Re: Another Foggy Moment #299

[marika]

sko...@h14me.yi.org wrote:

>
> The Dawn Choir is in full swing now. The most amazing variety of
bird
> songs greet the rising sun. Birds that are mute for the rest of the
> year feel compelled to sing out in the spring. The baby salmon in
the
> salmon return pond are leaping already.

I heard on the news today that there is some concern about the low
numbers of salmon returning this year, reputedly due to a long and very
cold winter. They said hundreds not thousands thi syear

>They sure grow fast. Just a
> few weeks ago they were so tiny I couldn't even make them out, and
now
> they are plain as day. The herons have the pond all to themselves
> thanks to the new net and consciencious net-keeper. With those long
> legs and that long beak, they are unstoppable. No great harm done.
> Their needs are modest and their appetites slim. Data integrity
should
> remain intact.
>
> Shhhh. Pretend you don't notice. It looks like U Dub has some sort
of
> stealth clear-cut plan for the campus trees. Every week more stumps
> show up only to be quickly pulled and replaced with bare patches so
no
>
> one will notice. I think their plan is to kill off every living
thing
> on campus then asphalt the whole thing and turn it into a big
parking
> lot. Hippie Hill has lost five trees in the past month. The stumps
> looked perfectly healthy. No sign of rot. No planting of replacement
> trees. One of the trees the cormorants perch in at night is now a
> stump.
> More stumps turned up on the bike trail. A campus that once looked
> like
> a lovely tree museum is gradually turning into a bland golf course.

In the other Washington, the DC one, they have a great orchid show at
the Smithsonian. Refreshing to see was the reclamation projects for
snagging illegal orchid trafficers, as well as programs to save those
near extinction.
I really enjoyed the colors, one of my favorite things. They are just
beautiful. The seem to grow in all colors except blue.
The pollination sculptures are super cool. Little green bees that get
caught in orchid buckets and are inhibted to fly due to moisture. IN
order to exit, they must go by the pollen distribution center.
Also, a moth that Darwin said HAD to exist although no one had ever
seen it. A moth that unsheathes a 12 inch proboscis in order to feed
on nectar. The needle nose is never seen at any other time.

