A Spork in the Drawer

Oh The Irony

Republican pedophile Foley in 1998:

For more than a week, members of Congress said they would avoid partisan politics when they got Kenneth Starr's report on President Clinton. But when they finally saw it Friday, they split along party lines.

Republicans were aghast at Clinton's behavior, with many saying it showed he had lied and abused his power.

"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

It would appear that Republicans find consensual sex to be worse than sex with a child.

The Party of Morality indeed.

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Remember Iraq?

Must be those darned dead-enders again:

Iraq imposed a total daylight curfew on Baghdad on Saturday, banning all movement, as U.S. forces said they had foiled a possible suicide plot to attack the city's sprawling "Green Zone" government compound.

[...]

The massive surge in sectarian killings since February has been marked by dozens of corpses being found nearly every day dumped in the streets of Baghdad, bound, tortured and shot.

Sunni Arabs say some of the killings are carried out by Shi'ite death squads with links to the government and police. Increasingly, U.S. officials have backed up such claims.

One senior U.S. military official this week said police had allowed death squads to re-enter areas already cleared by U.S. forces in a seven-week-old crackdown in the capital.

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Snarlin' Arlen

Admits torture bill is wrong but votes for it anyway:

So when the Pennsylvania Republican left the Senate chamber Thursday after seeing an amendment to preserve the rights of terrorism suspects fail, he said he was going to vote against the White House-backed bill on military trials.

"Patently unconstitutional on its face," an irritated Specter told reporters.

[...]

"I haven't been in an argument that was open-and-shut until this one, so when I walked out of the chamber I was a little hot," Specter said in an interview yesterday. "If we didn't pass the bill, there would be a mess on how we handled these war-crimes tribunals.

"Congress could have done it right, and didn't," he continued, "but the next line of defense is the court. And I think the court will clean it up."

Typical Arlen. Yip yips yips like an annoying little dog then falls in line when the rolled-up newspaper comes out.

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The Question Ought To Be...

...which Republican members of the House didn't know about the pedophile Foley?

Josh Marshall is keeping an eye on things; start here and scroll up for all the info.

And if the GOP leadership knew about this nearly a year ago and did nothing, or covered it up, wouldn't they be liable to prosecution?

Hastert...Boehner...take 'em all down.

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Serious People

Port security:

Congress was pushing on Friday to finish legislation that would boost security at U.S. ports, but at the last minute lawmakers added provisions to prohibit Internet gambling.

[...]

The House passed an Internet gambling ban earlier this summer, but the bill had difficulty moving in the Senate. However it was a priority of Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and attaching it to the popular port security bill appeared aimed at insuring its passage.

Here we have a bill meant to enhance national security and the cat killer uses it to appease Mullah Dobson.

Shameless.

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A True Chickenhawk

Republican, of course:

Saying he was "deeply sorry," Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress today, hours after ABC News questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former congressional pages under the age of 18.

[...]

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

What's the matter with Florida?

ADDED: Foley was co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus.

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Out Of The Mouths Of Terrorists

Zawahri calls Bush a failure

Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called President Bush a "lying failure" for saying progress had been made in the war on terrorism, according to a video posted on the Internet on Friday.

"Bush you are a lying failure and a charlatan. It has been 3 and-a-half years (since the arrests)...What happened to us? We have gained more strength and we are more insistant on martyrdom," the Egyptian militant leader said.

(Note to Reuters: It's Zawahiri.)

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2,708 Commas

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Dog Whistle Time

Teagan Goddard:

In a recent CNN interview, President Bush suggested history would judge the Iraq war as "just a comma." He repeated the statement today in Alabama. While it seems an odd thing to say, a Political Wire reader suggests it's designed to speak to the religious right while not unnecessarily alarming others. In other words, it's a classic example of "dog whistle politics" used to energize his base.

The Christian proverb Bush was evidently referring to is "Never put a period where God has put a comma." In essence, trust in God to make a bad situation better.

We're ruled by sociopaths.

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Here We Come, Iran

They kept this quiet, didn't they?

The House voted Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran's weapons programs. The vote came as U.S diplomats continued to press the U.N. Security Council to penalize Tehran if it fails to end its uranium enrichment program.

