Stay up-to-date via RSS!

Awww. Widdle Democwat puppies are so cute! They run around licking everyone’s faces, begging to be the center of attention in that cute way that suggests they don’t know any better.

Except not every fuzzy face is an actual cute widdle Democwat puppy. Some of them are parasitic wingnut spawn masquerading as friendly critters, working their way into our homes to take us hostage and bleed us dry. Here’s a photo of these double agents in their natural habitat:

While the false Democwats may nuzzle us affectionately much of the time, when the Republican overlord calleth them to the nipple of misinformation, the pups drink greedily. That way, they can spit it back up on our carpets. This is especially true regarding Iraq.

Despite firm commands from their so-called owners (i.e. all the folks who voted them into office), these evil mutts continue to foster the abuse of American soldiers perpetuated by their real masters, the Republicans. After John Murtha introduced a sensible plan requiring soldiers to have at least a year off between combat tours and ending our stop-loss policy, the Demo-spawn upchucked the following:

Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), of pro-bankruptcy bill and pro-CAFTA voting fame, fumed that Murtha’s proposal “is a non-starter, an absolute non-starter” because he claimed – without any proof – that it “holds back resources from our troops.” Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) breathlessly declared that Murtha “stepped all over [the] message of support for the troops.” And Freshman Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who’s major campaign issue was opposition to the Iraq War, said he is “a bit wary” of the proposal.

Do not be fooled. Just because we elected to feed and house them, these Congressmen are not ours. They’re someone else’s lapdogs entirely.

Unfortunately, we still have to clean up all that puke.

6,577,667,763 people are running, walking, crawling, sitting, or lying down somewhere on this planet today. Since typing it, the number’s already grown to 6,577,667,834.

Over the last hundred years, fears of mankind causing its own demise have gone from inconceivable to real. Initially, we fretted about our newfound capacity for global nuclear war, but now we know that (dinosaur flatulence aside) we may bake ourselves off the planet before we can bomb ourselves off it. Or maybe we’ll just watch that population counter keep ticking upwards until we develop the conditions for disease to do the dirty work.

I hate to be the alarmist type, but we seem to be increasing both the means of human extinction and probability of each of those means to succeed.

Meanwhile, in America, we’re inundated with hours of coverage of Anna Nicole Smith dying and Nancy Pelosi daring to fly across the country in a big plane. We’re told to ignore the criminal acts of the president, even when they’re proven by the Pentagon, and plenty of folks seem happy to follow the script. More than all other nations combined, we’re responsible for pushing the doomsday clock hands perilously close to midnight, yet we can’t even agree to cut back on the production and purchase of SUVs.

At some point, it’ll be too late. I imagine most PAB readers agree, and, sans change, the majority of us will probably be alive when that realization begins to wash over everyone else. Talk about an empty victory.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a culture this out of control that kicked its self-destructive habits without first having to endure major trauma and/or tragedy on a scale that makes 9/11 seem irrelevant. But I can’t drum up a single one. Can you?

Scary thought.

It may be too late to save the media, but perhaps the rest of us haven’t yet become the Roman orgiasts the world rightly assumes us to be. There might be time left to reverse our course. After all, most Americans want action on warming. Lots of us want to call off our surprise Middle East destabilization party. Sentiments of guilt and urgency are beginning to ripple through our populace on a number of issues.

Unfortunately, most Americans also lack an obvious outlet for responsible action. No one person (not sitting in Dick Cheney’s lap, anyway) can stop the war, none of us can singlehandedly cool down the planet, and we definitely can’t pull a Superman IV and disarm the superpower(s). But the signs that we want to help are out there, which is precisely why conditions are ripe for — *gasp* — regulation.

Whatever steps are necessary to curb our irresponsible behavior, we have to sign everyone up for them. We can’t wait for voluntary action; we need organized sacrifice. Some of our country’s most selfish corporations have already come together begging the government to regulate them for their own good, and if the anti-reg fatcats are on board, how unwilling do you really think the rest of Americans are?

That’s why 2008 is so effing important. We have to pick a president with the guts to demand we tone down our gluttony. We have a small window left where real change can make a difference, and I don’t know if it’ll still be there in 2012.

If you’ve ever thought of participating in politics, make a go of it in 2007 and 2008. Pound the pavement for a candidate, work voter registration drives or phone banks — whatever actions appeal most to you. I’m sure lot of you are already the participatory type, and if so, grab one of your complain-y friends who never actually steps up to the plate and bring them along for the ride. Let’s do something to get the right person through the primaries and then haul their rear ends up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That way, at least we can say “I did something about it,” which will feel a whole lot better than an “I told you so” accompanied by our demise.