Amur Leopard Time

Maybe Woodpeckers?

Via RLK, thanks man, we get some potentially good news out of FL. It seems some researchers may have more info on the "extinct" ivory-billed woodpecker. Along with last year's maybe sighting, it's possible the bird, the Lord God Bird, may be living in places other than Cuba. Yeah, sure, how could a bird made extinct in the good, old, legal-to-torture USA still be living in Cuba, that evil, backward Communist state?*

After spending months in remote northwest Florida swamps searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker, researchers say they have seen and heard the rare bird once believed to be extinct.

But Auburn University ornithologists, who published their findings in Canada's Avian Conservation and Ecology journal online Tuesday, failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker, which makes a distinct double rapping sound.

That lack of evidence means doubt about the bird's return remains.

*Infant mortality: USA - 7 per 1,000 (We rank 29th in the world.)

"According to the CDC, 75 babies die each day in the USA...."

Go here to check the numbers.

Cuba - 6.3 per thousand.

Life Expectancy: USA - 76.1 (year 2000)
Cuba - 76.2 (year 2000)

Literacy Rate: USA - 97%
Cuba - 96%

Go here for more interesting data on the two countries. Some of the figures in this link differ slightly from some of the ones cited above. They are minor difference, however. But the point is, the ivory-billed woodpecker has life in Cuba, albeit without a market economy.

One Less

One son-of-a-bitch down. What a hypocrite. Many more to go, but it's a start.

Fat Of The Land

From Mr. Greenwald.

These two coddled authoritarian cultists are giggling about people who have been put into cages for the last five years on an island, away from their lives and their families, with little hope of ever being released. Many of them have attempted suicide. Actual terrorists ought to be detained and sentenced to life in prison or, reasonable people can believe, executed, provided they are found guilty in a fair proceeding. But large numbers of these detainees have been imprisoned without ever being charged with, let alone convicted of anything. And it is beyond dispute -- even the Bush administration admits -- that many of those we have detained in Guantanamo have been guilty of absolutely nothing.

To sit around chortling about how great these detainees have it and how grateful they should be requires a sociopathic derangement that is nothing short of grotesque. And to believe that people on a one-day controlled visit get an accurate or complete picture of what goes on there requires a blind faith in the Government so absolute that it is explains most of what one needs to know about the authoritarian Bush movement. On the day our country legalized tortured techniques and vested the definitively un-American power of indefinite detention in the President, Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn take off their masks and reveal the hideous and frivolous face of the Bush follower.

Fat bastards.

Nothing, Part Deux

Via Atrios.

TPM Muckraker.

So in exchange for political contributions, Mehlman made sure the Choctaw got their $16 million contract. I believe that's called a quid pro quo.

It's by no means the only example of Mehlman's favors.

In 2001, he made sure a State Department official wasn't re-nominated for his post -- the official, Allen Stayman was a long-time foe of Abramoff's.

And according to a report from the Justice Department's Inspector General, Mehlman ordered one of his suboordinates at the White House to keep Abramoff updated on issues related to Guam; Abramoff was keen to see the U.S. Attorney there replaced.

In March, Mehlman told Vanity Fair, "Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper."

But, of course, it means nothing, as well.

Nothing

This means nothing.

This means nothing.

This means nothing.

This means nothing.

We no longer live in a decent, honorable country. We are now officially a country that can torture with the best of them. Proud? Feeling safer yet?

A Laugh

First laugh over two seconds I've had in a few days.

Cinnamon Stouffer?

I admit I never watch CNN:Headline News for fear of a Glenn Beck or Nancy Grace siting, but there's a person on earth who chose to go by the name Cinnamon Stouffer and she's a news anchor and not a porn star (or a microwave pastry)?

Get the fuck out!

Dave Obey

Dave makes some errors, mainly he's conflicted about being a Roman Catholic & a free citizen. He does, however, say & do many good things. Years & years ago, in fact, during Dave's first run for a full term, my father was running for county clerk. I was bartending at the local Labor Temple & there was a meeting of all the Democratic candidates. At the time, I was under the influence of the county Democratic chairman, who, it turns out, was an O'Konski (a local ReThug) plant. Dave Obey, while in line with the local Democratic candidates looked at this person & said something to the effect of "Why don't you go join the party you really belong to?" It was, as I found out, true. A good beginning in politics. My dad lost his election, but Dave Obey won & hasn't lost since. Here he says a lot about the present ReThug behavior in Congress.

Angry Democrats lashed Hastert for trying to change the outcome of votes in the conference committee he did not like. "What is this, the Soviet Parliament?" asked ranking House Appropriations Committee member David Obey, D-Wisc., accusing the leadership of making "decisions behind closed doors, regardless of the rules."

That's right on the money, "...regardless of the rules." Just like the Bu$hCo & Cheney, et.al. The ReThugs don't want to govern, they want to rule. Their way, or the highway.

Bizzare Bush

Froomkin has the right idea. Good read it all. Please.

