You know Japan

I thought we over here had it tough in our "Dear Leaders"

But for now, I defer to your obvious suffering.

When George Bush beats you in the dignity department...it's a pretty bad sign.

...did Elvis do the Robot?

Dude is the Elaine Benes of dancing politicians.
(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

Bush thinks he spies Cindy Sheehan

"Good thing ah got me this human shield to hide behind."

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Laura's shining hour

"Whew, this one married a bigger freak than me and this other one has had even more work then me. I feel almost normal."

(AP Photo/Rob Carr)

"Ooh, look we're a club, now let's get us a treehouse!"

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Oh Jeebus Mohammad Vishnu Buddha Christ!

Disgusting:

Two years ago the US military invited Mr Mujahid, a former Afghan police commander accused of plotting against the United States, to prove his innocence before a special military tribunal. As was his right, Mr Mujahid called four witnesses from Afghanistan.

But months later the tribunal president returned with bad news: the witnesses could not be found. Mr Mujahid's hopes sank and he was returned to the wire-mesh cell where he remains today.

The Guardian searched for Mr Mujahid's witnesses and found them within three days. One was working for President Hamid Karzai. Another was teaching at a leading American college. The third was living in Kabul. The fourth, it turned out, was dead. Each witness said he had never been approached by the Americans to testify in Mr Mujahid's hearing.

The case illustrates the egregious flaws that have discredited Guantánamo-style justice and which led the US supreme court to declare such trials illegal on Thursday in a major rebuke to the Bush administration. Mr Mujahid is one of 380 Guantánamo detainees whose cases were reviewed at "combatant-status review tribunals" in 2004 and 2005. The tribunals were hastily set up following a court ruling that the prisoners, having been denied all normal legal rights, should be allowed to prove their innocence. Ten of the hearings proceeded to full trials, including that of Osama bin Laden's aide, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who brought the successful supreme court appeal.

But by the time the review tribunals ended last year the US government had located just a handful of the requested witnesses. None was brought from overseas to testify. The military lawyers simply said they were "non-contactable".

That was not entirely true.

You cannot trust one word regarding anything the government touches. How much do you want to bet they didn't even fucking try?

Thanks to Eschaton commentor s mcfeverish robot slave.

Banana Sandwiches, more than just a metaphor

With apologies to Elvis Presley...and because "In the Ghetto" didn't quite work -- to "Burning Love (Hunk of)".


(Mike Theiler/Reuters)
Lord almighty,
I feel my temperature rising

(AFP/Jim Watson)
Higher higher
It’s burning through to my soul


(AFP/Nicholas Kamm)
Girl, girl, girl
You gonna set me on fire
My brain is flaming
I don’t know which way to go


(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Your kisses lift me higher
Like the sweet song of a choir
You light my morning sky
With burning love

Ooh, ooh, ooh,
I feel my temperature rising

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Help me, I’m flaming
I must be a hundred and nine
Burning, burning, burning
And nothing can cool me
I just might turn into smoke
But I feel fine


REUTERS/Mike Theiler
Cause your kisses lift me higher
Like a sweet song of a choir
And you light my morning sky
With burning love


(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
It’s coming closer
The flames are reaching my body
Please won’t you help me

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
I feel like I’m slipping away

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
It’s hard to breath
And my chest is a-heaving

Lord almighty,
I’m burning a hole where I lay
Cause your kisses lift me higher
Like the sweet song of a choir

(AFP/Jim Watson)
You light my morning sky
With burning love
With burning love
Ah, ah, burning love

REUTERS/Gary Cameron
I’m just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Don't forget the Other Fraud

While Bush was entertaining the President of the Japanese Hair Club for Men, Condi was off at the other, forgotten, place that "we're losing".

"They'll leave the wank on for ya'"

As noted in my earlier dispatches, NATO's commanders have devised an intriguing strategy—a revival of classic counterinsurgency theory, combined with high-tech communications and more than a dollop of precision air power—but the real question is whether Afghanistan is too far gone for any strategy to matter.

So, Secretary Rice was in a tough spot as she stood there yesterday in Kabul, touting our great friendship with Karzai, pledging not to abandon him like we abandoned Afghanistan before—but, in the end, having no rabbit, or other magic tricks, to pull from her sleeve.

Still, if the point of her visit was to reaffirm our support for Karzai and to extinguish all doubt about America's intentions to stick around for the long haul, she tarnished her credibility by lacing her messages with so much blatant nonsense.

The food will be contemporary

But the color scheme will be by "Mamie Eisenhower" (or "Gameresque").

It'll match the lime jello/cottage cheese bundt cake mold* that Laura ordered special for the Japanese Prime Minister.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


*joke may be too Minnesotan for most readers

Okay, it may be the 'shrooms talkin'

But if Jonah Goldberg & John Podhoretz made a music video, I'm pretty sure it would be like this:

Oh, yes...thank you quality American Media

Looks like somebody took some of Rush's viagra.



