I think Frank Rich might actually be the only NYT columnist I’d actually pay their stupid $50 fee to read. Given this context, the administration’s attempt to pass the entire buck to Newsweek for our ill odor among Muslims, including those Muslims who abhor jihadists committing murder, is laughable. Yet there’s something weirdly self-incriminating about the language it uses to do it. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman whose previous boss, Colin Powell, delivered a fictional recitation of Saddam Hussein’s weapon capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, said it’s “shocking” that Newsweek used “facts that have not been substantiated.” … Continue reading Refilling the Outrage Tank

Maybe it’s fine weather but try as I might, I cannot make myself concentrate on anything serious at the moment. So, in no particular order of importance, a list of the TV I’m loving and some thoughts on the third Star Wars prequel (which you should skip if you plan to remain absolutely unspoiled for anything). Crack TV 1. Battlestar Galactica. WHEN, Lords of Kobol, when will July ever get here? 2. Babylon 5. I’m halfway through the Season 1 DVDs and though I watched the whole thing all the way through when it first ran, I’m still finding things … Continue reading Geek Attack!

Tbogg does this all the time. Shuffle, shuffle, try to get Def Leppard tunes to stop coming up, shuffle and … Ten songs! 1. Get Me Through December, Natalie MacMaster & Alison Krauss 2. She Is Like The Swallow, Karan Casey 3. I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Ella Fitzgerald 4. Jokerman, Bob Dylan 5. Pushing the Needle Too Far, Indigo Girls 6. Jordan, Tara MacLean 7. Since U Been Gone, Kelly Clarkson 8. Second Warning, Veronia Guerin Soundtrack, Various Artists 9. Winter, Fire and Snow, Anuna 10. Save Me, Bird York As you can see, my ideal artist would … Continue reading Saturday iPod Random Ten

Buffalo weekly refuses to print ad for gay chorus on the grounds it might turn young Jews gay: Rita Weiss, editor of the Jewish Review, said, “Fervently Orthodox rabbis exhort all of us to deepest compassion for those who cannot seek opposite-gender partners. But we are a family newspaper and don’t refer to sex at all or identify anyone as homosexual or heterosexual.” Weiss said she and her husband, Arnold, who own the newspaper, declined to publish the ad on grounds that it might influence young people to experiment with a sexual lifestyle that could be harmful to their health. … Continue reading Blame The Chorus

I know nothing about art. I only know when I’m intrigued and knocked back and enthralled. Some of his things were at an exhibition tonight and I had to be dragged away from them. A. Continue reading Enjoying

From Holden: Juan Cole takes his eye off of the Middle East for a moment to focus on the Christofascists. A blastocyte is not a human being and it is not a person. It is a blastocyte. It may or may not develop into a human being. Large numbers of fertilized eggs never get attached to the uterine wall and just get flushed down the toilet. Shall we hold a funeral for each of them? Continue reading A Funeral for Every Flush

From Holden: “Bar, your colostomy bag is leaking again.” Continue reading Friday Captioning

From Holden: Just to be clear, according to the Official White House Spokesman, this photo is OK… becaus it is “within our guidelines under the Geneva Conventions”, whereas this photo… is defintely not OK because it depicts “a human being in custody, of a detainee, and they are possibly in clear violation of Geneva Convention guidelines”. Got that? Continue reading Just To Be Clear

From Holden: Today’s gaggle once again features the unlovely Terrence Trent d’Uffy. And, really folks, why do we need Little Scottie to dodge questions when Trent can do it for us? First, the compromise dodge. Q Trent, a couple of questions. First, what’s the President’s position on some of these conversations going on in the Senate to try to broker some sort of a deal? Is he open to the idea of a compromise that may get some of the judges through, and also bypass the idea of ending the filibusters? MR. DUFFY: The President has been quite clear that … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: A good portion of today’s gaggle was devoted to the published photos of Saddam in his briefs. Q The President was asked earlier this morning about these photos of Saddam Hussein which have now appeared in a couple of papers. He said that he didn’t feel that these photos would inspire the insurgents, the enemies of the United States, because they are inspired by other things, by what he called their bad ideology and so forth. He never really condemned the leaking of these photos, so what is his reaction? Does he think this was a terrible thing … Continue reading Today On Chimpy’s Obsession With Saddam

