Being in the cool club

The end of 2007 saw the only two anti-war candidates blocked out of I think the last debates before the 'kick-off' of the primaries starts in Iowa and NH. It looks like Ron Paul, the only anti-war Republican candidate, possibly isn't going to be invited to a debate in early Jan. Earlier in Iowa, the Des Moines Register excluded Dennis Kucinich, the only anti-war Democratic candidate (as opposed to anti-Bush's war), from its debate.
Meanwhile in newspaper land, after getting canned from Time, Bill Kristol is seemingly going to write for the NYT soon. Actually about a week.

Don't mess with Texas, or how I learned to love the rifle sqaud

2007 was the first year that Texas had over half the executions in the US. Other states like New Jersey have gotten rid of capital punishment by law or practice, joining the most recent country to abolish it: Rwanda. At the same time, the UN just fairly overwhelmingly passed a death penalty moratorium; non-binding of course. Rome marked the occasion, with a somewhat new tradition, by lighting up the Colosseum. For the curious, here's the numbers from '06:

As in previous years, the vast majority of executions worldwide were carried out in a small handful of countries. In 2006, 91 per cent of all known executions took place in six countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA. Kuwait had the highest number of executions per capita of population, followed by Iran.

Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed in China during the year, although these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. Credible sources suggest that between 7,500 to 8,000 people were executed in 2006. The official statistics remain a state secret, making monitoring and analysis problematic.

Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82 and Iraq and Sudan each at least 65. There were 53 executions in 12 states in the USA.

An Update: Thomas Cahill talks about the death penalty on Moyer's Journal

Master Debaters

I don't have anything to say about the movie, I just couldn't resist making a post with that title.

Chistmas Music

Guinness Worthy

The current republican congressional minority party has broken the record for the number of filibusters in a 2-year senate session, in 1 year. And, I found someone who agrees with me.

Hillary Clinton: Keeping us safe from animated sex

Thank goodness someone is watching out for my children, god knows that I can't and risk them finding out who I am. It's good to see a candidate finally talking about the important issues that confront us today. Sex and adult content has no place in video games. I don't want my kids being subjected to blatantly sexual content while they are killing cops and pedestrians, and picking up hookers and then killing them in good fun. Why must these game studios ruin perfectly good shooting games with hidden pornography?

He said what?

George W Bush claims he spends his days spreading goodwill, freedom, and peace.

"Stuff happens"- D. Rumsfeld

There was a hearing today in the judiciary comittee on a KBR/Halliburton rape case from Iraq.







DOJ doesnt show up

Energy Bill

The last week before the winter recess was a busy one. An energy bill, "omnibus spending" bill, and a showdown over a surveillance bill. There was an investigation started about destroyed CIA interrogation tapes, and hearings about a KBR gang rape case from Iraq. There was an AMT fix too.

The biggest news on the energy bill was the first increase in fuel economy standards since the 70's. It also started out with renewable energy requirements for utilities and a canceling of tax breaks for oil & gas companies from a few years ago. Luckily with the aid of multiple veto threats from Bush the Senate's republicans were able to get these out of the bill. They were opposed to it since it could be considered raising taxes, and might mean higher prices at the pump. It might be ironic that Bush is opposed to eliminating tax breaks he claimed to be opposed to when they were first proposed. It would seem convenient to oppose them when there was a republican congress that was sure to pass them, then apparently when there is a chance they may actually get taken away, the story changes. Lest you get confused this wasn't related to the unpaid royalties that no one is collecting, it also wasn't about the royalty reductions from Bill Clinton's years.

Bush also threatened to veto the energy bill unless it assigned the DOT the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions instead of the EPA. On a related note, the EPA just told California and 16 other states that they can't regulate it at all themselves, and Arnold promised to sue.

Tips

Some advice on blogging from the real blog-father, no offense chopper.

Overrated

How helpful is it to have online documents? Flash memory is cheap small and easy to use, so is does it help that much to access your documents over the internets? is it good to store your stuff on a server where you can't get at it without internet access?

No Comment

A Day Late and an ICBM short

After 7 years of inaction and counterproductive actions, George Bush decided to try for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at Annapolis, well... more accurately to try to start negotiations that may one day lead to a peace deal. 'Peace in the Holy Land is possible,' he says, I think sounding more like a crazy fundie than a president. Two weeks later Israel is still busy invading Gaza. But, he has been negotiating with North Korea about their nuclear program, even sending them a letter. He has been talking more about Iran's nuclear plans than about Iraq. After past grand statements like i will leave it to the history books to judge me on iraq, it looks like he is trying to hedge his bets and give diplomacy a chance as a fallback in case the whole spreading democracy through the mideast through Iraq doesn't work out as was planned. Going from you're either with us or against us, and you have 24 hours to surrender or we invade, to a slightly more tactful style has won him some half admirers. There was even a TIME magazine article called 'Geoge W. Bush: Diplomat'

