__ _ / _|_ __ ___
                 _____   / _` | |_| '_ ` _ \   _____
                |_____| | (_| |  _| | | | | | |_____|
                         \__,_|_| |_| |_| |_|
                         Another Foggy Moment

      These are the continuing adventures of a typical resident
      of the self-proclaimed center of the Pugetopolis universe -
      Seattle. Most are true stories but some are made of whole-
        cloth. I ain't the Mayor, the Governor or a Big Shot. Just
      another Working Stiff with a Bad Attitude.

                      THIS AIN'T NO STINK'N BLOG

         ------------------------------------------------
         WARNING: This is not a Child-Proof Neighborhood.
         If you're a kid - scram!, beat it! you little
         punk before your Old Lady catches you and calls
         the cops. They'll throw you in the Big House in
         Walla Walla and won't let you out until you're
         89 years old. There. Don't say I didn't warn you.
         -------------------------------------------------

                              - 212 -

 I've been feasting on berries all week. It seems everywhere I go there's a
 bramble or two bursting with sweet, fat, juicy nuggets. I got the scratches
 and scrapes to prove my effort. At least I don't have to worry about any
 competition from bears. Whilst living with the Crees up in northern Alberta
 many moons ago, it wasn't unusual to have Injuns working one side of a 
 berry patch while black bears worked the other side. You could smell the
 buggers from a mile away. Especially in the summer when they work up a 
 sweat, bears really stink. The two parties had apparently worked out some 
 sort of inter-speices agreement millenia ago to share the patches. Being
 honorable critters, both sides have been good for it ever since.

 How ironic. Iraq has been without electricity ever since we "liberated" them
 back in May. Not a peep about it from our News Nazis. But the lights briefly
 go out in New York City for a few hours and it turns into a non-stop Whine
 Fest. It was no accident that brought down that system. Given its economic
 importance it's safeguards were far too sophisticated and full of redundancies 
 to allow a total system crash. Only a technological illiterate could imagine 
 otherwise. Like err...President Yellowbelly and about 99% of the population
 of the United States. Whoever did it, pulled off the Hack of the New Century. 
 Since government's natural inclination is to lie its ass off about everything,
 it's safe to ignore any 'official' explanations. 

 The South African brother was back at his familiar spot across from the Bank
 of America on The Ave this week hitting on passers-by for spare change and
 a little loose conversation. Seems his recent absence was on account of he 
 got arrested for having a beer in a back alley. Apparently because he's a 
 man with few visible financial underpinings, the sports bars aren't anxious 
 to have him hang around. So to be a good citizen and not offend anyone's 
 delicate sensibilities, he took his beer in the back alley. What the hell...
 it was hot and there was some danger of him going into heat stroke. The beer
 was strictly for medicinal purposes eh. The cops busted him anways. The kind, 
 compassionate judge, far more anxious to suck up to the local Chamber of 
 Commerce rather than engage in the confusing complexities of jurisprudence, 
 casually brushed off the brother's explanation and gave him a choice: $50 
 fine or 2 days in the Hoosegow. Living on a hand-to-mouth disability check 
 and only partial housing aid that forces him to beg on the street to make 
 up the difference, the $50 was out of the question. It might be lottery-ticket 
 money to the judge but it was a month's worth of groceries to the brother. 
 So they threw him in Tuberculosis Manor - the King County lock-up. He said 
 it was a big, smelly, dirty, cold cell loaded with many unfriendly scoundrels 
 and lay abouts. He didn't make any friends and hated every second of it. I'll 
 bet those two days in the Slammer cost the taxpayers a helluva lot more than 
 $50. You don't have to be a retard to be a Hooterville judge, but you get 
 bonus points if you are.

 HOOTERVILLE HISTORY...

 The annual Hempfest is held each year at Myrtle Edwards Park overlooking Elliot 
 Bay just off the north end of the downtown waterfront. In fact I think it's 
 coming up this weekend. Too bad President Yellowbelly, a big fan of Bud back 
 in his Frat House era, will miss it by a week. Since he's talking to God these 
 days, he's obviously using something a tad stronger anyways. Glue maybe? I can 
 just see him huff'n on a baggie in the White House bathroom. Probably tells 
 his wife the glue's for his model airplanes. It would explain the brain
 damage eh.

