Strike up a victory for the minority!

Number of voters who cast ballots in the last national election, 11/06, equals 76,228,938.

Number of corporate lobbyists in Washington, D.C. = 15,000 plus.

Kudos to the Supreme Court standing up this past week for the nation's smallest minority by leveling the play ground of influence for these overwhelmingly out-manned cornerstones of our capitalist society.

In true form, the United States has again demonstrated it stands up for the little guy(s).

We're all so fucking honorable!

A seventeen year old out for a night with his buddies runs into a 7-11 and runs back out with a 1/2 case of Coors. He knows that he may get caught and, if so, punished. But, hey, it's just 12 cans of beer. A bit further up the ladder, in the mall parking lot while you're inside shopping at Sears, a car parks next to yours. In a matter of a minute or two it takes to remove it, your catalytic converter containing a bit of precious metal is gone. These exhaust system surgeons--if good--know there is less chance of being caught than the beer runners. Yet they realize the risk they run if they are.

Mrs. Dada has made a career in education so, if anything, she feels she knows something about children. And she believes deep in her heart that despite the fact adults don't think kids pay much attention to what's going on "in the real world," kids are very much aware. And that's why I'm not optimistic for this country. Because our kids, who live under the "fine" examples being set for them in the adult world, see the crimes being committed by their role models of that world. Sadly the difference, however, is a catalytic converter can get you hard time incarceration while dismantling the United States and killing over half a million innocent folks and dispossessing a couple million more in Iraq is so obscenely over-the-edge it goes unpunished!

Anyone still reading this and planning to become a secretary has to know the proper forms of addressing correspondence to our publicly elected government officials. In brief, all elected officials save for the president and vice president are addressed as "honorable" as in: "The Honorable Duke Cunningham, United States House of Representatives, Washington, D.C." This goes for former presidents of the U.S. but never a standing president or his veep who are simply addressed as "The President" or "The Vice President."

I never understood why that was. But back to those kids on a Saturday night beer run: If you steal a six-pack or two, odds are good you'll do some lock down time. Otherwise, the best way to avoid that is if YOU sign the fucking laws that can send your ass to prison for stealing beer but YOU scribble a statement in the margins of that law exempting YOU from it. Or if you are the "Big Dick" cheney, you could just refuse to turn your papers over to the National Archives (which as we are reminded by William Rivers Pitt are the American people's fucking papers and it's the god damned law cheney do so!) by proclaiming yourself outside the Executive Branch, hence, above the law. (Maybe that helps explain when sending correspondence to Bush or Big Dick cheney, you never ever address them as "honorable"?)

It's time we returned to being a nation of laws. Big Dick's latest and most blatant extra-legal affair ought to have us witnessing his physical removal from office, dragged off to prison in chains. But that's not going to happen, just as we were told repeatedly by our "honorable" house speaker Nancy Pelosi impeachment is off the table, thus enabling Bush and Cheney to make all the beer runs and catalytic converter thefts they damn well please because "we aren't gonna do a fuckin' thing to you."

We are no longer a nation of laws.

I don't give a rat's ass if our congress doesn't have the numbers to successfully convict these leeches through an impeachment process. To not at least uphold the law and impeach the bastards as law necessitates is to concede the nation to criminals. I curiously await the judgment of history upon these honorable people who have ceded the nation to Bush and Big Dick.

Finally, we are now hearing rumors Big Dick's health may be an easy way out for him; to resign this summer because of his heart (I know, I know, I was surprised to learn he has one too) or a potentially dangerous blood clot buried deep in his leg. But so far as I know, while it may not be Bethesda or Walter Reed, they still offer medical care for prison inmates.

But that, of course, assumes we're a nation of laws, doesn't it?

Hypocrisy on the march!

U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Chevron-Oil-Tanker Rice
as she appeared Sunday in a joint news conference at the
Quai d'Orsay with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

In a rare Dada moment rivaling the finest of any from that advant-garde art movement of the early 20th Century, U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Chevron-Oil-Tanker Rice took the opportunity in Paris yesterday to redefine for the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, etc., the meaning of the word "democracy."

Stealing a page straight from the Dadaists, The Oil Tanker Rice cited the situation in numerous places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, and noted why the need to update democracy's definition to "include a non-sense chief aesthetic value governments in the region need to strive for" in order that real peace be realized.

"Democracy is hard, and I see it as especially hard when there are determined enemies who try and strangle it. (Ignoring the U.S. role as being one of its main enemies.) "Yeah, it's really hard. It's hard for democracy to take hold in a place where it has not taken hold before," as she nervously reassured those present, "There is nothing wrong with the people of the Middle East."

She then explained how democracy will be achieved by revealing its newly redefined 21st Century definition:

de·moc·ra·cy (dĭ-mŏk'rə-sē), n., pl. -cies.
Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives approved by the American government.

As she stepped away from the piédestal, curious members of the media begged her to expound but the Chevron-Oil -Tanker sailed arrogantly away with the audaciousness of Marcel Duchamp, turning only to say before disappearing behind a scène rideau, "Stick it in your Funk and Wagnalls!"

