In surprising turnaround, Vice-President Cheney announces he will seek the Presidency

In a stunning about face, Vice-President Dick Cheney today announced that he would seek his own term as President of the United States. Making his announcement with his wife Lynne at his side, the Vice-President promised that in one additional term he would be able to implement the programs the Bush Administration had to set aside in order to wage war. "We haven't come as far as we'd hoped. With your help, I intend to get us there."



In the surprise speech to the Cheyenne, Wyoming Daughters of the American Revolution, Cheney said he would cut taxes even further, while strengthening the military, and "finally cleaning up the Social Security mess."


The Vice-President also announced that he would continue and widen the war on terror. "We have them on the run now," Mr. Cheney said, "and I promise you, we will kill or capture the leaders of Al Quaeda as well as Osama bin Laden."

Other potential Republican and Democratic candidates had no comment on Cheney's announcement other than to say "we are utterly stunned and in disbelief."



One campaign chief on the G.O.P. side said "This is wrong on so many levels. Wait until tomorrow when the floodgates have opened." Another Democratic political operative guessed "On the face of it, this seems like a really sick joke. We could see Cheney withdraw from this race as soon as next week. When it comes, the blowback on this one will be nothing like we've seen this crazy year so far."

Several would-be Republican candidates already have press conferences scheduled for tomorrow morning.
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Senator Clinton files bill linking congressional pay to minimum wage

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has introduced a bill that linking Congressional pay increases to increases in the federal minimum wage. It would require that the federal minimum wage be increased by the same percentage amount as Congressional salaries every year. Senator Clinton's bill will immediately raise minimum wage to more than $7 an hour, and provide automatic raises, just as Congress receives.

This is either a great election year ploy. . .or a serious attempt at reform! Either way it works for me. I don't know how congress ducks out on this one--except by making sure it gets bottled up in committee. It won't affect us in this state (Washington), since our minimum wage of $7.63 is considerably higher than the federal rate.

Her bill follows:

S 2725 IS
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2725
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to ensure that increases in the Federal minimum wage keep pace with any pay adjustments for Members of Congress.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 4, 2006
Mrs. CLINTON (for herself, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. JEFFORDS, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. HARKIN, and Mr. OBAMA) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

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A BILL
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to ensure that increases in the Federal minimum wage keep pace with any pay adjustments for Members of Congress.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006'.
SEC. 2. MINIMUM WAGE.
(a) In General- Section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) is amended to read as follows:
`(1)(A) except as otherwise provided in this section, not less than--
`(i) $5.85 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after the date of enactment of the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006;
`(ii) $6.55 an hour, beginning 12 months after that 60th day, adjusted for that year as provided for in subparagraph (B); and
`(iii) $7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day, adjusted each year as provided for in subparagraph (B); and
`(B) the wage provided for under clauses (ii) and (iii) of subparagraph (A) shall be automatically increased for the year involved by a percentage equal to the percentage by which the annual rate of pay for Members of Congress increased for such year as provided for pursuant to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (2 U.S.C. 31).'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act.
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My Worst Jobs: Fifty Tons Of Sand

I was about nineteen. It seemed like easy money. We go to a foundry, unload a boxcar of silica sand and split $100. The guy who hired us--someone's dad--told us he'd done it by himself and it took "two, maybe three hours."



One Sunday, Bill Seguin, Kevin Curran and I drove to the Olympic Foundry in South Seattle. The foundry specialized in civic metal--fire hydrants, manhole covers, park benches, and electrical vaults. We pulled up jovial and full of coffee. There was no one in the entire place except a guard or two, a couple of foundry cats, and hundreds of rats in hiding. It was a sunny day.

We found our shovels and climbed into the boxcar. When we pushed the door open, tons of sand came spilling out. We climbed to the top of the pile and rode a wave of sand down into the sandpit below and in front of the boxcar. Over and over again we rode the waves of sand; this was going to be easy money.

And then, the sand was not tumbling out the door. Gravity had done her part; now it was our turn.

After an hour it was impossible to see that we'd made even a perceptible dent in the fifty tons of sand. Two hours later, we estimated we had unloaded one sixteenth of the sand.

It was time for lunch. Coming back was agony. The boxcar looked like it would take days to unload. Our arms and shoulders began to ache. We imagined we had been stricken with silicosis. We told sick jokes. We talked seriously. We tried to find a system to make the sand pour out the door. How the hell had Ivo been able to do it in three hours!? By six o'clock, every shovelful was agony. And we'd maybe emptied half the boxcar. Every shovelful now required a curse or a grunt. By ten o'clock, we said "forget the hundred bucks. I can't take this any more."

We left the rest of the sand. None of us could lift a shovel off the ground any longer. The next day Ivo called Bill. He expected to get reamed out for leaving all the sand. Ivo just said, "yeah, there was a little sand left. I just grabbed a broom and swept it out in a couple of minutes."

A small selection of my other worst job sagas on all this is that:

My Worst Job No. 1: McGoo (profanity alert...not safe for The Children!)
Design Insanity - Hype, Shuck, and Jive In The Dot-Com Years
My worst job 3: Brewburger
My worst jobs 4: Salsa
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Transcript: 'I'm a simple man with a simple mind'

In his speech at the The White House Correspondents' Dinner, Stephen Colbert put on quite a show, and savaged both The President and the media, who barely gave any play to his speech, even though we all agree it was savage and masterful! This is a transcript of his talk...