See if you can spot my enhancement of this USA Today article:

The love fest began with an elaborate welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn and an exchange of gifts inside afterward. Koizumi gave the sports-loving president a bike and an enlarged version of the Japanese postage stamp that features Babe Ruth. The Bushes gave the Elvis-loving prime minister a refurbished 1954 jukebox that includes 25 songs by his favorite singer.

"Prime Minister Koizumi searched the keys and found 'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,'" first lady Laura Bush said. "He and the president sang a duet."

In the evening, the Bushes were hosting a formal dinner, the eighth of their White House tenure. It was in honor of Koizumi, who leaves office in September after five years in office.

The divorced Koizumi did not have a date. He made his entrance between the president and Mrs. Bush, who wore a taupe dress by Bill Blass with cherry blossoms hand-painted on the Chantilly lace bodice.

The guest list included two Japanese-American Olympic athletes — speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi — astronaut Soichi Noguchi and baseball great Hank Aaron.

On Friday, the U.S. and Japanese leaders had their sights set on Graceland, Presley's mansion in Memphis Their tour guides: Elvis' former wife, Priscilla, and his daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.

Bush paid Koizumi the ultimate compliment, comparing the prime minister to Elvis, who Bush noted also once visited the White House.

"Like you, he had great hair," Bush joked during the dinner toasts. "Like you, he was known to sing in public. And like you, he won admirers in countries far from home."

Koizumi gave the president a pop culture compliment in return.

"I would like to pay my sincerest respects to President Bush, who has been so steadfast and determined in protecting freedom and justice. I sometimes see the image of the United States as Gary Cooper in my favorite movie, 'High Noon,'" Koizumi said in his toast, drawing a shoulder-shaking laugh from Bush.

At the White House, they dined on beef with cracked black pepper, shitake mushroom jus, silver corn pilaf and sesame-coated wild asparagus. The gold-colored china was from the Clinton administration.

Also on the menu: Maryland she crab soup; jicama and cucumber chiffonade; and an ornate desert modeled after a bonsai garden, with a chocolate tree on a base of kumquat-stuffed cherries, surrounded by miniature chocolate pagodas.

The Japanese theme extended to the decorations.

The tables were covered in green silk and large spheres of green cymbidium orchids, which grow in the wild in Japan. The orchids rested on top of tall clear glass cylinders that allowed guests to see each other across the table.

Three bonsai trees on loan from the National Arboretum were set up in the Grand Foyer. The menus themselves were decorated with a drawing of a blossom from the cherry trees that were given to the U.S. as a symbol of friendship from the Japanese nearly 100 years ago.

The entertainment was provided by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, known for song "Jump Jive An' Wail."

The formal part of the evenining ended and the two leaders retired to the White House's private quarters where the two leaders touched each others' respective hunks of burning love well into the morning hours.

Pounding the Gavel

I try not to contemplate that this is the moron slotted into Thurgood Marshall's bench chair. If I did I'd be acting like Pam from Atlas Shrugs when a camera is nearby.

But sometimes it cannot be avoided:

Thomas refers to Justice John Paul Stevens’ “unfamiliarity with the realities of warfare” in his dissenting opinion. ACSBlog notes: “Stevens served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. Thomas’s official bio, by contrast, contains no experience of military service.”

I look forward to Stevens' next dissent when Clarence Thomas issues forth his next "Dear Penthouse" letter -- asserting that Clarence is unfamiliar with the realities of "money shots", "bukkake", or "shaving videos".

Glass House

Does the projecting never stop?

Re: Dick Clarke [John Podhoretz]
Gee, the fact that Clarke has a monthly column in the Times Magazine couldn't have anything to do with his defense of the Times, could it?
Posted at 1:10 AM

Golly, could the fact that John Podhoretz has a job with National Review and the New York Post have anything to do with the fact he sprouted forth from the loins of Norman Podhoretz?

It certainly wasn't intellectual acumen, or a well developed sense of irony that obtained the positions.

I sense a pattern.

A real pattern.

No, seriously, I sense one.

Ray of Sunshine

I just knew that something good had happened today. Call it a distrurbance in the force if you are so inclined... The Supreme Court -- yeah, the one packed with conservatives and one crazy (you go Clarence! Wheee!) -- rules that the President in name only has clearly overstepped his authority with military war crimes trials for foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay. While the statement from the court is not a blank check to stop the neocons (who are the true burners of the American Constitution by the way), this does raise a rare ray of sunshine in a deep, dark time in U.S. history. The case involves a former driver for Osama bin Laden who more than likely did not know anything but the neocons love those trials that are not trials that deny things like civil rights.

UPDATE

ATTA J. TURK here adding his two cents to what DeDurkheim added, I hope he won't mind.

