Two this week...

A little bit of this...

CHICAGO, June 28, 2009 (Reuters) — A Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Sunday.

Greeley, Colorado-based JBS-Swift Beef Co is voluntarily expanding its June 24 recall to include about 380,000 lbs of assorted beef products, USDA said. The original recall was for 41,280 lbs.

... and a little bit of that...

NEW YORK — Inspection reports from a Nestle USA cookie dough factory released Friday show the company refused several times in the past five years to provide Food and Drug Administration inspectors with complaint logs, pest-control records and other information.

The records, which date back to 2004, were made public after Nestle's Toll House refrigerated, prepackaged cookie dough was discovered to be the likely culprit in an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 69 people in 29 states, according to the latest estimates from the federal Centers for Disease Control. The CDC is investigating the outbreak along with the FDA.

Makes me wonder how libertarians can argue their bankrupt "the market will punish" crap when "the market" can't figure this out without the help of the government and, frankly, is cynically and criminally manipulated.

I'm thinking jail time should be in order for the executives of any company that buries this information or refuses to cooperate with inspectors. Fancy promises based on idiotic philosophical beliefs just don't cut it.

And another...

Says it all, really...

SMBC

Rachel Maddow: President Obama,Prolonged Preventive Detention, Indefinite Detention

"Yes we can! (be just like George W. Bush, only worse...)

When Faux News turns on you...

Krauthammer: I think he is toast politically and resigning from the Republican Governor's Association chairmanship is not going to do it and the reason is that there's dereliction of duty here...

The Family Values Party...

Mark Sanford: Was bankrolled by his rich in-laws and multi-millionaire wife. Called for Clinton's resignation regarding MORAL failures because Clinton cheated on his wife. Sees it differently now that he's in the cross-hairs and is rambling on about Besheba and David therefore it was OK that he did it too.

John Ensign: Another "family values" Republicans. Cheated on his wife with a staffers wife. He bought his peace by quid-pro-quo job placement for the cuckolded husband.

Vito Fossella: Ended his re-election bid after a drunk driving arrest leads to the revelation that he has had both an affair and a child with another woman.

Bob Allen: The co-chair of McCain's 2008 Florida campaign, is arrested for offering an undercover cop $20 for the privilege of performing oral sex on him. He later says he was afraid of becoming a "statistic," as he thought the black cop was a mugger. Was conviced anyway. Allen previously advocated keeping gay couples from adopting children and applying stiffer penalties for lewd acts.

Glenn Murphy Jr.: President of the Young Republican National Federation who advised GOP-ers to use gay marriage as a wedge issue, is accused of trying to perform oral sex on a sleeping 22-year-old man. In 1998, a young man had filed an uncannily similar report against Murphy.

Larry Craig: Pled guilty to lewd conduct for soliciting sex in a men's bathroom.

David Vitter: Another Clinton basher, Vitter has an apparent passion for wearing diapers when visiting prostitutes.

Randall Tobias: Bush's Global AIDS Coordinator who spoke out against prostitution (and condom use, for that matter), resigns from the State Department after he is linked to an escort service.

Ted Haggard: Evangelical, gay-bashing pastor who resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegations that he took meth and patronized a male prostitute. Now claims his sexuality is "too complex" for others to judge.

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons: Accused of assaulting a woman in a parking garage by throwing her against a wall and threatening to rape her. She drops criminal charges, citing intimidation by his campaign. She does, however, file a civil suit. In June 2009, Gibbons asks a judge to seal his phone records against her lawyers, something that may also have to do with his ongoing divorce proceedings, in which he's accused of more affairs.


And yet gay marriage is anathema... To what?

Reigning in the Right-Wingers

This'll give some of the clowns on the right a pause...

CHICAGO—Hal Turner, an intermittent internet radio talk show host and blogger, was arrested today by FBI agents at his home in North Bergen, N.J., on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb.

Internet postings on June 2 and 3 proclaimed “outrage” over the June 2, 2009, handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further stating, among other things: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed.” The postings included photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers of these judges, along with a photo of the building in which they work and a map of its location.

Turner, 47, of North Bergen, N.J., was arrested this morning after FBI agents went to his residence to execute a search warrant. He was charged with threatening to assault and murder three federal judges with intent to retaliate against them for performing official duties in a criminal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago. He is scheduled to have an initial court appearance at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Shipp in U.S. District Court in Newark.

“We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who announced the charges with Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I can only hope O'Rielly ends up in this predicament...

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

And when Michael broke out to super-stardom in the early 80's.

Michael Jackson Passed Away Today

This is how I remember Michael Jackson. I was in 3rd grade when this song was "the thing" on the playground.

ABC - The Jackson Five

Good News from the Courts

I've been waiting for this decision:

Court Says Strip Search of Ariz. Teenager Illegal

Supreme Court: Officials at Arizona middle school conducted illegal strip search of teenager

By JESSE J. HOLLAND Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON June 25, 2009 (AP) The Associated Press

The Supreme Court said Thursday school officials acted illegally when they strip-searched of an Arizona teenage girl looking for prescription-strength ibuprofen.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that school officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches when ordered Savana Redding to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear.

Redding was 13 when Safford Middle School officials in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

The school's search of Redding's backpack and outer clothes was permissible, the court said. But the justices said that officials went too far when they asked to search her underwear.

A 1985 Supreme Court decision that dealt with searching a student's purse has found that school officials need only reasonable suspicions, not probable cause. But the court also warned against a search that is "excessively intrusive."

I'm foreseeing a large civil settlement as well... As should happen. Schools aren't prisons, no matter what the staff may think. And children are, in fact, people and do have rights. Even if they are abridged due to being non-adults.

Why I link Hullabalo

And Digby is one of my favorite bloggers of all time.

As we see the chickenhawks beat the drums regarding Iran and how Obama should "do something" this seminal post by Digby, written four years ago, bears a rebirth in our need to describe the cowardly, war-mongering chickenhawks for what they are:

Rights Of Passage

Wolcott writes:

"Atrios asks: Anyone else notice just how excited it seems to make certain members of our mediocracy?"

"It" being terrorism--the attacks in London and the prospect of similar attacks here.

I've noticed, big time. In fact, it seems like way more than "certain members"--with the sane exceptions of Michael Scheuer and Larry Johnson, nearly every guest and pundit on cable is trying to find their spot in the banshee chorus. When all of these "terror experts"--many of them affiliated with rightwing think tanks--pontificate and speculate (based on no real information) about who the perpetrators were and the nature of the long struggle we're in, they look and sound keyed-up, keen with anticipation, eager to entertain the worst.

