to watch the near-brilliant manner in which the bush administration has been able to deflect and dodge every scandal is fascinating. however, they’re about to meet its toughest challenge next week.

according to the ACLU, a federal judge has ordered the release of dozens of Abu Ghraib photos and four videos documenting the torture and abuse some US soldiers allegedly took part in. ruthlessly.

the videos, one of which last year was reported to contain US soldiers sodomozing boys, have been locked away in Washington.

American journalist Seymour Hersh has said there are videotapes of American soldiers sodomizing young Iraqi boys at Abu Ghraib prison.

The investigative journalist, one of the first to break the story of prisoner abuses, said the Bush administration is holding the tapes of these acts, Aljazeera.net reported Saturday.

“The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war,” he said.

There was “a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher,” he said.

– UPI, 7/17/04

so my question to the conservatives out there, especially the right wing bloggers and those who comment and support rightwing blogs is

when is it time to stop being partisan?

where do you drop the pretense and bullshit?

you and i can disagree on war and peace, on taxes and national guard records, on social security and haliburton

and we can even agree to disagree about Gitmo and koran flushing and newsweek and the fcc

but are you all seriously going to sit there and be cool with us buttfucking kids?

at some point war crosses the line from being hell and enters whatever gitmo + abu ghraib + no wmd + no osama is.

personally i dont believe that newsweek’s little blurb about the koran flushing caused the unrest in afghanistan last month. i dont believe it becase the joint cheifs of staff said that it didnt cause it, and the main afghani dude said it didnt.

please forgive the pun, but videos of us ass raping kids is going to bring a shitstorm down on our heads like we’ve never seen before. and if this administration is seriously committed to protecting americans in america from retaliation in the form of terrorism, id suggest that the president gets on tv next week and apologizes like nobodies business and fires some people and lays out a date when we will get the fuck out of where we shouldnt be.

but what do i know. i wouldnt even imagine doing the things that this administration and their minions have done in a short period of time.

but at some point their supporters need to take responsibility and say you know what, this is fucked up and shameful and someone needs to go.

will righty bloggers do the right thing?

judging from the fact that hardly any of them are even talking about this today, id say the outlook appears dim.

instapundit + tim blair + the fat guy + little green footballs

good morning good morning. its 12:21 so stop me in twenty minutes.

theres an end of an era. did you feel the disturbance in the force? yesterday i bought a car. yes me. the curator of the busblog. bus. blog. not usedcar blog. not limoriding blog. busblog. the true adventures of a average man living in hollywood california partying fighting crime and pulling chicks despite having no money no car and the messiest home youve ever seen. the novelty wears off when the dude has a car. anyone can get laid with a car.

five years ive lived here in la without a vehicle of any sort. sometimes i would rent cars, sometimes i would borrow a car, sometimes people loaned me their cars when they went out of town, but mostly it was bus and subway. and im here to tell you that not only was it hardly Ever a problem, but most of the time it was ideal.

so much so that even though i appreciate my buddy ken selling me his toyota at a very reasonable price, so cheap an unemployed man could afford it, im not bouncing off the walls with excitement. its not like i reached any finish line.

to not have the responsibility of a vehicle that you need to fuel up, insure, park properly, drive properly, secure properly, maintain, wash, buy accessories for, is liberating.

heres what you have to do when you ride the bus: get a bus pass every month.

thats it.

i even went through a long transit strike and im still here telling you that riding the busses and subways in LA was an unexpected experience that i was very pleasantly suprised by, and i would return to in a minute if i had to.

for example, right now i have to worry about the meter that its at. i dont have to worry but i have to think about it. i dont have that much brainpower. despite the sweet comments people leave im no brainiac, ask the graders at santa monica college, the two year college that took me three to finish. i need all my brain cells for each task. i cant allocate any of them to rememember to move my car in an hour and twenty minutes.

and remember how i said the goal of a summer vacation is to rid oneself of things one Has to do. well guess what, now i Have to move this car, i Have to register it, and i Have to insure it. once its registered i can park it on my street as its a permit only street, but thats three-four Have-tos today. with all the baseball games i went to this week and the date i went on yesterday, ive had a week of shit to do. and saturday im going to a party. so thats a have-to a day. i need a vacation from these have-tos. maybe i should drive somewhere secluded with this car of mine. but im not sure i can because i Haveto release Stiff next week. friggin havetos.

