A Rant-a-thon Preview

Coming soon to this Blog...
The Rant a thon!

A grouchy festival of political frustration.
What has been bugging you for the last 4-8 years? OK, tell us in 3 minutes or less.

We'll be hosting a rant-a-thon on Friday July 28th, so to boost the anticipation, here are the Rules for the Rant a thon (sounds like a Saul Alinsky book- Rules for Ranters?)
Participants compete for prizes by giving a 3 minute rant on the state of the world, and why things are messed up.
Participants will be judged by an impartial panel based on the following criteria:
- Passion (Swearing? Yelling?)
- Content (current affairs preferred over the fight between Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, though lost points here could be made up in nonlinearity and creative blaming)
- Humor (take it seriously, but give it some zing- i.e. Chihuahuas versus Hummers)
- Ridiculous metaphors (i.e. Bush’s foreign policy is _____)
- Esoteric References (naming the specific guard you hate at Abu Ghraib is better than just mentioning Abu Ghraib)
- Relevance (Botswana’s export tariffs are upsetting, but remember to bring it back to the main point)
- Creative blaming (Dubya is indeed responsible for Hurricane Katrina, but little did you know that Jenna Bush is even more at fault)
- Nonlinearity (ex: how is the wine factory proposed on Gold Ridge Road related to Rupert Murdoch’s consolidation of the media)
- Satire/ Parody (ex: facial expressions and impressions of the usual evil suspects)
- Gestures (Scalia-type performance art, foam middle fingers welcome)
- Density (how much of the above can you pack into 3 minutes?)

Tips: Remember to alternate between bile, venom, and humor. Like a fine souffle, a quality rant needs just the right amount of ingredients to turn out right. The difference between bile and venom is subtle, but can be discerned during public comment at your local City Council meeting. It is also an art to be able to rant like Greg Palast without falling into regrettable Jenkel-ism. If you are going to have a written, prepared rant, it will be posted here in a special Rant-a-thon section on the RumsfeldInvaders blog. Stay tuned.

Ranting- coming to a blog near you. Yes, Rumsfeld Invaders, always innovating. We should patent the Blog Rant. We'll make millions. No one has ever ranted on a Blog before. Genius!

New American Century already over in just 6 years

I read today that the Project for a New American Century is closing up shop.
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and many of the characters portrayed in the Rumsfeld Invaders video game shared letterhead back when they were powerless critics of Clinton's humanitarian focused foreign policy in the late 90's. Now that they have taken power and shot their load (of bombs...what?) in Iraq, and the neo-cons' power is on the decline, the Project for a New American Centuryis coming to an end. Apparently the staff wonk guys went upstairs to the American Enterprise Institute, where they will scheming otherways to initiate the downfalls of civilizations as described in Jared Diamond's Collapse.
I guess the rest of the Century belongs to Europe, China, and India.

Cut and Run, or Blood and Spin?

The Repubs are framing the debate on Iraq as either "cut and run" or "stay the course."
The Dems, like deer in headlights, are paralyzed, and are losing the public relations war.

Here's my advice for framing, you helpless Dems:
Bush's strategy is "Blood and spin."
Your strategy should be "Bring the troops home safely."
Your strategy invokes the hearth and love and nurturance of the family- moral politics.
Bush's strategy (or lack thereof) is to try to downplay the bloody war by spinning the media.
You need to point that out. The spin also refers to the cover-ups as the reasons for war kept changing. Eventually "blood and spin" can be changed to "indictment and imprisonment" as these guys start getting thrown in jail for Scooter Libbying, Tom Delaying, and Abramoffing with the Constitution in pursuing this illegal war.

Free Rein=Fixing, Mobilization, Redirection, Overriding, and Orchestration

Here are some words from a peak oil dude, Richard Heinberg.
I'm posting it because I thought it was RumsfeldInvader-rrific (how ya like that adjective?), especially the stuff they were allowed to do in the free rein (reign?), whoa.

