From The Man Who Replaced A War Hero

So much for privacy. Via Atrios.

Sheetrock

I've lightly posted the last couple of days as I readied myself for a week a the kid's place in the cities. I'll be hanging sheetrock & doing some minor electrical work. It's for the babies' room, both babies so I'm going to try & weasel a tool out of this deal, somehow. Maybe an angle drill, or, yeah, that's the ticket. I'll post some pics of the ongoing rehab. Later, gator.

Well, Well

Something good finally happened for the American people. & yet, there were three morons who still favored Bu$hCo's desire for Fuhrerhood.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

The Way To Do It

I'm no fan of Jim Webb. But if I lived in Virginia I'd vote for him, however, & probably make an incredibly small donation to his campaign. But as Steve Gilliard says, this is the way to respond to a chickenhawk Senator.  I think even the SideKick would approve, although he'd like to see some hands around some necks.

“While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.’s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada. People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield,” Jarding said.

(From Jim Webb's response to George Allen's attack.)

OK, People

Get together now & read all of the liar Bu$hCo's unconstitutional signing statements. Patriot, Joyce Green of Oklahoma sent them to Altercation.  This is all of them, something to read & ponder early in the a.m. or late in the p.m. or while you're taking a dump.  If you know what I mean.

Wednesday, Blah #2

Here's a picture of Paddy Boy, my youngerst intact male Gordon Setter. We did the I'm-going-to-make-you-all-pretty dance yesterday. He does look pretty good. Today is bath day for the boy. Now only two more to go, & they are way hairier.

Wednesday, Blah

Read all the papers & came up with nothing. So, here are some pics of my activities in the last few days. We'll start with circling vultures. The pic shows 6, but I had 7 over my head. I was at an abandoned marble quarry in northern Wisco, collecting some samples. The other pics are of the quarry, along with some undisturbed rock & a glacial erratic, moved three miles south by the glacier in the last ice age.

Animal Week

This has certainly been the week for animals. I just read about a cameleon-like snake found in Borneo. & now this sad story about a freshwater dolphin in China. I once thought China would lead the world to peace & freedom, now I hope the Chinese dophin can recover in an oxbow lake.

Sage Decision

These county commissioners deserve our respect. & remember all you ReThugs, this is sage brush country, i.e., west of the Mississippi River & east of California.

The San Miguel County Commissioners voted unanimously on Wednesday to join a formal “notice of intent to sue” the federal government.
....
After the bird’s delisting, San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes explained, he felt it was time for action.

“The Fish and Wildlife folks did [the Bush] administration’s political bidding, while ignoring the science,” he said. “For me, that was the last straw.”

Emphasis added.

Painkillers, I Agree

This is both funny & interesting. I've been to several funerals & I don't remember much about any of them, except one. A friend who was the treasurer of an organization that Mrs. coldH2O was the president of, came to our house regularly - get checks signed, discuss problems, etc. The kid got to know R. quite well. When he died, we all went to the funeral & since we were figuratively in Rome, the kid & I sat up next to the casket, closed I might add, & Mrs. coldH2O was back in the kitchen with the other ladies. As the minister was going on & on about God & how we need to give ourselves over to him, etc, etc., the kid blurts out - "Where's R.?" I point to the casket & she nods, but is clearly not satisfied. She wants to know about R. & in this particular version of religion, nobody cares about R. anymore, he & God are deciding, apparently, what the outcome of his life will be. It's B.S. Here's Doghouse Riley:

I don't think I bash Christians too often, mostly because I know some good and smart people who belong to that club, and I try to keep that in mind when I hear the worst coming out of that quarter. But their funerals--if they're all like the sort of stoically boring Midwestern Protestant numbers I get invited to--could make me reconsider. It's not so much that the blandishments don't match the situation, although around ten-fifteen minutes in I always start to feel like I'm floating on a cloud of pure nonsense, like watching a version of Peewee's Playhouse that isn't meant to be funny. It's that the sales pitch, or what must be, from the opposite perspective, the constant need for reassurance never seems to stop. The fact that someone you loved is DEAD is a reason to believe in God's bountiful love as revealed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The fact that the loss hurts like hell is a reason to believe in God's bountiful love as revealed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The answer to those eternal questions that plague your mind at times like these is...well, you're ahead of me by now. I mean, I believe in Gravity, but if I fall off a ladder I want painkillers, not some friendly words about the scientific method.

Emphasis added.

Sign This

I agree that the signing statement scandal hasn't been dealt with very well by the mainstream press. I wonder why? Via Atrios.

Two Stories

Here is one story that the kid+2 & the son-in-law sent me. I don't believe for a minute that Limpdick Limbaugh used these drugs for a sex vacation. That's my story & I'm sticking, oh, oh, bad word choice, to it.

Here's the other story I don't believe. Now, I'm all in favor of a father helping out a kid, but to somehow, with a staight face, claim that a Barbie fishing pole & a six-year old landed a 28 inch walleye, well that just stretches the imagination a bit. BTW, I'm objectively pro-child, I have one myself. So there.

Hope?

Steve Gilliard has it right. Now, will the rest of the media allow this truth to be out there, in the open air?

There is an exhibit of Darwin in the American Museum of National History. I now own a Darwin mug and finger puppet because I'm sick of ignorance masquerading as science. PZ Myers I'm not, but I'm a college educated adult male. I've spent my life dealing with facts. When some wingnut talks about intelligent design, we're talking faith. I have no problem with faith, just don't call it science.

The GOP has gone to the bullshit well one too many times. While Americans die in Iraq, they debate gay marriage. This isn't 2004, 2500 people are dead in Iraq, including many Kansans. People want their kids to come home. Alive, and without brain trauma. People want raises, real raises. They're tired of being scared. And all they hear from the GOP is catering to the crazy people from the church down the road.

Enough is enough. Even in Kansas.

Emphasis added.

Here, Grover, Here

I have a friend who had a Golden Retriever named Grover. He was a lot nicer than this Grover. Is he becoming a drowning victim? It is fun to watch.

Ouch. As we've noted many times here, GOP uber-operative Grover Norquist used his nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform to wash money for Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed. Reed didn't want it known, remember, that he's "kind of like hypocritical." The story is memorably told by Abramoff's emails and various players' testimony to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Przewalski's Horse

So you pronounce it zheh-VAHL-skee. Good article about this endangered horse. I first saw one many years ago at the Minnesota Zoo. I really like the arch in their necks, just like those wonderful cave paintings.

