Blog sprinkles

Hilarious signs

Mofo snakes!:

THE EVERGLADES, Florida (Reuters) - The population of Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades may have grown to as many as 150,000 as the non-native snakes make a home and breed in the fragile wetlands, officials said on Thursday.

[snip]

"They eat things that we care about," said Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist, as he showed a captured, 15-foot (4.6-meter) Burmese python to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who was on his first fact-finding mission to the Everglades since the Obama administration took office.

With Snow maintaining a strong grip on its head, the massive snake hissed angrily at Salazar and the other federal officials who gathered around it at a recreation area off Alligator Alley in the vast saw grass prairie. It took two other snake wranglers to control the python's body.

"A snake this size could eat a small deer or a bobcat without too much trouble," Snow told Salazar before the secretary boarded an airboat for a tour of the Everglades.

How about small kids and elderly parents?!!1!? One more reason not to visit Florida....

How about making fuel efficient cars, you dimwits?

Industry Fears U.S. May Quit New Car Habit

Hunker down! The Mormons are coming!!

Blame already being prepared for the next inevitable terrorist attack.

Digby discusses an intelligent assessment by Richard Clarke about the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11. I think Clarke is being too kind. I believe the Bush administration had been waiting with bated breath to see what excuse (any excuse) they could use to attack Iraq, and although the attack was horrific, they used every bit of it to push their Neocon political agenda that had been waiting in the background for a decade. A decade. They just slotted tab A into slot B and they had their war.

The George Tiller this woman knew and loved.

Ameritaliban?

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their pow

Mingora, Pakistan in the Swat Valley destroyed during the fighting. The Taliban must be pleased.

In honor of North Korea, and Pakistan

Steve Bates of The Yellow Something Something (formerly known as The Yellow Doggerel Democrat) referred me to the wonderful Tom Lehrer and his song,"We will all go together when we go." Since I listened to it on YouTube, it has gotten stuck in my brain...

So I thought I'd share.



When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But don't you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.

We will all go together when we go.
All suffuse with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a Te Deum
When you see that I.C.B.M.,
And the party will be "come as you are."

Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

And we will all go together when we go.
Ev'ry Hottenhot and ev'ry Eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
And we will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.

(edited to match the YouTube version a bit more)

crossposted at SteveAudio

Amid all the blather and froth

Suddenly it's OK to call a judicial nominee a racist

Just keep on talking, you guys, you're making it more and more clear what the Republicans actually stand for....

One cool thing about a drought

You uncover bones of prehistoric beasts.

How nice!

New Credit Card Laws - watch more funny videos

Time for the plastic sheeting and duct tape

Or at least the face mask and bubble wrap suit...

International scientists say they have found the first evidence of resistance to the world's most effective drug for treating malaria.

The hard hat and bunny slippers?

Atlanta, GA (AHN) - Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa similar to the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus, which causes excessive bleeding like Ebola, infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall.

Although scientists are not yet sure how the first person became infected, they do know the bug usually comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, according to Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.

Well... we won't have to worry about these because we're all going to drown, dehydrate, starve, or burn up anyway:

Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming.

It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.

Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year — more than all the present world aid. The report comes from former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's thinktank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost $600bn a year.

Civil unrest may also increase because of weather-related events, the report says: "Four billion people are vulnerable now and 500m are now at extreme risk. Weather-related disasters ... bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods. They pose a threat to social and political stability".

All this fades into the background with this horrible horrible news:

FAIRFAX, Va. - Officials in northern Virginia are blaming Krispy Kreme doughnuts for clogging the sewers.

Fairfax County says the company has damaged its sewer system by dumping yeast and grease from a plant in Lorton.

County officials filed a lawsuit this month after the company refused to pay a US$1.9 million bill for repairs to the system.

Krispy Kreme says the charges are unfounded.

Yes, it is, actually...

Read Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope Blog.

So if they paint the Hummer white

Does this mean we have to stop pointing and laughing?

LONDON(AFP) (AFP) - US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday the Obama administration wanted to paint roofs an energy-reflecting white, as he took part in a climate change symposium in London.

The Nobel laureate in physics called for a "new revolution" in energy generation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But he warned there was no silver bullet for tackling climate change, and said a range of measures should be introduced, including painting flat roofs white.

Making roads and roofs a paler colour could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years, Chu said.

It was a geo-engineering scheme that was "completely benign" and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning, as well as reflecting sunlight back away from the Earth.

For people who found white hard on the eye, scientists had also developed "cool colours" which looked to the human eye like normal ones, but reflect heat like pale colours even if they are darker shades.

And painting cars in cool or light colours could deliver considerable savings on energy use for air conditioning units, he said.

Nancy Pelosi was right!

Three part series by Ernest A. Canning for Brad Blog: History of CIA Torture: Unraveling the Web of Deceit, Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Pelosi wants all the files to be opened to prove she is right. The Republicans want the files opened to prove she is lying and is therefore somehow culpable. Cheney wants only a few specific files to prove that his wonderful program of torture worked...

So let's open ALLLLLllll the files!! /rubs hands in anticipation

Keeping track of Sibel Edmonds

She has a blog, 1 2 3 Real Change.

What could possibly go wrong?

Britain has asked the United Nations to give it territorial rights to a large area of the South Atlantic Ocean.

The submission - before the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - is for territory around the Falkland Islands, which is also claimed by Argentina.

The area in question is beyond the 200 miles of territorial rights that states almost automatically get around their coastal waters.

It covers an area around the south Sandwich Islands, south Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

And the western limits of the claim are about 300 miles or so from the Argentine coast - about the same distance as the Falklands.