And yet Sanger is being too gentle, because this is perhaps the ultimate Bush straw-man argument, this one so absurd is almost defies description.

No one is suggesting that the invasion of Iraq was responsible for terrorist act that predate that invasion! The argument is that invading Iraq has made the threat of terrorism since then worse than it otherwise would have been. Reciting past terrorist acts is almost laughably nonresponsive. And yet it's a staple of Bush's argument.
....
What's even more astonishing than the fact that the president makes a mockery of legitimate criticism rather than confront it is the fact that the press corps routinely lets him get away with it. Aside from a few paragraphs here and there, like those from the Sanger story above, most reporters quoted Bush's statements without putting them in the appropriate context.

Worst. President. Ever.

Call For The Biker Babes

I just got back from seeing The Kid & The Twins. I again was able to gavage both of the babies. They are so young & so sweet & so not into torture. I am also so fucking depressed about this country. Please use the following TOLL FREE - that means it won't cost you anything - number & call your senator. Say something simple like:

Please, don't support the torture bill, it goes against everything that is moral & right.

Just do it. Do it for The Twins. Here's the number:

1 866 808 0065

& here are the Biker Babes. You've got to start them young, you know.

Biker Lucy

Biker Marigny

Just Over The Border

In Illinois, the ReThug candidate for aldulterer Henry "Impeachment" Hyde's congressional seat said something about his opponent that rivals this for awful meaness.

Eight years of his married life Hyde enjoyed having an affair with a married woman named Cherie Snodgrass. The relationship even continued for two years after Hyde’s wife found out about it, which incidentally was the same time that Cherie found out that that there even was a Mrs. Hyde. How could a man who held a very public seven year affair while in office even begin to cast judgment on someone who traveled the same path, much less in the name of family values?

Tammy Duckworth, an Iraqi war veteran, was accused by her opponent as being for an Iraq policy of "cut & run". Here's a pic of Democractic candidate Duckworth.

The no class ReThug show how they support the troops. If you want to help Tammy Duckworth, go here.

Jesus Was Never Naked

More idiocy from Texas & the right-wing ReThugs.

An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.

Via BooMan.

Big Turtles

Big as a car.



Thought I was kidding, didn't you?

This Guy Just Died

Sick, Sick Bastards

Here's how Dan Bartlett, a White House Counselor to Bu$hCo, described the "compromise" worked out over torture:

"We proposed a more direct approach to bringing clarification. This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there."

This is a White House person, & he describes getting to a torture permitting bill as "the scenic route"? Jesus Christ stuffed with fish, what have we become? & this follows on Bu$hCo's remark to Wolf Blitzer concerning Iraq:

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there's a strong will for democracy.

Via The Carpetbagger Report.

Here's a breakdown of Bu$hCo's historical comma:

American dead - 2703
American wounded - 19,945
Other coalition troops - 232
US military deaths - Afghanistan - 338

As far as the Iraqi deaths, well, remember Tommy Franks' response to a question about how many Iraqis were killed.

“We don’t do body counts.”

The estimated Iraqi civilian death toll, from Iraq Body Count is a minimum of 43,491 & a maximum of 48,283. Quite a comma, eh? & these "leaders" have shown absolutely no ability to understand mistakes & then correct them. They have really fucked up the country. On a decidedly brighter note, I was able to gavage The Twins this a.m. & can report that they are growing cuter by the minute. They also seem to have an iron will when it comes to understanding the use of the human nipple. Understand, however, that they are still a week away from the normal gestation for twins, that's right - The Twins are a month old. Pics to follow.

Patriot

Via Corrente via Atrios, we get Pat Leahy saying this:

For weeks now, politicians and the media have breathlessly debated the fine points and political implications of the so-called "compromise" on proposed trial procedures for suspected terrorists. In doing so, we have ignored a central and more sweeping issue. Important as the rules for military commissions are, they will apply to only a few cases. The administration has charged a total of 10 people in the nearly five years since the president declared his intention to use military commissions, and it recently announced plans to charge 14 additional men. But for the vast majority of the almost 500 prisoners at Guantánamo, the administration’s position remains as stated by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld three years ago: It has no interest in trying them.

Today we are belatedly addressing the single most consequential provision of this much-discussed bill, a provision that can be found buried on page 81 of the proposed bill. This provision would perpetuate the indefinite detention of hundreds of individuals against whom the government has brought no charges and presented no evidence, without any recourse to justice whatsoever. That is un-American, and it is contrary to American interests.

