New Poll, New Blog Listings

Finally, I updated the poll and the blogs of the week listings.

Bush Seeks More Ways to Spy on Americans Without Paper Trail

Doesn't matter how few they ever catch and how few of those are actually guilty.

Walter Pincus in the WaPo:

As part of the expanding counterterrorism role being taken on by the Pentagon, Defense Intelligence Agency covert operatives need to be able to approach potential sources in the United States without identifying themselves as government agents, George Peirce, the DIA's general counsel, said yesterday.

"This is not about spying on Americans," Peirce said in an interview in which he defended legislative language approved last week by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The provision would grant limited authority for DIA agents to clandestinely collect information about U.S. citizens or emigres in this country to help determine whether they could be recruited as sources of intelligence information.

"We are not asking for the moon," Peirce said. "We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person" and at the same time "protect the ID and safety of our officers." The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the DIA needs it "to develop critical leads" because "there is more than enough work for all of us to do."

The legislative proposal has been controversial on Capitol Hill and has drawn criticism from groups concerned with privacy and civil liberties. The House's intelligence authorization bill, which passed in June, does not include the provision, which is similar to a proposal that was eliminated last year from the legislation.

The Senate intelligence panel approved the new authority for the DIA last week and forwarded it to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which reviews sections related to the Defense Department. One senior Armed Services Committee staff member said yesterday that the DIA provision "will get close review here."

Poll Results In

According to you folks, I'm supposed to be a super hero or a FEMA director. Too bad we didn't have a super hero as FEMA director during Katrina, eh?

Diamonds Aren't Any Girl's Best Friend

I see Karlo at SwerveLeft has the same feelings about diamonds I do.

I'd much rather have a piece of fabricated glass than wear a gem that someone paid with his anatomy to get.

War for Porn Site Raided with Very Minimal Search Guidelines

Monkeyfister from Blah3 posts this:

Photographic Evidence Of Potential Warcrimes Ignored Consensual-Sex Pron Confiscated. Owner of site arrested for the pron.

Polk County officials arrested a Lakeland man on obscenity charges Friday after investigating his graphic Web site, which has gained international attention for allowing U.S. soldiers to post pictures of war dead on the Internet.

The charges against Christopher Michael Wilson, a former police officer, are likely to reignite the debate about obscene material in the Internet age. It also raises questions about whether the federal government played a part in motivating the prosecution.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said late Friday that the 300 obscenity-related charges against Wilson all involve sexual content on his Web site -- and not graphic war-scene images posted by soldiers.

As John says, God help us all... BUT, if you go to the link, he promises that he's got a few aces in the hole on this story.

Louisiana Visitors

Looking at my blog log this morning, I'm reminded again that a few folks who used to come in regularly from in and around New Orleans just don't show up anymore.

God only knows I can understand other matters are pressing in their lives. But I keep thinking, "Did they make it? Are their homes gone?"

Likewise, I see a few less Texans since Rita. I worry about them, too.

G'Night

John Boy, Mary Ellen, Elizabeth, Jim Bob, Gramma and Grampa.

From Dust to... er.. Cocktail Ring?

Woman 1: My goodness. That ring is huge! Is that the Hope diamond?

Woman 2: No such luck! That's actually the remains of my fourth husband, Morty.

Story here:

Everyone said she was a gem. Now, just eight ounces of cremated remains is all it takes to turn your mother into a diamond.

ADVERTISEMENT

In fact, there's enough carbon in those ashes to make about 20 gems. And there will still be several pounds of ashes left over to display on the mantelpiece.

So far, nobody's ordered more than 11 diamonds, said Dean VandenBiesen, vice president of operations for LifeGem, which uses super-hot ovens to transform ashes to graphite and then presses the stone into blue and yellow diamonds that retail for anywhere from 2,700 to 20,000 dollars.

"It's not for everyone," VandenBiesen admitted, adding that for those who do chose to immortalize their loved ones in jewelry, the experience is extremely positive.

"We have people that approach us who have just experienced a tragedy and they say I can't wait, I'm so excited about this," he said. "In the field of death care, when someone says I'm really excited about this, I think we've achieved what we wanted to do which is change the culture of death."

The success of LifeGem is just one example of a radical shift in the funeral industry, said Mark Musgrove, immediate past president of the National Funeral Directors Association.

Americans are moving away from traditional funerals and are seeking instead less somber occasions that reflect the personality of the deceased.

They are also looking for alternative ways to remember their loved ones.

While a decline in religiosity has contributed to the shift, Musgrove said it's mainly a reflection of a cultural phenomenon.

Say Hello to

Crony Jobs.

Bill Bennett, Still Defending His Abort Black Babies Diatribe

What a maroon!

Now, according to Mr. Morality, it is the media's fault.

"That Was Like So Waaaaaaaay Out of Bounds!"

Errr.....from New York: A 9-year-old girl pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter Friday, admitting she fatally stabbed her 11-year-old playmate after a tug-of-war over a rubber ball went sour.

Is Right Wing Radio Slipping in Popularity?

Knight Ridder:

WASHINGTON - When the White House wanted to talk to its political base about a Supreme Court nominee this week, there was no doubt where to go: talk radio.

Vice President Dick Cheney took the administration's case to the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity programs, speaking simultaneously to the normally sympathetic hosts and their audiences of like-minded Republicans.

A decade after Republicans credited Limbaugh with helping them win control of Congress - they called him the Majority Maker - they still look to his conservative-dominated medium for a lopsided communications edge over Democrats. Today, they count on talk radio to rally support for President Bush, attack those who criticize or question him, and stir passions leading into the 2006 midterm congressional elections.

There are signs that the Republicans could be losing some of their overwhelming edge, however. Ratings for Limbaugh and Hannity slipped this spring in some markets. Liberals such as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Al Franken are carving out their own radio niche. And Democrats argue that they have an edge on the Internet, where explosive growth could dwarf the political impact of radio.

Today (Sunday) Was Supposed to Be NYC Subway "D-Day"

Story here.

Is There Any Doubt in Anyone's Mind Here About the Energy Bill?

This one has always been a horror - bought by the energy companies but the entire world will pay the costs on this devil's pact.

Boston Globe Editorial: Bush's Solution to Everything is Military, Even in Flu Pandemic

Good piece by George J. Annas on Boston.com:

WHENEVER THE world is not to his liking, President Bush has a tendency to turn to the military to make it better. The most prominent example is the country's response to 9/11, complete with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush belatedly called on the military to assist in securing New Orleans, and has since suggested that Congress should consider empowering the military to be the ''first responders" in any national disaster.

On Tuesday, the president suggested that the United States should confront the risk of a bird flu pandemic by giving him the power to use the US military to quarantine ''part[s] of the country" experiencing an ''outbreak." So we have moved quickly in the past month, at least metaphorically, from the global war on terror to a proposed war on hurricanes, to a proposed war on the bird flu.

Of all these proposals, the use of the military to attempt to contain a flu pandemic on US soil is the most dangerous. Bush says he got the idea by reading John Barry's excellent account of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, ''The Great Influenza." Although quarantine was used successfully in that pandemic, on the island of American Samoa, Barry in his afterword suggests (sensibly) that we need a national plan to deal with a future influenza pandemic. He said last week that his other suggestions were the only ones he hoped public health officials and ethicists would consider, but they read like policy recommendations to me and apparently the president. Barry writes, for example, ''if there is any chance to limit the geographical spread of the disease, officials must have in place the legal power to take extreme quarantine measures." This recommendation comes shortly after his praise for countries that ''moved rapidly and ruthlessly to quarantine and isolate anyone with or exposed to" SARS.

Planning makes sense. But planning for ''brutal" or ''extreme" quarantine of large numbers or areas of the United States would create many more problems than it could solve.

