Cowboy up

I'm from New Jersey. No one there is wearing a Cowboy hat and that whole get up unless it's Halloween. I was in a Chili's the other night and two guys came in all Cowboyed up. My first thought was, "I forgot to buy candy this year. All those kids are going to think I'm a dick."

Now you're mad?

I discovered this on the internet. I can only ad an "Amen!"

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President. You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy. You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got ousted. You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed. You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war. You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq. You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people. You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans. You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden. You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed. You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown. You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich. You didn’t get mad when, using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides. You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark. You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans… oh hell no. AND NOW YOU’RE MAD !

In case I need a mood lifter

I want this image easily accessible for those dark, depressing or sad moments. I was only slightly comforted that the rest of the country finally "got" what an inept clown this guy was --five years too late for what was painfully obvious on day one. His legacy: financial wreckage centered on an unimaginable debt, joblessness, homes lost, medical care unaffordable, millions of Iraqis dead, thousands of Americans killed or maimed, the terrorist who killed 3,000 Americans still at-large, the language butchered, our global prestige dissipated, the culture even more dumbed down and the document he promised to "preserve, protect and defend" pissed on. Good riddance.

Market madness

Last night I made the depressing decision to go online and look at my mutual fund account. I rolled over my CNMI retirement contribution in July, and since then, I've seen that money, in a very broad array of mutual funds, crash to the tune of 22 percent -- 11 percent in September alone. I just saw a yahoo story that says retirement accounts have decreased by $2 trillion. That decrease doesn't even factor in today's five percent fall. Finally it seems President Numbnuts has run everything into the ground. He'll leave office with an expensive, endless, unpopular war, an even wider gap between rich and poor aided by his crony capitalism, absolutely no progress on health care, global warming or education, trillions more in debt, an attack on the American homefront on his watch, Bin Laden still at large and a crippled economy, but he went to church and didn't approve of gay people kissing, so no problem. Bill Maher is right, we're too stupid to be governed.

Between the stock market crash, the price of gas -- better but still bad -- the housing crash, which was inflated from the previous years truth be told, I'm not sure I've ever seen the American economy this bad. I also don't see this country having much ability to cope with these problems, either. This country as a whole seems very past its prime and incapable of doing anything other than creating more debt and heading further in the wrong direction -- appealing to the dumbest, most base instincts. Our movies are bad, our music is bad, disgusting fast food abounds, an absolute ditz could end up vice president -- don't get me started on the state of parenting or the raging anti-intellectual attitudes of the youth. It's starting to feel like I'm in Saipan five years ago.

Let the crying begin, it's over

"It aint over until it's over."
- Yogi Berra


It is indeed over and hurrah for that. All the CNMI lobbyist money went for naught. The forces of douchebaggery: Abramoff, DeLay and his corrupt minions, as well as the vast majority of the imbeciles making up our local government lost. President Numbnuts signed the bill to federalize immigration in the CNMI. The CNMI will now be forced to do the things necessary to turn this place around instead of just running the same old immoral and unsustainable play from their tired out cheap labor, no viable private sector playbook. The fact that Governor Fitial, with the reverse Midas Touch, will be crying tomorrow is a guarantee that this is the right thing. Just by following the near flawless "Do the opposite" approach with the CNMI government, we have the paradigm for improvement. Even funnier is that a lot of the people who should be happy will be angry, like Greg Cruz, and the people who should be concerned will be celebrating, like the guest workers.

The Reign of Terror Continues

Here is the lead headline in the New York Times: Bush Vetoes Children’s Health Insurance Bill. “Because the Congress has chosen to send me a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction, I must veto it,” Bush said.

Of course it's the wrong direction, it's a civilized direction, and probably not a single child works for Haliburton, not a single child is a defense contractor needing to line their pockets, not a single child is an HMO chief with a $30 million compensation package, and they can't even vote. Nine million children in America lack health insurance. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” said Bush in July. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

A little more than sixteen months left in this reign of terror.