Going forward, the bill departs even more radically from our most fundamental values. It would permit the president to detain indefinitely—even for life—any alien, whether in the United States or abroad, whether a foreign resident or a lawful permanent resident, without any meaningful opportunity for the alien to challenge his detention. The administration would not even need to assert, much less prove, that the alien was an enemy combatant; it would suffice that the alien was "awaiting [a] determination" on that issue. In other words, the bill would tell the millions of legal immigrants living in America, participating in American families, working for American businesses, and paying American taxes, that our government may at any minute pick them up and detain them indefinitely without charge, and without any access to the courts or even to military tribunals, unless and until the government determines that they are not enemy combatants.
....
The most important purpose of habeas corpus is to correct errors like that. It is precisely to prevent such abuses that the Constitution prohibits the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus "unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." I have no doubt that this bill, which would permanently eliminate the writ of habeas for all aliens within and outside the United States whenever the government says they might be enemy combatants, violates that prohibition. And I have no doubt that the Supreme Court would ultimately conclude that this attempt by the Bush-Cheney administration to abolish basic liberties and evade essential judicial review and accountability is unconstitutional.
....
The administration’s sudden and belated haste to move ahead makes no sense, other than as a matter of crass electoral politics. We are taking a first look at a bill that the administration claims is central to the decisive ideological battle of the 21st Century, a bill that would suspend habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War, and a bill that, if enacted, will almost certainly be used by America’s enemies as a pretext for the torture and indefinite detention without judicial review of Americans abroad.

If the administration and the Republican leadership of the Senate believe that suspending the writ is constitutional and justified, they should grant the joint request that Chairman Specter and I made last week for a sequential referral of the bill. Constitutional issues involving the writ of habeas corpus are at the center of this Committee’s jurisdiction. We can and should review this legislation thoroughly, and if a few habeas petitions are filed in the meantime, we will not lose the War on Terror as a result of those filings. If this Congress votes to suspend the writ of habeas corpus first and ask questions later, liberty and accountability will be the victims.

Now those are the words of a true patriot, not some dickhead named Dick or George or Don or Condi. Emphasis added.

Good Old Wisco

I'm impressed with this. Bu$hCo needs impeachment, no, make that America needs impeachment. This comes to me from Joe, the New Guy & the lovely & talented Mrs. Joe, the New Guy.

On November 7th WI Rapids citizens may be able to vote whether they think impeachment investigations should be started against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They would be joining nearly 1 million other citizens across the U.S. who will be voting that day on impeachment.

Monday, September 11, 2006, the Wood County Impeachment Coalition turned in nearly 950 signatures of Rapids citizens asking the city to place an impeachment investigation referendum on the November 7th ballot. The referendum states: "Resolved: The U.S. House of Representatives should start an impeachment investigation against President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney now.” Voters will then vote yes or no to adopt the resolution. “If adopted, it will be sent to the WI Congressional delegation, the Congressional leadership and to the president and vice president," said Robert Hoch, petition drive leader.

Pet Cemetery

This is very cool. I'm glad that my friends from Cincinatti, OH (late of the suburbs of Lansing, MI) & I aren't the only one with places in the ground for our pets.

Even in ancient Peru, it seems dogs were a man's best friend. Peruvian investigators have discovered a pre-Columbian culture of dog lovers who built pet cemeteries and buried their pets with warm blankets and even treats for the afterlife.

"They are dogs that were thanked and recognized for their social and familial contribution," anthropologist Sonia Guillen said. "These dogs were not sacrificed."

The Twins & Torture

Even with the great joy of twin granddaughters bouying my spirits, this whole torture "debate" has really got me down. & pissed. Down & pissed is not the way it ought to be, what with the granddaughter's dark eyes & cute noses & pursed lips & little open hands that seem to say "no, no, wrap me back up, remember, I'm way early." The last thing that I thought would be a result of the 1960s is that America would allow the stealing of two presidential elections by a man who thinks, if you can call it that, that he is on some holy crusade. In today's WaPo, Ariel Dorfman has a good piece in which he begins with a torture victim from Chile:

It still haunts me, the first time -- it was in Chile, in October of 1973 -- that I met someone who had been tortured. To save my life, I had sought refuge in the Argentine Embassy some weeks after the coup that had toppled the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, a government for which I had worked. And then, suddenly, one afternoon, there he was. A large-boned man, gaunt and yet strangely flabby, with eyes like a child, eyes that could not stop blinking and a body that could not stop shivering.

That is what stays with me -- that he was cold under the balmy afternoon sun of Santiago de Chile, trembling as though he would never be warm again, as though the electric current was still coursing through him. Still possessed, somehow still inhabited by his captors, still imprisoned in that cell in the National Stadium, his hands disobeying the orders from his brain to quell the shuddering, his body unable to forget what had been done to it just as, nearly 33 years later, I, too, cannot banish that devastated life from my memory.

It was his image, in fact, that swirled up from the past as I pondered the current political debate in the United States about the practicality of torture. Something in me must have needed to resurrect that victim, force my fellow citizens here to spend a few minutes with the eternal iciness that had settled into that man's heart and flesh, and demand that they take a good hard look at him before anyone dare maintain that, to save lives, it might be necessary to inflict unbearable pain on a fellow human being. Perhaps the optimist in me hoped that this damaged Argentine man could, all these decades later, help shatter the perverse innocence of contemporary Americans, just as he had burst the bubble of ignorance protecting the young Chilean I used to be, someone who back then had encountered torture mainly through books and movies and newspaper reports.

