A Spork in the Drawer

This explains so much:

The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.

“Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies,” says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies.”



"Lying is easy! It's easy work!"


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Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He sold all his stock in HCA, which his father helped found, just days before the stock plunged. Two years ago, Mr. Frist claimed that he did not even know if he owned HCA stock.

According to a new U.S. government index, the effect of greenhouse gases is up 20 percent since 1990.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a 33-year-old Wall Street insider with little experience in regulation but close ties to drug firms, was made a deputy commissioner at the F.D.A. in July. (This story, picked up by Time magazine, was originally reported by Alicia Mundy of The Seattle Times.)

The Artic ice cap is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Two of the three senior positions at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are vacant. The third is held by Jonathan Snare, a former lobbyist. Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group, reports that he worked on efforts to keep ephedra, a dietary supplement that was banned by the F.D.A., legal.

According to France's finance minister, Alan Greenspan told him that the United States had "lost control" of its budget deficit.

David Safavian is a former associate of Jack Abramoff, the recently indicted lobbyist. Mr. Safavian oversaw U.S. government procurement policy at the White House Office of Management and Budget until his recent arrest.

When Senator James Inhofe, who has called scientific research on global warming "a gigantic hoax," called a hearing to attack that research, his star witness was Michael Crichton, the novelist.

Mr. Safavian is charged with misrepresenting his connections with lobbyists - specifically, Mr. Abramoff - while working at the General Services Administration. A key event was a lavish golfing trip to Scotland in 2002, mostly paid for by a charity Mr. Abramoff controlled. Among those who went on the trip was Representative Bob Ney of Ohio.

It's not possible to attribute any one weather event to global warming. But climate models show that global warming will lead to increased hurricane intensity, and some research indicates that this is already occurring.

Tyco paid $2 million, most going to firms controlled by Mr. Abramoff, as part of its successful effort to preserve tax advantages it got from shifting its legal home to Bermuda. Timothy Flanigan, a general counsel at Tyco, has been nominated for the second-ranking Justice Department post.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is awash in soldiers and police. Nonetheless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Blackwater USA, a private security firm with strong political connections, to provide armed guards.

Mr. Abramoff was indicted last month on charges of fraud relating to his purchase of SunCruz, a casino boat operation. Mr. Ney inserted comments in the Congressional Record attacking SunCruz's original owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, placing pressure on him to sell to Mr. Abramoff and his partner, Adam Kidan, and praised Mr. Kidan's character.

James Schmitz, who resigned as the Pentagon's inspector general amid questions about his performance, has been hired as Blackwater's chief operating officer.

Last week three men were arrested in connection with the gangland-style murder of Mr. Boulis. SunCruz, after it was controlled by Mr. Kidan and Mr. Abramoff, paid a company controlled by one of the men arrested, Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, and his daughter $145,000 for catering and other work. In court documents, questions are raised about whether food and drink were ever provided. SunCruz paid $95,000 to a company in which one of the other men arrested, Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, is a principal.

Iraq's oil production remains below prewar levels. The Los Angeles Times reports that mistakes by U.S. officials and a Halliburton subsidiary, which was given large no-bid reconstruction contracts, may have permanently damaged Iraq's oilfields.

Tom DeLay, who stepped down as House majority leader after his indictment, once called Mr. Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends." Mr. Abramoff funneled funds from clients to conservative institutions and causes. The Washington Post reported that associates of Mr. DeLay claim that he severed the relationship after Mr. Boulis's murder.

Public health experts warn that the U.S. would be dangerously unprepared for an avian flu pandemic.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, That's the way it is.


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NYT's Miller agrees to talk.

She couldn't have done this months ago? Or did it become clear to her that she was facing criminal contempt charges?



"I'm a fucking squealer!"


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Field Marshall von Rumsfeld on the Iraqi insurgency:

"It's a problem that's faced by police forces in every major city in our country, that criminals infiltrate and sign up to join the police force," responded Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

WTF is wrong with Donny?

[via Think Progress]


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...your new Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Glover Roberts, Jr.:




78 Senators voted for these eyes.


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The Daily Scaife chimes in on the Bugman indictment:

With the right prodding, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. In this case, a charge of conspiracy is perhaps the weakest of weak sisters, but it may well be a Democrat platform for a fishing expedition against DeLay and the GOP.

Let's review:


Indicted.



Not indicted.

Any questions?


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It's a good thing there's no global warming:

The floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in at least a century of record keeping, continuing a trend toward less summer ice, a team of climate experts reported yesterday.

[...]

The change also appears to be headed toward becoming self-sustaining: the increased open water absorbs solar energy that would otherwise be reflected back into space by bright white ice, said Ted A. Scambos, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., which compiled the data along with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold," Dr. Scambos said.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has more.


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Duke University law prof Erwin Chemerinsky says it's time to fight for the Constitution.

Campaign to Defend the Constitution.

For your perusal.



Not dead yet.


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Why, at the last moment, was Roy Blunt chosen to be Speaker of the House over David Dreier?





It's a mystery.


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The White House wants to make it clear: They've never really heard of The Bugman:

As a result, DeLay’s indictment is unlikely to upset many White House officials. Bush’s aides offered only tepid support for the majority leader earlier this year, as speculation swirled about his demise. When pushed on the nature of DeLay’s friendship with the president, Bush’s aides like to say they aren’t close. Instead they stress how effective DeLay has been as part of Team Bush. Those terms were repeated Wednesday as the White House responded to DeLay’s indictment. “Congressman DeLay is a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people,” said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.