>
> I think somebody stole our "Yard Trash" garbage-can. It's the one
> a mystery crew of three hombres in a rental truck dumped off at
> our curbside a couple weeks ago. I've noticed identical garbage cans
> on adjacent blocks but ours is gone. If I was homeless, I might find
> one useful as a portable shelter. It's new. It's clean. It's
> rainproof.
> And they're so inconspicuous nobody would ever imagine somebody
might
> be sleeping in one. Sleeping upright would be least conspicuous but
> most uncomfortable. It's not unsual to see tipped over trash cans
> around here. Make it look authentic, curl up inside in your sleeping
> bag and nobody would give it a second thought. The idea's got
> potential. Who knows? There might be some federal low-cost housing
> grant money in it. Mayor Paul Allen could close the shelters and
> hand out garbage cans to all the homeless.
>
> Speaking of which...
> While most of the U District's beggers and bums commute from other
> parts of the city, there is one guy who seems to be home-grown and
> also seems to have been adopted as the Official U District Homeless
> Guy. He looks like a seedy, overstressed bearded grad student and
> kind of centers his days around the Magus used-bookstore, though
> I've often seen him wandering around the nearby U Dub campus. He is
> a genuine institution. Sort of an unofficial campus mascot. None of
> which is to suggest that he isn't disoriented. Oh yes. VERY
> disoriented.
> But as gentle and unobtrusive a Space Cadet as I've ever seen. What
> made him distinctive were the aluminum garbage cans he wheeled
around
> with a hand-truck. They were very neaty stuffed with his stuff. He
> seems to be real anal about orderliness. He's a very quiet guy and
> only once in all the years he's been around have I ever heard him
ask
> anybody for any money. It was such a shock that everybody nearby
froze
> in their tracks unable to believe what they just heard. it was that
> unusual. I think he was just kind of experimenting with the concept
of
> begging. Probably saw somebody else doing it and decided to give it
a
> try just for the helluvit. He's never done it again. Many people
> since
> then just give him a Buck as they pass. I guess before they just
> assumed he didn't need any money. Some kind soul also occasionally
> gives him a few cigars. I think he likes them better than the money.
> He'd stand there next to his garbage cans, cigar in one hand,
portable
> radio blaring a baseball game in the other, looking like he was the
> King of all he surveyed. The reason I mention all this is: his
garbage
> cans are gone. So is his hand truck. I noticed him recently just
> walking around and nearly didn't recognize him without his props.
> I guess somebody finally gave him a place to park his stuff. He
> seemed comfortable with the idea.
>
> Fred Haley of Tacoma died a couple weeks ago. I had never heard of
him
> before though I have enjoyed his candy from time to time. At 92, he
> had
> made his mark well before I showed up in these parts. From all
> accounts, he was a very extraordinary guy. He was primarily known
for
> two things: being CEO of a candy company and being a man with a
> conscience. The former made him many friends. The latter made him
more
> enemies than you could shake a stick at, not the least of which was
> the
> government - the FBI had a file on him a mile long. His main claim
to
> fame came from the 50's when the Nazis were running wild calling
> everybody a Commie. Fred was on the Tacoma School Board and one of
his
> teachers had been accused of being a Commie. She claimed she wasn't.
> Good enough for Fred - he went to bat for her. He even took out an
ad
> in the papers, out of his own pocket, defending her. In the eyes of
> the Nazis, this made Fred a Commie by association. He politely told
> them to go fuck themselves. Fellow businessmen in the Tacoma Chamber
> of Commerce likewise branded him a traitor. He politely suggested
they
> ram a sharp stick up their asses. Of course he would never use such
> vulgar language. He was far too classy for that. Afterall, he was a
> graduate of Dartmouth. Regardless, nobody told Fred how to think. He
> did his own thinking and put his money where his mouth was. Since he
> was a man of independant means, there wasn't a fucking thing the
Nazis
> could do about it. His candy business continued to prosper and he
> continued to involve himself deeply in public service. Amongst his
> many other deeds, he was one of the founders of U Dub's Tacoma
> campus.
> He wasn't even slightly intimidated by the Nazis. They don't make
'em
> like that anymore. Now all we have are those buck-sucking
chickenshits
> like Paul Allen and Bill Gates who have their heads so far up their
> fat asses they don't even know the rest of us are here. No donations
> without major tax write-offs.
>
> The Blue Moon Tavern turned 71 this past Friday. To look at it you'd
> be
> excused for thinking, "Sheesh! What a frik'n dump!" It ain't a
Looker.
> Though that mock-up out front of the Seattle Art Gallery's Big Black
> Hammer'n Man, swing'n a bottle of beer instead of a hammer, is kind
of
> snazzy. Sitting on the major east-west artery - 45th Street - just a
> few blocks from U Dub's campus, it became the school's unofficial
> Student Union Building when it first opened in the 30's much to the
> chagrin of the school's prudish, prune-faced administrators. The
likes
> of legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, American beat legends Jack
> Kerouac and Neal Cassady, notorious poetic drunk Ted Roethke have
all
> bent an elbow at the Moon at one time or another along with legions
of
> thousands of undergrads and graduate students. Interstate 5 just
> missed
> it by a few hundred feet when it slashed through the U District in
the
> 60's. Most of the planners, no doubt, being former clientele
jealously
> guarding their alma mater. City Hall has unsuccessfully tried to
zone
> it out of existence numerous times. Yuppie developers tried setting
up
> a swishy-looking boutique-cabaret next door to it in a clueless
> attempt
> to divert patrons away from the Blue Moon. All it's enemies have
been
> vanquished and forced to kneel and kiss it's hairy ass in homage. It
> has survived.
>
> Now there's a classic! CHEERS - Childrens Environmental Exposure
> Research Study. It was a recently cancelled program run by the
> Environmental Destruction Agency (aka EPA) in which they offered
> parents
> $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a t-shirt in exchange for spraying
> their infants and babies with pesticides for two years. It was only
> cancelled when acting EPA head Steve L Johnson was told by two
> Democrat
> Senators that they would block his confirmation if he didn't pull
the
> plug on his obscene program. As you can see on the CHEERS webpage,
the
> fat lying weasel is trying to flog himself off as some sort of moral
> paragon for belatedly cancelling a program that should never have
seen
> the light of day. No mention of the threat to his paycheck. It would
> just send the Wrong Message. A trade group, the American Chemistry
> Council was sponsoring the "study". The babies had to be under three
> months old. I wonder what Steve did with all those camcorders, bibs
> and t-shirts? Put 'em up on eBay or did he stash them away as family
> Christmas presents? It's almost as good as that research program
just
> a few years ago in which Injun kids in Alaska were innoculated with
> plutonium to see if they'd glow in the dark. Government is not your
> friend. Government is your enemy.
>
> Grazing around the AM radio dial I paused and pondered over the
local
> Air America station. It used to play lovely classic country and
> western
> music before the Air-Heads format took over. I was shocked to hear
> that
> Al Franken will be appearing at Town Hall soon. It costs $25/$50 for
> tickets! Obviously, the homeless and those on fixed-incomes would be
> unwelcome at Mr. Progressive's party. What kind of an idiot would
pay
> top entertainment Buck to hear a washed-up SNL
has-been-who-never-was?
> Noam Chomsky, who will be speaking at U Dub's Meany Hall on Tuesday,
> is free and damn sight better. Randy Rhodes has started to rant
about
> left-wing extremists almost as much as she rants about right-wing
> extremists. I'm just waiting for her to call Noam Chomsky a Commie
> Pinko. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear one day that Air
America
> is financed by a covert Nazi Party front operation set up to make
> progressives look and sound like idiots. What better way to control
> the progressive aggenda than by becoming the self-annointed voice of
> progressive politics? It would be a great way to make Nazis sound
> stupid - start a White Wing Wacko talk-show featuring a retarded
> mental
> case as host and with many hillbilly bigot callers. Opps. That's
> right.
> Mike Savage already has that slot.
>
>