 It's a sad irony that while everybody's getting ready to Do The Myrtle at the 
 Hempfest, today is the 34th anniversary of the death of the park's namesake: 
 City Council member Myrtle Edwards. Quite possibly the most popular Council
 member the City has ever had.

 An immigrant from America's eastern shores, Myrtle headed west with her new 
 Hubby back in WW-II days. They tried California first. Yuck! Too much sun! 
 So they headed up to Seattle and found our dreary, rainy but prolifically 
 green habitat more to their liking. Hubby found war-time work and Myrtle set 
 about hatching her eggs. Everything went smashingly well for both them. We 
 won the war and the Edwards put together a classic American post-war middle
 class family. Just like Ozzie and Harriet Nelson or Ward and June Cleaver.
 
 But then the kids grew up and went off to start their own lives leaving Myrtle 
 and Hubby at loose ends. Their biological imperative fulfilled, like a growing 
 number of couples at that time, they decided to split and pursue their own 
 dreams. It was a friendly seperation of the ways. The lawyers had little more 
 to do then shuffle the official papers. 

 Hubby had his career but what did Myrtle have? Not much demand for retired 
 housewives, then or now. At a time in life when most women might have been
 inclined to descend into a deep funk or settle into their rocking-chair in 
 front of the fireplace at Geezer Manor to while away their Golden Years 
 knitting booties for the grandkids and blowing their Social Security checks 
 on their weekly poker game with their gal-friends, Myrtle had other ideas. 

 She started Myrtle Edwards - The Next Generation. She headed over to U Dub 
 and became an undergrad as she set her sights on a degree. Then she started 
 joining every club in sight. Birds had always been a special interest of hers 
 so she got involved with some bird-hugger outfits. Local politics sort of 
 interested her so she signed on with some municipal political groups. In 
 between cramming for exams at the Dub and searching for the pink-bellied 
 northern spotted-penguin in local wetlands, she stuffed envelopes and licked 
 stamps for her favorite canidates. She wasn't ready for the funky monkey or
 the rocking-chair yet.

 One thing led to another and before you knew it people were asking her to run 
 for City Council. Sounded spiffy to her, so she did. And, much to her surpise, 
 she won. It didn't take her long to focus on Seattle's dingy appearance. It's
 all well and good to Save The World, but if the place looks like a dump nobody
 will be happy. So she set about beautifying the city and got quite a reputation 
 nationally along the way. Even the White House took notice of her efforts here.
 Everybody was crazy about her. She won re-election in a breeze. And still found 
 time for bird-watching. This "New Life" stuff was working out quite well and 
 those public-admin courses at The Dub came in handy. 

 But just at the height of her new-found fame and even as rumors began to spread 
 about what a great Mayor she might make, tragedy struck. While driving downtown 
 she got in an accident and she died. The magic ran out and the fairy tale ended 
 abruptly. Years later the City named it's new waterfront park after Myrtle. It 
 appropriately arose from the debris of a previous existence as an industrial 
 area. She would have appreciated the symbolism I'm sure.

 Ever since then, Seattlistas have been Do'n The Myrtle. Though the trees are still
 small and don't provide much shade or shelter, it affords a lovely view of Elliot
 Bay and sports an uncharacteristic plethora of benches. It also has a nifty fishing 
 dock nearby complete with its own bait/snack bar. And its a good spot to watch the 
 harbor tugs to-ing and fro-ing between Harbor Island and the Magnolia docks. It
 even has a mini-beach about 20-feet long...at low-tide only of course.

 Being pretty much on a Natural High, she probably didn't indulge in things like
 Wacky Tobacky, but she was sort partial to herbs so I guess it wouldn't hurt to 
 take a hit or two in her memory. 

 WEASEL INVASION...