Face to face with Darth Vader - and he's quite the charmer

I've had quite a day. I've spent the last two days cleaning my classroom, getting intellectually ready for the new school year, talking diving on Harry's Show this morning, and most of all having run into some people I've vilified in this blog.

Leaving the studio booth and heading toward the door I saw a face that was slightly familiar. There was no heavy breathing, so I wasn't sure. Sure enough Richard A. Pierce read my blog, saw that I said I'd be on Harry's Show this morning and wanted to meet me. I think he even made a special trip. We never met before. No chairs were thrown. There wasn't even any yelling, which was good after a pleasant live chat on diving. Richard wanted to introduce himself, show me he was human and vilify the Marianas Variety a bit.

Richard isn't just a little good at what he does, he is a master, said with a slight Jules Winnfield tone from Pulp Fiction, "I'm the foot fuckin' master." I once referred to Richard as the Nick Naylor of Saipan. Naylor is the fictional spokesman for Big Tobacco in the book/film Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley, William F's son -- who is far more impressive than his dad, who I met and corresponded with in college. In one scene in this film, Nick Naylor convinces a crowd that tobacco wants "cancer" boy to live so they can sell him more cigarettes. A plausible argument. He uses various other methods of sophistry. It's a great movie/film and it helps you understand today's media age if you are unclear at all. I have used it in class.

Richard didn't change my mind about the CNMI situation at all, and didn't much try. I certainly still think Zaldy Dandan paints a picture closer to reality than his many enemies, but Richard was successful at convincing me he isn't the Devil. He did say, "I like Darth Vader," which was pretty funny. I emailed him and told him I've been harder on him than anyone ever -- other than George W. Bush, and he is nowhere near W's class for evil and global upheaval. I also got the impression that Richard believes a lot of what he says, which I didn't think the case before. I've agreed with him in the past on his view on the drug and alcohol policy. He didn't ask for this, but I'm going to remove all my personal invective hurled at him. Things like prick, dirtball etc. I probably shouldn't have said those things. The post itself will stay, but I'm going to excise the personal name calling, which I guess I shouldn't have done. I told him we'll probably argue again one day, but it will be with less personal vitriol.

Having said this, if anyone does catch me softening on George W. Bush, I demand you tape some bowling balls to my leg and stick me in the washing machine at the Grotto. I almost bit it there once before. No cheating on this Brad and Angelo. I've got to say something like "Bush isn't all that bad," just so I'm clear on this point.

Three more reasons this week why W is loathsome

Last week we had Scooter Libby's get out of jail free card, but this week we have three more reasons to loath George W. Bush. I'll give him this, he is Dimaggio like in his consistency in doing awful things. He can always be counted on to screw up. It is quite an effort to keep up with how awful he is.

"Rebuffing Congress, President Bush on Tuesday said he would not give in to
ever-mounting calls to start drawing U.S. troops home from Iraq."

Since Bush knows everything, why listen to anyone else? The war is going so well, and it is so cheap at $12 billion a month, so why change anything. Imagine the constructive things that could be done for $12 billion a month, and $620 billion since he invaded the wrong country post 9/11. Next there are more attempts at hiding the truth.

"The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key
issues like embryonic stem cell research."

"The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a
democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the
voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of
surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political
party," Carmona added. Carmona said Bush administration political appointees
censored his speeches and kept him from talking out publicly about certain
issues, including the science on embryonic stem cell research, contraceptives
and his misgivings about the administration's embrace of "abstinence-only" sex
education.