First, historically mass quarantines of healthy people who may have been exposed to a pathogen have never worked to control a pandemic, and have almost always done more harm than good because they usually involve vicious discrimination against classes of people (like immigrants or Asians) who are seen as ''diseased" and dangerous.

Second, the notion that ruthless quarantine was responsible for preventing a SARS pandemic is a public health myth. SARS appeared in more than 30 countries; they all reacted differently (some used forced quarantine successfully, others voluntary quarantine, and others no quarantine at all), and all ''succeeded." Quarantine is no magic bullet.

Third, quarantine and isolation are often falsely equated, but the former involves people who are well, the latter people who are sick. Sick people should be treated, but we don't need the military to force treatment.

Horrific Quake

They're saying at least 18,000 could be dead in Pakistan alone. And poor Afghanistan: a quake might improve services.

More on Rove and His Worthless Assurances He Did Not Leak CIA Spy Valerie Plame's Name to Novak and Other Press

This sounds a tad problematic.

The Scooter (Punch) and Judy Show

So how "freely offered" was Cheney's Scooter Libby's waiver to testify to Judy Miller? Questions get raised.

NEW YORK Reuters' Adam Entous, who has been on top of developments in the Plame probe all week, reported today that I. Lewis Libby, the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, "got a push" from the federal prosecutor before telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller, in a Sept. 15 letter, that he wanted her to testify.

Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's encouragement, in a letter obtained by Reuters, "has prompted some lawyers in the case to question whether Cheney‘s aide was acting completely voluntarily when he gave Miller the confidentiality waiver she had insisted on," Entous observes.

Quoting from the Fitzgerald letter to Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, on Sept. 12: "I would welcome such a communication reaffirming Mr. Libby‘s waiver. It would be viewed as cooperation with the investigation."

Entous notes: "Some lawyers in the case called the letter a thinly veiled threat seeking Libby‘s cooperation, and said it raised questions about whether Libby‘s waiver was as voluntary as Miller and her lawyers had described."

Fitzgerald will speak with Miller again on Tuesday, at least partly about some notes she has discovered of her talk with Libby in June 2003, which took place earlier than the other conversations she has already detailed for the grand jury.

Why Does the Times Keep Getting Scooped on Their Own Stories?

That seems to be the question inherent in this Editor and Publisher piece, noting how many times "the gray lady" has been outreported by many other publications on stories where the Times - at least in theory - should have had inside knowledge like on Judith Miller, Fitzgerald the special prosecutor in Plamegate, and more.

Hmmm.

Shades of Jeff Gannon

Salon's Joe Conason speculates that male macho escort and formerly the Bushies' favorte "journalist" may be planted right in the middle of the special prosecutor's sights in the Plamegate investigation.

The Religion Card and the Supremes

EJ Dionne asks a question I've been asking: why, when during the John Roberts leadup to confirmation, we were told repeatedly that his religion could and should not be a factor, are we supposed to get all excited that Harriet Miers chose to become an evangelical well into her adulthood? Listen to Bush, and her religion coupled with her relationship to him are her only qualifications for the position.

The Press Always Worries for Bush, But Not for America or the World

Just an observation.

But this is interesting: Bush's core erodes big time:

Evangelicals, Republican women, Southerners and other critical groups in President Bush's political coalition are worried about the direction the nation is headed and disappointed with his performance, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

That unease could be a troubling sign for a White House already struggling to keep the Republican Party base from slipping over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Gulf Coast spending projects, immigration and other issues.

"Politically, this is very serious for the president," said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "If the base of his party has lost faith, that could spell trouble for his policy agenda and for the party generally."

Sentiment about the nation's direction has sunk to new depths at a time people are anxious about Iraq, the economy, gas prices and the management of billions of dollars being spent for recovery from the nation's worst natural disaster.

New York's Convenient Subway System Scare

The Times has it here.

All I know is that it's damned convenient that the less and less popular Bush gets, the more terror is bandied about, and then suddenly, NY's under threat from someone with an address of N Main Street, Baghdad. Gotta keep subtly reminding us Iraq and US attacks are synonymous, even though they aren't.

Vermont to Leahy: Mess with Texas

From the Vermont Guardian:

Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans who can still be swayed by facts must come to their senses and recognize that this administration, hell bent on remaking the courts in its conservative, anti-states’ rights, anti-civil liberties image, will try all manner of Machiavellian ploys.

Send Miers’ nomination back to the president’s desk and demand that he nominate the real candidate first.

In the days after Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican party, Leahy, who became chairman of the Judiciary Committee as Democrats took control of the Senate and helped to thwart some of Bush’s most conservative nominees from reaching the federal bench, said proudly: “All those bumper stickers that say ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’ should be replaced with ones that say ‘Don’t Mess with Vermont.’”

Sen. Leahy, it’s time to mess with Texas.

Conservatives: Joining the Rest of Us in the Cheap Seats

One thing I do sort of enjoy about the latest Bush trashing of our country - about two steps up from putting Rupert Murdoch or the Reverend Moon on the Supreme Court - is that for the first time, conservatives and Bush-pushers are getting a taste of what it's been for the rest of us.

Now, they're treated to, "Just trust me" from Bush. We heard it through years of him killing public education and the military and real homeland security as opposed to what his folks are doing at max bucks.

And man, are these folks every complaining now that they have to hear, "just trust me."

But you know what? It really doesn't make me feel any better.

Judy Miller: Still Serving in the Prison of Her Own Perceived Greatness

If I hear Judith Miller of the New York Times one more time herald herself as a great martyr of a free press, I will vomit.

Judy's 68 days in jail pale miserably when compared to the number of men and women and children on both sides of the conflict that her lies put in harm's way. It's like she is a Bushie. I mean, where else do you see this total reality disconnect?

Bush's War Against the Elderly

And no, it's not about the very expensive train to nowhere but about basic housing.

From Alaska Daily http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/story/7045690p-6949631c.html>

The same day 64-year-old Barbara May came home from the hospital last week, she got a letter saying her share of subsidized rent would be jumping from $189 to $426 a month. She lives on Social Security with a bit of state assistance. So she'll have to move to a small apartment across town.

About 600 low-income individuals and families around Alaska have been sent similar edicts from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation: Pay more or move.
The cutbacks are due to a drop in federal housing funds this year, said Wes Weir, public housing director of AHFC.

Alaska took a bigger hit than other states because the federal government did not take into account additional expenses due to distances and other factors here, Weir said. The percentages and formulas are "based on a model not accurate for Alaska," he said.

AHFC quit adding new clients for five months this year to save money, leaving thousands on a waiting list. They include mainly low-income people, who may be in substandard housing or staying with relatives.

Beginning Oct. 1, the agency also tightened rules on what size unit each person or family receiving the help qualifies for. AHFC has dipped into its own reserves to partially make up for the rental-assistance funding shortfall, Weir said.

"It is unfair. It's unfair to all of our clients. And It's unfair to clients on the wait list, too," he said.
The agency received about $626,000 less for rental assistance this year over last year from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Weir said.

"We appealed. We lost the appeals," he said. U.S. Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, both Alaska Republicans, have also asked for a meeting with top federal officials to discuss the situation, Weir said.

The agency could get permission from the Alaska Legislature to spend more state money on low-income renters, but that doesn't seem likely, said AHFC public relations director Bryan Butcher.

All the Whining from the Right About Miers

I'm not even sure if I begin to understand why the tidy righties are whining so indignantly, so self righteously about Miers nomination.

Think Progress: Bush Directly Involved in Plame Spy Leak

Here:

Near the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:

Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.

This would explain why Bush spent more than an hour answering questions from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It would also fundamentally change the dynamics of the scandal. President Bush could no longer claim he was merely a bystander who wants to “get to the bottom of it.” As Stephanopoulos notes, if Bush played a direct role it could make this scandal completely unmanageable.