Rush is a deeply closeted troubled man

Exposed by his own words, no ifs, ands, or butts.

Want to hike in Nepal?

Wil Robinson of International Political Will is adventuring in the mountains and has pictures.

I know you are, but what am I?

Greg Sargent of the Plum Line at Who Runs Gov:

The emerging Democratic strategy on Sonia Sotomayor: Dems will try to make the coming fight not about her, but about the current state of the GOP. On MSNBC just now, Chuck Schumer argued that Sotomayor is a moderate and that GOP opposition will say more about the Republican Party's extremism than it says about any of Sotomayor's legal skills or opinions. Expect more like that.

Okay!

It breaks my heart

Proposition H8:

1 Million for Marriage Equality:
Watch our new "Fidelity" TV ad and sign the pledge!

The California Supreme Court's decision is extremely disappointing, but we don't have time to mourn the court's failure to restore marriage equality to California.

It's time to go on offense. To be fearless in our fight for equality. Starting right now.

We are all -- gay and straight -- working together to build a grassroots army to restore marriage equality to California.

Please sign the pledge and forward "Fidelity" to your friends!

We, the undersigned, are united in our refusal to accept a California where discrimination is enshrined in our state's constitution.

We pledge to repeal Prop 8 and restore marriage equality to California.

Join more than 700,000 Courage Campaign members ready to restore marriage equality to California. Help us reach 1 Million for Marriage Equality by adding your name now!

Mouth agape

Digby:

I assume the right will find ways to insult the new Supreme Court nominee's gender and ethnicity in a thousand different ways. But Glenn Beck, always in the vanguard, goes after her in a unexpectedly creative way:


"Does the nominee still have Diabetes? Could the Messiah heal her, or does she just not want to ask?"

Dear god.

Ceiling cat?

Ceiling fan cat...

In Flanders fields

(via Cosa Nostradamus of Blog Me No Blogs)

The poem by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


edited to honor the author of the poem. (Thanks, Steve!)

A wingnuttered male speaks out

About marriage and why gays threaten it. You'll need a drink. (link via Atrios)

Blue Star, Gold Star

Because of stories like this:

In Ohio recently, a woman who had a son in Iraq was told by her condominium association that she couldn’t put a Blue Star service flag in her window, signifying that she had a loved one in harms’ way. We need to pass legislation that guarantees military families can display service flags wherever they live.

Jon Stolz is asking us to sign the petition:

Today is Memorial Day, and for those of us who served, and the families of those who were lost in war, it is a solemn day.

We honor those who gave their lives in defense of the United States. While VoteVets.org is primarily made up of veterans from 21st century service, we’re immensely respectful of those who served with honor and made the ultimate sacrifice in generations past, and remember we owe our lives to them and their heroism.

And, while we honor those who lost their lives, it is also a time to remember that the families of the fallen are still alive, with a unique set of challenges that only those who lost someone in war could ever know. And, there are families who have a loved one serving, who worry for them every day.

Congressman John Boccieri, an Iraq war veteran who VoteVets.org PAC supported in his election, has introduced legislation guaranteeing that Blue Star Families and Gold Star Families (those who lost a loved one) can put a service flag in their windows in any residential property, without limitation. This bill just makes common sense.

We’re supporting his Blue Star/Gold Star Flag Act of 2009 (H.R. 2546) and are asking you to take today to join us in our petition to Congress to immediately pass the bill.

CLICK HERE TO LET BLUE STAR AND GOLD STAR FAMILIES HONOR THEIR LOVED ONES

Let’s use this Memorial Day to make sure that as we honor those who gave their lives, we also make a commitment allow all military families to properly honor their loved ones, too.

Sincerely,

Jon Soltz
Iraq War Veteran
Chairman, VoteVets.org

And Brandon, Peter, Brian and the entire VoteVets.org team

The top ten

Assholic conservatives are at it again. Here's a quote about Newt:

So just to clarify... when Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied to her during a briefing in 2002, it's "the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort" of all time. But when Newt Gingrich accuses the entire intelligence community of deliberately undermining the policies of the United States, he gets a standing ovation.

You'd better really like cats

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2001) — CHICAGO, August 27 — Researchers report that nepetalactone, the essential oil in catnip that gives the plant its characteristic odor, is about ten times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET — the compound used in most commercial insect repellents.

[snip]

Why catnip repels mosquitoes is still a mystery, says Peterson. “It might simply be acting as an irritant or they don’t like the smell. But nobody really knows why insect repellents work.”

No animal or human tests are yet scheduled for nepetalactone, although Peterson is hopeful that will take place in the future.

If subsequent testing shows nepetalactone is safe for people, Peterson thinks it would not be too difficult to commercialize it as an insect repellent. Extracting nepetalactone oil from catnip is fairly easily, he says. “Any high school science lab would have the equipment to distill this, and on the industrial scale it’s quite easy.”

Catnip is a perennial herb belonging to the mint family and grows wild in most parts of the United States, although it also is cultivated for commercial use. Catnip is native to Europe and was introduced to this country in the late 18th century. It is primarily known for the stimulating effect it has on cats, although some people use the leaves in tea, as a meat tenderizer and even as a folk treatment for fevers, colds, cramps and migraines.

A patent application for the use of catnip compounds as insect repellents was submitted last year by the Iowa State University Research Foundation. Funding for the research was from the Iowa Agriculture Experiment Station.

I'll take being chased by cats because DEET is not good for you or for anything else...

Essence of the GOP

Cup O' Joe has it figured out.

But I like bananas...

Krugman on what the economic collapse of California means to the US:

The recession has hit the Golden State hard. The housing bubble was bigger there than almost anywhere else, and the bust has been bigger too. California’s unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is the fifth-highest in the nation. And the state’s revenues have suffered accordingly.