The central problem with W is that he thinks he owns everything in the government, that it exists for him, not the people, and that loyalty to him, not the people, is priority one. How else to explain trying to make the people's doctor, the surgeon general, beholden to his stupid ideas and not the truth. Here is another simply awful move: Refusing to let a doctor be a doctor, and trying to turn him into your partisan hack. Let's forget the unpopularity and stupidity of blocking stem cell research, loathsome enough alone, but to muzzle the nation's top doctor, like they muzzled the top climatologist on global warming, is just so contemptible. Let's put it the way it is, they not only censored the top doctor, they tried to stop a scientist from speaking on an issue, climate change, that eventually could lead to the literal end of life on this planet. They are pro-global genocide in today's political speak, and they think they are above oversight, as is evidenced here:

President Bush directed former aides to defy congressional subpoenas, claiming
executive privilege and prodding lawmakers closer to their first contempt
citations against administration officials since Ronald Reagan was
president. It was the second time in as many weeks that Bush had cited
executive privilege in resisting Congress' investigation into the firings of
U.S. attorneys.

Forcing your underlings to be in contempt of Congress to hide the fact that you fired prosecutors who wouldn't file bogus charges against political adversaries is truly disgusting. It was bad enough that the Republican Congress investigated Bill Clinton's Christmas Card list, but not Halliburton's profiteering or the lies used to justify this war, but now that there is someone performing actual oversight, they are trying to shred the Constitution. There is indeed more to being president than not getting a blowjob, and more to voting for a president than "can I have a beer with him" or will he bash gay people enough or offer some phoney pious comments on "faith."

Scraping Rock Bottom

Today is another new low in the corrupt assault on justice and the constitution by President Shit for Brains. Today, without a Justice Department review, he commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby, the one time Chief of Staff for Cheney who took the fall for the Dark Lord, who had his cronies out CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame because her husband, Joseph Wilson, called these corrupt people out in a New York Times column on their bullshit story about Iraq trying to get nuclear weapons material in Niger.

Wilson was the guy who went there and investigated this issue and said it was BS. Cheney used the issue in the run up to war to scare everyone, and W put it in the State of the Union without proper vetting. The Mushroom Cloud Joseph Wilson debunked was the main point of fear mongering this administration used to let them start this war and give oil companies record profits. These people ended the career of someone leading a double life for the CIA, really fighting the terrorists, because they were mad at her husband. That's essentially treason. Not even the Mob goes after your family, but that is what the Bush Administration did, and now they let this convict off with a slap on the wrist.

This is from the New York Times editorial: "Within minutes of the Libby announcement, the same Republican commentators who fulminated when Paris Hilton got a few days knocked off her time in a county lockup were parroting Mr. Bush’s contention that a fine, probation and reputation damage were “harsh punishment” enough for Mr. Libby."

The best defense the Republicans can come up with is "Clinton did it, too," which is irrelevant, and for the record, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate, not convicted like Libby, whose punishment was "too harsh," yet Clinton was impeached and the country brought to a halt because he hid the fact that he got a blowjob so his wife wouldn't find out in a ridiculous civil case that was thrown out of court. Even more absurd, and who better than David Brooks for inept Republican spin is this: "As Joe Wilson was an absurd man with a plain name, Scooter Libby was a plain man with an absurd name. "

The sound of his name is plain. Are you kidding me? What's absurd about him, that he isn't a dickless suck up to the powerful like the grotesque David Brooks . This is the guy whose retort to Al Gore's book is that he is a Vulcan devoid of emotion. I know the Times needs a Republican stooge to fill out their editorial page, but can't they do better than him.

The end result is so much for equal justice -- not if you are a White House official doing the dirty work for a dirty administration. Another new grab at rock bottom for the worst president in U.S. history. There is no blowjob involved here, so it won't be around the clock news like Monica Lewinski, just treason, corruption and a bending over of lady justice. The fault lies with all of us, not just the jackass dwelling in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Most of America will blow this off and watch American Idol or obsess about Paris Hilton. That's why Bush is a direct implication of our mangled priorities and not something we can dismiss and think we have nothing to do with.