Continuing with what seems to be this ongoing theme of hypocrisy....

George Bush, vying to overtake Richard Nixon for distinction as the most unpopular president in American history, in yet another glowing example of hypocrisy unleashed, dedicated a monument last week to the victims of Communism where Bush compared "totalitarian regimes to modern terrorist groups."

In what Dada considers a rather mild, yet logical retort, President Putin of Russia responded by saying, "We have not used nuclear weapons against a civilian population," nor has Russia "sprayed thousands of kilometers (miles) with chemicals, (or) dropped on a small country seven times more bombs than in all the Great Patriotic (War)" (Russia's name for World War II.)

I thought this a rather calm, civilized response by a "totalitarian regime" leader being compared to modern terrorists. After all, he made no reference to the poisoning of Iraq with WMD's containing depleted uranium that will have disastrous genetic effects on unborn thousands of children there for generations to come. Nor did he mention the overstepping by Bush of American's guaranteed constitutional rights (a totalitarian act) while promoting "democracy" in Iraq (through acts of terrorism against its citizens).

But Bush condemning others on the global stage that he himself has soiled, cannot, when making such sanctimonious proclamations, smell his own stench. And therein lies the endless laughable irony of our president's hypocrisy. If only it were funny.

“Hypocrisy is the lubricant of society.” Richard Hull

Okay, can we just cut the crap for a few minutes and look at things objectively here? In my previous blog I mentioned the feelings of deja vu I got watching CNN yesterday, leading us up to another winless war.

Some general was having a hissy fit. Why? Because, he claimed, Iranians are training some of the Iraqi insurgents. Now, after our lead-up to war with Iraq, I don't know how much of this shit to take as fact and how much is neocon's greasing our blood lusting passions to bomb another country back to the Stone Age. But assuming Iranians are training some of the Iraqis, what's the big deal with that?

What about the School of the Americas in Georgia where the US has been training insurgents to rain torture and insurrection throughout Latin America for the past sixty years? I don't imagine the general has any problems with that. I'm guessing only when it's Americans getting shredded as a result of such insurrectionist training does it become totally unacceptable, right?

Another report by some US general in the war zone denied the US is supplying weapons to the Sunnis who have attacked our soldiers. Again, with little but the US military and the White House for sources, CNN--with no any investigative reporters on the ground there apparently --has little choice but to report this as fact. But given our nation's love for providing arms to anyone with a cause we favor, like killing Shiites--even if it costs some American soldiers their lives--what's the big deal with that, right?

But that was a lead-in story to the pictures of six rockets lined up in some Baghdad schoolyard waiting to be lobbed at us. Their source? Iran, of course. Just imagine, the communist Chinese, or almost as bad, Putin's Russians with an army of a 160,000 making chaos just over our border in Mexico or Canada. Might the US not be tempted to supply insurgent Mexicans or Canadians with some training and weapons? Certainly our history to do so goes way back.

Why hell, we're not even above supplying WMD's to some very unsavory characters. Like Sadam Hussein for example. Sadam whose image by the way is being resurrected among Iraqis as preferential to that of their current leader, George Bush or "Big Dick" cheney (who's really in charge there is hard to say.)

So, as so often is the case with conservative hypocrisy, it's easy to call the kettle black when you're speaking from the pot. But reverse roles and it's easy to see our "yes men" hissy fit generals in Iraq hollering, "FOUL!" need to pull their heads out of the sanctimonious asses in the White House. American troops are dying in greater and greater numbers for nothing.

Let me say that again, "for NOTHING!" while the September surge evaluation, as we're now beginning to hear, will have to be extended "until next March" before we can assess the progress of all these additional dead American troops.

Yesterday I was watching the "Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer on

And I'm not positive but I suspect it's a wholly owned subsidiary of

because in the few minutes I watched, I felt I had been "lube jobbed," ready to resume the road we need to go down:




WAR WITH IRAN!

Return of the redhead(s)?

This is pretty incredible. Just yesterday Enigma4ever over at Watergate Summer returned to her blog after more than four months absence. Being redheaded, she has reappeared in the form of Flaming June, a sensuous redhead as painted by Lord Frederick Leighton.

Then in this afternoon's mail there arrived a postcard from the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. It was from a high school chum traveling in France. It contained these two images by Lautrec. I was struck by the fact of the seven women depicted in these two works, six of them are redheads!

I don't know if this part of some synchronicity, red was the tricolor of vogue in women's hair at the turn of nineteenth century France or just a meaningless chance thing but I thought, as rare as such lovely shaded coiffures are, it might be worthy of mention. Maybe those so endowed are presently at the forefront attention of the Fates.


Certainly, however, an e-mail this morning from a regular commenter here at Dada's (who just happens to be redheaded) only serves to accentuate the "chance" of this all . She reported being in extreme discomfort and pain. Seems she broke her little toe last night and is now suffering for it. So "anonymous, " if you happen to read this, we all hope you are feeling better (or the drugs have really kicked in by now).

And on the chance anyone out there reading this is a redhead, please, please be careful.

