The Politics of Birth Control

The New York Times is on a roll these days:

Congressional investigators have documented some highly suspect maneuvering behind the Food and Drug Administration's decision last year to reject over-the-counter sales of the controversial morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B. The investigation, by the Government Accountability Office, stopped short of asserting that political considerations had led agency officials to overrule their own experts and outside advisers. But the most plausible inference one can draw is that politics or ideology was allowed to trump science as higher-ups at the agency searched for rationales to keep access to the contraceptive restricted.

The investigators looked only within the F.D.A. and did not consider any communications between agency officials and other parts of the executive branch, so they had no way to determine whether political pressure was exerted from elsewhere. But they did find four unusual aspects of the decision-making process that look hard to justify.

First, directors of the offices that would normally handle the issue disagreed with the decision and did not sign the rejection letter. Second, high-level managers intervened more in this case than in any other case involving a switch from prescription to nonprescription status.

Third, and most shocking, the heads of several key offices said they had been told by high-level management that the switch would be denied months before their reviews of the application were even completed, a contention that high officials deny. Fourth, the rationale used to justify the rejection was a novel one: the agency expressed concern that younger adolescents might engage in unsafe sexual behavior with Plan B available, an age-based criterion never before raised for an over-the-counter contraceptive.

It seems pretty clear that those running the agency were looking desperately for a reason - any reason - to prevent easy access to a contraceptive that is a red flag to the administration's conservative base. In doing so, they tarnished the reputation of an agency whose decisions are supposed to be based on science.

George W. Bush: war preznit.

Shitty human being.

Oh, and what about the women in his life?



Party on Mr. Preznit.

My Enemies List...Enemy No. 1

Diplomatic Accomplishment...

"Madam Secretary, its Hamas, not Humus."

Oh mah goodness

Somehow the NY Times has woken up and actually written an accurate and steaming editorial against the man clearly living up to the title of the Chimperor Disgustus:

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.

Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.

Foreign intelligence services did not have full access to American intelligence. But some had dissenting opinions that were ignored or not shown to top American officials. Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence. The National Intelligence Estimate presented to Congress a few days before the vote on war was sanitized to remove dissent and make conjecture seem like fact...

...Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate. France, Russia and Germany said war was not justified. Even Britain admitted later that there had been no new evidence about Iraq, just new politics.

...The president and his top advisers may very well have sincerely believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.

Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

I'm sure the odious Washington Post editorial board will do what they can to fellate the Bush Administration, but at least this was a bit of good news from the NY Times version.

I've believed all along that history would be most unkind to this pack of craven pols. It appears that history is arriving early and it is going to kick their ass for the next three years.

I'd feel some vindication if the price tag wasn't tens of thousands of needless deaths and maimings, including 2,068 young, dead Americans and counting.

Oh look it's a framed picture of my husband groping a panda

And it's a boy panda too!


China's most popular show, "Oh, those wacky White People" claims yet another victim.

Why you "Guttersnipes"...

Landsakes that Mr. O'Reilly and his language. I do declare, all this folderol is so unseemly.

Not only is O'Reilly morphing into an even more clownish version of Joe McCarthy, he's decided to do it as a Dickens' character.

Pathetic

It is very important that a President try to stay above the fray while governing.

Time tested old and wise rule.

Bush is truly breaking it with his speeches -- the Bush Administration is really going strident.

This is a really bad idead.


So naturally, I encourage Bush to keep this up. Wake up the Democrats.

The Chimperor Disgustus, Loved all over the world

Eventually he'll make it to Mongolia and China where the protests will be forceably kept to a minimum.

But the South Koreans are under no such restriction and they let us know, that red, yellow, black, or white...all feel Bush's policies are blights.





Although, I could have lived without a recreation of the dreaded Preznidential "Oh Face"

Nice rake.

The "Red Army" Technique

An excellent and FREE editorial in the New York Times points out that the torture techniques (for that is what they are) approved of by the Pentagon was a combination of turning American training on resisting torture on its head, and then using techniques used by our former Red Army adversaries (which had proven ineffective).