Bu$hCo's legacy - a man who can never again be warm, like The Twins, bundled in soft felt blankets, Lucy with a cap on, Marigny, the heat machine, bare headed. A man who will never be calmed in the arms of anyone.

Also in today's WaPo, Edwidge Danticat has a piece on Haitian torture. I commend the Washington Post for putting these two piece in the paper. I wish Senators McCain, Warner, & Graham would read them. Danticat mentions Carolyn Forche's poem The Colonel. I read the poem 25 years ago. & as I've said many times, this is not the country I envisioned 40 years ago. I thought I'd be living in a country that was honorable, that would not even be discussing torture as a means to an end, that would not be condemning a generation to worldwide hatred & humiliation, that didn't care about its own people. I, & many others, are handing The Twins a hell of a problem. Anyway, here's the poem:

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daugher filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken
bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps
from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were
gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine,
a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then
of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The
colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me
with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves.
There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our
faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around,
he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air.
Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

This is Bu$hCo's legacy, severed ears on the floor. I hope the bastard is happy.

No Surprise

I, & many others, told you so. But you know, that doesn't make me feel any better. It just makes by sad & mad.

Twit Gets Punched

Good for Clinton. He bitchslapped that twit Wallace over at Stupid News. Read the transcript here. Go read it. Reading is good.

Nice Job, Bu$hCo

Too bad you didn't finish it.

In a small, sunlit parlor last week, 20 little girls seated on rush mats sketched a flower drawn on the blackboard. In a darker interior room, 15 slightly older girls memorized passages from the Koran, reciting aloud. Upstairs was a class of teenage girls, hidden from public view.

The location of the mud-walled home school is semi-secret. Its students include five girls who once attended another home school nearby that was torched three months ago. The very existence of home-based classes is a direct challenge to anti-government insurgents who have attacked dozens of schools across Afghanistan in the past year, especially those that teach girls.

"We are scared. All the home schools are scared. If I even hear a dog bark, I don't open the gate. I go up on the roof to see who is there," said Mohammed Sulieman, 49, who operates home schools for girls in several villages in the Sheikhabad district of Wardak province.

Children's education was once touted as an exceptional success in this struggling new democracy. Within two years of the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, an extremist Islamic movement that banned girls' education and emphasized Islamic studies for boys, officials boasted that 5.1 million children of both sexes were enrolled in public schools. These included hundreds of village tent-schools erected by UNICEF.

Now that positive tide has come to a halt in several provinces where Taliban insurgents are aggressively battling NATO and U.S. troops, and has slowed dramatically in many other parts of the country. President Hamid Karzai told audiences in New York this week that about 200,000 Afghan children had been forced out of school this year by threats and physical attacks.

Jesus Christ

Sen. Graham, what a tool. He's happy to support torture & suspend habeas corpus. Nice job ReThug "dissidents".

Go do what Susie Madrak & Atrios say. What a pitiful country we've become. Thank him for taking a courageous stand in support of torture and against habeas corpus.

Washington Office
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5972 phone

Water, Water

Everywhere.

European scientists voiced shock as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.
....
"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low-ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater of ESA's Oceans/Ice Unit.

"It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty."

It's hard to believe that there are any non-believers left.

Bu#hCo & Global Warming

Talk about bringing nothing to the sauna.

"It's good as far as it goes, but it needs to go a lot further," House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) said in an interview after the hearing. "It's good to look ahead, but people expect something immediate, as well as futuristic."

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who has scheduled a hearing today on climate change research, said the administration failed to spell out how future research will be funded.

"They address the need for research but give a very convoluted answer as to how that's going to occur," Davis said in an interview. "What we're asking is, is this sufficient? You've got to have some teeth and focus."

Even fellow ReThugs think the "strategic" plan stinks.

No Roads

Excellent.

A federal judge Wednesday reinstated a Clinton administration ban on the building of roads in untouched sections of national forests.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmentalists who sued to protect forest land.

The Clinton administration prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of forest land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. In 2005, the Bush administration replaced the rule with a voluntary state-by-state petition process.

The judge overturned the new regulations.

Ancestors

Extremely cool.

Tom Petri

Ought to be ashamed, but he won't be. Eric Westhagen ought to be forced to abide by the contract his family signed with the government. If you're a ReThug, apparently, you can just ignore anything.

If It's Monday

It must be Fishday. Well, no, everyday is Fishday for those of us who live good lives. Bluefin tuna are hitting the skids in the Mediterranean Sea.

Feeling Safer Yet?

Another Bu$hCo failure. & these are the guys touting themselves as the protectors of the fatherland? Whooooeeeee.

The last of the anthrax-laced letters was still making its way through the mail in late 2001 when top Bush administration officials reached an obvious conclusion: the nation desperately needed to expand its medical stockpile to prepare for another biological attack.

The result was Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion effort to exploit the country’s top medical and scientific brains and fill an emergency medical cabinet with new drugs and vaccines for a host of threats. “We will rally the great promise of American science and innovation to confront the greatest danger of our time,” President Bush said in starting the program.