Second anniversary of dada's dally

The second anniversary of Dada's Dally passed quietly this week. Two years ago I wrote about how it all began in a blog I titled, "The best friend I've never met." It went something like this:

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Just a moment to reflect on the origin of this blog. Most of the credit goes to a person I've known for the last 12 years or more, but whom I've never met. I'm speaking of Nona at Fish Wars on Cars.

We became acquainted on a Prodigy bulletin board called "Earthquakes" back in '92 or '93. (Raised in California, I had taken plenty of razzing from friends and neighbors for the inflated air mattress in the backseat of the car that crossed the Golden Gate and Bay bridges twice each day on my 100 mile roundtrip commute from the northwest to the southeast San Francisco Bay Area. Hence, I had some minor interest in earthquakes.)

But while sitting safely miles east of the San Andreas fault I had once daily tempted, I enjoyed the ambience of those still straddling it from the comfort of the Prodigy discussion group. This was just a couple of years after the big Bay Area quake of '89 struck that saw the very freeway I used to commute on collapse along with part of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge as well.

Between quakes, the EQ group would often drift to discussions of politics and fight like hell to fill the void. That's where Nona and her sharp wit really jumped out at me. Hence, born of common interests, we've nurtured a virtual friendship as good as any real one for the past 15 years now.

But it was in the spring of 2005 Nona asked me to "sit-in" for her on her blog. I found blogging a bit like standing before a firing squad, blind-folded and naked in a stadium packed with curious onlookers (most of them praying to see an execution). And when asked, "Do you have any final words?" rather than wisely say, "No!" and die a mystery, you succumb to temptation, saying instead, "Yes!" begin babbling thus revealing the fool within.

Nona gave me that chance to babble. To expose myself. At times, I don't know whether to thank or curse her. But I must have liked it.

Permission/authority is nothing you need, it's what you grant yourself.

"We have permission to land there," was all the Air Force needed to touch down at the little Las Cruces, NM "International Airport" in August 2004 with three enormous planes the runway was never designed to handle.

Despite the Air Force's claim it had been cleared, it never bothered to cite exactly by whose authority. But this is standard SOP for the Bush administration, isn't it? "We have the authority," is always their claim, whether it be some Rumsfeld esoteric order to torture, a Rove circumvention of legal established executive channels, or a Bush signing statement.

As a result, three Air Force planes landed on runway pavement softened by August heat. A fully loaded C-17 Globemaster III transporting all the armored vehicles and bullet-proof paraphernalia needed to protect the world's foremost terrorist during his reelection campaign stopover did the most damage.

The good news I am reporting today however is, that after almost three years since Bush's "drop in," the runway at the Las Cruces airport is about to finally reopen. Damages originally estimated at $2 million were partially financed by the Air Force kicking in $603,754 of taxpayers money for a job done on the cheap at a cost of $1.25 million (i.e., the quality of repair is controversial). The other half, I suspect, was paid for by--who else?--us the taxpayers.

And while you won't hear it from president Bush, I'll take this opportunity to thank all American taxpayers for repairing the damage to the Las Cruces runway his big planes caused as part of his "reelection" in 2004.

This minor airport incident that ended up costing us all over a $1 million so locals could attend a pep rally for the president is no big deal. Just like a few billion unaccounted for in Iraq, or billions porked to missile defense systems that don't work or war contractors that don't work either yet get paid anyway for services not performed. But eventually billions add up to trillions and I imagine, at some point, we begin to talk about real money.

Las Cruces is a nice metaphor for the nation and what happens when you have a president who doesn't need our permission and a congress that has surrendered its responsibility to hold a president accountable. Fortunately, it only took the city of Las Cruces three years and a $ million-two to recover.

But for the nation, the prognosis isn't so good. Because there, we're talking $ trillions or "real money" and that's something we don't have enough of to placate the emperor's whims.

No problem, "Let the grandkids pay."

Welcome back, Enigma!

After more than four months of disappearance turned to concern, then bordering on despair at the thought she might never return, the blog "Watergate Summer" has reemerged from the seas we thought had claimed her.

Here then is captured the moment of Enigma's return (on the half shell), as she is heralded by zephyr's and goddess alike. To view her as she slumbered these past months, drop by her blog.

Why we need a third party, a fourth, and a fifth .......(or a picture worth a thousand words)

AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari

"Opposition party" Pelosi schmoozing with a Bush administration international
war criminal today at the congressional picnic on the south lawn of the white house.

And as if we needed further proof the U.S. is the greatest nation on Earth, part III. (Oh wait, am I missing "Survivor"?)

Recently I spoke with my niece on an incident she had in a hospital. Her 90 year old mother-in-law was having extreme heart irregularities such that her doctor recommended she be taken immediately to a hospital emergency room. My niece complied.

After four and one half hours in the ER waiting room, with mother-in-law still experiencing some kind of heart trauma and visibly sinking physically as a result, a nurse finally appeared to "triage" waiting room patients. It was another couple of hours wait before mother-in-law finally got to see a doctor.