A Quarter Of A Million Years

Interesting stuff. But not encouraging to those overly-rich morons who own ocean front property.

In its heartland, snow that fell a quarter of a million years ago is still preserved. Temperatures dip as low as 86 degrees below zero. Ground winds can top 200 mph. Along the ice edge, meltwater rivers thread into fraying brown ropes of glacial outwash, where migrating herds of caribou and musk ox graze.

The ice is so massive that its weight presses the bedrock of Greenland below sea level, so all-concealing that not until recently did scientists discover that Greenland actually might be three islands.

Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world's coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate.

Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.

By all accounts, the glaciers of Greenland are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago, even as the ice sheets of Antarctica — the world's largest reservoir of fresh water — also are shrinking, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February.

Zwally and other researchers have focused their attention on a delicate ribbon — the equilibrium line, which marks the fulcrum of frost and thaw in Greenland's seasonal balance.

The zone runs around the rim of the ice cap like a drawstring. Summer melting, on average, offsets the annual accumulation of snow.

Across the ice cap, however, the area of seasonal melting was broader last year than in 27 years of record-keeping, University of Colorado climate scientists reported. In early May, temperatures on the ice cap some days were almost 20 degrees above normal, hovering just below freezing.

Evil

This is another reason why the death penalty is so wrong. This sort of punishment is just inhuman. It ought to be abolished completely. &, to top it off, it is no deterrent to crime. But again, we have the largest prison population in the world. What does that say about American culture or values. &, to be direct, I'm not referring to the people in the prisons.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Changes in the skyline.

For more than 80 years, two smokestacks bearing “Overland” spelled out in brick have towered over Toledo’s Jeep Parkway plant, a remnant of the auto company that started the massive complex in 1910.

Hodag

Well, not really, but I just love stuff like this.

Sixty years ago this summer, something scary happened on the beach. A monster emerged from the Gulf of Mexico and wandered around in the dark.

Good Job Jeb!

It runs in the family.

...Bush has seemed more devoted to privatization itself than to holding private companies accountable for doing their jobs.

Amur Tiger Time

Haven't done this for awhile.

Charles Darwin's tortoise dies

Via Raw Story.

Giant Galapagos tortoise Harriet has died of a suspected heart attack.

She was a star attraction at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo since the 1980s and even features in the Guinness Book of Records for her longevity.

Her history is as colourful as the hibiscus flowers she lovingly munched on.

It is believed Harriet was one of three animals naturalist Charles Darwin brought back from his trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1835 and which led to his theories of evolution and natural selection.

A few years later, Sir Charles gave them to a Brisbane-bound friend.

For about 100 years Harriet was mistakenly thought to be a male.

At 176, Harriet was recognised as the world's oldest living chelonian - a reptile with a shell or bony plates.

Mr Irwin said he considered Harriet a member of the family.

"Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family's life," he said.

"I have grown up with this gorgeous old girl and so have my kids.

"She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family.

"She was a grand old lady."

Glacier-Like

Except there won't be any glaciers left.

A signature piece of evidence for global warming -- a compilation of data showing that a sharp rise in temperatures made the late 20th century the warmest period in 1,000 years -- is probably true, a national panel of scientific specialists concluded yesterday.

A graph of the data has become an icon of global warming and is often referred to as ``the hockey stick" because of its shape: A shaft that shows a long period of relatively little change in Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures, and then a spike upward during the last 100 years or so that resembles the blade.

Since the first version of it was published in a scientific journal in 1998, environmentalists have seized on the graph as powerful evidence of human-induced climate change, while some critics have called it alarmist, questioning its methodology and the accuracy of its temperature data.

Last year, the dispute catapulted into the national political arena after Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy Committee, asked the three authors of the 1998 study -- including a University of Massachusetts professor -- for a detailed accounting of their government and private funding, data, and methods. A range of scientists and other legislators blasted the request as an intimidation tactic, contending that other researchers would be reluctant to embark on such studies if they knew they would be under such scrutiny by members of Congress.

If they keep this up, Cheney might have another chance to have other priorities.

The U.S. Army, aiming to make its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war, raised its maximum enlistment age by another two years on Wednesday, while the Army Reserve predicted it will miss its recruiting target for a second straight year. People can now volunteer to serve in the active-duty Army or the part-time Army Reserve and National Guard up to their 42nd birthday after the move aimed at increasing the number of people eligible to sign up, officials said. It marked the second time this year the Army has boosted the maximum age for new volunteers, raising the ceiling from age 35 to 40 in January before now adding two more years.

Don't hold your breath, he'll probably get Lynn pregnant again, oh, man, that's an image I really don't want rattling around in my feeble brain.

Foster Union

The Boston Globe has this interesting piece in today's edition. I think this is a great idea. It would professionalize what is indeed a difficult job & it would also give foster parents a chance to directly bargain for a just & fair compensation. All too often, the state, the school, the social service institution takes advantage of people with a heart & the skills to deal with at-risk kids. These authorities know that honest people will not turn a kid away, & this can lead to exploitation of both the parents & the foster kids.

She and others are trying to organize what is believed to be the nation's first union of foster parents, and they hope to win the right to bargain with state government.

They want to establish higher training and education standards and create an experienced, professional corps of foster parents. They also hope to secure better compensation, including retirement benefits and perhaps medical insurance.

That, in turn, could reduce the high turnover in their ranks that results in youngsters being bounced from one foster home to another, they said.

ReThug Values

First, we see that the poorest of the poor will not get a hourly wage increase.

"We have had debates on gay marriage, we have debates on flag burning, and we have debates on estate tax," Kennedy said. "We're saying that it's time we take action to increase the minimum wage."

Then, we have this prime example of why the ReThugs are clearly racist. There can be no denying this, none, nada, nyet.

The intensity of the complaints, raised in a closed meeting of GOP lawmakers, surprised Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his lieutenants, who thought the path was clear to renew the act's key provisions for 25 years. The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box. Its renewal seemed assured when House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders embraced it in a May 2 kickoff on the Capitol steps.

Joementum in June

I just couldn't resist this headline.  & it's good news for real progressives.

Boy, Oh, Boy

Our Dear Leader.

We've known for years now that George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, in which he was warned: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." We've known for almost as long that Bush went fishing afterward.

What we didn't know is what happened in between the briefing and the fishing, and now Suskind is here to tell us. Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

On Bu$hCo's Watch

Here's hoping that Hoodoo is real & all the poor souls taking their own lives in New Orleans haunt that bastard Bu$hCo's waking life. We'll leave the night to the sad soldiers who died, who were maimed for life, who will never recover from the war of choice that did not need to be fought.