(Larry Downing / Reuters)

The Preznit, Ministry Chief Chertoff, and an unidentified man.


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Equal time

If members of the Christian right truly believe that it is only fair and reasonable to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public schools (Sept. 26), would they not agree that it is equally fair for the government to teach evolution in their churches as an alternative to intelligent design?

MICHAEL MCISAAC
Thousand Oaks


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This is increasingly looking like a bad day for the GOP™. CNN reports:

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Prosecutors want to question Rush Limbaugh's physicians in their probe of the conservative commentator's possible "doctor shopping" for prescription painkillers, according to a motion filed Tuesday.

Prosecutors believe Limbaugh illegally deceived multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions for painkillers. He has not been charged with a crime.

Rush Limbaugh. Tom Delay. Bill Frist. Karl Rove. John Bolton. Richard Pearle. Perhaps soon they will all be in a Grand Old Prison.




Rush after an 8-day Oxy bender


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When last we checked in on Florida Governor John Ellis Bush he was Unleashing Chang. Who is Chang? What is Chang? The Guardian suggests that Chang is none other than Chinese fascist Chiang Kai-Shek:

[...] A 1999 issue of the Stanford Reporter confirms the theory, with a tale involving the journalist George Plimpton. "President George Bush [Sr] ... invited Plimpton to play horseshoes at the White House. Prior to throwing each ringer, Plimpton said, Bush would whisper, 'Unleash Chiang,' apparently in reference to freeing Chiang Kai-shek, or 'Remember Iowa', referring to the primary where he'd been soundly defeated by Bob Dole." Jeb's aides now tell us Chang is an arbitrating figure, but we know the truth, Jeb, even if you don't. If Chang really was a reconciler of conflict, your brother would have employed him in Iraq. Oh, he did, did he?


Chiaaaaang!


Jeeeeeeeeeb!


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Delay to be indicted today? So suggests MSNBC and Associated Press.




Why so glum, Tom?


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Welfare for religions:

After weeks of prodding by Republican lawmakers and the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that it will use taxpayer money to reimburse churches and other religious organizations that have opened their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

FEMA officials said it would mark the first time that the government has made large-scale payments to religious groups for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster.

For once the Southern Baptist Convention shows some sense:

"Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer," said the Rev. Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. "We would never ask the government to pay for it."

Take a look again at the post immediately below.



Welfare Queen.



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The Times of London reports:

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Well, yeah.

[via The Huffington Post]



Criminal Mastermind.


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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today released a report naming the thirteen most corrupt members of Congress.

Guess who's on the list. Here's a hint:



Read all the gory details at CREW's new site Beyond DeLay.


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Not guilty of conspiracy; convicted on misdemeanors:

(9/26/05 – BINGHAMTON, NY) Members of the St. Patrick’s Four, their families, friends and legal team were grateful to learn that the jury, after over seven hours of deliberation, had found the peace activists not guilty of the most serious charge, conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States.

[...]

The four were convicted on lesser charges, damage to property and trespassing, both misdemeanors which carry possible sentences of one year and six months respectively.


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Your governor has decided that the best way to become president is to make fun of the very state he presides over:

"Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts," he told a GOP audience in South Carolina, "is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."

[...]

"There are more Republicans in this room tonight than I have in my state!" -- another joke he used in South Carolina.

[...]

"For an incumbent governor to make fun of the state seemed gratuitous," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a professor of political science at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. "I think people sort of felt he was flipping the bird to voters here."

[...]

Right now, {Romney's] reelection prospects do not look great. In a survey last month that pitted Romney against the state attorney general -- a likely Democratic front-runner for 2006 -- the governor was trounced 51 percent to 38 percent.

The GOP: The Party of Grown-ups.



(AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

"Take my state, please!"


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Their little Sunday tantrum in D.C.:

Deborah Johns, the mother of an Iraq war veteran, has been traveling across the country speaking in support of the war. She directed some of her comments yesterday at Sheehan, saying that she speaks neither for Johns nor the American people.

After praising President Bush, Johns said she knew what she'd like to do with Sheehan and the antiwar protesters who descended on Washington on Saturday: "I'd like to ship them to Iran." The comment earned applause.

Darn that pesky First Amendment!

Roger Custer, 23, of Annandale didn't speak publicly, but he did his best to make a statement, fashioning a cape out an American flag.

Oh, my. What does the Flag Code have to say have to say about this?

§176. Respect for flag

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free [.]

Typical wingers. Always confusing their ignorance with patriotism.


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Find the Brownie

For the politically curious seeking entertainment, I'd like to propose two new trivia games: "Find the Brownie" and "Two Degrees of Jack Abramoff."

The objective in Find the Brownie is to find an obscure but important government job held by someone whose only apparent qualifications for that job are political loyalty and personal connections. It's inspired by President Bush's praise, four days after Katrina hit, for the hapless Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." I guess it depends on the meaning of the word heck.

There are a lot of Brownies. As Time magazine puts it in its latest issue, "Bush has gone further than most presidents to put political stalwarts in some of the most important government jobs you've never heard of." Time offers a couple of fresh examples, such as the former editor of a Wall Street medical-industry newsletter who now holds a crucial position at the Food and Drug Administration.