House sponsors of the Iran Freedom Support Act said they had hoped for Senate action as early as Thursday night, sending it to President Bush for his signature. But they said there was resistance from Senate Democrats to passing it without a debate.

The bill, passed by a voice vote, sanctions any entity that contributes to Iran's ability to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The president has the authority to waive those sanctions, but only when he can show that it is in the vital national interest.

I'm sure glad we're able to have open and honest debate in this country.

[Via JMM.]

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Sober

Dionne:

And so Clinton exploded. My canvassing of Clinton insiders suggests two things about his outburst on "Fox News Sunday." First, he did not go into the studio knowing he would do it. There was, they say, a spontaneity to his anger. But, second, he had thought long and hard about comparisons between his record on terrorism and Bush's. He had his lines down pat from private musing about how he had been turned into a punching bag by the right. Something like this, one adviser said, was bound to happen eventually.

Sober, moderate opinion will say what sober, moderate opinion always says about an episode of this sort: Tut tut, Clinton looked unpresidential, we should worry about the future, not the past, blah, blah, blah.

But sober, moderate opinion was largely silent as the right wing slashed and distorted Clinton's record on terrorism. It largely stood by as the Bush administration tried to intimidate its own critics into silence. As a result, the day-to-day political conversation was tilted toward a distorted view of the past. All the sins of omission and commission were piled onto Clinton while Bush was cast as the nation's angelic avenger. And as conservatives understand, our view of the past greatly influences what we do in the present.

I was no great fan of Clinton's presidency - I still bear resentment for having to defend him during the Year of Monica™ - but it was about time (or maybe too late) to fight back against the smears and outright lies propagated by the right in general and the administration in particular. Truth and history demands it and the Dems need to figure that out. But will they?

Good on Bill.

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Blogger

It's been seriously broken lately. Checking the support group shows that an awful lot of people are having problems publishing and it appears the Blogger techs know about the problem but aren't going to fix it anytime soon.

At this point I have to ask: Is Google intentionally trying to destroy their blogging service?

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Macaca!

Now nobody likes George Felix Allen, Jr.:

Sen. George Allen can't seem to win: first, he apologizes for addressing an Indian American with a racial slur and acknowledges that many view the Confederate flag as a hate symbol. Now, the Sons of Confederate Veterans want him to apologize, too.

[...]

"What I was slow to appreciate and wish I had understood much sooner," Allen told a black audience last month, "is that this symbol . . . is, for black Americans, an emblem of hate and terror, an emblem of intolerance and intimidation."

Now, even that statement is getting him into trouble.

"He's apologizing to others, certainly he should apologize to us as well," said B. Frank Earnest Sr., the Virginia commander of the confederate group at a news conference. "We're all aware, ourselves included, of the statements that got him into this. The infamous macaca statement. He's using our flag to wipe the muck from his shoes that he's now stepped in."

Former friends?

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Not Me

Tony Norman:

Let someone else experience the glories of war. I don't mind cheering. I believe in this war enough to send someone else's kid, but not mine. Let someone else's baby do the fighting for everything we all supposedly believe in. It's not that I don't believe in sacrifice, but I think it ought to be based on whether the kid has potential in other areas.

[...]

Better that their morgues overflow with 40, 50, 60 bodies a day than have ours stay busy over here. Better our interrogators ply their trade over there than within screaming distance of me and mine over here. Better their torturers practice their brand of torture on their own people than on ours. Better those others have a hard time looking at their faces in the mirror than that I miss a single night of sleep. Better someone else's conscience is on the line. I have to go to work in the morning.

In the next election, I'm voting for candidates who want to stay the course. I'm voting for patriots who understand that civil liberties don't mean anything if you're dead. They understand what's at stake in this war of civilizations. Our country can't sustain another defeat at the hands of primitive foreigners. As the world's only superpower, it's our duty to be the enforcers of all that is good, even if we have to break our laws and compromise our morality to do it.

[...]

It may be another generation or two before the terrorists have been completely rooted from their rat holes. That's OK. I'm voting for patriots who have the courage to send our brave children into that infernal darkness. There's a war to be won. Fortunately, I have nothing to lose.

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Dictators Of A Feather...

Bush nurtures close ties with Kazakhstan:

When President George W. Bush hosts Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the White House on Friday, he will seek to bolster ties with an oil-producing Central Asian country that has lent Washington support on Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

Washington has been only mildly critical of Kazakhstan's human rights record, despite allegations of corruption and the government's restrictions on the media and political opponents.