Because of the seriousness of her condition, the ER doctor recommended that in the future, rather than bring M-I-L to the hospital herself, my niece call an ambulance and have her transported to the hospital.

Had my niece only known this beforehand, she could have saved her very sick M-I-L some valuable life saving hours.

So should you ever find yourself in such a situtation and discover after arriving at the hospital ER the waiting room crowd resembles some middle age's painting of Black Death victims suffering and dying on the clinic floor before getting to see a doctor, you may just want to return to your car with your mother-in-law, use your cell phone to call an ambulance to transport her from the hospital parking lot to the ER! (Of course, the 100 yard ride over to the ER entrance will cost $500, but how do you put a price on a life at a time like that?)

I only mention this sad incident of American healthcare because I was reminded of it listening to Michael Moore this morning on "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman.

As Moore revealed, according to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th among other nations in health care.

"We’re behind Costa Rica!" Moore revealed. But take heart fellow Americans. The U.S. at 37th, is ahead of number 38, Slovenia!

Dada says, "Be proud, America. Be very proud!"

More evidence we live in the greatest fucking nation on Earth!

From Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" this morning comes the following:

"The former Army General who led the Pentagon's first investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib has revealed that he was forced to retire because his report was too critical of the U.S. military.

"In his first interview since then, Major General Antonio Taguba told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mislead Congress about the Abu Ghraib investigation, minimizing how much he knew about the abuse and torture.

"Taguba also said the military has unpublished photographs and videos that show the abuse and torture was even worse than previously disclosed. Taguba said he saw a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.

"Taguba said he was blocked from investigating who ordered the torture at Abu Ghraib. ... 'These M.P. troops were not that creative. Somebody was giving them guidance, but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority. I was limited to a box.'"

Maybe Don Rumsfeld was simply living vicariously through the actions of troops following his orders? Dada says, "You go, Don Rumsfeld! You go! You da fuckin' man, Donny!"

Evidence we live in the greatest fucking nation on Earth!

It has been revealed that post-Katrina New Orleans is desperate to recover from the tremendous damages that city suffered nearly two years ago as a result of Hurricane Katrina. With the admission by Ray Nagin, the city's mayor, that New Orleans is now seeking aid from five different nations (which it refuses to identify at this time), some are joking New Orleans has become "Third World."

But is that funny? It would be a hilarious fucking joke if New Orleans wasn't still part of the richest nation on Earth. But is it? While the estimated damages to the Crescent City exceed $1 billion, it has received only slightly more than half of the paltry $320 million dollars promised it by FEMA.

Dada confesses curiosity as to the sources for outside aid New Orleans is seeking. What if it's from Venezuela that thumbs its nose at Bush? Or France, whom we denigrated for lack of support of our war plans for Iraq? Maybe it's from one of the co-owners of the United States, Japan or China? Or--God forbid!--what if it's from one of the poorer nations in the western hemisphere--like Cuba? Or, the absolute worst nightmare, it's from all five of these!

Could you imagine the laughter and humiliation that would trigger in all nations of the First and Third Worlds? Now that would be a fucking joke. Perhaps that's why New Orleans prefers to keep its aid sources anonymous. Because rather than being hilariously funny, it would be a sad-assed comment on the "greatest nation on Earth," wouldn't it?

More evidence of man in New Mexico, part 37-E

Last March I began a series here to do with the traces man has left upon the New Mexico landscape as evidence for his existence here over time. A series of blogs over several weeks, parts One, Two, Three, and Four were the result, inspired by a three day, two night exploration of central and southern New Mexico Mrs. Dada and I took in the winter of 2002.

While such a journey could never be all inclusive, it was my hope to hit some of the high points of evidence for man in New Mexico.

I suspect Homo sapiens is on its way to something else, be it an improved model or total annihilation at its own hand. The jury's still out. All traces of his existence highlighted in these blogs will vanish given enough time. But until they do, the evidence here, just as elsewhere globally in ever increasing places, is convicting enough to prove we were here. Of that we are definitely guilty.

Google Maps

To this point, the previous four blogs on this subject occurred all in the same day's travels. I want to wrap this up in this one last blog. Doing so is not to make short shrift of what followed on the rest of our journey of discovery as any less significant. In fact, some of what we saw/encountered our last two days were my favorite parts. I'm simply being expeditious.

Here then, are some pictures from some extremely enjoyable places we visited. From our last stop (Bingham, NM), Mrs. Dada and I proceeded to Socorro where we spent the next two nights.

I can divide desert towns into two main categories: good and interesting, but you wouldn't want to live there. Socorro is one of the good ones, i.e., it has two important aspects every town should have. A small university and an excellent microbrewery.

The Owl Bar and Cafe, San Antonio, New Mexico

On the way to Socorro, you pass through the small community of San Antonio. It's the home of the best green chile cheeseburger I've ever eaten. It has gained a well deserved reputation for serving them up and it doesn't matter the hour of day. If the Owl is open, you can get one - even for breakfast.