"The current administration came into office to...achieve and maintain virtually complete global hegemony and...unchallenged control of the world’s oil and gas flows. Tactics reserved to that endincluded pre-emptive war and “regime change” anywhere necessary. The U.S.corporate/banking/military elite gave the neocon-dominated executive group virtually free rein to pursue these goals. Given that group’s lack of a robust popular constituency, this entailed the fixing of elections, the mobilization of the media, the redirection of immense amounts of government revenue, the overriding of the Constitution as well as international laws and treaties, and the orchestration of a spectacular terrorist attack. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld crew had its chance and, by near-universal opinion, achieved colossal failure on all counts. This failure was in fact predicted by many­ including the millions who marched in streets to try to avert the Iraq invasion. But the current tragicomedy of the neocons’ fall from grace can offer little satisfaction to anyone, in that it implies extraordinary perils to both the nation and the world."

That part is a bummer, but wait, Heinberg didn't leave us hangin. Here's the silver lining:

"Over the past few months the consensus of the traditional power elites has shifted dramatically: they have evidently (judging by their statements and by the attitude of the mainstream media) concluded that the neocon cabal must go. Washington prosecutors, backed by the establishment’s old-guard foreign policy “realists” inside and outside of government, are preparing revelations of scandals and the handing down of still more indictments."

OK, any day now. Feel free to scandalize away. You got Scooter and DeLay. But that Rummy dude has a thick skin. And Cheney, well, he shoots his friends in the face on a daily basis. You're gonna need the scandal of the century, like maybe one of the things he did during the free rein that you mentioned above. And some gutsy Congresspeople to push it, and a media more gutsy than the one Stephen Colbert skewered, oh, and 5 votes on the Supreme Court would be nice too. And while we're at it, I'll take an extra scoop of mint chip. Mmmm..

Homeland Paranoia/Anal Probing

Starting now, I officially declare that the Department of Homeland Security be referred to as:

Homeland Paranoia/Anal Probing

You may now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Deep Iran Penetrator- Use Viagra instead, Rummy

Rumsfeld, I know I dissed you. I know that it hurt your feelings. Now I want to ask you a favor. Do not use pre-emptive nuclear weapons on Iran. Is it good manners for me to diss you, and then ask for a favor? No. But you're no Miss Manners, Rummy. You like invading countries for fun, and incidentally to make up for unfortunately miniscule genitalia (oops, there I go again).

Anyway, here's a fun little story, cut and pasted from here:

Rumsfeld, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, at a Pentagon press briefing on May 20 2003, a few weeks after the Iraq invasion. The reporter asked Myers why the administration was requesting a bill that prohibited the study, or development, of nuclear weapons exclude study of certain nuclear weapons. At first Myers said he could not address the issue. The reporter then addressed the question to Rumsfeld. "I'm referring to removing the Spratt ban on development of 5-kiloton or less nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield," clarified the reporter.

"The only thing we've done that I know of is that we have proposed that the absolute ban on the study of a deep-earth penetrator has been removed from the bill at our insistance, because we do intend to study a variety of types of deep earth penetrators, for very good reason," responded Rumsfeld.

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt," said the reporter. "But again, I'm very puzzled, because I've only covered the Pentagon a few months, and I know you are a detailed man, sir. And the fact is that the Senate Armed Service Committee and the House, there are two separate provisions. One is for the continued spending of $15.5 million a year to pursue the robust penetrator, you know, with a possible nuclear payload. The second is to..."

Rumsfeld interrupted, "To pursue?. I think it's to study."

"To study, to study," said the reporter."It's not to develop," said Rumsfeld. "It's not to deploy. It's not to use. It's to study.""To study the penetrator," responded the reporter. "But what I'm referring to, sir, is the vote in the Senate committee and the legislation that would remove the current ban, the so-called, the Spratt ban, after Congressman Spratt, that would restrict the testing and development of, study of weapons, nuclear weapons..."