As a measure of the importance the Bush administration places on cultivating good relations with Kazakhstan, both Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the country in the past year.

In addition to talks in the Oval Office and a working lunch with Bush, Nazarbayev also was hosted at the Kennebunkport, Maine, estate of Bush's father, former President George Bush.

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The National Security State Rolls On

The GOP continues to destroy as much as the country as possible before the elections:

The House approved a bill Thursday that would grant legal status to President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. Republicans called it a test before the election of whether Democrats want to fight or coddle terrorists.

"The Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies that help keep our nation secure should be of great concern to the American people," Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement after the bill passed 232-191.

"To always have reasons why you just can't vote 'yes,' I think speaks volumes when it comes to which party is better able and more willing to take on the terrorists and defeat them," Boehner said.

Are we having fun yet?

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Typical

The revenge of Dover, PA:

A judge who struck down a Dover, Penn., school board's decision to teach intelligent design in public schools said he was stunned by the reaction, which included death threats and a week of protection from federal marshals.

[...]

"And if you would have told me when I got on the bench four years ago that I would have death threats in a case like this as opposed to, for example, a crack cocaine case where I mete out a heavy sentence, I would have told you that you were crazy," he said. "But I did. And that's a sad statement."

That Judge Jones is a Bush appointee is remarkable.

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Welcome To NewAmerica™

Senate OKs detainee interrogation bill

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Life In NewAmerica™

(Via Think Progress) Trent Lott:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush barely mentioned the war in Iraq when he met with Republican senators behind closed doors in the Capitol Thursday morning and was not asked about the course of the war, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said.

"No, none of that," Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. "You're the only ones who obsess on that. We don't and the real people out in the real world don't for the most part."

Lott went on to say he has difficulty understanding the motivations behind the violence in Iraq.

"It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people," he said. "Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli's and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."

Ann Telnaes:

[Via Attaturk.]

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R.I.P.

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Non-answers

Froomkin:

President Bush's angry nonanswers to two straightforward questions yesterday were among the best illustrations yet of his intense aversion to responding to his critics' actual arguments.

Rather than acknowledge and attempt to rebut the many concerns about his policies, Bush makes up inane arguments and then ridicules them.

It would be nice if more people noticed this (I'm looking at you, "news" media).

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It's NRO Day!

Apparently the Los Angeles Times has decided to make this National Review Online Day. First Doughy Pantload and now Rich Lowry. Writes Lowry (with David B. Rivkin):

The two wars began differently, of course. The Afghan war has always been much less controversial. No one has ever denied that the Taliban's harboring of Al Qaeda was a legitimate casus belli. The Iraq war had much more opposition from the beginning, and one of its chief rationales — that Saddam Hussein was harboring stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction — seemed to collapse after the U.S. invasion. But if you put aside how the wars began — and we realize that many opponents of the Iraq war will never be able to do that — there is little to differentiate them.

Yes, by all means let's put aside how the wars began. I guess we shouldn't be playing the "blame-game." Let the president do anything he fucking well wants and never look back, never correct mistakes, never question, and never, ever let facts get in the way.

All hail our glorious, lying, torturing, murdering fucking leadership! And I don't want to hear one complaint when we are compared - rightly - to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; we are them now.

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They Really Are That Stupid

Jonah Goldberg notes that invading and occupying Iraq has made us less safe - but that's OK because if we hadn't invaded and occupied Iraq we would have been just as less safe. He does so with paragraphs like this:

If you've ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Any hunter will tell you that the most dangerous moment is when you've cornered an animal, and any cop will tell you that standing up to muggers puts you in danger. American colonists were less safe for standing up to King George III, and the United States was certainly safer in the short term when we stood on the sidelines while Germany was conquering Europe. Heck, we would have been safer in the short run if we'd responded to Pearl Harbor by telling the Japanese they could have the Pacific to themselves.

Let's just admit it: It isn't even possible to have a rational discussion with people who think this way. If Jonah had written "tobacco penguin waffle Oxnard lemur papaya" it would have made just as much sense.