A tipster urged me to look for Brownies among regional administrators for the General Services Administration, which oversees federal property and leases. There are several potential ways a position at G.S.A. could be abused. For example, an official might give a particular businessman an inside track in the purchase of government property - the charge against David Safavian, who was recently arrested - or give a particular landlord an inside track in renting space to federal agencies.

Some of the regional administrators at G.S.A. are longtime professionals. But the regional administrator for the Northeast and Caribbean region, which includes New York, has no obvious qualifications other than being the daughter of the chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State. The regional administrator for the Southwest, appointed in 2002 after a failed bid for his father's Congressional seat, is Scott Armey, the son of Dick Armey, the former House majority leader.

You get the idea. Go ahead, see what - or rather who - you can come up with.

Jack Abramoff is a lobbyist who was paid huge sums by clients such as casino-owning Indian tribes and sweatshop operators on Saipan. Two Degrees of Jack Abramoff is inspired by the remarkable centrality of Mr. Abramoff, who was indicted last month on charges of fraud, in Washington's power structure.

The goal isn't to find important political players who were chummy with Mr. Abramoff - that's too easy. Instead, you have to find people linked by employment. One degree of Jack Abramoff is someone who actually worked for the lobbyist. Two degrees is a powerful Washington figure who hired someone who formerly worked for Mr. Abramoff, or who had one of his own former employees go to work for Mr. Abramoff.

Grover Norquist, the powerful antitax lobbyist, is a one-degree man. Mr. Norquist was Mr. Abramoff's campaign manager when he ran for chairman of the College Republican National Committee, then became his executive director. And don't dismiss this as kid stuff: as Franklin Foer explains in The New Republic, the college Republican organization pays serious salaries and has been a steppingstone for the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

Mr. Rove, by the way, is a two-degree man. He hired Susan Ralston, Mr. Abramoff's personal assistant, as his own personal assistant. For those unfamiliar with what that means, Ms. Ralston became Mr. Rove's gatekeeper - the person who determined who got to see the great man.

Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, is also a two-degree man. Tony Rudy, who worked for Mr. DeLay in several capacities, left to work for Mr. Abramoff.

Finally, somebody should be considered a two-degree man on account of the recently arrested Mr. Safavian, who worked for both Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Norquist, then went first to the G.S.A. and on to the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw procurement policy. But I'm not sure who gets credit for hiring Mr. Safavian.

O.K., enough joking. The point of my games - which are actually research programs for enterprising journalists - is that all the scandals now surfacing are linked. Something is rotten in the state of the U.S. government. And the lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that a culture of cronyism and corruption can have lethal consequences.


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From Think Progress:

Only 400 people showed up at the national mall today for a counter-protest in support of the Iraq war. Yesterday, 100,000-300,000 people filled the streets of D.C. to protest the Iraq war.

Heh.


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From this week's Time:

The White House makes no apologies for organizing government in a way that makes it easier to carry out Bush's agenda. Johnson says the centralization is "very intentional, and it starts with the people you pick ... They're there to implement the President's priorities."

[...]

Some of the appointments are raising serious concerns in the agencies themselves and on Capitol Hill about the competence and independence of agencies that the country relies on to keep us safe, healthy and secure. Internal e-mail messages obtained by Time show that scientists' drug-safety decisions at the Food and Drug Administration (fda) are being second-guessed by a 33-year-old doctor turned stock picker. At the Office of Management and Budget, an ex-lobbyist with minimal purchasing experience oversaw $300 billion in spending, until his arrest last week. At the Department of Homeland Security, an agency the Administration initially resisted, a well-connected White House aide with minimal experience is poised to take over what many consider the single most crucial post in ensuring that terrorists do not enter the country again. And who is acting as watchdog at every federal agency? A corps of inspectors general who may be increasingly chosen more for their political credentials than their investigative ones.


Maybe Congress will hold hearings on this.

Right.


.

Near Camp Casey.


Code Pink Ladies.


Well said.

---

More (and hopefully better) pics later in the week.


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...is this man smiling?



Maybe because of this:

Sep. 23, 2005 - HCA Inc., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, said Friday it received a subpoena from the U.S. district attorney's office in New York City that it believes is related to stock sales made by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist shortly before HCA warned it wouldn't meet earnings targets.

Frist sold all of his HCA holdings about two weeks before the company issued a disappointing earnings forecast that drove its stock price sharply lower. Frist, who held an undisclosed amount of HCA stock in a blind trust, also asked that his wife and children's shares be sold. The value of the stock wasn't disclosed. Earlier this year, Frist reported holding blind trusts valued between $7 million and $35 million.



(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Not smiling

[inspired by Holden Caulfield]


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The Guardian informs us:

She's sexy, she's stylish, she's sophisticated - and somewhat surprisingly, she's Ronald McDonald.

A gender-bending makeover of McDonald's marketing icon in Japan has been hailed a great success after capturing the public imagination and enticing adults back into its outlets to sample a revamped menu.

Better than a terrifying clown, I suppose.






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Although Hurricane Katrina drowned much of New Orleans, the damage to America's economic infrastructure actually fell short of early predictions. Of course, Rita may make up for that.

But Katrina did more than physical damage; it was a blow to our self-image as a nation. Maybe people will quickly forget the horrible scenes from the Superdome, and the frustration of wondering why no help had arrived, once cable TV returns to nonstop coverage of missing white women. But my guess is that Katrina's shock to our sense of ourselves will persist for years.

America's current state of mind reminds me of the demoralized mood of late 1979, when a confluence of events - double-digit inflation, gas lines and the Iranian hostage crisis - led to a national crisis of confidence.