The sulfur residue and Life is Beautiful

At graduation tonight one of our keynote speakers was Dirk Kempthorne, the Secretary of the Department of Interior, so I'm pretty close to a full cabinet secretary and could almost smell the sulfur residue on him from W, as Hugo Chavez would say. The guy seemed pretty nice. He gave a good speech, smiled, showed some humor, and I couldn't even bring myself to even gently boo a Bush cabinet secretary, so I must be going soft -- kidding. I told him he's a lot sunnier than Cheney. Graduation was a success. Another year in the books.

I'm off for almost two months. I'm diving on Friday in one of the wonders of the world in Palau. I have been lounging at the Mandi Spa, dove Lau Lau yesterday and The Grotto the day prior. Life is good right now. I ate at Kuri- ya on Middle Road, a Ruth Tighe inspired choice, but not her recommendation. The place is great -- very authentic. I was only in Japan once, but that place is exactly what I remember Osaka restaurants looking like. The only gripe there is that my food took a small eternity to arrive. Nearby Shelly's Pizza has gotten significantly better since they opened. I bought a pie there in week one, and frankly, I was disappointed, but they've worked the kinks out of the system, and the pie there now makes me feel like I'm back in Jersey.

I watched the next to last Sopranos episode last night and it was Coppola like in its brilliance. The New York media goes crazy over this show, and sometimes they are right. The famous Pine Barrens episode rises to the occasion. The last one did as well. I always liked it, and I've naturally seen them all, but overall, I not as ebullient in my praise as others. The last episode measured up, though, as did the Lost finale, which was fantastic.

There are a few downsides. The ant situation on the home front is nuts lately. I don't know what it is that drives them inside with such eagerness at certain times, but this is one of those times. Also, the power is getting whackier than ever. I have a clock that pushes ahead almost one hour per week with the weird power situation. It is getting worse. I have a tv I bought new that seems to be fading from the lousy power as well, but overall life is good right now.

A lesbian, a comedian and a Saipan columnist walk into a bar

I'm watching Fox News this morning, which is entertaining in a way similar to watching monkeys throwing poop at each other, and the Right Wing talking heads are going absolutely bananas about Rosie O'Donnell. I don't watch The View, I'm a guy after all, so I looked her up to see what she did to get the Sith to foam at the mouth like this. There are some things that are a little whacky like her conspiracy theories on 9/11 and her take on the British sailors in Iran, but the rest seems pretty tame. The Donald Trump controversy is especially absurd. She said Donald Trump isn't the moral arbiter of young people (owing to some nonsense about a Miss USA candidate seen drinking dear God that he gave a pass to) given his multiple marriages, and that turned into a media frenzy, as if that statement was so controversial. She got into some yelling match with Elizabeth Hasselback, a panelist on The View I never heard of before, but who is pretty hot, and let's face it, that matters.

I'm not saying Rosie has key insight, she doesn't, and she talks about things she really has no idea about, like the two things I mentioned above, but talk about overkill on the anti-Rosie stuff. She's "anti-military," as if Rosie is any match for a $439 billion, high tech killing machine. That's not a knock on the military, it is a mock of the Pit Bull versus Yorkshire Terrier nature of that fight, and how the right feels the need to wrap themselves up in the flag, eliciting all the emotion of most every war movie ever made, and protect "the military" against her on Memorial Day Weekend. They're so shameless. I can just see the military history books: Scaled 100 meter cliffs under heavy German fire at Pointe Du Hoc in the Normandy Invasion, fought a desperate and crazed Japanese army at Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Saipan, pulled off a daring invasion in Incheon, Korea, cowed by mild criticism from daytime talk show, so needed to call in reinforcements from Fox News for political pandering to ward off total obliteration. We've gone from defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan simultaneously, then staring down the Evil Empire to warding off mild attacks from Rosie about a war the vast majority of people in the world, other than the Kooks as Bill O'Reily would say, oppose. What's that old saying about judging yourself by your enemies.