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Your Congress at Work

Excellent op-ed by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein in the LAT:

This part-time Congress has other parallels to the famous "Do-Nothing 80th Congress" that Harry Truman ran against successfully in 1948. The output of the 109th is pathetic measured against its predecessors and considering its priorities, which included a comprehensive immigration bill, tax reform and the research and development tax credit, lobbying and ethics reform, healthcare costs and insurance coverage, trade agreements, procedures for the detention and trial of suspected terrorists, and regulations for the oversight of domestic wiretaps, among many others. With just days to go before Congress adjourns and the fiscal year begins, not a single one of the 11 appropriations bills that make up the range of government programs has been enacted into law.

But the big problem with this Congress is not what it didn't do, it is what it did, and did badly. As of Tuesday, there were three must-pass pieces of legislation pending: defense and homeland security appropriations and the annual Department of Defense authorization. Each year, when the few must-pass bills move forward, there is a major temptation to throw on all kinds of extraneous provisions; when lawmakers can identify a train that is both leaving the station and sure to reach its destination, everyone has baggage they try to toss on board. Each year, responsible party leaders resist most of these measures, to preserve the integrity of the process and to keep shoddy bills with no vetting and no broad support from either being railroaded or inserted surreptitiously.

[...]

This November, will the public demand more from Congress, the first branch of government and the linchpin of American democracy?

Good thing the grown-ups are in charge.

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Permanent Bases

It's a start:

Congress is on the verge of barring the construction of permanent bases for U.S. forces in Iraq, a move aimed at quelling concerns in the Arab world that American forces will remain in the war-torn country indefinitely.

[...]

Pentagon and State Department officials have insisted that the U.S. military is not building permanent American bases in Iraq and that all facilities under construction will be handed over to the Iraqi government.

But the massive American bases in Iraq have long fueled speculation that the United States plans to maintain a military presence there, as it does in other parts of the Arab world.

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So What?

Another LTE:

Have some faith

I am writing in response to John Machado's Sept. 15 letter ("For the Children"). He states, "I'll vote for Bob Casey, and, if the final tallies are honest and real on Election Day, we can all look forward to better handling of government business."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that he feels that if Mr. Casey doesn't win the election, it must have been rigged. I hope that the rest of us have more confidence in our election officials. If not, why vote?

I will cast my vote on Election Day and accept the results whatever they may be, whether I like them or not, and go on with my life. There is always the next election.

JACK HATHAWAY
North Huntingdon

So if an election is rigged it's no big deal.

I'm not sayng this November's elections will be fraudulent but for any voter to take such a "so what?" attitude is utterly disgusting.

It's no wonder why our republic is in such a mess.

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Again With The Ricky!

Editorial cartoon edition:

Mean cartoon

Rob Rogers' Sept. 20 editorial cartoon was a vile attempt to demean Sen. Rick Santorum. The central message of Mr. Rogers' cartoon is that in allowing his campaign to use a political advertisement that shows Mr. Santorum along with his family, the senator has done something wrong.

Surely, if there were an award for the most shrill, partisan and twisted rendering of an innocent campaign ad, Mr. Rogers would win it. I think that despite Mr. Rogers' attempt to frame the Santorum family campaign ad in the most mean-spirited light possible, the ad is likely to resonate with most Pennsylvanians precisely because they are both pro-family and fair-minded.

KENNETH BRINZER
Penn Hills

Notice the writer has nothing to say about using one's children for political purposes.

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More Ricky!

Reg Henry:

Although connoisseurs of Santorum ads will be disappointed, the senator's six children do not make another appearance in this latest ad. Darn! Those children were so cute! They didn't even know they were being shamelessly exploited!

But Sen. Santorum has been there and done that, no doubt causing people with bunny rabbits on their stationery to write him letters of support in the face of ridicule by certain mean newspaper columnists who hate kids and cuteness both.

[...]

Of course, his Democratic opponent state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. also has children, but he has only four of them and so cannot be relied upon. Clearly, he has ignored the biblical injunction to go forth and multiply. Heck, four kids is not multiplication -- it's addition. I am sure we all agree that we don't need his sort in Washington.

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Li'l Ricky Backtracks

Tries to give up tax break on his not-in-Virginia home:

In a letter to Allegheny County assessment officials, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has acted to close a long-running political soap opera over whether he does or doesn't live in his house in Penn Hills.