Start with economic confidence. The available measures say that consumer confidence, which was already declining before Katrina hit, has now fallen off a cliff. One well-respected survey, from the University of Michigan, says that consumer sentiment is at its lowest level since George Bush the elder was president and "America: What Went Wrong?" was a national best seller.

It's true that gasoline prices have receded from their post-Katrina peaks. But even if Rita spares the refineries, a full recovery of economic confidence seems unlikely. For one thing, it looks as if we're in for a long, cold winter: natural gas and fuel oil are still near their price peaks. And most families were already struggling even before Katrina. A few weeks ago, the Census Bureau reported that in 2004, while Washington and Wall Street were hailing a "Bush boom," poverty increased, and median family income failed to keep up with inflation. It's safe to assume that most families did even worse this year.

Then there's the war in Iraq, which is rapidly becoming impossible to spin positively: the purple fingers have come and gone, and there are no more corners to turn. As a result, views that people like Howard Dean were once derided for are becoming the majority opinion. Most Americans say the war was a mistake; a majority say the administration deliberately misled the country into war; almost 4 in 10 say Iraq will turn into another Vietnam.

And many people are outraged by the war's cost. The general public doesn't closely follow economists' arguments about the risks of budget deficits, or try to decide between competing budget projections. But people do know that there's a big deficit, that politicians keep calling for cuts in spending and that rebuilding after Katrina will cost a lot of money. They resent the idea that large sums are being spent in a faraway country, where we're waging a war whose purpose seems increasingly obscure.

Finally, fragmentary evidence - like a sharp drop in the fraction of Americans who approve of President Bush's performance in handling terrorism and the failure of large crowds to show up for the Pentagon's "America Supports You" march and country music concert - suggests that the confluence of Katrina and the fourth anniversary of 9/11 has caused something to snap in public perceptions about the "war on terror."

In the early months after 9/11, America's self-confidence actually seemed to have been bolstered by the attack: the Taliban were quickly overthrown, and President Bush looked like an effective leader. The positive perception of what happened after 9/11 has, needless to say, been a mainstay of Mr. Bush's political stature.

But now that more time has elapsed since 9/11 than the whole stretch from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, people are losing faith. Osama, it turns out, could both run and hide. It's obvious from the evening news that Al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism in general are flourishing.

And the hapless response to Katrina, which should have been easier to deal with than a terrorist attack, has shown that our leaders have done virtually nothing to make us safer.

And here's the important point: these blows to our national self-image are mutually reinforcing. The sense that we're caught in an unwinnable war reinforces the sense that the economy is getting worse, and vice versa. So we're having a crisis of confidence.

It's the kind of crisis that opens the door for dramatic political changes - possibly, but not necessarily, in a good direction. But who will provide leadership, now that Mr. Bush is damaged goods?


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Why the hell does the WaPo editorial page now permanently link to Andrew Sullivan's blog?


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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid once appeared in a Sergio Leone western.





(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)


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(July 2005 photo by AFP/File/Laurent Fievet)

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, pictured here with an odd growth above his lip, revisits his college days.


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Once again we turn to the rag owned by the disturbed Dicky Mellonhead Scaife.

From an editorial:

How sad that a disaster of Katrina's scale is manipulated to shore up the simplistic notion that government handouts, and reversing tax cuts, will restore the devastated region.

[...]

A study by George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen found that tax reductions, not handouts, revitalized the economies of German-occupied countries and Japan after World War II. The same economic growth wouldn't have been feasible without cutting taxes.

Is The Daily Scaife implying that the United States is an occupied country?

In a way they might not be wrong.

In a way.


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Hurricane Katrina relief will mostly benefit the wealthy:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tax breaks designed to help Hurricane Katrina victims get their hands on needed cash could do more for higher income survivors than for the neediest, a congressional report says.

[...]

One helps hurricane victims get access to their savings by waiving penalties imposed on taxpayers who tap into their retirement savings accounts before retirement. Others let taxpayers write off more of their destroyed property, and erase taxes regularly imposed when a debt, like a mortgage, is forgiven.

The report says lower income survivors are less likely to have retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs to tap into for recovery. Because many lower income individuals and families pay little tax, assistance efforts that lower their taxes may do little good, the report said.


Life in BushWorld™.


.

And that's a good thing.



(John Gress/Reuters)


(United States Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks at AFL-CIO's annual convention in Chicago July 25, 2005. Reid said he will ask President George W. Bush on Wednesday that his second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court be 'mainstream, not extreme.')


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From the The Daily Dicky Mellonhead Scaife:

Speaking of history's revisionist-in-chief, former Clinton adviser Dick Morris says Mr. Clinton was informed in 1998 that terrorists could be planning to hijack commercial airliners and turn them into weapons of mass destruction. Were their failures in the Bush administration? Certainly. But their roots can be traced directly to Boy Bill.

How Dick Morris has managed to make a good living from sleaze is one of the wonders of our era. But it does keep him in toe-sucking hookers.

And the power of The Clenis™ is awesome.


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Murray and VandeHei write in the WaPo:

Congressional Republicans from across the ideological spectrum yesterday rejected the White House's open-wallet approach to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a sign that the lockstep GOP discipline that George W. Bush has enjoyed for most of his presidency is eroding on Capitol Hill.

[...]

