Apologies for the delay, folks, but big news broke with the revelation that the Bushies have actually been soft on terror. The FDA reveals that consuming mercury is not so bad after all, old folks are ticked off with Bush and the US military is paying Iraqis for their grief. The sanctity of marriage is on display in India and Lieberman, Lieberman, Lieberman, we just don't get thee.

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Get The Lead Out

Ahh, life under a green Bush is really quite grand. In defiance of its mandate to protect both the environment and the people living in it, the Environmental Protection Agency were informed of toxic levels of lead in Washington D.C.'s water supply and system, knew a likely solution but did absolutely nothing about it. This apparently went down back in November 2002 when an EPA liason to DC informed his supervisor of the situation and mailed the Department of Health about the contamination. It would seem the awful news completely paralized the EPA and DoH because neither of them moved. Just how long toxic, lead-enhanced water has been hydrating Washingtonians is almost anyone's guess, though the situation had been warned of as far back as 1994. It seems the culprit is the Washington Aqueduct which, when treating the water, actually makes the water so corrosive it scours lead pipes which then leaches into the water supply. Now, we at the BHC aren't quite sure which is worse: lead-eating water or lead-laced water. With typical bureautcratic aplomb, the director of water quality for EPA Region III, Jonathan Capacasa, proudly informs us of his marvelous powers of hindsight:

"In hindsight, we missed some opportunities...to engage earlier."

Naturally, we are all comforted by such a message from our protectors.


Read this, especially if you live in Washington...

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Wisdom of the Aged

In a triumphal testimony to the wisdom of the elderly and a clear anti-bonehead entry this week, it seems retired folks in Florida are steaming mad at Bush and are gunning to give him the boot:

"I'd vote for Mickey Mouse if he was running against George Bush - anyone, but Bush," says May Duke down in West Palm Beach.

Opinions don't get much clearer than that. 86 year old Sam Duke, a former marine and police captain in Brooklyn, declares, "I can't remember disliking a president as much." Retirees rippin' Bush. Hey kids, this is fun the whole family can enjoy.

The oldsters are, in fact, so pissed, they are organising to defeat Bush with one giant retiree vote against the incumbent in November. The anger first surfaced during the election in 2000 when GOP drones were claiming that the old folks were doddering, easily confused, barely capable of voting. Well, that sparked considerable ire amongst the demographic and they mean to hit back, hard.

Give 'em hell, Duke!


Read the full tale....

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Back It Up

No, you back it up!

In an astounding, high-water mark of oratorical irony, George W. Bush challenged John Kerry to name names after Kerry claimed that "foreign leaders" were backing him:

"If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you ought to back it up with facts".

We at the BHC are not entirely convinced that Bush actually knows what a "fact" is and, in granting benefit of doubt, if he does, it is clearly only true for Bush during presidential campaigns. Ok, maybe not even then. Accusations of other countries having, say, weapons of mass destruction, don't need facts behind them at all.

But, really, Kerry is under no obligation to tell anyone who spoke to him. Hell, we can't get Cheney to tell us who was in on the Energy Task Force. And we would certainly not hand over names of other countries' leaders who would say such fully knowing how well the Bushies will exact their retribution. The GOP sounds completely freaked that "foreign leaders" want Bush out. Is the White House so out of touch with the world that they don't realise this already? Wait, silly question.

Read the story....

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Payola

The BHC cannot quite understand the point of the Pentagon's new pay-as-you-go plan for Iraqi citizens who have been maimed or killed by US military actions. A year ago, Ali Kadem Hashem watched his wife burn to death and his three children die after an American missile hit his house. Now, an officer comes to his door with a cheque for $5000 and an "I'm sorry." Where this sudden need to appease Iraqis is coming from we don't know and it is especially confusing considering that the Pentagon just won't track Iraqi civilian deaths:

"We don't keep a list," said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell. "It's just not policy."

Tell us, Jane dear, how on earth is it possible that you start handing out cheques to people whose collective deaths you cannot be bothered to track?


Read the story....