Mr. Santorum formally asked that the county remove the homestead tax exemption from his Penn Hills residence. He said that he had made similar requests to county officials in conversations in 2005 and earlier this year, but to no avail.

[...]

In his letter, Mr. Santorum insists that he is entitled to the exemption, which is worth about $70 annually, but chooses not to take advantage of it because of the political dispute. Mr. Santorum notes that the ordinance may have political overtones, but says "as a resident of Allegheny County, I hope it passes."

He reiterates his contention that "My home in Penn Hills is my only residence in Pennsylvania and has always been my primary residence or domicile."

Who wants to bet that when Ricky is involuntarily retired this November he sells the house?

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Wednesday Boot

There will be no Wednesday Boot today because I'm too tired to deal with Max. But if you must read him (and why would you be fool enough to want to?) go here.

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Puritanism

This is ridiculous:

FRISCO, Texas -- An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.

The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years. She has been on administrative leave.

[...]

The Fisher Elementary School art teacher came under fire last April when she took 89 fifth-graders on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. Parents raised concerns over the field trip after their children reported seeing a nude sculpture at the art museum.

[...]

McGee's lawyer said the principal at Fisher Elementary School admonished her after a parent complained that a student had seen nude art.

A nude sculpture! Those poor children are now scarred for life! Oh the humanity!

We live in a truly demented country.

UPDATE: Maria has some of the offending art at 2PJ.

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Home

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

If I feel like it.

So there.

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Final Photoblogging

The high desert.

A petroglyph.

Another petroglyph.

And, of course, a final, yet still obligatory, ristra shot.

.

More...

...crappy digital pictures:

A mural. A bus:

Reflection:

Buddy Christ is everywhere:

And...the obligatoryristrashot:

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Sunday City Different Blogging

Blinding colors.

What time is it?

A closed door.

An open door.

Obligatory ristra shot.

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Saturday Rocket & Mask Blogging

A rocket in the desert:

Two from the excellent John Isaac Antiques:

And of, course, this being New Mexico the obligatory chile ristra shot:

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Sunrise Blogging

Sunrise over the Sandias:

The view to the west:

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Vacation

Right then. I'm off on holiday to my old home of New Mexico, a.k.a "The Land of Entrapment".

And contrary to popular opinion, New Mexico is actually a state not a foreign country.

I'll check in when possible.

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Macaca!

Salon's quote of the day:

"I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops." -- Virginia Sen. George Allen, explaining how news that his grandfather was Jewish is "just an interesting nuance to my background."

Now if George Felix could only explain his friends.

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Poor Persecuted Ricky

Watch the video:

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Dishonest and Corrupt

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) releases it's latest list of the most corrupt members of Congress:

CREW’s Most Corrupt Members of Congress: Members of the Senate: Conrad Burns (R-MT) Bill Frist (R-TN) Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Members of the House:
Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Richard Pombo (R-CA)
John Doolittle (R-CA)
Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Pete Sessions (R-TX)
Katherine Harris (R-FL)
John Sweeney (R-NY)
William Jefferson (D-LA)
Charles Taylor (R-NC)
Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Curt Weldon (R-PA)

Five Members to Watch:
Chris Cannon (R-UT)
J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
John Murtha (D-PA)
Don Sherwood (R-PA)

[Emphasis added.]

Can anyone honestly say they're suprised?

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Support The Troops!

Because Li'l Ricky pisses all over them.

dayvoe at 2PJ has the details.

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You're Expendable

The Administration is content to let you die in an airplane:

A drive by the Federal Aviation Administration to cut the number of air traffic controllers nationally by 10 percent below negotiated levels, and even more sharply at places like the busy radar center here, is producing tension, anger and occasional shows of defiance among controllers.

[...]

The F.A.A. imposed the changes on Sept. 3, three months after it declared an impasse in contract talks. Most of the changes have had little effect on the public. But one in particular may have safety implications, controllers and some outside experts said. That is the ending of contractual protection against being kept working on a radar screen controlling traffic for more than two hours without a break.

[...]

“You are on position longer, watching more airplanes, and it becomes a tired-eye syndrome,” Mr. Conely said.

[...]

In an interview, the administrator of the agency, Marion C. Blakey, said the goal of the changes was to make the agency run more like a business.