No kidding. They're like a bunch of coke addicts trying desperately to re-capture that first great high that made them feel omnipotent. ("May the Lion come roaring back!")

9/11 was a very dramatic act of terrorism, a made for TV spectacle that horrifed and riveted the world for days. Many of these people threw themselves into the fantasy that this "war on terrorism" was the gravest threat the world has ever known (MAD be damned) and that they were somehow at the center of this conflict, destined to be heroes of the age. There were even those who said overtly that the greatest generation were a bunch of free-loading socialists compared to the freedom fighting liberators of today. It was obvious from the get that there were deeper psychological issues at play.

I suspect that among those who have not had to fight a war there are always a few who regret not being able to prove themselves on the battlefield. War does seem hardwired into the human experience; the battle cry is a pretty primal thing. So, I can understand the excitement of the twenty somethings like Pat Tilman who joined up after 9/11, driven by a strong desire to test his mettle and physical courage. (Hell, that was the reason Oliver Stone joined up in Vietnam, Kerry too --- it has little to do with politics.)Young men being excited about war is nothing new --- and having their illusions shattered by the reality of it is nothing new either. The literature of the ages can attest to this.

That is not what we are dealing with here, however. We are dealing with a group of right wing glory seekers who chose long ago to eschew putting themselves on the line in favor of tough talk and empty posturing --- the Vietnam chickenhawks and their recently hatched offspring of the new Global War On Terrorism. These are men (mostly) driven by the desire to prove their manhood but who refuse to actually test their physical courage. Neither are they able to prove their virility as they are held hostage by prudish theocrats and their own shortcomings. So they adopt the pose of warrior but never actually place themselves under fire. This is a psychologically difficult position to uphold. Bullshitting yourself is never without a cost.

And I think there is an even deeper layer to this as well and one which is vital to understanding why the right wing baby boomers and their political offspring are so pathologically irrational about dealing with terrorism. Vietnam, as we were all just mercilessly reminded in the presidential election, was the crucible of the baby boom generation, perhaps the crucible of America as a mature world power.

The war provided two very distinct tribal pathways to manhood. One was to join "the revolution" which included the perk of having equally revolutionary women at their sides, freely joining in sexual as well as political adventure as part of the broader cultural revolution. (The 60's leftist got laid. A lot.) And he was also deeply engaged in the major issue of his age, the war in Vietnam, in a way that was not, at the time, seen as cowardly, but rather quite threatening. His masculine image encompassed both sides of the male archetypal coin --- he was both virile and heroic.

The other pathway to prove your manhood was to test your physical courage in battle. There was an actual bloody fight going on in Vietnam, after all. Plenty of young men volunteered and plenty more were drafted. And despite the fact that it may be illogical on some level to say that if you support a war you must fight it, certainly if your self-image is that of a warrior, tradition requires that you put yourself in the line of fire to prove your courage if the opportunity presents itself. You simply cannot be a warrior if you are not willing to fight. This, I think, is deeply understood by people at a primitive level and all cultures have some version of it deeply embedded in the DNA. It's not just the willingness to die it also involves the willingness to kill. Men who went to Vietnam and faced their fears of killing and dying, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, put themselves to this test.

And then there were the chickenhawks. They were neither part of the revolution nor did they take the obvious step of volunteering to fight the war they supported. In fact, due to the draft, they allowed others to fight and die in their place despite the fact that they believed heartily that the best response to communism was to aggressively fight it "over there" so we wouldn't have to fight it here. These were empty boys, unwilling to put themselves on the line at the moment of truth, yet they held the masculine virtues as the highest form of human experience and have portrayed themselves ever since as tough, uncompromising manly men while portraying liberals as weak and effeminate. (Bill Clinton was able to thwart this image because of his reputation as a womanizer. You simply couldn't say he was effeminate.)

Now it must be pointed out that there were many men, and many more women, who didn't buy into any of this "manhood" stuff and felt no need to join in tribal rituals or bloody wars to prove anything. Most of those men, however, didn't aspire to political leadership. Among the revolutionaries, the warriors and the chickenhawks, there were many who did. Indeed, these manhood rituals are more often than not a requirement for leadership. (Perhaps having more women in power will finally change that.)

The only political aspirants among those three groups who failed to meet the test of their generation were the chickenhawks. And our problem today is that they are the ones in charge of the government as we face a national security threat. These unfulfilled men still have something to prove.

And, I suspect because their leadership of the "conservative" movement has infected the new generation, we are seeing much of the same pathology among younger warhawks as well. This is why we hear the shrill war cries of inchoate bloodlust from these quarters every time the terrorists strike. It's a primal scream of inner confusion and self-loathing. These are people whose highest aspirations and deepest longings are wrapped up in their masculinity, and yet they are flaccid failures. They are in a state of arrested development, never having faced their fears, never becoming men, remaining boys standing in the corner of the darkened hallway watching Bill Clinton emerge from a co-ed's dorm room to lead a rousing all night strategy session --- and sitting in the bus station on the way home for Christmas vacation as Chuck Hagel and John Kerry in uniform, looking stalwart and strong, clap each other on the back in brotherly solidarity and prepare to see what they are really made of. They have never been part of anything but an effete political movement in which the stakes go no higher than repeal of the death tax.

So, now we are facing a new crucible, one which the fighting keyboarders insist is an existential fight for everything we believe in. And you once again have campus Republicans sputtering about how their bake sales support the troops, trotting out their manly beer drinking as a stand-in for meeting the test of manhood their own belief system requires. Indeed, in a typical twist of reality, they claim that they are the new campus revolutionaries --- as they support the power structure in every way and insist that traditional values be enforced. I have no idea if they are getting laid, but their hyper-reliance on frat boy hyperbole to prove their masculinity to one another makes me doubt it. And so the weakness of one generation is passed on to the next.

Wolcott concludes his piece wondering how the warhawks can reconcile their alleged admiration for the British "stiff upper lip," with their own hysterical overreaction to the threat of terrorism:

The curious thing is that so many of the rightward bloggers and Fox Newswers who are hailing the Brits for their quiet stoicism and pluck don't seem to realize they're issuing an implicit rebuke to themselves and their fellow Americans. They're saying, in effect, "You've got to admire the Brits for showing calm and quiet perserverence after these explosions--they don't get all hysterical, overdramatic, and overreactive the way we Americans do." They don't seem to realize the example shown by Londoners might be a lesson to them, a model they might follow instead of playing laptop Pattons at full volume every time they feel a rousing post coming on.

