Things That Make Me Say "Oh, PUH-LEEEEZE!"

I found this little tidbit today in the news. Fu Xiancai, an activist in China, was protesting the Chinese government's paltry compensation of residents who were forced to relocate from the Three Gorges Dam area--an "eminent domain" situation, it would seem. The government responded by hauling him to the police, where they "criticized" his statements, and sealed the deal by having him beaten* as he left the police station, resulting in a broken neck. *Oh, of course there's no proof that the government was responsible. In fact, their investigation concluded that he broke his own neck. Yep, that's right. His own neck.

How, exactly, does that work? Did he run really fast into a window frame at neck level? Did he beat himself really hard on the neck with his own fist? How does one break one's own neck? Give me a break.

The other morsel that perked up my cynical salivary glands was Bush's speech to the NAACP, the group that he's patently ignored for the last six years, after they implied that he supported the truck-dragging murder of a black man in Texas by two white men (apparently, he bristled at the suggestion that he would support such an unsophisticated murder method, since he clearly prefers state-sanctioned execution and ill-conceived wars as his murder weapons of choice).

But Bushie decided to bury the hatchet, just in time to get African Americans' support during the mid-term elections this year--er--I mean, to right some old wrongs. Yeah, that's it. He signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees that African Americans will have the right to vote for another 40 years (why is there a time limit at all? Why isn't it just permanent?!**). In signing the document, Bush declared that "Congress has reaffirmed its belief that all men are created equal."

Sure. Equal. Unless they're poor. And fighting age. Then, somehow they'll find their way to the front of the front lines, won't they?

Please. I'll believe in equality once Jenna and Babs, Jr. suit up and start basic training. Or when Big Babs camps out on a cot for a few weeks. Preferably in the Astrodome. (It would "work out very well" for her, don't you think?)

** OK, my bad. I've since discovered that most of the VRA is permanent, with the exception of 3 clauses that were set to expire in August. That's what he was renewing. However, he's still insincere and slimy. That hasn't changed. Oh, well.