 For the past couple weeks a big Secret Service Sikorsky chopper has been cruising 
 our local skies as the Boyz prepared for the visit later this week by our Executive 
 Lying Hillbilly - Generalisimo George W. Yellowbelly. Yeller's a little too much 
 of a coward to actually appear in public. His life expectancy would be measured in 
 minutes if he tried. Like anybody is crazy enough to give Veep Dick-Him-Before-He-
 Dicks-You Cheney the leg up. And the Al Qaida guys would be at the back of that 
 line-up. Yeller's just here to 'fleece the sheep' of their spare coin. President 
 Bubba Jay used to drop by for the same purpose but he showed up much more often. 
 He wasn't afraid of us . Our Pollock Gestapo Chief will take full advantage of the 
 situation to fluff up his bona fides for that Homeland Security job he's aiming for 
 by having his thugs rough up anybody who protests the visit. Cops don't protect our 
 freedoms, they only protect the privileges of the powerful few.

 Parachuting in ahead of him is Presidential Wannabe Dr. Howie Dean who appeared at 
 the park across from Westlake Mall on Sunday. I wonder if he lets his son drive his 
 limo? He didn't do half bad driving the get-away car in that liquor store heist a 
 while back. Though getting caught likely complicated his employment prospects. I'd
 go for a chauffeur experienced at fast getaways. Recently annointed by our News
 Nazis as the Official "Good Guy" opposition to 'Ol Yeller, Dr. Howie drew a pretty
 decent crowd at what is a busy location anyways. The cops chased away all the bums
 and spare-change artists who normally congregate at the park. Lost the Bum Vote
 right there.

 MARS SCHMARS...

 As I'm sitting in the coffee room at work I can't help but overhear a couple guys 
 from the sales department chatting nearby. One of them asks the other if he's seen 
 Mars yet. He answers, no, he hasn't but a friend of his has, and, boy oh boy, he 
 said it had a BIG tail on it. Then a day or two later a couple comrades one or
 two Cubes over start discussing Mars. One guy asks the other if he's seen it yet. 
 The other guys says you need a telescope to see it and he doesn't have one.

 I really enjoy astronomy. More than most people probably. I spent a couple years 
 at an observatory, not as a professional astronomer but as technical support. They 
 even used to let me operate the telescope - swing it around to various targets 
 during the course of a night's research. That was way cool. I've volunteered to 
 lend a hand  on various telephone 'hot lines' when things like Halley's Comet were 
 up there and visible. And I did a summer road trip once visiting various parks with 
 two humongous portable Dobsonian 18-inchers and giving astro lectures to bored 
 campers. Yes, I met John Dobson too. He was in his 80's then bopping around the 
 countryside in a beat-up old van with his 12-year old son. Astronomers are very 
 romantic guys. Night work and Heavenly Bodies are their specialties.

 It isn't that I mind these periodic Astro Gee Whiz jobs our News Nazis occasionally 
 do - stuff like this Mars-is-closer-than-in-a-Zillion-years thingee going around. 
 What pisses me off is the lousy job they inevitably make of it. Somehow they always 
 manage to work it so that people are as ignorant about astronomy after one of their 
 Gee Whiz episodes as they were before the same. If they were teachers, they'd get 
 fired for being incompetent. I suspect it's because your average newspaper/TV/radio 
 journalist is a third-rate Arts major who don't know squat about anything. They like 
 to pretend they're experts without going to all the trouble and bother of actually 
 becoming one.

 Being an arts major is roughly the equivalent to what being a high school grad was 
 20 years ago. It's minimal credentials. It's strictly for lazy, stupid people who 
 ain't bright enough to get a real degree. Just like ROTC Nazis are the drunken off
 spring of the rich who were too stupid to qualify for university on their own merits. 
 They had to sneak in the backdoor provided for the military retards. Uncle Sammy 
 generously picks up the tab on their tuition so Daddy War Bucks can put Jethro in 
 a frat house where he can learn how to become a socially successful drunk. 

 With all the pissing and moaning about minority students without full accreditation 
 getting a pass into university, how come there isn't any pissing and moaning about 
 these Rich Boy ROTC Freeloaders and make-believe 'experts' with Arts degrees?  
 Because the arts majors are writing the news and the ROTC Nazis daddies are paying
 them to do so. That's why.

 BTW - Mars doesn't have a 'tail'. Comets have tails. Jackasses have tails. But Mars 
 doesn't have a tail. Take my word for it. And you don't need a telescope to see it.
 It's plain as the nose on your face.
 
 WORLD CUP SEATTLE...