Which business model are they shooting for? Halliburton - that is, enriching cronies - or Enron - that is, punishing the American public for a business's failures?

And can anyone give me an example of "making government run like a business" that has improved the lot of the citizenry? I can't think of one.

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The Moral Desert

Outstanding Harold Meyerson column:

As events would have it, though, our nation is led by men who have carefully avoided both war and literature. By men devoid of a sense of the nation's and their own moral fallibility. By men who have led us into a moral desert and aren't even looking for a way back home.

Read the whole thing.

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GOP Civil War

MC KatKillah:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist signaled yesterday that he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President Bush.

Frist's chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents' bill "dead."

Pass the popcorn.

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Wednesday Boot

Meeting Our Glorious Leader™ edition:

If I were George W. Bush, I would have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. But if he is plagued by despair or doubt, he gave no sign of it in an Oval Office meeting last week with seven conservative columnists. Leaning forward in an armchair, clad in a pearl gray suit with a blue shirt, crimson tie and an ornate silver belt buckle from Texas, Bush began by declaring: "I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions."

But he dresses nicely. That's what's important to Max.

Max goes on, through direct quotes, to detail just how delusional Bush is. Not that Max puts it that way. He left "...impressed by his resiliency and imperturbability" writes Max but any reasonably intelligent reader would say the president is residing in cloud-cuckoo land.

But, then, so does Max.

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Identification

Voting:

The Senate is not likely to take up the measure this session, but House GOP lawmakers say they expect to keep pressing and make the issue a congressional priority next year.

"It's not going to go into oblivion," said Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Administration Committee that produced the bill.

He defended the need for tighter election laws and noted that Canada, Germany and Britain require photo IDs to vote.

"There is, I believe, increasing fraud in voting in the U.S.," Ehlers said. He described an example of "a guy in Kentucky who always voted for himself and his dog, then he got greedy and voted three times for himself and three times for his dog."

Well, that's all the evidence I need.

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From The Idiocy Files

Idaho edition:

To an Emmett strawberry farmer, who's running for governor this November, his name means everything.

"It seems like only a nut would do something like that, but I'm not a nutty kind of person at all," Pro-Life told CBS 2 News.

Meet Pro-Life, yes that's his name, formerly known as Marvin Richardson.

"My wife, she's not into calling me Pro-Life yet," he said.

In 2004 Richardson legally changed his middle name to Pro-Life and he filed for the governor's race as Marvin Pro-Life Richardson. But that's when he got a letter from the Secretary of State's Office saying no.

"They said I couldn't put Pro-Life on the ballot because that was bringing an issue to the ballot," said Pro-Life.

The mind boggles.

[Via HuffPo.]

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Fear Itself

A reader sent along something a local radio host said the other day:

"Too bad about all this bagged spinach. When there's e-coli in spinach, the terrorists win"

And sure enough:

A segment on The Big Story today 9/19/06 focused on the outbreak of E Coli attributed to fresh spinach, which has resulted so far in at least one death and over 100 reported illnesses. Retired Army Colonel Ralph Peters, ever worried, was called upon to comment that this outbreak exposes yet another vulnerability in America (that has yet to be addressed by the Bush administration's Homeland Security Department, who is busy guarding us against yesterday's threats of shampoo and toothpaste on domestic flights.)

[...]

The vulnerability exposed by this outbreak (and cheerfully exploited by FOX and friends) is that much of our food comes from huge monolithic corporate farms and distribution systems. The "mini-crisis" has highlighted the centralization of food production and distribution systems. This brings up the issue of terrorism (doesn't everything, on FOX?) and the chyrons throughout the segment alternate between "What the spinach scare tells us about the food supply dangers" and "Is our food supply vulnerable to contamination by terrorists?"

And scout_prime caught this:

If you're afraid then not only have the terrorists won but also those who seek political advantage from fear.

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Remember Iraq?

Fourth tour? Fifth tour?

The U.S. military is likely to maintain and may even increase its force of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring, the top American commander in the region said Tuesday in one of the gloomiest assessments yet of when troops may come home.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said military leaders would consider adding troops or extending the Iraq deployments of other units if needed. Until sectarian violence spiked early this year, Bush administration officials had voiced hopes that this election year would see significant U.S. troop reductions in what has become a widely unpopular war.