The best and most remarkable part of this rebuke of Bush comes in it's effect on Bush's policy of skirting the Geneva Convention when it comes to "torture". The Bush Administration while denying it "tortures" has constantly proclaimed that these individuals are NOT subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention.

By a 5-3 vote the Supreme Court has said bullshit! From ScotusBlog:

More importantly, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. . . . If I'm right about this, it's enormously significant."

I should also note Ernest T. Bass's comments to this:

Indeed. At the very least, this should serve as a rebuke to those who have been proclaiming that we live in an era of lawless fascism and rubberstamp courts.

Well, yes, and no. If one of the majority leaves, this decision goes the other way, and Thomas in the dissent says,

the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

The court's willingness, Thomas said, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."

What Thomas said, of course, was wrong both legally and historically -- however, contra to what Reynolds asserts, we are pretty damn close to fascism and rubberstamp courts.

Live Stevens, Live!

Projecting much Peggums?

Sometimes you just wonder what planet these "elites" are from (ed: "Planet Asshole"?):

[Hillary Clinton] seems like someone who might calculatedly go to war, or not, based on how she wanted to be perceived and look and do. She does not seem like someone who would anguish and weep over sending men into harm's way.

Yes, as opposed to this:

As he sat behind his Oval Office desk just before he addressed the US on Wednesday night, Dubya picked up a copy of his speech in which he would tell the world that he had launched military strikes to topple Saddam.

According to one who witnessed the scene on a TV monitor, the president shook his fist, turned to an aide elsewhere in the room and said, with feeling: "Feels good!"

So relaxed and playful was he at this sombre moment that, when the BBC cut to him just before the start of his speech while he was having his hair and make-up finished, he was grinning and cracking jokes.

(ignore the foreign translation (unless you understand it) and watch Bush)

I do love Peggums pointed use of the words "men into battle" regarding Hillary. You just know Noonan would never write such a pointed statement about lifelong bachelorette Condi Rice.

Oh, and Peggy, not only do you lie, but your imagery...OY!

Bush the Younger would breastfeed the military if he could.

Yes, he's been great about sending the VA formula hasn't he?

But still, ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

This will be touching

Like when Dubya sand this song to Reagan's casket at the Capitol Rotunda:

Bin Laden to Issue Tribute to Al-Zarqawi

Osama bin Laden will issue a videotaped message paying tribute to slain al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a message posted on an Islamic militant Web site said Wednesday.

I can picture it now...

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

And death for America, vote Republican!

The Equation

Using a NY Times reporter to plant gossip and rumor of weapons of mass destruction and then regurgitating such reports as independent sources of verification so you can get your war on...

Outstanding public service.

Using the same NY Times reporter to expose an undercover CIA Agent and ultimately the "front" business used to conduct undercover operations...

Good hardball politics.

Having the NY Times report on a "secret" program that you've talked about before in public as an example of your agressive policy...

Why that's TREASON!

UPDATE: I think Kingweasil in comments may be right. Something bigger is coming down and the screaming is all about trying to intimidate or undercut the Times or some other outlet before it comes to light.

A very good point about "Free Speech"

This has always struck me as particularly true as crystalized by Juan Cole:

For all the talk about freedom of speech and individual freedom in the United States, ours is actually a hierarchical society in which most people cannot afford to speak out unless they are themselves independently wealthy. A lot of Americans work for corporations, which would just fire anyone who became so outspoken in public as to begin to affect their company's image. Look at how many bloggers are anonymous! Purveyors of opinion in the mass media, who use their real names, are employed by, or in some way backed by, media moguls. It is fairly easy to depart from the spectrum of acceptable opinion (i.e. acceptable to the three million or so people who have disproprotionate weight in how America is run), and if one does, after a while one is not heard from so much any more. Thus, those attacking Kos work for Martin Peretz and Arthur Shulzberger, Jr., and if they didn't they would not have their current influential perches.

The very wealthy are used to getting their way in US politics and to dominating public discourse, since so much can be controlled at choke points. Journalists can just be fired, editors and other movers and shakers bought or intimidated. Look what happened to MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield, who dared complain about the propaganda in the US new media around the Iraq War. Phil Donohue, who presided over MSNBC's most popular talk show, was apparently fired before the war because General Electric and Microsoft knew he would be critical of it, and did not want to take the heat. Politicians who step out of line can just be unseated by giving their opponents funding (the Supreme Court just made it harder to restrict this sort of thing).

There is an incredible amount of intimidation and intellectual thuggery that goes on in the internet -- and in day to day life. I, in effect, run my own business so I don't have to worry about being fired because I run this little repository or snark and rants. The same is true for the most part of my fellow blogboys, who have positions where they can affort to express their opinions. But we remain anonymous for good reasons too. Most particularly, I really don't care to have my other life interrupted by assholery of others.