The resistance suggests that Bush's second term could turn out far rockier and more contentious than his first. One indicator many Republicans are watching to gauge whether Bush is becoming a liability for the party is in Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, is trailing state treasurer Bob Casey Jr. by double digits.

"My caucus would do anything for Senator Santorum," Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) said of his colleague. Chafee, who himself faces a tough reelection battle next year, predicted Republicans will increasingly be faced with the choice of propping up Bush or protecting their own. "I think they're going to collide," Chafee said of the two options.

Asked whether Bush's problems were a factor in his slump, Santorum responded, "That may be."

While there's no doubt the waning popularity of Glorious Leader™ is taking a toll on GOP candidates, Li'l Ricky might consider the idea that he is a complete and total whackjob.





(Patrick Ryan)
Lock up your pooches.


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...of the Clenis™ :

It's not intercourse

I read with sadness, but not surprise, that more than half of our nation's teens, ages 15 to 19, have engaged in oral sex ("Teens Say Oral Sex Common," Sept. 16). An analysis of the data presented by Child Trends seemed surprised that those who have had oral sex include almost a quarter of teens who haven't had intercourse yet and consider themselves virgins.

Why is this surprising to any adult American citizen? In 1998, Bill Clinton, president of the United States, testified under oath, "I did not have sex with that woman." The leader of our nation did not classify oral sex as sex. And his statement was regurgitated over and over in media outlets.

The children in a 2002 study would have been between the ages of 5 and 10 at that time, critically formative years for developing opinions about sexuality and self-esteem. Of course they don't believe oral sex is sex. The former leader of the free world helped instill this value in them.

BARBARA DEVINE
Upper St. Clair

Bill Clinton fired the first shot at Fort Sumter. Bill Clinton sunk the Maine. Bill Clinton caused the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Bill Clinton directed the Japanese bombers at Pearl Harbor. Bill Clinton was on the Grassy Knoll. Bill Clinton gave Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's Disease. Bill Clinton is eyeing your daughter right now!

No man, or weapon, can stop The Mighty Clenis™!





Behold his mighty...power.


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It's ironic that the day after Simon Wiesenthal died we get this:

The Vatican is helping Croatia's most wanted war crimes suspect evade capture, a top UN prosecutor alleges.

Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has said she believes Gen Ante Gotovina is hiding in a monastery in Croatia.

[...]

"I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican totally refuses to co-operate with us," she said.






(REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Again with the arm.


.

...to hear Glorious Leader pronounce the name:


(AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

(US President George W. Bush (R) and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (L) expressed concern over military-ruled Myanmar's refusal to restore democracy. The two leaders also agreed to conclude a bilateral free-trade agreement as soon as possible and underscored the urgency of combating avian influenza.)


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Do you enjoy porn? Sure, who doesn't!

Now that the War on Terror™ is completed the FBI is turning its eyes to a new menace:

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

[...]

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

So if you believe you have what it takes to examine hundreds of hours of porn videos send those resumes to:

The FBI
Ed Meese Memorial Division
Washington, DC.


Public Enemy Number One


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Haven't they learned anything?

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.

[...]

After working as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., for two years, Myers held a variety of jobs over the past four years at the White House and at the departments of Commerce, Justice and Treasury, though none involved managing a large bureaucracy. Myers worked briefly as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became Homeland Security secretary.

Myers also was an associate under independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for about 16 months and has most recently served as a special assistant to President Bush handling personnel issues.

Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.

Loyalty over competence every time.


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Simon Wiesenthal.

Some elderly "displaced persons" in Argentina and Paraguay can sleep easier, damnit.


(REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader)
Hero


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sekmet commenting over at Eschaton found this:


After more than an hour of solemn ceremony naming Rep. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, as the 2007-08 House speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush stepped to the podium in the House chamber last week and told a short story about "unleashing Chang," his "mystical warrior" friend.

Here are Bush's words, spoken before hundreds of lawmakers and politicians:
''Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.

''I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.''

Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave it to Rubio as a gift.

''I'm going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior,'' he said, as the crowd roared.

The crowd, however, could be excused for not understanding Bush's enigmatic foray into the realm of Eastern mysticism.

[...]

The phrase has evolved, under Gov. Jeb Bush's use, to mean the need to fix conflicts or disagreements over an issue. Faced with a stalemate, the governor apparently "unleashes Chang" as a rhetorical device, signaling it's time to stop arguing and start agreeing.

No word on if Rubio will unleash Chang, or the sword, as he faces squabbles in the future.


Should unleash Chang on his children.

Remember: Should Jeb! become President he'll unleash Chang on the whole country. Is that what you want for your children?

I thought not.

(The Gainseville Sun via Rigourous Intuition)


.

...so much:

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported on Monday.

In a study of investors' behavior, 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.


Brain Damaged


.

Last November Glorious Leader claimed a 2.5% win to be a mandate.

It seems the word "mandate" is coming to mean, "Stunning victory? Not so much."

In Germany:

Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) got 35.2%, only three seats more than their main rivals.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has refused to admit defeat after his Social Democrats (SPD) got 34.3%.

[...]

Both he and Mrs Merkel say they have a mandate to be chancellor.

At this rate losing candidates will be claiming a mandate.


.

(AFP/Omar Torres)


.

