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Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

01-07-2006

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “We are Iraqis, and Al Qaeda ca…

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: "We are Iraqis, and Al Qaeda came from outside our borders. They defame the name of the noble resistance inside Iraq," - "Abu Omar", the nom de guerre of a member of the Islamic Army in Abu Ghraib. The enemy is not just evil; it's also dumb. In that lies the slim, but still present hope for the future in Iraq.

A FULLER LIST: The recipients of Abramoff's bounty, with party affiliation highlighted.

UH-OH: After he copped a plea deal, Randy Cunningham wore a wire for a while to record his conversations.

THE NEXT GENERATION: The latest Hamilton College/Zogby poll of high school seniors shows a generation morally troubled by abortion and highly supportive of gay rights. 53.6 back marriage rights, an additional 20.1 percent back civil unions, and 63 percent are fine with gay adoptions. Catholics, as ever, are the most pro-gay of Christian denominations. Here are the results from 2001. The marriage question, alas, has changed. In 2001, 66 percent favored marriage rights, but were not given a civil union option. Today, a combined 74 percent favor one or the other. The proportion of students who were staunchly antigay in 2001 was 30 percent. In 2005, it was 20 percent. The bulk of them came from evangelical and fundamentalist backgrounds. As the broader society becomes much more accepting of gays, the religious right has hardened its hostility. Oh, and the idea of amending the federal cosntitution to bar marriage and civil unions for gays? It has 26 percent support among the next generation. Hence the urgency among the older fundamentalists to get it passed - soon.

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01-07-2006

A more inspiring image.

Hey, I don't want that last picture sitting at the top of the blog all day, while I go out and live in the real world. So how about this: It's all yours for $1.2-million.

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01-07-2006

Slow-cooked bog bodies.

Mummified by peat moss. We learn some interesting things about these well-preserved people from 2,000 years ago. One used "a type of Iron Age hair gel; a vegetable plant oil mixed with a resin," and another was "horrifically tortured before death."

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01-07-2006

Truthiness and heart-feeling.

The most useful word of the year is "podcast," says the panel of linguist, but they still pick, for word of the year: "truthiness."



Also in contention were "whale tail" and "muffin top," both of which have to do with the way young women mis-wear their pants.



The linked CNN article -- which shoehorns in every possible thing about Tom Cruise it can -- fails to credit Stephen Colbert for truthiness, so go here for more, including the original Colbert quote:

And on this show, on this show your voice will be heard... in the form of my voice. 'Cause you're looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I will speak to you in plain simple English.



And that brings us to tonight's word: truthiness.



Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, "Hey, that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.
Watch the clip here, which goes on to talk about Bush and "feeling the truth about Harriet Miers," the Iraq war, and so forth. Colbert says that the real division in this country isn't between liberals and conservatives but between those who think with their head and those who feel with their heart. All the examples of heart-feelers he gives are from conservatives (which fits his character on the show, who promotes both heart-feeling and conservatism). In real life, there are folks playing the heart-feeling card in both parties.



(Some are Senators on the Judiciary Committee who, I predict, will do some serious heart-talking next week at the Alito hearings.)

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01-07-2006

Tierney on the Florida vouchers case.

John Tierney writes (from behind the TimesSelect wall) about the Florida voucher case (which we were talking about here yesterday):

Democrats once went to court to desegregate schools. But in Florida they’ve been fighting to kick black students out of integrated schools, and they’ve succeeded, thanks to the Democratic majority on the State Supreme Court.




The court’s decision on Thursday was a legally incoherent but politically creative solution to a delicate problem. Ever since Florida’s pioneering statewide voucher program began, Democrats have been struggling to deal with the program’s success.

Tierney draws attention to the way the Florida Supreme Court avoided deciding the case on the ground the lower court used, a provision of the state constitution saying “No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”




He notes that to have decided the case on that ground would have endangered popular expenditures of public money to “hospitals, colleges and preschool programs run by religious institutions.” The court relied on this clause: “Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality system of free public schools.” In Tierney’s view, the court chose the clause it did because it is a partisan court, and it wanted to give Democratic constituents — including “Democratic teachers’ unions” — all the things they want.