But the project, critics say, has largely failed to deliver.

So far, only a small fraction of the anticipated remedies are available. Drug companies have waited months, if not years, for government agencies to decide which treatments they want and in what quantities. Unable to attract large pharmaceutical corporations to join the endeavor, the government is instead relying on small start-up companies that often have no proven track record.

My emphasis. I wonder how many of Bu$hCo's friends got contracts? I wonder if Neil Bush got a contract? We may never know.

Goodbye?

Maybe.

-- In Ohio, Dem Sherrod Brown now leads GOP Senator Mike DeWine by six points, 47%-41%. Last month, a Rasmussen poll showed that Brown's lead was statistically insignificant.

-- In Rhode Island, Dem Sheldon Whitehouse is head of GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee by eight points, 51%-43%. A little over two weeks ago, Rasmussen had Whitehouse ahead by only two points.

-- And in Montana, after a series of bad gaffes by GOP Senator Conrad Burns, Dem Jon Tester is ahead of the incumbent by nine points, 52%-43%. They were tied at 47% in August, according to Rasmussen.

Note that all three trailing Republicans are incumbents.

Thank Goodness

& I always dismissed it as wind through the pines. It was a great rationalization. Now I know it's OK. I think, but I wish that one voice would stop telling me to stay home & polish my guns.

Researchers at Britain's Manchester University have said hearing voices is not necessarily a sign of mental illness.

Bluegill Warriors

Maybe our pet bluegill has a future in law enforcement.

That Other Country

The result of the United States' world leadership. Pathetic. I guess Bu$hCo doesn't mind that Poland offered just 10 soldiers, yes, 10, since they allowed use of their soil for the CIA's secret prisons, used for the torture of people.

...an inquiry by the 46-member Council of Europe in June singled out Poland, which is a member of the European Union, and especially Romania, which is due to join the EU in two years, as the two most likely locales for secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

But Bu$hCo can't convince our allies to do more in Afganistan, where the real battle against terrorism is continuing, & not very well, by the way.

More than a week after NATO's top leaders publicly demanded reinforcements for their embattled mission in southern Afghanistan, only one member of the 26-nation alliance has offered more troops, raising questions about NATO's largest military operation ever outside of Europe and the goal of expanding its global reach.

The plea for more soldiers and equipment to fight resurgent Taliban insurgents comes as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's forces are suffering the highest casualty rates of the nearly five-year-long conflict in Afghanistan, and as European governments are feeling stretched by the demands for troops there and in Iraq, Lebanon, the Balkans and in several African countries.

More Sad Truth, But Really Great Whitefish

The SideKick & Mrs. SideKick & I went out to dinner last night. At the SideKick's suggestion, I ordered a herb encrusted whitefish filet. It was absolutely great. It was so good I bought dinner to celebrate my new grandfatherhood. It put me in a good mood. We also talked about this article in The Washington Post. One of the interesting things about the present hubbub about the early clusterfuck in Iraq in regards to the Coalition Provisional Authority is that we already knew about it. See here & here & here. There is so much to read on this subject, that I will stop at those three links. However, the present interest is of use, as well. It helps focus attention on Bu$hCo's ideological extremism. Bu$hCo is no fearless leader defended the homeland, I hate that word. He is an ideologue of the worst bent. Here's a bit of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's article in today's WaPo. The article is from his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City. You can buy the book here.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon. To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Oh, yeah it's important for the rebuilding of Iraq that your views on the constitutional right to an abortion are known to the President. Of course, O'Beirne is the husband of this person:

who said this in Salon. If you want to read it all, just listen to the ad.

O'Beirne blames the feminist movement for the breakdown of the family, the feminization of society, a weakened military, an exaggerated sense of the epidemic of domestic violence, an invented wage gap, and the degradation of motherhood.

Oh yeah, again. The Kid's brand new identical twins, the loving son-in-law, her feminist mother, me, her feminist mother-in-law, her father-in-law, her brother-in-law have just been destroyed by feminism. What a fucking loon.

Billmon writes from the Whiskey Bar:

The reasons for the CPA's FEMA-like failures were both polymorphous and perverse, but the biggest problem (not counting the complete lack of pre-war planning, the petty bureacratic squabbles between Defense and State, the utter cluelessness of Doug Feith and Donald Rumsfeld, and the sheer absurdity of trying to govern Iraq with a few thousand Americans, most of whom didn't speak Arabic and couldn't have found Baghdad on a map before they arrived -- and in some cases even after they did) was the Cheney Administration's deliberate decision to fill the CPA's ranks almost entirely with GOP party workers, campaign donors, hack politicians, think tank interns and assorted relatives of neocon VIPs, like Michael Ledeen's daughter. Thus the nickname. I'm tempted to call it the Mayor Richard J. Daley theory of colonial administration, but his patronage machine actually managed to deliver public services. .... But it wasn't the Washington Post or the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or any of the other corporate media that originally broke the story. It was the blogosphere's own Josh Marshall, Laura Rozen (of War and Piece) and Colin Soloway, writing for the Washington Monthly, in December 2003. That was almost three years ago. And now -- only now -- it's showing up on the front page of a major national newspaper.

