture in other places, but no one ever explains it.

/jack

---o0o---

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Betty Brummet Triumphs Over Lori Sotelo, The Republican Party, And Former Dogcatcher, Republican Chair Chris Vance!


Betty Brummet has won back (and, in fact, never lost because her November 8 ballot was counted), her right to vote in Washington State. The 82 year old grandmother and World War II veteran had her right to vote challenged in a misguided sweep by frenzied Republicans trying to narrow the gap. The G.O.P. focused on evening the score after their hapless gubernatorial candidate narrowly lost a recount in a hotly contested and litigated election.

On being challenged, Betty and her supporters swung into action, contacting newspapers, local politicians, the A.C.L.U., Democratic and Republican Party officials, as well as the King County Prosecutor's Office.

This weekend, Betty Brummet received a self-serving and officious letter from the Republican Party telling her that her right to vote had been "challenged in error."

The Republican efforts backfired. As one citizen put it on the Sound Politics web site, "The only thing Chris Vance and the Republican Party succeeded in doing this election was to use a mean-spirited last-minute voter registration trick which backfired horribly to mint thousands of new Democrats. " ___________________________________________________________

King County Republican Party


November 18, 2005

Betty Brummet
xxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Betty Brummet:

We have found that your voter registration address was challenged in error. It was never our intention to challenge your registration address [1], but it was, unfortunately, included on the forms delivered to King County Records and Elections on October 28, 2005. We have delivered a letter to Dean Logan today asking that your voter registration address be rescinded from our challenge.

It is the intention of the Voter Registration Integrity Project that all legal voters in King County be registered properly. Ensuring that only properly eligible and registered persons can vote is essential to prevent diluting the votes of all citizens. There are tens of thousands of duplicate registrations, illegal registrations and registrations of people who are either deceased or have moved. We trust our government to value the sanctity of our vote. When clean voter rolls and not a priority, our vote is not valued. Out intention is to hold our government accountable to its citizens.

We value the right of every eligible person to vote and have no intention to undermine that right in any way. Please accept my apology for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Sincerely,

Lori Sotelo, Sr. Vice Chair
King County Republican Central Committee


[1] All This Is That Editor's Note: In fact, Ms. Sotelo wrote under oath on the affidavit that accompanied the challenge to Betty's voter registration that Sotelo "has personal knowledge" that Betty did not in fact reside in the house where she has lived the last 52 years.


South Dakotan Charged With Having Sex With Dummy


The victim, or did she
entice him into the
lascivious act?


A Sioux Falls man was charged yesterday with indecent exposure after he was caught trying to have sex with a female mannequin on display at an arts centre.

Security guards found Michael Plentyhorse, 18, sprawled with the dummy on the floor of the Washington Pavillion with his trousers and pants down.

Police spokesman Loren McManus said: "There was inappropriate activity between him and the mannequin. " "That's the only way I know how to put it."

Security at the Pavillion say they've noticed the same mannequin undressed on several occasions. Drugs or alcohol do not seem to have been involved, and there seems to have been no consent given by the dummy.

If you want to visit him, drop him a line, or even send him a blow up doll:

Michael James Plentyhorse
708 N. Dakota Ave.
Sioux Falls, SD 57104-2417

---o0o---

Keep Washington State Blue -- Vote Democratic



Buy one of their posters here...or just make a donation toward next November's crucial mid-term elections.
---o0o---

Monday, November 21, 2005

President Bush Has An Unintentionally Comic Moment In Beijing


President Bush performed a comedy routine yesterday. At a briefing in China, The President ducked a question and attempted to leave the news conference. However, he bumped into a set of locked doors.

After the day's meetings with President Hu Jintao, POTUS met a small group of U.S. reporters and and talked about religious freedom, Iraq and the Chinese currency.

One reporter asked: "...you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?"

"Have you ever heard of jet lag?" Bush responded. "Well, good. That answers your question."

President Bush then went over a list of positive developments from his meetings.

When the reporter asked for "a very quick follow-up," Bush cut him off by thanking the press corps and telling the reporter "No you may not," as he strode toward a set of double doors leading out of the room.

The doors were locked. "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work," Bush quipped. An aide pointed him toward the correct door. You can watch a video of the episode too.
---o0o---

A.E. Housman And The Poetry Of The Glum

A.E. Housman (1859-1936) perfected the art of the glum. In this compact poem, he actually lifted his head above the darkness for a moment (while never forgetting it was right over his shoulder). He also pulled off some interesting tricks with the meter of the poem. It goes bang! with this fantastic rhythm. Other than this, I've read little Housman, aside from the obligatory poems in college poetry classes. This one is sweet. I'm a sucker for the well-wrought short form.



The thoughts of others were light and fleeting,
of lovers meeting, of luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble, and mine were steady
so I was ready when trouble came.

- AE Housman, 1859-1936
---o0o---

Sunday, November 20, 2005

CIA Torture Techniques

According to ABC news, "harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002." This torture appears to be occurring in the black ops camps described yesterday by former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner.