Playing laptop Pattons at full volume, supporting the president and the entire power structure of the government is their only way of proving to themselves that they are warriors. They are damaged by their own contradictory past and as a result they cannot see their way through the haze of emotional turmoil to seek out and find real solutions to the problem of terrorism. They lash out with trash talk and threats and constant references to their own resolve because they are afraid. They've always been afraid.

Faux News Protecting Republicans...

...Fair and Balanced? Seriously, Fox is the most unhindged network in the world... And there are a lot of unhindged networks...

Fox Got Ensign Letter Three Days Earlier Than It Admitted
By Zachary Roth - June 24, 2009, 6:50PM

Just as we were all getting sidetracked by one GOP sex scandal, there was an interesting development in another.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Fox News received Doug Hampton's bizarre letter -- about the affair between Hampton's wife Cindy and Sen. John Ensign -- three days earlier than the right-wing news channel had previously acknowledged.

The paper reports:

Fox said it didn't receive the letter until June 15, when it arrived as an attachment to an e-mail. But FedEx tracking of a "priority envelope," which a reliable source said contained the hard copy, shows it was delivered on the morning of June 12.

That would mean the national news organization had additional time to investigate and report Ensign's affair before the senator's own admission of the relationship with Hampton's wife, who worked for the senator's leadership political action committees.

Of course, the main significance of the news, as the paper notes, is that it raises the likelihood that someone at Fox, or in touch with them, tipped Ensign to the news, prompting the Nevada senator to come clean. Fox senior producer Tom Lowell has previously denied telling Ensign about the letter, but Lowell declined to comment for this story.

This could get even more interesting...

From TPM

The way the prospective Republican Presidential candidates are falling (Ensign, Sanford, Jindal) it looks like it'll be Rushbo or Romney...

The Penguins Of Madagascar Gone In A Flash (1/2)

Enjoy.

The Penguins Of Madagascar Gone In A Flash (2/2)

Enjoy

Red-State Fail

Erik Erickson of RedState, yesterday (his strikethroughs):

First, we need to be clear on the facts — not the media speculation:

Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.
Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.
His political enemies — Republicans at that — ginned up the media story.
When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.
Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford’s staff and family knew where he was.
Now, here is all you need to know about this whole entire story — the reaction from the erstwhile Republicans angry at Sanford for not being a fiscal squish and from the media all go back to their core belief that without Sanford manning the barricades of government at all times, the government will collapse and people will starve, die, and forget how to read and write.

That’s it.

But that did not happen. Life in South Carolina went on. The world did not end. Government did not go off the rails. That the media and politicians would react as they did says more about their world view than anything else.

It is refreshing that Mark Sanford is secure enough in himself and the people of South Carolina that he does not view himself as an indispensable man.

And Today:

Sanford’s lies spread through his office and out to the rest of us.

The left is linking to this post to laugh at it. What they are missing is that most of us tend to give people the benefit of the doubt — even people like John Edwards.

We live in a fallen world and we ourselves are fallen. I am disappointed in Sanford, but not angry. The default for politicians seems to be unchaste. All we can do is work for ideas and try to find men of good character to fight for those ideas.

I think one thing I have noticed in the past five years is that Democrats and Republicans tend to elevate politicians to such a level that there is no accountability. It is insular. There is no support group, no small group of friends, and no authority that can guide, admonish, and correct politicians privately.

We have each other. I’m off in a bit to hang out with friends from my Bible Study. Sanford probably has none of that. I’m sure John Edwards did not. Nor Bill Clinton. Nor John Ensign.

What Mark Sanford did was wrong. He needs to go in a dark hole somewhere where no one can see him or hear him and rehabilitate himself. On the bright side, I doubt his indiscretions will affect the FisCon movement. The left is going to spend the next week making Sanford into the second coming of James Dobson to smear real marriage advocates and social conservatives — positions Sanford was rarely vocal on.

Blessed is the Lord God Jehovah who brings forth bread from heaven, water from rocks, and men like Mark Sanford from the dust of the earth. His will be done.

Actually, Sanford was (in his own words) quite the Christian and was part of the C Street Bible Study Group in Washington. Those of us on the left think Sanford is just a hypocrite and are enjoying the shuck-and-jive on the right, but otherwise not overly concerned.

I think his apologist, Erickson, is well beyond Sanford's low-standards (in a bad way) and is, at best, a complete apologetic ass-clown that has his head stuck so far up his self-deluded-victim ass to ever to understand the irony of another right-wing, Christianista hypocrite being caught doing the very things he points his finger at others for doing. Seriously, how could this not be funny, Sanford (part of the moral majority) voted to impeach Bill Clinton, after repeatedly demanding Clinton's resignation, for an affair far less complex and involved than this one...

Sanford may become a bit more human and understanding when this is all done. Erickson will remain a self-righteous choad. And, of course, one of his buddies goes all the way off the deep end...:

To majority media and other Democrats : we police our own, and you don’t get to judge

Drop dead.
Posted by E Pluribus Unum (Profile)

Wednesday, June 24th at 4:50PM EDT

138 Comments
By all means report the facts. I’m sure you’ll be happy to cover every salacious detail. Have at it. Be sure to cover the pain and suffering of Governor Sanford’s family. While you are at it, cover the depth to which all South Carolina and nation-wide Republicans and conservatives rightly feel betrayed.

Beyond that, just shut up. Shut your lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard bearing pie hole.

You don’t get to judge.

E Pluribus Unum... I wonder if he even knows what it means... Or the irony that is present in his well-displayed tribalism... Sanford is, of course, part of the diversity of Pluribus that becomes part of the singular Unum that we are all supposed to be a part of...

Conservatives... Can't live with 'em, can't put bullets in their defective little hearts...

Republican Hypocrite Mark Sanford Today...

...

COLUMBIA, S.C. – After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair. Wiping away tears, he apologized to his family and gave up a national Republican Party post, but was silent on whether he would resign.

"I've been unfaithful to my wife," he said in a news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. He said he spent the last five days "crying in Argentina."