But the owners are staunch republicans. As I noted before on another blog including the Owl, pictures hang in the entry of the Bacas schmoozing with president Bush. So if you want to partake of a great green chile cheeseburger, you'll swallow more than just a burger, you'll swallow some of your principles as well. But in this case it's worth it.

The second day of our journey took us further north to Abo (2) and Quarai (3), remnants of two of three Salinas or "salt mine" pueblos where the Spaniards built missions to introduce "civilization" to the local populations they discovered living there.

The once massive Abo mission stands crumbling on the horizon in tribute to the erosion of the once expansive Spanish empire.

This then is a picture of Abo. I call it the "road to ruins". I loved it there. The day we visited we were the only ones there. This gave us a great chance to visit with the park ranger, Ernestine Sisneros. Her family owned this land until 1939 when it was converted into a park. She is a national treasure of information on the area.

The trail to the ruins of this 1629 Spanish mission approaches from the site where the Pima Indian pueblo was located. It is now totally erased to all but those with trained eyes. But Mrs. Dada and I spent some time at that now silent site, reflecting on the activity that must have gone on daily in the community of two thousand that existed there when the Spanish arrived.

After an hour or so outside in the deafening cacophony of voices from centuries old ghosts now silenced and faded into history by progress, we ambled back to park headquarters where Ernestine and we finished sharing our strong distastes and distrust for president Bush we had opened upon arrival.

This was barely five months after 9/11 and more than a year before our invasion of Iraq, but I found our conversation eerily prescient of things to come for the "empire." The irony that we were here on the site of two previous civilizations, one totally erased, the other - its conquerers - now eroding its way into oblivion closely behind them was not lost on me. It was like glimpsing our own future mirroring those who had preceded us, and none of us was happy about it.

As her lunchtime approached, we bid Ernestine farewell and continued eastward towards the second Salinas monument, Quarai. Unlike Abo, we had been to Quarai several years earlier and were pleased to find it precisely as we'd left it - quiet and still crumbling.

While Quarai appears to lag its sister, Abo, by decades in the erosion race to total oblivion, it is located over the mountains in a lusher spot than that of Abo. Yet I felt more in touch with the latter. Maybe it was the politics of Ernestine. And yet, because Quarai was abandoned in the 1670's because of relentless Apache raids, I feel an affinity to its people who eventually settled here in the El Paso area and who, centuries later, opened a very successful "Indian casino" which benefited many of its tribal members with jobs, housing and scholarships until its closure by our now Texas senator, John Cornyn.

As with Abo, Quarai was equally quiet this day. Just as we'd remembered it. Silently continuing its slow rush towards its eternal destiny. Total erasure. There's no denying both of these places are special and their messages to us in the here-and-now are powerful to those who take the time to pause and listen. Sadly, our government is too obsessed with global dominance to foresee its own, inevitable demise.

As the afternoon wore on, it was time to return to Socorro. Once back, there was still enough time to run down to another of man's brush strokes upon the landscape, the Bosque del Apache (1), one of my very favorites. Of course, as always, the challenge exists of how to get there without succumbing to the temptation of another green chile cheeseburger. To get to the Bosque, you must pass the Owl Bar & Cafe.

Obviously, my hopes of wrapping this up in one blog were too optimistic, hence, I will leave its conclusion for the next (and final!) blog on this subject.

Pace yourself

Hats off to Marine General Peter Pace who refused to step down voluntarily as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Pace explained, stepping down from that position in a time of war would be letting down the troops. As a result, he was dragged, kicking and screaming, from his cushy office in the Pentagon.

The irony, of course, is Pace's misrepresenting the reality of his GI's progress in Iraq, a "progress" he parrots from the the delusions of Cheney and Bush. Does Pace really consider that supporting the troops?

A lot of U.S. soldiers now lie seriously wounded or dead as a result of Pace's "support." Troops who are engaged in a hopeless war they are still fighting despite having lost it a long, long time ago.

Happy as a pig in slop.

Short note to thank those of you who discouraged us from getting a new PC recently. Folks like azgoddess and El Aleman.

Our new iMac arrived on Monday--our first ever computer from Apple. While I know we're still getting acquainted, I have to remark the computer so far is like something from the next Universe over, i.e., the one several light years away and Big Bang micro-nanoseconds older than us; the one that knows how to make better computers because they evolved 'em in a user-friendly Universe. No, for the iMac setup I wasn't down on my hands and knees, flashlight in mouth, banging my head multiple times on the underside of the computer desk attaching more cords and wires than a space shuttle's.

Having blogged of my tech support afternoon with AJ recently where I spent nearly three hours with someone trying to fix my e-mail program from the other side of the Earth (he didn't), I add the following anecdote:

The e-mail program we lost resulted from networking our PC's. My first call to tech support was to the router manufacturer's people. Thankfully, I wasn't with her as long as AJ because I was extremely embarrassed for her English. That's because I had to ask her to repeat everything at least twice. Sometimes that didn't even help, although she resolved some minor issues I had and recommended I call our Time Warner cable people for our e-mail problem. When I did, they recommended we call our ISP's (Earthlink) tech support. That was AJ.

