Kole, 1994-2007

Last night, Kole left us after two short years in our home. He suffered a brief and very sudden illness, and his loss leaves an enormous hole in our lives. He loved playing in snow, so it was fitting that it snowed last night – the world bid him a quiet goodbye.

We were only fortunate enough to know Kole for two of his 13 years, but those years were more than enough to learn to love him and be glad we had the chance to share in his life.

Kole was his own unique dog in many ways – from his funky old-guy breath to his patented two-inch vertical leap when he was really, really excited. Kole was best friends with everyone he met except for cats, who he remained wary of after “the incident”. His most special friend was Courtney, who let him climb up on the bed with her and was willing to pet him almost all the time.

Endearingly clumsy and not so good at backing up when stuck in the laundry room, Kole was also resourceful enough to learn how to open our locking trash can. Let’s face it, leftover chicken is tasty. He loved getting a chance to swipe some cat food, playing with his George Bush baby, and chasing his toy in the yard. While not good at catching, he knew that a Nerf football could be the most fun way to spend an afternoon ever. He loved to go find things and people and was a very thorough searcher. He was a proficient hand-shaker and notoriously bad speller.

Even as he got older and less active, Kole enjoyed car rides and walks – which got shorter, but were no less fun. He would sit in front of you and stare while you talked to him, and had boundless patience for all our baby talk to him, and never failed to forgive us when we stepped on his paws or accidentally bonked his head. He wriggled with excitement when we came home, took up too much room in the bathroom while we got ready in the mornings, preferred spreading our clothes around the bedroom to sleep on rather than his own bed. In the last few months, the ever resourceful Kole discovered an abandoned pillow and learned the joy of sleeping with his head on a pillow just like his people.

We’ll miss our old guy, miss having him crawl under the coffee table during movies and blithely shove doors open if we forgot to let him in a room (Kole saw no point in us being in a room without our dog), and we’ll miss all his old guy quirks. He was our sweet old best buddy, and he is terribly missed.
Kole will be cremated, and we haven’t decided what to do with his ashes. If you’re interested, Kole can be remembered by donating dog food or toys to PAWS or an equivalent shelter.

On the Trial of Scooter Libby

[Note: This was written by the switzermom and switzerdad, who sent it my way. I apologize that I do not possess their writing skill. Back to inflicting my nonsense shortly.]

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Scapegoat. Fall guy.

Scooter Libby is George Bush's Lt. William Calley.

In January, 1968, Charlie Company killed some 500 old men, women, children and babies in the so-called My Lai massacre. Despite an attempted cover-up, the army eventually indicted 26 officers and soldiers for their roles in the massacre. In the end, Lt. Calley was the only one convicted. Calley was given life in prison for killing 22 civilians, but his sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then 10 years. He actually served about 3 1/2 years of house arrest at Ft. Benning, GA. This seemed to satisfy our national need to hold someone accountable.

In July, 2003, Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA operative was revealed as the result of information leaked from the highest levels of the White House. Evidence suggests this may have been a deliberate attempt to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, and that both George Bush and Dick Cheney may have been involved, as well as Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and others.
As more and more Americans became aware of the leaking of Plame's identity to a White House friendly pundit, the outrage grew. It became obvious, even to this arrogant administration, that someone would have to be "held accountable". Enter Patrick Fitzgerald, an apparent darling of the mainstream media, repeatedly lauded as a hard-nosed prosecutor and a man of unquestioned integrity. Despite the praise heaped upon his head, imagine our surprise and disappointment when the best he could do was indict a staffer, Scooter Libby, for lying to the grand jury.

My expectation is that Libby will be convicted of perjury, the conviction will be appealed for years to come and he will ultimately serve no jail time at all. But the conviction will satisfy our national need to hold someone accountable.

When we have a White House that has little, if any, regard for the Constitution, it is a shocking betrayal of the American people that the real traitors will remain scot-free and in control of our government. It is obvious to all who care about this nation that this administration is still in the process of taking over the judiciary and will continue to manipulate any "trial" which involves a crony.

"...and justice for all." Right!

a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball

<rant>

Well, the title of this post is taken from the greatest news coverage day ever, 1/31/07, when Boston was shut down because the Boston PD was too stupid to tell a Lite-Brite from a bomb, and the entire world learned how terrified America truly is of everything around them.  If ever anything was going to "embolden the enemy", it's news that they've got us by the nut hairs so deeply that we'll shut down a major city because of this:

These fucking pussies actually called in NORAD!  And look at the language throughout these articles:  "hoax", "electronic devices", "suspicious objects", "planted".  Like these little Lite-Brites were actually placed to scare people.  Honestly, what utter morons were taken in by this? 

So two dudes get arrested for putting funny lights up around Boston, but methinks they won't be charged with a crime for long.  Let me just say, the prosecutor pursuing these guys should be disbarred for what he's doing.  Check this quote:

“It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,” Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment.

...

“The appearance of this device and its location are crucial,” Grossman said. “This device looks like a bomb.”

Some in the gallery snickered.

This was in response to the judge indicating that the law clearly requires proof that these two guys intended to cause fear and unrest, but Grossman had just indicated they placed the devices as part of an ad campaign.   Dumbass...

Let me just say, thank gods for the Seattle PD:

In the Seattle area, authorities thought the devices were “obviously not suspicious.”