Greece Ignoring Animal Rights Laws: Boycott Greek Tourism & Products

Situations like this complete disregard and outright cruelty to animals occurs all over the world as well as in the United States. All countries bear a certain amount of guilt and the citizens of those countries will pay the ultimate punishment of having damned their own souls to hell.

Greece is the latest to be 'revealed' as the purveyor of this inhumane behavior. Read About Greek Animal Atrocities

When All Else Fails, The Idiots Survive

Squirrels. The nemesis of the civilized (?) world.

Pul-eeze.

Shot gun, em, .22 em, or whatever other caliber you choose to murder them to protect your pathetic little garden. Hello? They're digging around to look for food? What are you doing? Somebody want to blast you in the back when you're scouring the produce aisles in the supermarket?

Am I the only person left in this world to truly - TRULY - believe in the phrase "Live and Let Live"? And you know the most bloodthirstiest of all? Organic gardeners. Yep. The very same, earthy, lovers of nature, friends of all things natural, blah, blah, freaking blah. I think this is one of the major reasons why I no longer post on these 'organic' gardening forums. It's the hypocrisy.

So if they don't have access to guns, arrows, poison, etc. (ooop, scuse me...they're uh......"organic" so they wouldn't use poison)....how about good old fashioned BB guns? Yeah. Hit one in the back and see how it lays there or runs off (while it can still run) to hide and die a miserable death whilst you and the kiddies roar your sick asses off. Fun family gatherings you folks must have. When do you hold the sacrifices?

Next time you tell junior to "Go BB one for Daddy or Mommy", tell the little tyke to stick around and watch when the BB'd squirrel comes crawling across the yard looking for water to drink or a single seed to find. Not actually 'crawling', but actually dragging himself because his hind legs are paralyzed due to the injury in his spine from junior's BB. Watch as he raises his head and flails his tiny paws in death throes because he cannot reach food or escape predators. Watch and hee-haw yourselves silly. Oh, don't forget to get a few yucks as he opens his little mouth gasping for air and dies with his eyes open. They die with their eyes open, you know. All animals do.

Pity those hilarious murderers don't die that way. Then maybe there'd be a chance that, just before they gasp their final breath, they could see someone like myself standing over them laughing MY ass off, too.

No Arguing With Hunters

When one enters into a discussion with a hunter on the 'merits and necessity of hunting', one is entering into a losing battle with one of their loaded guns. Not that they are right, but because their stoic feet are so planted in the blood of the dead animals they revel in destroying, their flap-eared caps deaden any logic or truth that can be presented to them.

The recent slaughtering of the Yellowstone wolves despite a federal court ruling that their removal from the endangered species act was held Illegal is a perfect example of hunters justifying their 'hobby'. Even The National Park Service weighs in with facts and figures to dispute the hunters', farmers' and ranchers' claims.

Contrary to their statements that the wolf population in Yellowstone has increased, this is false if they'd check their facts. The population, in fact, has decreased since 2007 due to incidences of mange and more seriously, widespread Distemper

The real truth remains - and always will remain true - that hunters will justify any slaughter if it means they can slaughter other animals. In other words, in the case of the wolves of Yellowstone, hunters really consider them "competition". After all, any deer or elk the wolves kill for survival is one less deer or elk a hunter can mount on his wall.

Their alleged 'overpopulation of wolves contributing to the and safety and survival of the deer and elk population' is a bogus justification for wolf slaughter that smells as much as the piles of dung left by the elk and deer herds as they flee from the...uh..."sportsmen/women".

ANDY WILLIAMS "MOONS" OBAMA

He was one of my favorite singers in the 60's. Never missed one of his Christmas specials (even if that did mean having to sit through segments with The Osmond Brothers). There was no denying that the man had a beautiful voice. Unfortunately, now his voice is becoming a little cracked...as well as his thinking.

In London this week Andy Williams joined the cadré of crazies along with Jon "Everybody's-Talkin-At-Me-And-That's-Why-I-Hear-Voices Voight all likening Pres. Obama to the anti-Christ.

Andy prefaced his denouncement of Obama as a card-carrying Marxist with fawning praises of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. In an effort to assuage Obama supporters, he traveled down Moon-River-Memory-Lane by reminiscing about the time he worked for Bobby Kennedy in California when Kennedy campaigned for president in '68. But then segued into: "I think Obama wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist". Zounds!

So, by old Andy's logic if you associated with someone "x" number of years ago, and they had a certain philosophy or penchant, that automatically makes you share the same philosophy or penchant.

Hmmmm? Andy's ex-wife, Claudine Longet, was convicted of negligent homicide for shooting her lover, Olympic skier "Spider" Sabich in 1977. Guess that means Andy's capable of offing any of his senior-citizen amours down there at ole Andy's Moon River Theatre in Branson, Mo. if they decide to lose the walkers and take to the slopes. (Are there slopes in Missouri?)

