IDES OF MARCH

I have a lot to say about wolves, but, the way the day has gone, it doesn’t seem as though I’ll have the thing fully written until tomorrow, so I’m going to have to leave you with a clip of inspired Bush bashing from Maureen Dowd in the NY Times. I hope all of the Doc40 crew from outside the US will bear with these constant assaults on the president. It’s illegal for a bunch of senators to emulate the assassination of Julius Caesar and stab the bastard to death (not that they’d have the balls to anyway) so it’s down to we the people to spend the next eight months making the malignant simian look so pathetically absurd that he will be voted out of office, and some relative normality restored to our lives.

Mr. Bush's subtext is clear: If it weren't for all these awful things that happened, most of them hangovers from the Clinton era, I definitely could have fulfilled all my promises. I'm still great, but none of my programs worked because, well, stuff happens." It's as if his inner fat boy is complaining that a classic triple cheeseburger from Wendy's (940 calories and 56 grams of fat, 25 of them saturated, and 2,140 milligrams of sodium) jumped out of its wrapper and forced its way down his unwilling throat, topped off by a pushy Frosty (540 calories and 13 grams of fat, 8 of them saturated).Mr. Bush has been in office over three years. It's time to start accepting some responsibility. Republicans have a bad habit of laying down rules for other people to follow while excluding themselves. Look how they beat up Bill Clinton for messing around with a young woman, while many top Republicans were doing the very same thing. Mr. Bush's whingeing was infectious. The very House Republicans who greased the skids for the cheeseburger bill got in a huff over John Kerry's overheard comment to some supporters in Chicago that his Republican critics were "the most crooked, you know, lying group" he'd ever seen. These tough-guy Republicans, who rule the House with an iron fist, were suddenly squealing like schoolgirls at being victimized by big, bad John Kerry. J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, said Mr. Kerry would have his "upcomeance coming." Tom DeLay sulked that the public was getting "a glimpse of the real John Kerry." The Hammer was talking like a nail. Marc Racicot, Mr. Bush's campaign chairman, accused Mr. Kerry of "unbecoming" conduct and called on him to apologize. Oh, the poor dears.

For the full story – http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/opinion/14DOWD.html?th

(Except the NY Times seems to be dicking around with the web link. It's been checked so if you have a problem, the story was on the editorial page of Sunday's edition.)

THE GOOD NEWS

Seems like we have a new planet or planetoid in the solar system. It's been given the name Sedna, which is supposedly that of an Inuit godess, although it looks a lot like Andes spelled backwards. And they were never my favorite mountain range, not after those Rugby players ate each other. Could it not have been called something cool like Joe, or Betty -- or maybe Elvis?

CRYPTIQUE – Swing on a star, Monkey Boy.