Wow

Via Raw Story, we get this from Frank Rich:

""What really angers the White House and its defenders about both the Post and Times scoops are not the legal questions the stories raise about unregulated gulags and unconstitutional domestic snooping, but the unmasking of yet more administration failures in a war effort riddled with ineptitude," Rich writes.

""It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press' exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security," Rich continues. "That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin."

"Ex-CIA Director Porter Goss should not be allowed to "escape into retirement unexamined," Rich argues, calling him "so inept that an overzealous witch hunter might mistake him for a Qaida double agent."

""His mission was not to protect our country but to prevent the airing of administration dirty laundry, including leaks detailing how the White House ignored accurate CIA intelligence on Iraq before the war," Rich writes.

"Rich ends his column by suggesting that if Air Force General Michael Hayden is confirmed by the Senate to replace Goss then "someone should charge those senators with treason, too.""

Storm Warning

Unintended consequences of ingnoring global warming. On the other hand, how much profit is adequate for insurance corporations? If shareholder value is being built on the backs of people who can only afford manufactured housing, then it's obscene. That never stopped a capitalist from making a buck, however.

""Spurring all of this is the belief that we're in for a prolonged period where we will have storms that are not only more intense, but also more frequent," said Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute."

I would add that it's much more than a "belief", according to this report, it's more like fact.

UPDATE: The SideKick suggests it may be in Intended consequence.

Oh Happy Days?

Via Booman we get this news, which, if correct, will make me/us very happy. So happy I may just let the girl bartender make me that Mint Julip from a recipe book. Something I usually avoid like ReThugs.

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Spying

More stuff on the clearly illegal Bu$hCo domestic spying scandal.

"If these allegations are true and the activities were being conducted under General Hayden while he was in charge of NSA then the administration should withdraw his nomination to be director of the CIA until Congress has full answers about the nature, reach, and legal basis of this program." - said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

Friday Random Ten

& on time.  No lawsuits today.

Living With War - Neil Young
Walk In The Dark - Eddie Kirkland
Black Magic - Astrud Gilberto
Goin' Down Slowly - Tom Waits
Ring Them Bells - Bob Dylan
To Be Next To You - Sue Foley
Bayou Breeze - Tab Benoit
Foot Of Canal Street - Paul Sanchez
Fortune Teller - Cyrile Neville
Bom-Bom-Du-Dao - The Radiators

NOTE:  Just bought & downloaded Neil Young's Living With War.  You need to go get this album.  You will not be disappointed.  Made me feel hopeful on a cold, rainy northern Wisco day.

Pony Time

29%. It's the Wall Street Journal. I feel all monied & hateful right now. Don't worry, it will pass.

Enemyster

Sadly, Ha!.

Floyd Patterson, R.I.P.

Floyd Patterson, who died yesterday at age 71, was a sensitive, soft-spoken man who became champion in the most violent sport of all and then was swept up in his times.

Woo-Woo That Smell

B.O. may be putting to fine a stink on the newest outrage from Bu$hCo. &, predictably, it's from Florida.

The federal agency that is charged with protecting Florida panthers, manatees and other endangered species has let developers write part of opinions on whether their projects would doom the animals to extinction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allowed developers and their consultants write “biological opinions,’’ or “BO’’ for short, because the agency is swamped with paperwork, according to a March 2005 Fish and Wildlife Service e-mail obtained by The St. Petersburg Times.

“To speed things up (due to our heavy workload) we are asking the consultant for each project that adversely affects panthers to prepare a BO based on a template BO that we will send you,’’ federal biologist John Wrublik wrote in the e-mail to RaeAnn Boylan, a consultant for a Lee County project to widen a road through panther habitat.

I Actually Like Women, I Like Them A Whole Lot

If you don't like the C word, or get all bent out of shape & start spouting words like colonized & misogyny & servant, etc., don't go here. If you have a sense of humor & are comfortable in your own skin, go & laugh.

Worth Repeating

Again & again & again.

Yup. And one more time for the slow readers amongst us:

A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

& I'll bet girls get the best parking spaces as well. Snark aside, this is an interesting article. Some highlights, for me, anyway:

"SOMEWHERE, in most women's conscious or unconscious minds, is the unspoken expectation that, if their marriages or relationships last, they will most likely outlive their partners. They know that their children, for whom they're primarily in charge, will grow up and leave. And they face a barrage of advertising and other societal cues that subtly but ever so steadily suggest that they're not getting older, they're getting invisible.

"But whether expected or a bolt from the blue, each loss, each change, each transition, offers a woman the chance to slightly alter course — or even try an entirely new path.
....

"Credit stamina, stoicism — or what researchers call resilience, meaning the ability to come back from serious adversity such as war, rape or the devastation of a hurricane. Regardless of the name, science is beginning to examine its source — a powerful combination of biology, social behavior and psychology, all of which conspire to give women some boosts that men don't have.
....
"But females themselves, as early as infancy, start acting in ways that could well protect them later. As babies, they send out stronger signals than males that they're open for communication. "Little girls raise their eyebrows, open their eyes wide, and give people the impression that they really want to talk," says Kraemer. Wanting to talk, and learning to speak about intimate feelings, serves women well for a lifetime, even in the most dire circumstances.
....
"The female instinct to call in the helper troops, that network of girlfriends, sets up a chemical cycle unique to women. When females feel stress, Taylor says, the hormone oxytocin is released. That encourages them to protect the kids and start the telephone tree going. Contact with children or friends releases more oxytocin, further calming them and everyone around them.
....
"The hormone works better at reducing stress for women, Taylor says, because estrogen apparently enhances the action of oxytocin, while testosterone seems to reduce its effect.

""What you see in the brain is lower activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, greater activity in prefrontal cortical regions and lesser activity in the hypothalamus among people with strong networks," says Taylor. Other researchers have connected those areas to heart rate and blood pressure regulation, as well as to emotions and empathy. Women literally carry around a network of support in their heads.

"That may be why those supportive girlfriends that women so famously cultivate don't have to be next door, down the block or even in the same city. Women just have to believe the network is there, and will rally when the SOS sounds."

ReThug Culture Of Corruption - CA Edition

It's getting better. This guy is the Chair of the Appropriations Committee in the House. Boy, these ReThugs seem to be going down in big-time flames. Ha.

Federal prosecutors have begun an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Californian who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, government officials and others said, signaling the spread of a San Diego corruption probe.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has issued subpoenas in an investigation into the relationship between Lewis (R-Redlands) and a Washington lobbyist linked to disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), three people familiar with the investigation said.

The investigation is part of an expanding federal probe stemming from Cunningham's conviction for accepting $2.4 million in bribes and favors from defense contractors, according to the three sources.

It is not clear where the investigation is headed or what evidence the government has. But the probe suggests that investigators are looking past Cunningham to other legislators and, perhaps, the "earmarking" system that members of Congress use to allocate funds.

Man, I Laughed Hard...

...at this: Go read the whole thing.

""And he believes that the power of the Almighty is stronger than the power of the chairman of the Democratic Party."

"It's a fair point. I once tried asking Howard Dean to turn an Evian bottle into a can of Steel Reserve, just like Jesus made wine from water. Unfortunately, he just sort of looked at me funny and had Kos' goon squad give me a full-frontal wedgie and throw me in the back alley behind DNC HQ. The bottom line is, if you want to throw a KILLER KEGGER, be sure to invite Jesus along instead of some loser-defeatist DEMONcrat."

More Bear

Interesting.