When I parted the Red Sea and made it rain frogs and all that, I didn't have to listen to pissy complaints about how my miracles don't live up to your artistic standards. Yes, he's a whore, in every sense of the word, he is a top member of the national press corps who is also a professional online ass-fucker, and, indeed, his head looks like a great big penis. I'm glad you finally figured it out.

And, frankly, I shouldn't have had to say anything, because it's not like this wasn't obvious enough to begin with. And it's not like I'm made out of fucking free time, either. I have to run the Universe over here. Do you know how big the Universe is? Pretty fucking big. A little bit bigger than your apartment, and, if I say so myself, a lot better managed. So let's maybe keep the wiseass Talking Heads stage show comparisons to ourselves from now on. And I wouldn't even have to get involved with all this metaphor shit if you'd just read your damned email once in while.

And I don't want to come off as hyper-critical here, because I'm a forgiving God and all that, but if there is any way of missing an obvious point, you people will find it. You know how many plagues I had to give Pharaoh before he clued in? SEVEN. Seven fucking plagues I had to come up with before this guy gets the picture. Makes me crazy. Now, if you've ever seen what a Pharaoh thinks of as a tasteful headstone, you'll understand that these people weren't real big on understatement, but still. And just look around at how many people still can't puzzle out what the Gannon story as all about. So I've got you and your smart-ass David Byrne comments on one side, and Howie Kurtz still scratching his head on the other, and meanwhile I haven't had a day off since that Sunday 15 billion years ago. I didn't create the universe so I could spend all my time tutoring shaved monkeys in Remedial Cluefulness. So, I'm real sorry I can't make absolutely everything perfect for absolutely everyone all at once. I'm real real super sorry about that. I'd love to spend all my time wiping your ass for you and making the cute girls fall in love with the chess club and everything, but I'm afraid my schedule is a little tiny bit busy at the moment. But everybody always wants something. It's like two weeks ago, when all the Patriots fans expect me to make the Patriots win, and the Eagles fans expect me to make the Eagles win, like that doesn't put me in an awkward position. Apparently, I'm supposed to figure out how all the Patriots blitz schemes work, while you all sit around going "The White House approves a 'journalist' who is a literal prostitute who literally has a dick for a head? I don't get it." I guess this is the division of labor which everyone thinks is fair. Well, that's just some real tough fucking shit for all y'all, because I'm not the evening's featured fucking entertainment at the fucking Howard Johnson's lounge - I'm fucking God, bitches, and God doesn't fucking do requests.
said

NASA researchers say they have recovered bacteria that apparently lay dormant for 32,000 years in a frozen pond in central Alaska.

If confirmed, the finding means that there may be many other pockets of ancient life in permafrost and seafloor sediments. The hardiness of the bacteria also suggests that life could survive even on Mars, in places like the frozen sea reported by other researchers this week.

But the NASA claim was greeted with some reserve by other scientists because previous claims of resuscitating ancient bacteria have not been borne out.

The bacterium, a novel species, was recovered from a frozen pond exposed in the side of the Fox tunnel, a hole dug through Pleistocene-era ice by the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory at the Army. Dr. Richard B. Hoover, a biologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said that while visiting the refrigerated tunnel he noticed a discolored patch in a layer that froze 32,000 years ago, according to radiocarbon data. Taking samples back to his laboratory, Dr. Hoover and his colleague Dr. Elena V. Pikuta noticed bacteria that started moving as soon as the ice thawed.

The bacteria resembled a group of microbes called carnobacteria that can tolerate cold and are often isolated from refrigerated food. The NASA researchers established that the microbes belonged to a new species, which they have named Carnobacterium pleistocenium in honor of its age. The bacterium is not poisonous, Dr. Hoover said, although some of its close relatives cause disease in fish. The researchers are reporting their finding in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Dr. Hoover said he believed the bacteria were not able to divide during the eons spent locked in the ice, so the specimens he thawed out would have been 32,000 years old, the time when the Alaskan pond was last in liquid form.