asking why the Big Talker station is still around? Is Rush the target
of a hush hush sting that requires that he moan his ridiculous epithets
into a mike, epithets that are intended to pass for serious commentary?
I cannot imagine enough people buying into this to make the owners
that much cash. It's gotta be a front for something.

*
>
> Kiss Up, Kick Down. Mr. What's-His-Face, the bureaucratic Nobody who
> is
> to be our next UN spokesperson is accused of being a Brown Noser and
> Abuser of Underlings. Of course. That is standard US Government
> management style. They're ALL like that from the State Department to
> the Department of Energy; from the Department of Veteran Affairs to
> the
> Post Office. If they had any real management ability you don't think
> they'd be schleping for chump change with Uncle Sam? Of course not!
> They be making obscene amounts of money in private industry.
>
> Aunt Jemima Rice, Mr. What's-His-Face's new boss, likes that style
> too.
> It is also how bureaucracies work in the academic world. The
> difference,
> of course, is that in the academic world, departmental politics is a
> fall-back postition for mediocre scholars. The sort of scientists
and
> researchers who are too stoopid to ever discover or invent anything
of
> value. Former UK Prime MInister Margaret Thatcher - The Iron Lady -
> was
> one such academic mediocrity. At some point in her career in
> chemistry,
> she realized she wasn't very good at it and wouldn't amount to
> anything.
> Instead of going for Department Head, she quit and went into
politics.
> No matter how stoopid or mediocre you are, there's always a spot for
a
> good corporate ass-kisser in politics. She was one of the best.
>
> Aunt Jemima Rice is much the same. While Pet Negress at Stanford,
she
> co-authored a book nobody's ever read and got a whole slew of awards
> that were the academic equivalents of McDonald's Employee of the
Month
> - worthless wallpaper. She'll get along just swell with Mr.
> What's-His-
> Face. At least until she catches him brown-nosing the White House in
> an effort to weasel his way to the top and undermine her authority.
> And you can bet your ass that will be the first item on his aggenda.
>
> I wonder if Mr. What's-His-Face gives Head like that phony reporter
> who was shacked up with White House spokesperson Scotty Boy? It
would
> vastly increase his potential. Self-loathing Queers are all the rage
> in DC these days. He's got that Village People look.
>
> *
>
> How come Jimmy Carter never gets invited out on one of those
> Ex-Prez excursions that Daddy Bush and Bubba Jay go on? Like the
> pope's
> funeral.