It's what blogs allow.

Sadly, they also allow people with more money and bigger megaphones to margialize those who, by using psedonyms already marginalize ourselves.

9/11 Really has changed everything...even history

Past "soundbite" givers translated through a GOP filter.


"Fuck Liberty, I want to live!!!"
--Patrick Henry


'A patriot must always be ready to defend his government against his country.'
-- Edward Abbey


"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the second highest political end since 9/11."
-- Lord Acton


"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. But still, no global warming."
-- John Adams


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely - and thank goodness 9/11 made me see that as a good thing. My Halliburton stock is kickin' ass!"
-- Lord Acton


"Fear is the foundation of most governments. Guess what? That Still works."
-- John Adams


"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Welcome to post-9/11 America."
--Edmund Burke


"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. That is why we must give it up to make it safer."
--Harry Emerson Fosdick


"They that don't give up some liberty to live will have to die."
--Benjamin Franklin


"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. Except for those bastards at the NY Times."
--Thomas Jefferson

If stupid, offensive political stunts were made unconstitutional

We'd have 66 Senators to arrest wouldn't we?

Why Letterman is the real King

Because he does "irony" and eviscerating self-mockery better than anyone ever has:

Cold open: We see Dave sitting with our old friend Jude . Dave attempts to make conversation.
Dave: "Big plans for the 4th?"
Jude: "No."
Dave: "I was thinking maybe you might want to come over and we could grill up some burgers."
Jude: (beat) "We're not friends. I don't like you. You use money and fame to bully those around you. You're actually the most unlikable person it's ever been my misfortune to know."
Dave: (beat) "If you don't want to do burgers, we could maybe go see a movie."

And, of course, he does this:

"Snow you are quite disturbing with that Jason Robardian smirk"

"But let's face it, you'll never out creep the master and his William Defoe-ish fake grin....boo-yah!"


(Larry Downing/Reuters)

Who else was flyin' down to the Dominican with Limbaugh?

Perhaps it was Hitchens? Hell, I'm betting on it.

I'd like everyone to know

No Candidate has paid for the services of one Dr. Atta J. Turk, podiatrist to the stars.

It's not because I have any extra moral fortitude.

I can be bought, believe me.

I'm contemplating putting my services up on E-Bay.

It's been well-over 4 hours

And a cursory perusal of the "so-called" brighter lights of the conversative blogosphere has yet reveal much about Rush Limbaugh & his ill-gotten stiffy medicine.

I say this only for one reason:

There's been a lot of discussion about how we lefties are all coordinated and shit and how foolish such a thought that is. At the same time, if there is a universal truth out there you think we could have an agreement across party lines and ideologies that a guy getting detained for illicit woody pills could be a source of common amusement.

But I guess I hope for too much...like Billy Jack, except this time it is about someone else's 'one tin soldier'.

Dollars to Doughnuts (and I may mean that literally)

Rush Limbaugh went to the Dominican Republic to be what he always is, a paragon of Republican morality:

Dominican Prostitution: Cheap, Prevalent and Accepted

Sadly, it appears we may have videotape.

Oh god it will suck so much it will create the singularity

Some ideas are an intellectual "Plan 9 from Outer Space" -- like invading Iraq after a nutjob in Afghanistan attacked you.

Such is this idea:

FNC programming VP "Bill Shine is testing several pilots, and this is one of them," an FNC spokesperson says...

Last week, TVNewser asked if Fox was working on a show pilot styled after Jon Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central. Then yesterday, TVNewser asked if conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham was at FNC shooting something over the weekend.

The answers are yes and yes, and they're apparently related. An anonymous tipster says Ingraham's pilot is known as "Watch This Right Now." The tipster calls it "an absolutely terrible rip off of Daily Show" including a "music and video montage" and "mouth replacement of known news figures." (Huh?) "They want to keep it a secret so they hired all freelance tech people," the tipster adds. "The writers and producers should be embarassed to show this one to Roger."

Oh please let this be part of Satan Aisles plans for improving FNC's recent tail spin.

Think of the line up of comedians they could get to appear.

Larry the Cable Guy.

And...um...

Larry the DirecTV Guy.

And...um...

"I love the Pips"

And judging by the drummer, they really love you too.

B.B. isn't it time Lucille does some feedback? It's what Bo Diddley would do.

REUTERS/Larry Downing

UPDATE: Kingweasel is right, yet another Bush "Guitar" photo op. Those always go well. He's holding it like he knows that.

"One for me and one for Harvey"

In my never ending effort to remain hip and contemporary on all things pop-culture I bring you this bit of gossipy-stupidity:

Movie great JAMES STEWART was forced to prove he wasn't gay by bedding two hookers, according to an explosive new biography.