Sanford, who in recent months had been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, said he would resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

By leaving the country without formally transferring power, critics said he neglected his gubernatorial authority and put the state at risk. It wasn't clear how his staff could reach him in an emergency.

...

And just over a decade ago...:

>“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.” [Sanford on Livingston, CNN, 12/18/98]

“We ought to ask questions…rather than circle the wagons for one of our tribe.” [Sanford on how the GOP reacts to affairs, New York Post, 12/20/98]

“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]

“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]

We don't need no "legalistic explanations" we need a resignation.

Five will get you ten the Republicans will figure out a million ways to excuse/minimize this by Friday...

Where Fred Barnes illustrates...

Protesters displaying pictures of former prime minister Muhammad Mossadeq alongside presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi during demonstrations in Iran last week. Photograph: Anonymous (courtesy of Stephen Kinzer)

...one of the fundamental flaws of conservatism:

BARNES: then when you see, you know Obama has used — the most pathetic thing is to say, gee, well, we were involved in 1953 — 1953! This is an extremely young society. You think those demonstrators are thinking, well, we hope the U.S. stays out because they were involved in 1953? That's total nonsense.

POWERS: I think there is a history there.

BARNES: 1953?

POWERS: They do remember the United States meddling.

BARNES: No, they don't.

Merely asserting they don't remember, while Iranians were showing during the protests they absolutely remember what the US did in 1953 illustrates the conservative movement's contempt for all others. Fred Barnes, a youth, if even born, doesn't remember. He doesn't care to find out, either, living in his nativist, jingoistic world where everyone loves America and we only wear 'white hats.'

It's not just with Iran. Conservatives like Fred Barnes don't understand why many Vietnamese don't care for us... Or Cambodians... Or Nicaraguans... Or Argentinians...

We have a long, long history of propping up dictators, destroying democracies and interfering with the internal politics of scores of nations. Marcos, the Shah, Saddam until he over-reached, the Contras with their death squads, Pinochet and the apartheid states of Israel and South Africa...

Until movement conservatism, with it's institutional ethnocentrism, can recognize WHY other people hate us for what we've done... They're going to make the same old mistakes, decade after decade, until our little Pax Americana hegemony collapses and we become the third-world country their domestic polices inexorably drive us toward...

Where HotAir doesn't get it...

I find it amazing how easily, and without the slightest bit of shame, the wing-nut mind invents strawman positions on which to attack Obama:

Video: Obama’s testy press conference posted at 9:17 pm on June 23, 2009 by Allahpundit

A nifty compilation from TPM, although the only moment that rises to true snottiness, I think, is his high-handed reminder that he’s the president in response to the question about McCain. Don’t get mad just because you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the podium to denounce shooting unarmed women in the heart, champ.

In his defense, he has a right to be testy: His agenda’s collapsing. Exit question via Jim Treacher: How is it that Obama was a genius yesterday for not condemning Iranian brutality and tomorrow he’ll be heralded as a genius for condemning it today? I guess he’s just super-keen on timing, huh?

Because he never didn't condemn brutality... He said it's not our business to take sides. Which is different from his condemning brutality.

This is almost as bad as the Ice Cream Fiasco on Father's day. His having ice cream with your kids while another nation (with whom we have NO diplomatic relations and whom we are perceived as "the Great Satan" by) has internal, non-threatening difficulties is not the same as Bush's playing guitar while a major American city (a domestic issue) drowns. Bush had power, authority and responsibility regarding New Orleans. All of which he failed to use.

Like it or not, what is happening inside Iran is none of our damn business.

Conservative Jurisprudence - Dred Scott 2009

Then (1857):

Dred Scott (1799 – September 17, 1858), was a slave in the United States who sued unsuccessfully in St. Louis, Missouri for his freedom in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. No one knows exactly when he was born. His case was based on the fact that he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, but had lived in states and territories where slavery was illegal, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and that therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did not effect his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, since reaching that result would deprive Scott's owner of his property.

Better to preserve injustice and the system than have justice then.... And, apparently, now:

In 1993, William Osburne was convicted of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent the next 14 years of his life behind bars. Osburne insists that he is innocent, the State of Alaska has in its possession DNA evidence which will once and for all prove his guilt or innocence, and Osburne has offered to pay for DNA testing out of his own pocket. Allowing Osburne to prove—or disprove–his claim of innocence will cost Alaska literally nothing.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court held today in a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice Roberts that Osburne is out of luck. Although Roberts conceded that “[i]t is now often possible to determine whether a biological tissue matches a suspect with near certainty,” he determined that Osburne has no right to pay for a test that could exonerate him for a crime he did not commit. Allowing Osburne to prove his potential innocence, Roberts said, risks “unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice.”

It's criminal JUSTICE. I think Supreme Court, packed with wing-nuts, has lost sight of that concept...

Why do they bother with books in the first place?

One of the stronger factors why I keep my child in homeschooling, despite the fact public schooling would be cheaper and easier on myself and our family... The Texas State Board of Education, fresh off the blatant attempts at ruining science for all of America's youth, now wants to infect your children with more right-wing lunacy. Don McLeroy, and his wing-nut friends and enablers, have appointed a panel of so-called “experts” who will help guide the revision of the social studies standards. It turns out that power-of-stupidity faction has embedded lunatic-fringe right-wingers into the process. Here are three:

Bill Ames: In 2004, for example, he testified before the state board in support of new abstinence-only health textbooks. He criticized comprehensive sex education as an effort “to promote sexual activity as no more than an adolescent game, without responsibility”:

“The other side’s agenda is not about helping children. Rather, it is about growing the business volumes and revenues of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Such a goal requires high numbers of sexually active teenagers, indoctrinated and encourages by anything-goes sex education programs in our public schools.”

Peter Morrison: A right-wing nativist, he's so hard-core he even hates moderate Republicans. Here are just some of his ramblings:

On Sotomayor: “For one thing, if she’s confirmed, there’s every indication she’ll be a big promoter of the radical gay agenda on the court. She’s replacing David Souter, a lifelong bachelor and recluse who lived with his mother when he was appointed. President Bush Sr. assured us that the unknown Souter was a real conservative, but he turned into one of the biggest champions of gay rights on the court. Likewise, Sotomayor was briefly married thirty years ago, had no children, and has never remarried. She’s certainly not going to be a friend of the traditional family, to put it mildly.

