Short and sweet

Or bitter, depending...

Iowa Anti-Choicers Admit They Want to Imprison Women for Abortion

James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change and Bernie Sanders comes over the hill with the cavalry.... or maybe just a cattle prod to try and activate Congress.

Drano plastic bottle bombs.

Russian dashboard cams.  I don't think I'll ever want to drive in Russia....

Teachers.

Our daily bread may be killing us.  Obviously all we can eat now is dirt mixed with a few leaves...

Wal Mart is distressed that the poor are not buying enough of their stuff.  Nice that they had time to climb down from that pile of money they're sitting on.

Keeping their eye on the important stuff

Oil disaster? Two wars? Bad economy?

Iowa lawmaker presses the state to discriminate against LGBT families at campgrounds.

Want to guess which party he belongs to?

"You can't work, you can't leave and you can't stay"

Bush's illegal immigration policy in action: (my bold)

The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison. Jerry Johnson, who works at nearby Luther College, called it something out of a bad science-fiction movie or the kind of thing a 1930s totalitarian regime might have cooked up.

"This was not only a grievous injustice but a shame on the state of Iowa and the federal government," said Mr. Johnson. "These were good, decent people who were also the most defenseless."

On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.

"The women are effectively prisoners," said Father Paul Ouderkirk at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church. "The difference between them and anybody who is in jail is that in jail the government pays for them, but if they're on the streets we pay for them.

"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the law does not provide for work authorization for illegals.

Update: Wanted to include this post about illegal immigration/ undocumented workers. Read the comments for more facts.

Awash

Early estimates suggest that the extent of the cleanup will be unlike anything some of the flooded cities have experienced. And some of what the water left behind is toxic, experts said, possibly tinged with raw sewage or chemical runoff from agriculture.

In Cedar Rapids alone, it is estimated that the 4,200 flooded houses are producing about a ton of debris each, mostly heavy appliances, electronics and furniture. Beyond that, businesses, schools, hospitals, churches and government offices are flooded, bringing the city’s total flood-related garbage load to about 300,000 tons, officials estimated.

A typical garbage truck can handle about four tons of trash.

“We’re looking at 10 to 15 times as much garbage as we’ve ever dealt with, so this is huge,” said Mark Jones, the superintendent of the city’s solid waste and recycling division. Backup trucks are arriving from across the state. “As you could see, it would take us forever to do this,” he said.

Lives destroyed by flooding occurs in the ocean as well:

Des Moines, IA (AHN) - The marine dead zone resulting from the Midwest flooding is expected to expand to over 10,000 square miles, according to researchers from the Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

The water in the dead zone, approximately the size of Massachusetts, does not have sufficient oxygen at depth to support marine life. Since 1990, the zone, located off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, usually covers 6,000 square miles, varying according to the flow of the Mississippi River.

Sometimes things that look impossible

Happen. And then again, sometimes they don't.

I'm just really really tired of the media telling me what to think. It was just friggin' Iowa, you guys, not the Sermon on the Mount.

Gabor Steingart in Des Moines, Iowa for Spiegel Online:

Once upon a time there was a young African-American candidate who wanted to become president. Obama's story sounds like a fairy tale, and one would like to believe it. But despite his impressive victory in Iowa, he has scant hope of reaching the White House.

[snip]

Some 250,000 voters in Iowa reached their decision and chose Barack Hussein Obama -- young, African-American visionary who represents Illinois in the US Senate. He presents himself as a mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy. This January night is a "defining moment in history," he says. He pledges to be an "agent of change." After the bad years of President George W. Bush, many around the world are hoping that America will return to virtue and peace.

But the Iowa snow king has scant hope of reaching the White House. He's too young, too inexperienced, too vague, and for many Americans, too black. His magic words about the era of change, of hope, of an America he will unite -- all that will evaporate like morning mist.

The fact is that Obama is an unknown quantity. He sat in the US Senate for half a term without attracting any attention whatsoever. One intense speech at the Democratic convention in Boston in 2004, that was it.

Like Georgie had such wonderful training before he took the driver's wheel and drove our country into the ditch. Anyone who will become president will be getting heaps of advice... it just depends on what quality of advice and how well the new president will listen...

And you thought McCain was running out of gas...

Take a look at Fred Thompson:

Mr. Thompson is a former United States senator, television actor and Watergate investigator. His entry into the presidential race was highly anticipated by many Republicans, who saw or hoped to see in him outsized political talent and a commitment to conservatism that would enliven a Republican field that many found lacking.

But as Mr. Thompson campaigned in Iowa this week, he was something other than the dynamic presence that some in his party have been yearning for. Iowans saw a subdued, laconic candidate who spoke in a soft monotone, threw few elbows and displayed little drive to distinguish himself from his opponents.

Mr. Thompson told few jokes and, while an easygoing presence, did not appear to have much interest in the small talk that is a staple of retail campaigning. As he defined his candidacy, Mr. Thompson spoke in broad generalities about the conservative principles that he said had informed his political views — in particular, federalism and cutting government spending — and led him to run for president.

In the process, he often lulled audiences into the kind of stillness that engulfed the room when he finished talking at the “Lunch With Fred Thompson” in Marshalltown.