A full account of how our leaders reacted to terrorism by re-engineering Red Army methods must await an independent inquiry. But the SERE model's embrace by the Pentagon's civilian leaders is further evidence that abuse tantamount to torture was national policy, not merely the product of rogue freelancers. After the shock of 9/11 - when Americans desperately wanted mastery over a world that suddenly seemed terrifying - this policy had visceral appeal. But it's the task of command authority to connect means and ends rationally. The Bush administration has too frequently failed to do this. And so it is urgent that Congress step in to tie our detainee policy to our national interest.

There are so many things that are a national disgrace that have come out of the Bush Administration, but the use of torture is the most viscerally disgraceful and openly excused. While the President is trotted out to say they "don't torture" their policy makes it clear that he is either a liar, an incompetent, ignorant of some of all three (I think you know which choice I'd take).

Sure they're an important ally and all...

But Condi lost track of the times she was asked, "So you gonna finish that?"

Dear Chimpy

You don't even have to pay a drunken visit to a candidate for your stench to rub off:

Doug Forrester, in his first postelection interview, laid the blame for his loss in the governor's race last week directly at the feet of President Bush. He said the public's growing disaffection with Bush, especially after Hurricane Katrina, made it impossible for his campaign to overcome the built-in advantage Democrats have in a blue state like New Jersey.

"If Bush's numbers were where they were a year ago, or even six months ago, I think we would have won on Tuesday," Forrester said. "Katrina was the tipping point."

"It's not Torture, its land-based surfing"

Waterboarding is the torture technique that our modern Torquemada's feel is just a "psychological stress technique".

Great, gives us something in common with the regime Pol Pot, as RockyWatch explains.

"We do not Torture, We do not Torture, We do not Torture"

"Well, okay, maybe we torture some."

"I'm white, I'm really, really, white"

From AFP:

In an important clarification of President George W. Bush's earlier statement, a top White House official refused to unequivocally rule out the use of torture, arguing the US administration was duty-bound to protect Americans from terrorist attack.

...During a trip to Panama earlier this month, Bush said that Americans "do not torture."

However, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition" program, Hadley elaborated on the policy, making clear the White House could envisage circumstances, in which the broad pledge not to torture might not apply.

"The president has said that we are going to do whatever we do in accordance with the law," the national security adviser said. "But... you see the dilemma. What happens if on September 7th of 2001, we had gotten one of the hijackers and based on information associated with that arrest, believed that within four days, there's going to be a devastating attack on the United States?"

The problem of course is, twofold. First, there is the simple broadline that "civilized" societies long ago accepted that torture is immoral under any circumstances, as well as being ineffective (it works on TV and in the movies). The argument regarding "imminence" is weak in that that can justity torturing anybody you get in the short-term after you get them. Further, anyone else can use that rationale should they capture an American soldier -- even the grunts.

Second, we know quite well that the Bush Administration has authorized torture to be used in far less "extreme" situations than this.

CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi 'ghost detainee' who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, Time magazine reported today, after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy report, about the case.

The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy, Time reported, adding that documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing, apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.

Whaddaya Know, Bush Is Hostile to Civil Rights

And just as hostile to immigrants!

Bush's America: you'll get a leg up as long as you're Christian. And rich. And white. And if you are a woman you know your place.

McCain 2008!

He made George Bush believe in snuggling afterwards!

If you can't win even with even bullshit, you can at least

Smirk at 'em. [Insert your own "pearl necklace" joke]

(Hamad I Mohammed./Reuters)

Meanwhile, Secretary of John Snow stars in...


The Taj Mah Dull.

(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

Well, that was something...

Much to my surprise I was driving through tornadoes last night in central Iowa.

That doesn't usually happen in Mid-November.

God is obviously exacting his revenge for not having intelligent design taught in our schools (because it takes a fookin' genius to make a Tornado in November) -- or maybe we did something about the military recruiting at our high schools last week and I didn't hear about it.

Dick Dick Dick

From the Washington Post:

To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, "Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself."

In addition, Cheney also advised Libby on a media strategy to counter Plame's husband, former ambassador Wilson, according to a person familiar with the case.