And, of course, we can't leave out Obama: The flip side of Obama’s ‘empathy’ is apparent hatred and contempt for white people, traditional families, small business owners, evangelical Christians, conservatives, and everyone else that liberals call the ‘racist, heterosexist, nativist, Christianist, capitalist, homophobic power structure’ in America. In other words, what most of us call normal people. These radical leftists regard folks like you and me and our children as the enemy, and it’s their mission in life to put us in our supposed place, which to them means at the back of the bus. They’re in charge now, and they fully intend to use their power to remake America in their image. If the Senate approves Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, Obama will know that he has carte blanche to escalate his all out war on traditional Americans. . . .

If they approve her (and to be honest, with only 40 squishy Republicans in the US Senate, it’s unlikely), it’s time to get serious about finding a way for our beloved Texas to exit a system where Barack Obama and his racist friends interpret the laws that undergird our very life, liberty and material security.

Well, yes, we do call homophobic, racist, theocratic, laissez-faire assholes names. Because they've earned those names from their unabashed over-the-top bigotry, racism, homophobia and hatred which they seek to codify in the law in order to deny people their basic human rights as well as other statutory insults to the dignity of their person. Calling a homophobe a homophobe is an accurate statement. You don't like it, don't be a homophobe. Same goes with any form of bigotry... If you don't like being labeled a bigot, don't be a bigot...

Tom Owens: Owens is a right-wing activist with ties to the Constitution Party, which seeks “to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations.” Owens is also an unapologetic homophobe. His political website (here) is vile and doesn't bear repeating. As for his idiotic "Christian USA" argument, I've addressed that I addressed just this morning in my Mabinogi (guild) forum in regards to what appears to be a classic "wing-nut" letter, to which I (partially) responded:

This letter is a load of crap and smells like another right-wing, douche-bag attack made up by some loser in his mother's basement. The writing is atrocious and lacks competency in the very basics of spelling and grammar. I would find it unlikely, virtually to the point of impossibility, that anyone who wrote this poorly could make it through any teacher education program and then successfully find, and retain, a job in the educational field.

The funniest part is the typical "Christian America" rant. You can really tell it's a wing-nut with no grasp of the Constitution and has not read the Federalist papers which go into great detail the thinking behind each Constitutional clause and subsequent amendment to the Constitution codified in the "Bill of Rights." Further, "she" (I have my doubts) obviously hasn't read the first Treaty of Tripoli written in 1797. Article 11 of the Treaty EXPLICITLY STATES the United States is NOT a Christian nation. So, in 1797, folks -- we have a treaty written and ratified by the very deists, atheist's and mostly-non-religious folks who wrote the Constitution -- that explicitly states the US is not a Christian nation.

There is a lot of other historical evidence ignored by the wing-nut Christianista movement too. Most of the founding fathers were not 'devout Christians' in the sense we would look at them today, rather they were social Christians, deists, etc. The few actual all-in Christians in the group were marginalized as they were a significant minority in the writing of the Constitution. The Federalist papers, as I mentioned above, went into some detail the very reason there shall be a "wall of separation" between Church and State (below).

And, of course, the modern-day liar ignores the context of the times. For those who don't know, the reason my family came to America back in 1633 was to escape religious persecution in England. Just like hordes of other Christians from all over Europe. The memory of State-Sponsored Persecution was just too strong in the minds of the founding fathers for this modern-day lie to have any semblance of fact.

The bottom-line is the whole "US is a Christian Nation" is actually a MODERN concept brought about by lying wing-nuts whose stated goals is making the US a Christian theocracy. To bring literal biblical law to the US and the purges that will follow. A system every bit as oppressive as the Sharia law used in the theocratic Muslim countries.

And nothing will stop them from lying. Because they hypocrites and power-hungry populists that prey upon decent people who lack the education, and sometimes brain-power, to debunk their lies.

But really, the question is: Why do they bother with books? They hate education and they could save a lot of money and stop corrupting the rest of the educational process in the United States with their idiotic influence. It'd be a win-win.

The Party of the South

New Poll Numbers on the Republicans:REPUBLICAN PARTY
FAV UNFAV NO OPINION
ALL 24 71 5
MEN 32 63 5
WOMEN 16 79 5
DEM 5 94 1
REP 70 22 8
IND 15 78 7
OTH/REF 19 76 5

WHITE 31 64 5
BLACK 3 94 3
LATINO 8 86 6
OTHER/REF 9 84 7
18-29 9 87 4
30-44 35 59 6
45-59 21 74 5
60+ 23 72 5

NORTHEAST 8 90 2
SOUTH 45 47 8
MIDWEST 18 78 4
WEST 20 76 4

They are, truly, the Party of the South... And just even there, more people view them unfavorably than favorably.

More important, is they've lost every minority group in America. And population changes and demographics tell us that there stronghold, white voters, will continue to decline in relative proportion.

So, the question is: If they're so incompetent in managing government, the economy and their own party, why listen to them? Why cringe at the charges of "liberal media" or "liberal?" Why hide their misdeeds from the country and from the world?

Would it not be better to hold them up as an example? Show others the price of arrogance in governance? Let them be Caesar's spear carrier, forever reminding the Democrats: Remember, Caesar! Thou art mortal!

Mars Lake

This is cooler than cool...

June 18, 2009—The first-ever shoreline discovered on Mars would be a prime place to try and dig up proof of past microbial life on the red planet, researchers have announced.

The newfound shore (seen above as it would have looked filled with water in an artist's rendering) lies along what was once a body of water about the size of North America's Lake Champlain (see map), said the University of Colorado at Boulder team that spotted the feature.

Although most ancient deltas on Mars have been badly eroded by winds, the new lakeshores have been sheltered within a valley just north of the equator called Shalbatana Vallis.

Planetary geologist and lead author Gaetano Di Achille said he and his colleagues first spotted hints of the ancient lake in 2007 in sediment data from European Space Agency's Infrared Imaging Surveyor.

Now the scientists say they have "unambiguous evidence" of the well-maintained shoreline, thanks to high-resolution pictures of the region from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The now dry lake is thought to be just three billion years old—which would mean the region was watery 300 million years after Mars's warm, wet period is thought to have ended, the team says.

(Related: "NASA Images Add a Billion Years to Mars's Wet Period?")

Despite the lake's scientific attractiveness, it might be a while before robotic probes can make the trek.

"It wouldn't be that easy to land in the lake," Di Achille said. But "in the future, it will definitely be one of the best places for looking at the presence of life."