Good question. Bush told him there was no room.
Possibly because Jeb gained weight?

>Hell, JP-2 hated Bubba Jay's guts and nearly spit in his face
> when he visited the Vatican while Prez. The feeling seemed to be
> mutual.
> At least Jimmy's got religion. It seems like a curiously deliberate
> and
> odd omission. And how about Gerry Ford? Nobody ever takes Gerry out
> for
> a walk anymore. They were probably afraid he'd trip and nose-dive
> right
> into JP-2's coffin. That would be just a bit embarassing. But then
> Daddy
> Bush did puke right in the middle of a state dinner in Japan once.
It
> was kind of exciting wondering if he'd do an encore into JP-2's
> coffin.
>
> ............................................................
>
> Having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising
> money to influence tastes, I don't for a moment concede that
> the young are so easily contaminated, so instantly corrupted,
> so culturally defenseless, that I will agree to the fettering
> of a single mind or the obstructing, by censorship, of a
> student's path to understanding, however unpleasant it appears
> to me to be.
>
> - Fred Haley -
> CEO of Brown & Haley
> Tacoma, Washington
> Seattle Post-Intelligencer Op-Ed
> July 7, 1993
> ............................................................
>
> 'OL YELLER'S TWAT
> (aka The War Against Terrorism)
>
> As American blood continues to futilely drip, drip, drip onto the
> hot sands of Iraq and a grateful nation sneaks its crippled warriors
> home in the dead of night so as not to cause their Draft Dodger in
> Chief political embarassment, stuffing them in stinking VA hospitals
> for the rest of their young lives, all to make Halliburton and
Bechtel
> even more obscenely wealthy than they already are...
>
> Litany of the Forgotten...
> - Our Lie'n Hillbilly still hasn't coughed up the Republican
> traitors who revealed the identity of a CIA agent and
> compromised her entire network of agents as political
> revenge for her ex-diplomat Hubby questioning Yeller's
> Iraq Disaster.
> - After over four years of promises, President Monkey Boy
> still hasn't released all of his military service records.
> - After over three years on the case, the FBI still hasn't
> found the post-9/11 anthrax killer who mailed out all
> those death letters.

or who let loose the plague that required the vacating of the
Alexandria properties?

> - General Powell, our former Secretary of State and official
> White House Shoeshine Boy, still hasn't found that proof
> he promised us over four years ago linking Osama and
> al-Qaida with 9/11.
> - Osama's still holed up in a cave high atop a snow-capped
> peak on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border surrounded by
> US Special Forces commandos cellphoning his mother
> regularly and sending out cheeky tapes to his friends.

no, I tell you he is on the riviera in protective custody.