Never one to change his mind on his principled stands, this apparent reversal could actually get some important things accomplished, had it come 6 years ago. If the goal is to be remembered as an anti nuclear proliferation crusader, it certainly didn't help to have declared your intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It would also be smart also to actually follow the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the treaty that he has criticized other countries for not following. Maybe selling all that nuclear technology to India might not have been the best idea either, seeing as they didn't sign that treaty, as Israel and Pakistan also have not, and the NPT specifically prohibits doing that. Or perhaps it wasn't wise to try and upgrade our nuclear arsenal, replace old warheads, and try to develop new 'bunker buster' nukes. Maybe we shouldn't have resurrected REagan's star wars missile defense program. Maybe it isn't helpful to threaten or invade other countries and scare them in to wanting the bomb

Maybe if he had taken this approach earlier, Russia would not be considering re-starting the cold war. Bush's focus lately has been on Iran's nuclear research and "preventing WWIII'. Unfortunately a last-minute attempt to repair the nuclear problems of the world won't make up for years and years of doing nothing or making it worse.

Mike Ditka is not a financial wizard

Mike Ditka failed to take da financial and philanthropy worlds by storm with his Hall of Fame Assistance Trust Fund. Out of da $1.3 million it collected over 3 years about $57K was given out, although Ditka says it was $160K. He said about $600K is still left in it. If you use his numbers that's about $540,00.00 that was spent on....hey at least we were trying to do something good-that counts, doesn't it?

Sunday Bloody Sunday

I'ts the End of the World as Know it, and I feel Fine

Some more videos for ed

Fun with........?

http://view.break.com/411110 - Watch more free videos

Buh Bye

Resigning today was Howard 'Cookie' Krongard, the Inspector General of the State Dept. He had been the subject of complaints from State Dept. employees and then had an embarrasing hearing in Congress with some confusion about his brother Alvin 'Buzzy' being on blackwaters board while he was investigating them.

More Antarctica than you ever wanted

NASA's new high-res map

Because 9/11 changed everything

Videotapes of 2002 CIA interrogations destroyed.

"CIA Director Michael Hayden said the CIA began taping the interrogations as an internal check on the program after President Bush authorized the use of harsh questioning methods. The methods included waterboarding, which simulates drowning, government officials said."

This news comes the same week the Supreme Court heard arguments about prisoners in Guantanamo's right to challenge their imprisonment, otherwise known as habeus-corpus. Most of whom have been there 6 years now.

The newly coined term unlawful enemy combatant is what the administration uses to describe the people there, it does not call them POW's since that term carries with it certain rights from the 'quaint' Geneva Conventions. Though sometimes it does compare them to POW's, arguing that in a war, POW's can be held without charges or trial until the end of hostilities. With the seemingly endless 'War on Terror' this amounts to a de-facto life sentence.

The advantage to holding them at Guantanamo is it allows the administration to claim US law does not apply since they are not on US soil, an argument refuted by the Supreme Court, much like the other prisoners at the various CIA black sites scattered around the world, and the 'extraordinary rendition' program.

After failing to convince the Supreme Court of the legality of the imprisonment system in earlier cases, the previous Republican Congress passed the Military Commissions Act to specifically take away the habeus protection, trying slowly to make the tribunal system appear legal. Some things allowed in the Combatant status review tribunals - CSRT's: secret evidence, evidence and confessions obtained through 'coercion'; not allowed: lawyers, introducing evidence for the defense.

One of the few prisoners to be charged with a crime reached a unique plea bargain, "the [US] government released Hicks on the condition that he not speak with reporters for one year, that he waive his rights to appeal or sue, and that he recant accusations of illegal treatment while in U.S. captivity."

If the one year period starts at his release, due at the end of this month, it will coincidentally end during Bush's last scheduled month in office.

Not likely to change much

The recent NIE that says Iran has stopped its newkyuler weapons program in 2003 probably won't change much. Bush has usually said, and is doing so almost exclusively after the report, that it is the newkyuler knowldge to make a bomb not the bombs themselves that Iran must be prevented from getting, with force if necessary according to Cheney and Lieberman, if we want to avoid WWIII. And not everbody believes the report.

Catsup? Ketchup? Catsup? Ketchup?

McDonald's and Taco Bell have agreed to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes after protests and boycotts forced their hands. The money will theoretically go directly to migrant workers who pick them, raising their pay to almost 80 cents a bucket. The deal has not gone into effect yet though, with the tomato growers association arguing that it would be a betrayal of free-market principles, saying it is “pretty much near un-American.” They have even threatened a fine to any farm that accepts the deal.

One other fast food chain....Burger King....is still reluctant to agree to such a deal.

Some people are worried that consumers will end up having to pay for the increase, which at a penny per pound would work out to maybe a nickel for about every 30 big macs you eat.

