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.