What you’re missing by not reading the whole column: stories about individual black children who were helped by the voucher program.

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01-07-2006

Metallica to drag the miner back to life.

Music played for Randal McCloy Jr., the sole survivor of the mine disaster. Occasionally smiling and laughing, [his wife, Anna said] that she found strength in faith and had no doubt that he would recover. "It's amazing, it's a miracle," she said of his survival. "Faith plays a big role. Without it, we wouldn't be coping. It's given us hope."Faith... and heavy metal music.

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01-07-2006

“We are Iraqis, and Al Qaeda came from outside our borders. They defame the name of the noble resistance inside Iraq.”

Said Abu Omar, an Iraqi insurgent. The NYT reports that we are in talks with the insurgents: ...to take advantage of rifts in the insurgency, particularly between local groups, whose main goal is to expel American forces, and the more radical groups, like Al Qaeda, which have alienated many Iraqis by the mass killing of Iraqi civilians.... American and Iraqi officials regard the strife among the

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01-07-2006

The scientist who discovered LSD.

Turns 100. "It's very, very dangerous to lose contact with living nature," [Albert Hofmann] said, listing to the right in a green armchair that looked out over frost-dusted fields and snow-laced trees. A glass pitcher held a bouquet of roses on the coffee table before him. "In the big cities, there are people who have never seen living nature, all things are products of humans," he said. "The

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01-06-2006

We go to war without the Armor we could have had

We go to war without the Armor we could have had

Channeling  Donald Rumsfeld.

           "A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials...read on"

Hinderaker will say that this story is further proof the NY times should be charged with treason.

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01-06-2006

Alito Colleagues Come To His Rescue

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary may have bitten off more than they can chew in their attempts to smear Samuel Alito. In a surprise move, Alito's colleagues on the appellate bench will testify on his behalf as character witnesses,...

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01-06-2006

Anti-Alito Witness Backs Off

One of the Democrats' key character assassination witnesses has suddenly withdrawn his name from the list expected to be called after Judge Samuel Alito testifies for his confirmation hearings, Fox News is reporting. Stephen Dujack had been expected to testify...

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01-06-2006

Tweety: Delay’s Middle Class America

Tweety: Delay's Middle Class America

I have a clip of Chris exposing Newt Gingrich from the other day that I was going to put up, but I have to take a time out on that one. 

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Judd: 

Chris: "You have one guy Tom DeLay who lives in some sort of 20th floor apartment way down on Route 95, nothing special at all--I mean really lives basically, like a regular middle class person. He doesn't live well at all."

As Tom DeLay became a king of campaign fund-raising, he lived like one, too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants, all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire. ...read on"

Words can't describe the major sucking sounds that Matthews is making as he removes Delay's foot from his mouth. Even Dick Morris would be proud of the technique that Matthews applies.

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01-06-2006

Half Wit

Half Wit

It's Bremer.

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01-06-2006

Sci-Fi Friday

Sci-Fi Friday


It’s back…


Oh and:


    “On December 22, a California jury ordered Wal-Mart to pay $172 million in damages to more than 100,000 current and former Wal-Mart workers, who had been unjustly and routinely denied meal breaks…read on“

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01-06-2006

Why The RCMP Got Interested In Cold Case

One of the questions regarding the sudden re-emergence of the Options Canada scandal is what suddenly prompted the RCMP to take another look for the missing $4.8 million. We assumed that the upcoming release of a new book on the...

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01-06-2006

David talks about racism

David talks about racism

David Ehrenstein has a great take on Walmart and racism in general.

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01-06-2006

Open Thread

Open Thread

Thread to the end.

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01-06-2006

Wounded

Wounded

Olbermann had this up a couple of days ago. Our fearless leader is talking to wounded troops and tells them about his run in with some cedar.