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video.

Plame Indictments Right Around the Proverbial Corner?

Here's what Radar Magazine's The Wire has to say:

The D.C. Rumor mill is thrumming with whispers that 22 indictments are about to be handed down on the outed-CIA agent Valerie Plame case. The last time the wires buzzed this loud — that Tom DeLay would be indicted and would step down from his leadership post in the House — the scuttlebutters got it right.

Can it be a coincidence that the White House appears to be distancing President Bush from embattled aide Karl Rove? “He’s been missing in action at more than one major presidential event,” a member of the White House press corps tells us.

If the word on the street is right a second time, we have a bit of advice for Rove: Go with vertical stripes, they’re way more slimming.

Update: Ooh, look: a very convenient distraction!

Who Is Harriet Miers?

The Left Coaster is on the case.

Eh? What's That Smell of Rotting Wildebeast?

Oh wait. Maybe this is it, from the Mercury News.

Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men's causes.

When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also came into the picture.

The complicated transactions are drawing scrutiny in legal and political circles after a grand jury indicted DeLay on charges of violating Texas law with a scheme to launder illegal corporate donations to state candidates.

Blunt last week temporarily replaced DeLay as House majority leader, and Blunt's son, Matt, has now risen to Missouri's governor.

The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.

"These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions," said Lawrence Noble. "It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source," said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred.

None of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations DeLay collected for the 2000 convention were ever disclosed to federal regulators because the type of group DeLay used wasn't governed by federal law at the time.

I Make a Very Poor Media Consumer

#$@!

I'd explain this but Blogger just sucked my message away.

#%@!&#!

MissM, we've got to schedule some time together because I need to expand my foul name vocabulary. I was deprived as a child, not knowing what fuck meant until I was about 21 or 22.

Say Hello to

Three Wise Men (the blog).

Readers Share

Readers share some good links in comments. CK posted some good ones but they won't open for me.

But here's one from Begonia Buzzkill (love the name) about Tommy boy DeLay's stink extending to Brit's Maggie Thatcher. Snippet here:

A DOCUMENT linking Margaret Thatcher to a US corruption probe is so explosive civil servants have been asked to ensure it remains "sealed".

The 79-year-old former Premier is said to have met Congressman Tom DeLay in Britain while he was on a suspected favours-for-freebies scam.

In return for his free holiday, DeLay - who resigned as Republican leader of Congress last week after being accused of laundering political funds - allegedly backed legislation favourable to lobby groups.

Disclosing that US authorities were seeking aid from UK counterparts, a secret Home Office briefing says: "One visit to the UK involved a meeting with Mrs Margaret Thatcher.

"Evidence is sought from her about that meeting and her involvement in the alleged deception and violation of US criminal laws."

Police will "sensitively" investigate the meeting, which took place in May 2000.

Bird Brain Wants to Tap Army for Bird Flu

He wants to quarantine us?

Where?

New Orleans?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Tuesday that the possibility of an avian flu pandemic is among the reasons he wants Congress to give him the power to use the nation's military in law enforcement roles in the United States.

"I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world," he told reporters during a Rose Garden news conference.

Such an deadly event would raise difficult questions, such as how a quarantine might be enforced, he said.

"One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move," he said. "So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have."

Stan, Another Killer 'Cane

From CNN:

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) -- Hurricane Stan slammed into Mexico's Gulf coast Tuesday, forcing authorities to close one of the nation's busiest ports and spawning related storms across the region that left at least 66 people dead, most from landslides in El Salvador.

The storm, which included winds of 80 miles an hour (128 kph) before being downgraded to a tropical storm, came ashore along a sparsely populated stretch of coastline south of Veracruz, a busy port 185 miles (296 kilometers) east of Mexico City.

The storm's outer bands swiped the city, knocking down trees, flooding low-lying neighborhoods and closing some highways, authorities said. State officials said seven people, including two children, were hurt. Most injuries were from falling trees or roofs that collapsed in the communities of Alvarado and Montepio, south of Veracruz and closer to where Stan came ashore.

All three of Mexico's Gulf coast crude-oil loading ports were closed Tuesday as a precaution. The shutdowns weren't expected to affect oil prices.

Forecasters said the hurricane spawned separate storms across Central America and southern Mexico, provoking flooding and landslides.

Some 49 people had been killed during two days of flooding in El Salvador, Interior Secretary Rene Figueroa said Tuesday night. More than 16,700 people had been evacuated to 167 shelters set up all over the country, he said.

Posse Comitatus

OK, is anyone else getting scared by how easily the American public is buying (running 50:50 in votes) that we must have military for law enforcement during an emergency. That's a blur that is frightening.

A Note from Our "Steemed" President

Dear American public:

This is all you need to know about Harriet Miers:

I looked into her heart and she thinks I'm like the smartest man she's ever met. That says a lot.

Oh, yeah. And she'll never change her mind. Don't listen to anybody tell ya that the hallmark of a thinking person is the ability to consider and reconsider and sometimes evolve in their thinking. I promise you, anybody who thinks I'm smart won't be changing her mind.

So.... What's Your Take?

In the last few days, we have:

Tom DeLay indicted and the right strangely taking the position that it's fine, no biggie

A new top Supreme (not quite Diana Ross' hair but... )

Judith Miller out of jail (God save us all)

The president insisting we can pay for Katrina while cutting more ultra-rich taxes and taking the unusual measure (for him) of suggesting fuel conservation.... WHILE he traipses all over making silly trips for photo ops

More talk that either Iraq is already in a civil war or that we have, quite assuredly, already lost the war and we're trying very hard to conceal it

So... jump in. What's on your list of biggies this week? How do you feel about these?

Whoa!

Finally back.

Sorry for the unplanned hiatus. First it was work. Then a microburst tornado struck here Thursday morning - really cool to watch but all the big trees it sheered in half are still being pulled off the house. No phone or power - or working toilets or coffee or sanity either - until sometime last night. But when I went to Blogger, it seemed to be permanently down for maintenance. Same thing this morning but I switched to Firefox and got in.

Gee, a girl doesn't post for a few days and everything goes nuts.

"Celebrating" the Mengeles' of Freedom

The General is writing letters again:

John Hinderaker
Powerline Blog

Dear Mr. Hinderaker,
Your work turning the Gitmo atrocities into a rallying point for those of us who support the use of torture and abuse in the defense of freedom was admirable.

I particularly enjoyed your "I ♥ Gitmo" tees--it must be very satisfying to earn a little extra money turning the misery of others into comedy fodder.

We need you to do it again. Human Rights Watch released a report on Friday which documents more incidents of abuse and torture, this time by the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. According to one 82nd Airborne officer, it's now official US policy to beat "PUCs," or Persons Under Control with baseball bats and to apply caustic chemicals to their eyes and other body parts.

The practitioners of these freedom-building activities, or as I like to call them, the Mengeles of Freedom, call it "Fucking the PUC." They also starve the prisoners and force them to hold stress positions for hours on end--they call that "Smoking the PUC."

Fucking PUCs. Smoking PUCs. I love our new military argot. It brings a little extra enjoyment to those of us who fight the War for Iraqi Freedom with a mouse and a cheeto-stained keyboard.It won't be long before the domestic enemies of freedom begin to decry PUC fucking in the same way they attacked the democracy-building activities at Gitmo.

We need to seize the meme quickly to prevent that from happening. I'm thinking that tees with something like "I ♥ to fuck PUCs" or "Fuck a PUC for Freedom" would do the trick. We could also do a "Fuck a PUC for Jesus" for the Dobson crowd, although they already dig torture and may not need encouragement.