"This story doesn't end with Scooter Libby's indictment," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), giving voice to widespread Democratic hopes about the outcome of Fitzgerald's case. "A lot more questions need to be answered by the White House about the actions of [Cheney] and his staff."

It's only a matter of time Cheney.

Oh, the article also reveals to depth of Victoria Toensing's craven shilling for all things Republican. I would guess, by her logic, Clinton has now been proven not to have obtained a blowjob. But you'll see when you read the article.

Habeas Corpus

Paul Craig Roberts (via Wolcott):

The next time Bush declares that "they (Muslims) hate us for our freedom and democracy," someone should ask him how there can be freedom and democracy without habeas corpus.

Problem is: he don't know what it means, see. Habeas corpus that is.

Dropping...dropping...

The new Newsweek Poll has dearest "Dear Chimperor 'McBunnypants' Disgustus" at 36%, just like Fox and about the same as the AP/Gallup, etc.

Good thing that the man nearly 60% of the country believes to be "a lying sack o' crap" is giving his "bold new vision" of the Iraq conflict for the 47th time -- with the added touch of bashing John Kerry.

I'm sure this will just work wonders for the ol' Codpiece.

Meanwhile, I'm taking care of some sad family business so I'm done...done, done I tells ya' for today. I'll be back tomorrow. If you want some more cruel vile, vicious blue snark, feel free to check out Rising Hegemon: After Dark!!! launched with the helpful helping help of the fetching Ms. Watertiger.

Champollion or DeDurkheim may be around as well.

Whom Would Jesus Torture?

I gotta think the failure in all this has something to do with the view outside our country that it isn't democracy we want to spread, but rather the jihadi brand of Christianity.

MANAMA, Bahrain - A U.S.-backed Mideast democracy and development summit ended in rancor Saturday despite adoption of two initiatives that are part of
President Bush's push to expand political freedom in a region dominated by monarchies and effective single-party rule.

***

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not speak at the close of the conference, which was hosted by the Group of Eight economic giants and Arab nations but which was largely a U.S. initiative.

Rice used the start of the conference earlier Saturday to criticize political repression in Syria and call for the release of political prisoners there.

***

"For democracy to achieve lasting and sustainable success, it must also be nurtured by a vibrant economy and an ever growing middle class," Rice said at the outset, noting that some 50 million to 100 million young people will enter the job market across the Middle East and neighboring countries in North Africa over the next five to 10 years.

***

Many Middle East nations are wary of Bush's second-term democracy agenda in the region, and some organizations the administration has tried to engage are reluctant to take State Department funding.

No kidding? That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that our elected officials are hypocrites and that we can talk all day long about liberty, freedom and the good old fashioned American way of life while we maim and kill indiscriminately and take political prisoners ourselves so some sick fucks can get their jollies by attaching electrodes to mens balls. We ought to be so proud.

Give this Photographer....

A MEDAL OF FREEDOM!

If there is a picture that sums up the current state of events in his self-created mess and his current idiotic stance upon it, this is it!

(AFP/Jim Watson)

The Tide has truly Turned

As the Press finally begins portraying the Bush Administration's key figures as the "Batman Villains" they really are.

(Ahmad al-Rubaye/Pool/Reuters)

The Canard

Atrios and Sean are absolutely correct when it comes to the greatest lie (and there were some whoppers) in Bush's pathetic 2305th attempt to give the same speech justifying his fucking war.

The President . . .

. . . is a liar. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

And that's all any Democrat has to say. Don't try to explain it. Don't let the Republicans misdirect you into the details or distract you in any way. Just keep hammering the same line over and over and over because the public already knows it's true: The President is misleading the American people. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

Rinse and repeat all the way to 2006.

One, or both of these guys should be writing for the Los Angeles Times.

I hereby Declare Myself Qualified

To become an editorial writer for any major newspaper in the country.

