Look at me...I'm Macho, and a Very Practiced Vacationer. Oh, and I LOVE torture. No, wait...not like that. I mean on other people...

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days!! [see below] he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground. [Does he consider this practice for what he's done and is doing to YOUR rights and the lives of countless people across President Bush, shown clearing cedar at his Crawford, Tex., ranch in 2002, has not lost his enthusiasm for the task during recent trips to what aides call the the globe?]

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek said: "This is part of his macho image. Obviously this is nothing Bush has to do. He's the son of a rich man who doesn't have to spend his time cutting underbrush."

But some of Bush's neighbors in the Crawford area said they understand his pleasure -- even if he doesn't have to do it. "We do it because we have to," said Zach Arias, who with his wife raises cows on 400 acres about 20 miles from town. "But afterwards, you kind of go, 'Wow. I feel good about what I did today.' " White House counselor Dan Bartlett explained it this way: "It's therapeutic for him, I guess. There's very few things he gets to do hands on." (What, like effectively lead this country down a progressive path, not a regressive one? Wow, I feel good about boiling prisoners to death. Man, I need a beer.) [The Independent article on UK torture memo from former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, and another from The Register, AND Craig Murray's Offical blog on the topic. Note: Murray's entire website was temporarily shut down under suspicious circumstances. Cryptome's archive of Murray's article in case his site goes down again. PDF of the memos.]

(WTF: Out of 1826 days he's been in office he's taken 365 days of vacation. That's 20-effing-percent of his presidency! Even if you took a month of vacation, plus two weeks of sick leave per year you'd still only be at 12%...Not only is he the greatest single threat to the national security of the United States, and prefer to 'clear brush' than truly engage in statescraft, but he's the lazy son of a rich man who can't face the fact that the world, save his mother, hates him.)