Who in His or Her Right Mind Would Want Rumsfeld

in charge of US disasters? Isn't Iraq disaster and endless misery enough?

"Government by Temper Tantrum"

It's by Molly Ivins and it's spectacular.

So here are all the liberals going into a giant snit just because George W. Bush appointed a veterinarian to head the women's health section of the Food and Drug Administration. For Pete's sake, you whiners, the only reason he chose the vet is because Michael Brown wasn't available.

If you recall, Ol' Heckuva-Job Brownie had to go home, walk his dog and then hug his wife after exhausting himself in his triumphal handling of Hurricane Katrina. Otherwise, he'd have been Bush's first pick.

Now, even the veterinarian doesn't get the job -- just because those professional feminists raised such a stink. What's wrong with a vet? They know a lot about birth and udders and stuff. If the mother is having trouble giving birth, you grab the baby by the legs and pull it out -- it's not brain surgery. Then you worm 'em, you tag 'em and you spray for fleas. Why the fuss?

The only reason Bush even needed a new head of the Office of Women's Health is because the last one, Susan Wood, quit. She was upset because the political hacks who run the agency refused to allow over-the-counter sale of the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B.

Frist's "Political Future Darkens"

Excuse me while I shed a tear.

From Bloomberg:

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- At the start of this year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was looking at a bright political future. He led his party to an expanded majority in the Senate in November and emerged as a leading Republican hopeful for the 2008 presidential race.

Less than nine months later, that picture appears darker. Frist, 53, now faces inquiries into his stock sales by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission that threaten to undermine him politically and provide Democrats fresh ammunition with which to question their opponents' ethics.

``If there is really any evidence of insider trading, then he's in very serious trouble, and so is his party,'' said Gary Jacobson, professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego. ``It adds another brick to Democrats' argument that Republicans are corrupt.''

Frist through his spokesmen has denied any wrongdoing in the sale of shares of HCA Inc. held in a blind trust earlier this year, one month before a weak earnings report sparked a drop in the company's stock. Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA, the biggest U.S. hospital chain, was founded by Frist's father and brother.

Frist's HCA stock holdings in one of his blind trusts surged more than 30-fold from 2000 to 2001, according to financial disclosure statements filed with the Senate. By the end of 2001 he reported owning $500,001 to $1 million in HCA shares within an entity called Bowling Avenue Partners, which was part of his blind trust. That holding had been valued at $1,001 to $15,000 at the end of 2000. The leap in valuation could not have been the result of changes in share price; in 2001 HCA shares fell 12.4 percent after gaining 50.3 percent in 2000.

Wow... even by Washington standards, that's SOME leap in stock value.

Michael Kinsley's Ouster at LA Times

Interesting piece from The Guardian.

How the Media Missed a Half Million Americans on Saturday

From the Detroit News blog:

Imagine 500,000 people marching down the meandering thoroughfares of Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. They are headed for a date with destiny and the promise of peace, conjoined with a challenge for justice. How could they vanish from the headlines?

Rod Serling, the brilliant creator/writer of “The Twilight Zone,” might have written this intro to one of his teleplays during the 1960s. But it didn’t happen then. It happened this weekend, with our media, in our country, in our time.

“They came from as far away as Alaska and California,” reported Abayomi Azikiwe of the Pan African Newswire, “from Europe to the nation's capital itself, to make a clear statement that United States military forces should withdraw immediately from Iraq. Honest crowd estimates of the demonstration ranged from 500,000-600,000 (some even thought there were more) making it the largest demonstration in the capital since the winter of 2003.”

Journalist Azikiwe rode the bus with 200 Detroiters who attended this national anti-war march in Washington, DC and stood on the Mall with thousands who watched speakers ranging from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Cindy Sheehan to activist Curtis Muhammad from New Orleans. He provided a full report on this historic event.

But the corporate media was nowhere to be found. The demonstration was lost on CNN. It was buried on MSNBC. It barely escaped a muffle on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and the old, reliable NPR (National Public Radio). If you had been watching C-SPAN, you would have seen the speakers (but not the march), but how many people watches C-SPAN?

The media failed to cover the largest antiwar demonstration in America since the Vietnam era. That’s not happening in “The Twilight Zone.” That is reality today.

Where were they? Covering local news at home? In Iraq? Or covering the Ashton Kucher/Demi Moore wedding?

No. They had a date with Rita. Celeb anchorpersons, clad in Tommy Hilfiger and St. John knits, were standing in knee-deep water as a backdrop. How many stories about Rita did we need? It’s a tragedy, of course, but in Washington, a challenge to the Bush administration was in full gear, and the cameras, recorders, and reporters’ notepads were missing. If it wasn’t real, it would be science fiction.

The President Suggests Fuel Savings....

Now imagine how many tons of gas we'd save if he'd stop be-bopping all around Texas and Louisiana pretending he's in charge of more than photo ops.

Meanwhile, we put former FEMA head Michael Brown back on the payroll, probably for such a job well done. Brown did, after all, blame the entire NOLA mess on the LA Dem woman governor rather Bush, doing everything but suggesting her "monthly woman problems" interfered with her ability to serve.

Some Sad Truths About the Most Recent Hurricane Hit

Again and again the last few days, I've heard folks- particularly Texans - remarking to news crews, "Everyone hurried in to help those folks in New Orleans. Well, let's see what they do for us. We're the tax and bill payers and the backbone of this country. Let's see if they do as well by us as they did by those (and there's always been a hint of something they're holding back about who the affected were in Katrina vs Rita) before us."

First, I didn't see a lot of Katrina folks having a great time. In fact, the only folks having a good time are people like Bush's pal Joe Allbaugh who's set to make a mint off the disaster as well as Ol Miss governor Haley Barbour, friend of the KKKCCC that he is - Barbour I hear has just procured a huge no bid contract for debris removal for his private company. Halliburton and Bechtel are making out, too.

Yet the anger for some of these folks isn't the fat cats that their boy George has done so well by; instead, some Texans feel angry that "Nobody's here dropping us TVs and debit cards and checks and foods like Katrina victims" I heard today, suggesting that the poor blacks of Katrina got a festival and a parade.

However Hurricane Rita plays out - and it certainly did enough damage - nobody's talking about "not rebuilding Texas" as they are with low income Nola. But regardless, it's going to increase the red-blue divide; the Texas sense among those political players who espouse the belief that they have to screw everybody a little harder because they don't get treated well on their own.

Listen to poor ol Tom DeLay, and you'd swear that chucklehead has never had a nickel he didn't have to mint himself. DeLay, the multi millionaire bugman who controls what we still mistakenly call a democracy.

Texas has a lot of decent people, but it's got way too many DeLays, too. And they're going to be milking Rita and fat cat contracts and such for every cent they can while they sneer at the rest of us for letting them get away with it.

Apparently Nothing More Dangerous to National Security

than a 48-year-old high school educated grief-stricken Bush-Does-Iraq-2 Gold Star mother sitting down on the pavement of a building we bought, built, and pay for daily while George Bush shits on it, on the dead, on the living, and on the American flag on an hourly basis.

I don't happen to agree with absolutely everything Cindy Sheehan says. But that doesn't matter.

She gave her son. She has a right to ask for proof why it was necessary.

Every American has both the right AND the obligation to ask for that same proof. But the families of those who have died also have the right to feel like they're owed twice over.

Good 'Ol George Bush: Trying to Link Hurricane Disasters to Terrorism

From Maureen Dowd posted at ToppleBush:

Stormy was testy.

He had put aside the guitar and packed his slicker.

The First Weatherman was working hard, man, harder than he had in years, even spending nights away from home - and Barney - in strange places.

And still the pesky press was painting him as a storm groupie, racing Rita to Texas just to score a windswept backdrop to recapture his image as protector.