He also discovered, sponsored and publicized (ad nauseam) the aforementioned Osmond Brothers. Lesseee???? Marie Osmond has a line of dolls she sells on QVC...so...is Andy diddling dollies in his spare time? Pervert!!!

Sorry Andy, no pandering mea culpa about the Kennedy's gets you a free pass by the overwhelming majority of Americans who've had enough of this guilt-by-association meal first served up by McCarthy and then put back on the menu by Chefs O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and Rove. Stick a fork in it Andy et. al. It's been done.

The kicker irony here is that Williams is doing a book signing for his new tome "Moon River & Me" and his next scheduled signing is October 24 with Left Bank Books at The Ethical Society.

Sometimes you just can't make these things up. It's too easy. It writes itself. Baahaahaaa!

What Exactly Is A "Bleeding Heart"?

Used to be back when I was do'in mah thang in the 60's (you know, the decade when young people actually gave a damn and did something about it), the term "bleeding heart" usually prefaced "liberal". Nowadays, the suffix isn't always used. Seems "bleeding heart" kinda covers it for most critics.

I am, I suppose, what the Catholic church calls "a fallen-away Catholic". Yeah. I guess. I skipped and rolled for awhile and eventually took the big dive off the deep end decades ago. Then, again, I probably would have fallen away from just about any organized religion eventually if given enough time to realize that while organized religion can bring great solace to some, on the whole, it came to represent to me the height of hypocrisy and the single biggest reason behind history's major conflagrations.

But I digress (for which I will surely burn in hell). Back to "bleeding heart". I can still remember those artists' renderings of Jesus plastering the walls of the Catholic school where I attended after (public) school catechism classes. In most all those works of art Jesus is painted with one hand held upward - as if in a blessing - and the other hand pointing to or resting upon a very visibly depicted heart bleeding from the wounds of a crown of thorns surrounding it. The nuns and the occasionally visiting priests would always remind us that this represented Jesus' heart bleeding for all of us in order to selflessly give of himself to others.

For all my formative and pre-political (and pre-fallen-away) years, I understood and accepted the definition given to me at that time and still accept it today. Despite my physical separation from any organized religion, I still very much believe in a loving God and one who suffers each time the diety's name or basic ideology (and not that of sociologically-agenda-driven biblical theologians) is taken in vain or is used as a weapon instead of a representation of selfless, unconditional love.

So I pose the same question I've asked myself for decades: When did the term "Bleeding Heart" become a negative? A slur? What exactly is a "Bleeding Heart" by modern standards?

I've always found it rather oxymoronic that "bleeding heart" became the chosen derogatory mantra of the more politically & socially conservative folk toward those who weren't. Soon, "bleeding heart" degenerated into an insult, a putdown, a label from which many distanced themselves for fear of being drowned in the waves of pious paranoia that flooded this land. It was a pox, a symbol, a "666" identifying that person as one to avoid, ridicule, slander and, ultimately, of course - fear.

Inasmuch as I've admittedly 'fallen away', I don't think I could ever fall far enough away to forget what I still believe to be the real meaning of "Bleeding Heart". Yet I will continue to be sadly perplexed by - and a bit contemptuous of - those who brandish the cross, beat their bibles, yell from their pulpits, chant from their pews and praise His name while defiling the true meaning of His heart.

Healthy Pet Products' Database

A great database for testing of toxicity in pet products is Healthy Stuff For Pets

Choose from various menu items to find pet products that are of concern to you and find out how they fare.

Also, if you check their main site: Healthy Stuff.org you can also find ratings and stats on toxic levels in thousands of other consumer products.

As Long As You're The One Getting Government Funding, I Guess It Ain't "Socialism"

According to "The Payoff Patriots" apparently some of the President's most vocal and most vile protestors from America's alleged "Heartland", who have adjudged President Obama's Healtcare initiative as a socialist agenda, are not as loathe to draw that same skewed conclusion of the government farm subsidies they willingly accept to the tune of $177 million annually in order to maintain lower costs and stay competitive. Hmmmmmm? Sounds e-tty, pre-tty, preee-tty socialistic to me. (That is... by their own standards and definition of socialism).

Now, **scratching chin** where have I also heard that same proposed government funding or offer of a pubic option to people if they OPT to participate competitively with giant monopolies....like...oh....say.....INSURANCE COMPANIES???

Say. Do ya think any of those subsidized farmers 'opt' out of those handouts (their word for it, not mine) ....er...I mean "subsidies"?

Why does the word: HYPOCRITE seem to come to mind?