From Holden: John Dean pores over the latest edition of Joe Wilson’s book, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Put the White House on Trial and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity to clear away the fog surrounding Pat Fitzgerald’s investigation. Reading Joe Wilson’s book, in combination with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on pre-Iraq-war failures of the American intelligence community helps clear away some of the fog. In part, that’s because Wilson’s publisher, Carroll & Graf, retained Russ Hoyle — an investigative reporter who has been a senior editor at the New York Daily News, Time magazine, and … Continue reading John Dean Takes The Plame

From Holden: From the New York Daily News: Under White House pressure, Newsweek on Monday retracted a story that Schmidt determined a Koran was flushed in a Gitmo toilet, which the Pentagon slammed as “demonstrably false.” But two reliable military sources confirmed the previously undisclosed reprimand at the Camp Delta prison – contradicting Bush administration denials of any “credible and specific allegations” about Koran desecration at Gitmo. “That’s true,” an ex-Army interrogator at Gitmo said. “I am aware of somebody having their hand slapped.” The source said a soldier on another interrogation team was punished for “trying to be insulting” … Continue reading Little Scottie Is A Liar – Wash, Rinse, Repeat

From Holden: Dan Froomkin writes: President Bush’s meticulously stage-managed presentations on Social Security have slowly shifted into a new phase, in which White House aides find misinformed young people to share the stage with the president and assert that Social Security won’t be there when they retire. And rather than correcting them on their misconception — government estimates, after all, say that after 2041 Social Security will still be able to pay at least three-quarters of currently promised benefits without any changes — Bush congratulates them on their perspicacity. Then Dan points to an LA Times piece that documents the … Continue reading Casting Call for Idiots

From Holden: So, just how much is Chimpy’s vanity war costing us (beyond the incalculable costs in wounded, dead, and lost stature in the world)? Here are a few factoids reported by the Christian Science Monitor: By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cost of the US military in Iraq is running about $5 billion a month, estimated the former Pentagon comptroller earlier this year. $270 billion for all military operations since 2001 As for all military operations combined, add in the $50 billion in war spending the Senate Armed Services Committee … Continue reading How Much Is This Costing Us?

From Holden: While the New York Times focuses on Dear Leader’s responses to questions regarding stem cell research during this morning’s photo-op with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (seen here covered with red paint after announcing his support for Chimpy’s vanity war in March 2003), I’m interested in the following set of questions and answers. Q Mr. President, how do you react to the continuing reports about mistreatment of prisoners held by American military around the world, and also the perception abroad that the ones that are paying for it are low-ranking soldiers, but that nobody higher up is … Continue reading Torturer In Chief

Link. A front-page picture in the tabloid Sun showed the former Iraqi dictator, clad only in white briefs, folding a pair of trousers. Another on an inside page showed Saddam hand-washing a piece of clothing. The Sun said it obtained the photos from “U.S. military sources.” A statement by the U.S. military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines “and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals.” The Geneva … now we’re worried about the … pictures of somebody in his underwear … Help me out here. I think I finally ran out of pissed … Continue reading Oh. My. God.

From Holden: The competition is keen today in the First International George W. Bush Effigy Burn-off with Pakistan and India making it to the finals. Up First: They’re often confused with our own Native Americans, we love their spicy food, they gave us Gandhi and are now performing all of our high-tech jobs for one-third the salary – The Indians! REUTERS/B Mathur Now for our Second Finalists: They are our partners in the War on Terror, the new kids on the nuclear block, the General who runs their country recently announced that he will stay in office beyond the year … Continue reading The First International George W. Bush Effigy Burn-Off

From Holden: Just how many National Days of Prayer does one country need? President George W. Bush prays at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton, May 20, 2005. Bush asked attendees to ‘pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life.’ REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Continue reading Jeebus, Not Another Frigging Day of Prayer