> - Democratically-elected Haitian President Aristide -
> overthrown by American, Canadian and French thugs who
> kidnapped him and dumped him in Africa - still hasn't
> been returned to office. The dictator installed by
> Canada, the US and France remains in place. No UN
> monitored elections. They already had elections. We
> didn't like the way they turned out.
> - Still no Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq.
> - The FBI still hasn't fingered who in the Pentagon was
> illegally feeding top-secret intelligence intercepts
> of Iranian communications to Mr. Chalabi in Iraq who
> then generously shared them with the Iranians.

that was on anonymous orders from nigh on above

>
> This week's contributions to Rape-Iran-In-June Fever:
>
> 1) The bullshit TV scare-ads by Iranian exiles in the US featuring
the
> Iranians nuking an American city.
> You can be sure:
> (a) they are all on the CIA's payroll

duh

> (b) the White House is picking up their tab

double duh

> 2) Israeli Reichfuhrer Sharon's war-planning meet with Jesus George
in
> Texas that featured imaginary photos of non-existent Iranian
> nuclear
> weapons facilities. Oh yeah. He threw in a copy of the Bible that
> Moses had personally autographed.
>
> Nonetheless, our clueless News Nazis and many others are either
> pretending they don't notice the uncanny similarity to the lies
> employed in the buildup to our Rape of Iraq or insisting it's all
> just a ruse. Nah. It's plain as day and it ain't no ruse. Iran is
> next on the menu and the countdown has begun.
>
> I don't think non-Americans quite understand what Iran means to many
> Americans. We remember those days in the 70's when they occupied our
> embassy in Tehran, held hostage our diplomats and spies contained
> therein. They embarassed us and made us look like weak-kneed chumps
> in front of the whole world. There are few things we enjoy more than
> holding a grudge against someone. We love to nurse our grudges and
> pick at our scabs. We never forget slights of any sort. Ever. There
> are people in Washington DC who have patiently waited decades for
> their chance to get even with Iran. And here it is. Many thousands
> of Iranian Ragheads are going to pay with their lives for the sins
> of their fathers.
>
> It turns out there are WAY more than 250,000 TWAT military vets in
> America. There are actually over 1,000,000 former members of various
> Weekend Warrior Lynch Mobs wandering around out there. That's a
> helluva big pool to draw on. I'd dare say 99.9% of them would love
> another shot at killing more Mooslems for Mommy. No need for a
> military
> draft. Better yet, those guys are already trained and have
experience.
> A couple weeks familiarization and they're good to go. They're main
> asset is their bigotry.

and talent as Bush's cannon fodder

>You don't need real soldiers to terrorize a
> civilian population as we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Weekend
> Warriors will do just fine for shit work like that. And, as the
> Pentagon has already well demonstrated, no need to worry about
> properly
> training or equipping bums like that. They are strictly a minimum-
> investment/minimum-loss commodity. Easy come, easy go. Cheaper by
the
> dozen. Give their mommies a little shopping-mall spending money for
> the
> dead ones and the rest will happily sell their kids to Uncle Sammy
for
> their own chance to cash in.
>
> Senator Patty's attempt to weasel an extra two BillionBucks for the
> VA Hospitals fell on deaf ears. No support from the VFW. No support
> from the American Legion. No doubt the VA hospitals could put the
> extra money to use. No doubt they would also waste whatever they
> didn't stick illegally in their back pockets. It's no great loss
that
> they didn't get it. It's not like the people who run the VA system
> actually give a shit about the vets they serve. Nor is it likely the
> vets who might have benefited from the extra funding would have
gotten
> any of it. They rank way, way down on the list of priorities. The
> bureaucrats get fed first. Once they're finished pigging-out, the
vets
> can have whatever's left.
>
> China's anti-Japanese feelings are being grossly exaggerated by our
> News Nazis and the White House.

I don't hae a dog in that hunt. The Japanese and Chinese have been
treating each other badly for millenia. And their neighbors worse