"Testing and development of study," interrupted Rumsfeld again. "What does that mean?"

"Sir, the study and possible development of weapons of 5 kiloton or less for use on the battlefield, not a bunker buster, sir, but a tactical battlefield weapon. That," responded the reporter.

"I think you're leaping to a conclusion as to what a study would produce," interjected Rumsfeld again. "I am aware of that."

"And the proposal that we've made is precisely what I said. It is to permit the study of less than 5-kiloton weapons. That is a fact," added Rumsfeld."Okay," said the reporter. "What would that kind of weapon possibly in the arsenal be used for?"

"We don't know," said Rumsfeld. "That's why we want to study it. And we're kind of inclined to think that the idea that we should not be allowed to study such a weapon is not a good idea. We think it, for one thing, I, and then I'll ask Dick (note that there are plenty of Dicks that Rumsfeld could ask: Cheney, or the Dick standing next to Rumsfeld) to comment on the possible use against, for example, chemical or biological storage areas, where a conventional weapon could have a disastrous effect and a low-yield nuclear weapon conceivably could have an effect that would be, that would mitigate some of the problems with a conventional weapon. But the, it's important to appreciate that to the extent the United States is prohibited from studying the use of such weapons, for example, for a deep earth penetrator, the effect in the world is that it tells the world that they're wise to invest in going underground. And that's not a good thing, from our standpoint." At this point Rumsfeld looked to Myers and asked if he wanted to comment on it. "You bet," responded Myers, notwithstanding his earlier reluctance. "Let me just add to that that, as the secretary said, study is needed here because, for a couple of things. The threat, in many cases, is going deep underground. I'm not going to just focus on the penetrator, but that's where the threat's going. The threat is also going to chemical, biological and, ....weapons, and we know that. There's a greater and greater proliferation. And so we've got to study the effects of how you might deal with these weapons." "Conventional weapons, as the secretary said, if you had chemical munitions or biological munitions and you wanted to destroy them, in some cases do nothing more than just spread the biological or the chemical weapons, creating a larger hazard than you'd have when it would be contained. Nuclear weapons have some, can have some effect on those," Myers continued."So this is exactly what the secretary said. It's a study. It seems like a very prudent thing to do. It has nothing to do with the development or the fielding or even the employment of these types of weapons. But the study seems like a prudent thing to do."

"I don't want to prolong this," said Rumsfeld, "but it is terribly important that people not hype this and create misimpressions in the public about it by misusing words or being imprecise in the use of words, and saying things like "pursue," which you did. We should be very precise as a to what it is. It is a study. It is nothing more and nothing less. And it is not pursuing, and it is not developing, it is not building, it is not manufacturing, it is not deploying, and it is not using," said Rumsfeld.

"Well," responded the reporter, "why study something if you're not at least considering some..."

"My goodness gracious," interrupted Rumsfeld. "I can't believe you would say that, Jamie. You study things to learn."

"But it seems a bit disingenuous to say this is only a study," said the reporter.

"That's exactly what it is," interrupted Rumsfeld.

"and it's not leading to anything else," continued the reporter.

"It may or may not," said Rumsfeld. "People study things all the time that don't lead to things."

"But when you study something," said the reporter, "the implication is that you're interested in it and you'd like to see what the potential is."

"That's true," conceded Rumsfeld. "And we're doing that for a variety of things, for deep earth penetrator.""But why else would you have a study," continued the reporter, "except to possibly give you information that would lead you to make decisions that possibly might, and you just outlined some reasons why nuclear weapons..."

"You, I'll answer your question," Rumsfeld interjected again. "You make a study for a very simple reason, to learn whether you do believe that that is a need, something that's needed, something that would be useful. And we're going to look at a variety of different ways, conceivably, to develop the ability to reach a deeply buried target. That's what you do things, you study things, that's what you do in the pharmaceutical business. That's what you do in defense business. That's what you do in all, and many of the things you study you never pursue."