Field Marshal von Rumsfeld, 7 February, 2003:

"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

Today's date: 19 September, 2006.

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Good Luck With That

Target: ExxonMobil:

Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The scientists also strongly criticise the company's public statements on global warming, which they describe as "inaccurate and misleading".

[...]

Environmentalists regard ExxonMobil as one of the least progressive oil companies because, unlike competitors such as BP and Shell, it has not invested heavily in alternative energy sources.

ExxonMobil said: "We can confirm that recently we received a letter from the Royal Society on the topic of climate change. Amongst other topics our Tomorrow's Energy and Corporate Citizenship reports explain our views openly and honestly on climate change. We would refute any suggestion that our reports are inaccurate or misleading." A spokesman added that ExxonMobil stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute this year.

Entire letter here (.pdf).

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Sycophants

The headline says it all:

Bush at the U.N.: Another Political Masterstroke?

It reminds me of the question Stephen Colbert always asks members of Congress: "George Bush: Great president or the greatest president?"

Except, of course, Colbert is a satirist.

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I'm Informed...

...that it's Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrrgh...shiver me timbers...beware the black spot....

There.

(Sorry, my heart just isn't in it this year.)

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Marching For Peace

TBogg gets it exactly right.

The left needs to grow up about certain things.

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How About A Little Torture?

Arar:

OTTAWA, Sept. 18 — A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.

[...]

The report’s criticisms and recommendations are aimed primarily at Canada’s own government and activities, rather than the United States government, which refused to cooperate in the inquiry. [Emphasis added]

George W. Bush is a sadist and a sociopath.

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Mr. "Integrity"

Oh boy, Richard Cohen's in love:

The prime issue facing this country is not the war in Iraq. It is the people's loss of faith in their own government. In that, Iraq has played an important part but so, too, have campaign spending and fiscal idiocy of the sort represented by Sen. Ted Stevens's notorious "bridge to nowhere." Those of us who have been with McCain when he speaks of restoring faith in government know the effect on his audience. The man and his message are one and the same.

To restore trust, many Democrats and independents might be willing to overlook disagreements with McCain on issues of lesser importance -- including, maybe, even his rah-rah support for the war in Iraq (after all, how different is he from Hillary Clinton in this regard?) and his disquieting move to make nice with his former enemies on the religious right. But if that is to be the case, McCain must remain true to the principles he has enunciated in his disagreement with Bush over the Geneva Conventions and similar matters. Compromise is not a dirty word, but abandonment of principle is a different matter entirely.

The United States cannot conduct itself as its enemies have. We do not torture. We do not have kangaroo courts. We are John McCain, not his North Vietnamese jailers. As he did back in the Hanoi Hilton, this is McCain's moment to once again make that clear.

When are the beltway bloviators going to mention that McCain has one of the most right-wing voting records in the Senate?

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Keith Again

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Bounce? Not So Much

The predicted bounce in the polls for Our Glorious Leader™ evaporated rather quickly.

But not quite a plummet.

(The lousy quality isn't my fault.)

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Training Tomorrow's Death Squads

Jesus Camp:

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Iran

Wheeee!

The orders didn't actually command the ships out of port; they just said be ready to move by October 1.

A deployment of minesweepers to the east coast of Iran would seem to suggest that a much discussed, but until now largely theoretical, prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.

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Goremania!

Writes Ezra:

GOREWATCH. Obviously no one is saying Al Gore is going to run. Obviously no one is insinuating Al Gore is running. Obviously no one is suggesting that his decision to write The Assault on Reason for Penguin Press and publish it next May is in any way motivated by an impulse to keep testing the field at the precise moment speculation will be highest. Obviously no one is pointing out that a high-profile book tour on a Serious Subject in May 2007 will make Gore look even more attractive while the other candidates hang out at fish frys and chili cookoffs. Obviously no one is noticing that it'll let him tour the primary states and gauge the reaction without officially entering the race. Obviously no one is saying this is a fairly brilliant way to keep his options open and ensure his relevance and visibility if he wants to jump in. Obviously.

Here's hoping. (But only if it's the post-2002 Al Gore. The one who Eli calls "Angry Gore.")

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Stop The Presses!

Voters vote with hearts, not heads.

Too bad the Democrats haven't figured this out obvious fact (I'm looking at you, John Kerry).

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