Let's face it when Bobo and John Tierney are the "quality" righties at the New York Times and when Jonah "Nepotism Yes, Cronyism No" Goldberg is hired by the Los Angeles Times, I am more than qualified for that new career. Unlike these gentlemen, I generally don't do complete "fucknut" assholery, but I can be had for the right price. I also try to avoid overgeneralization from completely fiction(I overgeneralize only from a factual basis).

Oh sure, I am on occasion a horrid speller, and a terrible editor of my own material. However, I am confident that like the "steller" individuals above, with enough money I can develop a template of douchebaggery that will keep the need for more than one major edit down to a minimum.

I know, of course, that there are more than enough progressive bloggers that are superior to me as writers -- far superior. You've got your Digbys, your Billmons, your Wolcotts, your TBoggs, your Atrios's....

(2,867 examples later)

...and your Yglesiaseseseseseseseses. But the fact that there are so many better writers who share a similar ideology has not prevented these men (may I call them men?) from having their names associated with major papers.

And I tell you one thing, when I am claimed to be a liberal, I really will be. I won't be some two-faced, whiny, bee-yatch! like Richard Cohen.

So I hereby offer up my services to any newspaper in the country. I'd like to add, that like any non-self-respecting enough individuals I will work cheap as long as the insincere praise is given out in abundance.

Thank You.


...Or you could just hire back Robert Scheer.

Three More Years to Destroy the Republic

You know, it is a slippery slope upon which the Bush administration now finds itself. They stole at least one election, They have said and done anything, literally anything, to destroy worthy opposition. They have ruined careers. They have pushed the world to the edge of universal conflict. And now we know this administration of scoundrels really has no soul in the lot of them. It is apparent now that Bush and Cheney must have made a deal with the devil himself because there is no good explanation for how they let happen the tragedy of Soviet style torture chambers. And there is no shame, only half-hearted denials and pleas for exceptions to allow the CIA to be exempted.

No punishment is horrible enough for these traitors to the ideals that form the basis of our system of governance. Except torture I guess.

Reid Had Better Come Up With A Good Plan

As reported on NPR this morning, when conservative scholars acknowledge the Bush administration is disingenuous in portraying Alito as mainstream, you know he is anything but mainstream. When the Alito announcement was made I couldn't imagine the use of a fillibuster on this nomination. Now I'm pretty damn sure they have to. And the information is just coming out. Give this report a listen.

"Shining City on the Hill"; "Beacon of Liberty" and all that other stuff...

Shat upon JUST in time for Veterans Day (oh, and they shat on them too):

The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.

The vote, 49 to 42, on an amendment to a military budget bill by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, comes at a time of intense debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate passed a measure by Senator John McCain banning abusive treatment of them.

If approved in its current form by both the Senate and the House, which has not yet considered the measure but where passage is considered likely, the law would nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that detainees at Guantánamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions in court.

This legislation makes these folks, forever, prisoners without any right of review of their treatment.

This is simply bestial, the type of legislation a Hitler or a Stalin would have loved.

We're one Mao away from crapping our country and our legacy down the shitter completely.

Look out John Podhoretz!

AP: Feds to Take Bears Off Endangered List

Flanders Fields

First posted last year on this day. Since then about 900 more American soldiers have died, several soldiers of other forces, and lord only knows how many Iraqis, including innocent civilians.

Well, somewhere it will soon be the 11th hour of the 11th Day and the day arranged to commemorate the end of "The War (that failed) to end all War" will be commemorated.

Jingoism is nothing new in America, nor many other spots of the world. It took the utter devistation of the Second World War for it to finally dissipate in most of Europe (only took 1,000 years).

But the death knell of jingoism started with the slaughter of the First World War. A bloody bitter nightmare that lasted over five years and killed millions, often tens of thousands in a single day, and only finally, in reality ended in 1945.

The bloody, useless, slaughter was the primary reason that neither France nor Britain was able to stand up to Germany a generation later. Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, Verdun, all were too fresh on the minds of both countries. The battle death totals are staggering:

On the first day of the Somme in 1916, the British lost 58,000 men. That is the equivalent of U.S. Battle Deaths in the Vietnam Conflict, and half the total of American deaths in the First World War, 116,000 in about one year of involvement.