Oh Baby
by Ann Coulter


Well can you believe the latest tizzy the left has gotten itself into since it was discovered recently, that the President was discovered to have allegedly feasted on the flesh of an infant?
The liberal press has attempted once again to create a firestorm of controversy by taking facts out of context and twisting the story to suit it's own devious purposes.
All of this comes as no surprise, but it is still hard to stomach the manufactured outrage coming from a democrat party that we all know has no love lost between itself and infants.
These advocates of on-demand abortion and second chance contraception have suddenly, in light of recent events, decided that miraculously, they now wish to (gasp) defend children from those who would wish to dine on their tender young carcasses. Where were they when the battle over the Lacy Peterson law (making the willful destruction of a fetus equal to the crime of murder) was being fought in the trenches? I'll tell you where they were. Right smack dab in the center of the pity pot, as the federal courts decided that democrats would finally be forced to remove thier filthy child-murdering hands from the the money pot of abortion clinics and womens health advocate groups that council women to murder their babies.
Make no mistake, they are hypocrites, one and all.
It is amazing how indignant the left has now become, now that they have realized what a political windfall they can reap from this overblown, overhyped controversy.

The fact is, that liberal pundits like C. Everett Coop and Howard Dean, Socialist movements such as the A.M.A and the Department of Children and Family Services, and all the other liberal scum who have conveninetly decided to blatantly grandstand, distorting the facts in this case so shamelessly, are all just further proof that the left will stop at nothing in their scrurrilous and desperate attempt to reclaim lost power.

The President ate a baby. So what? If my President decides he has developed a taste for baby food, who am I to judge? So conveniently we forget how many children have been saved by the policies of George Bush. If the Democrats had been in power, surely the child that the president ate would have been left behind, caught up in the twisted maze of bureaucracy and red tape of the Democrats tax and spend reality that would be our school system were it left to them to destroy.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix."

As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots. The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and flatter the leg. In short, the boots are sexy.

Rice boldly eschewed the typical fare chosen by powerful American women on the world stage. She was not wearing a bland suit with a loose-fitting skirt and short boxy jacket with a pair of sensible pumps. She did not cloak her power in photogenic hues, a feminine brooch and a non-threatening aesthetic. Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame "Matrix" jump kick if necessary. Who wouldn't give her ensemble a double take -- all the while hoping not to rub her the wrong way?

Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual.

The Kansas attorney general, a staunch opponent of abortion, has demanded the medical records of nearly 90 woman and girls who had late-term abortions, saying he needs the material to investigate crimes.

The two abortion clinics involved in the case say the state has no right to such personal information and are fighting the request in the Kansas Supreme Court.

But Attorney General Phill Kline insisted Thursday he needs the records because he has ``the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children.''

Sex involving someone under 16 is illegal in Kansas, and it is illegal in the state for doctors to perform an abortion after 22 weeks unless there is reason to believe it is needed to protect the mother's health.

Kline spoke to reporters after details of the secret investigation, which began in October, surfaced in a legal brief filed by attorneys for the two clinics. The clinics argued that unless the high court intervenes, women who obtained abortions could find government agents knocking at their door.

The clinics said Kline demanded their complete, unedited medical records for women and girls who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies in 2003. Court papers did not identify the clinics.

The records sought include the patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.

Dear Friend;

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently
disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world.

The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you
and would like you to know the truth about where they went.

This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken
up to heaven.

If you read a Bible, you will see that after chapter three in the book of Revelation,
the church is no longer mentioned as being on earth. (The church are the believers
in Jesus Christ, not the buildings in which people meet.)

In the Bible, 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 verses 16 and 17 tell how Jesus came
to take away His church. But, you have to believe the Bible is the Word of
God in order to believe this.

I am sure that there will be a lot of speculation as to what happened to all
these people. The theories of some scientists and world leaders will have
so much credibility that most of the world will believe them.

It will sound like the truth!

But, there is only one truth. And, that truth is that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh,
came back to earth and took with Him to Heaven all who believed in Him
and made Him their Lord.

If you would like to give your life to Jesus Christ and be born again, it is
not too late. First you must pray to God saying"Father I admit I am a
sinner, and I will turn from my sin and do good. I believe that Jesus was
your son and that He came here to die for me so that my sins would be
forgiven. I ask you to forgive me and I will repent of my sins. In Jesus
name I pray."