The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear. [the bitch slap is a technique frequently used by pimps against their employees.]

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

There is something about this list that makes one wonder where are the next six techniques--the really grisly ones. None of the six recommended techniques include the sort of sexual humiliation and naked pigpiles we saw conducted by army amateurs at the Iraq Prisoner of War camps, Abu Ghraib and Bucca.
---o0o---

Sixty Years Ago Today, The Nuremberg Trials Began

Sixty years ago today, 24 Nazi officials went on trial for their lives in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II. An international tribunal from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and England conducted the trial.



It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the 216 court sessions.

On October 1946, 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death. Three were acquitted, and seven received prison terms. Goering, who was called the "leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews," cheated the hangman by taking his own life the night before his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia, although he was actually most likely dead by then.

Trials of less well-known war criminals continued into the 1950s. 5,025 other defendants were convicted, 806 were executed.

Nuremberg has always been a litmus test of my resolve against capital punishment. I may not believe in an eye for an eye, but the people put to death here come pretty close to making a compelling case. . .
---o0o---

A Warning About The House Of Representatives



Click image to enlarge...

In light of the bizarre performance of the House of Representatives the day before yesterday, I propose that we place these posters around the halls of congress, in particular in the public spectator galleries.
---o0o---

Another Index To Original Poems Appearing In All This Is That

Poems published in All This Is That from November 15, 2004 - November 15, 2005

The Variations
You Rehearse Dying
Sonnet For Hari
Defensive Daydreaming
The Dream
Dogpaddling
The Prostethic Head & The Absence Of Blood
Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"
The Grey Visitors & Painting: The Grey Ambassador
The Bad Movie
The Bucket
The Man In The Mirror
Liftoff
Optimism
Perspective
A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - Poem: The Prevaricator
Weather Report
Your Wooden Leg
The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
The Late Excavation (Text And Audio)
Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
At The Acropolis
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
The sous-chef is a sociopath]
James Wright
Falling
[Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Seven
Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Bird Poem: Monism
The Golden Rule Poem: The Countdown
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
At Hillcrest Cemetary in Kent, Washington I walk by The Grave of Sam The Grasseater
Notes On Flying
Daybreak
E
xplosions
Not Past Tense Yet
the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints
Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
---o0o---



Saturday, November 19, 2005

Washington State Republican Chairman Chris Vance's Meteoric Rise From Dogcatcher To Vote Thief

"A major embarrassment for the G.O.P." - Gary Chittim, King 5 News

"We stand by our research” - State Republican Chair Chris Vance

"The only thing Chris Vance and the Republican Party succeeded in doing this election was to use a mean-spirited last-minute voter registration trick which backfired horribly to mint thousands of new Democrats. " - Swifter on
http://Soundpolitics.com

"Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for King County Executive Ron Sims, said the fiasco showed an embarrassing degree of amateurishness on the part of the Republicans. 'This is an unfortunate example of what happens when what is a serious issue, people’s right to vote, is hijacked for partisan advantage,' Kaushik said." - http://thestranger.com


Chris Vance, Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party, and the architect behind recent scandal to disenfranchise narly 2,000 Seattle-area voters (see the recent post in All This Is That) worked earlier in his career as the Dogcatcher of Kent, Wash. Yes, before he attempted to throw out the voting rights of 82-year old widowed veterans, he was ordering around stray hounds and beagles that had the bad luck to wind up in "his" dog pound. From the sounds of it, he was a martinet Dogcatcher and never missed a chance to wield his authority to browbeat and cudgel hapless pet owners.

A trustworthy source has just revealed to All This Is That that:

"Vance served at the Animal Control Shelter here in Kent. I recall well how "Yappy" he was, even then, Huffing and Puffing and Blathering away as he chastised and disciplined Pet Owners while exercising his mighty powers.

"There is a certain Poetic Justice to watch him now as he continues to Yap and Rant and sink the Repub's political fortunes. I have searched the Web and King County Data but can not find that info. The reason that I would like to have it is that I have found the
Wikipedia Bio on Vance. You probably know that Wikipedia is one more new Web search engine on the net----and one of its hallmarks is that it allows the reader to amend the text and add additional data on the subject."

My source will be amending Vance's Wikipedia entry as soon as he locates the details behind Vance's tenure. Chris, your biography is about to be greatly enhanced.
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Congress Implodes Over Jack Murtha's Iraq Pullout Proposal; Fortunately, They Still Found Time To Vote Themselves A $3,100 Raise

With the White House coming apart at the seams, I always thought "well, that's why we have a congress." And then you see the Republican-dominated House acting like chimps on a feces-flinging rampage.

Democrats erupted in fury when House GOP leaders maneuvered the house into a politically-charged vote on Congressman Jack Murtha's call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This was swiftly voted down after much malignant speechifying. The house voted 403-3 against the measure (with 22 non-votes).

While Murtha proposed a redeployment timetable "as soon as practical," the GOP twisted this into an immediate withdrawal and then forced the pointless vote. There was much mudslinging, yelling, and hand-wringing throughout the night.

