"American" is a state of mind

and we're the neurons. Of course I'm mixing metaphors; that's the point.

I guess not everybody can have huge cojones, but thankfully someone in Congress does. Henry Waxman (pit-bull Democrat, CA) probably needs some extra room in his pants- check out his latest letter to the chairman of the House Comittee on Government Reform. He's a forceful writer, and has some shocking facts on his side regarding the current double-standard in D.C.

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"It's pretty funny how we use the word socialist to try to smear people these days. The guy who started the religion I grew up with said you'll be judged by how you treat the least among us. He said you're to love your enemy. He said the poor and meek shall inherit the earth. Was he a socialist? He went into the temple and turned over the moneychangers' tables because he didn't like that the have-nots were suffering. He felt the pie should be divided up a little more fairly. That's the fundamental basis of my upbringing in an Irish Catholic household. I still live by those principles. To try to smear me with the word socialist is anti-Catholic.... Call it liberal, socialist, whatever--I don't care. It's about responding from a good place in your heart."
-Michael Moore, interviewed in Playboy.

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Steady leadership. President Bush's leadership is about as steady as Tricky Dick's heartbeat.

Some Bush junta lies laid bare here and here

How close do you live to a Superfund site? Do you know? According to this report, "One in every four Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund toxic waste site. More than 1,200 Superfund sites – the most dangerous toxic waste sites in the nation – poison our land, water, and air with toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects, liver, brain and nerve damage, as well as other health problems."
And further, and worse, "the Bush administration has dramatically undermined the Superfund program. The rate of cleanups has fallen by half compared with the late 1990s. Funding levels have decreased by 34 percent in constant 2003 dollars from 1993-2004. Today, ordinary taxpayers – not polluters – are bearing the full burden of paying for the cleanup of abandoned Superfund sites. This is the first administration in the history of the cleanup program to oppose the polluter-pays principle."

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This is shocking. This is like Gandhi raising his fist. Twenty-four years in a hostile war zone- that was OK. Caught between Soviet forces and US-supported Taliban and allied clans: they persevered; they survived. But now this imperially-imposed governance there seems to have angered the governed to such an extent that they'll lash out at anything not-them. Afghanistan is out of control. And that's why it's out of the news.

Oh, but "the world is safer with Saddam Hussein in custody." I forgot.