From Holden: Phyicians confirm allegations that an American citizen was tortured by Saudi authorities as FBI agents stood by. Two doctors who examined a Virginia man accused of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush have concluded that he was tortured while in Saudi custody, according to defense lawyers. The torture resulted in Ahmed Omar Abu Ali giving a false confession to Saudi authorities, according to the lawyers, who are seeking to have the statement thrown out. “The physical and psychological abuse that Abu Ali suffered over a two-year period critically impaired his capacity for self-determination and overcame his … Continue reading Outsourcing Torture

A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging

From Holden: Here’s a scandal that could make you a political love-god, Norm. In recent audits and interviews, June 2004 has emerged as a month when money and accountability were thrown out the door. The United States played the role of frenzied shopper, leaving the Iraqis to pay the bill. More than 1,000 contracts were issued by U.S. officials in June, about double the usual number. Auditors disclosed this month that several U.S. officials are under investigation for possible embezzlement during the June spending blitz. “There were lots of examples of bad management because of the chaos around the turnover,” … Continue reading Paging Norm Coleman – Norm Coleman to the White Courtesy Phone Please

From Holden: The New York Times publishes a lengthy, gut-wrenching account of how Dear Leader’s torture policy played out at Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan. A sample: Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him. The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably … Continue reading Blame It On Newsweek

From Holden: Dougla Jehl actually covers the Downing Street Memo as if taking the country to war on the basis of lies matters Eighty-nine House Democrats wrote to the White House to ask whether the memorandum, first disclosed by The Sunday Times on May 1, accurately reported the administration’s thinking at the time, eight months before the American-led invasion. The letter, drafted by Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the British memorandum of July 23, 2002, if accurate, “raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well … Continue reading Smoking Gun Still Smoldering

From Holden: Robert Pozen and Bill Thomas flee the reservation in the New York Times. Robert C. Pozen, the business executive who developed the theory behind President Bush’s plan to trim Social Security benefits in the future, urged the president on Thursday to drop his insistence on using part of workers’ taxes to pay for individual investment accounts. This was one of two blows during the day to Mr. Bush’s policies on Social Security and retirement saving. In the House, Representative Bill Thomas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, disregarded the methods favored by the president to encourage workers … Continue reading They’re Pozers

from the New York Times: South Koreans Streamline Cloning of Human Embryos By GINA KOLATA In what scientists say is a stunning leap forward, a team of South Korean researchers has developed a highly efficient recipe for producing human embryos by cloning and then extracting their stem cells. Writing today in the journal Science, they report that they used their method to produce 11 human stem cells lines that are genetic matches of patients aged 2 to 56. Previously, the same group, led by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and Dr. Shin Yong Moon of Seoul National University, produced a single … Continue reading A God for small minds

ROWR. A. Continue reading Happy Harry Photo

Vestal Vespa posted this and having just returned from a trip to my old home town, it struck a chord: Our downtown has a number of prosperous tenants and keeps on going despite the rise of chain stores and restaurants. Many towns are not so lucky. On a recent trip to Iowa, I noticed that many smaller towns have all but abandoned their downtown areas. Old buildings are boarded up; two-lane streets are dusty and empty. This is particularly sad because it is these downtown areas that distinguish a city’s identity. Nobody writes postcards back from New York singing the … Continue reading Main Street

From Holden: Which makes Little Scottie a liar (again). Here he is yesterday. Q Can you assure us that there have been no instances of desecration of the Koran? MR. McCLELLAN: The Department of Defense actually addressed that yesterday, and I talked about it, as well. Q You can assure us of that, there are no cases? MR. McCLELLAN: You ought to talk to the Department of Defense. They talked about it yesterday. They have found nothing to substantiate any such allegation that was made by the Newsweek report. And Newsweek, itself, retracted the report because they realized it was … Continue reading The Red Cross Corroborates Newsweek

From Holden: Chimpy took his Social Security Demolition Derby to Milwaukee today, where he went farther than he ever has before in denying that Treasury Bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. It’s a pay-as-you-go. And then there’s — all that’s left over is a file cabinet full of IOUs. I have seen the file cabinet in West Virginia firsthand, and I saw all the IOUs. But the system is not the kind of system where we’re holding the money for you. That’s not the way it works. We’re spending your money … Continue reading Baboon-a-palooza And A Beer

From Holden: …and gets sick on the teacup ride. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Continue reading Chimpy Goes To Disney World…