Congress was able to get through one important piece of business: They gave themselves a $3,100 pay raise Friday, and then shelved work on bills to curb spending on social programs. Oh, and they also cut the food stamp budget by $700 million.

Don't worry folks. . .they'll be back in two weeks, after a relaxing Thangsgiving break. They will then work a couple of weeks before taking time off for Christmas.
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Another Banner For All This Is That




Click image to enlarge

Friday, November 18, 2005

Ex Spook Director: Cheney is "Vice President For Torture"

In an interview on England's ITV news yesterday, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said the U.S. vice president was damaging America by overseeing policies tha encourage torture of possible terrorist suspects. The former head spook (under President Carter) went on to call Cheney the "vice president for torture."

Stansfield said that torture is condoned and even approved by the Bush government. The American Senate says torture should be banned - whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.

Replying to claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: "I do not believe him".

Admiral Turner claims secret CIA prisons used for torture are known as 'black sites.'

Terrorists are picked up in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan and flown in CIA-controlled private aircraft to countries where there are secret interrogation centres, operating outside any country's jurisdiction. The Mihail-Kogalniceanu military airbase in Romania is believed to be a torture center.

Senator John McCain is having fits about all of this, of course. McCain was tortured by the North Vietnamese in Vietnam while he was a prisoner of war.

I wonder what former CIA Director/ex-President George H.W. Bush can tell us about this?
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Betty Brummet Goes To War With The Republican Party For Her Right To Vote

Last week, Betty E. Brummet received a letter informing her the Republican Party had challenged her voter registration. A challenge was filed by Lori D. Sotelo. . .apparently a Republican hack or wardheeler. The letter told Betty that if she did not defend herself against this challenge, her vote in the November 8th election would be thrown out, and she would be unable to vote in the future.

Betty is 82 years old, and has lived at the same address in Kent, Washington since 1953. She has been a faithful and diligent voter for 60 years. The Republicans strongarmed elections officials into telling her they would no longer allow her to vote!

Betty Brummet (my mother) worked a rivetgun at Boeing in the early years of World War II. She WAS Rosie The Riveter (a well-known and powerful patriotic icon). Riveting was not enough for the war effort for Betty. She enlisted in the Marine Corps and served for the duration of the war. She was widowed very early in life, went it alone, and raised three (quite outstanding) children on her own.

Her reward from the G.O.P. for her military service, and for being a taxpayer funding many of their dingbat initiatives and unilateral adventures over the years, was complete and total disenfranchisement. In their anger over losing the governor's house, and the recent string of Republican political disasters--up to, and including, the disintegration of The White House itself--the Republicans decided to go on a voter jihad, and challenged nearly 2,000 voter's registrations, including hundreds of completely legitimate voters.

The Republicans wrongly guessed that at least some of the people they challenged would throw in the towel. They picked the wrong woman this time. She knew what had happened in Florida in 2000!

Betty rolled into action, writing letters and calling friends in the community. She even enlisted the noted Seattle attorney Keelin Curran into her cause. They began a campaign to get back her vote, contacting: Norm Maleng, and the King County Assistant Prosecutor that had been assigned the voter challenge case; The Seattle Times; Attorneys for the Republican Party; Chris Vance, the jackbooted Republican thug who masterminded this sloppy effort; and The American Civil Liberties Union.

Ms. Curran and Betty Brummet heard today from the Republicans that, well, maybe they were a bit hasty and would be dropping this particular challenge. According to a reporter from The Seattle Times, "There's a business called Stronghold Self Storage" with an address somewhat similar to Betty's. He went on to say "I suspect [Betty] got caught in the same kind of address snafu I described in my story this morning. The Republicans thought they were challenging the registrations of voters who had registered illegally at private mailbox businesses and self-storage businesses, but, as Chris Vance said yesterday, they didn't check the cities or geographic designations of the addresses they challenged. "

Betty Brummet is about to get her vote back. They're going to have a hearing and make it official on Monday. And The G.O.P. are about to settle back into the hole from which they crawled. As it turns out, hundreds of their challenges are every bit as bogus as the one against Betty Brummet. They should be ashamed.
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Bush Family Is Split


From The Drudge Report today. It sounds like Nixon's last year in the White House!

Tue Nov 15 2005 11:23:51 ET - Drudgereport.com. President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, INSIGHT magazine claims in a new report.

The president’s reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.

“The atmosphere in the Oval Office has become unbearable,” a source said. “Even the family is split.”

INSIGHT:
Sources close to the White House say that Mr. Bush has become isolated and feels betrayed by key officials in the wake of plunging domestic support, the continued insurgency in Iraq and the CIA-leak investigation that has resulted in the indictment and resignation of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions.
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The G.O.P. Speech Machine


Click image to enlarge. . .
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Women's Panties Against The President



http://www.axisofeve.org/ has been offering anti-Bush panties for some time now. Not bush, Bush! It's an interesting approach, certainly.