The Education Brother

Good job, Jeb!

The Sunshine State ranks 46th out of 50 states, with a graduation rate of 57.5 percent, according to an analysis of 2002-03 data released Tuesday by Education Week magazine, a respected publication devoted to school news.

Big Carbon Dioxide Country

Bad news for Montana's trout population.

The Rocky Mountain region saw a 292 perent increase in carbon dioxide emissions between 1960 and 2001, the largest percentage increase of any other region in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the Montana Public Interest Research Group.

Yes, This Is True

But what will the American people do with the truth? Here is Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, subbing at Altercation.

Violence begets violence. Inhumanity and cruelty bring more of the same. The whole world is watching and we don’t have the right to claim the moral high ground so long as those responsible for the abuses at Guantanamo and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan go unpunished, the policies stand uncorrected and the Pentagon continues to prevent the media from learning the facts first-hand.

4 Out Of Five Ain't Bad

Another one bites the dust. Or eats the dust. Or lusts the dust. Or something. It's a good thing.

Joementum

Again, via Atrios, I know, we must quite meeting like this, we get this good news.

This is huge news folks, for many reasons (explained below), and a sign that prominent members of the CT Democratic family are rallying behind Ned’s campaign. We’ve always had the overwhelming grassroots edge, it’s tremendous to see prominent establishment figures joining the movement. George Jepsen, the immediate past chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party and the former state Senate majority leader, is set to endorse Ned at 2 P.M. today on the North steps of the State Capitol in Hartford.

Jimmy Carter

Via Atrios we get some interesting poll numbers for Jimmy Carter. I hope John Hind-end-acher, who claims President Carter is a traitor, reads this poll & learns something over at Powertools. I don't link to right-wing dumbasses. As of June 2006, 61% approve of his handling the job.

Bull

Complete bull, particularly for women.

...even in cases of rape or incest....

Moron.

Must See

I order my loyal four readers, maybe five, to watch this on the teevee tonight.

Massachusetts Disaster?

Without trucked-in bees, New England's $121 million crop of cranberries, blueberries, and apples would likely crash because there aren't enough wild bees to pollinate all the fields. But the honeybee is locked in a two-decade battle with a parasite that has sliced the nation's commercial hives by one-third and appears to have wiped out much of the wild honeybee population. Now, frustrated with the parasites' ability to develop widespread resistance to the chemicals designed to kill them, the US Department of Agriculture, scientists, and beekeepers are racing to develop new weapons.

More here.

Hope

That justice will be served.

The Army said yesterday it has charged three soldiers with premeditated murder and other criminal offenses for shooting to death three unarmed Iraqis last month and then later threatening to kill a fellow soldier if he revealed details to investigators.
....
The three defendants -- Private Corey R. Clagett , Staff Sergeant Raymond L. Girouard , and Specialist William B. Hunsaker -- are accused of killing three males of ``apparent Middle Eastern descent" at the Muthana Chemical Complex north of Baghdad by shooting them at close range, according to the official Army charges made public yesterday.

Ya Think?

The topic was the largest defense procurement scandal in recent decades, and the two investigators for the Pentagon's inspector general in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office on April 1, 2005, asked the secretary to raise his hand and swear to tell the truth.

Rumsfeld agreed but complained. "I find it strange," he said to the investigators, on the grounds that as a government official "the laws apply to me" anyway.

It was a bumpy start to an odd interview, as Rumsfeld cited poor memory, loose office procedures, and a general distraction with "the wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan to explain why he was unsure how his department came to nearly squander $30 billion leasing several hundred new tanker aircraft that its own experts had decided were not needed.

It is strange that Rumsfeld would tell the truth, anytime, anywhere. & it's not strange that the Inspector General at the time, Joseph E. Schmitz, decided not to publish that section of the interview & then resign & become an employee of a defense contractor. I wonder if he had any, oh, I don't know, conflicts of monied interests?

Eugene Robinson

True words.

We'd better not turn away just yet from the suicides of those three detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The rest of the world clearly isn't ready to move on. And with good reason.

In many newspapers around the globe "Guantanamo" is much more than the name of a beautiful harbor on Cuba's southern coast. It has become shorthand for a whole litany of American excesses in George W. Bush's "global war on terror," the most visible example of how the United States blithely ignores the values of due process and rule of law that it so aggressively preaches, if necessary at the point of a gun.
....
The point here isn't to go all bleeding-heart over three men who may well have been the type who gleefully slaughter innocents in the name of a warped religiousness. The point is that when our government mocks transparency and tries to conduct this war of ideas in the shadows, away from prying eyes, we defeat ourselves.

Four journalists -- from the Charlotte Observer, the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times -- who happened to be at Guantanamo on other business and whose reporting could have independently confirmed the Pentagon's version of the suicides were unceremoniously put on a plane home last Wednesday. The Pentagon's rationale -- that it was unfair to allow the reporters to stay, because others who wanted to come and cover the story were being turned away -- is one of those masterpieces of faux logic for which Donald Rumsfeld is justly famous. Wouldn't the solution be to let other journalists in, rather than kick those four out?

Emphasis added.

There's Disorder In The Pentagon, Alright

But it's not the gays.

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

I'm Becoming An End-Timer

More absolute bullshit from the U. S. Supreme Court. I'm not buying the MSM's not-a-resounding-victory crap. All the years of working to make this a healthier country, planet, & it's all going to hell thanks to Bu$hCo. Bye-bye fish. Are all you manly sportsmen & women happy you voted for the frat boy president now? I hope it's your water that's destroyed, then you, apparently, will be happy.

Georgia Racism

Another knife in the back of the American Dream.

Dave Zien, Are You In?

I just passed my Basic Motorcycle Safety Course yesterday. I took the course to avoid talking a behind the handlebars test, given that my bike is a big, old bagger that is tough to handle at very slow speeds. But I learned a lot in the course, both the classroom & on the parking lot sections. One of the things you learn, both in the course & when you take the written, more precisely, the touch screen test, for your temporary permit, is that you will die. You are required to wear a helmet with your temps in Wisconsin, but Dave Zien has continually worked against helmets. Here's some stats that even the oft injured without a helmet Zien will have trouble explaining away:

Motorcycle fatalities involving riders without helmets have soared in the nearly six years since Gov. Jeb Bush repealed the state's mandatory helmet law, a newspaper reported Sunday.

