Mai Mai rebels killed one wildlife officer and wounded three other people in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Virunga National Park recently.
They warn that they will kill endangered mountain gorillas if there is an attempted retaliation.
Last year the militia used machine guns to slaughter hundreds of hippopotamus.
Filed under Environment, News, People, Things That Make Me Cranky by 
When asked why Bin Laden is still at large after years of dogged pursuit, George Bush revealed that Osama is not out “leading any parades” or “feeding the poor”.
Oh, okay then. No wonder we haven’t found him yet. Thank goodness we have George Bush to tell us the obvious as if we were children.
Ahh, but Chastise Man is tired today. So we will simply refer to the transcript of the press conference here, and an interesting analysis of it here.
Have a nice day.
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george bush osama bin laden terrorism press conference white house war in iraq
Filed under Chastise Man, News, Politics, Things That Make Me Cranky, War in Iraq by
Well, apparently the democrats in Congress are, if you want to consider George Bush the Big Bad Wolf, though Dick Cheney is probably an even better fit.
No matter – same difference.
I could have sworn I heard a big sucking sound the other day, off to the east. I think it was the vacuum created when Democrats lost all political will and caved in on the war funding bill.
$100 billion dollars, supposedly to fund the war only through September, with no timetable or talk of troop withdrawal. Instead, “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government.
Sure, Bush would have vetoed another bill, but nobody said the job would be easy. Force the vetoes. Face the inevitable rhetoric that the right wing pundits and loyal Republicans would plaster all over the media. Perhaps come up with a good argument of you own. Show some guts, some willingness to put something besides you own political consequences at the forefront.
Instead the Democrats are left trying to explain why they suddenly caved in to Bush. Yeah, we’ll get some great sound bites from that, won’t we?
Let me think. Why is it that we voted the Democrats into office? Hmmm…
Ah, yes. To do something about George Bush and the Iraq war.
They’ve done a nice job so far in pursuing the will of the people, haven’t they?
If only these guys had any will of their own, ours might have a chance of representation.
Instead, there’s another $100 billion for Bush’s war with no end in sight.
This isn’t the job we elected them to do. If they thought that there wasn’t going to be a fight with Bush and his cronies, then they’re even weaker and dumber than many suspected all along.
WANTED:
Democratic congress with some backbone.
Job starts immediately.
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war in iraq george bush war funding congress democrats politics democratic congress
Filed under Chastise Man, Politics, Things That Make Me Cranky, War in Iraq by
The stalemate continues between congress and the white house over funding for the Iraq war.
Diehard Republicans – most Republicans I guess – continue to sport the current one-liner that a timetable only tells the “enemy” when we surrender. No way to win a war, they say.
But who is the enemy? It isn’t the Iraqis, either Sunni or Shia is it? These are the people we came to liberate.
Then it’s Al Qaeda; a terrorist organization – or by now a militaristic philosophical movement something like Nazi Germany where nationalistic fanaticism is replaced with religious fanaticism.
The very nature of Al Qaeda means that they generally pursue the route of least resistance for access to Americans to kill and terrorize (with the notable exception of 9/11). It seems obvious that invading Iraq is only an invitation. And now it could be argued that 9/11 has served to bring the their enemy – the infidel American – to them through an ill-planned invasion and bungling occupation.
That Iraq would likely implode in violence from internal religious and tribal fundamentalism if we left, and if we stay our troops remain targets to Al Qaeda, means that we are stuck.
We can’t leave; and we shouldn’t stay.
Bush’s refusal to recognize, accept, and properly act on reality borders on the pathological.
We are told that we need to defer to the analysis and recommendations for the generals in the field. Yet if those generals disagree with the political agenda and spin from the Pentagon or White House, well, you’re fired.
Perhaps there was a window of opportunity to win over the general population. But now it seems as if every opportunity has been squandered through sheer arrogance and incompetence.
No credible plan has yet employed to effectively occupy Iraq. A situation the is plagued with incompetence and a fundamental failure to consider Iraqi culture and the consequences of unleashing the tribal tensions that Saddam had kept screwed down tight.
It is the Bush administration that has brought us to the situation we now face. A situation that Bush continually fails to address. A situation to which we should have never arrived in the first place.
It seems to me that the intention and desire of the current funding bills that either have been vetoed or will soon be vetoed is an attempt to deal with the realities of the current situation. A willingness to face a tough realization and decision.
Yet it remains a valid question: Is this any way to win a war?. The question, however, needs to be asked of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld (wherever he’s hiding right now).
And one, apparently, that Republicans should be asking themselves.
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Filed under Chastise Man, Mumbling to Myself, News, Politics, Things That Make Me Cranky, War in Iraq by
Recently I heard George Bush lament in an interview that one of the problems he has to deal with, along with all those watching TV, is only seeing the “car bomb” in news stories from Iraq. There is never any news showing a normal life.