What’s really alarming about California, however, is the political system’s inability to rise to the occasion.

[snip]

So will America follow California into ungovernability? Well, California has some special weaknesses that aren’t shared by the federal government. In particular, tax increases at the federal level don’t require a two-thirds majority, and can in some cases bypass the filibuster. So acting responsibly should be easier in Washington than in Sacramento.

But the California precedent still has me rattled. Who would have thought that America’s largest state, a state whose economy is larger than that of all but a few nations, could so easily become a banana republic?

On the other hand, the problems that plague California politics apply at the national level too.

Okay, then! Bananas for everybody!

And I'm digging my bunker deeper...

No! Really?

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

I think you could actually say HE LIED. He lied, lies and will lie. The essence of Dick Cheney. Torture and lies.

But it adds so much flavor...

ScienceDaily (May 22, 2009) — A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles -- the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles -- showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). Exposure to BPA, used in the manufacture of polycarbonate and other plastics, has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.

The study is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA, and thus suggests that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the liquid that people drink in sufficient amounts to increase the level of BPA excreted in human urine.

In addition to polycarbonate bottles, which are refillable and a popular container among students, campers and others and are also used as baby bottles, BPA is also found in dentistry composites and sealants and in the lining of aluminum food and beverage cans. (In bottles, polycarbonate can be identified by the recycling number 7.) Numerous studies have shown that it acts as an endocrine-disruptor in animals, including early onset of sexual maturation, altered development and tissue organization of the mammary gland and decreased sperm production in offspring. It may be most harmful in the stages of early development.

Seems that everything we eat has come into contact with plastic somewhere in its lifespan. Back to eating homegrown twigs and leaves... and storing them in ... glass? Stainless steel? Foil? Paper bags and newspapers?

Plastic is such a part of our lives. It's going to be hard to stop using it.

Military is trying to figure out why there is a surge in suicides

In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.

To deal with the problem, the Army has added to the ranks of mental health and substance abuse counselors. The service also required all units to cease operations for two to four hours to talk about suicide prevention in February and March.

Chiarelli's monthly meetings are the Army's way of sleuthing out patterns and identifying new policies to deal with the trend.

The answer to this puzzling problem is found within the same article. To help, I've bolded it.:

The Army's biggest challenge is that its volunteer force is in uncharted territory. Many soldiers are now in the midst of their third or fourth combat tour, and Army surveys show that mental health deteriorates with each one. Senior Army officials said they are focusing more resources, including extra mental health counselors, where troops are returning from multiple deployments. This year, Fort Campbell, Ky., which is home to the frequently deployed 101st Airborne Division, has had 14 suicides.

"We probably don't know how many mental health care providers we need after eight years of war and three and four deployments," Chiarelli said.

Um... guys. The military is broken. Soldiers are people and they are used up and tired. You can't have an Eternal War on a Noun and expect only a small percentage of the American population to fight it ... forever. You can't extend tours, use stop-loss, badger and harass soldiers into reenlisting, lie to get potential recruits to sign up, ignore signs of mental stress and ptsd, provide crappy veteran's care and not have a backlash.

How about this? Stop the wars. Bring the soldiers home. Focus the attentions of the mental health care providers on our troops at home who will need assistance in fitting back into society. It just might work!

Update: Remembered this post a little more than a year ago about the estimate of attempted suicides.... 12,000.

Blog sprinkles

When you really really want to have a digger toy that works.

Economic downturns force people to make cheaper cuts of beef taste delicious.

Oh, SHUT UP. Who the fuck cares what you feeling right now, Georgie? We're still digging out from the wreckage you caused during your eight horribly long years in office.

Bibles burned in Afghanistan ... by our military. Where are the frothing writhing religious wingnuts on this?:

The US army in Afghanistan has burned Bibles printed in local languages, a US colonel in Afghanistan has said, amid concerns they could have been used to try to convert Afghans.

"My understanding is that the [military] leadership confiscated these Bibles so that they could not be distributed around Afghanistan," Colonel Greg Julian told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

"It was their best judgement at the time, that the best way to deal with it, was to destroy them and I understand that they were burnt."

Al Jazeera broadcast footage earlier this month showing troops apparently discussing how best to convert Afghans to their faith.

How very odd: Gasoline prices swing higher before holiday. Who could have predicted this?!

Obama and Cheney at 40 paces:



Keith Olbermann's special comment:



The party that loves America so much that they'd never do anything to hurt it for partisan reasons?

The NRSC has just plowed another $750,000 into Coleman’s recount effort, raising questions about whether GOP donors are funding an effort they know is doomed merely to keep the seat empty as long as possible.

Asked about this, Van Dongen said the goal was to put Coleman in the seat, but added: “Is it better empty than in Franken’s hands? Hell, yeah.”

The horrors of a 'preventive-detention law'. President Obama, are you actually considering this?

When healers harm

From the CCR website:

Despite the health professions’ universally recognized duty to do no harm, doctors and psychologists have played a key role in the U.S. government’s policy of torture in its overseas prisons. They crafted and justified torture tactics, inflicted pain and oversaw abuse and enabled, covered up and turned a blind eye to cruel treatment. Yet, in the face of mounting evidence, government officials, licensing boards and professional associations defend their failure to act by saying “We do not have enough information.”

CCR disagrees. When Healers Harm presents the evidence for everyone, including those in institutional power, to examine.