Stormy preened for the cameras at FEEBLE FEMA headquarters in Washington yesterday. On CNN, a bilious image of a hurricane spun next to his head. You could imagine the little hurricane trailing him through the rest of his presidency, like the storm cloud with a lightning bolt that always trailed Joe Btfsplk in "Li'l Abner."

He said he was jetting to San Antonio to check out "the prepositioned assets" and then riding out the storm watching "the interface" between the military and state and local authorities at Northcom in Colorado.

But David Gregory at NBC quizzed W. on what good he could really do in Texas: "Might you get in the way, Mr. President?"

Stormy didn't like that. "One thing I won't do is get in the way," he snipped.

Mr. Gregory, part of a newly amped-up press corps, followed up: "Isn't there a risk of you and your entourage getting in the way?"

Now Stormy let off a little high pressure. "There will be no risk of me getting in the way, I promise you," he said dismissively.

The smart aleck reporters didn't understand how crucial it was for the president to intertwine, inter alia, with the interfacers. So W. explained it again: "See, Northcom is the main entity that interfaces - that uses federal assets, federal troops, to interface with local and state government. I want to watch that relationship."

But soon the San Antonio leg of the trip was scotched amid fears that Stormy would really be interfering more than interfacing. And besides, the weather was too sunny there for poses in foul-weather gear.

Stormy is like his dad, Desert Stormy. They both love wardrobe calls: cool costumes, sports outfits, presidential windbreakers, "Top Gun" get-ups, weather gear.

But leadership is not a series of costume changes. The former Andover cheerleader has been too reliant on photo-ops, drop-bys and "Mission Accomplished" strut-bys, rather than a font of personal knowledge.

What Katrina exposed was a president who - remarkable as this may sound - seemed bored after his re-election, just as Bill Clinton had drifted after his re-election. Before the Monica scandal broke, Mr. Clinton's aides had to beg him to call lawmakers on the Hill to support his own legislative agenda.

Before the Katrina scandal, W. had lethargically wandered the country, lifelessly promoting his Social Security plan and an energy bill that did nothing to solve the energy crisis, and endlessly vacationing in Crawford.

He campaigned as a strong daddy who would keep us safe, but then seemed lost when his daddy figure, Dick Cheney, kept vacationing as Katrina exposed a grotesque rescue apartheid in New Orleans.

The more tuned-in W. is now, the more obvious it is that he tuned out as New Orleans drowned. There is a high cost for presidential learning curves.

Hundreds of thousands of people died in Bosnia before Bill Clinton got it right in Kosovo. A lot of elderly hospital and nursing home patients died in New Orleans before W. could pay attention to Houston and Galveston.

On Wednesday, Stormy tried to make one of his strained linkages, this time with Katrina and terror. The terrorists, he said, were "the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it," while he is the kind of person who looks at Katrina and tries to energize himself to deal with natural disasters by thinking, What if this had been done by terrorists?

On Thursday, he tried to move past the image he had projected of a lost boy wandering alone in the storm, and stood at the Pentagon flanked by his war council, talking about how he was moving to "develop a secure, safe democracy in Iraq." Unfortunately, the Saudi foreign minister was in town dropping a bomblet by saying that Iraq was going down the tubes, a judgment other Sunni Arab leaders had been conveying privately.

After his Pentagon remarks, W. looked at his vice president for approval and received a proud, avuncular smile that said, "You're the Man."

But before he chases any more wind tunnels, Stormy should heed the Bob Dylan line: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

The Smell of Moral Decay Wafting from Bill Frist is Overpowering

From the Sun Times:

Blind trusts are designed to keep an arm's-length distance between federal officials and their investments, to avoid conflicts of interest. But documents show that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew quite a bit about his accounts from nearly two dozen letters from the trust administrators.

Frist (R-Tenn.) received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock sale of a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after the sale this summer, the stock price dived.

A possible presidential contender in 2008, Frist faces dual investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission into his stock sales.

Sheldon Cohen, who was the trustee for Democrat Walter Mondale's blind trust when he was vice president and drafted Democrat Lyndon Johnson's blind trust for Johnson's presidency, said that in the executive branch, ''you don't tell them how it's composed.'' He said Frist, like any federal official, ''absolves himself of conflict by not knowing what he owns.''

Cohen said that when Mondale left office, he told Cohen to sell his assets. ''He had no idea what I was holding,'' the Washington attorney and former Internal Revenue Service commissioner said.
Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said the senator received approval from the Senate Ethics Committee before he initiated the stock sale. All of the information Frist received complied with federal law and Senate ethics rules, Stevenson said.

GOP Sees Post-Katrina ReBuilding as a Wave to Pave Their Agenda

Think more tax cuts for the rich. Think school vouchers. Think even less privacy.

From the Boston Globe:

Republican lawmakers in Congress have tried repeatedly in recent years to allow children to use federally funded vouchers to attend private schools. They have been defeated seven times since 1998.

At least nine times in the past decade, Republicans sought to repeal or undermine a Depression-era law that requires federal contractors to pay the ''prevailing wage" in the region they are working in. None of the efforts succeeded.

But now the GOP is poised to realize both of those goals. President Bush's reconstruction package for the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina includes nearly $500 million for vouchers that children can use at private schools anywhere in the nation. And Bush declared a ''national emergency" to waive the prevailing wage law during the cleanup, freeing contractors to pay construction workers as little as the minimum wage, rather than the $8 to $10 prevailing wages in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.

As the federal government's response to Katrina takes shape, the White House and Congress are enacting or seeking to pass a wide range of policies that have been consistently rejected by Congress, despite Republican majorities in the House and Senate. The Bush administration has lifted the requirement that contractors have affirmative-action plans, is seeking to weaken clean-air standards in the Gulf region, and has shelved rules governing the number of hours truckers can work. Republicans in Congress have proposed allowing the EPA to waive all environmental regulations during the rebuilding.

Republicans say the moves are intended to help the region rebuild as fast as possible. Moreover, with as much as $200 billion headed to the states hit by Katrina, the White House and Congress want to be sure that the money is spent in accordance with conservative principles, emphasizing the free market and the strength of the private sector, said Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's third-ranking Republican.

''The conditions that people were living in I would argue were a result of liberal policies," Santorum said. ''And now we've got some alternative ideas -- give us an opportunity to try to positively impact the lives of the poor in these communities. . . . Let's try something different that may work, because what has been tried in the past hasn't worked."

But Democrats contend that Republicans are using a national tragedy to slip in proposals they have not been able to achieve through the legislative process during normal times.

Ed & Pub: FEMA Learned Nothing From Katrina in Helping Texas

Disgusting.

NEW YORK In Beaumont, Texas, claims that federal relief agencies learned their lessons from Hurricane Katrina and are on the ball in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita are apparently ringing hollow.

The Beaumont (Tex.) Enterprise reported tonight that disaster response coordinators in the area hard hit by Rita say they are seeing the same foot-dragging federal response this weekend witnessed two weeks ago in New Orleans and Mississippi. Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith and other local leaders, "haggard after days of almost non-stop work with little sleep, pleaded with the federal government to get itself in a higher gear," the paper said. Griffith said he wanted to return services to residents who remain but that "it seems like they can't figure out how to get it done." "There's a drastic shortage of generators in Beaumont to provide emergency power," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "There are generators at Ford Park, and FEMA is withholding their release. They want to finish their damage assessment." Jefferson County officials had a plan to distribute Meals-Ready-to-Eat from local fire stations, the paper said. However, Griffith said the MREs, like the generators, were being withheld by FEMA. "They won't let us have them," Griffith said. "They said we had to go through the state - which we already did - to get them. I'm going over there (to Ford Park) now to figure this out."