Almost three years after that exchange the use of such weapons in an attack on Iran is reportedly creating serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with some officers talking about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran, without success, a former intelligence official told Hersh. A Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed there was a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it "a juggernaut that has to be stopped." He too confirmed some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. "There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the adviser told Hersh.

Back to Sandlerbrau's commentary: Note the use of the words "Deep Earth Penetrator." Note that these are the same men, named Dick, who enjoy drilling the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (The Earth is female: Gaia). Note that Iran and Iraq are the cradles of civilization, the fertile crescent. These men named Dick cannot get an erection, yet there is the fertile crescent beckoning (a female genital reference if ever there was one). The Persian Gulf is longing for their manly appendage, to be delivered with megatons. Rumsfeld is very cerebral, but even though the neocons think of themselves as hyper cerebral "Vulcans," their subconscious and their libido is behind their actions. That is why this anti-war movement needs a female to lead it. Cindy Sheehan or Lynn Woolsey. It cannot be led by Howard Dean or Heath Ledger.
Even the Joint Chiefs are powerless. I hope the media can prevent something bad happening in Iran. No help from the so-called leadership, Rumsfeld is insane. (unless you're not, Rummy. Go ahead and prove me wrong)

Now it's personal, Rummy

OK Rummy. It's goin down.

This is what happens when I drink some beer, put on some Dr. Dre, and log on to the Blog.

Beeeotch!!!

In that other Blog I mentioned that Rummy has squinty eyes.

What I forgot to mention is that he has small nutz. "Yeah, Rummy, yo nutz is small." Whassup.

You got the wire tap, but yo wire is tapped. Mrs. Rumsfeld has been left out in the cold for a long long time. Your bureaucratic ass hasn't satisfied a woman in decades.

But that's not Iraq's fault. Don't take it out on the entire nation of Islam. No need to tie up Arab dudes and torture them. Especially when its not consensual. Leave that to the Castro District and Chelsea.

If you can't invade your wife, you don't need to invade smaller countries to prove your manliness in this very destructive way. Bob Dole did it in a less invasive, less violent way. Plus that solution helps pharmaceutical profits. You were once a pharmaceutical type of guy. You knew what was going down in "The Constant Gardener." You didn't need to press rewind to hear the whispered conspiratorial secrets. You knew them already. Same with Syriana. You could fast forward through most of it, since it was boring to watch for you. Yawn...this is so 2003.

Hey, give Clooney some credit, he busted out "Good Night and Good Luck" which was old skool 1950's. Which, Rummy, you're down with. The 50's were your glory days. You are a man of the mid 20th century. The dawn of the Cold War. Those were your formative years. You were young and ambitious. You didn't really like Vietnam, and you liked even less the aftermath (which Dre is down with). The legacy of Vietnam was your enemy. And you are still fighting it. Wit small nutz.

See, that's the main problem. If your nutz were OK, you wouldn't have to compensate. But, like a Hummer driver, you're worried. Are your nutz OK? I don't know, better invade a few countries, just to make sure no one says anything.

It's OK Rummy. Most of America is in the same situation. They are worried about their tan lines and eyebrows, and har gel and shirts with cuffs. And most of all, the size of their nutz.

Why were the Native Americans massacred? Because the settlers were insecure about the size of their nutz. Why did the Southern Whitey have slaves? Because he was afraid that the black man had larger nutz. Why did Nelson Mandela serve 30 years as a political prisoner? White man's nutz insecurity. They don't teach you that shit in history class. They say "Manifest Destiny," which is actually "Manifest Density" meaning frontal lobe, but not the subconscious. Ego but not Id.