 Whilst daydreaming on a stroll down The Ave this week an odd poster caught my eye. 
 It was something about a "World Cup Seattle". It's a bunch of teams made up of 
 locals who are from foreign lands. They organized themselves into "National Teams" 
 and are staging a "Weekend World Cup" to see whose ex-pats play the best Footie. 
 It starts Saturday the 23rd at 9 a.m. sharp at Ingraham High School Fields,
 1819 N. 135th. The Grand Finale is on Sunday.

 So far they've got teams from Vietnam, Japan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, China, Somalia, 
 Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, Romania and Denmark. Oh yes...and the Good 'Ol US of A. 
 What? No Canuks and Rooskies? I used to watch a bunch of guys from Thailand play 
 on U Dub's campus every week. I guess the local Limies and Scots are also steering 
 clear of heavy competition like this. Or maybe they're just scared.
 
 Seattle is loaded with foreigners. We're up to our ears in Limies, Micks, Krauts, 
 Frogs, Pollocks, Rooskies, Bohunks, Zhongo Ren, Nips, Philipinos, Vietnamese and 
 Cambodians. I even ran into a genuine Wop from Milano last month who's doing 
 research at a local lab. He said moving to Hooterville was like moving into a 
 convent. He wasn't too impressed by our tight-assed ways. And he really missed 
 going to the Juventus games on Sundays after mass.

 For many of these foreigners, football means soccer, not the American-rules rugby 
 that we call football. And in their spare time, they like to kick a ball around 
 with their fellow ex-pats from the Old Country. Many years ago while staying in 
 London, I used to play in what was grandiosely referred to as the "Sunday League". 
 Me and my Limie buddies used to play against various pick-up teams on Sunday 
 mornings in a nearby park. THEY played; The Yank just just kind of wandered around 
 running into people in an attempt to slow them down. I was still learning the game. 
 It was very informal. We showed up and kicked the ball around a  bit. Then some 
 other guys would wander by and ask us we were up for a game. And away we went. 
 There was no schedule. And no way of knowing who would wander by. Sometimes it 
 was a bunch of Hungarians or Czechs fresh from slipping across the Iron Curtain 
 to freedom. Usually it was just a bunch of local Yobs or university pansies.
 The one thing they had in common was that they were a helluva lot better than we 
 were. Our one slim hope was that they hadn't made it home yet from their Saturday 
 night pub-crawl. Even with hang-overs they often kicked our asses. But it was
 great fun. Winning loses a lot of its meaning when nobody keeps score.

 I guess this Seattle World's Cup thingee is sort of like that only better organized. 
 It's a snazzy idea and one I hope does well.

 WETBACKS...

 This week for the first time, the amount of money Mexicans working in America
 shipped home exceeded investment by American companies in Mexico. BILLIONS of
 Yanqui Bucks find their way home to Mexico every year on the long shirt tails
 of Mexicans working, legally and illegally, here. For all our whining about
 the Wetback Invasion, we've now made it perfectly clear: if they want to make
 any money they better come up here to get it because we ain't gonna invest enough
 in their country to make it possible for them to stay at home and make a living
 wage. We made our bed, now we can sleep in it.

....................................................................................

 in spring I search the scent of bamboo
 flowers by a stream, and drink
 in summer sail through lotus blossoms
 by a willow-shrouded shore, and drink
 in autumn climb the aster path
 to sit within a maple grove, and drink
 in winter snuggle by a rosy stove
 in cozy hall, and drink
 oh happiness, oh happiness
 all four seasons, lovely scenes
 and suitable for drinking.

 Chou Wen-Chih
 14th Century Chinese Poet

 from: "The Wine of Endless Life -
       Taoist Drinking Songs
       From the Yuan Dynasty"
       Translated by Jerome P. Seaton
       White Pine Press, 1991
       ISBN 0-934834-59-8

 Abe Used Books - better than Amazon
.....................................................................................