Today's Paul Krugman:

By three to one, African-Americans believe that federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans in part because the city was poor and black. By an equally large margin, whites disagree.
The truth is that there's no way to know. Maybe President Bush would have been mugging with a guitar the day after the levees broke even if New Orleans had been a mostly white city. Maybe Palm Beach would also have had to wait five days after a hurricane hit before key military units received orders to join rescue operations.
But in a larger sense, the administration's lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with race. For race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need.
Race, after all, was central to the emergence of a Republican majority: essentially, the South switched sides after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Today, states that had slavery in 1860 are much more likely to vote Republican than states that didn't.
And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, "There but for the grace of God go I." A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, "Why should I be taxed to support those people?"
Above all, race-based hostility to the idea of helping the poor created an environment in which a political movement hostile to government aid in general could flourish.
By all accounts Ronald Reagan, who declared in his Inaugural Address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," wasn't personally racist. But he repeatedly used a bogus tale about a Cadillac-driving Chicago "welfare queen" to bash big government. And he launched his 1980 campaign with a pro-states'-rights speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a small town whose only claim to fame was the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers.
Under George W. Bush - who, like Mr. Reagan, isn't personally racist but relies on the support of racists - the anti-government right has reached a new pinnacle of power. And the incompetent response to Katrina was the direct result of his political philosophy. When an administration doesn't believe in an agency's mission, the agency quickly loses its ability to perform that mission.
By now everyone knows that the Bush administration treated the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a dumping ground for cronies and political hacks, leaving the agency incapable of dealing with disasters. But FEMA's degradation isn't unique. It reflects a more general decline in the competence of government agencies whose job is to help people in need.
For example, housing for Katrina refugees is one of the most urgent problems now facing the nation. The FEMAvilles springing up across the gulf region could all too easily turn into squalid symbols of national failure. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which should be a source of expertise in tackling this problem, has been reduced to a hollow shell, with eight of its principal staff positions vacant.
But let me not blame the Bush administration for everything. The sad truth is that the only exceptional thing about the neglect of our fellow citizens we saw after Katrina struck is that for once the consequences of that neglect were visible on national TV.
Consider this: in the United States, unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can't afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined.
But the health care crisis hasn't had much effect on politics. And one reason is that it isn't yet a crisis among middle-class, white Americans (although it's getting there). Instead, the worst effects are falling on the poor and black, who have third-world levels of infant mortality and life expectancy.
I'd like to believe that Katrina will change everything - that we'll all now realize how important it is to have a government committed to helping those in need, whatever the color of their skin. But I wouldn't bet on it.


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Sign the letter in support of the The St. Patrick's Four.

Details here.


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In an article on Christianity in Pro Baseball the WaPo gives us the following:

The players not only pray, but they also discuss personal matters -- marital tension, addiction issues, family illnesses, financial stress -- drawing sometimes surprising lessons. [Washington Nationals' Ryan] Church was concerned because his former girlfriend was Jewish. He turned to Moeller, "I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word."

That's some pretty sophisticated theological analysis. Good thing she's an ex-girlfriend what with her being a Jew and all. Maybe Phyllis Schlafly is available.


Most certainly not a Jew


.

Politics before governance:

"The decision-making is being done by a small inner circle and it's being done without the input of people who have worked on disasters for years or decades," said a longtime FEMA official involved with disaster relief.


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I wrote about PA State Rep. Mark Cohen and the recent pay-raise Pennsylavania's legislators awarded themselves here. Rep. Cohen responded at Dohiyi Mir.

I'll have more to write on this soon and I'll give Rep. Cohen a chance to respond if he wishes.


.

...as the Queen of all Iraq suffers the torments of jail:

But for 30 minutes nearly every day, the world comes to her: A parade of prominent government and media officials, 99 in all, visited Miller between early July, when she was jailed for refusing to be questioned by a federal prosecutor, and Labor Day, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

[...]

But friends say the volume of visits does not make up for Miller being largely cut off from the world. Out of respect for her fellow inmates, mostly Spanish-speaking women more interested in entertainment than news, Miller does not push to watch CNN on the shared television.

"This is the toughest aspect of this for a woman who makes her living engaging the world -- to be taken away from the world," Chesler said.

Poor Judy. Cut off from the world because las chicas want to watch E!.

Of course, Judy "I was fucking right!" Miller could walk out of jail tomorrow if she stopped covering up a crime.


((New York Times/AFP)
Fucking Wrong


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MoDo:

All Andrew Jackson's horses, and all the Boy King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. His gladiatorial walk across the darkened greensward, past a St. Louis Cathedral bathed in moon glow from White House klieg lights, just seemed to intensify the sense of an isolated, out-of-touch president clinging to hollow symbols as his disastrous disaster agency continues to flail.

[...]

As Elisabeth Bumiller, the White House reporter for The Times, noted in a pool report, the image wizards had put up a large swath of military camouflage netting, held in place by bags of rocks and strung on poles, to hide the president from the deserted and desolate streets of the French Quarter ghost town.

That's gonna leave a mark.


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Song for our leader

I have composed a country-western ditty for our commander in chief about his response to Hurricane Katrina:

I was pluckin' my guitar on my five-week vacation, when Hurricane Katrina came and struck the nation.

Big winds came a-hummin'. But I just kept on a-strummin'.

Mr. Cheney said, "Hey there, chief. The Big Easy is full of grief."

So I packed my bag and got there four days late. And now I'm stuck with my Katrina-gate.

And now that we've lost a city so dear, I've finally learned that the buck stops here.




FRANK P. FRANKOVICH
Hermitage





(AP/ABC/Martha Raddatz)



.