It is time to hold accountable the healers who have harmed. Accountability is vital to survivors of medical torture and to health professionals, most of whom take seriously their commitment to do no harm. It is also necessary for the rest of us – as patients and members of civil society we have a right to treatment by health professionals who we can trust, and a right to a government that upholds the law.

Those in power have tortured in our name. We have an obligation to show them that America refuses to be a torturing society any longer. Join us in ensuring that those who choose to cover for torturers as a matter of political expediency come to see the pursuit of justice as a political necessity.

As I've said, we want their names. Before they slip unchecked back into our society. We want the names of those who thought torture was a good thing to do.

Win the war in pink boxer shorts!

Thank you for your service and your support of your squadron, sir. Whichever way you want to show up for battle....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday praised an Army soldier in eastern Afghanistan who drew media attention this month after rushing to defend his post from attack while wearing pink boxer shorts and flip-flops.

In fact, Gates said he wants to meet the soldier and shake his hand the next time he visits Afghanistan.

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage," Gates said in remarks prepared for a speech in New York.

"I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban. Just imagine seeing that: a guy in pink boxers and flip-flops has you in his cross-hairs. What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare," he said.

And I thought the military was afraid of anyone wearing pink!

Don't throw your plate scrapings into the garbage!

You could drive your car on that!: [my bold]

Scandinavian Biogas is investing about 10 million euros to upgrade a wastewater treatment plant in Ulsan and will soon start accepting food and other waste for processing into biogas, said Scandinavian Biogas President and CEO Thomas Davidsson.

"Producing biogas is a very effective way of taking care of the waste" as it can be used for heat, electricity and vehicle fuel, Davidsson said in an interview Wednesday. He was in Seoul to participate in the Seoul Climate Change Expo held in conjunction with the third C40 Large Cities Climate Summit.

Turning food waste into biogas can also contribute to efforts to stop global warming.

"If you dump it into the sea, methane will be produced," he said. "And methane released into the air is 21 times more aggressive than carbon dioxide. So it has a great impact on the greenhouse effect."

Ulsan is not alone in looking to Sweden for help. Seoul, South Korea's largest city with a population of over 10 million people, also sees potential in biogas and has teamed up with Swedish Biogas International AB on a pilot project.

"There is a lot of potential," Kjell Enstrom, who heads the company's operations in South Korea, said Thursday in an interview.

South Korea has the ability to produce biogas, Enstrom said, though not of a clean enough level to be used as fuel. That gives companies from Sweden, which has championed the technology, an advantage.

"Within 10 years I think it will be the main fuel in Sweden," he said.

Davidsson, of Scandinavian Biogas, said his company plans to initially sell the biogas to an industrial user in Ulsan for internal heating. The company has an agreement to run the facility for at least 15 years, he said.

Ulsan's Park said that as a long-term goal, the city wants to adopt the biogas system to all its public buses.

Davidsson said that among the advantages of biogas is that is a technology that, unlike ethanol, does not draw resources away from food production.

Take that, ethanol!

Pakistan meltdown?

Or not...

Journey to Pakistan's 'war zone'. (BBC put in those quotes.)


Excellent interactive map at the BBC site:



But read (listen to) what Juan Cole and Shahan Mufti say to Bill Moyers on his show:

BILL MOYERS: Both of you seem much more optimistic about Pakistan than I've heard many people talk about it in a long time.

JUAN COLE: That's because we lived there. It doesn't look like what it looks like on the outside. Americans think that Pakistanis are fundamentalists. And almost none of them are. You know, there are religious people, they're like Mexican Catholics. They go to shrines and pray for things. And the Taliban hate that. In fact, they attacked a shrine recently. And then there's this big urban middle class which is just growing like crazy. And they're all watching Indian movies, and dreaming about being in Bollywood. And so and then the economy has been doing good the last few years. You know, five, six, seven percent growth. I think it was the second largest growth in Asia. Of course, it's a low starting point. But I can't understand why there isn't more appreciation for the good news that's come out.

You know, in the past two years, the Pakistani public has demanded an end to a military dictatorship. On the grounds that it was violating the rule of law. They demanded free and fair parliamentary elections. They accomplished them. They voted the largest party they put in is the left of center or centrist secular party. They then went to the streets to demand the reinstatement of the secular civil Supreme Court. And you've had, really, hundreds of thousands of people involved in this movement for the restoration of democracy and the restoration of the rule of law. If this had happened any other place in the world, it would be reported in Washington as a good news story. Here, we've been told that it's a crisis. That it's a sign of instability and nuclear armed nation. I don't understand that.

SHAHAN MUFTI: That was one of the biggest moments in Pakistan in the last-- from my latest tour in the last six months. You were talking about the-- how anywhere else in the world this would have been celebrated. And, most definitely, this moment of the Chief Justice getting reinstated was the democratic moment for Pakistan, at least in the last 60 years, ever since its creation.

Because for the longest time, for decades the problem with Pakistan is that the army keeps disrupting the power balance and here the Pakistani people deliver a moment, the night that the Chief Justice got reinstated it was around 3:00 AM. And there were people gathered out, thousands of people gathered outside his house. And, in one corner, there were young students playing the guitar and singing nationalist songs.

And then the Islamists came with their flags and they were chanting, "Allah is great." And then the Justice Party people came and they were singing-- they were doing a cappella versions of nationalist songs.

And to see that all of these people had somehow come around, the absolutely secular to the very staunch Islamists, had come around this movement because they somehow, to them, it meant a step towards a stronger democracy. But only if, I think, that if the United States could find ways to engage that aspect of Pakistan.

So... do we ignore it? Panic? Or are we being manipulated yet again by government, military, and media to think of Pakistan as a volatile failing state?

Bad Day at BlackRock?

Or a really really lucrative one?