Encouraging the Incorrigible

If I were a major newspaper like the Washington Post, I would be incredibly embarrassed if I were to run a front page article like the one about the rumors Barack Obama might secretly be a Muslim. It's embarrassing on so many levels. For arguably one of the most prominent political newspapers to run a front page story that simply regurgitates blogs, internet rumors, and anonymous postings on websites is probably the epitome of laziness. There is barely a single original quote in the article, with most of the 2 or 3 of them buried at the very end. The writer appears to just have did a Google search on 'Obama' AND 'Muslim', surfed the internet for a while, made 1 phone call, and then summarized what he read and called it a front page expose'.

The writer appears not to have even made much of an effort to clearly lay out any facts before giving prime space to all the rumors. It almost seems like he is deliberately trying to confuse the issue. The article does little do distinguish between what it means to be a follower of a religion and having some exposure to a religion in your early childhood. For example, I went to church regularly as a child, was even baptized, yet amazingly I'm as much an authentic christian as Christopher Hitchins is an authentic atheist. Sidenote: I think Christopher Hitchens is an intellectually dishonest opportunistic bandwagon jumper of the worst kind.

Also interesting is what the article did not say. It didn't include very many quotes from Obama. It also didn't mention the part of a certain document about no religious test for public office. It gives lots of ink to the conspiracy theory of 'Muslims' trying to take over America from the inside out and Obama being a 'Muslim plant', but does nothing to address the truth or facts of it.
If I had an 'On Notice' list, the Washington Post would get added to it.

Working from home

More proof that just because Karl Rove physically left Washington doesn't mean he left in spirit. Many strange things have come out of the mouth of Karl Rove over the years, but his recent statements that back in 2002, it was Congress that was in a rush to vote to give Bush authorization to use force in Iraq, not Bush who was in a rush, must be by far the strangest that I have heard.

Especially taking into account Bush's common strategy of pressuring quick votes on dubious things to give lawmakers little time to review them, a fact alluded to in the most recent Democratic debate when Dennis Kucinich answered a question about why he voted against the patriot act by saying 'because I read it'.

One interesting thing is that Rove is actually saying it himself, where more often he'd just delegate the lying or half-truths to give himself plausible (in his mind) deniability (maybe a technique learned from Cheney who is infamous for not keeping written records of anything lest it be used against him at some point). Is it that Rove can't remember what happened and is trying to guess? Is he saying what he actually believes, maybe because of some ideological selective memory that makes him attribute bad things to people he doesn't like? Is he using the 'big lie' strategy again to rewrite history? The world may never know but with his exhaustive list of past dirty tricks it's not a good sign.

Update: Tom Daschle replies, here too.

Journey to the Land of Sports Metaphors

We need to stay on the offense against islamic terrorism-Guliani

The surge is working and we are winning the war in Iraq-Romney

Too many people...are vested in a scenario of defeat, I'm vested in a scenario of victory and I see it happening there-Thompson

The message from the troops is 'let us win, let us win'-McCain


A question from Grover 'Bathtub' Norquist? I thought the point of this thing was for average non-political types to ask the questions, not the head of a political anti-tax group, but maybe I was wrong

A glaring omission:

When I was mayor of NYC the Yankees won 4 world championships...and since I left being mayor of NYC the Yankees have won none-Guess who

Another Video for ed

Recent Sighting

A video for Ed

for everything else...

a plane ticket home.........$400.00
a jar of aspirin..................$4.99
knowing a little bit about what happens in the bush admin.............$18.45

smokes

Remember smokes-for-votes? now it's snickers-for-votes

Happy Thanksgiving

The best George W quote

I have seen in a while would have to be

May they live the rest of their lives in blissful gobbling

To bad it won't make it to Youtube

What goes on behind the closed doors of opec? Inquiring minds want to know

CN weighs in

Harry Reid grows some

Harry Reid has promised to keep the Senate in session over the Thanksgiving break so Bush can't make any recess appointments. I may take back my earlier accusations, temporarily, at least.

The soft touches at the FBI

The bleeding heart FBI agents gave blackwater credit for 3 out of 17 kills, what do you think, have they lost their edge?

"A separate military review of the Sept. 16 shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal. One of the military investigators said the F.B.I. was being generous to Blackwater in characterizing any of the killings as justifiable."

If the new AG gets to rule on this one, his answer might be something like 'well if what they did was a crime then it would be illegal, but even though i dont like it i can't say if it is or not since it could subject the people who did it to possible legal ramifications, and since i wasnt present at the incident it wouldn't be prudent to make that judgement'

Harry Reid has no testicles

Michael Muksaey was sworn in today as the next AG after winning his confirmation vote by a slim margin of 53-40. While 4 senators who publicly opposed his nomination, who are also running for president, skipped the vote, quite a few others publicly opposed it but then voted for it anyway.
A few months back, the 'conventional wisdom' was you needed 60 votes to get anything done in the senate, as some republican senators liked to say. The newspapers would say 60 votes were required for passage. Why, I wonder, were 60 votes required? If so, why was Thursday's vote passed with only 53 votes? Gee whiz this government stuff is so complicated I don't think I'll ever understand it.