In one battle, Caparetto, the Italian Army had 275,000 soldiers captured.

At the Battle of Verdun, 32,000,000 artillery shells were launched by the Germans and French. Verdun which lasted from February through the end of 1916, led to 1,000,000 French and German casualties.

In the course of the war, 8,300,000 Combatants were killed; another 7,000,000 were maimed for life of the 20,000,000 or so that were wounded in some fashion. 8,000,000 civilians died from non-disease related causes.

The national totals are staggering:

325,000 . . . . . . . . .Turkish military killed
460,000 . . . . . . . . .Italian military killed
1,000,000 plus . . . . . British and Commonwealth military killed
1,200,000 . . . . . . . .Austro-Hungarian military killed
1,385,000 . . . . . . . .French military killed
1,700,000 . . . . . . . .Russian military killed
1,808,000 . . . . . . . .German military killed

The war and its tragedy, especially its constant misery and evident criminal foolishness amongst those in the trenches gave birth, as does most prolonged human suffering to great prose. Especially poetry. Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen were among the English poets. The most famous poem of the war came from a Canadian, John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Those who tend to glorify war, as many of those now leading our country, have rarely fought in them. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, almost the whole lot of them (except for the ostracized Powell) never experienced the tragedy of futile death, the way it not only snuffs out the promise of young life, but permanently stains the soul of those who live through it. Powell's involvement in the aftermath of My Lai (and not a glorious involvement), if nothing else, showed him the way in which murderous futility can make men deprived, unthinking, murderers.

No, war is all "strategy" and the "high arching" goal to them. The soldier is the "noble" faceless tool of the end. No one considers for a moment that so many nations, including criminally wrong nations thought the same way. Look at German art in the late 1930s and note the glorification of the faceless soldier of the Wehrmacht.

Somewhere in Iraq now, is a future Wilfred Owen. One probably speaks english and another speaks arabic. Meanwhile, Bush can barely put a limerick together.

The purpose of Veteran's Day is not to celebrate the victory of the soldier, their accomplishment of a policy end. But to remember those who sacrificed, and risked their lives. Often, in our nation's history, these losses have been for nefarious or useless ends (Mexican-American War and Vietnam respectively), as well as for noble ones.

War creates heros, but mostly it creates victims. The former is usually what politicians like Bush want to celebrate, but it is the latter that is the reality we do not like to dwell upon.

Bill O'Reilly -- Terrorist Cheerleader

You know I really like O'Reilly better when he is reviewing sex appliances.

In real life, Bill is a far scarier and demented individual. The kind of guy who would get fired or at least suspended for this type of thing, but I'm betting FoxNews doesn't even tell him to "clarify his remarks" (i.e. pretend to apologize).

“If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it,” he continued. “We're going to say, ‘look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Prepare for a response of "taken out of context" if Falafel deigns to respond to an inquiry about this matter.

What a revoltin' spectacle

CNN sure pushed the fact that Karl Rove was emerging to give a speech last night...and pushing it...and pushing it.

The network kept making it sound like it would be some sort of special announcement, only five minutes before he actually appeared, did Wolf Blitzer manage to say it was a "banquet" speech. And then it turned out to be the "Federalist Society".

Oh great, a speech before the union of wackjob - "I am the Law" cretins. The Federalist Society doesn't believe in "Strict Construction" they believe in "Our Construction". It is basically where the Michelle Malkins of the Legal World gather together to misunderstand precedent and repress each others sexual urges through satanic levels of halotosis.

So as the New York Times reports, it was just rubber chicken bullshit. If the White House somehow encouraged CNN to report this as a major deal (which is how they treated it) then the Rovians are truly out of touch. All there was in that speech was empty hubris -- that's all they got now.

I'm sure Firedog Lake can read the tea leaves of the speech for your "Fitzmas" related program activities.

Justice "Commando"

I didn't mean to offend my office staff when it happened, but I dropped my pants because they were "unduly restrictive".

See AmericaBlog for more details.

