Today 13 years ago this blog, ‘Compatible Creatures,’ became self-aware — April 24, 2007.
“Woo-hoo!” the two-word content of the original post.

Later that self-same day, my first ‘real‘ post, with a comically-strained title, ‘Word.’

Actually a few words, short and sour, however, zeroed-in on one word:

In an age where events are known so fast and everybody just about everywhere can instantly become aware of every corner of the globe even the smallest little word can carry a big weight.

And the little word here today is “palliate,” which means to try and make a wrong or an offense seem less severe, mitigate the circumstances. And palliate is just what the Bush Black House is now doing with the announcement that Scott Bloch, Bush-appointed head of the US Office of Special Counsel, will lead a sweeping investigation into Karl Rove’s politicking with taxpayer money and breaking a ton of federal laws while doing it.

Bloch himself was recently investigated by the IG of the Office of Personnel Management for pushing a right-wing agenda down the throats of federal employees.

So all Bloch is doing is an obvious attempt to try and bury Rove’s political wrongdoing by creating and intense investigation and then, By Golly, there was no indication of any lawbreaking on Rove’s part. Bush/Cheney/Rove are just trying to palliate the whole mess.

Lie, lie, and monkeys can fly.

Naturally, the pure lunacy is that the world/life seemed ‘normal’ and ‘sensible‘ back then, April 2007, and that’s tracking in on some nasty, dangerous and bogus shit going on then — there were 150,00-plus US troops in Iraq, GW Bush had just ordered a ‘surge’ of 20-30,000 troops to counter a conflict gone to pure shit.
Words like ‘Falluja’ carried images of death.

Iraq/Afghan wars, the overall War on Terror, the subjects for much on my early posts, and later, too. Collected post-worthy news from not only the networks/MSM, but also online-only sites like antiwar.com and TomDispatch, among others. Good to see they’re still around, and still good. And I quickly realized the UK’s Guardian and Independent were the best-truthful news of the day, especially with the Middle East.
Consider the Guardian right now the best all-around news source in the world.
In the weeks/months following, ‘Word,’ I also enjoyed the late-great Gen. Bill Odom and his fact-based views on Iraq. Good obit on Odom, who died in 2008, is at Newsweek.
And crazy, too, Glenn Greenwald had walking-around sense in them days.

And as a subtext for 2007, later that year the gravity of the climate change phenomena became totally-infested within my conscious being, mainly due to the UN’s report (Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]) that global warming was a stark reality, and humans were the culprit. And we were/now-are up an environmental shit creek mostly without a paddle.
Whatever the reason, until then, I didn’t have an inkling.

Also, a shout-out to my original host/webmaster and all-around tech guy, Eric P. Metze, who’s also an author and a podcastor (is a word), and a great help the last 13 years.
‘Compatible Creatures‘ wouldn’t be the cool place it be without…

Who’d figured in April 2007 we’d now have a president who’d recommend injecting Lysol/bleach into your body to combat an illness. WTF!

Falluja!