Looters have struck in town, but had to be let go because there is no safe place to jail them right now. Officials have asked FEMA to provide temporary jail quarters.The Enterprise has not published a print edition this weekend but provided PDFs of a scaled-down version on its still-active Web site. It included a note there Sunday: "We will publish a home edition as soon as we possibly can."Griffith said he's sending fire officials to local stores to get supplies, including propane to cook with. "We're going into stores and taking food out," Griffith said. "We're going to do what we got to do to get the job done...."

There's just a breakdown in the state and federal government that you saw in Katrina and you've seen in other disasters," Griffith said. He said he hopes to see a change "so at least the next people that have to go through it ... will have some kind of process that makes sense that can immediately deliver what people need."

No One Covered it But... Everywhere in America Yesterday (Saturday), People Marched Against Bush's War.

In DC alone, police are admitting at least 100K showed up, with only a tiny number of Bushie koolaid kiddies.

You Know Things are Bad in Iraq When Iraqis Wish They Were as Well Off as Katrina Survivors

I've wondered how Iraqis are taking our "misery". Ours were natural disasters while we created theirs.

From the wire service:

The Gulf of Mexico is 7,000 miles away, but Iraqis are worried about hurricanes Katrina and Rita: They fear the storms will divert U.S. money and attention from Iraq.

"Our hearts and our prayers are with the victims," Planning Minister Barham Saleh says. "But one should also keep in mind the importance of reconstruction in Iraq. You cannot leave Iraq alone, because failure is not an option here."

A USA TODAY/CNN Poll last week showed that a majority of Americans give the war effort a low priority compared to domestic needs. Asked for the best way to pay for Hurricane Katrina damage, 54% recommend cutting spending for the Iraq war.

The hurricanes come at a time when money for Iraq's reconstruction is running low. Congress approved $18.4 billion in 2003, but $5 billion was later set aside to rebuild Iraq's military and police.

Security costs are eating into the rest. Projects are being scaled back even though needs remain, James Jeffrey, a State Department adviser, recently told a congressional panel.

Gee, Imagine That!

The Stranger at Blah3 brings us something that will make most of us smily wryly while making others - say the Bushes and the DeLays and the Frists and the Hasterts and the Falwells and Robertsons - remind us they are neither evolved nor intelligently designed:

Of course, science is evil, so none of this will hold any sway with the Intelligent Design crowd.

When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was about 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins.

But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests. If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes. "That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.

Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

Calling All Correntephiles....

For those of you who have not already noticed, Corrente the blog is now CorrenteWire available at this new, non-blogspot URL.

Open Thread

What's on your mind?

DeLay telling us the GOP has successfully cut ALL pork from the budget?

Frist's stock mess?

An opposition party that's more like a mild grumble party?

Why's Bush taking money from servicemen and women to pay for his failures with FEMA and NOLA?

The new PorkBuster campaign that wants to cut all funding to public broadcasting and worse?

How we'll never know how many died in NOLA?

Why we pay the Feds so much to protect us from disaster only to claim during disasters that it's the local first responders - the ones they refuse to equip or give support to - responsibility?

A new chief justice who seems to have a questionable pictorial history?

I mean, there's a shitload to discuss.

On a More Personal Note, However...

I know that about 10% of the folks who visit here each week come from the storm-affected states.

I hope you and yours are OK. I think I speak for most when I say that our hearts and pracyers are with you.

Katrina took enough lives and, sadly, far more than we'll ever know in official counts.

Our Savior

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) But Were Afraid to Eat

Here. Yes, there are actual forums dedicated to the enjoyment of MREs. The Thai Chicken is supposed to be superb.

WARNING, however. This was also the last Web page I visited just before I took ill Thursday night. Not that I'm saying there's a correlation between the two but... I feel obligated to mention that fact.

Sorry for My Absence

I've been in la-la land for just under two days with some really odd virus.

Ask me, and I'll tell you I'd been awake for about 40 hours straight with everything in spasm and smelling like something dead. Ask my partner and he'll tell you I spent most of the time delirious, calling for my mother (uh... let's just say that's not like me under any conditions (cough)), or saying that the hurricane was coming because I was a bad person or that the water was all contaminated everywhere because the Bushes kept flushing their toilets into the public water supply. He also said he found me asleep in the shower twice.

The motto of this story? Don't eat egg rolls of questionable vintage.

Amber, Amber, Amber: You Are Not So Bright (Again and Again)

CNN:

FRESNO, California (AP) -- The former mistress of convicted murderer Scott Peterson is back in the spotlight after a DNA test showed that her first child was not fathered by the man who was paying child support.

Anthony Flores, 29, has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years, his attorney, Glenn Wilson, said Wednesday. The father of the 4-year-old girl is actually Fresno restaurant owner Christopher Funch, Wilson said.

No one answered the telephone at Porky's Rib House on Wednesday, and Funch did not have a listed home number.

Wilson said Flores was preparing to file a court motion seeking visitation rights, which he has been denied, when the man received word last week that he was not the child's father.

Frey's attorney, Gloria Allred, said Wednesday that her client never intended to deceive Flores.
"Amber, in good faith, always believed that Mr. Flores was her child's father," Allred said.

Amber, in her own defense, admitted: "I'm a skank with a heart of gold and a uterus of no return."

Rumsfeld Thanks Katrina for Handing Him More Unbridled Power

You have to read this from "Early Warning" by Wm Arkin.

Speaking of What Rick Santorum Does to People (And it Ain't Pretty!)...

From Attaturk at Rising Hegemon:

Earlier today, in the wake of this post, I promised that I would engage in no more bestiality influenced humor until something happened which pointed out the stupidity of Rick Santorum. I joked I'd be doing such joke by this afternoon.Well I was right. From CapitolBuzz:
A Philadelphia grand jury this morning issued a scathing critique of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, saying its former archbishops and other leaders concealed and facilitated clergy sex abuse of children for decades.

According to Santorum's logic, people in Philadelphia must be responsible for this sex abuse. After all, this is the same asshole who blamed the people of Boston for the clergy sex abuse that occurred there.

So just for Rick Santorum, here's a tri-spicies menage a trois.

Little Ricky any comment?

OK, Who's Sending Karlo Koolaid Made with New Orleans Tap Water?

Be careful. People who blush at the very term, "chicken breast" should NOT visit.

Clearly, this worries me. I respect Karlo and I know he would never pull such a stunt were he not under the evil influences of darker forces like Karl Rove and Kelly Rippa and maybe that al Qaeda cuppiecake, Janet Jackson.

Here, Karlo is not only pandering, I think he's spent a little too much time reading the wisdom according to Rick Santorum. This is very disturbing but, much as I look at YellowPages.com, I can't find a Betty Ford clinic that specifically addresses this.

Halliburton and Bechtel's Profitable Gulf Coast Wage Cut

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is all over this issue and whether anyone but Dems will sign on to a law trying to repeal this disastrous law to allow HalliCheneyBurton and BechRumsfeldTel to pay people below the going wage for some of the worst, most dangerous, most heart and mind breaking work in the world.

Hurray, Crew of Flight 292 Jet Blue!

Splendid job!

::applause::

Well, as Bad as My Evening is Going....

at least I'm not on that Jet Blue flight.

Good luck to the 146 folks on board and to those trying to help them come in.

Supremely Good Reasoning

Posted at Corrente:

"Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people."--Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

Any of the $5 blowjob, spineless, CYA "mainstream" (i.e., paid off) media listening?

Doug Forrester: What a Man!

Want a Worthy Cause to Join?

There's always the Impeach Bush Coalition.