So many questions. So few answers. So many people who obviously have more time to write idiotic signs, yell moronic-memorized catch phrases, about ideologies they haven't a clue about or how they don't even realize that they're already card-carrying comrades in this so-called "socialistic plot".

I wonder why Glenn Beck hasn't exposed them? Be vewy afwaid Amerwica!

We Are Our Own Worst Enemies

If anyone ever tells you that this is the worst, most divisive and precarious time in our nation's history, then they don't know their history. American history - and not the sanitized, sterilized and sermonized white-washed versions we were taught in grade school - is rife with uncertainty and divisiveness. (Does "The Civil War" ring a bell?)

While the basic ingredients in our historically-checkered melting pot haven't changed, the brew is admittedly being viscously stirred to a bitter boiling point by:

(a) infotainment that passes as genuine news and infotainers who pass as actual news people who compartmentalize and sensationalize misinformation encapsulated in 15-second sound bites and catchy phrases because the average citizen has the attention and retention span of a gnat and is too busy **see: lazy or illiterate** to read and research for themselves to form their own opinion, but default to rely on the agenda-driven opinions of the aforementioned infotainers; and

(b) the speed of the internet to transmit said misinformation instantaneously.

Once again, I can't help but allude to Rod Serling's metaphoric Twilight Zone episode of self-destruction through mass paranoia, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street", where an entire neighborhood succumbs to the sum of their fears and prejudices. Mistrusting, suspecting and blaming each other for the sudden plethora of problems that have befallen them, they eventually implode by destroying their neighbor's homes, murdering each other and ultimately obliterating their entire societal structure. Whereupon the camera pans back and we see two aliens observing and monitoring the carnage. One alien reassuring the other: "You see? They just pick the most dangerous enemy they can find [or invent] and destroy themselves. The world is full of Maple Streets. All we have to do is sit back and let them destroy themselves."

Of additional memorable significance was Mr. Serling's closing narrative:
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices. To be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the frightened, thoughtless search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own: for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things can not be confined to the Twilight Zone. ”

Look around and be very afraid...not of our neighbors...but of ourselves.

Senator Ted Kennedy: Death Demands Respect

I was never a fan of Ronald Reagan and that's very much an understatement. But when the man was felled by Alzheimer's, my heart went out to him. Yes, even to Nancy. She wasn't just "Reagan's wife who I basically disliked", then she was the wife of a man who was losing touch with everything he had known and loved. Losing touch even with himself, and it was sad.

When he passed I mourned the passing of a former President of our United States out of respect for him and out of compassion for a wife who had lost her life-long companion.

Senator Ted Kennedy was also deserving of the same respect in his passing as does his wife who must also now go on without her life-long companion. He was a driving force in our nation's history and the last in a long line of one of our country's most notable families. Whether one agreed with his principles or politics is irrelevant now.

Death is the great leveler. In death all things are equal. There are no politics. There is no bipartisanism. There is no liberal, no conservative....no nothing. There is only an end to a life that - hopefully in some beneficial way - contributed to the world they left behind.

I grieve over his loss. I grieve for the pain he suffered and endured. I personally grieve over his loss to our nation. And in a strange sense, I grieve for the souls of all those insensitive, vindictive and cold individuals still enjoying the gift of life who cannot even manage a respectful "Rest In Peace" without jaded sarcasm, hateful words, innuendo or seizing the opportunity to trash a human being - a human being who has gave more to his country than many who so ghoulishly criticize him even now - and a man no longer able to defend or contradict his critics. 'Defend and contradict critics', by the way, was not Senator Kennedy's style. He never exchanged in bile bantering. It was beneath him. He had class which is more than can be said of his Death Panel of Critics.

When it is their time to leave this mortal coil, I wonder if people will say of them: "They did something beneficial for the world they left behind". Or will they be remembered as bitter, tasteless, cruel and petty?

Right now I think it will be the later and what's more, I don't think that would bother them much - either their legacy or my opinion of them. I would say I dislike them but, truly, they aren't worth any more words than are contained in this post.

God Rest and Grant Peace To The Soul of Senator Kennedy.

Bush White House Lied? So What Else Is New?

Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who served as head of homeland security for the Bush Administration, has written a book, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again. In this book he reveals that the Administration's political agenda was actually on higher alert than the nation's security. In essence, the Administration fomented false terror alerts to enhance the Republican balloting for the 2004 election.

Shazaam! No way!

Way.

Not like lying to the American people in order to garner votes and/or support was a novelty. ***Rubbing chin. Insert flashback music here*** Hmmmmm? Robert McNamara's Vietnam mea culpa comes to mind.

I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I could think of bazillion more examples throughout our checkered American history.

But, for now, Ridge's revelation is not only nothing new to those of us who knew this to be the case back when Dubbya's snarky laugh echoed through the White House, but now all I can think of is...................Dubbya's snarky laugh.