Robert Scheer sends up a warning flare:

How much do you know about the BlackRock hedge fund? Better bone up fast, now that the folks at BlackRock are calling the shots in the government’s trillion-dollar bailout program. As both The New York Times and The Wall Street journal reported on Tuesday, BlackRock execs are now directing key elements of the government program at a time when they stand to reap great profits from the fallout of a problem they helped create.

The U.S. picked BlackRock to manage the assets once controlled by AIG and Bear Stearns and to analyze the assets of Freddie Mac and Morgan Stanley. And as if that were not enough on its plate, the Treasury Department has just selected BlackRock to be one of the few firms trusted with using U.S. taxpayer dollars to buy toxic assets from the banks and then resell them in a process that presents enormous conflicts of interest with other BlackRock operations.

Bank of America, with a 47% ownership position in BlackRock, is also the owner of what was once Countrywide Financial, which led the pack in selling bad mortgages. The disposition of those failed properties under BlackRock’s tutelage will have much to do with BofA’s future profitability. As if that were not enough financial incest, the former president and other top executives of Countrywide now run a company created by BlackRock, which is profiting mightily by snapping up the sort of distressed loans that they originally had marketed.

Confused? You’re supposed to be. That’s the point of a successful hedge fund, a totally unregulated activity in which very rich people pool their money in order to more effectively rip off the rest of us. And BlackRock is at the top of that game, managing $1.3 trillion in assets. But in this round the stakes are far higher because BlackRock, which did a great deal to cause the economic meltdown, has now been put in charge of the government recovery effort.

Read the whole thing. And then decide just where in the garden you want to bury your family silver and jars of coins....

Games you do not want to play against a computer

The computer will win.

The torture thirteen

They're naming names. Whether or not they can possibly be shamed is another thing entirely.

Brilliant strategy

Banks go after credit card holders who pay their bills on time:

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

As they thin their ranks of risky cardholders to deal with an economic downturn, major banks including American Express, Citigroup, Bank of America and a long list of others have already begun to raise interest rates, and some have set their sights on consumers who pay their bills on time. The legislation scheduled for a Senate vote on Tuesday does not cap interest rates, so banks can continue to lift them, albeit at a slower pace and with greater disclosure.

I am one of those who pay off every month. My immediate and gut reaction to this?

Cease buying stuff.

Way to go, Banksters!

If Adam had this as a pet...

Where's the collar?

The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US.

The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.

The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.

Putting our trust in one single company

What could possibly go wrong?:

The ACLU has taken on a patent case for the first time in its nearly 90-year history. The government’s been allowing private companies to patent human genes. The ACLU thinks that violates the First Amendment and patent law. This is heady, complicated stuff. But when a patent creates a monopoly that restricts the free flow of information, a lot is at stake, and when we’re talking about something like genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer, real women are hurt. This video about the case features some of those women’s stories.

Thank you, ACLU!

Starry starry night

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Sing it!

It's Holy Crap Monday!

Liz Cheney frantically rewrites history to favor her father's actions. GQ takes on Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld made sure it was a crusade for Bush, a holy war.

We do too want an investigation over torture! More pictures of Bush administration's non-torture. Obama can't ignore this. It's all about trying to force a false confession to make a link between al-Qaeda and 9/11.

The latest excuse for torture is the SERE program... which caused great suffering to one young soldier. (The mother's letter is heartbreaking.)

Wish them luck:

A coalition of liberal groups filed petitions Monday seeking disbarment of Bush administration attorneys linked to memos on harsh interrogation techniques of detainees.

The Great Game continues under Obama.

Simon Johnson for the Atlantic:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

Just how economically stressed out is your community, how many homeowners are now underwater?

Governor Secession runs away.... from seceding.

Meat free one day a week

A city in Belgium shows how to save the planet by cutting back on meat consumption. Cows and chickens the world over applaud.

Did you ever imagine Americans would support torture?

Really?

Read Batocchio of the Vagabond Scholar:

Defending torture insistently means one's moral compass is pointing straight down to hell. I continue to believe it's essential to confront the dangerous and evil lie that torture "works" and that we're all going to die if we respect human rights, follow the law, or dare to investigate - let alone prosecute - the people responsible for these horribly shameful and criminal policies. However, as many have noted, that we are "debating" torture's usefulness at all means we've failed somehow as a society. As Scott Horton quipped in December 2008, "Perhaps for Christmas proper we’ll be treated to arguments for and against genocide, and on the fourth day of Christmas we’ll read the arguments for and against the practice of infanticide."

Read the entire post. No American, no real Christian, no human being could do these things to another. It's called torture. It's inhuman and inhumane.

And the Bush administration dug deep into the Dark Ages and brought it back.

It's called torture.

There is no other word for it.



Found at Digby's Hullabaloo.

Exactly.

Atrios:

Cheney and the gang tortured the shit out of people to get false information for an excuse to invade a country in a war which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people including over 4000 US troops.

Obsesses much, does he?

Obsesses over other people's sexuality a lot for a religious guy....

Dobson: Hate crimes bill could protect exhibitionism, fetishism, incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, urophilia, voyeurism, bestiality.

Apparently you need to hate stuff to show you love Jesus.

Dick Cheney hates America

Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson:

.....here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Want to explain this.... Dick?

Where's the can opener?

Stories that make you say....

Awwww: Pitcher rooming in assisted living center.

Boo fucking hoo: Banksters don't want credit card reform. They really don't want it. In fact... they would really like it if you wouldn't pay off your card every month.

Brrrr: Arctic survey of the thickness of sea-ice is completed.