Movie mogul LOUIS B MAYER reportedly instructed the IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE star to prove to him he wasn't a homosexual before offering him a film deal, sending the actor off to find a couple of prostitutes.

Why didn't he just go get blown by the then Nancy Davis?

Wolcott says all you really need to know

About Coo-Coo Bananas little hissy regarding the NY Times yesterday:

Bush has called the disclosure "disgraceful," looking far angrier (or fake-angrier) than he ever did about the Katrina fuckup.

Bush Directs the gang behind the Note

The 500 Fuckwit Greek Chorus.

REUTERS/Larry Downing

I say kill 'em all and let Scholastic Books sort 'em out

Rowling says two characters die in last Harry Potter book.

Or we could send 'em to Iraq with Prince Harry!

Better alert Ann Coulter to talk about how these women are terrible human beings

Military Fails some Widows over Benefits

Nah, too easy

Since I make like fi-fiddy a month from this bloggy blog, I consider myself enough of a semi-pro not to make jokes about fat bastards needing somebody else's woody pills to get it on with a mocha princess in a foreign port. One needs to erect standards to stiffen one's resolve.

Georgie, Earth is a planet, not a 'hot pocket'

Our Special Ed President delivers more thoughtful analysis:

QUESTION: I know you’ve said you are not planning to see Al Gore’s new movie, but do you agree with the premise that global warming is a real and significant threat to the planet?

BUSH: I think it’s — I have said consistently that global warming something is a serious problem.

Not to panic or anything

But my emails to KOS have not been answered for about an hour and I really need to pee.

If someone could also email him and ask if I can be excused so as to relieve myself, I'd really appreciate it.

I don't think I can cross my legs much more.

And this picture isn't helping much either.

Commentor Semper Fubar has a similar problem.

...August 6, 2006

WALLACE: Congressman King, what about what was revealed today in the New York Times that the Bush Administration has sponsored a special program to secret observed Americans in their bathrooms doing their dirty business? Are you concerned about the civil liberties aspects of such an intrusion?


PETER KING:Actually, I am outraged Chris. [N]o one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitest left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I’m calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times — its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher. We’re in a time of war, Chris, and what they’ve done has violated the Espionage Act, the COMINT act. If, to keep Americans safe, we watch them make a biscuit, then that is a small price to pay to save the rights that we hold dear in this country. You either pee in the open, or you are working for Al Qaeda.

"Sic Semper Tyrannus!!"

Oh, and Hi Keeba!

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

"You know that 'me' impersonator is okay...

...but I was really hoping they'd have a Lincoln impersonator here at Ford's Theatre. Why don't they?"

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

The NeoCon Agenda

"Well, breaktime is almost over

Better get back to work. There's poo to fling. Fuckin' Rummy's really riding my pink ass this week."

AFP/File

From the Email Account of Markos Moulitsas

<--To: Attaturk2004@yahoo.com

<--From: KOS


<--Do not be funny.


From: Atta J. Turk

To: Kos@dailykos.com

Yes, your immensenessissity. I will continue as usual.

Seems like a good time to re-run this

Brooks accusing progressives of following whatever Kos says? Yeah, right, jackass.

Austria Ready for Unification's Message
by David Brooks

Vienna Times, March 10, 1938

Yesterday, Chancellor Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite on whether Austria will remain independent, or follow the natural dictates of its ethnic composition and join with growing Germany, now seemingly reborn under the steady and determined leadership of its Fuhrer, Austrian native, Adolf Hitler.

To some this seems to be an example of Schnuschnigg caving in to the pressures of the more dynamic and strong-willed German leader, but those with this view are clearly a minority.

It is true that the intellectuals of Vienna bemoan the apparent loss of an Austria identity through an alliance with the German Reich. However, as one who has traveled throughout the Tirol on many a skiing vacation, rather than just confining myself to effete coffee-houses, like Herr Krugmann, I can tell you that the feelings of those in the city favoring non-confederation, let's call them "pessimists", are not shared by the common Austrians that make up the back bone of this land. I like to call them, "anschlussmists"

These common people, the people of the beer halls, sausage factories, clock makers, puppeteers, and all those wearing the brown-shirt and leiderhosen of pride agree that it is better for Austria's future to join in league with its powerful and upward-moving neighbor to the north than to remain in a state of meaningless independence.

It is true the pessimists, comprised as they are of intellectuals, artists, and financiers, all have financial or religious reasons for opposing the plan so advocated by Herr Hitler and now the strong-willed Schuschnigg. However, their claims and concerns seem both overwrought and unduly dour, especially to the average hard-working Austrian of the Alps who unarguably have made this country what it is. What the family in Innsbrook wants may not seem right and proper to the academic in Vienna, but that does not mean that the bulk of the former will not have their voices heard.