Yes. Thanks for the SideKick, once again, for a great recommendation for dinner & the inspiration for this post. Oh yes, this is a whitefish:

They are a lot of fun in that incarnation, but just as much fun, in the hands of a good person, in this form:

Frank Rich

Via Raw Story, we get this exerpt from today's Frank Rich's column. It's about Bu$hCo's LIES.

The untruths are flying so fast that untangling them can be a full-time job. Maybe that's why I am beginning to find Dick Cheney almost refreshing. As we saw on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, these days he helpfully signals when he's about to lie. One dead giveaway is the word "context," as in "the context in which I made that statement last year." The vice president invoked "context" to try to explain away both his bogus predictions: that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq and that the insurgency (some 15 months ago) was in its "last throes."

The other instant tip-off to a Cheney lie is any variation on the phrase "I haven't read the story." He told Tim Russert he hadn't read The Washington Post's front-page report that the bin Laden trail had gone "stone cold" or the new Senate Intelligence Committee report contradicting the White House's prewar hype about nonexistent links between al-Qaida and Saddam. Nor had he read a New York Times front-page article about his declining clout. Or the finding by Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war that there was "no evidence of resumed nuclear activities" in Iraq. "I haven't looked at it; I'd have to go back and look at it again," he said, however nonsensically.

Rather than tune this bluster out, as the country now does, let's try a thought experiment. Let's pretend everything Bush said is actually true and then hold him to his word. If the safety of America really depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad, then our safety is in grave peril because we are losing that battle...

Local Global Warming

I wish the Packers were this hot.

Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group released a report Thursday analyzing temperature increases in various locations throughout the state. According to the report, Green Bay's average temperature is up 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit since 2000, compared with the previous three decades (1971-2000).

September 10, 2006

Chicago Bears 26 Final
Green Bay Packers 0

Who, Among Us, Would Have Ever Thought

That torture, the legalizing of torture, would ever be debated in any division of our, government Of the United States of America? This is such a disgusting fucking spectacle, that I just don't have the energy to get really pissed off. The historical legacy Bu$hCo so sorely wants will be nothing but toture, vaniety wars, & absolutely no accountability. I hope the spoiled brat is happy. I agree with this assessment, as well.

I am beyond being able to assess the political implications, one way or the other, of this spectacle. Regardless of which version of the bill finally passes, this debate is a black mark on the soul of the nation. Of course passage of a pro-torture bill will diminish U.S. standing internationally and jeopardize the safety and well-being of U.S. servicemen in future engagements. But merely having this debate has already accomplished that. Does anyone honestly believe that if Congress rebuffs the President in every respect that the rule of law and the inviolability of human rights will have been vindicated? Of course not.

The Republicans have defined deviancy down for the whole world, including every two-bit dictator and wild-eyed terrorist.

Feeling safer?

Ann Richards, Again.

Molly Ivins tells some stories. Ms. Richards was the kind of Democrat that we need, liberal, funny, tough, honest.

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

Via Susie Madrak.

Crapheads

As I've said before, sons-of-bitches is way too kind for these ReThug bastards.

Atrios is right when he says the right-wingnuts will drop these first responders like a hot rock when health care becomes an issue. Not germane my ass.

Yesterday, Republican Senators blocked Senator Clinton's proposal to fund almost 2 billion for medical treatment for sick 9/11 responders. As reported in NYC's Daily News:

Senate leaders invoked parliamentary rules, saying Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) amendment to a measure funding port security was not "germane." – NY Daily News

As I have repeatedly explained this past week (1,2,3), the federal government’s response to the environmental effect of the WTC Ground Zero site almost precisely follow the profits over safety business model sometimes adopted by corporations.

Trenches?

This* is the result of Rumsfeld's of a new military?

"Current arrangements pretty much designed for the Cold War must give way to the new demands of war against extremists and other evolving 21st-century challenges," Rumsfeld said.**

....

Iraq's interior ministry has announced plans to increase security in Baghdad by digging trenches around the city, and surrounding it with checkpoints.*

Apparently, Iraqis need to learn from Rumsfeld. Eh, not so much.**

But one clear winner in this first major war of the 21st century is likely to be Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
(April 11, 2003, ed.)

What A Relief

I was really worried about this test. You can't imagine how worried I was.

An international research team led by Prof. Michael Kramer of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK, has used three years of observations of the "double pulsar", a unique pair of natural stellar clocks which they discovered in 2003, to prove that Einstein's theory of general relativity - the theory of gravity that displaced Newton's - is correct to within a staggering 0.05%. Their results are published on the14th September in the journal Science and are based on measurements of an effect called the Shapiro Delay.

Amur Tiger Time, Sad Edition

Too bad.

The smallest of three rare Siberian tiger cubs born at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium died Thursday, zoo officials said.