Failing to solve my problem, I simply disconnected the network and everything worked fine again. But when the Mac arrived, I was anticipating the same problem when reconnecting the network. But to my surprise, the Mac didn't need any network adapter like every PC needs to join the network. That's because on the Mac it's built in. (Just like the microphone, the video camera, the speakers! No wires!) And when I downloaded our ISP's e-mail program for the Mac it worked perfectly on the network!

Oh, and by the way, our PC's e-mail doesn't work again since reinstalling the network. But that's fine now, because the iMac's does.

Wake up Amerikans!

A month or so ago while Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' ass was being held to the fire by congress, I joked about it. I compared Gonzales to George Costanza in an old Seinfeld episode. It's the one where George Costanza is fired because of his incompetence, but he doesn't leave. He keeps coming back despite his employer's efforts to keep him out of his office; first by disconnecting his phone lines, then taking his keys and, finally, boarding up his office making it impossible for Costanza to access it.

But none of those efforts succeeded. George Costanza, despite all of that, still managed to get into his sealed up, inaccessible-to-the-outside-world office by climbing through a ventilation duct.

Now we see the same thing happening with Alberto Gonzales, with the aid of his long time Texas buddy and accomplice, George Bush. And despite the best efforts of Gonzales' employer--the American people--to get his ass out of the building, they're totally unable to do so. This behind the words of Bush affirming such attempts by the senate as "purely political."

Sadly, this is no Seinfeld and this is no fucking joke. This is a prime example of how far the United States has sunk. Other examples pop up weekly but, rather than evoke outrage by the media, they are discussed briefly in passing--if at all!--without any hint of just how outrageous the actions of these white house leeches are or how they are sucking the life blood from this nation.

So, did you hear over Fox or CNN this weekend about efforts to block public access to the secret service's list of visitor's to the white house by Bush's 'Top Dick" to ensure "the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties?" Of course you didn't.

Sometimes those lists are protected under the guise they are a matter of "national security." Under the Bush administration, more than any other in the history of this nation, protecting "national security" is code for "protecting my ass." For if the nation really paid attention, really gave a shit, there'd be riots in the streets demanding removal of these bastards who consider themselves above the law. But not to worry. That's because we really don't give a shit.

And that's where George Costanza, aka Alberto Gonzales, comes in. For rather than serving as the highest, most prominent officer in the nation overseeing and enforcing the law for his employer, the American people, we have an attorney general assisting our nation's criminal leadership evade those laws by Gonzales' justice department filing documents challenging the public's right to access Secret Service records of who visits Bush and Big Dick.

As should be obvious to all of us by now, Alberto Gonzales--like George Costanza, has the schematics to the building. He knows where the air ducts are. He's not going anywhere. You can board up the doors to his damn office, but he'll still get in. And that's exactly as Bush likes it. Exactly as Bush needs it, i.e., with his long time buddy and accomplice interpreting the law to protect "national security."

"Here's some guns. You promise to kill the right people now, right?"

This is simply something I copied directly off of Excite.com's front page this morning. It's an excellent example of U.S. diplomacy, exercised the way we do it best.

" U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies
Commanders are arming groups that have promised to fight militants who have been their allies in the past."

I think so long as guns are seen as a solution, you guarantee yourself endless problems.

There are none so deaf as those who can't see.

A deaf, egomaniacal George Bush, unaware God talks back!

Update on Bill McDannell's WTETW

I was checking on Bill McDannell's progress on his walk across the nation at WTETW (Walk to End the War) website. Here then is his encounter with an Illinois county sheriff from a excerpt in his yesterday's journal, Saturday, June 9, 2007:

A few miles west of Rushville a county sheriff pulled off onto the shoulder ahead of me and waited for me to cover the short distance between us. As I came alongside the car he rolled down his window.

"You need some help?"

"No sir, I'm just walking."

"Where are you headed?"

"Ultimately, Washington, D.C."

(I always love this part, where they pause for a second, looking straight into my eyes to try to figure out if I'm bullshitting them, then when they come to the conclusion that I'm not kidding, another second to try to come up with some sort of response.)

"Well, you've got a pretty long way to go."

"Nowhere near as far as I've already come."

"Mind if I ask why you're walking to Washington?"

"I'm trying to end the war." (I hand him one of my cards. He looks at the card.)

"You really think you can end the war, huh?"

"Well, I don't know - but I'll never find out unless I try."

"You know, the first thing you're gonna have to do is get rid of that idiot in the White House."

"Yes sir, that's a good part of the whole idea."

"Well, I certainly wish you luck."

"Thank you, sir." I shook his hand.

A City of Rocks beneath which to bury the stone-hearted

OK, I confess: This picture was taken in a place called "The City of Rocks" located somewhere between Deming and Silver City, NM. There's nothing out there but rocks and this windmill.

While it doesn't begin to capture the eerieness of the rock formations jutting above the sandy desert floor, one can get a fairly creepy feeling, walking among these granite behemoths, especially if you're the only ones there at the time (as was the case the day Mrs. Dada and I visited).