A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found "unhelmeted'' deaths in Florida rose from 22 in 1998 and 1999, the years before the helmet law repeal, to 250 in 2004, the most recent year of available data.

Total motorcycle deaths in the state have increased 67 percent, from 259 in 2000 to 432 in 2004, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

Fat Ass

John Murtha is right.

Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam War veteran pushing for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, on Sunday mocked Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, for championing the war while "sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside."

Nighttime Wildlife

While I was photographing the frogs, this moth tried to fly down my t-shirt. He spooked the bejesus out of me. His abdomen was extraordinarily stiff & very coarse, like 36 grit sandpaper. I initially thought he was a bat. I got this pic & no dog ate him. He still lives, as far as I know.

This guy lit on the tar-papered back wall. I'll get to it eventually, OK? As soon as I took the pic, he flew to the deck where he was eaten by one of the goofball setters. & I thought only the dork Lab ate anything. Go figure.

I took these three pictures of two frogs the other night. Any frog people out there? I don't know what they are. They attached themselves to the window in my living room & stayed there for quite some time. I did not see if they crawled down or leaped off the window.

Can You Spell?

C O V E R U P.

Despite the findings, General Formica recommended that none of the service members be disciplined, saying what they did was wrong but not deliberate abuse. He faulted "inadequate policy guidance" rather than "personal failure" for the mistreatment, and cited the dangerous environment in which Special Operations forces carried out their missions. He said that, from his observations, none of the detainees seemed to be the worse for wear because of the treatment. "Seventeen days with only bread and water is too long," the general concluded. But he added that the military command's surgeon general had advised him "it would take longer than 17 days to develop a protein or vitamin deficiency from a diet of bread and water."

Oh, Boy

Looks like our supply of sweet water is in serious jeopardy.

The Poor, The Middle Class...

take it in head again. Scott Walker is an idiot, probably already is one, if he enacts any of this.

Thawing

Old bones, old roots, add up to a potential new disaster. While Bu$hCo fiddles.

Ancient roots and bones locked in long-frozen soil in Siberia are starting to thaw, and have the potential to unleash billions of tons of carbon and accelerate global warming, scientists said.

This vast carbon reservoir, contained in permafrost soil in north-eastern Siberia, contains about 75 times more carbon than the amount released into the atmosphere each year by the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers said.

Duck Soup

Old duck, not cold duck. & here as well.

Modern birds--the rulers of the sky--appear to have gotten their start in the water, scientists say. The fresh insights derive from the fossilized remains of a bird that lived some 110 million years ago and was preserved in the soft muddy bottom of an ancient lake in what is now the Gansu province of northwestern China. The amphibious, ducklike creature--named Gansus yumenensis--is the oldest known member of the so-called ornithuran group that includes modern birds.

"Green Plan"

...my ass. The Forest Service, the next drowning victim?

In response to Bush’s management agenda, the agency has recently developed and begun implementing the “Green Plan,” a strategy that calls for systematic consideration of outsourcing more than 75 percent of Forest Service jobs nationwide. Jobs in everything from fire fighting to communications, from scientific data collection to engineering, and on down the line are on the block. The Green Plan, which national officials say is still in draft form and hasn’t officially been released, even though implementation has begun, represents an aggressive next step for an agency that has in recent years begun attempting to transform from its traditional, decentralized format into a lean, mean forest-managing machine. Gone are the days of rangers who handle everything in their necks of the woods, a method the Green Plan sterilely calls “job fragmentation,” with the critique that “although positions with multiple duties have provided extreme workforce flexibility and have served as an organizational strength, it can be perceived as inefficient, and adds extreme complexity to…competitive sourcing studies.” Welcome to the modern era, where public lands management is being molded to fit the private-sector cast.

Cold

Tony Snow, Bu$hCo mininster of propaganda said that the dead American soldiers in Iraq are nothing more than numbers.

MR. SNOW: It's a number, and every time there's one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.

Cold, cruel, criminal, craptacular. I hope the bastards who voted for these dicks are happy now.

Good Read

Joe Lieberman is fast becoming the Democratic Party's albatross. Sen. Shumer better get his act together, as well.

Exactly. The establishment would obviously like to do away with primaries. They would prefer to simply tell the plebes for whom to vote and just take their money. But, that's not the way it's going to work anymore. It's not just that politics have taken a parliamentary turn, which is quite true. It goes to the heart of why so many Americans don't trust Democrats to lead: the spineless factor. It's why the Democratic terrorists are going to take the radical step of trying to elect someone who doesn't publicly kiss George W. Bush on the lips every chance he gets.

You can go here to email your attitude towards Ned Lamont's challenge to Lieberman to support the winner of the Democratic primary in August. Lamont has already pledged to support the winner, Lieberman has not, in fact, he is apparently exporing the possibility of running as an independent. If that happens, he's worse than a louse.

UPDATE: David Sirota has joined the bandwagon.

Joe is finally learning that there are consequences to selling out his party.

Emphasis happily added.

No Need...

...for a tin foil hat. The ReThugs just keep doing it & it appears there is nothing the Democratic Party can or will do.

The electronic Diebold voting systems used in the special run-off election last week for California's 50th U.S. House district were effectively 'decertified' and invalidated for use in the election after massive security breaches in the storage of those systems were sanctioned by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, ....

Remember Alito?

Thanks for nothing, John Aravosis.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices.

Too Much

Too funny. Kitten Kombat '06.

It Would Be Good

If we elected a poet as president.

Rise Up, Or Live A Life Of Quiet desperation

The kid plus 2 sent me this link a while back. I resisted looking at it because, well, I was a bit of a chickenshit about it. I knew I'd be doing what I'm doing right now - shooing the lovely Tipitina from my laptop, my laptop computer & blinking more than usual, eyes as full as New Orleans was, all those months ago. I'm also feeling chills & waves of nerves throughout my body. It's not really a bad feeling, but it will lead up to a rage that I almost cannot contain. All those compassionate fucking conservatives ought to watch it, then tell me all the great things they have done for New Orleans. It's become fashionable in some circles to avoid this sort of thing. To wonder how to replace this with, oh, I don't know, happy thoughts. I want to avoid this rage as well, but I can't ever avoid the truth of what Bu$hCo has done, not only to New Orleans, but to the country, to the world. We cannot pull back into our lives at the expense of letting this son-of-a-bitch continue. But this is not to say you shouldn't fish, plant your gardens, play with your kids or grandkids, say thanks when none is expected, send a birthday card to someone you hardly know, or listen to good music. So, do the right thing & cut & paste the URL that's listed below. I love you all, but RISE UP, you morons.