Findings appear online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Glad I found it as things this neat just don't get covered by the main stream media in the glory or detail they deserve...

Sometimes the readers make the blog...

I read Andrew Sullivan's blog. Very frequently I get tired of his idiotic libertarianism and the inherent ironies of how he seems to hate, for lack of a better word, things like entitlements because they're parasitic and thus, somehow, somewhere, some one is 'getting a better deal' than Andrew. This, of course, juxtaposes in an inherently ironic fashion as his blog is, by its nature, a parasite on the news industry and on which he spends much of the day taking the work of others to fill his space with, maybe, a few comments (frequently of little or no use) here and there. If it were just Andrew, I'd have given up a long time ago. The wankery and paranoia that somehow, somewhere, some one my be getting a 'better deal' in life than Andrew is tedious and while I, on occasion, find a new, good blog from his pages, it'd be 1000 times easier from Hullabaloo.

But the readers... Some of them are brilliant:

There is nothing here to vindicate the neocons. Their dreams of democracy flourishing around the world are shared by most Americans and many more people generally. This is not what distinguishes neocons from the rest of us--it is one of the things we have in common. What distinguishes neocons is their authoritarianism, their belief that the common good is something that can and should forcefully be imposed by a strong ruler, ruling class, or government--a point you rightly acknowledge in your post. I therefore don't see how there is any irony here at all. Democracy and freedom are not neoconservative ideas--they do not get to own those concepts. The neoconservative idea is about how to get there, and in this singular distinguishing aspect they have been proven wrong over and over again, leaving disaster upon disaster in their wake.

Once again, this comes back to an issue of respect for the dignity of others.

One thing that keeps coming up in the commentaries on Iran is the observation that, in demanding that the Iranian people accept an election result that is so obviously false, Khamenei is insulting the intelligence, and thus the integrity, of his people. Or as Rami Khoury puts it in the piece you linked to, "human beings...do not like being treated like idiots by their own government, and resist the process when it takes place."

This is precisely what was so infuriating about the last 8 years, starting with the disputed election, right on to the very bitter end. Time and again, the neocons who led our country asked the American people, and the world, to accept things that were obviously false (Saddam was an imminent threat to the U.S., WMD or no WMD), obviously illegal (neither Geneva Conventions nor FISA applied to GWoT), or obviously evil (torture), thereby insulting the intelligence and the integrity of the American people.


This is not coincidence--the two are related. The top-down approach, which is at the core of both neoconservatism and tyranny, is fundamentally, or at least invariably, at odds with human dignity. In this important sense, the neocons' hearts are not in the right place at all, even if their dreams about freedom are dreams we all share. But freedom itself is not enough--justice and equality are essential, and tend to be disregarded by neocons, who routinely attack efforts to further justice and equality as threats to (their own) freedom.

I know you get this, Andrew, which is why I read your blog.

Your American Justice System at Work:

Woman must pay $1.92 Million for hosting 24 songs on a file-sharing service. The statutory damages are 228,571 times as much as the actual damages of $0.35 per song. Meanwhile, if you're innocent of a crime: tough luck, you still have to rot in jail:

On Thursday, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), ruled that convicted criminals have no constitutional right to access the state's evidence in order to subject it to DNA tests which could prove their innocence.

So, cost a record company, oh, $8 or so and you're hit with a $1.92 million fine. Be innocent of a crime and the state holds evidence to exonerate you... Tough shit...

We are such a fucked up country.

Headed to the Wave Pool...

Explaining to my daughter why we put on sunscreen, despite her complaints... And telling her about the good old days when we put on tanning lotion so we could tan darker, faster and, unknown to us at the time, get so much closer to skin cancer and shoe-leather-like, sun-damaged skin.

But, hey, tanned was "the thing" as captured in this Coppertone add from the '70s...




Even though, when we were old, like her great grandmother, we too, could like like a liver-spotted prunes...

















Suddenly the SPF 70 is no longer such a deal...

Obama's Plan for Gay Rights..

Here.

Avenging Amanda Terkel

Ha ha! A little revenge.

Wilkins Coffee

There were real commercials made by Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets) back in the 1950's. You'd never get this kind of violent commercial on TV today.

HT to Super Punch blog.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Craigslist

New Weird Al video. Enjoy!

And More on the Iran Election Results...

Like I've been saying, just because your guy didn't win doesn't mean the election was rigged. Not everyone in the world wants what most of us want... A person really needs to combat their inherent ethnocentrism when hearing news you don't want to be true, even if it could be...

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.

As I've said, and will say again, nobody in the West really knows what happened. And the presumptive rush to judgement, based on Western sensibilities, versus the reality of the Iranian population's sensibilities, is knee-jerk.

The Iranian Revolution...

Booman sarcastically writes: This is how the Clerics keep control and suppress human rights and freedom in Iran. I'm sure God would approve.

Of course he would approve. Unless you're so niave to think God is about compassion and human rights! If you are, think again:

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)

All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved. When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God's death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:24-32 NLT)

"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children. (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the entire army and attack Ai, for I have given to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. You will destroy them as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may keep the captured goods and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city." So Joshua and the army of Israel set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand fighting men and sent them out at night with these orders: "Hide in ambush close behind the city and be ready for action. When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away from them. We will let them chase us until they have all left the city. For they will say, 'The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.' Then you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will give it to you. Set the city on fire, as the LORD has commanded. You have your orders." So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai. But Joshua remained among the people in the camp that night.

Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the leaders of Israel. They camped on the north side of Ai, with a valley between them and the city. That night Joshua sent five thousand men to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. So they stationed the main army north of the city and the ambush west of the city. Joshua himself spent that night in the valley. When the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his army hurriedly went out early the next morning and attacked the Israelites at a place overlooking the Jordan Valley. But he didn't realize there was an ambush behind the city. Joshua and the Israelite army fled toward the wilderness as though they were badly beaten, and all the men in the city were called out to chase after them. In this way, they were lured away from the city. There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not chase after the Israelites, and the city was left wide open.

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Point your spear toward Ai, for I will give you the city." Joshua did as he was commanded. As soon as Joshua gave the signal, the men in ambush jumped up and poured into the city. They quickly captured it and set it on fire. When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the city was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. For the Israelites who had fled in the direction of the wilderness now turned on their pursuers. When Joshua and the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the city, they turned and attacked the men of Ai. Then the Israelites who were inside the city came out and started killing the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in a trap, and all of them died. Not a single person survived or escaped. Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.