But the real reason I chose to post this picture was to push that god-awful, scarier-than-shit photo of the previous blog entry down the page. While it was a photo to remind anyone seeing it to "be afraid, be very afraid," the last thing I intended was for people to be overcome with repulsion, get sick and/or soil themselves.

Having said that, let me add I don't attack people based on their appearance. No, my extreme disgust at the frightening image of our oil tanker secretary of state is the result of what that person has come to represent, of the evil I see in all images of her. For it is she who has chosen to impale herself on the policies of a president she (still!) feels history will vindicate; she who advocated for those policies of that president, the victims of whom now number in the millions of people, the majority women and children. Whoops, but I digress, don't I?

At least her image is now down the page, buried just beneath this City of Rocks. And that was the purpose posting it here this morning.

The World According to Carp! (Or as my dyslexic classmate used to say, "The World According to Crap!")

Time to check in on the latest spewing of those drippy lips of hypocrisy so characteristic of the Bush administration.

Today's words of sanctimony come in the form of a warning to Turkey amassing troops on its border with Iraq. They are spoken by none other than our own secretary of state, former Chevron oil tanker and mushroom cloud promoter, Condoleezza Rice, to wit:

it's "not good for anybody for a robust move across the border...not good for Iraq and not good for Turkey."

Wisely spoken after her country's disastrous 2003 robust move across the Iraq border which turned out to be "not good for Iraq and not good for 'Turkey' (in the form of president Bush and his vice president, "Big Dick" cheney).

It also turned out to be not good for the United States. (But, hey, there haven't been any mushroom clouds over America, so I'll give her that. Not yet anyway.)

As the sun sets on the Empire

...and so much is changing so fast; as the American Dream fades and we trade away our liberties for costlier securities more imagined than real; as we try to balance our shriveling blessings against increasingly burdensome liabilities, remember the words of Utah Phillips:


“The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears.

Freedom is something you assume,
then you wait for someone to try to take it away.

The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free...”

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Back in the days when I was painting, titling a piece upon its completion was sometimes the hardest part. Hence the reason a number of Dada's works had the same name: "Untitled"

But this morning's little photo collage seems to easily suggest a number of titles.

A true short story

Some months ago I'd come to know this older guy, Art. Our paths crossed regularly. That is, until this past January when Art suddenly disappeared. In the past few months I would think of Art occasionally and wonder whatever became of him.

Well, yesterday I found out when I encountered a somewhat diminished looking Art. After the start of the new year, Art had unexpected health problems. Things like open heart surgery, a reamed out carotid artery, new fuel pump and oil change followed. Things like that. As a result, he had spent over a month in the hospital.

Now, I don't know how you put a value on human life. I'm positive it's a good thing we don't. Why? Well Art, who's getting along in years, might not be here now if we did. That's because I learned as he spoke, the total bill for his doctors and hospitalization was in excess of $375,000! Yep, $375,000.

Thankfully, Art has better medical insurance than many of us I suspect. From what he said, it took care of most all of it leaving me to say to Art - after firmly securing my tongue in my cheek - "Thank god we Americans live in the country with the world's best health care."

Nurturing our young

(As promised, in my effort to add a more color to enliven the blog.)

I call this one "Babylon Pacifiers." Think of these as gifts to the world's newest baby
democracy as we begin weaning them from the American teat of US ground forces this
fall. Here then, from our vice president, is an aid for Iraqis in their withdrawal from that
teat. It's just a little something offered by "Big Dick" cheney for Iraqis to suck on instead.

Further testimony the nation is being led by a pack of stark raving mad psychopaths...

...but that's ok, because we can't stop 'em. We lack the will. But maybe we shouldn't anyway. Maybe it best they destroy the entire fucking military capability of this nation and then we can forget about global domination through intimidation and wanton destruction of the planet.

Here then, is an excerpt from an article by Paul Craig Roberts entitled "If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran"

...even "neoconservative warmongers, who deceived Americans with the promise of a 'cakewalk war' that would be over in six weeks, believe that the war is lost. But they have not given up. They have a last desperate plan: Bomb Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney is spear-heading the neocon plan....

The neocons think that by bombing Iran the US will provoke Iran to arm the Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing rocket propelled grenades and with surface to air missiles and unleash the militias against US troops. These weapons would neutralize US tanks and helicopter gunships and destroy the US military edge, leaving divided and isolated US forces subject to being cut off from supplies and retreat routes. With America on the verge of losing most of its troops in Iraq, the cry would go up to 'save the troops' by nuking Iran."

How nice of the neocon nuts to play so loosely with the lives of our loved ones serving in Iraq.

The nuclear balls of steel boys

Our next president's (?) thoughts on nuking Iran:

Rudy Giuliani: "You shouldn't take any options off the table."

Mitt Romney: "You don't take options off the table."

Color my world...

My apologies to anyone who drops by here occasionally. Talking about the lack of photos for over a week now. As a result, the absence of color has given the blog a rather bleak look. Or maybe it's the things I've been reading. Or maybe Dada's Dally is merely mirroring U.S. reality that comes in ever maddening daily doses of some pretty heavy shit.