Uh huh:

Congress will have legislation fixing the nation's healthcare system before lawmakers take their August recess, President Barack Obama and House Democrats announced on Wednesday, a day after a report from Medicare Trustees said the ailing health program may become insolvent in less than a decade.

Yay: Allowing texting police will help deaf people.

More Yays: Fixing up Stonehenge.

And the horror drags on

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier in Baghdad opened fire on his fellow soldiers Monday, a senior defense official said. Five U.S. soldiers were killed in the incident.

When can we bring them home?

To start the week

A warning:



And something to read:

The top ten conservative idiots.

Everybody in, nobody out

Medicare for all. (Via hipparchia of Over the Cliff, Onto the Rocks)

If Clint Eastwood was a cat

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

FIVE pounds of bacon? FIVE?

That's not a midnight snack, that's a trip to heart attack city.

A president we can laugh with

Not at. What a pleasure and what a relief!

President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Unloading on the NRA

Bryan of Why Now? is a sharpshooter.

Love you, Mom.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Blog sprinkles

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope Blog.

Prepare to be trampled in every Wal-Mart except New York?

The 401k pirates

Newspaper Narcissism

Pakistan's meltdown:

In the last few days, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Pakistanis have fled to North West Frontier Province, just south of the military operation, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond, citing provincial government data.

Another 300,000 Pakistanis are on the move or expected to flee the fighting, he said Friday.

The massive displacement is a result of "more widespread" fighting between Pakistani forces and Taliban militants as well as people taking "advantage of the partial lifting of curfews to move into safer areas," according to a UNHCR news release.

Those fleeing the recent fighting are in addition to 555,000 previously displaced civilians who have fled their homes in Pakistan's tribal region and North West Frontier Province since August, according to the U.N. agency.

Oh look, Kyrgyzstan is having problems with terrorism too...

The threat posed by Islamic militant groups in Central Asia, especially in the Kyrgyz and Tajik portions of the Ferghana Valley, appears to be growing, according to the US State Department’s recently released annual report on terrorism.

The State Department’s 2008 Country Reports on Terrorism, released April 30, suggest that the membership in Kyrgyzstan of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a group that the State Department says advocates "the establishment of a borderless, theocratic Islamic state throughout the entire Muslim world," grew from 5,000 in 2006 to 15,000 in 2008.

Words used to describe President Barack Obama.

Maybe we should reconsider the death penalty?:

A cyber hacker who claimed to have stolen the medical records of more than 8.3 million residents of the state of Virginia is demanding 10 million dollars for their return, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The FBI and state officials have confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

The report came a week after someone managed to take over a Virginia Department of Health website that monitors prescriptions to track the sales of controlled substances. The hacker shut down the site and posted a ransom note online, claiming to have stolen and encrypted the data and threatening to sell the data to the highest bidder if authorities did not pay him by Thursday.

"Attention Virgina," the demand read, "In my possession right now are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too."

Abba returns!

Roland Burris doesn't leave!

Don't you have a nuclear strike to predict or something?

Pat Robertson tries to reactivate fear and loathing of the gay, talking about the ultimate conclusion:



The only one who is perverted is you, Mr. Robertson.

Don't think even a firewall can stop this virus

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Norm?

Franken wins by +312 votes.

Number of days Norm Coleman seemed to lead: 43. (Nov. 4 through hand recount and end of rulings on challenged ballots: Dec. 17)
Number of days Al Franken has certifiably led: 140 (Dec. 18 to NOW)

Number of days since election day (Nov. 4): 183

Number of days until MN Supreme Court hears oral arguments of appeal of Coleman v. Franken: 26 (June 1)

You gonna take all day about this?

Because you lost and you look like a first class idiot.

Update: Biden shows class and meets with Franken.

(edited for clarity.)

Fox lies

Because they can't handle the truth.



Sign the petition.

Over the past two weeks alone, we have documented multiple instances of Fox News airing video clips of progressives that were cropped in a way that blatantly misrepresented their original statements.

Fox's distortive editing is evidence of a larger pattern at the network. These smears stand in stark contrast to basic journalistic ethics. Fox News is doing its viewers a disservice by providing them with blatant misinformation that blurs the line separating news and legitimate commentary from political activism and demagoguery.

Watch the video, then email Fox News and let them know we deserve the unedited truth, not manufactured smears.

You wouldn't hit a lawyer, would you?

I mean... it was all in theory and stuff. We couldn't have predicted they would take the memos and run with it....

Former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts.

[snip]

The memos offered support for waterboarding, slamming prisoners against a wall and other techniques that critics have likened to torture. The documents were drafted between 2002 and 2005.

The sweeping investigation, now in its fifth year, could shed new light on the origins of the memos. Investigators rely in part on e-mail exchanges between Justice Department lawyers and lawyers at the CIA who sought advice about the legality of interrogation practices that have since been abandoned by the Obama administration.

Two of the authors, Jay S. Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge in Nevada, and John C. Yoo, now a law professor in Southern California, faced a deadline of yesterday to respond to investigators.

Say no more!

Scientists unveil chocolate-fueled race car.

Human suffering is the same the world over

In a small anonymous home in the West Bank, a Palestinian academic has set up a project which is almost unheard of in the Occupied Territories.

Hassan Musa is the curator of a museum exhibition dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.

The cracked white walls of this makeshift museum in the village of Ni'lin are covered from floor to ceiling with images of people forced out of their homes, tortured, imprisoned, starved and murdered.

In addition to the pictures depicting the Nazi brutality against Jews in Europe, there are also images of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the violence in Palestine since.

On one wall, there is a picture of a scared Jewish boy holding up his hands as Nazi soldiers look on; the caption reads: "Make your final account with Hitler and the Nazi Germans, not with the Palestinians."