Wow, wow, what an honor. The White House Correspondents' Dinner. To just sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what, I'm a pretty sound sleeper, that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

Is he really not here tonight? The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Mr. President and first lady, my name is Stephen Colbert and it's my privilege tonight to celebrate our president. He's not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the "fact-inista." We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up," and that's not true. That's because you looked it up in a book. Next time look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.

Every night on my show, "The Colbert Report," I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the no-fact zone. Fox News, I own the copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind, with a simple set of beliefs that I live by.

Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow.

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion, be it Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all I believe in this president. Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. Pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32 percent means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

Folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull, before a comeback. I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." The president is Rocky and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world. It's the 10th round. He's bloodied, his corner man [is] Mick, who in this case would be the vice president, and he's yelling "Cut me, Dick, cut me," and every time he falls she says stay down! Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up and in the end he -- actually loses in the first movie. OK. It doesn't matter. The point is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face.

So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68 percent of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car.

And I just like the guy. He's a good joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitists telling us what is or isn't true, what did or didn't happen. What's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914. If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American. I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will.

And as excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story -- the President's side and the vice president's side. But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason -- they're super depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home.

Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know, fiction.
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Monthly index of poems on All This Is That

Next poem: Changes Ten/Treading (will appear May, 2006)
Another politican resigns in disgrace
Changes Nine/The Taming Power of the Small
The Candidate
Reds
Poem: Making Room
Changes Eight/Holding Together
Changes Seven/The Army
Changes Six/Conflict
Changes Five/The waiting
Changes Four/The Young Shoot
Changes Three/Trouble Ahead
Changes Two/The Receptive
Changes One/Action
The revolt in heaven
Found Poem: The Richmond Hill Oracle
Poem (and painting): The Robot Wars
I don't believe I'm here
Ten ways of looking at lies
The Broken Chord
With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse
the sun plays its red song
Litany
Poem: The Developers
A raindrop's life
The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments
The Bay Of Delusion
Mad Song
Reasons To Keep On
Conspiracy Theory
The Moon Race
Mr. Flue's Grave In Hillcrest Cemetary, Kent, Wash.
The World Seems Especially Calming And Verisimilitudinous Today
Kent, Washington
Rollover
[It's the Lee Harvey Oswald smile]
Zombie Breakdown
Heaven
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 - 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
Monism
The Golden Rule
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
Explosions
Not Past Tense Yet the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
A Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints
Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
A Poem - Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
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President's latest approval rating (Gallup/USA Today) continues disastrous freefall. . .

The USA TODAY/Gallup poll's most recent results for President Bush's approval rating in 2006: May 5 - 31% approve; 65% disapprove; 5% no opinion. As recently as January, 2006, the numbers were 43% approve; 54% disapprove; 3% no opinion.

The U.S.A. Today article points out that even the hard-core Republican faithful (what they like to call "the base") are deserting the President. It looks more and more like we'll see some reverse-coattails momentum in the mid-tern elections. Heh heh.
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Poem: Another politican resigns in disgrace

Sending out feelers
And testing the ground
The right place was one
Place he couldn't be found.


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Poem: Changes Nine/The Taming Power of the Small

1.
The wind drives across heaven
And reminds us of
The taming power of the small

The wind is air
And bumps clouds together
Across the sky

Transient
Like people
Who cannot change nature

But change the world
Breath by breath
A deed at a time

2.
The strong press forward
Tilting against obstructions
Dragging the feeble along

The spokes burst from the wagon wheels
Blood vanishes
And fear gives way

3.
True wealth like laughter
Is not selfishly hoarded
But shared with friends and strangers

Pleasure shared
Is pleasure doubled
The moon is nearly full

4.
An owl sits in the plum tree
And she doesn't know
I'm glad she's here

5.
This is as good as it gets
And it gets this good
Every day.
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Copyright (c) 2006 by Jack Brummet

Top spook resigns amid bribery and prostitute allegations

CIA Director Porter Goss has resigned after only one year, amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.



In a last minute Oval Office announcement, neither President Bush nor Goss offered a decent reason for why the head of the spy agency was leaving after only a year on the job.















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The Lego Church

click to enlarge


The Abston Church of Christ, made with LEGO pieces, was built by Amy Hughes, a software developer. Abston's name comes from the plastic used to make Lego pieces--Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. The Church is 7 x 5 1/2 feet and 30 inches tall.


click to enlarge

The church has 400 people in the sanctuary and choir loft, with rooms for thousands more! It has nearly 4,000 windows, including fantastic, majectic windows surrounding the altar, restrooms, mosaics, incredibly ornate flooring, a baptistery, a nave, and a huge, pipe organ.


click to enlarge

Click on Amy Hughe' web site for lots of photographic goodness and more information.
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No Pants Day -- Reminder!

Blowback

The word blowback has come into fairly common usage recently, at least in the new and old media. . .

According to dictionary.com, blowback is

1: the backward escape of unburned gunpowder after a shot

2: misinformation resulting from the recirculation into the source country of disinformation previously planted abroad by that country's intelligence service.

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