It is true that Herr Hitler has, while rising to power in Berlin, made statements regarding Jews that are strident and even accurately called impolite. However, now that he has taken political power in Germany, other than minor changes in the law, he has yet to put this rhetoric into practice. There is little evidence at this point that even if that language was something he was serious about, which it is likely he was not, it is language of the past and not of policy. Appealing to one's base through hyperbole is part and parcel of any political process and there is little evidence of any pending actions against jews*. It seems unlikely that Austrians have anything to worry about on this score and indeed such assertions now seem to be simply "fear mongering".

In the coming hours, Austrians will have to make the faithful decision, we must make sure that we respect the will of the majority and not let fear and use demogougery to cloud what should be evident to all.

The Saddest Sadsacks of Shit ever!

The fact that this terrorist arrest was made into a huge deal this week gets more and more pathetic.

This so-called group desiring to blow up the Sears Tower couldn't make toast, let alone an explosive.

The father of a man accused in a terrorism plot to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower said Saturday he was at a loss to explain how his son was suspected of leading such a group.

"He's not in his right mind, I'll tell you that," Narcisse Batiste, 72, said in an interview at his home here in central Louisiana.

He also was under the delusion that he was in the DeBarge family:

If I should ever happen to be arrested, please let them find something better than my Senior Class Photo.

Billmon says what I've been thinking

Only better of course:

And, right on cue, we have the New York Times weighing in with a well-timed leak promising major U.S. troop reduction, beginning two months before the November elections. Now isn't that a coincidence?

The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.

The next step, of course, will be for the same people who three days ago were demanding the execution of John Kerry and John Murtha for even daring to suggest a withdrawal timetable to immediately begin calling for a withdrawal timetable -- that is, when they're not hailing the Cheney administration for having won a smashing victory in Iraq. In fact it's already started.

I really should have seen this coming. The tip off was the proposed amnesty for killers of U.S troops floated by one of Maliki's aides several weeks ago, which was immediately greeted by a bevy of GOP heel clickers as the second coming of Nelson Mandela (thus stacking one stinking pile of hypocrisy on top of another.) In hindsight, it's easy to see that they were just warming up for the BIG flip flop.

Will anyone in our beloved Punditry class notice? Especially that Jack Murtha has been predicting this scenario for months?

Of course not!

He may be linked to Al Qaeda

But Somali fundamentalist leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys is going to be the biggest thing for "neckbeards" since Jefferson Davis.

Does the carpet match the curtains?

(AP Photo/Osman Hassan)

Worst Head Cold of all Time

Currently being suffered by Atta J. Turk.

Maybe it is the Nyquil talkin' but did the Minnesota Twins actually win a game starting a pitcher named Boof Bonser?

Boof Bonser?!

Parody

The Cable News Networks have now salivated for about 30 straight hours over the arrest of a terrorist threat equivalent to the Society for Creative Anacronism or an awesome D&D Campaign.

"The group apparently did little to inspire fear in the Liberty City neighborhood where they took up residence. A close family friend and a distance cousin of Stanley Grant Phanor described the leader of the group, Narseal Batiste, as a "Moses-like figure" who would roam the streets in a cape or bathrobe, toting a crooked wooden cane and looking for young men to join his group.

Huzzah!

Here's your progress

Surely this is a sign of how we've been giving the Iraqi's the blessings of liberty and freedom:

The attacks and suicide bombings that have ripped through hundreds of mosques and shrines across Iraq are affecting Muslims profoundly, causing some to abandon Friday group prayers in the mosques, one of the holiest Muslim rites. Prayer is one of Islam's five pillars, and the Koran encourages worshipers to pray in groups on Fridays.

This is no small thing to abandon for devout moslems. Prayer is far more communal in Islam than it is in the other monotheistic faiths.

If Cheney had an actual heart, as opposed to the space-aged polymers that comprise that sad pulsating thing he has, that is what he'd be offended by.

It's inevitable

How fucked up and putrid the stories of "progress" we have heard for three plus years sound now?

I honestly took part in a conversation with a couple of folks the other day, one of whom is a ditto-head who after several examples of the disaster, started telling me that "the reality" of Iraq is it really couldn't be going any better than it is -- it is just that the "press" doesn't want to admit it.

I suggested he consider wearing a crash helmet at all times.

For most of the past six months, Iraq drifted without a government and its security forces largely stood by and watched at crucial moments, like the one in February when Shiite militias killed Sunnis after the bombing of a sacred shrine.

Now, as Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone savor their recent successes — the naming of the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted guerrilla leader — Iraqis outside its walls are more frightened than ever. Neighborhood after neighborhood in western Baghdad has fallen to insurgents, with some areas bordering on anarchy. Bodies lie on the streets for hours. Trash is no longer collected. Children are home-schooled.