>Both would dearly love to see the Japs
> and Chinese at each others throats (instead of ours) so they do was
> much as possible to promote hate between Asians. Classic divide and
> conquer schtick. The Chinese crowds may be loud but they are small -
> only a few thousand. The fact is, China is ethnically highly
diverse.
> Only American bigots imagine them all to be pig-tailed,
buck-toothed,
> weasel-faced Chinks. China's many ethnic minorities are respected
far
> more highly than America's are. Certainly there are many Chinese who
> have long memories of the horrible days of WW-II when the Japs
> occupied
> their country, raping and pillaging more like animals than human
> beings.
> But then Mother China has been violated too many times to count in
her
> long lifetime. The Japs were nothing new. Sooner or later both the
> Chinese and the Japs will recognize who their true enemy is:
America.
>
> So far it's working. No Limmie reporter thus far during the Limmie
> election campaign has been so impolite as to inquire of Tony "The
> Poodle" Blah what his feelings are about raping Iran. Mums the word.
> My! Won't they be surprised when his first order of business after
> getting re-elected is to start banging the war drums yet again. The
> lying little weasel did promise he wouldn't ever run again if he did
> get elected. Yeah. Sure. I think his interpretation is: Wee! Screw
> the voters! Now I can do anything I want.
>
> ..........................................................
>
> John, you're right where we want ya.
>
> - Fr. Ed Glynn -
> Jesuit Provincial Superior
> joking response to Fr. John Dear sitting
> in a North Carolina jail for civil disobedience
> during a peace march
> and asking if the Jesuits were still with him
>
> ..........................................................
>
> - MONDO VATICANO -
>
>
> ** Hot Flash **
> London's "Sunday Times" came out with a story Sunday morning that
> revealed Cardinal "Ratso" Ratzinger - the leading canidate to
replace
> the Old Pollock - was not only a former Hitler Youth during WW-II
> times, but served in the Nazi military as part of an anti-aircraft
> battery crew shooting down American and English bombers. Odd that
> he's never mentioned this part of his past. All the major global
> news-services picked up the story and carried it. Then, magically,
> about two hours later, the story abruptly disappeared without a
> trace from all those same major news-services! Poof! Now you see
> it; now you don't. The Sunday Times didn't withdraw it. It's still
> up on their webpage. Clearly they consider it still a valid,
accurate
> report. Looks like Ratso's Opus Dei buddies quickly went into Damage
> Control and pulled some BIG strings to bury the embarassing story
> before too many people saw it. I'll bet that cost them a pretty
penny.
> Media Whores don't work for free. Wow! Choosing an unrepentent Nazi
> for pope would sure set the Vatican up for a major papal scandal.
> Oh goodiegoodiegoodie!

have you been watching the papal attack ads or something.

> +
>
> Much to my surprise, Dorthy Day's Catholic Worker movement has
> one of its subversive cells in nearby Tacoma. In fact it has
> had a presence there for many decades though they didn't
> formally declare themselves until the 80's. At present they
> operate seven houses, including Guadalupe House in which they
> provide shelter for a small group of street-people. They do
> it strictly on their own without any government money or help.
> Needless to say, donations are welcome.
>
> Dorthy and her Catholic Worker movement are one of those Catholic
> things the Vatican considers embarassing. Catholics performing
> gratuitous acts of loving-kindness always makes them nervous.
> Just because Jesus wasn't smart enough to charge a few Bucks
> for His sermons and miracles doesn't mean the Curia Queens have
> to give everything away for free too. No matter. Former New York
> City Cardinal O'Connor put Dorthy up for sainthood shortly before
> he died and the Catholic Worker continues to limp staunchly on
> spreading love and revolutionary Christian charity wherever they
> go. A Catholic legend in the pews if not in Roma. I have no doubt
> at all that Jesus will head straight for a Catholic Worker house
> to hang out whenver He decides to return. Right after he stops
> off at Chabad to knosh with the Yids on Shabbat.
>
> Wouldn't you know it, the Tacoma Catholic Workers are also
> harboring one of the most notorious agents of the Jesuit World
> Conspiracy too - Father Bill "Bix" Bischsel, S.J. Father Bix's
> rap sheet includes a caper back in the 90's in which he teamed
> up with Fr. Roy Bourgois (a Vietnam vet turned Maryknoll priest)
> in an attempt to symbolically shutdown the Pentagon's School of
> the Americas (aka School of Assassins) on the east coast. He
> got four months for that one. Recently he chained himself to one
> of the doors of the Federal Courthouse in Tacoma to experess his
> distress at our Rape of iraq. He got five days for that one AND
> a $5 fine. No one-trick pony, he's also mediated racially tense
> neighborhoods. Wherever he finds discord, he sows peace. Just
> what a priest should do.
>
> +
>
> Now that the Pollock's dead, the fun really starts. Wing-nuts
> are popping out of all the closets. You got your Fatima-istas
> with their recent revelations that Sister Luci (last of the
> original "kids" involved with the vision) predicted a year ago
> that she would soon die and the pope would follow her shortly
> afterwards. Well, she's gone and he's gone. Now what? And you
> got the "Who Was REALLY In That Coffin" crowd who think the
> Pollock's hiding out somewhere for some reason and used a
> "double" to fake his death.