Here's the video that Springsteen played when he sang City of Ruins at Jazzfest. Powerful. Copy and paste the link into your browser.

http://www.loganbabin.com/City%20of%20Ruins.wmv

Cripes #2 - For Today Anyway

A sensible ReThug, er, Democrat?

A lot of people in Kansas are feeling lost right now," said Parkinson, 48, who was invited onto the ticket by popular Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. "I decided I'd rather spend time building great universities than wondering if Charles Darwin was right."

Well, he could just wake up & realize the a person can build great universities & know Darwin was correct. I mean, Kansas is a prime example. Here's the leader of a religion that found its beginnings in the dumbassness of the Kansas school board.

Cripes

Killer tan.

More On The Guantanamo Suicides

Feel the love.

"Guantanamo should be closed. This is an occasion to reiterate that statement," said Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union commissioner for external relations, as she arrived for a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Guantanamo weakens the fight against terrorism.

Britain's Guardian newspaper compared Harris' portrayal of the deaths as "the demented logic of Dr. Strangelove." Syria's Tishrin newspaper likened Guantanamo to a Nazi detention camp, and an editorial in the Saudi Arab News urged U.S. officials to try the suspects or free them.

Great Leadership, Not

Another example of just how corrupt & lawless the Bu$hCo administration has always been. The Harley has been fixed, I destroyed the clutch while attempting to use the bike as a tow truck. I'm stupid, but I know it. Bu$hCo doesn't know & he's a criminal.

A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove.

The new rule, which took effect Monday, came after years of intense industry pressure, including court battles and behind-the-scenes agency lobbying. But environmentalists vowed Monday that the fight was not over, distributing internal White House documents that they said portrayed the new rule as a political payoff to an industry long aligned with the Republican Party and President Bush.

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to "openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.

This Angelo fellow who called the EPA rule "stupid", a rule with the force of law, is the Chair of the Texas Public Safety Commission. It's role in the life of Texans is

- promoting the importance of public safety and law observance.

among several others- items. No wonder Bu$hCo has trouble obeying the law, what, with advisors like this.

Bohemians Rule

Reality Czech. I stole the headline, it's a good one.

Suffer The Children, All Right

The kind of news that would make any ReThug proud.  Another part of Tommy Thompson's legacy.

This year, she was locked up for more than 30 days with children accused of murder and rape and robberies because case managers for the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare could find no placement for her.

Abused and neglected children who have not committed any crime - most of them in their teens - increasingly are being locked up in the juvenile secure detention facility, records show.
....
"We are locking up kids who run away, with murderers and sexual offenders. Homeless adults don't go to Waupun or Taycheedah," Malmstadt said. "People who commit crimes go to those institutions. Most of these kids have a long-term abuse and neglect history. What are we doing to find them placements?"

He said that if Milwaukee County began billing the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare for children's daily care while in detention, "they wouldn't be there."

Stupid Morons

#1 - Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr. Harris described the recent suicides at Guantanamo this way:

But the commander of prison operations at the camp called the suicides, "not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

#2 - A State Department employee, I use that title loosely, Colleen Graffy, a deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy stated the following:

"Taking their own lives was not necessary but it certainly is a good PR move to draw attention," he(sic) said."

Now that's some public diplomacy. But what would one expect from a woman who works with this paragon of moroninity. We should all be ashamed.

Here's a pic of Ms. Graffy, apparently explaining the need for more human suicides to boost the Karen Hughes' public diplomacy portfolio.

Love The Canadians

Via RLK, thanks, man. These reflections are from Dooney's Cafe, a news service from north of me.

The pair were Abbott and Costello shitkickers....

Harper’s subsequent public necking sessions with Quebec premier Jean Charest....

Another troubling cabinet choice was to entice the impossibly thick-headed David Emerson to stumble across the floor so he could continue with the International Trade portfolio.

Harper’s silliest cabinet choice is that he clearly believes that Rona Ambrose is both an intellectual and a looker, even though no one can seem to find a photographer who doesn’t make her look like a tow-truck driver in drag. Beyond this, unfortunately, is a person without any more qualifications than a tow-truck driver, and an issue—how to respond accurately to global warming—that transcends national and partisan political values. I’d prefer someone with more common sense than ideology to deal with this delicate issue,....

...Senator Margory LeBreton, whose chief qualification is that she was still licking Brian Mulroney’s boots after the other 93 percent of Canadians had wised up. Ambrose and LeBreton have so far teamed up on the ludricrous attempt to convince us that Mulroney was an environmentalist, an attempt that was justly met with giggling disbelief.

WATB

I'm no great fan of retail anything, but the complaints of doctors about nurse practitioners are just so much crap. Not to mention sexist. Full disclosure: Mrs. coldH2O works in the health care field.

Object, Yes She's French

But it's the desire that keeps me in thrall. Besides, she was the star of my first French movie. To be 18 & at the Majestic, but with a date this time.

Disturbing News

The younger generation seems to have gone goofy on the rest of us. What will we tell the children. Wait a minute, they are the children. We're doomed.

Trifecta!

Not the Belmont Stakes, sadly, but the infernal combustion powered vee-hickles - now the saintly, if not cool, 1984 Harley. Seems like I effed up the clutch &/or linkage. The linkage was held together with a bunch of plastic ties, hey, it's a Harley & I'm from Wisco. Either I somehow nicked the plastic or it just decided to wear out. I must mention that I tried using the bike as a tow vee-hickle, after all, they do haul trailers with them, but not this one. Maybe the clutch just needs adjusting, maybe replacement, why not, given my record this week. I did get the lawn tractor going, but then the attachment drive belt got scored & refused to stay in place after 50 feet or so of mowing. Looks like me & the teevee are going to be even better friends tonight & tomorrow. I hope Joe, the new guy, yes, he can, I just got a phone call from him. (Goofed up sentence, but the point is that Joe, the New Guy, will be able to haul the bike to the shop on Monday.) Being forced to stay home does allow for some more soapstone carving. I'm trying to hollow out a piece so I can fill it with citronella enhanced wax - & then give it to someone for a wedding present. I over carved the first experiment & created unwanted holes in the side. I'll probably be able to fix it using epoxy mixed with a bunch of the dust from the sanding I did on it. Oh well, it's better than a stick in the eye, or something.

Oh, Hell

First, we have three suicides.