On an adjacent wall there are photos of dead children, demolished homes and women screaming during the Israeli war on Gaza in January.

Musa, who is also a member of Ni'lin's Popular Committee Against the Wall, says pictures of the atrocities committed against both peoples were strategically placed side-by-side to not only reflect the suffering of both and help Israelis and Palestinians better understand each other, but also to demonstrate how victims of one conflict can become the harbinger of another.

"The Palestinians have no connection to the Holocaust in Europe, but unfortunately we are paying the price of a misdeed we did not commit," he said.

Does this mean there'll be a Second Lady and a Third?

Or that Michelle had better have more kids?

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog:

Did the Mormons baptize Obama's mother, after her death, without his knowledge or consent?

How nice to know that when I die, I'll become a Mormon. I guess as long as I'm guaranteed my own planet....

On the other hand

Global warming will make boat travel much faster!:

Kiel, Germany - After studying ice formation on the Siberian coast, German scientists forecast Monday that regular ships would be able to sail through the entire North-East Passage between Europe and Asia in summer in 10 to 15 years. Heidemarie Kassens of the Leibniz Oceanography Institute in Kiel said earlier estimates this would happen by 2050 were out of date because of the rapid pace of climate change. The passage through Arctic waters north of Russia would link the Atlantic and Pacific.

Speaking after a six-week expedition to the Laptev Sea off Siberia, she called the development alarming. The region was a major source of new ice, but this year it had produced very little, she said.

It was noticeable that many Atlantic species of plankton were invading the Arctic and displacing Arctic species.

"The ice cover on the sea is melting faster than our models forecast," Kassens said, adding that Siberia's permafrost was thawing too. The expedition saw buildings on the permafrost cracked and in danger of collapse.

Proof we had a zombie as a preznit!

Click for bigger pic and fascinating story about Bush's last presser.

This is not good

A senior Pakistani government official has urged residents of the Swat valley to flee the troubled region in the northwest where a peace deal with Taliban appears to be crumbling amid intense fighting.

Khushal Khan also said that the authorities in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) had issued an appeal for help to house tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting between government troops and Taliban fighters in Buner.

Khan said on Tuesday that people should flee for their own safety because Taliban fighters were roaming the area and planting mines and that security forces might be forced to retaliate.

His call came as the Taliban warned the peace deal agreed by the government and Taliban fighters was close to collapse.

Wars, global warming, health care crisis and economic collapse

And all the GOP can offer is pizza.... and the same old pig with a new shade of lipstick.

It's not a marketing problem, you guys. It's that we've seen the Republican agenda up close and personal for the last eight years and have been shown it. does. not. work. The wreckage in which we are sitting right now is because of Republicans.

You can't dress up a disaster and get people to buy it.

Update: Lincoln Mitchell of the Huffington Pos on rebranding:

The problems the Republican Party faces, however, will not be solved by rebranding. The Republicans don't have problems of slogan or presentation. Their problems go much deeper than that. In these days of increased concern about swine flu, porcine allusions may require even more sensitivity than ever, but simply rebranding the Republican Party by somehow updating its image, with apologies to Sarah Palin, really is putting lipstick on a pig.

Abstinence only

Will clearly work for this guy.

What the heck, we're in the neighborhood already

A third war won't kill us, right?:

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's top military officer says he's comfortable that Pakistan's nuclear weapons remain secure, but is gravely concerned about Taliban advances there and in Afghanistan.

He says the United States has worked with the Pakistanis to improve the security of their nuclear arsenal and he believes that country's military is focused on keeping them secure.

He also said Monday the worst-case scenario is that Pakistan's weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists. But he said he doesn't think that's going to happen.

Mullen spoke at a Pentagon news conference on his recent trip to the region.

Right. We're relying on the Pakistani military to protect the nuclear weapons? This military?:

Pakistan's army: as inept as it is corrupt

The answer to why Pakistan's mighty army seems impotent against Taliban insurgents is that it is more mafia than military

I have a bad feeling about this....

Update: We should have been dealing with this problem years ago, but instead the Bush administration just threw money at it.

Pakistan's peace pact with the Taliban is close to collapse, a Taliban spokesman has warned, accusing the government and the army of being stooges for the US.

The warning came as Pakistani troops continued their offensive against Taliban fighters in Buner in the country's northwest on Monday, killing seven fighters.

The fighting has strained the government's deal with the Taliban that allows for the enforcement of sharia, or Islamic law, across Malakand division in exchange for peace.

"They [the army and government] have no respect for any pact," Muslim Khan, the Pakistani Taliban's spokesman in neighbouring Swat, said.

"They keep violating every agreement and if this goes on, definitely there will be no deal, no ceasefire.

"This is not our army, this is not our government. They're worse enemies of Muslims than the Americans. They're US stooges and now it's clear that either we'll be martyred or we'll march forward."

Just goes to show you when you had a stooge who became preznit, the entire government reflected his leadership....



crossposted at American Street

FLOATING nuclear power stations?

Apparently the Russians are eyeing the Arctic Oil:

Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves, causing widespread alarm among environmentalists.

A prototype floating nuclear power station being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk is due to be completed next year. Agreement to build a further four was reached between the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the northern Siberian republic of Yakutiya in February.

What could possibly go wrong?

How about a few pirates?

Winning hearts and minds

By insulting their religion?

A former Afghan prime minister has called for an inquiry after Al Jazeera broadcast footage showing Christian US soldiers appearing to be preparing to try and convert Muslims in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai said there must be a "serious investigation" after military chaplains stationed in the US air base at Bagram were filmed discussing how to distribute copies of the Bible printed in the country's main Pashto and Dari languages.