maybe i will delay it a week and take a little break. the thing is i really wanted to have a 6/6 release date, but who cares that its on 6/6/05? even though its about hell. if i hadnt already promised people that it was coming out, id wait till next year to do this. but whatever.

im expecting a phone call. hopefully it happens soon so i can go to the insurance place and then the dmv. its a beautiful car in great shape with 94k miles and a cassette deck which is perfect for my cassette adapter that plugs into my ipod and sounds waaaaay better than the fm transmitter that ive been using with the ipod in hot chick’s cars. it runs great. everything is good.

but now that i have a car all of my accomplishments going forward will be somewhat less impressive, but i guess i’ll have to deal with that.

and as we close out todays twenty minutes with tony i will tell you about this one email that karisa sent me about six months ago. for some reason i was depressed and karisa was consoling me and she said

tony youve written two books, youve somehow wooed some of the hottest girls in la – some of whom were virgins!, you have a great place, you have great friends, your best friends are in the best rock band in la, you write one of the best blogs out there, and youve done most of it while on the clock at your high pressure tv network job, without having a car, youre an amazing man and i want you.

ok she didnt say that last part, and i did a lot of that not on the clock but during my two government mandated 15-minute breaks, but it was nice to do it with a bus pass and only a bus pass.

and if i wasnt unemployed id lower this shit and put those rims on it that spin when the car’s stopped.

raymi + fil + splink

it is a mysterious thing and i cant really say that i am sold on it just yet.

i have not experienced the hallucinations that others may have, i didnt feel the urge to cut my ear off like some, and i didnt get the liquidy gorgeous dreams that helped spawn the likes of alice in wonderland.

all it did was get me a good buzz.

there is another bottle that has yet to be imbided and i hope to do that with my favorite drinking partner, miss poland, sometime soon. the only problem is shes going to be away for a while and i dont think she cares for the stuff any more.

people ask me what its made of, i tell them that i dont know. something to do with wormword.

people ask me if it tastes like black licorice and i tell them no, it tastes like black cough syrup.

people ask how they should drink it should they get their hands on a bottle from a mysterious stranger like i was lucky enough to be sponsored by.

this is how i have been drinking it.

yank a spoon from your heroin-taking roommate. take his lighter too. put a sugar cube on the spoon. pour a generous shot over the sugar. light the spoon on fire. dont get scared. let it cook. dump it into a glass. dont be scared if the glass catches fire.

be scared if the table and carpet catch fire.

be scared if your leg catches fire.

this is all a part of the crazy buzz and strange dreams.

then add a shot of water, stir the sugar cube, make a toast and shoot it down.

even under these circumstances its going to be strong and sweet and will burn a path down your throat that will go down to your toes.

kiss the girl in front of you and then hand her the spoon and repeat.

thats how i drink it.

now there are also lots of different fancy absinthe spoons. perhaps i will invest in one or more if my supply keeps coming in. i think crazy spoons are fun, especially if they are useful.

the point of the absinthe spoon is so that the cooked sugar + liquor can drip into the awaiting glass. i would also like to invest in some proper glasses.

one thing i learned in college is that there is a sacred ritual to getting shitfaced that is part of the glamourous dance and it is what seperates us from the riff raff.

enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

smell the booze, watch the flame, be one with the sugar cube, enjoy the nice kiss.

tune in next week when we discuss how to program your vcr.

– from the busblog 6/6/03

sure fine whatever + bloopy + whitey + no healani

who will somehow end up naked.

if you chase a girl long enough you will see her naked eventually and sometimes you’ll say wow,

usually you’ll say wow actually,

but sometimes you say little girl what on earth are you doing in these deep dark woods.

rarely do i feel deserving of my fate. good or bad.

and less than those times do i feel like the primped-out princesses are making the right decision, which is funny because when im going through a draught i look at myself in the mirror and say why not me.

theres no winning.

she thinks shes privy to everything in my house. she flips open notebooks and reads aloud and laughs at the wrong parts, she does things like ask me why i have two answering machines and then plays all the messages on both of them.