But you knew that:

AUSTIN – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove personally called the Texas secretary of state about a newspaper story quoting a staff lawyer about whether Mr. Rove was eligible to vote in the state.

The lawyer was subsequently fired.

[...]

Elizabeth Reyes, 30, was terminated Sept. 6 after being quoted in The Washington Post three days earlier saying it was potential vote fraud to register in a place where you don't actually live.

[...]

"Karl's a friend of mine, so when he read something in the paper, he called," [Secretary of State Roger] Williams said. "Naturally, he had a way to get hold of me, as we're friends. He wanted to know if that's where we stood on the issue, and that was that."

[...]

Mr. Williams, a Weatherford car dealer, raised at least $100,000 for George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and in 2004 was among the elite tier of Bush Rangers, who each raised at least $200,000 for the president's re-election.

[via Talking Points Memo]





TX Sec. of State Roger Williams (and toupee)




Vindictive Bastard


.

...the common response to Glorious Leader's speach last night:

Two refugees had nothing but profanities to utter after President Bush's speech from New Orleans. A casino dealer said Congress was to blame for the slow response to the hurricane, not the president.

[...]

"A day late and a dollar short," said 18-year-old Wayne State University student Rachel Aviles in Detroit. "I think he's more responding to the negative media than responding to fix the problem."


.

Talk to the hand!

(AFP/Luke Frazza)


.

In the LA Times, op-ed columnist David "Fingers" Gelernter opines:

THE BUSH DOCTRINE is an unfinished song that breaks off suddenly in the middle. I like the direction it's headed, but it needs finishing — right now. The American public needs to hear and understand the whole thing.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq, the Bush presidency will not succeed, the Republicans will not hold the White House in 2008 unless softening public support for the Iraq war firms up. And that won't happen unless the Bush Doctrine is made absolutely clear. The doctrine keeps the war effort alive.

[...]

And why target tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq but not in China, Vietnam or Saudi Arabia? Can a moral doctrine apply to some evil-doers and not others?

Ponder our attack on Hussein and you'll see that 9/11 was a trigger, but our real motivation was the end of the Cold War. [...]

(emphasis added)

The Iraq misadventure was meant to end the Cold War? That's a new, and admittedly creative, justification.


.

I'm sure Glorious Leader doesn't:

Four years after the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, one of the most exhaustive investigations in FBI history has yielded no arrests and is showing signs of growing cold as officials have sharply reduced the number of agents on the case.

[...]

"It doesn't sound like they're close to cracking the case," said Eric H. Holder Jr., a Washington lawyer who was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration.

[,,,]

In light of the obstacles facing investigators, some relatives of the victims are wondering if the anthrax case will ever be solved. "It's been out there too long. I don't think they're going to find out" who did it, said Thomas L. Morris III of Suitland, whose father, D.C. postal worker Thomas Morris Jr., died of inhalation anthrax in October 2001.

Can't find the Anthrax Killers. Can't find Osama. Probably couldn't even a bathroom.

(REUTERS/Rick Wilking)


.

No, not that one. This one:

On the first day of hearings on Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination to Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, before a Russell Senate Office Building Caucus Room overflowing with members of the media and Congressional staffers, with klieg lights shining and flashbulbs popping all around, and with seventeen other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee arrayed beside him, Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn busied himself with a crossword puzzle.

On April 7, five months prior to this hearing, Michael Schwartz, Coburn's chief of staff, told me, "Tom doesn't know anything about this judiciary stuff, so I'm feeding him piles and piles of memos every day." Though Schwartz didn't specify the nature of his memos to Coburn, I assumed they were made up of primers on legal jargon and history, not word games, puzzles or other such brainteasers.


Lower left, Dr. Sen. Coburn working hard.

If you're not familiar with this fine public servant from Oklahoma, the article continues:

[...]Coburn has distinguished himself with posturing ranging from the weird (in 1997 he denounced NBC's showing of Schindler's List as "an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity"; seven years later, he invoked the specter of "rampant" lesbianism in Oklahoma public high school bathrooms) to the seemingly pointless (at the risk of censure, he has rebuked a Senate Ethics Committee demand to quit practicing medicine). Most recently, Coburn hosted a "Revenge of the STDs" slideshow in the Capitol basement this May depicting "the ravaging effects" of sexually transmitted diseases.

Thanks, Oklahoma!


.

From The Hill:

The Strategic Vision survey, conducted Saturday through Monday, gives Casey a 14-point lead over the second-term senator, with the Democrat at 52 percent and the Republican at 38 percent. Seven percent of the 1,200 likely voters interviewed were undecided.

[...]

But [Rep. Phil] English [(R-Pa.)], with Daniel Daub, chairman of the Republican Party of Schuylkill County, a critical battleground in eastern-central Pennsylvania, did suggest President Bush might be creating problems for Santorum.

“We have to watch that very closely,” Daub said of the president’s poll numbers. “I still believe in the president. I think he’s doing a great job, but I do think there will be some correlation” between Bush’s support and Santorum’s.

Maybe Ricky will try to have some more teenagers arrested.

[via The Huffington Post]


.

...turn around. Just hand me your wallet."

(AFP/File/Jim Watson)


.

He didn't apologize:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Mr. Bush said in an appearance in the East Room with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

(emphasis added)


.

Bill Gates Shows Next Windows:

"We want to make sure you're ready for the wave," Mr. Gates said, as he demonstrated Vista at a Microsoft-sponsored conference for commercial software developers in Los Angeles.


