Blog sprinkles

• Tengrain shows that newspapers began to tank only AFTER the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A rather notable fact....
  

• Number 12 of the 25 Censored stories: Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief.

• A bundle of hope from Phila of Bouphonia... here, here, here and here.

• Amazing series of photos from this last year.

• Palindrome: Harass Sarah.

• Because Obama decided to stop the Eternal War on a Noun, we're letting the terrorists win!! Even though he's done more against terrorism in this last year than in the two terms of Pinky and the Brain.

And Steve Benen educates us on why is it good to be a Republican:

• ...this is probably a good time to review the Media/Political Establishment's Rules for Understanding the Political Implications of Terrorism (or MPERUPIT):

  * If terrorists successfully attack during a Democratic president's first year in office (first attack on World Trade Center), it's the Democrats' fault, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Democratic president's second term, it's the Democrats' fault the terrorists even tried, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists successfully attack during a Republican president's first year in office (9/11), it's the Democrats' fault, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Republican president's second term, it's only because the Republican is "taking the fight to the enemy," and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  * If terrorists unsuccessfully attack during a Democratic president's first year in office, it's the Democrats' fault the terrorists even tried, and the attack is good news for Republicans.

  If you don't have the handy dandy MPERUPIT list readily available, remember this shortcut: bad news is good for Republicans; good news is good for Republicans; Democrats are to blame for Republican failures; and Republicans deserve credit for Democratic successes.

  As long as you filter all terrorism-related news through this convenient prism, domestic coverage of current events will always make sense, even when it doesn't.

• Apparently a good site to keep track of Yemen.

And for all those very irritating hateful people you are forced to deal with... a very pretty song:


(if you want the words)

Blog sprinkles

The trolls among us.

What it means when we hear that Greenland is melting faster than expected..

Hugh Hefner's girlfriends through the ages.

Stats on the folding of the newspapers.. rather crumpling.

Paleontologists visit the Creation Museum:

"It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

This makes way too much sense:

The European Union has reached an agreement with all major mobile phone manufacturers to produce a common phone charger. Apart from reducing the frustration of customers juggling incompatible chargers, proponents say the agreement will encourage recycling and reduce electronic waste.

Of course the scientist was a MAN...

Daily sex makes for healthier sperm

Our very own Iraqi death squads. Bush and Cheney should be proud.

OMG:

"The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary."—Michael Scheuer on Glenn Beck's show

Adam Serwer at Tapped:

This is the same Michael Scheuer who, a few months ago, played patriotism police arguing that anyone who didn't support the United States using torture to interrogate terrorist suspects was anti-American...now he's begging for a terrorist attack on the United States. This is a pretty awesome example of how the right conflates their political interests with the interests of the country as a whole. If there's no terrorist attack, then Americans are safe. But Scheuer can't be right if there's no terrorist attack. And Scheuer being right is actually more important than Americans staying alive.

Torture apologists have tiptoed around the edge of this argument without actually saying so for some time, Leon Panetta walked back his observation about Dick Cheney, that "it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point," but as Scheuer and Beck proved yesterday, this is really how some people feel.

This gets to the essential creepiness about Beck's emotional display introducing his whole 9/12 project--the man wasn't weeping because he wished the country was as "unified" as it was after 9/11, he was weeping because the country is no longer in a such a state of petrified fear that it will acquiesce to whatever extreme measures the right deems necessary. Beck wasn't crying for the country, he was crying for himself, crying because people are no longer frightened enough to agree with everything he has to say. Understand, he only wants to hurt you because he loves you.

Listen to the world speak

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