If you just prayed that prayer and meant it with all your heart, then God
will know you as one of His own. You should now seek out others who have
also given their lives to Christ, read a Bible daily, and do your best to
bring others to Christ.

God bless you.

About Me

Bruised but not broken

I'm baaaaaaack! If you thought I was going to slink away - then you don't know much about me. Someone still has to battle the Left and now that I've emerged from the crucible, I'm stronger than before.

Despite all the pleas from the Left to go over to the 'dark side' and expose the 'corrupt Bush administration' simply isn't going to happen. My faith and my ideology are rock solid.

Still, the last few weeks have been difficult for my family and my associates. To them I offer my apology and gratitude for their support.

In regard to the allegations about my personal life, I have been advised by my attorneys not to comment on any of the details pending the outcome of any possible legal action I might pursue. Therefore, I won't be discussing any of that stuff here.

Now the media is hot on the trail of a gay escort service that Gannon may have run some years ago.

"Likewise, many of the same leftist blogs that castigate the religious right for intolerance didn't hesitate to reveal the sexual peculiarities of White House correspondent/sympathizer James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon."

As he stumps for Social Security privatization, President Bush always gets a big round of applause for promising that the money in a private account could be passed on to one's heirs.

If those happy clappers only knew the details.

Under the president's proposal, when you retired you would not be able to start spending the money in your private account until after you bought an annuity, a financial contract in which you hand over a lump-sum payment and, in return, get a monthly stream of income for life. The upside of buying such an annuity would be that you'd be protected against outliving all of your money. The downside is that even if you died immediately after retirement, the most your heirs would inherit would be the amount that remained in your private account after you had paid for the mandatory annuity. (If you lived longer, of course, you might well need to spend the remainder to supplement the annuity's low monthly payout. )

The idea of making the private accounts part of one's estate is particularly appealing to low- and middle-income earners, who may not have all that much to leave to their heirs under normal circumstances. But those are exactly the people who would have to use the largest share of their accounts to buy annuities. The government would require that annuities be large enough to keep recipients above the poverty line for life. The less you had to start with, the less you'd have left over after buying the mandatory annuity.

What if you died before you retired? As with many claims Mr. Bush makes about Social Security privatization, the fate of your private account in the event of your untimely death is unclear. But one issue that raises big doubts about whether that money could be inherited is the question of how the trillions of dollars the government would have to borrow to set up a privatized system would be repaid.

Under the president's proposal, when you retired, your traditional Social Security retirement benefit would be cut by an amount equal to all the deposits you had made into your private account plus interest. (The interest would be three percentage points higher than the rate of inflation.) The benefit cut would be each person's contribution to repaying the huge debt the Bush administration would take on to "pay for" privatization.

But if you died before you retired, you would have already used some of that borrowed money to set up the private account and yet would never have made any contribution to repaying the debt. So in that case, how would the government recoup your share of the amount it had borrowed? Well, it could let your share of the debt go unpaid - in effect bequeathing to your heirs and their fellow citizens ever-higher deficits. Or your spouse could inherit your private account and the benefit cut that went with it. Or the government could take its cut from your private account before the money went to your survivors - a grab that could wipe out your stash.

The White House would hotly deny that the last alternative could happen. Nothing freaks out the Bush administration more than the suggestion that the government would ever tap someone's private account - even for money that is owed to the government. It doesn't, however, seem too bothered about gutting your traditional benefits. Go figure.

Thompson had much in common with Burroughs and Ginsberg. First, their products were mainly noise. Their books were reissued but now sit inertly on bookstore shelves, incapable of inspiring younger readers, or even nostalgic baby boomers, to purchase them. Thompson claimed credit for the invention of "gonzo journalism," epitomized by his great success, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in 1972. He will inevitably be hailed by newswriters as the creator of a genre. But if his work is taught to the young, it is as an exemplar of the madness of the '60s, not as literature or journalism. Aside from his own later works, including such trivia, bearing his signature, as The Great Shark Hunt, Generation of Swine, and Songs of the Doomed, of what did "gonzo" journalism consist? Thompson left no authorial legacy.