Nobody Does Expensive, Abusive, NumbNutz Cronyism Like the Bushies

Posted by Cookie Jill at Skippy:

don't put julie on ice, ice babynow the gop party is jumpingwith big bass kicked in, bushco peeps are pumpin'quick to the point, to the point all fakingthey're cooking alibhis like a pound of baconburning rules cuz they think they're nimblegoing all out with morals big as thimblesice baby all vanilla, ice ice baby all vanilla

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

...her uncle is air force gen. richard b. myers, the departing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. she married chertoff's current chief of staff, john f. wood, on saturday.- wapo

...but then myers getting the nod for the top ice post should come as no surprise. her predecessor was actually appointed to one of the highest-profile u.s. attorney posts in the country (in manhattan) after running up a huge budget deficit at ice (hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink).

Mitt Romney, Mass Gov, to be Named Katrina Czar?

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has this.

But let me ask a question: just how MANY different bosses are in charge of Katrina? I can name 5-6 now, aside from Karl Rove who took over for Dick Cheney who took over for Bush who didn't do anything except photo ops. Then we're paying some big contractor to shadow the work of the folks in charge of Katrina.

And yet the whole Katrina situation remains an abyssmal mess, all the WH press reports to the contrary not being exactly true (quel surprise!).

Juan Cole on Iraq This Week

MissM points us to a post I read earlier and should have thought to post. Gives some missing background on events in Iraq this week.

From Juan Cole at Informed Comment (go read it):

Two British undercover men seem to have seen something suspicious and intervened. But somehow they got involved in a firefight with Iraqi government police. The two Britons were slightly wounded and were captured by Iraqi police (which seems to be penetrated by the Badr Corps, the Sadrists and other Shiite paramilitaries.)

Then a Sadrist crowd tried to storm the jail where the two British special forces operatives were being held by the provincial government. The Shiite crowds appear to have intended to hold them as hostages to be traded for Fartusi et al.

It was at that point that the British tanks rolled against the jail.

In freeing the two Britons, they inadvertently let 150 other prisoners escape, presumably some of them involved in the guerrilla movement. Two Iraqis were killed in related violence. Then crowds attacked British military vehicles, setting 2 afire with Molotov cocktails.

The entire episode reeks of "dual sovereignty," in which there are two distinct sources of government authority. Social historian Charles Tilly says that dual sovereignty signals a revolutionary situation.

Some Captions Write Themselves

Roxanne at Rox Populi posts this picture under "write your own caption".

Mine: As Barbara Bush stole quietly to the crib while "Poppy" Bush slept, she contemplated the question, "Am I doing the world a favor if I retroactively abort George Jr now? What if, God forbid, he becomes a president?"

Speechless

CK shares this post from Liz Michael re: New Orleans and the mayor. Thoughts?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin narrowly escaped having a universal death warrant placed on his head last week. How do I know this to be true? Because I was the one who planned to call for his execution.

Last week, Ray Nagin called for the confiscation of all weapons from all people except police officers. Such an act would have left most of New Orleans defenseless against roving bands of armed thugs. And I mean the ones that weren't wearing police or military uniforms. Accordingly, I had written an advisory that because of that order, New Orleans Police should be considered a hostile force by Americans, their officers should be shot, their vehicles and offices bombed, and their destruction in whatever manner. And the person who gave the order, Mayor Nagin, would have been the first person on the list I would have advised The People to go after.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed. Apparently, the New Orleans Police themselves, and several military troops, advised the powers that be that this was not going to happen. Many cited constitutional reasons. Others just plain weren't going to go in to do the job and get shot themselves by law abiding citizens enforcing their rights. Some just didn't want the victimization of the People of New Orleans by armed thugs not wearing police uniforms to actually be on their conscience. So the order was rescinded. Quietly and without much fanfare. Probably because of embarrassment.

Albeit I am a sinner, following the example of Yaheveh, to wit: repent of your sin, and I will repent of the judgment I had earmarked. Since Ray Nagin and the New Orleans Police reversed themselves and decided not to pursue this unconstitutional avenue, I too, will reverse myself, and not call for their assassination.

But THIS is how close it came.

There's a lot more there, and prepare to take time to digest. Some I agree with, some I'm appalled by (on various levels). Suspect you may feel the same, but I'd love to see some other thoughts.

Ouch - Cat 5 (And No, We're Not Talking Network Cable)

Rita - the hurricane and not the Mr. Moose sounding female impersonator from MSNBC - has just been upgraded to Category 5 with 165 mph winds.

I wonder what Mr. Bush has planned. Perhaps he can eat some chunky pretzels and play a little fiddle while watching a ball game as he considers whether global warming is just a left-wing conspiracy theory.

Questions Not to Be Asked About New Orleans

Blogcritics brings us an interesting take on peri- and post-Katrina New Orleans, entitled, "Questions That May Not Be Asked..."

Go read while I finish eating the apple that fell from the apple tree across from my office and bopped me on the head this afternoon while I was waiting to bathe the dog, who was hiding from me so I couldn't bathe him.

(Hey, it was that or write about file and folder security under NTFS in Windows XP.)

In the Those Payday Loan People are Approved by the Government and They're Here to Hurt Help You" Department

While I pointed to posts by Xavier and Peter at Pibbshow last night, I especially want to call your attention to this particular post re: the pushiness of the folks behind "Payday Loan" shops where they'll give you $250, $500, or $1,000 to tide you over to the next pay day only to charge so much that your one week loan easily turns into a multi-month, higher-than-the-sky interest rates horror.

Strangely though, Bush seems to be running our economy like someone dependent on payday loan shops. We're scrambling and paying the interest, however.

John Roberts

I'm dismayed to read today that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will vote in favor of John Roberts for the Supreme Court Chief Justice spot.

Yes, I know Roberts' confirmation is pretty much a given, but I think he's a bad choice, someone with a legal history of opposing the rights and quality of life of individuals rather in favor of corporations or the US, which I'm starting to occasionally believe is the world's biggest organized crime family. Sadly, I say this latter point with far less humor intended than you may first think. This issue breaks my heart.

Brit Attack on Iraqi Jail

A-hem

[Update Editor: Now I see that porn dialog writer is the leading career pick followed by John Bolton's dominatrix. But I'm not sure if this is more a statement about me or my audience. (Cough - grin)]

I'm resisting the urge to look in my Web logs to see who it was who cast the vote for "porn dialog writer" under my new career "when I grow up" poll.

(Why wouldn't I look it up? Well a) I respect your privacy b) I'm lazy and c) I have a policy never to do anything John Ashcroft would do. But a porn dialog writer? Really. Didn't I mention I used to teach Sunday school?

Oh wait... one thing many of our "family values" pols and moralists have taught us is that you can call yourself an excellent Christian while screwing just about anything and everything over, under, and backwards and that those commandments are for other people to follow since God gives these great beings "special" exceptions.

More on the Indicted, Corrupt Bushie

Also from Think Progress:

The FBI complaint filed against David Safavian yesterday accuses him of lying to ethics officers at the General Services Administration, where he served as chief of staff. Safavian informed the officials that Jack Abramoff, who had invited Safavian on a golfing trip to Scotland, had “no business before GSA.” In fact, Safavian was already actively helping Abramoff acquire control of two GSA-managed properties in the Washington area, one of which was a 40-acre plot that became the campus for a Hebrew school that Abramoff founded called the Eshkol Academy.

Come again? Jack Abramoff, the corrupt, scandal-plagued lobbyist, founded a Hebrew academy? Yes, but it was a distinctly Abramoff-style venture.

In 2004, he thought the school would be a prime place to make money off the lives of tribal elders. Abramoff recommended that one of his clients, the then-broke Tigua tribe, retain him at no cost. At the same time, he suggestioned they allow Eshkol Academy to “buy term life insurance policies on tribal elders and receive the benefits upon their death, with the money then channeled back to Abramoff.” According to the Washington Post, some of the money that went into the school was used to buy “two Zamboni ice-cleaning machines, even though it did not own a hockey rink.”

