Couldn't say it better myself

Lift the rocks and get the bug spray

Koch brothers and their business practices.

Morals, censorship, stupidity.

Explaining Wall Street ethics, cheating, intuition. Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code.

Censored Doonesbury about Palin not reading. And then there is the party of stupid. And Republicanism as religion. (Last one is scary.)

Surprise! (And thank god.) There are still intelligent people out there:

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a first-in-the-nation law that restricted what Florida physicians can say about guns to their patients, ruling the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantees and does not trample gun rights.

Some reasons why we actually need a government. You know... the kind Republicans deny exists. A government that works for the people. Or as the Republicans would have it... only some of the people.

Oops. FBI Raids Home Of CBS Correspondent By Mistake

Wars over water are just over the horizon.

Just imagine all those plastic dinosaurs we played with were really just terribly bald. Dinosaurs had colorful feathers.

Just a reminder:

Pat Robertson wants you to know if you get Alzheimer's.... your spouse can dump you.

Blog sprinkles

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday hope blog.

Blackwater(Xe) gets to stay in Afghanistan.

A satisfying answer to idiot racism.

New Study: The American Public Prefers LIBERAL Policies Which Would Cut Budget By $437 Billion

Excellent graphic of the tax breaks and budget cuts....

We owe our hands to rocks.

Good. Wis. Dems File Ethics Complaint Over Walker's Comments On 'Koch' Call

Krugman continues to scare me:

Yes, we need to fix American education. In particular, the inequalities Americans face at the starting line — bright children from poor families are less likely to finish college than much less able children of the affluent — aren’t just an outrage; they represent a huge waste of the nation’s human potential.

But there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade.

So if we want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn’t the answer — we’ll have to go about building that society directly. We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen.

What we can’t do is get where we need to go just by giving workers college degrees, which may be no more than tickets to jobs that don’t exist or don’t pay middle-class wages.

The story of an abortion provider.

It's taken how many years?

Because this is the end of the Bush administration and legal protection will disappear? Or because we are demanding the names of the people who thought torture was interesting, intriguing, something to study? Why has it taken five effing years to realize that shit splatters?

Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency overseas, the association said on Wednesday.

The vote, 8,792 to 6,157 in a mail-in balloting concluded Monday, may help to settle a long debate within the profession over the ethics of such work. Psychologists have helped military and C.I.A. interrogators evaluate detainees, plan questioning strategy and judge its psychological costs. The association’s ethics code, while condemning a list of coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, has allowed some consultation “for national security-related purposes.”

Do you really want to be treated by someone who was involved in torture? Don't you think you'd want to know your doctor thought torture was a good idea? Would you trust being treated by someone who was involved in torture? We want to know who these 'professionals' are before they sink back into anonymity and become our lawyers, our doctors, our psychiatrists, our pediatricians.

We want their names.

You cannot use the military for political purposes.

The Republicans blame Obama for trying to use the troops for political purposes. Or not. Or that he tried to but the Pentagon said no. Or the Pentagon said no before he visited with the wrong staff. With or without cameras. Or something:

The Obama campaign [] announced that it had decided to cancel the visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, saying that it would be "inappropriate" to make such a visit as part of a campaign trip.

The McCain camp has nonetheless been using Obama's canceled trip to insinuate that he's anti-troops. "Barack Obama is wrong," McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers said in a statement yesterday. "It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military."

But it turns out that the Pentagon did in fact tell Obama that in this case, it was not only "inappropriate," but against DOD rules, for him to conduct the visit with campaign staff.

"We have longstanding Department of Defense policy in regards to political campaigns and elections," Pentagon spokesperson Elizabeth Hibner told me. "We informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff."

After being told this, the Obama campaign announced yesterday that it had decided it was "inappropriate" to make the visit as part of a campaign trip.

Mullen addressed the dangers of mixing the military and politics here earlier:

The highest-ranking U.S. military officer has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the United States approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

“Keeping our politics private is a good first step,” he added. “The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia.”

I had misunderstood and Bryan of Why Now? put me straight with this explanation in comments:

This isn't a change; this is what should have been happening. When you are identifiable as a serving member of the US military, you are not allowed to engage in any political activity. The rule goes back to the Civil War.

The Hedgemony has been enforcing the rule selectively against anyone who disagrees with them, but it applies to partisans of either side.

No one who worked for me ever knew who I voted for in elections when I was serving. There are no campaign signs on military bases.

This shouldn't be happening, and Mullen knows it, and is concerned about it. Politics and religion have no place in the military. Do what you want off-base, off-duty, and out of uniform, but not when you are identified as a member of the military.

Even McCain agreed using Petraeus for political fundraising was wrong.

So when is using the military for political purposes a good thing? What do the politicians want when they pose with the military? To connote this?



Hoping some of that machismo will rub off?

Do they want to imply this?



Or to suggest that having served in the military suddenly makes you a leader and a supporter of the troops? Even if you're not:



Is this why politicians love parades?:



And love to talk about 'the romantic side' of war?



Even though they actually have little or no understanding what it is like to be in the military:



And have no concept of what their political actions result in:







And often do not listen to anybody except those who parrot back what they want to hear:



And mock those who earned their honor:





And think the military is there to fulfill their every wish?









Ignoring the inevitable results:



Because someone who has never been in combat thinks wearing the uniform will make him look manly, fearless and like a leader:



Oh, wait, that's not the one of Georgie taking charge, THIS is the one...

The Deciderer Commander Guy in costume?



And stopping a ship just before it arrives at port, turning it around and pretending to fly in on a jet? And then use the military as a backdrop for one of the lamest military speeches of all time?



And finally... aren't elected leaders asked to use the military ONLY for necessary actions, and always with a plan and an exit strategy?:





Which is why we have Congress be the ones to declare war:



We want thoughtful politicians who weigh all options, all possibilities, all outcomes:





Update: 8/4:

Proving that politicians are politicians the nation over

In both parties, on both sides of the aisle:

(The Politico) House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.

In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democrats who supported the March amendment voted to support the compromise FISA legislation, which includes a provision that could let telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance off the hook.

The 94 Democrats who changed their positions received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from January, 2005, to March, 2008, according to the analysis by MAPLight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the connection between campaign contributions and legislative outcomes.

Retroactive immunity could squash about 40 lawsuits pending against telecommunication companies that helped the government monitor the telecommunications traffic of Americans without warrants. The telecom industry has lobbied hard to insure that the provision is included in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act update Congress is currently considering.

And here's a list.