                               GOD TECH

 It's blasphemy in this modern, no-nonsense, secular age to suggest such a thing,
 but the simple fact is: God's technology is orders of magnitude beyond anything
 humans have been able to come up with. We're not even close. Forget about alien
 exterrestrial technology, we don't even understand the God Tech we got right
 under our noses. Just to rub it in, virtually all our 'science' is basically 
 aimed at reverse-engineering God's creation. And we aren't even close. Our high
 faloot'n scientific geniuses are not even capable of making something as common 
 and simple as a tree leaf let alone bio-tech of the sophistication of a house fly. 
 They wouldn't even know where to begin. The best they can do is fiddle with the 
 pieces that are already there, and they aren't even very good at that. Little 
 better than monkies whacking away at typewriters. Like the monkies, they hope
 to eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. I wouldn't
 bet on it. Their arrogance and exaggerated sense of self-esteem are grossly 
 misplaced. Only a handful of the better of them, like Al Einstein, were properly 
 humble. Humility and insight seem to be proportional.

 I think of what we call 'science' as a form of prayer. By understand God's
 creation, we come closer to understanding God. Surely the Creation mirrors
 the Creator. The wonder and marvel underlying science produces a subtle form 
 of communication between created and Creator. Given that one of the entities
 involved in this 'conversation' is unimaginable and transcends both time and
 space, it's understandable that the communication isn't entirely explicit.
 While I not only believe in God but consider myself a Christian within Catholic 
 traditions (much to the Pope's chagrin, I'm sure), I'm not a Creationist who 
 opposes evolution, nor am I a Fundamentalist who believes the Creation occurred 
 exactly as set out in Genesis. That sort of simple-minded garbage is for Bumpkins 
 and Hillbillies too lazy or stupid to seek their God. The same wacky crowd that 
 delusionally imagines God speaking to them as if they were capable of vaguely
 understanding such an unimaginable entity in the unlikely event such a thing 
 were to occur.

 Everytime I look at a tree it makes me wonder at what a stunning piece of
 bio-tech it is. Who would even think to invent such a thing? Like our bodies, 
 it is a biological machine - a temporary thing, in itself, but a thing capable 
 of regenerating distinctly new copies of itself. What gets regenerated isn't 
 the individual, but rather, an updated version of the pattern the individual 
 follows. Just as kids aren't copies/clones of their parents - they're distinctly
 new, updated versions of the human pattern. Unique new beings who use their
 experiences to 're-invent'the universe from scratch. The pattern is what is 
 important. It is eternal. It never dies. The individual is a disposable, 
 temporary version of it. When the individual ceases to function, it is broken 
 up into its constituent parts and they are redistributed for use elsewhere. 
 Just as today's Nissan is yesterday's Ford, today's baby is yesterday's old
 Geezer. The iron atoms at the center of my blood's haemoglobin likely began 
 light-years away billions of years ago in an obscure star that went super-nova. 
 Over the years it slowly made its way here through many forms. It has travelled 
 far to become part of what I like to call 'me'. It's journey is far from over. 
 The pattern goes on. God is partial to patterns, not individuals. 
 
 As with all living things, the basic building blocks are cells - tiny, subvisible,
 highly sophisticated chemical factories. Our bio-tech industry is incapable of
 making even crude, simple cells. And certainly incapable of designing them to
 regenerate. The best they can do is use an educated-guess to jiggle around the
 parts of existing cells in the hope that they'll do something novel. Like cure
 someone of an illness and/or otherwise make a ton of money for the scientist. 
 Somehow each cell is capable not only of morphing itself to perform specific 
 tasks, but it also contains within itself the complete instructions for making 
 the entire pattern of which it is a part. It would be like one of the screws 
 in a car having all the blueprints for making another car. At least you can see 
 screws. You can't normally see cells. Regardless, we know darn well what a screw
 is. We have only a crude/rudimentary understanding of what cells are.

 Trees are designed to absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Not really,
 but that's the important aspect from our perspective. Since we're just the
 opposite - taking in oxygen and giving off carbon dioxide - they complement
 us nicely in that respect. To that end, they are basically composed of two
 interconnected systems: a root/stem system to absorb water/minerals from
 the dirt in which they're embedded and a leaf system to produce the 'fuel'
 needed by the tree to stay alive and grow. The whole thing primarily seems 
 to work off of pressure gradients though there are other poorly understood 
 processes going on as well. The ring of xylem that extends continuously 
 throughout the roots/stems sucks water/minerals up to the leaves. The leaves, 
 ingenious little machines in their own right, use the photons of sunlight to
 break the carbohydrates down into energy enriched glucose. Which is then 
 distributed by the phloem piping-system as gooey sap, to where its needed 
 and for storage in the roots. Both xylem and phloem eminate from a ring of 
 cambium in between them. One side of the cambium makes new xylem and the 
 other side makes new phloem. Simple as that. No pumps. No moving parts at 
 all. Not even any fuel tanks. Then once a year, they produce Zillions of new, 
 copies of themselves and give them away for free in hopes they'll find a 
 loving home somewhere. If they don't, well no harm done. There's plenty
 more where they came from.