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The Once and Recent Future

We at the BHC always love nonsensical, information-free exchanges. And we usually find them at White House press briefings with Scott McClellan doing yeoman's service here:

Q Let me just ask you to comment finally on something Senator Kerry just said, which was, "We are still bogged down in Iraq, and the administration stubbornly holds to failed policies that drive potential allies away." Are we bogged down in Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, I haven't seen Senator Kerry's comments. Obviously, we've been focused on other priorities here in the recent future -- or the recent -- with recent events. This is a time for us to focus on what is going on in Baghdad and that's what this White House is doing.

Just what the 'recent future' has in store for us is anyone's guess. And the White House's focus on 'other priorities', no doubt includes developing a steady stream of television attack ads and White House issued "news". Now that sort of activity demands attention and shunts things like invasions and wars onto the back burner, as it were, and let's them stew for a little while.


Read the story....

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White House Haiku

Never let it be doubted just what it is this administration is all about:

MR. McCLELLAN: We're certainly at a very critical period in the war on terrorism.
We are disrupting and dismantling terrorist networks.
But the war continues.
And the recent attacks are grim reminders that we are at war on terrorism.
The stakes are very high in the war on terrorism.
The terrorists recognize that the stakes are very high.
They recognize that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism,
because they know that when there is a free and peaceful Iraq for the Iraqi people,
that that will be a major blow to the terrorists.

Please be advised that this is not some random collection of disjointed statements. This was an actual paragraph of words which White House spokesman Scott McClellan actually said. Don't believe us? just read it...(about half way down the page).

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Questions, Questions

The BHC is rather inclined toward the position that the Bush administration has a lot to answer for and serious, hard questions should be pushed at them at every possible opportunity. Unfortunately, not all journalists are created equal and we do feel for poor, besotted Scott McClellan at times.

Being press secretary and having to defend or obfuscate for the Bush administration very often appears less attractive than being staked out on an ant hill, naked in the hot sun, honey dribbling out of ears. And occasionally he is confronted by the most moronic jackass one's worst imaginings might dredge up from the depths of some muttonhead hell. We're not sure who asked these questions nor what end they sought:

Q Scott, on the Armed Forces, Senator Kerry's campaign website notes that he wants to repeal the don't ask-don't tell regulation in the Armed Forces, which has been supported by both Presidents Clinton and Bush and most of the Congress. I have a two-part question. Is this still one of the differences between President Bush and Senator Kerry?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known and its up to the military leaders to determine how best to carry that policy out.

Q Since many of the families who provide a lot of our armed services recruits are religious, what does the President, as Commander-in-Chief, believe would be the effect on recruiting of the Kerry plan for openly advertising and practicing sodomist sergeants and commissioned officers?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry? I didn't understand what you're asking.

Even McClellan seems to be saying, what kind of an idiot are you? but in a nicer, press secretary-ish kind of way.

Believe it or not, these three items are all from the same press briefing...

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But Not Gay

In an item sure to endear the Bush White House, Laura, all her servants and the hordes of Christian idealogues to Hindu pratices, a 25-year-old Indian man has married his 80-year-old grandmother because he wanted to take care of her. Actually, the BHC has no idea whether this is a genuine Hindu practice or a tax dodge but, no doubt, this expression of heartwarming, heterosexual love is just what the Christian coalition is looking toward as an example of the sanctity of marriage, right?


Read about the freaks....

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Tuna Melt

Human impact on the environment, and business influence on government, demonstrate themselves unpleasantly, yet again, as the FDA and the EPA have jointly issued a sort-of warning to pregnant and nursing women and their young children to avoid eating more than 6 ounces of albacore tuna per week due to high levels of mercury contamination. The BHC immediately realises that this half-hearted "guideline" is made with a nod to the US Tuna Foundation (USTF...who knew?) and the ones most at fault, coal-fired power plants.

University of Arizona toxicologist Vas Aposhian was so ticked off with the recommendation that he quit the FDA advisory panel which recommended that child-bearing women and children should not eat albacore tuna at all.
It would seem that Aposhian and the FDA have disparate opinions regarding consumption of mercury. Says FDA acting commissioner Lester M. Crawford, "we're confident that women and young children can safely include fish [and mercury] as an important part of a healthy diet." Would anyone be comforted by this? Would anyone out there, pregnant or not, think, hooray, I can still eat tuna once a week? No. Unwittingly, with this mendacious "warning", the EPA/FDA have shown that their true allegiance is to the industries they are supposedly regulating and not the interests of the American public.