Three detainees at Guantanamo Bay apparently committed suicide amid protests of the U.S. military prison by inmates, the Defense Department said Saturday. They were the first reported deaths at the detention center for suspected terrorists.

Second, we have the debacle in progress in Afganistan. This is something that is clearly the product of Bu$hCo's war of choice in Iraq. & it's truly sad.

A large springtime offensive by Taliban fighters has turned into the strongest show of force by the insurgents since American forces chased the Taliban from power in late 2001, and Afghan and foreign officials and local villagers blame a lack of United States-led coalition forces on the ground for the resurgence.

Third, we see that the pre-war planning was completely stupid. Bu$hCo's having a "two-day strategy session" three years into the war. WTF?

Three years of past efforts to accomplish those goals have largely failed. Billions of dollars have been spent on both electricity and security, yet residents of Baghdad get only five to eight hours of power a day, and the American ambassador acknowledged on Friday that the city is "more insecure now than it was a few months ago."

Now, in my world, reality based as it is, so real, in fact, that I wish it wasn't, given the recent vee-hickle blues, the moron Bu$hCo would be out, three strikes out. But in the world of the neo-cons, the God-on-my-side crowd, Bu$hCo keeps getting do-overs. I could have used these in my youth, I wasn't much of a ballplayer. Oh, & why am I posting this in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? My lawn tractor is hooked up to the battery charger. This has not been a week for me & the machines powered by the internal combustion engine. & one last thing, I'm building up my soccer cred by watching Ivory Coast & Argentina in the World Cup.

Vee-hickle Blues #2

I was supposed to start my motorcycle safety course last week, the day my truck broke down after paying $780 for other repairs. I will not go into the situation with the safety course, suffice it to say that I have a new mission in life - the complete destruction of WITC, the local vocational school sponsoring the course. I ran into the worst of all teachers - a first grade teacher who is really, really obsessed by rules, rules she even thinks aren't that important, but they are rules. Back to the sadness whose name is Dodge. It appears that the long leaking of diesel fuel lulled me into not looking for other leaks, namely transfer case fluid. My transfer case, stripped gears & all, needs replacement. My local guy found a rebuilt one for $1500, plus another $500 to install it. My loyal four readers will be happy to note that we just paid the truck loan off last month. Jesus in a sleeveless t-shirt on a cool day. What's the point of continuing? I'm considering the leap from the deck again.

The Power...

...of the written word. Good job Brownie.

This Can't Be Good

Fifty year mortgages? The American dream keeps moving farther into fantasy land.

Headline The Day

Mentall illness is not a choice

But it is a spelling problem.

Spam

Jeebus, just look at all the spam. I've never had so many spam comments. I'll see how it goes today & I may have to turn on the spam blocker stuff. God, I wish they would just leave me alone. Blogger went down for awhile yesterday for repairs, I would hope they would repair this spam shit.

Good News

Let's hope one less murderer will have a positive effect in a murderous environment.

Vee-hickle Blues

Man, when it goes haywire, it goes haywire. First off, last week, in my feeble attempt to do my part for gasoline conservation, I fired up the old Harley I bought last fall. It ran well for a couple of days, then started acting like a quarter horse, a bad quarter horse. Hauling it over to the UP, waiting a day, writing a check for $300, & presto, it's riding like my Tennessee Walkers, all smooth & sweet & up for just about anything. While all this was going on, I had my deisel pickup truck in the shop for a much needed muffler replacement & again, in my desire to be a good resident of this earth pebble, fix an annoying & expensive & environmentally stupid fuel leak. Today, after writing another check for $783, I drove a quiet, non-fuel leaking truck up the highway towards Lake Superior. I felt pretty good, since we just got back our federal tax return, so the outlay of over a grand wouldn't hurt, that much. As the greatest of the Great Lakes barely came into view, the just fixed Dodge decided to make a clicking noise & stop moving. The engine still purred, quietly, of course, & there was no fuel leak. Calling a trusty towing concern, & eating some red potato salad while I waited for the diagnosis, I realized that life is more than interesting, it is fucking interesting. So, I talked to the amiable mechanic who said that it was the transfer case & that the gears were stripped. He said he'd call me tommorow & let me know if it would get any worse. I'm off to pick up the lovely & gainfully employed Mrs. coldH2O. The upside to all of this is that I'll be able to ride the tan, 1984 FLT a lot more. Straight out on the highway....

Billy Preston, R.I.P.

Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own hit singles including "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday at 59.

More here.

Taking Care

Good for the people running the food shelves. & why in the richest country in the world, do we have these kind of stories?

Food shelves in Twin Cities suburbs -- even affluent ones -- are suddenly busier than they've ever been, according to a report to be released this morning.

A state study that is undertaken only twice each decade will reveal a huge jump in visits in places such as Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Golden Valley, according to Hunger Solutions Minnesota, the organization that coordinates the work of the shelves.

I Really Tried To Resist This

But moron boy, Bu$hCo, made me do it. If you know what I mean.

Freeloaders

Down in Pissed of Patricia territory, the local ReThugs are proud of being taxpayer ripoffs. One more example of true personal responsibilty.

Hosting the 2008 Republican National Convention here would cost taxpayers about $85-million, event organizers said Monday.

That’s roughly two-thirds of the estimated total cost of $124-million, according to the bid package a Tampa delegation presented to the Republican National Committee in May. Nearly $22-million would come straight out of local tax coffers.

Emphasis added.

True Dedication To Life

Read the story.

In a race to save amphibians threatened by an encroaching, lethal fungus, two conservationists from Atlanta recently packed their carry-ons with frogs rescued from a Central American rain forest — squeezing some 150 to a suitcase — and requested permission from airlines to travel with them in the cabin of the plane.

Digby

Yes, I've said this before & now Digby says it as well.

The "humiliating and degrading" treatment at Abu Ghraib, the torture at Bagram and Gitmo and god knows where else, the kidnapping and renditions, and yes, the massacre of civilians including children, is not a matter of incompetence or misunderstanding or the fog of war. It's the plan.

Emphasis of the truth added.

Blah=Blah Is Right

Thanks to RLK for this from the Cap Times.

J. B. Van Hollen, who last month was claiming that Wisconsin was a hotbed of international terrorist training and targeting, is now suggesting that Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager ought to stop enforcing environmental, workplace safety and consumer protection laws in order to meddle in the work of the Milwaukee Police Department. Referring to recent outbreak of gun violence in Milwaukee, Van Hollen demanded, "The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer in Wisconsin. Where the hell is she?"Oh, did we mention that Van Hollen is not merely an interested observer? He's a candidate for the Republican nomination to challenge the attorney general in November. And he's sparing no hyperbole, or obscenity, in his hunt for votes. If Van Hollen were to pay as much attention to criminal justice issues as he does to trying to profit politically from the pain and suffering of Wisconsinites,....