Most disturbing is seeing Dennis Miller on Fox News as a Right Winger now. You can't possibly be a comedian with any credibility and do fundraisers with the president and ride on Air Force One, and say of Bush: "I like him, I'm going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends." He explains his conversion as: "Nine-11 changed me. I'm shocked that it didn't change the whole country, frankly."

I just want to know how someone as smart as Miller can see Bush reading My Pet Goat after being informed the country was under attack, invading the wrong country and setting a presidential record for vacation time, and think yeah, that's the answer right there. That's the decider for me! Look at that face! It's like a guy who went to medical school at the University of Phoenix and all of a sudden, he's got a real patient, who needs real surgery and he can't fake it anymore. He looks as perplexed as Mike Tyson on Celebrity Jeopardy. This is what happens when you mock "Elites." You get faces like this in a crisis.

Andy Card informing Bush about 9/11: "We're under attack, but keep reading, I must know what happens to the goat!" - Jon Stewart

Back in the day, I thought Miller was great, and it wasn't because he got his laughs mocking Right Wingers like Bill Maher does so well now, he didn't, he was just funny. His Black and White special was seminal. His follow up from Washington was great, too. I don't recall them as being political, and to the extent they were, they were mocking Clinton. His stand up specials in Aspen before 9/11 when he admitted he "changed" and in Las Vegas, post 9/11, were spectacularly unfunny. Again, not for politics, just for being unfunny. This was what I said at the time as well. I loved Miller's comedy prior, so his comedic downfall wasn't something I enjoyed. Here is a great write up on this strange turn of events on Miller from SFGate.com:

"Everyone used to think of him as cool and articulate and hilariously
hyperintelligent and able to dissect relatively complicated issues with
deliriously inspiring rants that were able to sub-reference Nietzsche and
Bela Lugosi and chaos theory usually all in one sentence. What a pathetic
and moribund loss. What a sad blow to articulate thinking. What bilious and
dank forces of right-wing fearmongering and neurosis and tax-break bullshit
must've attached themselves like rabid leeches to Miller's seething soul to
suck him so far over to the Dark Side. Dennis Miller, the new
RushHannityStern of the Right. How sad."

Here's my take Miller style:

I hate to get off on a rant here, but I haven't seen such a spectacular fall from grace since Dirk Diggler started a new career giving handjobs for money in a discount store parking lot and got the shit kicked out of him by some closet cases at the end of Boogie Nights. You used to be a comedian with an edge, now you're Carrot Top meets Bob Novak without the street cred. You give it up to the man with greater alacrity than a freshman sorority girl on her ninth Everclear Jello-Shot at Homecoming. I haven't seen someone turn over to the dark side like this since Obi Won gained the high ground at the lava pits of Mustafar. When you went all Robert Johnson and sold your soul to the devil at the crossroads, your skills should have improved -- but you're as funny now as a trauma ward in Darfur after a plate of ebola laced cocktail franks. Was it that hard to keep writing jokes? If middle age means going from edgy to agent of dishonest, establishment idiots, you might be the first reason to smile that Hendrix never saw 28. Like Cobain passing out in Rome, the warning signs were there when you fake laughed to Dan Fouts' jokes on Monday Night Football. Now you're more machine than man. Maybe your kids can one day defrost your frozen integrity from that block of carbonite Jabba the Limbaugh keeps hanging in his heavily medicated apartment. Congrats on finding a way to still get a paycheck and rest in peace, Dennis. Of course that's my opinion, I could be wrong.

****

All the crying is over, and the CNMI finally has a minimum wage hike. This is a done deal. It is now law. There will be a .50 cent increase in 60 days and another a year later and every year until 2015. That increase means $20 a week per worker in 60 days. If $20 per week per worker was the difference between staying open or not, you probably weren't going to make it anyway. It also means that $90,000 for a lobbyist to stop this long overdue increase was a total waste of money. As Angelo said, imagine what Beautify CNMI could have done with that $90,000. Well that money just got flushed -- great work Capitol Hill.