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I'm sure that was an uplifting tale.

Larry Johnson responded with this post:

    "At first I thought this was a blog parody. I mean, really, no one could be this clueless. Right? Boy, was I wrong. Here's what President Bush had to say at Brooke Army Medical Center the other day. Remember, he is visiting U.S. soldiers who are missing arms, legs, and eyes. Some soldiers are horribly mutilated from wounds suffered in Iraq...read on "

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01-06-2006

LOSING IT AT THE MOVIES: When you see this trailer…

LOSING IT AT THE MOVIES: When you see this trailer, you’ll either start choking up, or think that Hollywood’s exploitation of tragedy has finally gone too far. I choked up.

Also, if you didn’t much care for Jarhead (I didn’t) it’s because you can’t see the bright line running backward from Sam Mendes’ work to Sartre, Beckett, and Bunuel. Just so you know.

- posted by Ross

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01-06-2006

50 Signatures

50 Signatures

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Charlie Bass (R-NH) are circulating a letter calling for new leadership elections. They need 50 to force an election....read on

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01-06-2006

“BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” DERANGEMENT SYNDROME?:…

"BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME" DERANGEMENT SYNDROME?: Andy McCarthy penned a truly strange column over at National Review yesterday. The gist is that we shouldn't be suckered in by Bush critics' fixation on little technicalities like "whether electronic searches were authorized by warrant" because the rabid, Bush-deranged liberal mainstream media would have pitched a hissy fit even if the very same program had been carried out with judicial oversight. In other words, the fifth columnists at The New York Times would've created a scandal-story no matter what... so best not to get too worked up about this "warrant" business. You wouldn't want ot be a dupe of The New York Times, would you?

The problem is, put warrants back in the picture and (leaving aside the nebulous data mining thing, which isn't what McCarthy's talking about) there is no "program"... there's just law enforcement officers seeking FISA warrants, as we've known they do for years. The Times could, of course, find some top-secret insider to leak the information that FISA warrant applications and approvals have recently reached record highs. Fortunately, they wouldn't have to look very hard, because the Justice Department releases those figures to Congress each year.

In other words, we don't need McCarthy's fertile imagination to know what the NSA tapping story might look like if judicial oversight were added to the mix... because it's the story we'd been getting for years already.

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01-06-2006

Helping the Helpless

Helping the Helpless

Walmart, in there continued effort to put a smiley face on their operation, decided to cut off food for the homeless today:

 "Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the nation's largest food retailer, said Thursday it will no longer donate nearly-expired or expired food to local groups feeding the hungry."

No wonder they were falling all over themselves yesterday.

Olan James, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the policy, which applies to all 1,224 Wal-Marts, 1,929 Supercenters and 558 Sam's Clubs, is an attempt to protect the corporation from liability in case someone who eats the donated food gets sick.

I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers just hanging around homeless people-looking for a good case. By the way:

 "Ernie Brown, a spokesman for Sacramento's Senior Gleaner- said Wal-Mart's concerns about liability seem misplaced in light of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, a federal law passed in 1996 offering food donors wide-ranging protections from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution. The law states that donors can be held liable only in instances of "gross negligence." 

Jane has more:  "Walmart is sparing no expense today to assure both traditional media and the internet that they are wracked with grief over the racially insenstive accident generated by their online "mapping" program...read on"

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01-06-2006

THE COVERT OPTION: Matt Yglesias flags an excerpt …

THE COVERT OPTION: Matt Yglesias flags an excerpt from James Risen’s new book, in which it’s revealed that the CIA may have given the Iranians defective blueprints for a nuclear bomb, in the hopes that this would send their nuclear program down a primrose path to failure. The excerpt casts the whole incident as a fiasco that may have actually helped the Iranians, though as Matt points out, it’s hard to tell from the details whether the plan backfired or succeeded. And the story seems a little fishy in any case. But either way, it’s not terribly shocking that we’d attempt something like that. As my Atlantic colleague, Terrence Henry, pointed out in last month’s issue, this kind of skullduggery is an obvious way to sabotage a nuclear program that can’t be stopped by diplomacy or direct action. It’s quite likely that we’ve tried to sell Iran defective parts, ensured that certain ships bound for the Persian Gulf have found their way to the bottom of the ocean, and plotted acts of sabotage against Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.