It has long been argued that lasting literature is an impossibility without imitation and emulation, and that although young authors often produce works ridiculously imitative of their idols, real writers grow out of such mimesis to gain recognition for their own, individual abilities. But who can imagine a youthful talent beginning with an exercise in the gonzo style? Thompson produced no others like him, for the same reason Burroughs and Ginsberg generated no schools of novel-writing or verse. One may go further and say they had nothing to teach the young, except to emit a cacophony.

Indeed, it would be one thing to say that Thompson and the others like him, such as Burroughs and Ginsberg, are dated. Even embarrassingly old-fashioned artistic works, bereft of immediacy for those who are not part of the environment from which they emerged, have the capacity for revival. But Thompson produced a clamor without content. Doubtlessly, the most pathetic aspect of the '60s phenomenon was the absolute conviction of Thompson and those who encouraged him that "living in the moment" really did count more than anything else in the world, that history never existed and that the future was their property.

Ayad Allawi, the current prime minister, and Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician and deputy prime minister, said in separate interviews on Tuesday that without guarantees renouncing sectarianism and embracing Western democratic ideals they were poised to block Dr. Jaafari's nomination and possibly peel off enough members from the Shiite's United Iraqi Alliance to form a government of their own.

Iraq's interim constitution effectively requires a two-thirds majority in the new assembly to choose a prime minister and government, and the Shiite alliance, led by two religious parties with close ties to Iran, won a bare majority in the Jan. 30 election.

Indeed, initial indications were that a potentially polarizing battle was possible, one that could expose the deep fissures in Iraqi society that have been held in check since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Those fissures not only cut across sectarian and ethnic lines but also track a wide disagreement about the nature of the Iraqi state: whether it should be religious or secular, centrally led or governed by a federal system, allied to Iran or anchored in ties to the West.

...if Social Security was all privatized the way George Bush wants it to be, all tied up in the stock market...

...how much of your retirement fund would you have lost today?

The Dow plunged 174.02 points, or 1.6 percent, to 10,611.20 as all but one of its 30 components fell into the red. It was the market barometer's biggest loss in points since May 19, 2003.

The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 28.30 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,030.32 and the S&P 500 fell 17.43 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,184.16.

In the broader market, decliners led advancers 26 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange and 23 to 9 on the Nasdaq. Big Board volume was about 1.74 billion shares while some 2.05 billion shares traded on the Nasdaq.

Among Dow components, Home Depot slumped 4.1 percent after its quarterly report disappointed some investors. Merck, which had leaped 13 percent in the previous session after a panel recommended returning its drug Vioxx to the market, fell 4.3 percent.

Only Verizon Communications managed small gains within the Dow.

March crude futures closed up $2.14 at $51.15 a barrel while April crude, now the front month contract, gained $2.41 to close at $51.42 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude last topped $51 in late October. See Futures Movers.

"When oil popped above $51, the market sort of gave up waiting for tomorrow's release of CPI numbers and people started to take whatever profits they had," said Robert Pavlik, portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.

Concerns about inflation ahead of Wednesday's report on consumer prices in the wake of news of a surge in wholesale prices last week added to the negative tone of the market.

In other matters, Guckert said he is spending most of his time these days writing in a journal he has kept since he first began covering the White House in February 2003, a journal that could become a book.

"I have probably one page for each day at the White House, about 200 pages of stuff," said Guckert. "Is it all interesting? Probably not. But it could be [a book]. I haven’t thought that far ahead."

Guckert, who contends he still has a future in journalism, also added that entering the paid-speaker circuit is another goal. "It is likely that I will start making some appearances and speaking," he said, declinig to name specific efforts he has taken in that regard. "There are people who are definitely interested in some of my behind-the-scenes work in the press room." That is certainly an understatement.

When asked about what journalistic opportunities he could find, Guckert said only: "I still think, despite the bad things being said about me, I am a journalist, I have been one for two years and have written about 500 articles. I paid a big price for the privilege to call myself a journalist."