But:

Questioned about the footage, US colonel Greg Julian told Al Jazeera: "Most of this is taken out of context ... this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.

"This footage was taken a year ago ... the bibles were taken into custody and not distributed.

"There is no effort to go out and proselytise to Afghans."

The footage has surfaced as Barack Obama, the US president, prepares to host Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, at a summit on Tuesday and Wednesday focusing on how to tackle al-Qaeda and Taliban bases dotted along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Denial may work for this event, but we know that the fanatical fundamentalists have overtaken parts of the military and have tried to make these wars into a holy crusade.

Being told they must convert or die doesn't inspire trust, does it?

When will we ever learn?

Found via this wonderful website.

Let the backstabbing commence!

Emptywheel: Rice and Goss turn on Cheney.

How very satisfying...

Now they tell us...

British intel is complaining they were dragged into Bush's war:

Britain was "dragged into a war in Iraq which was always against out better judgment" the former deputy head of MI6 has claimed, in a remark that will reignite the debate over political interference in the war.

Sad to admit it, but thank God Edwards did not become president. We'd be neck deep in the meaning of 'is':

RALEIGH, N.C. – Failed presidential candidate John Edwards, whose political action committee paid more than $100,000 to his mistress' company, acknowledged Sunday that federal investigators were looking into how he handled his campaign funds.

But the former North Carolina senator said he was confident no money was used improperly.

The Hummer is a shitty car? Who knew?:

We also found huge differences between the best and worst values. The Hummer H2, for example, is a terrible deal, with a bucks-per-bang figure of $3,620 because of a high five-year owner cost of about $82,250 and a low test score of only 23.

Pakistan is still building more nuclear weapon sites?:

WASHINGTON — Pakistan is expanding its nuclear weapons program even as Islamic extremists in northwest Pakistan advance in the direction of several highly sensitive nuclear-related sites, U.S. officials and other experts said this week.

This will really make freeway driving more interesting!

Invisible cars!

Asking again

Reposting part of this December 23, 2007 post just because it really has never been answered. WHY? Why did the Bush administration want to torture? Why was it even thought of as something to use? Hadn't anyone watched any war movies? Paid attention in history class? Looked at what happens to regimes that torture? Why on earth was it ever resurrected from the dustbin of history?

Why?:

It's torture, Georgie. Why did your administration decide to call the Geneva Conventions quaint? Why did you want torture 'on the table'? Why were you so adamant to have these torture techniques employed? Why was Abu Gonzales asked to find a legal way to activate torture? Why was Rumsfeld scrawling notes about how easy it was to stand for eight hours and that it wasn't enough? Why was there an overheard conversation (Richard Clarke?) between high-ranking White House staff in the days after 9/11 happily discussing torture techniques to use on al-Qaeda and Iraqis? And we're supposed to believe all those dog leashes and glow sticks used on prisoners at Abu Ghraib are part of the everyday equipment of soldiers?

And when Rumsfeld became incensed over the photos of Abu Ghraib, he wasn't upset by the torture. He was upset by the existence of the photos. The acts didn't disturb him, the fact that the world now knew disturbed him.

You opened this door and are now trying to pretend that what was done with your okay and in your name hasn't happened. The truth will out and we will get to hear all the horrible details, if not now, soon. This administration thought that torture would make people be in shock and awe of them. All this did was announce to the citizens of Iraq and the United States and to the world that this administration was cowardly, craven, inept and incompetent. Losers use torture. Wise men don't need to.

And don't drag out that stupid excuse that everything changed on 9/11. Nothing changed on 9/11 except we finally joined the rest of the world in dealing with terrorists. Not every country dealing with terrorism turns into a police state and tortures people. Not every government uses such a blow to undo everything that they can't stand in the Constitution and in our laws. But your administration did, Georgie.

I bet you and your pals have watched the CIA torture tapes. Or, as you demanded of Saddam Hussein to produce proof that he did not have WMDs, prove that you haven't.

Because, by the way you are denying things and shifting times to prove you didn't know anything about anything, we're assuming you have.

Here it is May 2009 and the shit has really begun to hit the Bush Legacy fan. I'd fix popcorn if I didn't feel so furious and nauseated...

And Georgie.... We told you so.

Candy gram?

Obama's Supreme Court pick will be...

Somebody intelligent, with a sharp and independent mind, with integrity, and who knows justice isn't about some abstract legal theory ... but about how our laws affect the daily lives of people.

Change I can believe in!

(MSNBC wouldn't let me embed the video... weird. Code snarfed?)

Link to video is here.

Exactly which church?

I'll make sure never to go there...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

Really?

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Or maybe:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

I wonder what Jesus' opinion of torture was? You know... waterboarding, sleep deprivation, being crucified....

You must remember this

A kiss is not always applied to the face but sometimes to the butt.

Media Matters explains:

Summary: In 2005, many Republican Senators went so far as to claim the filibuster of judicial nominees was unconstitutional. Now four years later, with President Obama's first Supreme Court appointment looming, will they remain consistent in their position or commit one of the most blatant acts of hypocrisy in the 220-year history of the United States Senate?

Quotes from eight years of Bush ass-kissing and goose-stepping follow. Try to wriggle off those quotes, Senators! We got you on YouTube, you bastards!

John Adams still has something to say

Finally got around to watching the excellent mini-series and googled for some of his quotes:

The very definition of a republic is an empire of laws, and not of men. . . . that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of law, is the best of republics.

And:

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

How many of our politicians have actually read the works of the founding fathers, do you think? Anybody?