 It really is quite remarkable. We have no machines even vaguely like it. 
 Ours are dead things that begin falling apart as soon as they are built.
 Things like cars, inefficently convert only about 10% of the energy from
 their gas/fuel into motion. The other 90% is wasted. While everyone looks
 at the powerful engine, drive-train efficencies remain exceptionally low. 
 It's good for business. And if you want a new human-made machine, it'll 
 cost you. No free lunches. No point in even mentioning the cancer-producing
 carcinogens those suckers spew out by the ton. They are crude, inefficent
 and poorly designed to meet a narrow need while ignoring their effect on
 everything else around them. God doesn't design stuff that way. 

 Though God is rather extravagent. Many times sitting near the salmon-return
 pond at U Dub I notice clouds of little bugs swarming around in a mating
 frenzy. At least I think that's what they're doing. They'll only live a
 matter of a few days or weeks maybe. Yet each has been fully-equipped with
 a high-sophisticated array of nano-tech sensors and endowed with the magic 
 of wings. God really doesn't mind blowing his budget on the Little People. 
 Their lives may be short and a bit brutal but there's no scrimping on the 
 details. They get the whole Shebang. And why not? It's only temporary and 
 today's little human baby may be, in part at least, yesterday's little bug. 
 It's all interchangable. What goes around, comes around - eventually.

 In my mistier moments, given my proclivity for imaginative, irrational
 modes of thought, I'm inclined to see my fellow Earthlings - trees, bugs,
 ravens, flowers, salmon, etc - as God's earthly angels. Each has been
 assigned specific tasks to perform in the maintenance of the Creation.
 It is why God created them - to serve the Divine Will. This doesn't prevent
 me from eating them or using them to make my shelter. Nor does it exclude
 them from repossesing my carcass when the time comes. Ultimately we are 
 all children of a common Father, or Mother if you prefer - the entity we 
 call God. As that old rascal King David once said, "The beginning of 
 knowledge is fear of HaShem." Fear in the sense of respect for God's
 awesome power and stunning intelligence. Fear in the sense of knowing
 enough not to try shaking-hands with a high-voltage line. 

 ...............................................................................

                              'OL YELLER'S TWAT
                      (aka The War Against Terrorism)

 American blood continues to drip, drip, drip as the Iraqi Freedom Fighters bagged 
 their limit, sending more body-bags home for grand military funerals. Ignored and 
 unmentioned by our News Nazis are the many others shipped off to VA hospitals minus 
 arms, legs and other body parts. They, and we, prefer our heroes dead. Living ones 
 are embarassing and send the 'wrong message' to potential recruits. It's better to 
 warehouse them quietly away - out of sight, out of mind. Even the VFW Hall drunks 
 cooperate on that deal. You won't hear them squalking to their Draft-Dodger-In-Chief 
 about the treatment their comrades in the VA hospitals get. It might make him look 
 bad. With comrades like that, enemies are almost preferable.

 The Afghani Freedom Fighters moved way ahead of the Iraqis in the body-count this 
 week as they bagged a couple dozen of our whores. They've really upped their game
 considerably in recent days. As have the Chechnyans. Indonesia's bombing though
 was likely just that government's attempt to weasel a few million Bucks of 
 anti-terrorism money out of the Pentagoon. Just like that Skank in the Philipines,
 they'd happily stand atop a pile of their own dead citizens to get at the money.