Van Hollen is a local boy making bad. What a moron.

I Can't HaveSteve's Baby

I'm a guy, you see, but that's another story. Via A, at First Draft, we get a great post from the aforementioned Steve.

If these shitbags think we're cowering, they should think again.Jean Rohe's speech at the New School was not about peace and love, but why Osama's head wasn't on a pike, while Bush chased his manhood in Iraq. That's the problem. Osama being free while we murder Iraqi children and let the Heritage Foundation play government with other people's lives.

Multiculturalism is what happens when you live in the world and not behind a gate.

Benefit Of Northern Wisco

No love bugs.

The mere mention of love bugs, or Plecia nearctica, gets them talking about what the little flies feel like (tiny needles), what they taste like (petroleum products) and how to wash them off your hog (wipe with Bounce dryer sheets, then apply water).

From The City Of Big Shoulders

Good for Roger Ebert. He's not afraid to say he's a liberal. Now all you liberals in Washington, D.C., get the same spine Mr. Ebert has.

I want to write this review so every reader will begin it and finish it. I am a liberal, but I do not intend this as a review reflecting any kind of politics. It reflects the truth as I understand it, and it represents, I believe, agreement among the world's experts.
Global warming is real.
It is caused by human activity.
Mankind and its governments must begin immediate action to halt and reverse it.
If we do nothing, in about 10 years the planet may reach a "tipping point" and begin a slide toward destruction of our civilization and most of the other species on this planet.

After that point is reached, it would be too late for any action.

You Can't Make It Up Department

Bill Kristol - complete, fucking moron.

"Bill Kristol was discussing recent comments made by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameni -- then, in mid-comment, Kristol stopped himself and said, with no hint of irony, "Maybe we should have Supreme Leader Bush. I kind of like the sound of that."

Emphasis added. Via BuzzFlash.

I Wish It Would Falter Off The Oredock

We can only hope.

A decade-long drive to permanently repeal the estate tax is about to come to a head, but proponents are finding it surprisingly difficult to get their political football into the end zone.
....
Either way, the upcoming Senate debate is a pivotal moment for a coalition of wealthy families, small-business lobbyists and farm groups that has already accomplished a remarkable thing over the last decade: making a national political issue out of repealing a tax that applies to less than 1% of all taxpayers, including some of the richest people in the U.S

Emphasis added.

Music, Sweet Music & Big Rocks With Handles

I might change my mind about accordian music. I might. I just might. It's kind of like changing my mind about the sport of curling & the

"12 strong-willed and taut-figured female curlers "

This pic via Doghouse Riley.

Good Points

All upright, thinking people agree. Via firedoglake.

Which of the punk Bush supporting smear artists, virtually none of whom has ever served in uniform, who parade to the talkies to accuse almost anyone of being traitors, even cares about this: What kind of leaders send our troops to battle, unconscionably, so lacking in armor protection and equipment that the Marine Corps pathologist concludes, in the third year of the war, that 70% of the casualties were preventable? And then allow some of our wounded troops to return home and be charged for their sacrifice, and then pursued by debt collectors because they cannot afford to pay, and then be victimized by a Veterans Administration led by a former Republican Chairman that falls dramatically short of serving our heroes while creating the mammoth violation of privacy of veterans in the history of computers?

Think about this: America is engaged in a great battle of ideas against an enemy that murders children in houses of worship and cuts off the heads of the innocent, and our leaders have failed to win this battle even against an enemy so hideously evil.

And what is the response of Bush and Rove? When they are not demonizing the gays, they are waving the flag, preparing to challenge the patriotism of political opponents who prefer supporting those who wear that flag on their shoulder to using the flag as a partisan weapon in the endless political wars that will be the sad legacy of those who never learned that we are, indeed, in this together.

The reason America stands on the brink of an epic election is that this President, his party, and his apologist have let loose dark forces of division and dishonor that have divided our country, alienated much of decent opinion around the world, hurt our military, abused our freedoms in the name of a politics of fear and let loose in the land a kind of politics that violates the cardinal rules of two hundred years of the American family.

In this dark and demeaning vision of political war, anything goes, to win. A heroic Senator who will spend his life in a wheelchair as the price of his heroism is slandered by a guy who never served. A recipient of the bronze and silver stars is smeared because he is in the wrong political party. A Marine Corps hero who is one of strongest supporters of the troops who ever served in Congress is called a coward on the Floor of Congress. A Chief of Staff of the Army is demeaned by ideologues and partisans who were hell bent for a war they knew nothing about.

Six courageous retired Generals speak out with conscience and the editorial page of the Washington Times prints the statute on sedition. The cable talkies run segments with titles such as Hollywood Hates America. When the topic shifts to the atrocity of Haditha one of America's leading right wing mouthpieces says these things always happen in way and cites, shame, shame, shame, shame and infamy to him, the Marines who took Iwo Jima and the Army heroes who took Normandy with the slander that they too committed acts that were comparable to Haditha. Who in the hell do these bums think they are?

The infamy of Abu Ghraib, the wrongs of Guantanamo, secret government abusing secret prisons with secret injustice, and the Attorney General of the United States says the Geneva Convention is some quaint and outmoded relic which in my humble opinion were the most dishonorable, despicable and ignorant words ever uttered by anyone entrusted to preserve, protect and defend justice in America.

The man who sits where Washington sat, where Jefferson sat, where Lincoln sat, claims he has the unilateral, inherent power to abrogate even the Bill of Rights The man who put his hand on the Bible with the trust that the laws are faithfully executed claims he has the unilateral, inherent power to violate the laws of the land at his personal whim, and at this writing, there are more than 700 laws that he asserts the right to violate today. The man entrusted with the legacy of Founding Fathers who were among the greatest and most timeless visionaries who ever walked the earth, claims he can operate beyond the reach of courts, beyond the reach of Congress, without the knowledge of the American people.

Emphasis sadly added.