A for effort

Two more senators have said they will vote for Mukasey to be AG. The reason? Because we think he is probably the best Bush will come up with. Yes we know he won't say waterboarding is torture....but what the hell he's probably the best we will get....

“Judge Mukasey is not my ideal choice,” the senator said. “However, Judge Mukasey, whose integrity and independence is respected even by those who oppose him, is far better than anyone could expect from this administration.” - Charles Schumer

Amazing how standards have dropped.

The law specifically says it is illegal, for the military.... but if the CIA or private contractors-merenaries- do it, maybe its ok. Sure we may have prosecuted it as a war crime in the past, but 9/11 changed everything so I can't say its torture for sure without further review. And I probably won't do any further review either and just hope you forget about it.

Besides, like he said in his testimony, if he admitted it was illegal people who might be using or authorizing it might get worried. ( I'll take that as code for we have people doing that as we speak)

Although they may be right...if our pres of VP has authorized what is generally seen as war crimes, it would be best not to talk about them, hence we will just change the definition and assure you we don't technically torture. Not gonna get specific bub.

“I’m not going to talk about techniques,” he said, adding, “My view is this: The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law.”

well...within the law as we define it.

Then it's time for the good old standby:We have a war to fight. We can't be worried about war crimes during a time of war...As Bush said this week-

“On too many issues,” Mr. Bush said, “Congress is behaving as if America is not at war.”

I can't imagine what I would have thought if I had been able to read these things in 1999.

New news

From the 'it took you 4 1/2 years to think of that?' department, we've now decided we should supervise the armies we hire.

Will he say 'yes'?

About whether waterboarding is torture? The esteemed Pat Buchanan thinks that Congress needs to specifically define it as torture in a new law. I would be pretty curious to see the signing statement on that one. This comes as good news to me however, since I don't think Congress has ever defined my favorite game, 'potato sack dodgeball', as torture. It's where I play dodgeball with someone whos'e feet have to stay inside the sack. If they drop the potato sack then they have to go to inside the 'naked in the freezer with loud fingernails on the chalkboard looping while chained in unnatural positions' box for 5 minutes to 5 days, depending on how flagrant the violation of the bag-rule was. Sadly, I don't think Ed Grimly is as lucky with his 'black and blue with frozen bluegill' game.

One Word

Free Booze

Abbreviated for brevity

I could probably go on for a few pages on these, but in the interest of keeping things short I won't.

Update on Waxman's Blackwater investigating

Laws schmaws, we've got a fence to build!

To get your law degree you have to take the bar exam, which I've hard is tough. To become attorney general, I guess all you have to do is agree that torture is illegal.

More acid please, carbonic.

A classic

From the newly posted daily show archive:

The end is nigh

Ok, maybe in reality it isn't, but that really only makes a difference to those of us in the reality based community. In George Bush's mind, it is indeed nigh. To the average onlooker, his policies and the things he does may seem foolish. If we were in the last days, it makes all to much sense. War, pestilence, World War III, the tribulation, are all imminent, as well as his ascension to Sunday school in the sky, no longer having to deal with it all. Why worry about the deficit, the biggest ever, and the costs of the Iraq war aren't even included in the budget, when soon you will be lifted up to heaven with all your christian brethren? It's not as if we will have to pay it back after the rapture? Even if we did, everyone that mattered will have ascended already, so the heathen fools left behind (now with Kirk Cameron) will have to figure out their own way to pay. Why worry about loss of habitat, deforestation, climate change, or depleteion of natural resources when you'll be up in heaven for the rest of eternity in a few years? With the tribulation imminent, perhaps already underway, there's no need to worry about how people will generate energy 100 years from now, or even 50 years from now, since only unbelievers will be left to survive with no more oil in the ground and an infrastructure and landscape dependent on the availability of cheap and abundant energy. It's inconceivable to consider any medium or long term effects of significantly changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere by pumping eons of stored carbon gas back into it. We came, we saw, we cashed in, now lets blow this joint.

If someone is waterboarded in the forest, is it torture?

After a rather uneventful first day of hearings for the Attorney General Nominee, Michael B. Mukasey (who I might start referring to as shifty bastard), the second day turned out to be a bit different. Day 1 was filled with lots of feel good folksy talk, but details were sparse. He said the first day that the president could not order torture;

“Torture is unlawful under the laws of this country,” Mr. Mukasey said. “It is not what this country is all about. It is not what this country stands for. It’s antithetical to everything this country stands for."

Bush says that the US doesn't torture. But as long as they dont die or have organ failure, it isn't torture. And those couple that did die were just accidents, and then a few suicides too. Oh yea and it's not torture if we send them to another country that will do it for us (now a major motion picture movie), kind of in the same way as it doesn't make you gay as long as your not the one doing the blowing.