When the Israelite army finished killing all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone inside. So the entire population of Ai was wiped out that day – twelve thousand in all. For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed. Only the cattle and the treasures of the city were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these for themselves, as the LORD had commanded Joshua. So Ai became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day. Joshua hung the king of Ai on a tree and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body and threw it in front of the city gate. They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today. (Joshua 8:1-29 NLT)

I mean, seriously, a few beatings and killings is pretty small beer compared the the wholesale slaughter of multiple cities including the women and children...

Or, in other words, you know Fred Phelps doesn't make his stuff up... He just shows you the ugly side your priest never talks about...

Fred Phelps followers sing God Hates The World

The only difference between them and the mainstream is a very small difference in manners. Otherwise the message is pretty much the same in virtually all Christian Denominations.

Ethnocentrism and Iran

Ethnocentrism:

The term ethnocentrism refers to the tendency for each society to place its own culture patterns at the centre of things. Ethnocentrism is the practice of comparing other cultural practices with those of one's own and automatically finding those other cultural practices to be inferior.

As it relates to this:

BRUSSELS — EU nations criticized Iranian authorities Sunday over the conduct of presidential elections and their "brutal" reaction against demonstrators protesting the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters in Paris his government is "very worried" about the situation in Iran following Friday's vote and postelection violence that erupted after the release of results Saturday.

Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the vote, which is disputed by his reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Wow. The EU is upset because the losers are saying the election was stolen and are rioting? I've seen how the western countries have handled these things, too. Not a lot of difference when the pitchforks and torches come out...

But the routine western "the election was stolen" claim that's also making its way through the press just makes me wonder... So, is it just me, or are there others who are not surprised by the outcome of election?

I realize that the challenger was very popular with the Iranian middle class and moderates. However, the Iranian middle-class and social-religious moderates are a small part of the population. So, even though they did make some rather decent sized rallies in the larger cities during the election. But Iran remains, primarily, an agricultural and resource-extraction economy filled with working-poor. Add in decades of indoctrination to a very conservative, male-privilege Muslim religious view and that a reformer might roll-back some of those privileges... The results in the recent Iranian election should not be surprising in the least. At least if you'd been paying attention to Iran. No matter how much you personally believe the election was "obviously" stolen.

And if you think my thoughts on the subject are wrong... Look at any western election and how these issues play. For example, Bush won Ohio, even though the more liberal, urban areas went for Kerry, because the rednecks went overwhelmingly for Bush... And to think Iran doesn't have its own population of "bubba equivalents..." Whatever...

Post Script: I'm not saying it wasn't a stolen election. I'm just saying that automatic "everybody wants it like us and when things happen differently, it must be be a stolen election." I want to see proof. Not just wild accusations because you didn't like the results.

Better lawyer-up...

John Yoo is in the cross-hairs:

A federal judge has ruled that John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer who wrote crucial memorandums justifying harsh interrogation techniques, will have to answer in court to accusations that his work led to a prisoner’s being tortured and deprived of his constitutional rights. The government had asked Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco to dismiss the case filed by Jose Padilla, an American citizen who spent more than three years in a military brig as an enemy combatant. Judge White denied most elements of Mr. Yoo’s motion and quoted a passage from the Federalist Papers that in times of war, nations, to be more safe, “at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

I hope he rots in jail because what he did was a crime.

Failed Launch...

An amazing sight...

Told you so... (Again)

From AmericaBlog, you know, people so in the tank for Obama that I stopped visiting the site:

Friday, June 12, 2009

Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.

by John Aravosis (DC) on 6/12/2009 09:44:00 AM
UPDATE: Obama spokesman caught lying to Politico.

Joe and I have been trying since last night to get a copy of the government's brief just filed in this case. This is not the GLAD case that we've written about previously, it's another in California.

We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).

Look, he's a gutless, spineless ass. And a bigot. You got what you paid for. Which was a gutless, spineless bigot... Congratulations. Tell me again, how much better than Hillary, or a retarded rock, Obama is...

And then kiss my ass. I told you so. Again. And again. And again. And again.

The Discovery Institute and Censorship

Enjoy.

"Discovery" Institute Caught Illegally Censoring Videos

Well, the liars at the Discovery Institute are now breaking the law... What a non-surprise...

In April...

DHS tells us, three-months after the left-wing memo was released:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration

Last week it was Dr. Tiller. This week a white supremest/separatist opened up at the Holocaust Museum killing one. Last year, a Unitarian Church in Knoxville.

All by right-wingers who are conspicuous consumers of the shit that is peddled by right wing hate-mongers and media-co-conspirators, like Bill O'Rielly and Rush Limbaugh, who deny any sort of responsibility for inflaming these domestic terrorists. Even though they're more than willing to pin the very same power of persuasion on the left whenever it fits their purpose.

The Theory of Evolution in 2 Minutes.

Worth watching.

Michael Ware Force Feeds NEOCON Mouthpiece Truth About Supporting The Troops!

An ass-kicking.

Living in a bubble...

Anencephaly.















Treacher-Collins


Ross Douhat doesn't get it:

Over the last week, there’s been an outpouring of testimonials, across the Internet, from women (and some men) who lived through these hard cases. They help explain why Tiller thought he was doing the Lord’s work, even though that work involved destroying something that we wouldn’t hesitate to call a baby if we saw it struggling for life in a hospital bed. They help explain why so many Americans defend his right to do it.

Oh, really? Like a baby born with Treacher-Collins Syndrome? You know, without the bones of their face? Not a pretty sight. And it will take scores of operations to make a child like that functional as a human being.

Not pretty. Not even much of the way in "human looking." Just so he/she can eat and breath like any other normal human.

And it costs millions to rebuild the child into a semblance of a normal, functioning person. Millions of dollars Mr. "No taxes for the rich" and "government health care is socialism" isn't willing to pony over...

I think the biggest mistake made in this issue is the failure to show these "babies" dying their horrible deaths. People don't realize you're not looking at the "Gerber Baby" but babies like this baby born with anencephaly and other fatal, sometimes horribly painful, conditions that mean life, if any, will almost certainly be brutal, painful and short.

Besides, if we give in, we'll be giving into terrorists. Who, like most terrorists, feel perfectly justified in what they do... Like the ones who flew those airplanes into the World Trade Center.