The school was closed a short time later, but the scandals persisted. In May ‘04, Abramoff’s assets were frozen by a Montgomery County, MD judge “in connection with a lawsuit over unpaid wages filed by employees of a religious academy that Abramoff founded.” Abramoff had shorted thirteen teachers a quarter of their pay when Eshkol shut down.

Disgusting.

Poll Up (Again)

Again, folks, I really need a new profession. So help me choose one at the top right.

If you don't like the choices, feel free to write an additional option in as a comment. (Cough)

And yes, I've already considered law school but I don't like to argue with people.

21 Bushies Involved in PlameGate

ThinkProgress has the - and we have to pay most of them - crooks' and traitors' gallery.

So None of My Dozen Posts Have Appeared?

Well, uh... remember to vote for my new career. :)

Rove Sent Immigration Memo: Message is to Discredit Dems

See Raw Story:

Smith goes on to suggest that "Liberals can easily and accurately be painted as opposing enforcement." His office did not return a call seeking comment.

NY Daily News: Bush's Ground Zero "Bullhorn Moment" More Bullshit

Wow.

I'm amazed that anyone is amazed that it took George W. Bush three days to show up in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

That's exactly how long it took him to show up at Ground Zero after 9/11.

So it mystifies me that the pundits and the cable gasbags keep telling us that George W. Bush missed his "bullhorn moment" in New Orleans.

No, he didn't.

Because his bullhorn moment in New York City was just as late and just as disgraceful as his fumbling handling of the Katrina carnage.

I wish I had a bullhorn to shout just how tired I am of hearing about how wonderful George W. Bush's "bullhorn moment" was.

It will go down as one of the worst moments in American history because when he stood on the smoldering ruins amid the dust of the dead it was through that bullhorn that Bush's Big Lie was first shouted to the world that the people who knocked down those buildings would soon be hearing from us.

Bushies' Priority

FBI Seeking to do battle with porn.

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

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

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

Gee, Osama bin Laden or a poorly made, uninteresting sex tape. Hmmm... which is a greater danger?

Ariana Huffington: John Bolton, Judy Miller, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame

You should read this: I've always believed that Bolton and Rove are part of PlameGate right up to their forked tongues and yellow evil cat like devil's eyes.

And isn't it so nice that John Bolton made a very special trip to visit Judy in prison.

The Brits Are NOT Happy; Hungry Americans Probably Aren't Either

From The Mirror of London:

HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.

US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.

Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.

And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.

One British aid worker last night called the move "sickening senselessness" and said furious colleagues were "spitting blood".

The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed.

Scores of lorries headed back to a warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas, to dump it at an FDA incineration plant.

The Ministry of Defence in London said last night that 400,000 operational ration packs had been shipped to the US.

But officials blamed the US Department of Agriculture, which impounded the shipment under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.

The aid worker, who would not be named, said: "This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve."

More Hurricane HiJinx

Xavier and Peter at PibbShow have several good, short pieces, from missing ice to all the MREs (meals ready to expire.. er... eat) and to the "wonders" of those payday loans for desperate people.

Go peek. I'll be here playing with my dart board until you return. You'll never guess whose picture in on this week's bulls eye.

Does Anyone Quite Understand What the Brits Did in Iraq

and is willing to explain it to the rest of the class?

Thank you.

While I Have a Slew of Stuff to Post

...please feel free to take the poll to the right which tells me what I should do when I quit my "day job". (choke)

With a New Storm Bearing Down

A bit of humor, offered by my friend, Terri:

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock.
Every time you lie, the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's President Bush's clock?" asked the man.

"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

And the fan's running so fast, Jesus' office may launch into space.

Just How Bad Is Nola's Sludge?

From Wired:

Before Hurricane Katrina even reached New Orleans, scientists warned of a "toxic gumbo" that would fill the giant soup bowl of a city. Now that their predictions have come true, specialists are turning their attention to the next big challenge: the leftovers.

As the water recedes, a disgusting muck coats the surfaces of buildings and streets. But it might be less dangerous than first feared.

The simple passage of time will cure the Big Easy of many of its ills, according to specialists in germ and chemical threats. To say New Orleans has become a giant toxic waste dump is "too strong," said Danny Reible, chair of Environmental Health Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

One reason for the optimism is that the nature of the New Orleans flood might actually result in less thick mud for residents and workers to cope with. In typical floods, "you've got this river that has been rampaging and carrying soil from everywhere in the watershed with it," said Reible, a former professor of chemical engineering at Louisiana State University. "Here, in a way it was a slow trickle, by comparison, that came through a breech in the levee. As a result it probably didn't bring in nearly as much ... mud."

It's also promising that the chemical components of some pollutants, like oil and gasoline, will float to the top and either evaporate or be washed away during the pumping of the city, Reible said.

Still, heavier components of oil and gas will simply sink into the muck, along with chemicals in pesticides and herbicides. But Reible and others think there will be an even bigger hazard -- germs.

Dire predictions about huge outbreaks of disease in New Orleans haven't come true, despite the hundreds or thousands of residents who continue to wade through the polluted water every day. Still, there will be plenty of hazards even when the flooding is gone, said Dr. Philip M. Tierno, director of microbiology and clinical immunology at New York University Medical Center and author of The Secret Life of Germs.

Bush Wants to Use Katrina as Launch Board for Using Military for Domestic Policing

It's amazing some nights that I don't shoot myself. Not owning a gun helps.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

As Washington picks through the lessons learned from hurricane Katrina, there is a growing conviction that the only organization with the skills, expertise, and resources needed to respond quickly to a catastrophe of such magnitude is the American military.

President Bush suggested a larger disaster relief role for the armed forces in his national address last week, and Congress has indicated it will take up the issue this autumn. Though the topic has emerged at other troubled times - most recently 9/11 - Congress has always avoided amending Posse Comitatus, the law that has kept active-duty soldiers out of civilian law-enforcement affairs since Reconstruction.

Anger over the scenes of chaos in New Orleans in the days after the hurricane, however, seems to have shifted the political landscape. It is an issue of profound importance both to the Pentagon and to the country at large, raising questions about the boundaries between the armed forces and American society - as well as the military's ability to press the war on terror abroad if it receives a new homeland mission.

"There's a strong historical precedent against doing this," says Michael O'Hanlon, a defense
analyst at the Brookings Institution here. "But now we've got a real reason."

The difference is the scope of the destruction and the dire results of the delayed response, scholars say. During previous disasters, local responders were able to help many victims, while others were able to manage without power or shelter. Katrina, however, completely incapacitated local first-responders, and in the days before help arrived, New Orleans was beset by anarchy.

As officials look at what went wrong - and wonder what to do if a future disaster similarly eviscerates local responders - their attention has turned to the military. Clearly, the armed forces are best prepared to deploy quickly to devastated areas, bringing not only a clear command structure, but an array of resources ideally suited for difficult work - from mobile communication systems to troops trained for the most taxing conditions. In his Thursday address, Mr. Bush called the armed forces "the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

NOT A GOOD IDEA!

So Procurement is What They Call it Now? (wink wink nudge nudge)

From Tom at Corrente:

The head of procurement for the Bush Administration was just arrested in just the latest chapter of the Abramoff-DeLay corruption investigation.

I repeat, the guy in charge of making sure all government contracts are on the up and up just got arrested for corruption.

But I'm sure that we can all expect good honest contracts for contractors on the $200B we'll spend to clean up the Gulf Coast, right?

Oh yeah, the North Korea thing has already fallen apart.Now that's a friggin surprise, right?

It's all falling in now, isn't it?Pass the popcorn.