He's done

Unlike Clinton, who even in days of the "treasonous blowjob" had a solid majority of Americans agreeing he was competent and doing a good job, Bush has accomplished a double feat -- he is not viewed as competent or trustworthy. The corporate press may not realize it yet, but these are fatal numbers for a President. Without the hammer of running again, he is effectively done.

Almost six in 10 57 percent said they do not think the Bush administration has high ethical standards and the same portion says President Bush is not honest, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Just over four in 10 say the administration has high ethical standards and that Bush is honest. Whites, Southerners and evangelicals were most likely to believe Bush is honest.

...

More than eight in 10, 82 percent, described Bush as "stubborn," with almost that many Republicans agreeing to that description. That stubborn streak has served Bush well at times, but now he is being encouraged to shake up his staff and change the direction of White House policies.

Sadly, knowing what we know of the Republicans this is not all good. Though we likely won't be invading anybody, it will still be bad.

It means the crazies will be in charge -- and compared to many of his GOP compatriots, Bush is actually sane.

Think how scary that is to contemplate.

Friday Miscellaneous Lifeform Blogging

A bit of a repeat, but that animal that has followed me around for nearly seven years now just discovered there are fish around here and they must be...delicious!


This week's animal is the "surely" tasty Goldfish. My dog is sooooo 50's Fraternity!

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry

Before "Matlock" solves the mystery of the White House leakers and Nigerian Forgeries.
(Jason Reed/Reuters)


A characteristic of chronic alcoholism is trouble with even the most minial of tasks.
(By the way the recipient is Paul Rusesabagina the hero of "Hotel Rwanda")
(Jason Reed/Reuters)


"Andy, Helen Krump and I are gonna really get down tonight!"
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


"Wish I could get this from someone I r-e-s-p-e-c-t"
(Jason Reed/Reuters)

And Now an "Inside" Joke for the Progressosphere

Ever since he left his blog, things haven't gone quite the way Jesse Taylor hoped.


I keed, I keed.

Excuse Me?

Jack Abramhoff wanted the President of Gabon to pay $9 Million to set up a meeting with Bush?

And the meeting happened!

And the President of Gabon's name is...

BONGO?

Was a Preznit & with a bribe,
He had a little meet-oh

Was a Preznit, met a guy and
Bongo was his name-oh


B-0-N-G-O

B-O-N-G-0

B-O-N-G-O

Yes, Bongo was his name-o.

Bongo & Bush

And A Peek Into the Life of Justin Champollion

In office working on brief by 5:45 a.m. Make sure to check if staff present and within hearing distance as you let slobber-knocker farts echo through the halls of office. I didn't know staff got here that early some days. Sheesh.

Great Fucknuts of Supreme Unbelievability!!!

The Champ & the Chimp!

Can no one, no one, point out the supreme, metaphysical, irony of this picture?! The man who became legend for not fighting in, and indeed opposing, an unjust war is, nearly forty years later, awarded a "Medal of Freedom" by a guy whose base -- to the extent they remember -- called for this same guy to be tried as a traitor? And let's not even get into the fact that they refused to fight in that same war, and now praise themselves as the ultimate patriots, while starting wars they keep themselves and their kids from fighting in!

Not to mention that nearly four decades later, the guy doing the "inverse Rope-a-Dope" has started that latest unjust, trumped up, fucked-up war?


Oh well, at least Ali spotted Karl Rove!

(top photo: AFP/Mandel Ngan)

(bottom photo: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

It is to laugh

Watching their dreams of perpetual fucknuttery ruling the nation going down in a long-term, slow conflagration; the typing monkeys of "Intersection of Chilled Ballsack Street & Sansabelt Avenue" have done the logical thing.

Focus their policy attentions toward fixing France. To the extent you can stomach it, just count the stories devoted to France (and how much they love loathing it) to American policy issues in the last week. It is quite revealing.

A Peek into the Life of Atta J. Turk

Let me tell you, there's nothing like the feeling of taking the dog outside while you are wearing boxer shorts. Especially when it is below freezing and your testicles decide it best if they retreat all the way up to your liver.

My advice is that you do this only between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. and that you live in the country.

