"I'm The King Of You...

Stefan Zaklin/European Pressphoto Agency

and these are my evil henchmen, posing as jesters."

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this Son of Pork.
[with sincere apologies to Bill]

I wonder if our Dear Reader has finished Richard the Turd?
That should leave him in a cold sweat when he wakes from sleep and dreaming.

KING RICHARD III, Act 5, Scene 3

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree
Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

On The Lookout...

[click on image to enlarge]
...for Frist and the sellout Senate Torture RATifiers
as they take us over a cliff.
Welcome to our new contemptible reality.
In protest, Taboo will be shown facing away, to remind bloggers of the immoral detainee policy of,
as Senator Christopher Dodd said, the nation of Guantanimo.
Why should any of its citizens be entitled to gaze
upon sweet kitty faces
while the disappeared victims of Bushco's torture tools
suffer in black-site anonymity without their light-of-day in court?

September 28, 2006
Editorial, The New York Times
Rushing Off a Cliff

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

•There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Sadly, if still welcomed, I join the other kitty bloggers at
Friday's Ark.

Please drop by with your link to the
House of (Mostly) Black Cats
generously hosting WCB#69.

Remember The Good Old Days When...

...it was pounded home by the blowhard morality jackboots
that the toughest question your kid could ask was
"Mommy, what's a blow-job?"
Brace yourself for her crying after you answer
"Mommy, what's torture?"

Cat Protests Torture & Inhumane Treatment...

FRIST THEY CAME FOR THE CATS...

Did Anybody Else Notice...

[click on image to enlarge]
We Ark Angels Are Totally Ignored By The United Nations?
I Hereby Nominate Upsie For Madame Secretary [Teh Queen In Her Crown].
To Visit With The Rest Of Our Noble Members
[Who Respond To "Your Excellency" By Purring],
Stop By
~Friday's Ark~
~The Carnival Of Cats~
~Hosted By The House Of Chaos~
&
~Drop Off Your Links At~
~SweetSarahJ's For WCB #68.~

Today's Post Is Dedicated To Atticus, A Great Soul Who Spent His Short Time Here In A Little Body With A Giant Heart.
May He Eternally Frolic With His Buddies In The Great Oak.

Her 41st...

At The Golden Gate
by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A single plover far at sea
wings across the horizon

A single rower almost out of sight
rows his skull
into eternity

And I take a buddha crystal
in my hand
And begin becoming pure
light

Hide & Go...

[click on image to enlarge]
I don't know which I hate more - the camera or meds.
My new philosophy is "Catch Me First."
Which reminds me, don't forget to catch [cat-ch, get it?]
Friday Ark
Carnival of Cats
&
Weekend Cat Blogging #67
hosted by
catsynth
[thanks!]

It's All About Guarding The Mouse....

[click on image to enlarge]
&
getting on Friday's Ark,
the Carnival of Cats, this weekend
at Begin Each Day
&
WCB#66 deliciously hosted by
chef sarah jane
[drop by and drop off your kitty link!]

This Looks Good Enough To Eat...

[click on image to enlarge]
The next generation in a long line of great cooks
takes center stage with an end of summer classic,
a fruit and custard tart.

Crikey...

Photo: Heath Missen

Can anybody forget Steve saying
to a spider or venomous snake or biting lizard,

You little beauty!!

His presence was a gift, and he'll be missed.
22 February 1962 ~~ 4 September 2006