So when he was asked to be more specific:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: “Is waterboarding constitutional?”

Mukasey: “I don’t know what is involved in the technique,” Mr. Mukasey replied. “If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”

Whitehouse: “is the practice of putting somebody in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting cloth over their faces and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning. Is that constitutional?”

Mukasey: “If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.”

Seems like the trend is to avoid direct talk, and invent a new word for what we do like 'terrorist surveillance program' or 'enhanced interrogation'

Extra: a short history on waterboarding from Dick Durbin:

The United States has long taken the position that this is a war crime. In 1901, the U.S. Army Major Edwin Glenn sentenced to 10 years hard labor for water-boarding a captured insurgent in the Philippines.

U.S. military commissions after World War II prosecuted Japanese troops for engaging in water-boarding. The torture statute makes it a crime to threaten someone with imminent death. Water- boarding is a threat of imminent death.

I'm hoping that you can at least look at this one technique and say that clearly constitutes torture, it should not be the policy of the United States to engage in water-boarding, whether the detainee is military or otherwise.

MUKASEY: It is not constitutional for the United States to engage in torture in any form, be it water-boarding or anything else.

Victory in Iraq

The mysterious pocket dimension

If your in the mood for a long anti-Clinton rant take a look here. It mentions Dennis Kucinich at the end, who you can see here.

Cowboy Country

Amateurish raids by immigration, complete with cowboy hats. Shoot-em up mercenaries paid billions in Iraq. Drunken shootings by same mercenaries. Legalised torture secretly justified in secret memos. The list can go on, but I should stop here before I induce vomiting.
The first 'CEO administration' seems to be keeping with that label. Their meetings are punctual, he is 'the decider'; and instant results, lackadaiscal planning and oversight, and profit above all else rule the day. With the largest military budget in the world, we don't have an army large enough to keep the peace in Iraq without heavy reliance on mercenaries like Blackwater. Mercenaries who have conviniently been exempted from US, US military, and Iraqi law by our occupation authority in Iraq, until now. The staggering costs of our occupation are floodling into the pockets of Bush's friends and donors, who our own audits show are overcharging, and not completing work they were paid for.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a spoiled rich kid from New England who likes to pretend he's a Texas cowboy, who failed in every business venture his daddy paid for him to try, who liked to think he was an airplane fighter but got a stateside post during Vietnam from his papa that he didn't bother showing up for, became president of the US?

This was great

Olbermann on Bush:


Kieth Olbermann is excellent.

Semantics Game

It's all a semantics game...
Remember the good old days of the republican majority? When a simple majority vote would usually pass a bill? Back when the headlines and tv and radio hosts would report how democrats are blocking something with a filibuster? When you heard not so subtle threats of the 'nuclear option' when talk of a democratic filibuster came up? Remember the right wing talking heads railing about obstructionist democrats? If you are Alberto Gonzales and don't recall, take a look at this, this(second half), and this. How much ink was given to democratic filibusters and the nuclear option? Lots.

Do you wonder what headlines you see when republicans filibuster 2 (or more) bills this week? Judging by the AP articles on the habeus corpus bill and leave and deployment time bill that ran in most newspapers; there will be no mention of filibuster or blocking. Not one. Why did these bills fail?

"The proposal... failed on a 56-44 vote, with 60 votes needed for passage"

Why 60 votes you may wonder? Don't look to the articles for help.

Hint: it rhymes with General Custer

3 strikes (wax on, wax off)

The bad news has been coming more and more frequently this summer, with three rather significant events happening this week. Yesterday was Alberto Gonzales' last day at the justice department (please hold your applause till the end). Then later in the day yesterday the Iraqi govt. rejected Blackwater Inc.'s right to operate in Iraq due to an incident in Baghdad where quite a few Iraqis were killed. For the cherry on top, it was announced that the inspector genereal of the State Dept. is under investigation for fraud, abuse, profiteering, and basically doing a shitty job. The man behind it all is Rep. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.)

It just came out the Waxman is going to hold hearings about Blackwater. Though the facts are not yet completely clear, Iraq's govt. is trying to get Blackwater out of the country after a Baghdad incident where between 8 and 20 people were killed by its employees. It's not publicized (or even publically available) how many Blackwater and other mercenaries are in Iraq, Afghanistan, who knows where else, but many estimates have put it near or greater then the number of actual US combat troops. Our wars and occupations are being fought by private soldiers of fortune almost as much as by the military. With huge no-bid contracts, no oversight, no accountability, supposed immunity from any criminal prosecution, and an overstretched US military, Blackwater was living the dream. Little mention was made concerning the wisdom of committing so largely to soldiers-for-hire. Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, and the danger of having such a large permanent group with a large profit motive to fight wars. The same can be said about private warfighting companies...profits will motivate then to fight, start, and prolong conflicts. The Blackwater CEO has certainly made back the money he spent helping Bush get elected.