Respiratory problems likely caused the 5-week-old cub's death, the zoo said. But results of a necropsy performed Thursday won't be available for several weeks.

Zookeepers noticed the cub was lethargic Wednesday when its mother, Toma, allowed her three cubs to leave the den where they were born Aug. 8. Veterinarians tried to treat the cub, but its condition worsened.

The 4-pound female was half the size of her brother and sister, the zoo said.

There are only about 400 Siberian tigers in the wild and about 190 in U.S. zoos. Their mortality rate in the wild is about 30 to 40 percent.

Mary Landrieu, Mary Landrieu

Credit where credit is due. Mary Landrieu says it right.

Only In Wisco

Cripes, Green Bay can't even, oh, well.

A passerby who described himself as a former pig farmer tried to wrestle the animal, but the animal pulled away from him as well, LePine said.

Giving Honesty The Finger

Integrity?

What integrity? Good job, Bu$hCo, I know it's hard work.

The Interior Department’s chief official responsible for investigating abuses and overseeing operations accused the top officials at the agency on Wednesday of tolerating widespread ethical failures, from cronyism to cover-ups of incompetence.

“Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,” charged Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general, at a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on energy.

“I have observed one instance after another when the good work of my office has been disregarded by the department,” he continued. “Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials — taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias — have been routinely dismissed with a promise ‘not to do it again.’ ”

Reservist Felt She Lacked Training

& now she's dead.

Ann Richards, R.I.P.

I remember her speech about Bu$hCo I & his silver spoon. I also remember her sitting in the front row of a Leonard Cohen appearance on Austin City Limits. He changed anal sex to casual sex, I suppose, for her.

Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

Good On Her

The Bonehead from Ohio gets his nuts handed to him by Nancy Pelosi. We need to keep this up on a local, state, & national level. I hope she & other Democratic leaders keep it up.

"I wonder if they are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "They certainly do not want to take the terrorists on and defeat them."

Trading barbs, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who had criticized the president's speech as inappropriately political, called Boehner's criticism "cynical tactics."

"Rather than try to defend their own failed record, Republicans have resorted to the desperation politics of fear," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "It is long past time for Republicans to be honest with American people and stop questioning the patriotism of those who recognize that the president's Iraq policy has not worked, is making us less safe and must be changed."

Emphasis mine.

Digital Decline

This is no surprise, particularly to those of us who live in the woods. It took Mrs. coldH2O & I until earlier this year to get DSL. It's better than nothing, although it's the slowest speed possible. But that's what happens when growing profits trumps growing the culture, the society, the educational system, etc., etc., etc., etc. I am very appreciative of how technology has & is helping my life. From the MRI scans on the computer screen in the doc's office (very cool & I was able to see what the problem was, & it, in fact, helped both the doc & I come to an agreement on treatment.) to the cell phone on my dashboard to the computer in my lap right now. But why the lag time? Why the crazy prices? Why the lousy service? Growing profits. That's all these people are interested in. They aren't concerned about growing customer service or customer loyalty or customer satisfaction. How 20th century. As my four loyal readers know, I'm old enough to remember ATT's monopoly on phone service. You know what? I was happy with it. When I picked up my phone it worked, yes, yes, occasionally thunderstorms would cause some problems. But it worked. & I didn't have to waste time deciding which phone package or company to chose. Life is too full of choices & the fewer the better, at least in my case. Anyway, another DUH! moment for Bu$hCo & America.

The U.S continues to lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to affordable and accessible broadband service according to a new report [Download pdf] by the media activist group Free Press, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union. The report also finds that contrary to the picture painted by the government, there is no sign that the digital divide in this country is closing.

The author of the report, S. Derek Turner said yesterday that, "President Bush set a goal of bringing universal, affordable high-speed Internet access to every household by 2007, We're nowhere close to reaching that goal. Yet the Federal Communications Commission seems content to ignore the problem, manipulate the data, and pretend we're moving forward."

Wish

I wish Jon Stewart was President & I want to have his babies, which is, of course, biologically impossible, but it is the thought that counts & it's like the only thought I've had in awhile. Hey, I can hear the snickers. Watch out or I will report y'all to, to, to...somebody.

Where There Is Heat

There is global warming & hellacious storms.

Scientists say they have found what could be the key to ending a yearlong debate about what is making hurricanes more violent and common -- evidence that human-caused global warming is heating the ocean and providing more fuel for the world's deadliest storms.

For the past 13 months, researchers have debated whether humanity is to blame for a surge in hurricanes since the mid-1990s or whether the increased activity is merely a natural cycle that occurs every several decades.

Employing 80 computer simulations, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other institutions concluded that there is only one answer: that the burning of fossil fuels, which warms the climate, is also heating the oceans.

Another Chance

To do the right thing. I just received the following from a friend. Those of you from WISCO need to get this message out. We can show the rest of the country what it means to be an American, a free American. This sort of disgusting bullshit cannot be allowed to stand. Thanks in advance.

2006 is going to be different.