The BHC will note that the single largest source of mercury to the environment is, yep, coal-fired power plants. Readers will likely recall that one of the recommendations of Cheney's Energy Task Force was increasing the use of the coal generated power. This means that the EPA and FDA certainly will not stand up and make any claims that byproducts of the energy industry are worse than a mere inconvenience. Of course, with all the press this story has generated, we can well imagine the entire tuna industry collapsing as people decide that mercury just isn't something they want to feed themselves.

Imagine a scenario wherein terrorists dump mercury into fishing waters and water supplies. Is it possible to imagine the ruthless prosecution the US military would engage in hunting down such "evildoers?" The US government would warn people to not eat mercury contaminated fish. But that is not the case here, people, because it is the power industry and the $1.3 billion tuna industry who are the perpetrators.

Read it and weep....

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Taiwan On

Those crazy Taiwanese are at it again with some election shenanigans. It seems that Lien Chan, the Nationalist candidate who lost the election to President Chen by less than a quarter of a percentage point of the vote, is demanding a recount and an investigation into supposed shooting of the president just two days before the election, which Chan believes was an attempt to play the sympathy card. That seems an extreme measure to play on so dubious and uncertain a vapour as sympathy. But wait, gentle reader, there appears a more concrete benefit to be gained by Chen in such a charade. After the "shooting," the president declared an national alert, thereby preventing some 200,000 military and police personnel, who usually vote for the Nationalists, from casting their ballots. President Chen won the election by fewer than 30,000 votes. This sort of performance is nearly as craven as...Florida, where election fixing has been elevated to an art form. Should Chen get some instruction from Katherine Harris, he might be able to avoid self-inflicted gunshot wounds in future elections.


Read more....

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A Czar is Born

In the big news this week, which readers of the BHC will no doubt be aware, former Bush counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, interviewed on 60 Minutes and brought forth his new book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, wherein Bush and his cabal take another lambasting by another high-level Bush official who resigned rather than soil himself any further. Clarke boldly claims that the Bush administration failed to take the threat of Al Qaeda seriously prior to Sept. 11. Mr. Clarke has been involved with four different administrations, Reagan through W., over the course of 30 years and was Clinton's and Bush's counter-terrorism coordinator. We at the BHC expect our readers to be rather familiar with the charges Clarke has raised against Bush et al. but the most amusing part of it all is the immediate reaction of the White House. Everyone from Scott McClellan to Dick Cheney has come forth to decry the work as that of some disgruntled ex-employee: politically motivated, reckless. That the Bush administration should choose to call anyone reckless is rather impressive in its unintended mordancy.

To highlight one of the charges Clarke levels, he claims that less than a day after the 9/11 attacks, secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, said at a cabinet-level meeting that "there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq" instead because it had "better targets." Hey, what about Berlin and Paris? We could teach those pesky Germans and French a thing or two about who's in charge and there are all kinds of cool old buildings poised to explode with delight. The best part: those ingrates are sort of used to it already.

The White House has been on the receiving end of a growing number of these shots from former staffers. Dutifully, the media has flushed these unpleasantries away fairly quickly but it is nearly impossible for the BHC to believe that still half of the US population considers Bush to be an upstanding guy.


Read more....

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Please, Just Shut Up

Meanwhile, erstwhile Democrat and go-nowhere Joementum vessel, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman continues his campaign efforts for George Bush by saying that he saw "no basis" for Clarke's allegation that the administration was too focused on Iraq in the wake of Sept. 11. "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric and not to go about what happened in the past so totally that we divide ourselves."

What is wrong with Lieberman and why, why doesn't he just join the Republican party? We at the BHC strongly suspect the GOP has refused to let him join in fear of the dreaded Joementum effect.

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Joe-men-tum
Joe-men-tum
Joe-men-tum

yeesh.