First, the garment factories were gone anyway, so as soon as that cancer is gone, the CNMI can start to restore its reputation, and make a fresh start. The sooner Saipan isn't associated with Abramoff, exploitative wages and sweatshops, the better. Tony Muna was on television saying the government is anticipating a total end to the industry anyway for budgetary planning purposes. Good bye and good riddance. Bree wrote a great post on this in her blog. It provides some great insights into the problems of the local economy.

I'm thinking of all the businesses where I spend my money most often: Java Joes, Blockbuster Video, Joeten Susupe, Joeten Dandan, Wild Bill's, Spicy Thai, ELS Auto Shop, Bobby Cadillacs, Godfather's Bar, Shell Gasoline, Casa Urashima, Daycare, my apartment. I won't buy any retail commodities here other than food because those places treat us all like idiots. I can't imagine any of those businesses being impacted in a significant way other than maybe the Daycare center, and if those people make more money and it costs me more, they more than deserve it.

This model we've had is flawed for the vast majority of locals and foreigners alike and everyone knows it. Let the healing begin. And incidentally, if this means that Filipinos go back to the Philippines and Chinese back to China, then that is actually probably a good thing for them to start fixing the problems in their own countries. I was in the PI in March, looked at the employment pages, and they are all about leaving the PI. No country can prosper with the best and brightest leaving it. Filipinos, including those here, need to fix their own country, not just flee it - and I realize that is a very hard job that won't be done overnight. Even if the workers here got U.S. citizenship and could therefore make more money, yeah that is good for you, but it does nothing to solve the myriad problems in the Philippines -- it just pushes the problem to others.

****

The debate over whether Bruce Bateman is evil continues with both sides mixing it up. Dengre sneered at us progressives a little bit for not hitting Bruce hard enough. As I said before, Bruce is not "evil." When I think of evil, I think of Hitler, Stalin, Cheney, the Khmer Rouge and the guy who invented Karaoke. A politically incorrect Milton Friedman disciple and Saipan Tribune columnist who has donated time and money to the arts, the soccer team and the CNMI teacher of the year, doesn't crack that Murderer's Row. His economics are extreme. His joke was crude and unnecessary. Evil he's not. There are shades of grey.

***

I agree with 90 percent of what Ricky Delgado wrote today's, but I'm not as quick to give Fitial a pass as Delgado is. Fitial isn't the worst person who could be in that job, which is a surprise given his long career as errand boy to the garment factories. I think he's trying to do the right things sort of on efficiency. I would bet the world he won't run again. From what I can tell, he's too sick, too old and too unpopular, and I've heard through the grape vine he has said he won't run again. He barely won last time against a wildly unpopular incumbent and then doing many controversial things now. That don't run again path lets him do the right thing, straighten out the mess and be remembered well down the line. Or it gives him the opportunity to rob the store as best he can and give it away to his friends with impunity if he chooses the dark path.

The problem is he lied through his teeth to get elected promising a surcharge reduction he could never pull off, and in fact making CUC rates much higher. He also clearly lied about supporting the schools. He hasn't done anything, and in fact, has funded education much less. I never believed either promise for a second, so it bothers me less than it bothers others. He loses fiscal credibilty with the Jesus Camacho patronage and the $90,000 flushed down the drain on a lobbyist, not to mention the junkets to Hawaii and the mainland by a large legislative delegation, which I suppose isn't Fitial's fault, but it does blend in with waste during this fiscal emergency. Fitial also has no mandate at all, having not even won Saipan. Delgado's letter suggests Fitial was some kind of outsider inheriting all these problems. Fitial was speaker of the House. He had a huge stake in this goverment before he became governor. I agree with him strongly on the poker room versus casino point, Article XII and the need for citizen involvement.

***

To end on a cheery note, here is a link to picture of one hundred plus young, naked Japanese girls. My favorite part, given the lack of even a C-Cup, is the fact that naked or not, they are all giving the standard peace sign Japanese girls use in every picture they ever take.