Three cheers for Bush's privatization of every and all things possible.

My two cents

Hard to find good help these days

So after months of stubbornly staying put, Alberto Gonzalez has finally resigned. This following other recent notable departures such as Karl Rove, and a bit less recently Scooter Libby and Rummy. The AG A.G. is no more. Here's W's statement concerning Gonzo's resignation:

"After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

Almost all the places I went to find that quote corrected the presidents English and substituted impeded for impeding. But I heard the president say that on the radio and he definitely said impeding. Should the media really be correcting the presidents grammar? If the president of the United States is a dim-witted buffoon, shouldn't the people know about it, and not think he spoke correctly because newspapers correct him? But this is a little beside the point so maybe more on that another time.

A few points on what the president said...I don't think talented and honorable are good descriptions of Gonzo, but hey I can forgive that by thinking he was just being polite.
The thing that seems most bizarre is that W thinks it is sad if someone's name is dragged through the mud for political reasons. Maybe I've had him all wrong the last 7 glorious years, but I got the distinct impression that dragging someone's good name through the mud was one of his favorite pastimes. There's little doubt that it was THE favorite pastime of former WH hack Karl Rove. Seemingly just to add insult to injury, dragging people's good names through the mud for political reasons (and firing them) is pretty much the main thing Gonzo was being accused of anyway.

Keep watch for a more in-depth review of some of the highlights of Alberto's time in the white house

More Movies

I feel obliged to list some favorite movies after edgrimly and chopper posted their own lists. I'm going to try and avoid repeats even though some of their picks might be on my list (Blood Diamond, Lost in Translation, and Caddyshack especially)...so here goes:

Comedy: Dumb and Dumber, Coming to America, The Naked Gun, Road To ______

Not many movies make me laugh out loud through the whole thing but these did.

War Movies: Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, All Quiet on the Western Front

Even after seeing it countless times, Full Metal Jacket is still as engrossing as it was the first time. You won't find any Clive Cussler (Sahara) style filmmaking -war as an awesome X-treme sport-save the day and make it home by the weekend to bang all the hot chicks- in any of these though.

--Honorable Mention: Paths of Glory, 3 Kings, Thin Red Line, The Battle of Algiers

Sci Fi/Fantasy: Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Terminator

Like Full Metal Jacket, I can watch the Fifth Element over and over and enjoy it every time.

Horror/Action/Thriller/Suspense etc.: The Italian Job, Munich, Mulholland Drive, Heat, Bourne Trilogy, The Devil's Advocate

Not even Neo-Ted Theodore Logan could ruin The Devil's Advocate, though try he did.

--Honorable Mention: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Had it not been made by Disney, this could have been a much greater movie. I know it's cliche to say that the book was better than the movie, but in this case there's no contest.

A few more: Opening Night/Woman Under the Influence/Faces, The Game, Cloak and Dagger, Touch of Evil, To Have and Have Not

O'Reilly and San Francisco

Factor seems to have a memory problem as bad as the AG's, and a wish to blow up cities like Tancredo. At least Tancredo admits what he says.

watch him tell Chris Dodd he never said San Francisco should be blown up

now watch him say San Francisco should be blown up.

Is there something wrong with the Earth's gravitational pull in 1985?

Don't pinch yourself, your not dreaming. The Delorean is coming back.

Third Party?

Here's one of the better articles I've read about the viability of a third party in America. My favorite quote:

"never underestimate the depth or the power of Boomer selfishness!"

What about plan (ii)?

The secretary of Defense said that the pentagon is in the process of creating a plan for leaving Iraq, and apparently it's a priority. Which I am real glad to hear, at least it shows someone is planning for something somewhere. Granted it's not the first plan that was made- being preceded by shock and awe, get Saddam(mission accomplished), find WMD's, build a big wall, and surge- but it's good just knowing there is a plan for something. The broken record was getting old.

Zoom Happy

Filming a musical only small video showing on the screen in the convention hall at the debates tonight, CNN thought it would be a good idea to zoom out real far so you couldnt read the words in the video. Nice.

How about a seperate feed for the videos so you can see them?



UPDATE: I'm not the only one to have this same compmlaint: WaPo

Tech not so savvy

Bill Richardson calls Touchscreens (voting machines) 'Touchtones'

CNN & Youtube

There are some live debates you can watch on the internet...and its all you would expect from that combination. Small video size, audio problems, no time-shift on the webcast...

Left of what?

In this article, the washington post had a strange caption under Feingold's picture:



"In this photograph provided by "Meet the Press", Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., left, speaks as he is interviewed by moderator Tim Russert during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC studios Sunday, July 22, 2007 in Washington. Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution. (AP Photo/Meet the Press, Alex Wong) (Alex Wong - AP)"

Since he is the only one in the picture, why the left qualifier?