Has anyone else noticed the absence of those colorful photos of helmeted "red white and blue" three and four year olds playing war in real desert tan M-1 Abrams tanks pretending to slaughter brown people? Or those vivid photos purporting to show the stunning crimsons and black of beheaded American soldiers?


If you've missed them as I have since noticing the somberness of recent-just-white pages, I apologize and pledge to "return to the joy" color adds to our lives (and blogs apparently).

As I noted during dinner with friends last eve, "I love people. It's their fucking species I can't stand." While I wondered how the hell that slipped out, I realized my growing disillusionment and disgust at the a species so hell bent on its own destruction. That wouldn't be so bad if we weren't taking everything else down with us. At least most other species eat what they kill.

So I promise to lighten up; to regain my groove. After all, if Lynne cheney, wife of our vice president "Big Dick" was impressed enough to write a children's book, America: A Patriotic Primer, and say of it, "seeing the great cities and the natural beauty of the country, meeting people from all across the land, I found myself so deeply moved, time and again. I love this country, and there is so much about it to love, and I wanted to make sure that my grandchildren—that all children—understand that."

This, as I'm pretty sure she plots with her husband just before lights out each night how the fuck they can provoke the Iranians into a shooting war that may end up escalating into a nuclear holocaust annihilating all our great cities and natural beauty of the country. Oh, and her beloved grandkids. Don't forget them. Fried black. But one has to conclude perhaps Mrs. cheney has more color in her life. Either that or she's fucking insane.

Same with Hillary, expressing a similiar love for children, who wrote It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, then voted for a war to bomb the shit out of those children laden villages. Obviously, she has more color in her life too or, like Big Dick's wife, is also fucking crazy.

Maybe I'd be more understanding if Lynn and Hillary were hungry and eating all the people they kill. Maybe bringing some color back to these pages will help me appreciate the seeming contradictions of people like these? Nah, I'm just kidding. These are obviously some very sick "mothers." (Literally.) But I will try to be more colorful in the future.

Who determines your next presidential candidates?

Well, CNN and the rest of the media (that have the power to decide who you will or won't see on the boob tube or read about in print) that's who.

After last night's democratic presidential debate, "Senator Chris Dodd criticized CNN for giving far more time to Senators Obama and Clinton. Obama spoke for 16 minutes. Dodd, Kucinich, Gravel and Senator Joe Biden were each given less than nine minutes."*

So apparently, while you're trying to decide who you'd prefer to represent the left wing of the republican party in the '08 presidential election, CNN already has, giving Obama and Clinton twice as much exposure.

Unless one's an Obama or Clinton lover, this should be very upsetting to those who might support one of the lesser, "unknown" candidates like a Kucinich or a Gravel. (WTF is a Gravel?)

Oh well, Dada just can't wait for the Peace and Freedom Party's debates on CNN.

*Attribute: Democracy Now!

It's nice of the New York Times in an editorial yesterday to warn us Big Dick cheney is determined to get the U.S. sucked into a shooting war with Iran.

I've just one question. Why the turn around, Times? Why not 4, 5, or 6 years ago in the lead-up to the Iraq war when, instead of investigative reporting in search of truth, the Times gave us war propaganda fed them by the government as truth based on intelligence.

Hearing this, Truthout concludes, "We are in greater danger....every day that Congress does not confront the monstrous malignancy in the office of the vice president in particular."

But when in the past 6 1/2 years has the congress failed to give the president and Big Dick cheney whatever they wanted. Congress is not a check, nor a balance. Congress is a rubber stamp.

Welcome CIA!

I've been reluctant to write this blog for a long, long time. But at the same time, I've been wanting to pause, give recognition to, and most of all "Welcome!" one of my most faithful readers.

But I didn't want to appear paranoid--or worse--totally nutso. That's because we have enough of those in the white house and congress leading the nation down a very nutso path based on their sociopathic disorders. That said, I feel it's time to step up and extend my appreciation to the CIA for their unfaltering visits to Dada's Dally.

While I appreciate the patronage, my underlying suspicion is that it is for the wrong reasons. What drives me toward this conclusion is the endless mundane content within these pages which, despite that fact, keep you coming back faithfully to read it. But that aside, thanks for coming by!

Oh, and I might mention one little thing I find great irony in. While you--the CIA--conduct and support covert operations of the anti-goverment elements in Iran to overthrow that regime, you also spend countless millions upon millions of dollars and hours covertly tracking and analyzing anti-government bloggers here to prop up a fascist government in this country.

That really confuses me because this blog and thousands of others like it are created by the most patriotic people in this nation. It's a terrible, terrible waste of CIA time, not to mention my tax dollars that are going towards paying for this covert surveillance of--all people--me!

So continue to drop by if you must. I can't promise it will get any better than it's been, but know I appreciate you spending time here and I promise to keep you in mind as I write these pages. Trust me, I do. But I'm not being paranoid, honest. Just very cautious in what I write. Credit my strong self-preservation instinct I guess.