all these people want you and you refuse to call them back! why? some want to give you work!

i tell her that its hard to pay attention to things like telephone calls when shes standing there in stilletos and booty shorts drinking merlot out of a dixie cup because she doesnt trust any of the dishes that were washed out of my sink.

why dont you have a dishwasher, why dont you have a washer and dryer, why dont you even have a laundry room? how come you never clean your house, why dont you have a tv in your bedroom, why do you listen to classic rock and jazz, why dont you grow your afro back, why wont you tell these people about your new book coming out, why havent you visited your old work chums, why dont you eat your leftovers

i know what shes doing. part of her is seriously curious, the other part of her is trying to see how much it will take for me to tell her to shutthefuckup but im obsinate and hate to fall for traps so i answer all the questions

cuz im dumb, cuz im broke, cuz this is an oldschool building, cuz none of you girls complain about it enough, theres only three things i do in that room snooze rise and create legends, i only listen to that when youre around, cuz bald is beautiful, cuz i havent gotten the final proof back yet, cuz the times not right, cuz im not a stoner.

something i noticed during my three games in a row at dodger stadium:

the first day was memorial day. a 5pm start. hall of fame shoe-in greg maddux on the mound. the espn monday night national game. baseball card day where all kids get a pack of baseball cards. was it a sell-out? not even close. 44,255.

tuesday was a 7:15p start. carlos zambrano on the mound, one of the most exciting pitchers to watch live as hes full of latin pride and flava. was it a sell-out? ha. 37,221.

wednesday was another 7:15p start. cub rookie pitcher John Koronka made his major league debut against the dodgers’ derek lowe. 54,093 fans showed up. a sell out. huh?

the secret it turned out was it was cesar izturis bobblehead night. the switchhitting venezuelian shortstop is having his breakout year batting .339 which along with his golden-glove-worthy fielding skills should make his bobblehead a pretty good gamble, but a sellout? i… guess…

a few more items about dodger stadium. they lied about the new atms. there arent any new atms on the field box level. as you know we sat right next to the bullpen in the right field boxes. we asked our usher where the nearest atm was since, you know, we wanted to give our money to the dodgers. she said, that would be aisle one.

aisle one is behind home plate. so we asked her if we could use a credit card at the food stands there. she said some allow credit cards. but as me and mc brown found out, some of the booths had issues with their credit card terminals. bad show dodgers.

on top of it you couldnt bring in a day pack, you couldnt bring in a broom, and you cant even bring in signs!

some kids brought a nice long banner that said Go Dodgers. they unfurled it and people cheered but the cops ran toward them and made them rip it up.

no signs at a ball game?

whats next, a dress code?

another thing. if youre going to have animated games on the jumbo screen like the one where there are three caps and one ball and they put the ball under a cap and mix em up and you have to choose which cap the ball is under – make it somewhat challenging. i drank at least a six pack and i had no problem whatsoever figuring out which cap the ball was under.

i remember when i was working for the Giants they had that game and sometimes theyd speed that damn thing up so fast that people would laugh cuz it was impossible. but you know what, they loved it, and all the people who shouted out the right number felt like they had superpowers. and maybe they did.

a new thing they had there was Pick A Song

on wednesday night the choices the crowd got was

ac/dc shook me all night long
lynryd skynryd freebird
ozzy osbourne crazy train

ozzy won in a landslide in a vote of applause

and finally id like to say that i was forced to endure probably a dozen bouts of the Wave over three days. it made me feel dirty and it is painfully obvious that in the second largest city in america the difference between a sell out are about 15k bobbleheaders dying to do the wave

who will leave the game in a tie game in the nineth on memorial day at 8pm, as if theyve got somewhere to be.

and unlike the hotties who ive ended up with over the last month, the dodger fans that i witnessed over the last few days pretty much deserved the team that were swept by the cubs.

if welch ever gets back into frank mccourts box seat and he wants to pick my brain, ive got some ideas for him. the first being that the dodgers need a blog which would be updated of course by welch and i who will cover this team the way a major league baseball club with the history of the los angeles dodgers should.

and since matt has a lovely wife who would miss him dearly, i would take on the grueling task of traveling with the club when they go on the road.

kitty bukkake + bored housewife + first deepthroat now darling maggot