Nothing to see here, please disperse

Sorry for your inconvenience but that is what happens when you try to triple-stamp a double-stamp.


here

Rising Tides

Remember the trial lawyers that are behind the un-patriotic plot not to give telecoms amnesty? It appears they learned their lesson and are back to their patriotic American games again. In a blow to the entitlement programs like employer medical insurance handouts, they are suing cripples for Wal-Mart. WTC developers are suing airlines for 9/11 damages that family members of the dead weren't able to get.

Privatization, Politization , and more

On the one hand there's what you think of as defense contractors, and on the other hand there's 'dudes' with 'connections'. I imagine his bid presentation to the Pentagon was something like "hey man I know this guy who knows some people who know of some ammo. I could totally get you some bullets for cheap bro".

Meanwhile in Gotham City, The ex-Alabama Governor is released from jail until his appeal. Time will tell if his appeal goes anything like Wisconsin's own Georgia Thompson's. Maybe for fun they can call Alberto Gonzales in there to ask if the indictment was done for political reasons, just to get him to say I don't recall once more.

Who's bright idea was it anyways to bring a camcorder instead of a tape recorder to record torture sessions? Rule #1 one is try not to leave marks or permanent scars and rule #2 is you don't make a video recordings.

Home School

I thought that it was bad enough when self entitled parents get teachers fired for anything that might offend their religious sensibilities. Things like art museums and comic books. Though what can you expect when we recently had a US Attorney General mandate a shawl to cover a statue. And a comic book is worth firing...for a 9th grader? In 7th grade, I remember watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail in class, unedited. We also read 1984 as a class assignment. The mother implied she was afraid he was a sexual predator:

her daughter told them he asked: "How did you feel about the book?"
"That made me worry what else would happen if she met with him alone again," her mother said.

It's one thing to complain but it's another to try and basically ruin someones life and hint to the newspaper that they are a pervert. Though something that eclipses even that is letting your daughter die of diabetes with no medical help because you thought praying is the way to treat medical conditions.

Let George Bush do what he wants to do, please.

No joke. Surprised to hear that? Read on, the surprises continue! Bush v Texas......

Gee Dubyoo argued against states rights-- in favor of obeying an international treaty, AND respecting the ruling of an international court. (There was a time when were 'against' international courts that could try americans) Not enough? He also was arguing for reviewing a death sentence.

Take a number

This Washington Post article gives an idea of the Bush admin's negligent efforts related to endangered species. Negligent is probably putting it nicely when related to practically anything environmental, with one exception (and I'm not talking about the increase in wetland area here).

A telling statistic: The number of new listings Bush Jr. made during his entire time in office to date is about equal to the number that Bush Sr. listed each year.

Flush and forget, WMD edition

Instead of going to the trouble of destoying ALL the chemical weapons we get rid of, its much easier to process just some for show, and dump the rest in the ocean along with ships we no longer wanted.

Sad but true

I wasn't very angry at anything last night so I thought I would change that by watching a little Glenn Beck show. He did a segment about how the media hasn't been focusing on Iraq very much in '08. He said that there hasn't been as much bad news coming out of the war there lately so the media has ignored it. Then he said that people don't care about it, mainly because it is 'going better now'. His larger point (which was helpfully spelled out for you at the side of the screen in case you are to dull to catch on) was that Americans don't dislike war. In fact they like war, it is only losing wars that Americans don't like. IF only it seemed as though we were winning in Iraq the whole time, then us Americans would luv it sooooo much. The sad thing is, that on this one rare occasion, he is probably right. (but still an idiot)

Would you like some grease with your revolution?

UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter writes about a meeting he had with Chalabi and about inspections and the Clinton sanctions

Iraq article of the day for Tuesday to continue the anniversary celebration

Happy 5 years

This week is the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. John McCain celebrated by taking a trip over there with his pal Joe Lieberman. Unfortunately the market he had strolled through previously, the one that was just like Indiana, wasn't available for tours. Another celebration was held in the States, by active duty and vets, where they shared some stories.

Droopy Drawers

Florida is making sure your pants are pulled all the way up. Their motivation for passing the law?

"All we're trying to do now is trying to inform folks that we have a fad now that does not have a very good origination,".....first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.

The third horseman of the apocalypse

People Magazine, oh sorry I meant The New York Times, publishes an article on the Spitzer 7 diamond girl. Half bio, pictures, and a few quotes from telephone calls, and half a description of her Myspace page. I'm not kidding, half the article is about what is on her myspace page and who her top friends are.

Toss me a fricken bone here

All I want is sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads.

Downer

So you're president of a meat company that just had the largest recall in history for your meat. Someone released a video of sick cows that couldn't stand getting slaughtered over a month ago. You've been called to Congress to testify about it and you send them written testimony that it never happened. When you get there you're shown the video, after which you say - paraphrasing - oh i didn't see the video before but i guess that we did do that (video) (entire hearing)

Even G Dub could have came up with a better reply than that

Sure fooled me

My questions is...how forgetful does Hillary Clinton think we all are? She has a few excuses she has been making regarding her Iraq war vote-She made the best choice she could with the intelligence we had at the time, or it wasn't the war that was a bad idea but the execution of the war. Basically the same arguments that republican war supporters have been making.

The worst though, in my opinion, is when she claims that when she voted to give George Bush the authority to invade, that it was just to provide a credible threat to Saddam to get him to disarm. That George Bush took advantage of that authority and invaded not as a last resort but out of choice. Therefore it is all GW's fault and not all the people who voted to allow him to do it. To be clear, this is partially true. Bush was saying at the time of the vote all those things. That he would only invade as a last resort, and that the 'credible threat of force' is what was needed to get Saddam to disarm.

The problem is that even though those things may have been said, it shouldn't be an excuse. If you had eyes and ears around that time, you knew with absolute certainty that George Bush wanted to invade Iraq, very badly. There is no way that any semi-intelligent being could not have seen that. There was no intention to do anything else than get congressional approval then go balls to the wall to Baghdad after that. You may remember how he ordered the inspectors out shortly after that vote, while they were asking for more time. You may remember his Dirty Harry televised address giving Saddam 24 hours to give himself up or we invade. You may remember a year or more of W's propaganda leading up to the war. The way he talked about it being a bad movie that he didn't want to see again. Saddam is in league with the terrorists. He has nuclear bombs. He has stockpiles of anthrax. You could fill a novel with all his Iraq related rhetoric.

If you listened to W talk at all that preceding year one thing anyone but the most naive was sure of was that he was planning to go to war and was doing everything possible to sell it. If there is one thing that everyone should be able to agree on it is that GW was hell bent on invading Iraq, and was going to do so given any opportunity at all. If Hillary didn't know that and really thought he only wanted a credible threat of force, then I would say she is much to naive to teach 1st grade, much less be president. To say that it was supposed to be just for show and W snookered them all by actually invading, means you're either lying or more gullible than Gilligan.

Heard elsewhere-
Joe Wilson of Valerie Plame fame has come out and written an anti-Obama letter that repeats this lame excuse.
Scarborough too

Sunday Again

Wright Houses

Hippies and Squares and Elvis

There was a party?

Just a reminder that not everyone bought the hype

Oh that war? yes I vaguely recall it.