What’s less likely, however, is that we’ve taken up the Israeli approach to covert anti-nuclear action:

Iraq bought the cores for the Osirak reactor from France. Originally they were to be shipped to Iraq in April of 1979, but shortly before their departure an explosion ripped through the warehouse that held them. An organization calling itself the French Ecological Group, which had never been heard of before (and hasn’t been heard from since), claimed responsibility. Shipment was delayed for six months while the cores were repaired.

The next year Yahya al-Meshad, an important scientist in Iraq’s nuclear program, arrived in France to test fuel for the reactor. The morning he was to return home a maid entered his Paris hotel room and found that he had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death. (The only person known to have seen the scientist the previous night, a prostitute who called herself Marie Express, was killed a few weeks later in a hit-and-run accident. The culprit was never found.) Soon afterward workers at firms supplying parts for the reactor began to receive threatening letters from a mysterious group called the Committee to Safeguard the Islamic Revolution. Bombs went off at the offices of one of the firms, in Italy, and at the home of the company’s director-general. Over the next several months two more Iraqi nuclear scientists died in separate poisoning incidents.

Not that Israel ever claimed responsibility for any of this, mind you. And it’s worth noting that even after all this effort, it still required an air strike to permanently take down the Iraqi nuclear program.

- posted by Ross

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01-06-2006

Imus To Santorum: You’re a crazy Person!

Imus To Santorum: You're a crazy Person!

With news coming out that (via Think Progress) Frist is enlisting the support of Sen. Rick Santorum to craft a conservative version of a lobbying reform bill, I thought I'd put up this little clip of Rick and Don. Imus always has fun with Rick who he likes, but always labels as a nut whenever Rick tries to defend the administration

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Don: I love you, but you're a crazy person.--I don't ---disrespectful, but it's insane. (a little garbled)

Don..It's not my fault that you're crazy. What can I do about that, nothing? I like ya---

Santorum asks if Don is still behind him at the end for his bid for re-election. You know listening to it again, Rick makes a reference to West Virginia. I wish these jokers would refrain from using their misery to try and make jokes.

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01-06-2006

Toddler Terrorist

Toddler Terrorist

ABC: 

 " There was a surprise for a Houston woman when she found out one of her family members was on a terror watch list. Now he's not able to fly until he follows a precise checklist put forth by the government. But there's a twist to this story. Edward Allen's parents say there is no way their son's a terrorist. He doesn't own a gun and has no allegiance to a foreign government. On top of that, he's only four years old...read on"

"And by all accounts, Edward is a typical four-year-old child."

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01-06-2006

Dukester Wired

Dukester Wired

He went all Donnie Brasco...

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01-06-2006

RAUCH ON THE EXECUTIVE: His fine column is now pos…

RAUCH ON THE EXECUTIVE: His fine column is now posted.

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01-06-2006

LIB-DEM MELTDOWN: Britain’s third party may soon l…

LIB-DEM MELTDOWN: Britain's third party may soon lose its leader.

- posted by Andrew.

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01-06-2006

HAS ISRAEL WON? Matt Yglesias thinks so. - post…

HAS ISRAEL WON? Matt Yglesias thinks so.

- posted by Andrew.

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01-06-2006

“If you want me to do anything more exciting, just let me know.”

I say to the guy who's here right now taking a picture of me blogging for the local newspaper. He set up some lights, he said, to make the photograph interesting with the lighting because, "just a gal sitting at a computer isn't very interesting." "I'm blogging about the fact that you're taking my picture." "Oh, my goodness." ... He requests "a little happiness." "Just keep doing your thing.

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