There's a lot more blathering. It represents, no doubt, some of the best in Conservative Thought, though it's fairly non-sensical. The only other really stupid idea in there, beyond his idiotic fantasy that late-term abortions are not the result of serious complications/issues and Tiller was abusing the process (never mind they were 100% referral cases) is this idiotic idea:

If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically. Arguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester — as many advanced democracies already do – would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions.

Ah yes, the "democratic process" by which we can deny people their rights! Because when a wing-nut calls for the Democratic Process, what he means is "repeal the rights of our fellow man by the process of populist demagoguery and dehumanization." Just like the "Rule of Law" means "Rule of Law for People Not Like Me (Good Republicans/Conservatives) and Especially for Democrats."

You know, all those Republicans under Reagan and Bush II who should have gone to jail, but haven't get a free pass. Clinton distorted his truth about a blow-job and they tried to impeach him.

The Burning Hell by Estus Pirkle

An infinite torture... All this for wearing clothes of mixed cloths... ;)

"'Observe my regulations. "'Don't let your livestock mate with those of another kind, don't sow your field with two different kinds of grain, and don't wear a garment of cloth made with two different kinds of thread. (Leviticus 19:19)

Don't round your hair at the temples or mar the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)

"'A person who curses his father or mother must be put to death; having cursed his father or his mother, his blood is on him. (Leviticus 20:9)

"'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, that is, with the wife of a fellow countryman, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)

The man who goes to bed with his father's wife has disgraced his father sexually, and both of them must be put to death; their blood is on them. (Leviticus 20:11)

If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is depravity; they are to be put to death by fire, both he and they, so that there will not be depravity among you. (Leviticus 20:14)

20:15 If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you are to kill the animal.

20:16 If a woman approaches an animal and has sexual relations with it, you are to kill the woman and the animal; their blood will be on them.
(Leviticus 20:15-16).

If a man goes to bed with a woman in her menstrual period and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her blood, and she has exposed the source of her blood; both of them are to be cut off from their people. (Leviticus 20:18)

"'A man or woman who is a spirit-medium or sorcerer must be put to death; they are to stone them to death; their blood will be on them.'" . (Leviticus 20:27)

The daughter of a cohen who profanes herself by prostitution profanes her father; she is to be put to death by fire. (Leviticus 21:9)

21:17 "Tell Aharon, 'None of your descendants who has a defect may approach to offer the bread of his God.

21:18 No one with a defect may approach - no one blind, lame, with a mutilated face or a limb too long,
(Leviticus 21:17-18)

24:14 "Take the man who cursed outside the camp, have everyone who heard him lay their hands on his head, and have the entire community stone him.

24:15 Then tell the people of Isra'el, 'Whoever curses his God will bear the consequences of his sin;

24:16 and whoever blasphemes the name of ADONAI must be put to death; the entire community must stone him. The foreigner as well as the citizen is to be put to death if he blasphemes the Name.
(Leviticus 24:14-16)

Terrorism Update...

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Climate Denial Crock of the Week - Don't it make my Green World Brown

Just ran into this guy today. Really good at what he does.

Daily Show: Mocking Dick Cheney

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Why is the best news source in America a comedy show?

Daily Show: Big Mess...

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BiG Mess
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He's so good...

Girls, Boys and the Math Myth

Well, so much for "boys are naturally better at math because it's the genes" argument:

Researchers have more evidence that takes aim at the old stereotype that boys are better at math than girls. Psychologist Janet Hyde had previously studied scores on standardized math tests in the United States, and found no difference in performance between girls and boys. Her new study expands the scope of the work by analyzing international data. She and her colleague analyzed studies from around the world on math performance along with gender inequality as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index. This index measures the gap between men and women in economic opportunity, educational attainment and other socioeconomic factors [LiveScience].

They found that countries with poor gender equality, like India, had a larger gender gap in math, while in countries with excellent gender equality, like the Netherlands, girls performed as well as boys. If males really did have an innate advantage in math, the researchers note, that advantage should be obvious throughout all these cultures. Instead, the study suggests that cultural issues are the basis of the math gender gap.

This is one of my favorite things about science, you just don't get to keep your herd of sacred cows...

And it points out your flaws as a society. Where the genders have equality, girls and boys do the same. Where you don't... Not so much... Like here in the US:

Mertz points out that the US ranked 31st out of 128 countries in the World Economic Forum’s latest international study of educational, economic, health and political gender equity. The top three were Sweden, Norway and Finland.

And, so we know where we are compared to the world... Not exactly enlightened. But then, if you've been paying attention, you'd know that... We are, after all, a "Christianista Nation."

And, as we know, God hates women.

David Carradine...

Kung-fU - David Carradine KungFu
by unzip
Has died of an apparent suicide. I think he was best known as Qai Chang Caine in the series Kung Fu, of which I was an avid fan in both original and the years of syndication that followed.

Yes...

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...it is terrorism:

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes. 2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization. 3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government

So, what now, round up Randal Terry and the other enablers? Those that encouraged him, like Bill O'Reilly? Do we detain indefinitely and torture for more information them because they, or their associates, might strike sometime, again, in the future?

And why not? We've already pissed away our respect for the law and the Constitution. What should stop us now? We've already opened Pandora's box...

Embryological Evidence for Evolution

Enjoy.

Little Evils...

Andrew Sullivan blogging at The Atlantic writes:

I want to reiterate my personal moral opposition to legal late term abortions. I understand the awful tragedies and complexities involved. I know too that most of these children would die soon anyway - or be subject to grueling operations with many risks. I just find the ending of human life to be something we avoid as much as we possibly can. And we need to find many more ways to facilitate contraception, the morning-after pill, and adoption to make these tragedies much rarer than they are.

To which I email him back:

Prolonging pain and suffering is no virtue. Yet, in short, you seem to say that you'd rather they suffer immense pain and suffering than performing a humane and painless abortion? With the collateral inhumanity of putting the parents through even more hell than they are already suffering as they have to watch their child die a horrible painful death?

Do us a favor and re-title you book: The Conservative (Who Lacks a) Soul (even though he's kidding himself otherwise). I am in, in no way, an "abortion" fan but a pragmatic "pro-life" person who understands that it really isn't my business to stick my nose into the lives of others over medical decisions. It is absolutely inhumane to prolong the needless suffering of others in a situation where there is no upside enjoyment of life. These poor creatures do not, in any circumstance, "enjoy life" while they certainly suffer greatly from pain.