no he was probably poisoned like Arafat and Yuschenko

>Like many public figures, the pope
> really did use doubles on occasion but, tempting as the notion
> might have been, probably not at his funeral. And you got your
> "Malachy's Prophesies" crowd awaiting the Olive Pope who will
> be forced to flee Roma and give way to an anti-pope. And that
> doesn't include the Pollock's secret Nigerian wife who has been
> emailing millions of people promising a piece-of-the-action to
> anyone who will financially help her go after the $20,000,000
> secret payoff the Vatican promised her and is now trying to
> weasel out of.
>
> You gotta hand it to St. Malachy. He was on the money with the
> Pollock. Encapsulated as 'labor of the sun', there were solar
> ecplipses on both his birthday and his burial day. Not an easy
> trick to pull off. Malachy says the next pope will be run out
> of Roma, murdered and replaced by a self-declared anti-pope.
> Golly. Sounds a lot more exciting than watching an aged Curia
> Queen slowly drift into brain rot.
>
> Opus Dei plants, passing themselves off as "Italian journalists",
> are busy beating the drums to have the Pollock canonized a saint
> ASAP while plugging their boy - "Ratso" Ratzinger of the Holy
> Inquisition - as the front runner to be next pope.

what did he do to deserve this status. I read somewhere he is blamed
for the escalation in the ethnic cleansing in the serbo croation
conflicts

>Everything
> they say is being regurgitated unquestioningly by US reporters
> as if it were Gospel Truth. Since all the Cardinal Electors are
> bound by a vow of secrecy, you'd either have to assume that a
> lot of them are liars, or the phony "Italian Journalists" are
> faking it. Boy. That one's too close to call.

>
> Ratso, wants to be pope so bad he can almost taste it. Screw
> the Holy Ghost, he's been shamelessly campaigning for the job
> for years now. His buddies at the Opus Dei School of Journalism
> never mention his name without also mentioning that he's a
> leading contender. His ambition knows no bounds. He'd do
> ANYTHING to be next pope. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Up to and including
> selling his soul to the Devil.
>
> He shouldn't need to resort to soulful commerce with Satan.
> He's spent the past few years rigging the game in his favor.
> As Shadow Pope while the drooling Pollock drifted off to LaLa
> Land, Ratso got final say on any new Cardinals. Well over half
> of the members of the College of Electors directly owe their
> jobs to him. And I'm sure he hasn't hesitated to frequently
> remind them of that fact.
>
> Couple that with the change in the rules for choosing a new
> pope that the Pollock made, where a 2/3rds majority is now
> only required for the first round - after that, all it takes
> is a simple majority. Ratso, being both a Curia insider and
> a stinking Kraut, couldn't get 2/3rds to save his life. But
> he can likely muster a slim majority with a bit of bribery
> and arm-twisting. He should waltz into Peter's Chair on the
> second or third vote and be goose-stepping around the Sacred
> Ballroom under Holy Disco Ball by the weekend.
>

that grey smoke John Paul amendment says if you get to 30 balltos, a
mere majority will do.
all the mere majority have to do is wait out the protesting minority
through 30 ballots, and their candidate is in! so all ratzinger has to
do, if he or his candidate get the majority, is force a ballot til they
get to the majick number

mk5000

"i forget which nostril has the m and m"--al crespo