If only

We had a DEA for defense contractors.

Great headline, or greatest headline ever?

You be the judge...

Bush butt probed, Cheney in charge

A Cruise for Ed

Edgrimly didn't seem enthused about my suggested vacation resort destinations for him. Maybe he would enjoy this cruise?

O'Reilly joins us....sort of

On Thursday, Bill O'Reilly voiced some concerns, belatedly, about the Iraq occupation. While I would usually be happy to welcome newcomers to the fold, something about this doesn't sit well. How very courageous of Bill to voice what almost everyone in America has already figured out, a long time ago, even many FOX news viewers. Gee, it's not going well over there? Maybe I should say something about it then so I don't look like a buffoon.
It still is Bill O'Reilly though, so there still are many things he said here I'd like to argue with, but I'll save that for another time. Right now I'd just like to be appreciative of how the tide is turning.

As a parting gift, a few O'Reillyisms:

"If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?" -March 18, 2003

"You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary...But it is. It's true. I mean, you've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night, OK, and they can vote." -Sep. 17, 2004


"You can't produce one person who's been tortured by the United States. You cannot produce one. And neither can NBC News and neither can..." -March 20, 2007


Lesbian Gangs

What country are MLB fans from?

I was trying to buy some Brewer's tickets, and needed to create an MLB.com account before I could get tickets. I'm curious what country most people are from who do this. When I got to the part where I had to select my country, *required field, I had to scroll way down near the bottom of the list to select 'United States'. The first two choices were: -- and Afghanistan. Is it that hard to put the country most of the baseball fans are from (hint: if you can read this you're probably in it) at the top of the list?
It's not as if this is the only place that does that. I haven't kept track, but would guess that they haven't done that on at least half the times I have had to choose from a list like that.
Now that I've wasted my time scrolling through the country list, and then more time complaining about it, my tickets have probably been sold in the meantime.

Stick it to the man...

in the van

I would have liked a bridge in there

The picks are mostly good for the new 7 man-made wonders. But I would have liked to have a bridge in the group somewhere, instead of maybe the Chichén Itzá.

My two favorites would be either the Golden Gate














Or the Tsing Ma















They're not the longest in the world, but I think the best looking.

Keg stands 4 global warming

Live Earth has been criticized for it's hypocrisy and lack of booze. As an alternative, how about "keg-stand day"

Every person will have an event site within biking distance (and you'd probably be allowed to take the bus to go to one outside of your range). If you want to go, you can do keg-stands all day. So there's no plastic cups.
You can even listen to your favorite bands on your solar powered satellite radio. Or maybe...all the Live Earth performers could have a live webcast of themselves performing in their home cities, that you can view for free on solar powered i-phones you can rent, all made with bio-plastics of course.

The American drunkfest celebration to raise awareness of the ill-effects of doing things.

As for the Journal review...

"...It's an interesting illustration of the power of art to disengage critical thought. For an encore, Waters did "Another Brick in the Wall." Probably not too many middle-age Pink Floyd fans would endorse Waters' view of public education as an instrument of oppression, but put it in a catchy chorus, and 23,000 people sing along."

Right you are. In much the same way, if you would find yourself at a Sir Mix-a-Lot concert, you might see thousands (OK, couple hundred) of poeple sing "I like big butts and I cannot lie..." who, in actuality, do not like large posteriors.

I like Christian rock, but what's with all the Jesus stuff?

I paid good money to see Jesus'n'Me4Eva, so why do I have to sit through all that Bible thumping?

That's the gist of what this and that reviews had to say about the Roger Waters Summerfest show on Monday Night. At least Rick Esenberg was familiar enough with the performer he paid good money to see to expect some political content at the show.

First off, you're not paying to see a movie, opera, or symphony orchestra. You're seeing a rock concert, a part of which has just about always been the performer saying things to the audience between songs. If you're worried about all the 'music time' you missing out on when the artist is speaking, perhaps you should stay home and put in your Dark Side LP and forgo the live show which might have more than simply back to back song recitals.

Another thing to expect at a rock show: words and images that will get across to a large audience, who are largely under the influence. Again, you're at a rock show, not a debate at the university. I wasn't at this particular Waters show (perhaps due to the large number of people who only know Pink Floyd and Waters by the few Floyd songs they have heard on the radio spending so much of their hard earned money to drive up ticket prices and sell out the show), but I have seen him perform, and I would definitely rank his political content much higher than the 'Boot in your Ass' variety prevalent in today's pop-country (even the giant pig).
His show is not debating the fine points of Bush's foreign policy (there is fine points to it?). It's not doing an in-depth analysis of the Palestinian-Israeli land dispute. It is brushing with broad strokes. One might even say it is more about creating an atmosphere or emotional state more than politically educating. You might even see some non-literal comparisons, made simply to evoke an emotional response.