Leading the wave.


.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

— H. L. Mencken
Baltimore Evening Sun, 26 July 1920


.

PA Gov. Ed Rendell Gets It:

Flanked by local labor and political leaders, Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday proposed increasing Pennsylvania's hourly minimum wage to $6.25 in January and $7.15 a year later, with subsequent raises to reflect increases in the cost of living.

(emphasis added)

The biggest problem with the minimum wage, federal and state, has been the failure to index it to inflation. The Economic Policy Institute has more info here and here.

Gov. Rendell’s proposal is a good idea and, if adopted, would end much of the debate on the minimum wage (at least in Pennsylvania).

Of course, the Republican-controlled Legislature will make sure it doesn’t pass.


.

From the Associated Press:

"The most disturbing thing is that information that was once routinely accessible without a FOIA, now various agencies are requiring journalists to file a FOIA," said Elizabeth Bluemink, a reporter with The Juneau (Alaska) Empire and co-writer of the report.

The reporters surveyed, all members of the journalism trade group, reported significant delays — some up to a year — before receiving the information they requested under FOIA. Many reported that the information was of poor or incomplete quality, with paragraphs or entire pages blacked out. They also reported difficulty monitoring the status of their requests and delays due to waffling over fees.

This is a surprise? Remember changing the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by fiat to protect his Daddy? De-fib Dick protecting his energy-sector buddies? Hiding information from Congress?

The AP article goes on to say:

It can also affect the relationship between a reporter and sources.
"It's another reason for journalists to feel distrustful of the people and the agencies they are working with," she said. "This really undermines what newspapers are there to do."

Perhaps if these “journalists” had been doing their effing jobs for the last five years and actually reported on this veil of secrecy they, and more importantly, the citizenry, wouldn’t be so dismayed.


.

…without funding the Bush Junta. WaPo:

A group of investors that includes the District-based Carlyle Group said yesterday that it has agreed to buy Hertz Corp., the car rental company, from Ford Motor Co. for $15 billion in cash and debt.

The Bushes and Carlyle.


.

(Martha Rial/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

(A pooch named Baby Boy surveys the scene inside Breaux Mart, where Dr. Dana Fouchi brought the dog along while shopping for groceries yesterday in Metairie, La. The Jefferson Parish community was raked by high winds, but spared the flooding that crippled New Orleans. Yesterday businesses, such as Breaux Mart, began to reopen.)


.

Once again PA Senator Rick Santorum steps in it:

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Santorum was drawing a second round of fire, this time for saying the National Weather Service's forecasts and warnings about Katrina's path were "not sufficient." Democrats e-mailed audio links to a radio interview in which Santorum said that "we need a robust National Weather Service" that focuses on severe weather predictions. "Obviously the consequences are incredibly severe, as we've seen here in the last couple of weeks, if we don't get it right and don't properly prepare," Santorum said.

Here’s the warning the National Weather Service issued on 8/28 (no longer online):

EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA

DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL... LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

Yep, the NWS sure got it wrong.

Of course, it’s not like Li’l Ricky has anything against the NWS:

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

(Actual legislation here.)

Again: If the Dems want to beat Santorum just make sure as many people as possible hear what he says.


.

How things are in Bushworld©:


Hundreds of mercenaries have descended on New Orleans to guard the property of the city's millionaires from looters.

The heavily armed men, employed by private military companies including Blackwater and ISI, are part of the militarisation of a city which had a reputation for being one of the most relaxed and easy-going in America.

[...]

"I spoke to one of the other owners on the telephone earlier in the week," Yovi said. "I told him how the water had stopped just at the back gate. God watches out for the rich people, I guess."


.

...this Pope's background probably not the best way to hold the arm.



(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarentino)


.

"Solemn Day of Remembrance" like a Clint Black concert.




Yee-haw! Now where did I leave my big-ass belt buckle?


.

Flight 93 memorial

I was dismayed to read the description of the "Crescent of Embrace" design picked for the Flight 93 Memorial in the Sept. 8 Post-Gazette. It seems to me this design honors the Islamic fanatics who perpetrated this horrific act of terror more than it memorializes the victims. Everyone should know by now that the crescent is a basic Muslim symbol. (In the Arab world the Red Crescent is the Arab version of our American Red Cross.)

Why would we want to make a memorial to victims of Islamic terrorists in the shape of an Islamic symbol? It's like making a Pearl Harbor memorial in the shape of a rising sun or a memorial to victims of the Nazis in the shape of a swastika.

WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN

Squirrel Hill

What would Mr. Hoffman say about the flag of South Carolina?


Atrios has another shocking crescent example.


.

For those that were in Philly, remember PA Rep. Mark Cohen?


Swell fella. Stuck around for three days.

Jackass.

Cohen seems sincere in his belief that the Pennsylvania Legislature is a model of efficiency and reform. His quote in The Philadelphia Inquirer caught my eye: "I think Pennsylvanians are being treated to a massive propaganda campaign by the media, which rivals the propaganda which came out of the Soviet Union in its heyday.''

[snip]

"What you have in other states is government for sale,'' Cohen insisted. "Here we have honest, full-time servants.''

(For non-PA'ers: Our legislature is the largest and most well-fed in the nation. And they recently gave themselves a pay-raise.)

Pittsburgh blogger "Ol' Froth" has something to say about that.

Vote the lot of them out.


.