 With much of the country still without clean drinking water and minimal electricity, 
 we're really sticking it to those Ragheads. They thought the invasion was bad? Ha! 
 We're showing them what it was all REALLY about now: cities run by mob rule, babies 
 dying of dehydration, our Stormtroppers kicking in their doors in the middle of the 
 night, filthy concentration camps, our soldiers ripping off whatever catches their 
 eye - from their daughters to their money. This is America's Revenge on the Ragheads. 
 Who cares if Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? They're Ragheads - that's all that
 counts. It is very intentional. This ain't no 'accident' of bad-planning. This is 
 deliberate. We want all the Ragheads to see what we're going to do to them if we
 ever get our hands on them. And no one, from the UN to the Euros, has the balls to 
 call our bluff. They're as afraid of Yeller as they were of Hitler and his Nazis. 
 At least Hitler wasn't retarded enough to ask for their help. He didn't have to 
 ask the Pollocks. They volunteered.

 The Brits BS about what a model city of occupied bliss Basra is blew up in their 
 faces this week, as did Basra. They aren't any more 'civilzed' in their ways than 
 we are. A Tommy or two got shipped back to the White Cliffs of Dover is a plastic
 bag to press the point. Oh well...plenty more Yobs where that one came from. 

 Our Chumps In Uniform are getting it from both ends. Not only are the Iraqi Freedom 
 Fighters pick'n 'em off one-by-one, their Draft-Dodger-In-Chief is hang'n them out 
 to dry. He's got them living in dirt and eating garbage to save himself a couple 
 bucks. Just his way of saying "Thanks suckers!" Supply & Support used to be handled 
 by other soldiers who had some appreciation for the consequences of their actions. 
 Not any more. General Rummy has private contractors doing the job now. Actually 
 the problem is the contractors aren't doing their job. Iraq is a combat zone. The 
 logistics civies said no way they're going into something that dangerous. So they 
 didn't show up. Ergo, no support and little supplies. Ergo, mail's months behind, 
 the air-conditioning is bagged, the food tastes like it came out of a dumpster,  
 and laundry facilities are primitive. Don't expect DoD to yank their new contractors 
 chain. DoD is too stupid to even figure out which ones are responsible for what. 
 They just hand out the money to Rummies buddies, they dont' account for it. The 
 Central Command Brass in Bahrain meanwhile, has got plenty to eat, get regular mail 
 and enjoy all the comforts of modern air-conditioned comfort. Screw the troops. 
 What can you say about guys who are too stupid to know when they've been had? 

 The pay cut thing is pretty rich. It amounts to $70 a month. That's what Congress
 voted to give them for 'imminent danger' pay. Is that a joke or what? A stink'n
 lousy $35 a paycheck for risking your neck. What kind of hillbilly retard would 
 fall for something like that? No matter. Yeller just took it away from them. And 
 they wonder why everybody thinks their saps and suckers. Duh! Because they ARE.

 We didn't ask them to go over there. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and they
 rode in on a pack of lies. They ain't doing us any favors. We were left completely 
 out of the loop. They're strictly there to help Yellowbelly steal Iraq's oil and 
 stick it to the Ragheads. No other reasons. They don't like their circumstances,
 whine to Yellowbelly don't whine to us. We can't be bothered.
 
....................................................................................

 "The Church in recent years, has had thousands of children paraded across the same
  television screens telling horror stories of how their lives have been shattered
  by the abuse they suffered in Catholic-run orphanages and residential schools. I
  think that the hierarchy of our Church has lost the moral ground to make judgement
  on how best to raise children."

                                Fr. Paul Lundrigan
                                St. Kevin
                                Gould, Newfoundland
      in a sermon on the hypocracy of the Vatican's stand on Gay marriages
            and adoptions, just before getting a standing ovation
.....................................................................................

                                MONDO VATICANO

 Fr. Guido Sarducci, the official Vatican rock critic, threw his biretta into the 
 political ring this week. He announced that he's joining the crowd and also running 
 for Governor of California. In an apparent effort to throw off Cardinal "Ratso" 
 Ratzinger of the Office of the Holy Inquistion and avoid the fate of Fr. Bob Dornan, 
 the former Congressman from Massachusetts, Guido's running under the pseud of "Don 
 Novello". Fr. Bob was forced to resign by the Vatican. He was a Democrat. The Old 
 Pollock don't like Democrats.