The paralysis that shut down life in western Baghdad is creeping ever closer to the heart of the city, and Iraqis in still-livable areas are frantic for the government to halt its advance, something the new leadership pledged to do when it started its new security plan for Baghdad last week.

"It's like a cancer, spreading from area to area," said a guard at Delta Communications, a Mansour cellphone shop that has been shuttered since a bomb blast in front of it last month.

We cannot afford to be there much longer, the Iraqis cannot afford to have us any longer.

Naturally we're staying.

The war with Iraq began, on our initiative and choice, in Mid-March 2003. Three years and three months have gone by.

From the day Hitler declared war on the United States to the Nazi Surrender took three years and six months....and we were certainly never doubtful of victory by this stage.

I know that righties can come back and say "but we weren't fighting an insurgency"...which is ironic because many of the same dickwads were talking about the "Werewolves" in Germany post WWII in May and June of 2003 as an excuse at that time.

Available drinks you wouldn't want to have at a "Townhall.Com" convention

The Crotcharita
Fetus Fizz
The Tubby Virgin
A Holy Sepulchre
Assrocket Punch
The Heh, I peed
A Mickey
The Depleted Sarin
A Black Internee
Hair of the JPod


Just sayin'.

"Ernie Piles"

You know I've had this here bloggy-blog for about two and a half years now and I cannot recall previously mentioning Geraldo Rivera.

I could be wrong, Geraldo's contribution to journalism since the early 1980s is only noted for its inconsquential productivity, other than producing buffoonery. Like the inside of Al Capone's vault, or Laura Bush's womb (what, too harsh?...are you sure?).

So yesterday, because Brian Kilmeade has to go to bed early, it was time for FoxNews to do what FoxNews must do and be incestuous in its interviewing. They had "the mustache of blundering" on O'Reilly and they falafeled each other to a fine blather. Eventually Geraldo summoned forth:

I've know John Kerry for over thirty five years. Unlike me-he is a combat veteran, so he gets some props, but in the last thirty five years, I've seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry...

Yes, indeed:


Here is the result of Geraldo combating the notion that Klansmen really shouldn't be seen or heard in polite society.


Here is Geraldo reporting that he was on the "hallowed ground" where American soldiers had been killed, when he was in reality about 300 miles away from that spot, combating all notions of physical reality.


And a few months later, here is Geraldo combating the notion that you should not reveal the location or operational plans of American troops during combat in Iraq. Something that led to him being ordered to report on combat by not being anywhere near where it was occuring.

I salute the Ambrose Burnside of combat reporting, Geraldo Rivera.

I didn't know it was possible

But Kaus is lowering his standards, which I think most of us figured he didn't have to begin with...

Coulter was escorted to the garden party by Slate's Mickey Kaus.

If only

This was Hungarian Speaker of the National Assembly Katalin Szili in the midst of a solid right-cross.

But then again, Bush is long past being affected by head blows.

Just kidding Mr. Secret Service Man.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

So we ARE going to support Amnesty

The Iraqis want us to cut & run too:

THE Iraqi Government will announce a sweeping peace plan as early as Sunday in a last-ditch effort to end the Sunni insurgency that has taken the country to the brink of civil war.

The 28-point package for national reconciliation will offer Iraqi resistance groups inclusion in the political process and an amnesty for their prisoners if they renounce violence and lay down their arms, The Times can reveal.

The Government will promise a finite, UN-approved timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq; a halt to US operations against insurgent strongholds; an end to human rights violations, including those by coalition troops; and compensation for victims of attacks by terrorists or Iraqi and coalition forces.

- So amnesty to domestic insurgents who killed Americans.

- The U.S. must stop attacking insurgents.

- Compensation.

- The U.S. has to "Cut and Run" (as Rove would put it)

There you go Jethro, good plan in Congress this week.

Can we have a moratorium on proclaiming Turdblossom a genius now?

Yeah right, I'm sure it will be a "real" grilling

The Mallo-Cup of Politics Arlen Specter is at it again:

The Bush administration will have to explain why it thinks it can ignore or overrule laws passed by Congress in a hearing next week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Wednesday...

..."Our legislation doesn't amount to anything if the president can say, 'My constitutional authority supersedes the statute.' And I think we've got to lay down the gauntlet and challenge him on it," Specter said in a telephone interview.

Make sure you don't swear him in Alren.

Why would anyone ever want to leave?

After all, our forces are the only ones able to prevent this sort of thing.

Uh...

At least 25 people have been executed gangland-style in Iraq's third-largest city this week, with residents gunned down in ones and twos and bodies found scattered throughout Mosul.

Why if it wasn't for the "Special Presidency" of George W. Bush the Iraqis wouldn't have the ability to engage in this kind of roughhousing with each other. The kind of hijinks that only "real" freedom provides. We have given them the power previously reserved only for Americans. Americans like Bushwackers, Jayhawkers, Gangsters, and Coastal Rappers.