Although Guckert said no one had asked him to be their guest at the 2005 White House Correspondents dinner, scheduled for April 30, he believes his recent fame will make him a potential guest. "There is still time," he said, noting that the dinner had often prompted attention because of some controversial guests in the past, such as Monica Lewinsky. "There is always someone there trying to make news," he added. "Maybe this year it is going to be me."

GEORGE Bush has banned Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House - because she is a divorcee.

The unprecedented snub has effectively sabotaged Charles's plan to take his bride on a Royal tour of America later this year.

The trip would have been the pair's first official tour as a married couple.

But the US President - a notoriously right-wing Christian and reformed alcoholic - told aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be playing host to the newly-weds, who are both divorcees.

The decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced.

A Government insider said: "It was relayed to us from Washington that Mrs Parker Bowles would not be welcome at the White House.

"The Americans are aware that the visit will be subject to a lot of media attent ion and did not want the President drawn into what they view to be a public relations exercise.

"It's now uncertain if the visit will even go ahead."

Uh-oh!

That other jolly green giant could be in trouble.

Shrek 2 is the latest animated film title to be "outed" by Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.

On its website the Traditional Values Coalition (news - web sites) is warning parents about the cross-dressing and transgender themes contained in the hit DreamWorks feature, now on DVD.

"Shrek 2 is billed as harmless entertainment but contains subtle sexual messages," says the coalition, which describes itself as a grassroots inter-denominational lobby with more than 43,000 member churches.

"Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see Shrek 2 may wish to consider the following."

The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an "evil" bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.

In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women's underwear.

The TVC report, A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream', raps DreamWorks for helping to promote crossdressing and transgenderism.

Does Iraq truly threaten the existence of our nation? If one takes at face value the rhetoric emanating from the Bush administration, it would seem so. According to President Bush and his advisers, Iraq is known to possess weapons of mass destruction and is actively seeking to reconstitute the weapons production capabilities that had been eliminated by UN weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998, while at the same time barring the resumption of such inspections.

I bear personal witness through seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations to both the scope of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and the effectiveness of the UN weapons inspectors in ultimately eliminating them.

While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.

With the exception of mustard agent, all chemical agent produced by Iraq prior to 1990 would have degraded within five years (the jury is still out regarding Iraq's VX nerve agent program - while inspectors have accounted for the laboratories, production equipment and most of the agent produced from 1990-91, major discrepancies in the Iraqi accounting preclude any final disposition at this time.)

The same holds true for biological agent, which would have been neutralized through natural processes within three years of manufacture. Effective monitoring inspections, fully implemented from 1994-1998 without any significant obstruction from Iraq, never once detected any evidence of retained proscribed activity or effort by Iraq to reconstitute that capability which had been eliminated through inspections.

In direct contrast to these findings, the Bush administration provides only speculation, failing to detail any factually based information to bolster its claims concerning Iraq's continued possession of or ongoing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. To date no one has held the Bush administration accountable for its unwillingness - or inability - to provide such evidence.

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

[snip]

On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.

The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh.

On Jan. 17, the New Yorker posted an article by Hersh entitled The Coming Wars (New Yorker, January 24-31, 2005). In it, the well-known investigative journalist claimed that for the Bush administration, "The next strategic target [is] Iran." Hersh also reported that "The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer." According to Hersh, "Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. . . . Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. . . . The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach [to Iran] cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act."

Strategic Objective 1.2: Ensure a mobilization infrastructure of 56 State Headquarters,
442 Area Offices and 1,980 Local Boards are operational within 75 days of an authorized
return to conscription.

How success will be measured:

Meet the established timelines for the Agency’s quinquennial
workload study.

Results of REX meet established targets identified in the REX Plan.

Strategic Performance Goals:

Ensure that 90% of assigned SDs and RFOs are capable of implementing Timed-Phased Response (TPR) functions and responsibilities.

Ensure that 90% of assigned SDs and RFOs are capable of providing instructions and administering the Registrant Integrated Processing System (RIPS).

FY 2004 Annual Performance Goals:

Prepare and conduct an Area Office Prototype Exercise which tests the activation process from SSS Lottery input to the issuance of the first Armed Forces Examination Orders.

Redefine Agency infrastructure based on quinquennial workload study.