 It only took Fr. Guido a few days of hanging around out front of his local Safeway 
 to work up the 65 signatures needed to qualify. Soon as he opened his mouth people 
 knew immediately who he was and eagerly signed on the dotted line. Pretending he 
 was chatting on his cellphone with Mick Jagger didn't hurt either. 

 For the culturally deprived: Fr. Guido really is Don Novello. He used to do a neat 
 schtick on Saturday Night Live in which he played a chain-smoking, hip priest in
 pink-shaded glasses with a preposterous Italian accent who claimed to be the rock 
 critic for Observatorio Romano, the official Vatican newspaper. Pope Bill at the 
 Catholic League would likely have a fit but it was all in good, clean fun. Guido
 reminded me a lot of Fr. Fritz, my old dorm-master in the seminary. Fr. Fritz, 
 though he was German, would have gotten along very well with Fr. Guido. A couple 
 of real Hep Cats. Come to think of it...Fritz was a chain-smoker too.

                                 +

 The Marian Days celebration held each year in southwest Missouri draws pretty
 good crowds. It's probably the biggest annual gathering of Vietnamese Catholics
 in America and means much to the entire Vietnamese community. They really whoop
 it up and put on the dog for this thing. Over 50,000 people flood into a little
 town of 12,500. Most bring tents and the celebration organizers provide toilets
 and showers on-site for them. It's a very family-oriented affair and while the
 cops patrol the area, everyone is usually on their best behavior and there is
 little in the way of serious trouble. It is, afterall, a religious festival.

 This year's effort though resulted in tragedy when a young Vietamese man died
 in a gang fight during the festival. He got stabbed in the chest with a knife. 
 It seems it resulted from a confrontation between a small group of young guys 
 from Omaha or Wichita with some of the local Vietnamese. It didn't involve 
 non-Vietnamese outsiders. The Vietnamese are understandably somewhat in shock 
 about the whole thing. 

                                 +

 The anti-semitism hook finally kicked in for Mel Gibson and his new movie 
 about the life of Christ. His Gay Bashing was roundly ignored by the 
 homosexual crowd, but the Jews went ballistic. Subscribing to his daddy's
 wacko neo-fascist version of Catholicism, Mel's take on Jesus tends to 
 downplay the Prince of Peace angle and go for the gusto - lots of blood
 and guts. All with a dialogue of Aramaic and Latin. Though he apparently
 has changed his mind about subtitles. He will use them. Like anybody would
 have vaguely understood much of what was going on without them. The gals
 haven't made much of a fuss about his female Devil yet. What can you say?
 It's got it all: Gay Bashing, Jew Bashing, Anti-Feminism. Mel touches all
 the bases with this baby. It ought to be Boffo Boxoffice amongst the bigots
 and goose-steppers.

 While I would hardly be thought of as a 'traditional' Catholic, I do have
 the highest respect for the old Latin Ordo of the Roman Rite. To see it
 referred to as 'nostalgic' always gets my goat. It had centuries of 
 historical evolution behind it and was vastly superior to that watered 
 down Novo Ordo crap presently performing at your local parish. For the
 two-faced old Curia Queens to pretend to support it while looking the 
 other way as their bishops ignored and outlawed it, was sheer hypocracy. 
 Their failure to preserve and protect our traditions is as profound as it 
 is deep. It is nothing short of betrayal. Guys like Mel and his goofy 
 father do little to enhance the old rite's value. They just encourage the 
 Vatican's winking characterization of it as the stuff of Geezers and
 screwballs. Thanks for nothing Mel you frik'n jerk.

---------------------------------------------------------------
 This whatever-it-is operates under the patented Daily Bleed
 "anti-CopyRite 2000-3000". More or less. As the product of
 my imagination, I retain full pecuniary rights. You make any
 money off it, I better get my fair share. My lawyer, the Ginzu
 Viking, Dr. Yoshi Rasmussan LLD, anxiously awaits the chance
 to rat-fuck you and your heirs unto eternity if you even think
 of trying to screw me over. Otherwise, help yourself.
~---------------------------------------------------------------
 MAIL:    tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
 (Only checked when feeling self-abusive.)
 ARCHIVE: https://www.angelfire.com/nb/afm
---------------------------------------------------