Science Sunday

I'm really glad that science has finally produced a study that supports the andedotal evidence that all of us have seen in our daily lives, if we have have been paying attention. Where I live, the main approach that the professional foresters have taken is one of poplar (popple) farming, to benefit the logging industry. I'm certainly not against loggers, I used to work in the woods myself, although my employer might balk at the word "work" - "let's quit, I quit" - was my mantra at the time, but this idea that the government owes these loggers a living is, well, out-of-date. Diversity is a good in all ways, whether it be plant species, rock species, animal species, yes, I include non-white people as well. People, not just environmentalists, have been warning of the potential disastrous effects of monoculture for a long time. The evidence is now in, monoculture is a bad method, a bad idea. What the agricultural interests have managed to do is continue to invent & use pesticides & herbicides to put off the devastation that will come with the continuation of monoculture, particularly in the Great Plains.

Biodiversity of global ecosystems has decreased as global population has increased, said Tilman, because diverse ecosystems such as forests and prairies have been cleared to make way for agricultural fields, buildings and roads.

The research shows that ecosystems containing many different plant species are more productive than those containing only one species. A return to biodiversity may prove to be the key, Tilman and his colleagues believe, to meeting energy needs for the growing number of people on the planet and for restoring global ecosystems.

"Diverse prairie grasslands are 240 percent more productive than grasslands with a single prairie species," Tilman said. "That's a huge advantage. Biomass from diverse prairies can, for example, be used to make biofuels without the need for annual tilling, fertilizers and pesticides, which require energy and pollute the environment. Because they are perennials, you can plant a prairie once and mow it for biomass every fall, essentially forever," Tilman said.

Progress

Just around the corner, I suppose.

Excluding the capital's nearly daily bombings, new Iraqi government documents show that more Baghdad residents died in shootings, stabbings and other violence in May than in any other month since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Goofiest Headline Of The Day

Rebirth for family planning clinic

A Good, Sweet Story

I was afraid of horses my whole life, but when I acquired a Gordon Setter that had great field trial potential, I decided I better get a horse, the easiest way to chase her around. I now have four horses, approximately three too many, but they have fundamentally changed my life. You know the studies that show how petting a dog or cat can lower your blood pressure, your heart rate, your respiration rate? Well, think about standing in the midst of two Tennesee Walkers & two Spotted Saddle horses. Two tons or so of beautiful medication. I should blog my guys someday. Someday soon. But here is a story about horses & wounded soldiers from Iraq, Bu$hCo's war of choice. Whoever came up with this therapy ought to be president, because this person has a heart.

Spec. Maxwell Ramsey made small kissing sounds as he tried to coax Wylie, a muscular black Percheron horse, over to the platform where the soldier stood. He swung the metal and plastic limb that is his new left leg over Wylie's back and sat down in the saddle.

"Relax your leg. Take a deep breath. Remember you are sitting on a big old cushion," Mary Jo Beckman, a therapeutic riding instructor, said to Ramsey as he and Wylie headed out into a dusty yard at Fort Myer.

The black and white horses that usually pull caissons during military funerals at neighboring Arlington National Cemetery are helping soldiers such as Ramsey in their long struggle to learn to walk again, to regain strength and to believe in their new limbs.

"It gives me the confidence to know that I lost an arm and a leg but not the ability to do certain things," 1st Lt. Ryan Kules, 25, a Tempe, Ariz., native who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in November, said Friday.

Junk Science

Absolutely.

A scientific journal plans to retract a 1997 study submitted by a PG&E Corp. consultant that suggested a contaminant released by the utility had no links with cancer.

The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine will note that the connection of parties with vested interests in the study was not disclosed at the time.

The study involved the groundwater contaminant hexavalent chromium. The release of that substance in Hinkley (San Bernardino County) was at the heart of the widely publicized lawsuit against PG&E in the mid-1990s recounted in the film "Erin Brockovich."

Science Saturday

Big hole found, not in Bu$hCo's brain. But, nonetheless, it caused mass extinctions.

Minnesota Stupid

Gov. Pawlenty appears to be another complete moron. A person can never underestimate the callousness of ReThugs. Pretty-boy Pawlenty proves this fact once again.

Child care advocates were disappointed -- and puzzled -- because such rating systems are used by 20 other states.

This one was specifically designed to prepare children for Minnesota's kindergarten standards, they said.

Minnesota has one of the highest percentages of working mothers in the nation. Parents have little information to rely on when choosing their licensed child care, even for infants, a Star Tribune investigation found last year.

Emphasis added.

"Unrecognized Legislators Of The World"

This is a great bit of news. Thanks, Ifeanyi Menkiti, you are doing a wonderful service for all of us.

When he bought the venerable Grolier Poetry Book Shop in April, poet and professor Ifeanyi Menkiti took a leap of faith. It will take a lot of that to make the store succeed in a publishing world where poetry inhabits a tiny corner.

Menkiti is undaunted.

``I have a strong sense of hope and belief that poetry can help our world," he said. ``The sense of a world together has formed a very important part of my own poetry, and I'm hoping the Grolier can organize programs to keep that spirit alive."

For 79 years, the little box on Plympton Street near Harvard Square, where bookshelves share wall space with framed photos of such friends and patrons as Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore, persisted under only two owners -- founder Gordon Cairnie and, since 1974, Louisa Solano. It's one of only two all-poetry stores in America; the other is Seattle's Open Books.

Is The Whitewash Beginning?

It looks like it.

New video footage released yesterday showed the bodies of several Iraqi civilians, including children, who were apparently killed during a US raid on a house in March, but Pentagon officials said an inquiry into the case had found that US forces used appropriate force in the attack on what they called a terrorist hideout.

Iraqi officials condemned the event in March, but it had faded from view until yesterday, when video images of the aftermath of the US operation in the northern town of Ishaqi set off a new round of criticism of American treatment of civilians on the battlefield.

Real Sensitive

Complete morons. American Transmission Co. ought to be truly ashamed of what they are doing to Wisconsin.

Friday Random Ten

Let There Be Love - Peggy Lee
I'm In Trouble - Rick Tobey
Down In Mississippi - North Mississippi Allstars
People You Love - John Carey
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Hell In Harlem - Anders Osborne
I'm Just A Fool To Care - c.c. Adcock
Stompin' My Foot - North Mississippi Allstars (go figure random)
Tell It (Like It Is) - Cyrille Neville
Main Street Blues - The Red Slick Ramblers

Update To Previous Post

Go here for more info, although I'm not sure there are any 8 by 10 color glossy photos with circles & arrows on the back. If you know what I mean. 

Stolen 2004 Election

Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone is now online. Go read it & weep for a country that Bu$hCo is in the process of destroying. Just a bit to get you interested.

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

This Is What We're Up Against

When ideology trumps common sense. Via Atrios.