You should not do this in tighty-whities as that would be gauche. And wear a shirt for goodness sake.

That is all.

After "Lord of the Rings"

I'd see anything by Peter Jackson.

But I have to admit, these stills have me nervous about where he is really going.



Of course, it may have a deeper meaning...




'Twas stupidity that killed the beast'

I'm not gouging, I'm stocking up for the winter

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lee Raymond explains to Congress that he is just stuffing his cheeks in preparation for his winter sojourn to Bermuda.

Ted Stevens pronounced him innocent & gouty.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Alito Shmalito

Over at kos Armando has a good post on Alito and senator comments that he respects precedent and would be reluctant to overturn well-settled law. This isn't news folks; all judges are going to say they are bound by precedent (especially from the You-nita States Soo-preme Court). I may disagree with it but it is well-settled blah, blah, blah. They have been nibbling on the edges of Roe for years and they will keep doing so. It is how they overturn good law. They find nuances in facts, they differentiate cases on any multitude of bases, they say we aren't overturning Roe, we are just finding in this specific instance the holding in Roe does not apply.

Bad for women. Bad for men. Bad for America.

Cletus the Slack -Jawed Yokel

There must be one or two of 'em on this Kansas school board.

Supporters of the new standards said they will promote academic freedom. "It gets rid of a lot of dogma that's being taught in the classroom today," said board member John Bacon.

The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

The new standards will be used to develop student tests measuring how well schools teach science. Decisions about what is taught in classrooms will remain with 300 local school boards, but some educators fear pressure will increase in some communities to teach less about evolution or more about creationism or intelligent design.

"What this does is open the door for teachers to bring creationist arguments into the classroom and point to the standards and say it's OK," said Jack Krebs, an Oskaloosa High School math teacher and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science, which opposes the changes.

Lord help us.

Mind you those Møøse bites can be pretty nasty

Python credits come to life...

They rarely have problems with drunks or rowdy animals, but residents of an elderly home in southern Sweden had to deal with both when a pair of intoxicated moose invaded the premises.

The moose _ a cow and her calf _ had become drunk over the weekend by eating fermented apples they found outside the home in Sibbhult, southern Sweden, said Anna Karlsson, who works there.

Police managed to scare them off once, but the large mammals returned to get more of the tempting fruits. This time the moose were drunk and aggressive, forcing police to send for a hunter with a dog to make them leave.

Police did not pursue the culprits, but made sure all apples were picked up from the area, local police chief Bengt Hallberg said. No one was hurt.

Sounds like a job for YUTTE HERMSGERVØRDENBRØTBØRDA.

Those responsible for feeding the Møøse have been sacked.

Irony, thy home is "Moron Junction"

Oh, the material is flowing from the steaming boil of Jonah's proverbial backside today. Take it away Stanley:

SAN FRANCISCO'S SHAME [Stanley Kurtz]
Has San Francisco seceded from the United States? The passage of “Measure I,” dubbed “College not Combat” would seem to say that it has. Apparently, by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent, the voters of San Francisco have called for military recruiters to stay out of public high schools and colleges.

Hmmmm, I wonder when was the last time, if ever, the Doughy Pantload and his editorial staff invited military recruiters to a staff meeting?

Election 2005

Winners & Losers




Um, yeah, sure Doug, it was really Corzine who had the marital problems. Quite the affectionate kiss there.
(Jeff Zelevansky/Reuters)



"Und now, to avoid controversy ah shall begin groping each of you using my vife's hand"

By the way...Maria, looks like you have a bit of wardrobe malfunction goin' on there. Better do your rodent impression to detract attention.
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)



"I'll be back, I'll be back, I'll be back. Ah, who ze vuck am ah kidding. It's hasta le vista for me. At least this "Terminator 4" script has a hot chick in it."



Maria keeps the sutures in place.



Yes, Sieg Heil yourself loser.

I sure Hate to See AP Stories like This

If the Title did not tell you sufficiently from the AP:

Democrats cleaned up big in off-year elections from New Jersey to California, sinking the candidate who embraced President Bush in the final days of the Virginia governor's campaign. They also turned back GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to limit the power of California's Democratic leaders.

Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine (news, bio, voting record) easily won the New Jersey governor's seat after an expensive, mudslinging campaign, trouncing Republican Doug Forrester by 10 percentage points. Polls in the last week had forecast a much closer race.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine won a solid victory in GOP-leaning Virginia, beating Republican Jerry Kilgore by more than 5 percentage points. Democrats crowed that Bush's election-eve rally for the former state attorney general only spurred more Kaine supporters to the polls.

In California, Schwarzenegger failed in his push to rein in the Democrat-controlled Assembly. Three of his ballot measures flopped: Capping spending, removing legislators' redistricting powers, and making teachers work five years instead of two to pass probation. Another measure he supported was too close to call.

There is a message from this.

Republicans, stop kissing Bush's ass.

Democrats, stop being pussies.

So, nothing new really.

Time to Swift Boat the Swift Boaters

Even with their Quarterback in the game the Bush Administration has begun to play like the Minnesota Vikings on the road. With Karl Rovepepper seriously injured they are getting sloppy indeed.

An attempt has been launched to try to throw up whatever shite will stick to the wall in an effort to save Libby & Rove -- as usual it is beginning to get uncritical attention from such paragons of accuracy as Sean Hannity. To his credit Hesiod was one of the first ones on this yesterday encouraging this gambit be nipped in the bud early.

Digby has certainly done his part against the perpetrators. They are quite simply the nut-fringe of the nut-fringe -- belonging to the "masonic wing" of Neocondom -- with secret rituals, no doubt involving some sort of strange intimate tomfoolery with various Ledeenites.

They are as Digby states:

These are all extremely creepy people involved in all kinds of neocon cloak and dagger fantasies. Just like Dick Cheney, whose idea of military leadership was gleaned from watching movies and TV series. They are part of the crackpot Cheney cabal.

These two men specifically are Jack D. Ripper and Buck Turgidson come to life. I think Pat Fitzgerald needs to talk to them. Immediately.

Go read the whole thing and feel free to tell your friends or call in to media outlets giving these bizarre people serious consideration or airtime.

Self-Service

One of the joys of having two blogs (one of the few) is that you can use the one, slightly more popular older blog, to pimp what you do at the younger blog. For example:

G. Gordon Liddy's Penis of Ultimate Justice!

And you can act like you are just performing a public service, rather than whoring yourself out.

Except, I guess, this time.

Inertia

Last night I watched Faranheit 9/11 for the first time since its release on DVD and it struck me how prescient Moore was but also how, with the events that have unfolded since the movie went into the can, how much more damaging it could have been. It is worth another viewing if you haven't done so recently.

A sure sign of the implosion that is coming is that the right hand doesn't know what the left one is doing.

Cheney is seeking to persuade Congress to exempt the
Central Intelligence Agency from the proposed torture ban if one is passed by both chambers.

***

Without confirming or denying the existence of such prisons, Bush said, "Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people."

He pointedly noted that Congress shares that responsibility with the administration.

"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture," Bush said.

Double Dolt

K-Lo is a never ending source of idiotic bemusement.

In the last few hours she's really been on a jelly roll (but then again when she gets moving, there's a LOT of inertia involved).

AN ALL-AMERICAN DIET [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
"Michigan Dad Loses 230 Pounds to Enlist in Army"
Posted at 03:03 PM

As opposed to gaining 230 and working as Jonah's Girl Friday (but you get all the wings you can eat)

I WISH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I lived in California just so I could vote for the parental notification and paycheck-protection initiatives. (Well, so I could live in Santa Monica, too...but let's focus...) California conservatives: Stand up and be counted!

I'm sure John J.'s prediction is right in New Jersey. As far as Virginia goes, it might be a late night...
Posted at 05:41 AM

K-Lo off the coast of Santa Monica...

Bush shocks the Brazillians

By demonstrating unknown talents.

"For the 100th time, my name is not Wolf!"

Rice tries to fluff the beard of Brazillian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.

Meanwhile,


"Well, I'm here already. May as well get the "brazillian""