So write your blog, complain about anything non-conservative being shown in public, take the intellectual cop out and say "I would make a counterargument, but what he said was half-witted/infantile" and show how limited your understanding is of anything that isn't spelled out for you (Oh, wait, it was), but please stay home next time so that the tickets can be used by someone who will enjoy it. If holding hands and pitching woo is your thing, go see Merle Haggard.

Extra

Great Moments in My Smoothness #1

Playing frisbee with a girl on Sunday, I bounded left to catch an errant frisbee headed for the road. What I didn't notice was the tree stump strategically placed between myself and the frisbee. After feeling a pain in my toe caused by hitting the stump, I managed to arch my back and avoid planting my face in the pavement; landing instead on my chest and stomach. It still hurts 3 days later.

Harvesting Range

Has it been increased? Fishing especially?

Absence

Faithful readers, you may have noticed that I had not written much the last 1-2 weeks. The reason being I had taken a trip to California, but never fear; I am back in Wisconsin and will resume my nonsensical bloviating posthaste. I may even post some of the choice pictures when I am able to find my camera software CD.

Mmmmm......Bacon

Here is a study I wish i could have been involved in.

Gigantoraptor

3,000 lb. bird-dinosaur was found in Mongolia.
More here.

Slingshot to Space

Yes, we might soon be hurling things into space with a glorified slingshot, the Slingatron. Iran has vowed to develop their own version of the device that will hurl live pigs into Israel.

Talking Heads Vol 1

Todays match-up:
George Bush vs. Joe Lieberman

Tonight's question:
The U.S. hasn't invaded or liberated a foreign country for 4 years, has the time arrived to do so again? If so, where?

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,"




"We will disrupt the attacks on our forces... And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." 1





"By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers,"



"I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people." 2




"If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."





"It doesn't mean force necessarily. In this case it means diplomacy." 3





"...we can't just talk to them,"



"I strongly disagree -- strongly disagree with his assessment. I have told the American people, like the Iranian issue, I wanted to solve the North Korean issue peacefully, and that the President has an obligation to try all diplomatic means necessary to do so." 2



"they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home,"



"...if I thought we could achieve success, I would sit down." ... "Look, this is a world in which -- and I'm not suggesting you're this way -- but this is a world in which people say, meet -- sit down and meet." 2





Mr. President, about Iran?



"First of all, I don't think I called for a deadline, I thought I said (timetable)," ... "I did, what exactly did I say? I said deadline? OK ... Then I meant what I said." 4





"..."





"Listen, thank you for your time. I enjoyed it very much."

Go Fuck Yourself, FCC

In an interesting twist, the FCC press release used more dirty words than the incidents in question, after being told if the pres and vice pres do it its ok.

Canadian Bacon

Black Holes and Hot dogs.

The Return of Kilby

Craig Kilborn Ready To Return To The Daily Show

Knuckle Sandwich

Now that's what i call politics.

Mixed Reviews

Maybe he forgot to extend the antenna?

Come on down!

Pitching Woo

That was so 3 years ago

We must find the aliens soon!

Soon being in the next 1 or 2 billion years, according to this. CMBR, I will miss you! What good times we had!

Glue Me

Superglue or Elmer's? I wish i knew. Needless to say, I'm still waiting for my duct tape surgery.

Skull diamond

Interesting but who's gonna shell out the money to buy it?
The skull

Consumption, visualized

A great visualization of some U.S. statistics.

Things i wish I didn't have to hear

It's a short list for now. I may add to at my leisure.

#1 - Emergency bills for war funding referred to as 'funding the troops'.
Because only a small fraction of that is actually funding the troops. It is a war funding bill so call it one. CNN did this repeatedly during the debate tonight. They also referred to the immigration bill as 'voting for the border fence'. Please stop oversimplifying, misrepresenting, and dumbing things down. Is it that much harder to say 'immigration bill that included a border fence provision'?

#2 - 'Supporting the troops'.
Everyone will say they do. Almost everyone actually does. Debating who does and who doesn't is useless. Try talking about how actual policies or proposals affect people in the military, and please stop using these didactic, intelligence insulting phrases.

#3 - 'Amnesty' as a dirty word in relation to immigration
The alternative is what, mass deportation of 12+ million? Death sentences to them all? Who do you think you're kidding? For the past few decades businesses got cheap labor, consumers got cheap prices, and gov't winked and looked the other way. One day white folks notice immigrants are living here and not commuting from Mexico every day and get scared, so we can solve it all by just kicking them out, right?
Last but not least, the word amnesty itself is getting a bad shake from this too, don't ruin such a good word with xenophobic innuendo.

Quote of the Night - Dem Debates

Goes to Obama for the line "I don’t want to raise my hand anymore" after Wolf Blitzer asked the second or third patronizing raise your hand if... question. After all, it is a presidential debate not a kindergarten class or deoderant commercial.