I'm manifesting a middle finger for Rummy. This is a shout out to my homies to back me up, since Rummy is wiretapping this shit, and he has interns and employees monitoring this thought even before it even gets blogged. Those interns are paid by the Gitmo prisoner illegally abducted. They get quarterly bonuses for depriving environmentalists and Blue State residents of their 1st Amendment rights. An extra $1,000 into their 401(k) whenever they smart bomb target a Clooney in a white SUV trying to prevent a Middle East coup for oil as portrayed at the end of Syriana.

Rummy, you're going down. The Blog is on, and it's all about taking you down. You might have a $500 billion dollar budget of which a significant portion is dedicated to keep upstart smart young Blogger MC's from getting on the mic and rollin out disses like Dre Day, what what, but I got the 1st Amendment, and even if Skull-lito wouldn't know it if it hit his pasty white pro-death skull upside the head, I'm bringin it. Two shouts out to the young Republican who is assigned to read this Blog and "track" this information. See you at the Hummer Protest beeotch. I'll be the one with the 2 foot middle finger. You'll be the one with the small nutz. You'll be hard to pick out among the Hummer shoppers.

Rummy, these disses probably hurt. I want the hurt to stop too. Here's a way to make it go away. Change your ways. Read Jared Diamond's "Collapse." Burn the Crichton book. You can buy me off. One or two hundred billion toward the renewable energy/climate protection/social justice project of my choice. None of this hundred million stuff. I want a hundred billion. Minimum.

You might think I'm soft on national security. Not all, homie. You are stuck in some kind of Dr. Strangelove house of mirrors. I'm trying to help you out here. Give me a hundred billion, and I'll help you do your information awareness or whatever you call the propoganda you're spewing. White Man's burden or whatever. I'll help you improve your image...the same way Jimmy Carter improved the image of the US in the Middle East. Foo! That's how it's done. Jimmy was down from the olden days. Your style is outdated. Jimmy is where it's at.

Rummy, you best resign now, this Blog is on fire, and you have no chance. Give up now before it gets ugly. Beeotch!

Bloggin 101

We be bloggin. Here's how you do it.

Go to Copperfield's Books (or Borders or whatever if you don't have a local bookstore left because of Walmartification) (uh oh, it's gonna be one of those blogs with all the parentheses).

Casually flip through the books in the new nonfiction hardcover section about climate change.

Let the facts slowly permeate. Loss of biodiversity. Changing the climate for potentially millions of years. Who are we to do that? My life is 100 years. Why should I permanently alter the whole Earth's climate for millions of years so that I can live a materialistic life which involves driving hundreds of miles, thousands of miles, 20,000 miles a year for what? Why should every ecosystem on the planet and every frog and coral reef die for that?

Then go home. Idly flip channels, ending inevitably on MTV, a residual from the teenage years when Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me" alternated with Guns n Roses' "Paradise City." Alas, nowadays, it only shows reality TV starring people who are most concerned with their eyebrows and tan lines, hair gel and shirts with cuffs. Do they care about the Earth? Hah! To even ask the question. I suggest a new show: "Environmental Intervention." or "Extreme Environmental Makeover." Episode 1: This is the Earth. You live on it. You are a member of the species that is fucking it up. You have the ability to stop the damage before it is too late. If you do nothing it might be too late within your lifetime. Most troublingly, this could negatively impact your eyebrows and tan lines, hair gel and shirts with cuffs.

Next step, very important: drink some wine, and start rifling through the fridge looking for some beer. Then sit down and continue bloggin while Eminem's "Mosh" plays in the background.

I mean, I like this Blog, but this Blog is not worth every coral reef in the world.
But this Blog is not the problem. The energy infrastructure that underlies this Blog is the problem. I want a Blog, but I don't want tons of CO2. The CO2 is an unwanted byproduct. Return to Sender.

Still, the use of this Blog is part of the problem. If we could do demand reduction, that would reduce the CO2. On the other hand, if we could build a political constituency to move the bureaucracies that define the rules of the energy infrastructure, we could change how all Blogs are powered, and then we could remove the guilt associated with all forms of electronic communication, which substitutes for paper which saves trees.