*****

Strategic Objective 1.3: Be operationally ready to furnish untrained manpower within DoD
timelines.

How success will be measured:

Evaluate the results of the FY 2002 REX and future Readiness Exercises.

Validate and make any necessary changes to the automated systems supporting the mobilization process.

Strategic Performance Goals:

Achieve 95% of readiness objectives based on readiness exercise.

Achieve approval and validation of the RIPS Manual.

FY 1999 Annual Performance Goal:

Ensure 95% of predefined readiness objectives are attained and validated during readiness exercises.

FY 2004 Annual Performance Goals:

Prepare, conduct, and evaluate an Area Office Prototype Exercise to ensure the activation process is viable from deployment of the SSS Lottery to the issuance of the first Armed Forces Examination Orders.

Ensure 90% of the personnel tested are capable of implementing activation procedures.

Ensure that 95% of the predefined readiness objectives are attained and validated during the Area Office Prototype Exercise.

****

"I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth." -- Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

I'm mad at Hunter S. Thompson. I'm mad at the way he lived his life, whacked out of his gord, so to speak, on any chemical you can think of, and how he met his death, apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Either way, it was a waste. After becoming a counterculture icon in the 60s and 70s, Thompson faded into obscurity, where he has remained, locked away in a "compound" in Aspen, Colorado, for most of my lifetime. Reading his "Hey Rube" columns occasionally in the past few years, it was reasonably clear to me that Thompson was insane, and the most obvious culprit was drugs. It is literally impossible for most people to believe the amount of junk Thompson did in his adult life.

[snip]

What I admired was his writing style, which was brilliant and inventive, and his one-time relevance as a counter-culture journalist. His left-libertarian writings could have had a much bigger impact in the last 30 years or so, if he hadn't taken himself out of the game. His biggest admirer was Matt Drudge, and I once saw Drudge say that Thompson should "come down off the mountain and stop acting like a nut". Too true, but Thompson wasn't acting anymore. He had become the sort of character he used to skewer, back in the Rolling Stone days. And that's why I'm mad at him; no, I can't be mad at him. It's just such a waste.

"How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me at the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 - and as far as I can tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same."

"It is a nervous thing to consider: Not just four more years of Nixon, but Nixon's last four years in politics - completely unshackled, for the first time in his life, from any need to worry about who might or might not vote for him the next time around. If he wins in November, he will finally be free to do whatever he wants...or maybe 'wants' is too strong a word for right now. It conjures up images of Papa Doc, Batista, Somoza; jails full of bewildered 'political prisoners' and the constant cold-sweat fear of jackboots suddenly kicking your door off its hinges at four A.M."

"The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy - then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece. Probably the rarest form of life in American politics is the man who can turn on a crowd & still keep his head straight - assuming it was straight in the first place."

As I was saying, Guckert should reveal his ties to the administration in detail for a simple reason. Liberals gunning for the administration now serve his purposes better than the GOP. There are two sides battling for ground on this story. There is a side that wants this to be about Jeff Gannon and about how liberal bloggers conspired to take him down. And then there is a side that wants the story to be about the White House and its divorce from free society. This story will be one or the other at this point. Which one do you want it to be JeffJim?

Do you want this story to continue to be about your embarrassing career choices or do you want it to be about how you were a pawn in a game of political football that just got blown wide open? Do you want to be a prostitute or a noble whistleblower? Withholding information about your ties to the White House only exposes you more because right now, investigating you is the only way we are going to get to that burning set of questions about the White House. And frankly, you keep egging the blogosphere on with your incoherent defenses every time you sit down for an interview.

So do yourself a favor, JeffJim, and ally with the "liberal bloggers" who want to get this story off of you and laser focused on the thugs in the White House. Running for cover in a GOP that has a lot more to lose by cozying up to a gay prostitute rather than making him the object of their latest deflection--a domestic Lyndie England if you will--will only hurt what is left of your good name in the end.

Think about it another way: if you defect you will probably at least get a book deal. And with your background it shouldn't be too hard to write the most interesting book to downplay a major sex scandal since 2004's My Life. And that's when the big bucks start rolling in...