Click here to ContributeProgressive voices everywhere are speaking up and telling the extreme right we've had enough of their divisive politics. As I travel all over the country campaigning for progressive candidates I see that people are energized and standing up strong against the failure of Republican leadership.

This year, in my home state of Wisconsin, the right-wing has placed a proposed constitutional amendment banning civil unions and gay marriage on our ballot in November. Make no mistake, they placed this measure on the ballot in a brazen attempt to divide voters and push turnout for conservative candidates.

In just 60 days, we will make history and show them tactics like these won't work anymore.

Defeating this discriminatory amendment matters not just for Wisconsin but for our entire country. Conservative Republicans put similar measures like this one on the ballot in 20 states in 2004. Twenty states have now amended their constitutions in such a way that discriminates against thousands of gay families all across America.

This year it must and will be different.

I am proud to say that Fair Wisconsin has built a strong statewide grassroots campaign to educate Wisconsin voters and to once and for all defeat this divisive political tactic. I need you to stand with me today in support of their efforts by making a contribution of $250, $100 or $50 by going to Fair Wisconsin's website to donate. Your gift will instantly be used to mobilize and educate hundreds of thousands of voters on the real impacts of the proposed ban.

I am proud to stand with Fair Wisconsin and fight the proposed amendment in my home state. I believe we can win here in Wisconsin and make history by being the first state to defeat one of these hurtful amendments. I hope you will stand with us today. Not just because it's my home state but because it will demonstrate that the only way to beat the right wing isn't to compromise on our core values but to stand up and fight back.

Fight discrimination today by going to Fair Wisconsin's website to donate and help Wisconsin make history this November.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold
U.S. Senator
Honorary Chair, Progressive Patriots Fund

This solicitation is asking for a donation of up to $2,100 per election from an individual's own funds and is not asking for contributions from corporations or labor organizations

Happy As A Clam

Takes an ominous turn. Hat tip, or cute little baby stocking cap tip to The Kid.

The antidepressant drug Prozac (fluoxetine) can disrupt the reproductive cycle of freshwater mussels and increase their risk of extinction, says a U.S. study presented Monday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, in San Francisco.

As with other drugs, remnants of Prozac are flushed from the body and travel in wastewater that reaches streams and rivers.

This study found that the drug causes female mussels to release their larvae before they're able to survive on their own.

"The results from this study were quite alarming. When larvae are released too early, they are not viable, which only contributes to the problems faced by struggling populations of native freshwater mussels," co-investigator Rebecca Heltsley of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, N.C., said in a prepared statement.

About 70 percent of the nearly 300 species of native North American freshwater mussels are extinct, endangered or in decline due to pollution, loss or alteration of habitat, increased sediment in rivers, and competition from invasive foreign species.

"The presence of Prozac and similar drugs in U.S. rivers and streams has likely compounded the problem. It's a big concern because freshwater mussels are such an imperiled group," Heltsley said.

Tuesday Morning Blog Mini-Roundup

Steve Gilliard at The News Blog.

I'm tired of being bullshitted.

Dr. Atta J. Turk via Atrios.

But the cancer will remain -- keeping you shitting your pants will be the Republican method of politics, keeping you angst ridden and afraid you'll shit your pants will be the Democratic mode.

Sadly,No!

Why do I loathe George W. Bush?

Tristero over at Digby's place.

The right knows exactly who are behaving like fascists - who are, in fact, fascists: themselves.

Dan Froomkin.

The White House would like you to believe President Bush is putting politics aside as he leads the nation in remembrance of the September 11 terrorist attacks of five years ago.

But it's not true.

Wow

Crooks & Liars has the video. Keith Olberman:

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.
Five years later this space… is still empty.
Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
—
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can nto dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground." So we won’t.
Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing — instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush… we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir — on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists… are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
—
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.
There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.
It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.
—
Just as the terrorists have succeeded — are still succeeding — as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero…
So too have they succeeded, and are still succeeding — as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney’s continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm.
Suddenly his car — and only his car — starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man’s lights go on.
As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced.
An "alien" is shot — but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help.
The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials areseen, manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there’s no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight.
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn."
—
When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American…
When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"… look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

Deflection Deception

Our taxes being spent on something worthwhile. Will the rest of the federal government do something about the problem? Naw, look, another #2 Al Qaeda leader caught. Wait, wait, don't tell me, there's a pre-9/11 Saddam/Al Qaeda connection. Well, not so much. &, of course, eh, not so not so much. I hate these bastards.

America, Missing

At least it's on a chain link fence, not a milk carton. From Hoffmania.

Good For Brad

I began reading A River Runs Through It to Lucy this morning while I was feeding her. Marigny may have heard some of it, although The Kid kept cooing & stuff to her. Then I ran across this article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. You go Brad.

Brad Pitt, ever the social activist, says he won't be marrying Angelina Jolie until the restrictions on who can marry whom are dropped. "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," the 42-year-old actor reveals in Esquire magazine's October issue, on newsstands Sept. 19.