Guilt or CO2? Which is my greater burden?

So about Rumsfeld (you were wondering when I would get to that). Every post on this Blog needs to have a mention of Rumsfeld. Even if you have to make something up. Start rumors about Rumsfeld. I heard he's dating Lindsay Lohan. I don't care, but incorporate Rumsfeld into every post.

Here's how the greenhouse gas emissions of this Blog relates to Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld has the biggest budget in the world. Rumsfeld can do anything he wants to. With $500 billion, you could do anything. You could have a pretty fuckin cool sushi night with your friends for your birthday. You could fuckin well change the energy infrastructure of the fuckin country, and have money left over to completely renovate the decrepit American auto industry to make cars that get 100, hell, 200 miles per gallon (and for you interns out there, that's mpg, yo). Just for fun you could make rules saying that cars need to get 187 miles to the fuckin gallon, and that every gas station needs to put on their price listing the word "fuckin" next to the price per gallon. (by the way, I'm bloggin to Ice Cube's song "Steady mobbin" now, that's steady bloggin yo) Rumsfeld's got the budget to solve these problems. He could do an instant global Marshall Plan, and get Africa's attention, stop them genociding each other with some economic incentives, get each village in Congo a wireless PC powered by a solar panel, and put bicycle factories in every country, with water purifiers which attach to the back. I got a hundred ideas for Rumsfeld's budget. Instead Rumsfeld likes to invade and cause trouble. "There goes the neighborhood"

When people asked me would I like to be Administrator of the EPA, I said no, I want to be Secretary of Defense. Why? Cause with that money I could tear up some shit. The EPA's budget would buy me one week of toilet paper from Costco. Maybe that's part of the problem, but I would rather blame Rumsfeld. He's just so squinty eyed. Someone call up Al Franken, he needs to name a chapter "Rumsfeld- the squinty eyed liar." I shouldn't refer to Rumsfeld's physical attributes or lack thereof. But all y'allz other Bloggers have hardly given a shout out or a diss to Rummy, so I needed to step up, word.

I'm gonna post this shit, and continue on a new post. I'm not done with Rummy yet.

Long War, Shlong War

Someone had to say it. I'm sorry it had to be me.
In the Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld began using the term "The Long War."
Because the War on Terror is unwinnable, and the Repubs in Congress are getting antsy going into their midterm elections. The Long War- what could be more Orwellian?

Another term which Rumsfeld Invaders recommends is "The Shlong War."
Bush, Dick, and Majority Leader Boehner (pronounced "boner") have assisted Rumsfeld in attempting to compensate for Rumsfeld's impotence by fighting macho wars. How many countries did Bob Dole invade? A pharmaceutical solution would have been less deadly.

Back in the 70's, Gerald Ford's incontinence led us to build dams on rivers all over the country.
Reagan had asthma, and that's why we used CFC's to destroy the ozone layer.
OK, I'm getting a bit abstract here.

New Blog, Old Blog

Prior to the recent creation of this Blog, there were occasional rantings at this website:

http://www.rumsfeldinvaders.com/rumsblog.htm

In case you're hesitating on checking it out, it begins: "Welcome to the RumsBlog, we got fun and games, we got everything you want, and we know the names."

This new Blog is still new, so it's unclear how many Guns and Roses References will make it into print. We appreciate your Patience. Yeah-ah.

A new Blog for Rumsfeld Invaders

Hey everyone!

Rumsfeld Invaders is entering the conventional Blogosphere. What do you think of that?

RI's Blogging topics are as follows:

-Rumsfeld
-Disgruntled politics (left leaning, and somewhat green)
-Corruption, deception, and evil-ness in the Federal Government (yes, that includes you Cheney!)
-Sustainable energy policy/climate protection/Priuses, etc.
-Political satire

Ask the moderator how you can join in.
Note: This Blog is for Friends of Rumsfeld Invaders, not Friends of Rumsfeld. (notice the subtle difference)