I guess like John McCain taking a leisurely morning stroll through an open market in Baghdad; wearing a kevlar vest, surrounded by an armored contingent of Marines, and hovered over by Apache helicopters.
Yeah, normal like that.
That it doesn’t occur to George Bush that is exactly what people are doing up until the moment the car bomb explodes – just trying to pursue a normal life.
Only now so many bombs have gone off, so many lives have been shattered, so many bodies have been left to rot in the streets, that pursuing a “normal life” has lost all meaning.
And here we sit, lamenting all this ugly violence on TV.
Perhaps we should change the channel, go back to American Idol, and not miss a chance to cast a vote for the next pop idol.
On the other hand, maybe we should consider what the foreign policy pursued in our name has done and what it means for each one of us.
In an attempt to exploit fear, Bush warns that leaving Iraq is an open invitation for the terrorists to follow us back to our own shores, looking for the women and children – the innocent – to kill.
We fail to see that the horror of Iraq has already arrived; in shattered families, broken bodies, disturbed minds, body bags, and bankrupt leadership. The consequences of war are not contained within the battlefield, and the terror has already arrived, slipping past us in the dark night of the soul of a nation that has lost its way.
The emperor has no clothes, and it is time that we awakened to the truth.
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Filed under Chastise Man, Mumbling to Myself, News, Politics, Things That Make Me Cranky by
For two examples, watch the video below or refer to my recent post at GlobalWarmingisReal.com. It’ll make you cranky too.
Filed under News, Things That Make Me Cranky by
Most reading this know that I was employed by Grace Cathedral as a sound engineer from April of 2001 to the spring of 2005. For part of that time I was considered their "chief" engineer.
For the most part, I enjoyed my work at the Cathedral and was happy to play a role in the Cathedral’s mission. I particularly liked Dean Alan Jones’ outlook and enjoyed listening to his sermons (for which, I suppose one could say, I was paid to do). I still remember the Christmas season of ’04 when I was preparing for some Christamssy kind of service on a Monday night (I think it involved the Mayor lighting a tree or some such nonsense); I was fiddling with something and the Dean’s voice came from behind: Tom, please don’t leave us!
As honored as I was by the Dean’s plea, I left anyway. All my urging to upgrade a 30+ old sound system had been ignored by my then boss who told me that the equipment status was "replace on failure only". Imagine if, say, an airline took such an attitude to equipment maintenance and upgrade.
In any case, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I’d be left holding the bag of a disintegrating sound system that was installed the year I graduated from high school. I felt that such a grand Cathedral deserved better. Since that time I have remained "on the grapevine" as it were with several independent sources of information of the goings-on at Grace.
Since my departure (and the departure of my former boss) the wireless microphone system has been upgraded, the mixing console has been replaced (of which I helped the Cathedral financially, if I may know be so immodest as to shed my anonymity in that regard), and I have now learned that there are finally plans to replace the ancient amplifiers, equalizers, crossovers, and speakers.
Apparently this past Easter’s services didn’t go so well due to the sound system, and the project is now on a fast track. Such is the consequence of a "replace on failure only" policy.
But here’s the rub. I’ve heard from independent sources the following:
- The project is now in committee with recommendations from inexperienced technicians or completely non-technical board members as to the kind of system that should be installed
- There has been a recommendation to alter the acoustics of the Cathedral by using styrofoam on the ceiling (which, by the way, is seven stories up in any case)
Oh my friggin’ God. First of all, to alter the acoustics in any way is, to my mind, an abomination, a sin, and an affront to all that is holy. Let the Cathedral sing!!
That magnificent space is its own sound system and our meager efforts at electronic sound reinforcement is primarily only to enhance speech intelligibility and to a small degree help get the sound of the choir out "into the house" a bit, to help the cathedral and not to overpower it. To attempt any more is a fool’s errand.
The proposal now seems to be to deaden the acoustics and put some sort of rock n’ roll line array speaker system (the kind anyone has seen who has been to a rock or pop show within the past ten years) that would splay sound all over those granite walls, destroy speech intelligibility, and compromise – nay ruin – the acoustic integrity of the Cathedral.
It is apparent that idiots, knaves, and boobs are now in charge of the project. Sound design by committee. And by a committee comprised, apparently, of folks that have never pushed up a fader in their lives, let alone done so in a cathedral. They haven’t a clue as to what they are doing, and I fear that they will irreparably damage the the space for years to come while wasting the good people’s money in the process
Needless to say, this is a job for Chastise Man and I have expressed my concerns (in a much more polite tone, of course) to Mark Stanger, my inside connection to the heights of canonical power within the church hierarchy.
If you care about proper sound and preserving acoustic spaces – I mean STYROFOAM for the love of God – then send an email to Grace Cathedral. And let ‘em know Chastise Man sent you.
grace cathedral sound sound engineering acoustics cathedral sound
Filed under Mumbling to Myself, People, Religion, Things That Make Me Cranky by
