Friends, Democrats, Countrymen: Our Apologies
Tonight, many of has had issues we badly wanted to discuss among ourselves and with you, but as usual, one evening is barely long enough to fully cover one topic conscientiously, so we had to drop the planned issue and cover one that repulsed us all. Just before we gather every night, we catch the last minute national and international newscasts, and by serendipity, we all caught newscasts flashing the Sinister-Smirk-Commandrix-in-Chief lying, in Panama, to the whole world: "We do not torture." Suddenly, each of us new in the pit of our stomachs that the subject we had begun to discuss last night would have to be put off to another day.

Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much
"Problem is, George, the world isn't as blind as you are, and is leagues ahead of you in the smarts department," A.J. wanted to tell Brown Nose. When smarmy Shrub goes on international television broadcasts to announce that the United States doesn't torture, it can only be because every country on earth has researched the subject, seen the photographs, and learned the truth: the United States is heavily and repulsively engaged in torture, not only on land controlled by the U.S. but in countries who have been bought and become willing to continue torturing in the name of the United States on their territories. Again, the collective intelligence of the world is eons more developed than any part of Bush's smarmy little brain. When you're innocent, one of the first things you don't blurt out on international news broadcasting networks is that you didn't do something. That's what kids do when they've been in the cookie jar and Mother looks at them askance without even saying a word.

The Prez of the U.S. Lying On International News: Really Made Us Gag
The gagging, unfortunately, reminded some of us of what an old ranch hand had once said to Bob and Judy: "It smelled worser than a dead skunk that just crawled out of another dead skunk's a--." Not exactly the kind of person you want representing this once-proud nation, is it? But, Shelley said, what made his comments the more repulsive is that just as he was lying to the world, buzz going around the world was that Bush's alter-brain, and where he gets his perpetually brown nose, Cheney, was fighting the Senate for the right to continue being able to torture to his, Bush's, Myers', Miers', Rice's, Addington's, Laura's, Lynne's, George H.W. Bush's and Barbara Bush's hearts' content.

Senator John McCain: Briefly, Godspeed.
He's one of the few republicans with the cojones and the principles to try and fight Cheney & Co. If he fails, mark your calendars, Rome fell, and so can the U.S., since the whole world, bar none, hates us. Even in Great Britain, it is only Tony Blair who can stomach us right now; the people despise us. We are, at present, so despised by our next-door neighbor Canada, that you'd think we were the scum of the earth, well, the GOP has made us the scum of the earth. But, there may be a ray of change on the horizon: U.S. Intelligence Czar John Negroponte is refusing to back Cheney's effort to defeat John McCain's amendment attached to the Defense Authorization bill which would specifically incorporate the Geneva Conventions' ban on cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners. But Cheney and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone have been lobbying unceasingly to defeat McCain's amendment, and, God Bless him, our revered little "christian" president is hell-bent on vetoing the measure if it passes! Good example of being born-again, don't you think?

Well, never you mind, Al Qaeda, like children at Christmas, are making their list and checking it twice, and like Jackie Gleason once said on The Honeymooners: Caboom! Right through the kisser! That whole cabal wiped off the face of the map, families and all. Bye Barbara.

The Relevance of Martin Luther
If the Reverend Martin Luther caused the schism with the Catholic Church, Bush & Co. are going to be responsible for the schism between real Christians, and those skunks who call themselves "born-again christians and the religious right." The first are not born again, they're just as full of hate and skunk squirt as they always were, and the latter are neither religious nor right. The rebirth of true Christianity is at hand, if only because there is not one iota of difference between the most rabid fascist and the most rabid "born-again or member of the religious right." So, Welcome, Salve! New Christianity, which, by the way, will be a Christianity that will not, as the "born-agains and religious right" do, belittle the other faiths, such as but not limited to, the Jews, the Muslims, the Catholics, Hindus, the Mormons, the Native American belief systems, or any other belief system.

Best of all, this new resurgence will not abide torture, rather, it will hold accountable this entire, execrable, sanguinary administration, and hopefully, turn them all over to the International Criminal Court, where they most certainly belong, for Bush has made the entire United States smell of skunk.

The Dinner Gong, Promising Autumn Delights
Just as international lies forced us to change topics for tonight, the unseasonable change in weather, a very mild evening on the warm side, changed our dinner plans a little bit. Instead of a couple of warm dishes to begin the evening, we had two very light courses, both with an excellent white wine. Shelley first served a chilled crab salad, and paired it with a very affordable Forestville 2003 California Chardonnay. Next, and still on the chilled side of first dishes, Cathy served us an aperitif of beautiful, enormous prawns with a very simple cocktail sauce, and served it with another California white wine, this one a Brander 2004 Santa Ynez Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

Heading toward a wine with more refinement from their wine cellar, Cathy and Shelley prepared one of the best roast salmon we'd every tried. Served with button mushrooms and pale, young asparagus, they poured us a wonderful Williams Selyem Russian River Valley Chardonnay.

Next, Max and Charlotte served us one of our favorite of Max's grilled meats, a perfect Grilled Pepper Steak, with grilled fingerling potatoes, bell pepper cubes, jicama and cherry tomatoes, paired with a Clay Station 2002 Lodi Malbec full of plum jam flavor, from the Delicato Family Vineyards in Manteca, California. This was one of the few Malbecs we had ever tried that was not from Argentina, and it was completely satisfying

For dessert, Carmen had obviously spent a lot of time making us a beautiful Almond Tart which she paired with a Lustau Jerez East India Solera sherry in a rich style, with aromas of smoke, banana and crème brulée.

Calm End To a Stormy, Skunky Day
Ah! Max's special blend after-dinner coffee, conversations with the younger set and the beginning of conversations about who was going to be traveling for Thanksgiving. You can't just board horses, so someone needs to be around to feed them and the other animals, so this time of year a lot of planning goes into who is going to hang around to help out the families going out of town. The teenagers, out of school and always anxious to earn spending money, always line up to be put on the schedule to help out. What would we do without them, and why did Bush find it so easy to kill 2,030 of them and never miss a second of sleep?

Summary:
Skunk-in-Chief Bush announced, for all the world to jeer, that "We don't torture." Laughable, if it weren't so sad, since all the world has studied our problem and everybody knows we do torture and that Bush is even planning to veto a measure by Senator John McCain that would prohibit this administration from using torture. Also sad, this skunk is the hero of the "born-again Christians and of the religious right."