It's on the march people -- and to enjoy Freedom, I suggest to the Iraqi people they invest in "Panic Rooms".

Thank goodness we're stayin'!

Great Moments in Chimpery

The New York Times headline describing Bush's speach in Budapest today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the uprising:

Bush Compares Iraq War to Hungary's Uprising

Considering what happened to those involved in the 1956 uprising there may have been better analogies.

Dear Senator Reid,

Isn't it time to shut down the Senate again?

Roberts, who has stalled endlessly to prevent the completion of the investigation into whether public officials cooked the intel in crafting their pre-war public statements, may now be ensuring that it will never be completed.

Sincerely,

Atta J. Turk

Okay Right-Wing Wankers

We all love da Carbon-Dioxide right?

Earth hottest in 400 years
Panel says humans responsible for much of the warming

The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New York, to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.

Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.

Good for Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican with some scruple.

Now, go see 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

"The Bunker"

And the many denizens of Washington, D.C. who inhabibit it:

From AmericaBlog:

The White House has completely failed in Iraq. They can't run a war, but they can run political campaigns. So, now the Bush administration is treating the Iraq war as just another political operation. It's all about politics for them:

But people who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the war in an election year.

CNN's Dana Bash just said the GOP is "downright giddy" about the current debate. They're all loving it.

Thanks to the White House we completely fucked up the when, how, and why to go to War.

The the Administration fucked up the fighting of the war.

Now we are plainly losing...or have simply lost the war.

Now they are "GIDDY" about the current debate on the war.

I suppose the Kaiser should have been giddy in the Summer of 1918 too.

I always figured government was for sale

But this is ridiculous...


...UPC Symbols on each of them?

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

And they should know

Good luck with that European trip there Georgie:

In Austria, that unpopularity is particularly acute: a recent poll by the Vienna-based News magazine found that 72 percent of those surveyed found Bush to be unlikable and a danger to world peace.

And these people know unlikeable threats to world peace!

His name is Ricky, but he fucks up like Lucy...

Santorum's little WMD spiel (along with Rep. Peter Hoekstra) was so pathetic that naturally I thought the press corps would fall for it.

...God knows the genius, and our primary source for stupidities on the internets K-Lo did -- BEEP, BEEP!...

FoxNews was trying to push it as well...and maybe they will again...but this is hilarious

Santorum showed up to do his thing with Peter Hoekstra on H&C and it took one phone call by Jim Angle of FOX News to debunk Santorum's WMD claims today. That's pretty embarrassing when the Dick Cheney network undermines him. Hannity was all excited and tried to say that WMD's were only "a part of the reason we went Iraq."

And the Washington Post exposes the stupidity more:

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered...

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

And this little nugget shows the quality of the GOP even more when it is noted that Hoekstra is the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

He thinks you are all stupid.

More assholery

Boy that Jose Padilla -- remember him?

Master "Dirty Bomb Maker", centerpiece of the catches we've made domestically in the War on Terra?

Padilla was designated an "enemy combatant" and held for 3 1/2 years without charge by the Bush administration shortly after his May 2002 arrest. He was accused then of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city.

Padilla was added as a defendant in the Miami terror support cell case last year amid a legal struggle over President Bush's authority to hold him indefinitely. The Miami indictment does not mention the "dirty bomb" allegations.

All the depravations inflicted on Padilla because he was so effin' dangerous and after all these years we have a judge say this:

A federal judge ordered prosecutors to turn over more evidence to back up allegations that Jose Padilla and two co-defendants conspired to kill, injure or kidnap people overseas as part of a global Islamic terrorist network.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said Tuesday she agreed with claims made by defense attorneys that the indictment against Padilla and the others is "very light on facts" that would link the defendants to specific acts of terrorism or victims.

It needs to be emphasized Jose Padilla is an American Citizen.

An American Citizen!

A Flock of Assholes

John Aravosis is right, just like with Pat Tillman, the military knew the actual circumstances of the deaths of two American servicemen for months and months but DID NOT TELL THE FAMILIES of the soldiers until this week. In fact, it is likely they may never have gotten around to it, but for the fact that the press found out the circumstances and they were forced to acknowledge the truth.

When this was reported on CNN on Wednesday, I saw how constant Rumsfeld "Deputy Flack" Jamie McIntyre reported it and it was done as if the "press" had done something awful by being about to report the findings before the families could be told - forcing the military's hand.

The Pentagon had sat on the truth for nine months and they tried made the media look like the wankers. McIntyre and others have been used so many times by Rumsfeld and his lackeys at the Pentagon you'd think they'd be pissed.

But being used is too much fun.

Next time he'll recreate the staircase scene from the Battleship Potempkin

John Derbyshire...Lou Gehrig's disease humor ... Stephen Hawking...

What could possibly go wrong?

I'm warning you.