Short take on Veep debate

Second fiddle showed top banana how to get it done.

"Scuse me while I self destruct"

The massive report of the United States Anti Doping Agency chronicling Lance Armstrong's decade long leadership of a cycle racing doping enterprise that brought him seven Tour de France titles and fame to the US racing organization, reads like something of which Al Capone would be proud.


Although Armstrong managed to never test positive for performance enhancing drugs, we now know that:

Armstrong and fellow teammates had their blood extracted to await a Tour de France ascent up a steep mountain where it could be re-entered into their bloodstream to provide an oxygen boost

Armstrong routinely demanded that fellow teammates adhere to their team doctor's doping regiment if they wanted to stay on the team

Numerous fellow cyclists testified Armstrong depended on EPO, testosterone and blood transfusions to achieve his otherwise incomprehensible seven straight Tour de France titles.

Armstrong's former wife handed out cortisone tablets to the team during the 1998 world championships

Riders were given water bottles containing EPO as if they were boxed lunches

One teammate described how Armstrong squirted a mixture of testosterone and olive oil into his mouth during the 1999 Tour de France

Armstrong paid disgraced doping doctor Michele Ferrari over a million dollars between 1996 through 2006, including for two years after he testified under oath in 2004 that he had severed all business ties to Dr. Ferrari

Teammates had a clever song about the banned substance EPO they sang to the Jimi Hendrix tune "Purple Haze"

"EPO all in my veins; Lately things don't seem the same; Actin' funny, but I don't know why; Scuse me while I pass this guy"

Armstrong could very appropriately sing that song today by just substituting "self destruct" for "pass this guy".

Elect Romney....light the fuse

Mitt Romney gave a speech on foreign policy at the Virginia Military Institute that every voter should read and ponder before voting to put war making powers in his hands.

Why? In it, Romney laments our ending the Iraq war, blaming the endless civil war we imposed upon that hapless country nearly ten years ago on our leaving Iraq, not attacking it.

In it, Romney laments our 2014 deadline for removing our troops from our senseless, lost war in Afghanistan and signals he will re-evaluate that decision by letting the "generals" decide.

In it, Romney laments his imagined weakness of our sanctions against Iran. He pledged to ratchet them up and work in lockstep with Israel to bring this dispute to conclusion; a policy that significantly threatens to provoke a war that would make our failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like a walk in the park.

In it, Romney laments not taking sides in the Syrian civil war and salivates toward finding some friendly rebels we can arm to the teeth to implement regime change to install folks of our liking, regardless of alarming concerns that such actions could spur a region wide war.

Maybe Romney doesn't really intend to implement this catastrophic agenda but is merely following his general campaign strategy of observing the President's measured policies for the past four years and simply promising to do the opposite. Maybe he surmises that as a man whose entire family has never served a day in the military, he's got to project a bellicose foreign policy to establish his bona fides with the Military-Industrial Complex. Regardless, it would be folly not to take Romney at his word. Putting Romney in charge of American foreign policy for another go at George W. Bush style pre-emptive war on steroids is something we peace loving citizens find truly lamentable.

Mr. President: bring our canon fodder home now

Mr. President:

October 7th, marked the 11th anniversary of the Afghan war. It was little noted in a fawning corporate media that has little interest in mentioning the war, much less ending it.

Americans, Afghans, Englishmen, citizens of every other NATO country with a token military force occupying the devastated country of Afghanistan are nearly unanimous. Get every last invading soldier out of Afghanistan without further delay. Its the masters of war who keep this war going, not the citizenry.

NATO soldiers, mostly American, are being blown to bits by roadside bombs, picked off by a local sniper or watch in horror as an Afghan Army recruit being trained, turns the US made rifle on their trainer and sends him to the Great Beyond. Each and every one, killed, maimed or sentenced to a lifetime of PTSD for being needlessly forced to served in a senseless, murderous and failed war is a tragic loss and an act of shame and cowardice by the US war party which allows endless deaths to maintain endless war.

Break your promise to wait till the end of 2014 to bring them all home. Let John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton and the rest of the bloodthirsty lot bellow all they want about the need to stay the course for American honor. There is no honor in letting brave, but deceived young men and women, die or go insane fighting an insane war. Don't kick the can of criminal war down the road to 2014 when a real heartless war monger might be President.

Get them out now and maybe you can look in the mirror and tell yourself you actually did something to earn that Nobel Peace Prize.

Romney's birds of a feather

Fans of PBS darling Big Bird have their feathers ruffled over presidential contender Mitt Romney positively gloating about firing our fuzzy friend because we'll have to borrow his salary from China. They overlook that Romney is a true friend of airborne creatures. Consider his unrelenting support of the war hawks in the Military-Industrial Complex. Romney supported their multi trillion dollar criminal military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan to the last borrowed nickel. His foreign policy platform includes many billions more for armaments then even they are asking for. He has hired disgraced war hawks from the Bush II Administration like his foreign policy advisor Dan Senor to cheerlead for more criminal war, this time against Iran.

Romney's affinity for winged creatures is understandable. Considering that neither Mitt nor any of his five sons spent a single day in the military, you could say that as a relentless war supporter, he heads up a family of chicken hawks.